How does Investiture move to do stuff?

[Mushroom Catalog]

The title says most of it. How does Investiture move after being "used"?

Not the breathing in for stormlight, or eating metal for allomancy. Like when an allomancer burns it and pushes, or soulcasters soulcast?

We don't ever have it described that investiture flowed in a direction, or similar things (at least, none that I can remember).

So, how does Investiture do that?

[Karger]

Hate to say this but I think through the spiritual realm is generally the answer.

[Mushroom Catalog]

47 minutes ago, Karger said:

Hate to say this but I think through the spiritual realm is generally the answer.

So connection maybe? That is kind of what I think, and it fits in the spiritual realm mumbo jumbo category. Because connection is spiritual and all that. Although, that would mean allomancers storing connection couldn't burn metals. Is there a WoB about that? I feel like there is but I searched for a while and couldn't find it...

 

[+Invocation]

I think it's kind of like thermodynamic equilibrium from Spiritual Realm to the Invested person according to their ability to contain it.

[Honorless]

4 hours ago, Mushroom Catalog said:

The title says most of it. How does Investiture move after being "used"?

Not the breathing in for stormlight, or eating metal for allomancy. Like when an allomancer burns it and pushes, or soulcasters soulcast?

We don't ever have it described that investiture flowed in a direction, or similar things (at least, none that I can remember).

So, how does Investiture do that?

Investiture is supposed to be an addition to matter and energy in the laws of physics, as a facilitator in conversion between all three of them. Except Investiture doesn't become 'potential Investiture' after 'work', it just flows back into the Spiritual Realm, to its Shard.

[Karger]

2 hours ago, Mushroom Catalog said:

So connection maybe? That is kind of what I think, and it fits in the spiritual realm mumbo jumbo category. Because connection is spiritual and all that. Although, that would mean allomancers storing connection couldn't burn metals. Is there a WoB about that? I feel like there is but I searched for a while and couldn't find it...

For alomancy at least yeah.  A there spirits are connected to preservation no matter where they are and they can use metal to draw it out through their bodies.  The IRE have some kind of CR investiture pipeline.  That is all I can really think of.

[Lunu’anaki]

On 10/24/2019 at 3:46 PM, Mushroom Catalog said:

The title says most of it. How does Investiture move after being "used"?

Not the breathing in for stormlight, or eating metal for allomancy. Like when an allomancer burns it and pushes, or soulcasters soulcast?

We don't ever have it described that investiture flowed in a direction, or similar things (at least, none that I can remember).

So, how does Investiture do that?

Spoilers for Mistborn Era 1 ahead:

Spoiler

I think the best answer to this question is in Mistborn Era 1's explanation of the burning of Atium and how the investiture "recycles" back through the spiritual realm to the pits of hathsin. When Atium is burned it cycles back to Ruins perpendicularity there over the course of 300 years a la TLR's design.

I'd assume that stormlight works similarly with the Stormfather and the highstorms. Endowment and Breath, etc. etc.

 

[Calderis]

On 10/24/2019 at 5:40 PM, Honorless said:

Investiture is supposed to be an addition to matter and energy in the laws of physics, as a facilitator in conversion between all three of them. Except Investiture doesn't become 'potential Investiture' after 'work', it just flows back into the Spiritual Realm, to its Shard.

This is true... But there's more to the cycle that we don't know. There has to be a delay between when the Investiture is used and when it goes back to the Shard. The alternative would have made the atium plan in Mistborn pointless. Burning the atium would have been the same as Ruin finding it. 

[Honorless]

2 minutes ago, Calderis said:

This is true... But there's more to the cycle that we don't know. There has to be a delay between when the Investiture is used and when it goes back to the Shard. The alternative would have made the atium plan in Mistborn pointless. Burning the atium would have been the same as Ruin finding it. 

Ah, maybe the Intent and Investiture recycle theory? Or the system in which the power is used matters even more than who provides the power. Probably both.

[danox46]

 

On 10/24/2019 at 2:46 PM, Mushroom Catalog said:

The title says most of it. How does Investiture move after being "used"?

Not the breathing in for stormlight, or eating metal for allomancy. Like when an allomancer burns it and pushes, or soulcasters soulcast?

We don't ever have it described that investiture flowed in a direction, or similar things (at least, none that I can remember).

So, how does Investiture do that?

While I think @Lunu’anaki has a point. However, the pits were actually part of preservation's plan to deal with ruin. In my opinion we can't look at it like a regular flow or cycle. Otherwise. At some point people will start being born without breath just like Hastsin stoped producing Atium. No, I believe the way Investiture "moves" first depends on the magic system. How about Ferrechemy? Do you "burn" investiture there? In that case you use the investiture (condensed into metal) as a battery. And there's another important case in Sel. Where the investiture is apparently "trapped" in the cognitive realm. That one would appear to return to the cognitive realm immediately. Were not looking for a Cycle. More like an inverted spiral that has alternating short cuts and dead ends and its spinning upon itself both clock and counter clock wise (but the clock was not made from humans).

[Calderis]

6 hours ago, danox46 said:

At some point people will start being born without breath just like Hastsin stoped producing Atium.

It's not a concern. 

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emailanimal

From a very recent signing, we have this new Word of Brandon...

chasmfriend's son: Is there a finite amount of Investiture?

Brandon: Yes.

chasmfriend's son: So is Nightblood consuming it?

Brandon: Yes. Very, very slowly.

This worries me somewhat because of the following observation.

Nightblood consumes Breath (and other Investiture, but let's limit ourselves to Breath for a second).

Every person on Nalthis is born with one Breath.

Populations tend to grow. Which means that under normal rules of demographics, population of Nalthis should keep increasing.

This in turn means that under normal circumstances the number of people with Breath on Nalthis should be growing.

I can see the following possible explanations to this:

1. Endowment can give Breath to many more people than are currently living on Nalthis. So, the exponential population growth has not yet reached the level at which Endowment's ability to award a Breath to each Nalthis-born human is seriously challenged. When it happens though, things will not go well.

2. There is some built-in mechanism controlling population growth on Nalthis, making certain that the population stays within the limits. Nightblood's consumption of Breath makes these limits smaller, and overall may lead to Endowment's inability to grant Breath to Nalthis-born, but not for a while (essentially, Endowment controls population trends at she sees fit).

Thoughts?

Brandon Sanderson

Just as a point you should understand, the amount of MATTER in the cosmere is finite too. As is the amount of energy.

Worrying that Endowment will run out of Breaths to give is a little like worrying that the amount of carbon on Earth will run out because people keep being born.

uchoo786

So just for clarification, once Nightblood consumes investiture, that investiture gets recycled? That's what I've always assumed. That it enters the cognitive/spiritual realm?

Brandon Sanderson

The investiture he consumes is not gone forever--it's not leaving the system, so to speak.

General Reddit 2015 (Dec. 14, 2015)

And Breaths also return to Endowment if a person holding them dies. 

We've been told repeatedly that Investiture has its own cycle, transitioning between the realms. 

Quote

Skyler Cecil

Is there an Investiture cycle on Roshar? Cycling through the crem rain and flora and fauna back into the storm, or something like that. Like the water cycle. If Investiture is finite, is it recycled back into the Cosmere when Investiture like Breath or Stormlight is expended? Otherwise, wouldn't Investiture run out?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there is such a cycle. It is renewed and changed time and time again. It gets in and out of the Spiritual Realm, often with the birth of new individuals.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 5, 2018)

 

[danox46]

4 hours ago, Calderis said:

It's not a concern. 

And Breaths also return to Endowment if a person holding them dies. 

We've been told repeatedly that Investiture has its own cycle, transitioning between the realms. 

 

Yeah, I agree that investiture running out is silly. That WoB is more evidence that what happened with the Atium was because of Preservation's work and not natural Cosmere physics. 

 

What I mean about it not being a Cycle is that its too complex to properly explain or even understand fully. Like real life physics where a section of society is dedicated to its study and we still barely understand a tiny bit of it thousands of years later.