Cultivation and the Metallic Arts

[KandraAllomancer]

OK, this isn't a theory per se, more like an observation. The basic idea is this – there seem to be many parallels between Cultivation's magic and the Metallic Arts. I have no idea why or what to do with it, so I'm looking for suggestions
 
Here is what I came up with so far:
Artificial creation. The Metallic Arts come from an artificially created planet, Old Magic comes from an artificially created godspren
Form on Investiture. Cultivation's gaseous Investiture is explicitly called mist and it's green color seems to match the Shard's symbolism, just like on Scadrial. Unlike Breath or Stormlight, it doesn't seem to be directly usable by regular magic users, which again matches the character of Preservation's mists and Ruin's black smoke
The effects of the Scadrian godmetals. Allomantic Lerasium and Hemalurgic Atium allow for very general spiritweb modification, and so does the Old Magic. A person burning atium and duraluminium gets pulled into the Spritual Realm, so the regular atium users seem to exist there at least partially, just like Lift exists partially in the Cognitive Realm. Burning atium allows you to see the future, which is an occasional side effect of visiting the Nightwatcher's Valley
Cultivation's boons.  We have a confirmation that Dalinar and Taravangian got their boons and curses directly from Cultivation. Lift is also a very likely candidate, based on the “Act of Cultivation” WoB. The boons of these three characters actually share some similarities with the three Metallic Arts, and each character also seems to provide a different look at famous users of said magic from Scadrial:

• Lift – her boon (using food as a gateway for Investiture) is clearly based on the same principle as Allomancy. She also happens to be a young, very Preservation-minded thief with strange, incomprehensible powers given her by a Shard. Unlike Vin, however, Lift is a skilled healer, not an assassin
• Taravangian – his cognitive abilities (intelligence and compassion) can be increased/decreased at the cost of the other attribute, which bears some similarity to Feruchemy. Like Sazed, he figures a plan o save the world in a moment (OK, more like a day) of transcendence. He doesn't use knowledge gathered by other people though, he uses people as a resource to get knowledge
• Dalinar – when his boons wears off, he mentions that his pain seems like “tiny spikes in his soul” and he hears a mysterious voice talking to him, a known side effect of Hemalurgy. He's a Sliver (I think he counts after the ending of Oathbringer?) that tries to keep a hostile Shard imprisoned, but unlike Rashek he didn't end up conquering the world

There are also some open questions:

• The Well of Ascension was used to contain a Shard and dramatically change a planet – something very similar to what the Dawnshards are supposed to do. It was also used to create the mistwraiths (and by extension kandra) and had a great effect on Preservation's sanity. We have the kandra-like Siah Aimians on Roshar and Honor wasn't very coherent in his final days... Are these all connected to each other and to Cultivation somehow?
• The ettmetal is crucial for developing Scadrian technology. Is Cultivation's magic somehow necessary for creating fabrials? Just like the previous question, it points to Aimia
• If this cool theory turns out to be true, Cultivation's magic helped to create the Nightblood, which contains Ruin's Investiture – another potential link to Scadrial

 

Edited June 2, 2020 by KandraAllomancer

[Eternal Khol]

1 hour ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Burning atium allows you to see the future, which is an occasional side effect of visiting the Nightwatcher's Valley

what? i dont remember that

seeing the future is of Odium, i dont think the NW would be doling out visions of the future

 

 

1 hour ago, KandraAllomancer said:

so the regular atium users seem to exist there at least partially

well, the atium-shadows someone buring Atium sees are coming from the SR so i think this one is a given

 

 

1 hour ago, KandraAllomancer said:

He's a Sliver (I think he counts after the ending of Oathbringer?)

i wouldnt call him a Sliver just yet. i think you need to actually ascend to do that.

if dalinar did Ascend for a while, his body wouldve disappeared(which it didnt) 

you have to actually hold the power and let it go to count as a sliver.

to me, it seemed that dalinar didnt actually hold that much power, he just opened a conduit to it

 

 

1 hour ago, KandraAllomancer said:

The Well of Ascension was used to contain a Shard and dramatically change a planet – something very similar to what the Dawnshards are supposed to do. It was also used to create the mistwraiths (and by extension kandra) and had a great effect on Preservation's sanity. We have the kandra-like Siah Aimians on Roshar and Honor wasn't very coherent in his final days... Are these all connected to each other and to Cultivation somehow?

-the well of Ascension literally lets you become the Shard and do whatever you damnation well please. The Dawnshards(as far as we know) are weapons of mass destruction. not all that similar.

-the well of ascension didnt have an effect on Leras' sanity. Leras giving up most of his mind affected hid sanity

 

not to shoot down this theory, but it just feel like your looking for connections that arent there or tenuous at best

like "oh, both shards have mist investiture, they must be related"

yes, they are related. any shard can have mist investiture. im pretty sure its the most common form of investiture(cant find the WoB)

Edited June 3, 2020 by Eternal Khol

[KandraAllomancer]

24 minutes ago, Eternal Khol said:

what? i dont remember that

I'm treating atium shadows as a low-end futuresight here, given that atium+duraluminium gives people that particular ability

Edit: Sorry, I just realized you meant the Valley thing.... Dalinar got a vision of the future where he conquered the continent there

24 minutes ago, Eternal Khol said:

i wouldnt call him a Sliver just yet. i think you need to actually ascend to do that.

if dalinar did Ascend for a while, his body wouldve disappeared(which it didnt) 

you have to actually hold the power and let it go to count as a sliver.

to me, it seemed that dalinar didnt actually hold that much power, he just opened a conduit to it

Odium called what Dalinar did Ascending. Also, I'm not sure if Vin's body disappeared when she used the Well. Anyway, if Dalinar isn't a Sliver, he's bonded to one, as the Stormfather openly calls himself that

24 minutes ago, Eternal Khol said:

The Dawnshards(as far as we know) are weapons of mass destruction.

They can apparently bind any creature and, per Honor's word, can hurt Odium. That seem to go beyond just weapons

24 minutes ago, Eternal Khol said:

-the well of ascension didnt have an effect on Leras' sanity. Leras giving up most of his mind affected hid sanity

To create the Well as a prison, so semantics I guess

24 minutes ago, Eternal Khol said:

not to shoot down this theory, but it just feel like your looking for connections that arent there or tenuous at best

like "oh, both shards have mist investiture, they must be related"

yes, they are related. any shard can have mist investiture. im pretty sure its the most common form of investiture(cant find the WoB)

I'm fairly sure that some of them are random connections, particularly the ones under open questions. But the overall amount of connections made me wonder, hence this thread.

I think Investiture from any Shard could exist in gaseous form (and other states of matter), but color-coded, magically inert mist is something more specific and rare

Edited June 3, 2020 by KandraAllomancer

[Eternal Khol]

24 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Odium called what Dalinar did Ascending

I still dont think became the shard.

With the well of ascension, you ascend and become the Shard with only one limitation. Instead of having an infinite power pool, coming from the SR, your power source is instead the one little pool in the physical realm known as The Well of Ascension

Dalinars PoV never changed, he was still a human in the PR. he couldnt have remade the world in the state he was in

 

 

Questioner

Dalinar Ascends, right? Like, right then, there.

Brandon Sanderson

I have RAFO'd that. Whether he is Ascending or not is a RAFO.

Questioner

Okay, because I know he kind of mentions from that, I don't know how to say his name but the older guy who has the Diagram--

Brandon Sanderson

Taravangian, yeah. Whether that deserves to be a capital "A" or not is a matter of argument. It can be disputed.

Questioner

I guess my main question would just be Dalinar's now able to pull Stormlight and give it to people now.

Brandon Sanderson

He definitely can. That is a Bondsmith power, so.

Questioner

That is a Bondsmith power, okay.

Brandon Sanderson

That is specifically a Bondsmith power.

Questioner

Because my roommate was saying well, the Stormfather was surprised he could do that or was the Stormfather surprised that he was able to bridge--

Brandon Sanderson

He was surprised by what was happening to Dalinar as a whole.

Questioner

Oh okay, that's what I thought because I was like, because I felt like the Stormlight, that power would be a Bondsmith power.

Brandon Sanderson

Let's say that the Stormfather and Odium were seeing something in Dalinar that, perhaps, the average person watching even who is knowledgeable about Surges would not completely understand... But he will be able to use that power and Bondsmiths in the past have used that same power.

Footnote: Brandon clarified that he might have been unintentionally misleading in his answers to this question during his Stormlight 4 Update 1.
Idaho Falls signing (Dec. 29, 2018)

 

24 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

per Honor's word, can hurt Odium. That seem to go beyond just weapons

a weapon that can hurt a shard is still a weapon. And he never said that they can hurt odium, he said “And … without the Dawnshards … Well, I have done what I can.”

he implies they could be useful, thats about it

Edited June 3, 2020 by Eternal Khol

[KandraAllomancer]

8 minutes ago, Eternal Khol said:

I still dont think became the shard.

With the well of ascension, you ascend and become the Shard with only one limitation. Instead of having an infinite power pool, coming from the SR, your power source is instead the one little pool in the physical realm known as The Well of Ascension

Dalinars PoV never changed, he was still a human in the PR. he couldnt have remade the world in the state he was in

Dalinar definitely became... something. Any question about Unity gets RAFOed, so we don't really know what that was, but his perspective changed (e.g. seeing Odium as small) and whatever he was at that moment, it was enough to scare Odium

10 minutes ago, Eternal Khol said:

a weapon that can hurt a shard is still a weapon. And he never said that they can hurt odium, he said “And … without the Dawnshards … Well, I have done what I can.”

he implies they could be useful, thats about it

Yeah, you're right. I was always assuming that they were meant to hurt/bind Odium, but maybe they could be used to save humanity in the aftermath of the conflict. Thanks

[Karger]

2 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Cultivation's boons.  We have a confirmation that Dalinar and Taravangian got their boons and curses directly from Cultivation. Lift is also a very likely candidate, based on the “Act of Cultivation” WoB.

This was confirmed in the interlude you sited.

2 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Lift – her boon (using food as a gateway for Investiture) is clearly based on the same principle as Allomancy

I actually don't think it is.  Lift seems to actually convert while allomancy as you say is powered by a gateway.

[Honorless]

3 hours ago, Karger said:

I actually don't think it is.  Lift seems to actually convert while allomancy as you say is powered by a gateway.

^ this

You can release Investiture from matter in the Cosmere. It's part of the matter, energy and Investiture trifecta there.

Quote

Questioner

Is Scadrial losing mass when people burn metals?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, technically it is, but Investiture is another dimension to matter.

Questioner

So it doesn't lose mass, it becomes Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

It becomes Investiture... Basically, when you go into the cosmere, we've got matter, we've got energy here. You've got matter, energy, and Investiture there, and you can get things out of Investiture back into matter, and stuff like that. There's always energy, there's entropy, there's always diffusement... it's basically, add to the laws of thermodynamics a third item, and that's how we word it.

Salt Lake City ComicCon 2017 (Sept. 21, 2017)

Quote

Questioner

So when you use an Allomancy metal--I know you had mentioned it once time, like *inaudible*... My question was, when that happens, is the metal like actually gone, or like conservation of...

Brandon Sanderson

No, it's becoming Investiture. Yeah, so... Investiture, energy, and matter are the same thing in the first category of *inaudible*.

Arcanum Unbounded Hoboken signing (Dec. 3, 2016)

Though it seems like not completely. The metal is getting converted into Investiture in Allomancy. With the metal's atomic structures acting as the key for which abilities get filtered down from Preservation to the Allomancer.

(There's also an sDNA element to it, which decides which metal you can burn: all or one, with the one being randomized rather than inheritable, despite Allomancy itself as a whole being inheritable)

Quote

Zmann966

Is the metal on Scadrial specially Invested? Can an Allomancer use metals from other planets?

Brandon Sanderson (Part 1/Part 2)

Metal is a key, not the source of power itself. Most is not specially Invested. It glows because of the power seeking to come through it, not because of the power within it.

#SandersonChat Twitter Q&A with Audible.com (Feb. 4, 2016)

It is metal that is turning to Investiture. The type of power is determined by the metal because the metal is the conduit to Preservation. Which is why metal glows in the Scadrian Cognitive, power is trying to escape through there from the Spiritual. We've actually seen the Investiture Arts filtering Investiture from the Spiritual and/or the Cognitive to the Physical acting like a pressure valve before with AonDor or spren on Roshar

 

note that we currently have conflicting WoBs regarding whether metal burnt by Allomancers is lost or not

 

Lift seems to be straight up converting matter to Investiture, specifically Stormlight.

I'm clarifying that last bit because Brandon has confirmed that pure Investiture is a thing and that is how Investiture types can be converted between systems (Breath to Stormlight or vice-versa)

Edited June 3, 2020 by R J

[KandraAllomancer]

13 hours ago, Karger said:

I actually don't think it is.  Lift seems to actually convert while allomancy as you say is powered by a gateway.

 

9 hours ago, R J said:

note that we currently have conflicting WoBs regarding whether metal burnt by Allomancers is lost or not

We actually also have conflicting (or at least very confusing) WoBs on Lift, but the latter explicitly confirms the analogy with Allomantic metals:

Quote

Gary Singer (paraphrased)

Could Lift convert food from other cosmere worlds into Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes. Lift's Spiritweb has something changed about it to allow converting mass to Investiture directly.

Out of Excuses 2016 (Sept. 23, 2016)

Quote

Argent

Does Lift turn food into Investiture directly or is it similar to the metals on--

Brandon Sanderson

Similar to the metals.

Argent

So like a gate?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

Okay, that's good to know.

Brandon Sanderson

She can metabolize-- She can draw-- It's not actually the food, it's-- It's not like the metals, not exactly. It's not-- What she can do is she can metabolize into Investiture instead of sugar. Does that make sense?

Argent

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

We metabolize food into sugar. She can metabolize it into Investiture. Does that make sense?

Argent

That makes a lot of sense. So if she eats--

Brandon Sanderson

She's got to have a blood sugar spike.

Argent

So if she eats like a cake it will give her more Investiture--

Brandon Sanderson

Faster. It will give her faster.

Argent

Whereas if she eats a vegetable...

Brandon Sanderson

Vegetable... More calories is going to equal more. But the better comparison would be a sausage and bread. Because bread is a fast blood sugar spike and the sausage is not. And that's how I'm working in my head. It's kind of a magical version of a blood sugar spike and I have it happen to her faster than it could happen. Like normally you eat a piece of bread and your blood sugar spikes in a half hour, it's going to go faster for Lift.

Argent

Hers is like five minutes.

Brandon Sanderson

Hers is like five minutes, but a sausage would be slower.

Firefight Chicago signing (Feb. 20, 2015)

 

[Honorless]

Haha, is it just me or does the second WoB contradict itself? 

[KandraAllomancer]

7 minutes ago, R J said:

Haha, is it just me or does the second WoB contradict itself? 

Kind of, yeah Although it could also mean that the sugar or the process of metabolizing stuff into sugar is the gateway, not the food itself

Edited June 3, 2020 by KandraAllomancer

[Honorless]

2 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Kind of, yeah Although it could also mean that the process of metabolizing stuff into sugar is the gateway, not the food itself

Ah, that makes sense

 

Hmmmmm... I'll look at this whole thing as similar to the creation of photons when stuff is heated then...?

[Brgst13]

I think that is a very good analogy.  A chemical reaction converts her food's glucose into Investiture.  This also explains the more rapid spike compared to blood sugar, as Investiture does not need to be absorbed into the bloodstream but can be directly utilized.

[Karger]

This also explains why she explicitly feels very hungry when the larkin drains her.  It is because she is having a rapid drop in her blood sugar levels.