Questiture for Investiture!

[silver-the-thruhiker Awakened Object]

[Spoilers All]

This started on Reddit, but since I've discovered this incredible site, I thought I'd bring it over here. Apologies if I'm doing this wrong, etc.

Strongly appreciate corrections and feedback; I am only so realmatically aware :-)

In a nutshell: I am starting to see the goals of a lot of the non-Shardic players in the Cosmere as: searching for a way to transport Investiture between Shardworlds.

This is particularly apparent in The Ghostbloods.

In Rhythm of War, I read Mraize's statement to Shallan as this: the goal of the Ghostbloods is to assure the persistence of Kelsier's Cognitive Shadow. 

As Kelek says, the persistence of a Cog requires Investiture. And it makes sense that Kel doesn't have much access to that.

For a Cog to access Investiture, it needs any one of the following:

-granted it directly by a Shard

-on a Shardworld where lots of free investiture is available

-on a Shardworld with investiture accessible, and sufficiently Connected to that world to access it

-brought Investiture from such a source to it

Our boi The Survivor comes up short on all counts:

Kel could get some Investiture from the Shard(s) on Scadrial. But this seems unlikely. On the one hand, there's Harmony's growing tendency towards inaction in general; and on the other, I don't know if Sazed would Invest in our psychotic little Survivebro even if he could.

He is on Scadrial. The amount of available Investiture there is simply very small - not even as a Mistborn.

And as we learned in Secret History, he can't just wander off a-worldhoppin'. Either because the Investiture he has is too Connected to Scadrial to leave, or because he doesn't have enough to overcome this problem; I'm not sure. 

And a mechanism for bringing free Investiture from one Shardworld to another, has, I believe, not yet been discovered.

Therefore, Kelsier would be content to find any of the following:

-a way to get himself to Roshar.

-a way to get himself to another Shardworld - Nalthis, Sel, Taldain (tho probably not Threnody), and also then access the local manifestation of Investiture. 

-a way to get free Investiture from any of those places to Scadrial.

Has anyone else done this?

Not quite.

There are only two Cogs that I can think of, who we know were able to worldhop: Vasher and Shashara.

From WoB I believe we know that this exact predicament is what caused Vasher to leave Nalthis for Roshar. But I expect it was a lot easier for Vasher to worldhop. He started off very Invested. A Returned with a Divine Breath, naturally Fifth Heightening... however you want to phrase it: Gruff Bae had a lot of Investiture. And as we know from Peacegiver's Treasure, he was definitely no stranger to acquiring more - Nor was Shashara, which we know from the fat stacks she expended in the creation of Nightblood.

How is Kelsier going about this?

I think he tried several things, one after another.

I expect that he created the Bands Of Morning as a scientific experiment attempting to acces more of Scadrial's Investiture. Obviously it didn't work.

It wouldn't surprise me if he tried to contact another Shard seeking, uhm, "sponsorship." (Giv avatar plz). This might well be related to all the Trelagist stuff on Scadrial. Whatever, and however - it seems it didn't work. 

We know from Mraize's Mancave Of Miracles that the Ghostbloods have been to many worlds. And they have brought back from them many Investiture-related objects, including white sand (Taldain), aviars (First of the Sun), and seons (Sel). Clearly nothing has solved the puzzle.

We've also seen several ferruchemists offworld. It wouldn't surprise me if some of these are Ghostbloods. Metalminds allow for direct experimentation with the storing of Identity, Connection, and Investiture (Aluminum, Duralumin, and Nicrosil) on other worlds. These Terris people truly are cosmerenauts. However, he Kel hasn't figured out a way for him to Connect to one of these places sufficiently to access their Investiture; or he has, but not in a way that is strong enough to let him survive the trip to it. 

His work on Roshar - and his interests in Kalak especially - show that he is interested in the free investiture of Stormlight. This leads me to believe that he has concluded that he cannot get Investiture where he is, nor can he get to a better source of Investiture; he needs to bring the Investiture to him.

What would the Realmatic effects of this be?

#1 - it would give Cognitive Shadows on any Shardworld access to the life-persisting Investiture of the other worlds. Lots of Light = lots of shadows (heyooo).

#2 - it would let forms of Investiture manipulation here be powered with Investiture from there. Which means intergalactic arbitrage opportunities for power - practically speaking, allowing merchants the opportunity to elevate themselves to positions of rulership, even interplanetarily so. 

#3 - probably tons of Realmatic things that I cannot even fathom.

Who wouldn't want Kelsier to succeed?

#1 - possibly, some or all Shards, as this would threaten their hegemonies over their planets specifically, and over the Cosmere as a whole

#2 - every other group who wants to get this technology for themselves - so just rivals for power. This might include The Set, The Sons of Honor, who knows what.

#3 - any noninterventionist group, I would think, would object to such a cosmic realignment of power. So I doubt Frost and his 17ers are all about this. Probably not the Sleepless either.

 

Okay, that's how I read this. Am I entirely offbase? Whaddya guys think?

-silver

[Dawnshard Noble]

Really good theories! I agree that Kelsier would want to move Investiture around to maybe gain more power and grow his secret society. He can however manifest an Avatar. I don't think he could do that unless he had lots of Investiture al least enough to match one of the Unmade. I wonder if he picked up the sliver of extra Ruin Harmony hide somewhere to become balanced. 

[Kingsdaughter613 Stone Shaman]

Kell doesn’t need Investiture to persist; as a Sliver, he’s naturally too highly Invested to go Beyond unless he wants to (or his CS is destroyed). 
 

Getting offworld though... he definitely wants to do that.

[StanLemon Silent Gatherer]

Based on Kelek's epigraphs, I'm convinced that the main reason they want a perfect receptacle is to transport Kel

[ScadrianTank Crew Leader]

As I already said in a different thread, it seems likely that GBs are looking for BAM to replicate whatever it was they did in connecting to the Singers. Persuade BAM to Connect to Kel's avatar (which may or may not be a Kandra he took control of with emotional Allomancy), then staple his Shadow to that avatar or something like that?

[Oltux72 Seer]

On 21.11.2020 at 9:50 PM, silver-the-thruhiker said:

As Kelek says, the persistence of a Cog requires Investiture. And it makes sense that Kel doesn't have much access to that.

He is living on a world that

• features the mists
• has a continent with so much of a god metal that they can base a common technology on it
• has at least one if not two perpendicularities

[Kingsdaughter613 Stone Shaman]

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

He is living on a world that

• features the mists
• has a continent with so much of a god metal that they can base a common technology on it
• has at least one if not two perpendicularities

He also doesn’t need it. He’s a Sliver.