Someone had the same idea as Cultivation

[KSub]

Cultivation is using her powers to grant people surgebinding. She also uses her futuresight to grant the boon and bane that will help them at a critical moment. Cultivation is using these individuals to shape events. 

Someone else in the Cosmere has the same plan. Endowment grants people a Divine Breath and uses her futuresight to show them an important moment in their future then erases their memory. The Returned get little glimpses of that moment to push them in the right direction. 

How many other shards are using the same strategy? Was Odium selecting Unmade who would achieve something in a specific moment? That doesn't sound like something he would do. Harmony does speak to some people and is trying to control events but he does not grant any gifts, unless we count the Kandra.

[Aspiring Writer]

5 hours ago, KSub said:

Cultivation is using her powers to grant people surgebinding. She also uses her futuresight to grant the boon and bane that will help them at a critical moment. Cultivation is using these individuals to shape events. 

Someone else in the Cosmere has the same plan. Endowment grants people a Divine Breath and uses her futuresight to show them an important moment in their future then erases their memory. The Returned get little glimpses of that moment to push them in the right direction. 

How many other shards are using the same strategy? Was Odium selecting Unmade who would achieve something in a specific moment? That doesn't sound like something he would do. Harmony does speak to some people and is trying to control events but he does not grant any gifts, unless we count the Kandra.

What precisely are you asking?

If you're asking if Shards are granting specific people powers to manipulate events, that's literally how shards do everything, so yes others have done so.

If you're asking if shards are making servants for a very specific moment and/or purpose, then also yes, we see Preservation do that, however, this kind of planning seems limited to Shards with immense future sight, of which we know three, Cultivation, Endowment, and Preservation. (Does Harmony have superior future sight?)

 

[KSub]

It was spelled out that Endowment chose Returned for a specific purpose using futuresight. I realised that Cultivation did the same thing. Honor and Odium seem to grant surge binding to anyone they feel is worthy. Aside from Vin and Sazed, Preservation and Ruin don't seem to be selecting individuals. My point was that Cultivation and Endowment seem to only use people who have a specific purpose.

Of course those with better futuresight will be able to do this better than the other shards, but isn't RODIUM supposed to be good at this. He doesn't want to spread his power, so wouldn't he also prefer to select a few individuals?

 

[Chinkoln]

7 hours ago, Aspiring Writer said:

 (Does Harmony have superior future sight?)

 

My guess would be that as soon as

Hero of Ages spoilers

Spoiler

Sazed picked up Ruin and Preservation, becoming the vessel of two Shards, all future sight in the Cosmere improved. If there are less Shards, there is less interference.

It is similar to how a single atium burner has near perfect future sight. If you add another, it multiplies 100 fold. If you add a 3rd then even more possibilities become visible. If there are less entities with future sight, everyone’s vision gets better.

[Aspiring Writer]

2 minutes ago, Chinkoln said:

My guess would be that as soon as

Hero of Ages spoilers

  Reveal hidden contents

Sazed picked up Ruin and Preservation, becoming the vessel of two Shards, all future sight in the Cosmere improved. If there are less Shards, there is less interference.

It is similar to how a single atium burner has near perfect future sight. If you add another, it multiplies 100 fold. If you add a 3rd then even more possibilities become visible. If there are less entities with future sight, everyone’s vision gets better.

That's not how it works, you can't tell that person's future, but you can still see everyone else's. 

[Chinkoln]

19 minutes ago, Aspiring Writer said:

That's not how it works, you can't tell that person's future, but you can still see everyone else's. 

I thought there was a scene where there were multiple atium burners and EVERYONE had multiple shadows

[Aspiring Writer]

24 minutes ago, Chinkoln said:

I thought there was a scene where there were multiple atium burners and EVERYONE had multiple shadows

No, i do not remeber that, unless you mean the end scene of hero of ages where everyone was an atium burner and would be haveing future sight.

[Chinkoln]

13 minutes ago, Aspiring Writer said:

No, i do not remeber that, unless you mean the end scene of hero of ages where everyone was an atium burner and would be haveing future sight.

No, I can’t remember exactly where, maybe when Vin was fighting at the very beginning of Well of Ascension. It has been a while since I read through Mistborn, I have been focusing on Nalthis and Roshar recently

[Weltall]

6 hours ago, KSub said:

Honor and Odium seem to grant surge binding to anyone they feel is worthy. Aside from Vin and Sazed, Preservation and Ruin don't seem to be selecting individuals. My point was that Cultivation and Endowment seem to only use people who have a specific purpose.

You're conflating two unrelated things, access to magic and a Shard making a special effort. Broadly speaking a Shard doesn't get to choose who can or can't use their magic in the same way that they don't get to directly control the form their magic takes; it's an interaction of their Intent and the natural pathways that Adonalsium set up. Everyone on Nalthis gets one Breath at birth and from there can engage in the whole system of BioChroma, the Returned are something special. Likewise, Honor didn't directly choose who became a Surgebinder, the spren did but that's because magic on Roshar is based around bonds. You get access to the magic by acting in some way in alignment with the Intent of the empowering Shard (intending to Ruin someone for hemalurgy, acting Honorably by following oaths for Surgebinding) but it requires no special effort on the part of the Shard.

Also, other Shards select mortals to be their agents and can specially empower them. Honor created the ten Heralds, Preservation set up a plan that eventually put Vin in the position to kill Ati and Sazed to take both Shards, Harmony has set Wax up as his agent and provides power from the mists on occasion and so on. It's not confined to just Cultivation and Endowment.

Quote

Of course those with better futuresight will be able to do this better than the other shards, but isn't RODIUM supposed to be good at this. He doesn't want to spread his power, so wouldn't he also prefer to select a few individuals?

Odium does not seem to be particularly good at futuresight, with Honor and Cultivation having managed to trap him in the Rosharan System (exactly the sort of thing he never wanted to have happen) and the latter pulls one over on him at the end of Oathbringer with Dalinar and the memory gambit. Amusingly Odium seems to have contributed to his own failure there, however indirectly, since we know Renarin's own futuresight interfered with Odium's own and Renarin only had that power because Glys was touched by one of Odium's own Splinters.

1 hour ago, Aspiring Writer said:

That's not how it works, you can't tell that person's future, but you can still see everyone else's. 

Clashing futuresight can obscure the future of people in the vicinity depending on the power. We see this happen at Thaylen City where Odium got completely blindsided and afterwards when he's having his chat with Taravangian he says out loud that Dalinar was never supposed to Ascend, at the exact same moment that T notices that Odium's vision somehow can't 'see' anything related to Renarin.

Edited January 11, 2021 by Weltall

[KSub]

I interpreted the atium shadows differently. When you burn atium you can predict what someone is going to do. If they are burning atium they are predicting what you are predicting. So you have to predict what they are predicting you are predicting, hence all the shadows.

On the other hand Fewer shardholders would mean fewer significant variables to consider so it would make it easier to predict.

[Aspiring Writer]

48 minutes ago, Weltall said:

Clashing futuresight can obscure the future of people in the vicinity depending on the power. We see this happen at Thaylen City where Odium got completely blindsided and afterwards when he's having his chat with Taravangian he says out loud that Dalinar was never supposed to Ascend, at the exact same moment that T notices that Odium's vision somehow can't 'see' anything related to Renarin.

The example he he used was about Atium burners, which does not have this effect.