Science and Investiture: My possible Dawnshard theory

[Random Bystander]

Okay, so in the Cosmere, investiture seems to have a lot to do with science. I mean, there are lots of non-sciency things, but a lot of it is science related.

In Mistborn, you have to be exact with the percentages in the metals, or you get sick.

In Stormlight Archives, you can manipulate light, sound, matter, gravity, friction, and more. And then there are the different polestones, the gemstones that hold stormlight. The polestones are based on color, not the actual type of gemstone. For example, the Coppermind says that smokestone and amethyst are both types of quartz. The only real difference is color.

Speaking of color, in Warbreaker, people with breath are able to see colors better, and also can enhance the colors around them. This is manipulating waves of light, and how you see waves of light. And they can have perfect pitch. That manipulates sound.

In White Sands, Khriss makes a discovery about a microorganism that lives on the sand. That microorganism is the only thing that makes the Sand Masters able to control sand.

In Elantris, the Dakhor monks have their bodies twisted. I feel like this might be an adaptation or mutation causes by investiture. And I think that Aons release energy when drawn.

In Shadows for Silence, you attract the shades if you start bleeding, start a fire, or run. I think the shades might have enhanced senses, and that those specific actions draw their attention.

In Sixth of Dusk, the birds form a symbiotic relationship with the parasites. 

Then, there are other things. Like, for example, how shards manifest with all three normal states of matter. 

These all have to do with chemistry, physics, or biology in some way. When looking at what we know about the Dawnshards, I realized another science/investiture mix. Change is a word that commonly describes entropy (or the amount of randomness in a given space.) I think that it is possible that the other Dawnshards have to do with important science concepts.

Thoughts?

[Ixthos]

I believe these are natural consequences of rules being imposed, and Brandon applying the rules across a wide set of phenomena. I certainly agree it ties strongly into the concepts covered in science and the different branches of science, which should be very handy for Era 4 stories - indeed, I think a lot of possible subsets of the various magic systems aren't going to be explicitly explored, but rather the general idea behind them - so later stories can have someone with a hemalurgic spike for pewter, but applied in such a way that it enhances one particular trait over others, or alloys of metals being used in fabrials to produce more abstract but still related effects, so for example attractors for particular subatomic particles.

[Random Bystander]

21 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

I believe these are natural consequences of rules being imposed, and Brandon applying the rules across a wide set of phenomena. I certainly agree it ties strongly into the concepts covered in science and the different branches of science, which should be very handy for Era 4 stories - indeed, I think a lot of possible subsets of the various magic systems aren't going to be explicitly explored, but rather the general idea behind them - so later stories can have someone with a hemalurgic spike for pewter, but applied in such a way that it enhances one particular trait over others, or alloys of metals being used in fabrials to produce more abstract but still related effects, so for example attractors for particular subatomic particles.

I've got a theory about investiture being like energy. I mean the coppermind says that you can't destroy investiture. So, you know how energy can be changed from one form to another? Well, I believe that there might be a way to do that with investiture. I mean, imagine being able to turn Stormlight into breaths! And I think you're probably right. It'll probably come into play more later. Especially with the stuff that happened in RoW, which I won't get into because spoilers.

I do think I might have a vague idea of what another one of the Dawnshards might be. I think it could be something like Consequence. If I'm right, it would outline "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". I came up with that while sleeping last night...

[Ixthos]

1 minute ago, Random Bystander said:

I do think I might have a vague idea of what another one of the Dawnshards might be. I think it could be something like Consequence. If I'm right, it would outline "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". I came up with that while sleeping last night...

That could work :-)

[Weltall]

4 hours ago, Random Bystander said:

I've got a theory about investiture being like energy. I mean the coppermind says that you can't destroy investiture. So, you know how energy can be changed from one form to another? Well, I believe that there might be a way to do that with investiture.

I'm not sure about turning Stormlight into Breath or vice versa but the general idea of conversion has been confirmed because Investiture is just another state.

Quote

Questioner

Your magic systems are very structured, and specific rules that dominate them. But are there any universal laws that apply to all of the magic systems in the cosmere together?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there's several of them. Basically, the most important one and relevant to people who enjoy real physics is that I consider something called Investiture to be a third state of matter and energy. So, instead of e=mc^2, we have a third thing, Investiture, in there. And you can change Investiture to matter or to energy. And so, because of that, that law that you can do this, is where we see a lot of the cosmere magics living.

We also have a kind of rule that beings all exist, everything exists on three different levels. The Physical, the Spiritual, and the Cognitive. And, like we have DNA for our Physical self, we also have Mental DNA and Spiritual DNA, and all three influence one another. For instance, you couldn't test an Allomancer's blood and find the Allomancy gene, because it is in a different set of their DNA. You just have three sets. You could compose a test that could test it on the Spiritual Realm, but you're gonna have to use a different branch of physics to do that and determine who was an Allomancer. And so they all work on this kind of fundamental rules of: your Identity, your Connection, and being part of your soul, and the magics working through those things.

So there's some fundamental rules about this, about changing forms from energy to matter, and you having this Identity, Investiture, and Connection stored in your Spiritual DNA that are really relevant to everything.

ICon 2019 (Oct. 15, 2019)

Given how difficult it is to affect Invested objects (even non-heavily Invested ones like hemalurgic spikes), trying to convince a bunch of gaseous Honor-aligned Investiture that it's actually a bunch of gaseous Endowment-aligned Investiture would probably fall under the heading of 'far more difficult than it's worth' especially since you can hack the systems together to accomplish various tasks without directly converting X to Y.

[Random Bystander]

1 minute ago, Weltall said:

I'm not sure about turning Stormlight into Breath or vice versa but the general idea of conversion has been confirmed because Investiture is just another state.

Given how difficult it is to affect Invested objects (even non-heavily Invested ones like hemalurgic spikes), trying to convince a bunch of gaseous Honor-aligned Investiture that it's actually a bunch of gaseous Endowment-aligned Investiture would probably fall under the heading of 'far more difficult than it's worth' especially since you can hack the systems together to accomplish various tasks without directly converting X to Y.

True. And thanks! I didn't know that was there.