Nalthis Early History

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Questioner

Is there like a Cosmere-significant reason why, on Scadrial, the Investiture is hereditary, but that that doesn't really seem to be the case on any of the other worlds?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes there is, but it has to do more with the fact that on Scadrial, human beings were directly created by Ruin and Preservation. And most of the Cosmere worlds you've seen don't have that same sort of aspect. It is the case on Nalthis. It's not the case on Roshar, it's not the case on Taldain, it's not the case on Sel. And so because of that instance, that's how I'm kind of working, that changed the way people interact with magic directly. But there is some wiggle room there for me. But that's your answer, that's the actual... there's.. I'm not hiding anything there, there is wiggle room. What I'm saying is don't extrapolate that that has to happen every time that the Shards were directly involved in the creation...

JordanCon 2021 (July 16, 2021)

 

 

Sooo, Endowment actually Created the human life on Nalthis, the way P&R created them on Scadrial?

[+Harrycrapper]

Interesting. Per the Arcanum Unbounded essays, only two worlds have human life that was created post Shattering if I recall how that was worded correctly. I figured the second was from a world we hadn't seen yet, but he very much seems to indicate that Nalthis is the other one. Unless he's referring to people being born with an inherent amount of Investiture, hard to say without actually hearing the emphasis on certain words. 

[Fezzik]

On 7/20/2021 at 0:44 PM, Harrycrapper said:

he's referring to people being born with an inherent amount of Investiture,

That's what I assumed. You have to be Nalthian in order to be born with a breath the way you have to be scadrian to have a shot at allomancy (and terris for feruchemy).

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On 7/21/2021 at 9:42 PM, Fezzik said:

That's what I assumed. You have to be Nalthian in order to be born with a breath the way you have to be scadrian to have a shot at allomancy (and terris for feruchemy).

I dont think it's jus teh Connection requirement, since that's also the case for most of the Selish magics.

[+Harrycrapper]

On 7/21/2021 at 6:42 PM, Fezzik said:

That's what I assumed. You have to be Nalthian in order to be born with a breath the way you have to be scadrian to have a shot at allomancy (and terris for feruchemy).

Yea, it all comes down to what he was referring to when he said "It is the case on Nalthis." He could be referring to either people being born with more Investiture or the people being born with more Investiture because they were created by Shards. This WoB might clear this up, he has confirmed you have to be born on Nalthis to be born with Breath. The follow up scenario does seem to indicate it's genetic as having Nalthian parents could result in a child born with Breath even off planet. If he didn't answer that last one with "Mmmhmm" I'd say this conclusive, but I honestly have no idea what that is supposed to mean without actually hearing it. 

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JoyBlu

In order to have a Breath, do you have to be native to Nalthis?

Brandon Sanderson

Not to be given Breaths, but people who are not native to Nalthis are not born with that Investiture.

JoyBlu

So, you have to be born on that planet?

Brandon Sanderson

There are exceptions. Most of the time.

JoyBlu

If both your parents were Nalthians, and they moved off planet, and they had a child that was born on a different planet—

Brandon Sanderson

It is possible for that child to have a Breath, but it would not continue too long. But yes, that child would probably have a Breath, depending...

Joyblu

If both of his parents had Breaths.

Brandon Sanderson

Mmmhmm.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

 

[+Oltux72]

10 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

 The follow up scenario does seem to indicate it's genetic as having Nalthian parents could result in a child born with Breath even off planet. If he didn't answer that last one with "Mmmhmm" I'd say this conclusive, but I honestly have no idea what that is supposed to mean without actually hearing it.

I would say that this indicated that you could have one or two generations with Breaths off planet based on inheritance. You can get a Breath by inheritance. But the people who got a Breath that way cannot pass that on to their children. Basically on an abstract level this is how the Royal Locks work. You, who fullfil a condition, can pass it on unconditionally. But those who got it that way have to fulfill a condition again to pass it on.

[Elegy]

On 20.7.2021 at 7:44 PM, Harrycrapper said:

Interesting. Per the Arcanum Unbounded essays, only two worlds have human life that was created post Shattering if I recall how that was worded correctly. I figured the second was from a world we hadn't seen yet, but he very much seems to indicate that Nalthis is the other one. Unless he's referring to people being born with an inherent amount of Investiture, hard to say without actually hearing the emphasis on certain words. 

We know what the second world is: Roshar. Which means that every other world that Khriss is aware of seems to have had human life before the Shattering, including Nalthis. Which, in turn, leads me to believe that what he meant was the inherent Investiture that every Nalthian has from birth, granted by Endowment, but because Endowment gave it to them, not because she created them.

[+Harrycrapper]

5 minutes ago, Elegy said:

We know what the second world is: Roshar. 

Where is there confirmation of that?

[Elegy]

Just now, Harrycrapper said:

Where is there confirmation of that?

Well, to be clear, they weren't created by Honor and Cultivation, but that's not what Khriss is saying - in the Scadrial essay, she writes that life on those two worlds doesn't "predate" the Shards. ("It is one of only two places in the cosmere where humankind does not predate the arrival of Shards.") And since humans arrived on Roshar when Honor and Cultivation were already there, they don't. I should have expressed that more clearly 

[+Harrycrapper]

1 minute ago, Elegy said:

Well, to be clear, they weren't created by Honor and Cultivation, but that's not what Khriss is saying - in the Scadrial essay, she writes that life on those two worlds doesn't "predate" the Shards. ("It is one of only two places in the cosmere where humankind does not predate the arrival of Shards.") And since humans arrived on Roshar when Honor and Cultivation were already there, they don't. I should have expressed that more clearly 

I suppose that depends on how you interpret "arrival of Shards." I think she's referencing the Shattering of Adonalsium and I'm not sure it makes sense for it to be otherwise. First, she doesn't specify planets, she says places. Second, I'm not sure why she would conflate Scadrians who were literally created by Shards with Rosharans who just migrated from one planet to another within the same system. Third, this would imply that all of the other Shard worlds have humans who got there before the Shard which implies either they travelled there without the aid of the Shards or were created by Adonalsium before the Shattering. There's a lot of mystery to the exodus from Yolen, so it's not easy to confirm anything one way or the other there. It's ironically the same situation with the WoB in the OP, it depends on how you interpret a specific phrase.

[Elegy]

1 minute ago, Harrycrapper said:

I suppose that depends on how you interpret "arrival of Shards." I think she's referencing the Shattering of Adonalsium and I'm not sure it makes sense for it to be otherwise. First, she doesn't specify planets, she says places. Second, I'm not sure why she would conflate Scadrians who were literally created by Shards with Rosharans who just migrated from one planet to another within the same system. Third, this would imply that all of the other Shard worlds have humans who got there before the Shard which implies either they travelled there without the aid of the Shards or were created by Adonalsium before the Shattering. There's a lot of mystery to the exodus from Yolen, so it's not easy to confirm anything one way or the other there. It's ironically the same situation with the WoB in the OP, it depends on how you interpret a specific phrase.

I don't think it's ambiguous.

First off, the meaning of what she says doesn't change depending on whether she means the arrival of the Shards to the planets or the Shattering, since humans on both Scadrial and Roshar do not predate any of the two. Now to the three points:

1. She refers to Scadrial when she uses the term "place" - and Scadrial is a planet, so it wouldn't make much sense for her to mean anything else other than planets when referring to further "places" in this context.

2. Well, she doesn't talk about who was created by whom, she's only making a statement about whether or not humans there predated the arrival of the Shards. Which is the case for both Scadrial and Roshar, so yes, she would conflate it and she would be right about it.

3. Yes, that's what it implied, and that's not improbable at all. Yolen was the first planet to have humans, but that doesn't mean all humans originated from there (in fact we know that at least some of them don't). There is no need for an exodus from Yolen to other world - in fact, we don't know if anything like that ever happened. - Furthermore, the best proof of all this being the case is this very statement of Khriss that you seem to be mainly questioning on the basis of its implications being huge.

So I don't think there's two ways about it. That said, I would agree that the phrasing is unnecessarily vague, which is kind of a theme of those Arcanum Unbounded essays - Brandon wanted to give information while not giving too much away, all the while still writing from the perspective of someone who knows much more than the reader, and that balancing act leads to stuff like that, and I'm the first to admit that it can be frustrating.