Reprograming Investiture’s intent?

[Trusk'our]

                In Row, we’ve seen that investiture’s ‘rhythm’ can be changed by isolating it from it’s original source, then exposing it to another rhythm with a different intent. We’ve also seen that an individual can have a unique rhythm (i.e. Raboniel).

                If someone could somehow gain access to the Rhythms, then figure out how to create a unique rhythm of their own, with it’s own Intent, could they reprogram the Intent of a piece investiture?

                If this could be accomplished, I can see three possible benefits:

                1. You wouldn’t have an enhanced Connection to the investiture’s original Shard as would otherwise have, since the new Intent of the investiture you’re using is not the same as that Shard’s Intent. This would probably make it harder for a Shard to manipulate or detect you directly.

                2. It would be very, very difficult to weaponize anti-investiture against you since the Intent of the investiture you’re using is supposed to be unique.

                3. You would most likely not be bound to any world in particular as most highly invested entities are, as your investiture does not have a Connection to any world or Shard.

 

In addition, if you use this new investiture, and then it returns to the spiritual realm, would it then start to accumulate, possibly (though not likely, considering the amount that you’d need) create a new magic system, similar to Patji on First of the Sun?

 

                So, does this all sound possible, or am I assuming too much here?

[+hwiles]

I like this premise; I don't see an easy way to scale it to an industrial level (IE: reprogramming highly Invested objects at will or taking a meaningful bite out of a passing highstorm) by leveraging the currently defined in-world physics, but if one could...I'd add a little more to your points:

On 11/20/2021 at 10:15 PM, Trusk'our said:

1. You wouldn’t have an enhanced Connection to the investiture’s original Shard as would otherwise have, since the new Intent of the investiture you’re using is not the same as that Shard’s Intent. This would probably make it harder for a Shard to manipulate or detect you directly.

Agreed; I would also think that any object/creature/being which became Invested via your newly created unique Investiture (in a way that didn't alter its Intent again) would develop increased Connection to you...making it easier for you to detect/manipulate them...

2. It would be very, very difficult to weaponize anti-investiture against you since the Intent of the investiture you’re using is supposed to be unique.

Slightly disagree; someone with knowledge of your method and a sample of your Investiture could probably work out a counter with a little time and effort. This would probably only be very difficult if you were very good at controlling access to those things.

3. You would most likely not be bound to any world in particular as most highly invested entities are, as your investiture does not have a Connection to any world or Shard.

I could see an argument being made that you might still end up bound to Roshar since you're leveraging the Rhythms...but assuming that doesn't count, then with enough time and effort I would think you might even be able to bind worlds to yourself rather than the other way around...so long as you can produce enough to fuel those lands and survive.

 

[Trusk'our]

Now, I do want to mention that the Rhythms are amplified on Roshar, but they are a cosmere wide thing, so I don't think that using them would bind you to Roshar unless you are specifically using some sort of Investiture directly Connected to there.

[Honorless]

We don't really know the nature of unique Rhythms, and Raboniel was certainly still affected by Voidlight. I don't know if it's possible to make Investiture that is not only not attuned to / opposite of any of the Shards of Adonalsium or any combination or neutral/all, but an entirely new one. Most likely you'll still be Connected to some Shards but it might be possible via playing around with the various combinations to get something weird enough to work. I think it might work best to find pre-Shattering Investiture for this, Hemalurgically steal some old Invested Art from someone Yolish or something, or perhaps the Dawnshards.

(And of course, we don't have exact confirmation of the relationship between a Shard's Pure Tone / Rhythm and Shardic Intent.)

I think you might still need to do something else to get rid of your Connection to your Shardworld? I think that's different from the native Shard(s)' Pure Tones, just getting new Investiture wouldn't remove your Connections.

All that said, I've liked the idea of an artificial Shard since a very long time, so I certainly hope we get to see something along these lines!

[Trusk'our]

Hmmmm...okay, so maybe reprogamming investiture to have a completely unique Intent is harder than I thought, maybe even impossible. So here's another idea.

If you were to somehow gather investiture from every single Shard, could you snap them all together into Adonalsium’s pre-shattering investiture? Would this investiture have a balanced enough Intent tied to it that you wouldn’t be pushed or pulled by it in any particular way? If it’s Intent did significantly influence you, what would it even do?