Do Spiritwebs Weaken to the Lowest State Possible Over Generations?

[Trusk'our he/him]

For instance, we see that Allomancers will have their powers weaken over generations; their Connection to Preservation, or at least their ability to create a Connection to Preservation, weakening. Is this because Spiritwebs seek to find a state where they are made up of the least investiture possible? In real life, all things seem to want to take the most direct and most energy efficient route to a desired goal or end result. Is this what’s going on with the Spiritwebs that have powers innately tied to them, perhaps?

[Lego Mistborn he/him]

They spiritweb will lose "power" over time provided we don't see something happen like the hemophobia in Europe's royal families. If two people with allomancy have children, the spiritweb will likely gain or at least not lose "power".

[apepi]

From what I understood, Ruin/Preservation only put so much power into the their power systems, so as more people are being born, more people are developing powers than before but weaker, more diluted.

[Honorless he/him]

This lower power state might be the default state for them, when the Lord Ruler used the Well of Ascension, he gave his supporters Lerasium:

Quote

Questioner

Did the Lord Ruler create the lerasium that he gave to the ten foreign kings? Or where they put there by Leras--

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, good question… No one's asked me that before, I don't believe. Did the Lord Ruler create the lerasium that he gave-- No, he found the lerasium. It was existent before his Ascension.

Questioner

Can I ask if it was placed there intentionally by Leras or did it sort of grow similar to how atium--

Brandon Sanderson

The Lord Ruler-- It was not placed for him, he had to-- he had to get it.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

 

Edited May 14, 2022 by Honorless

[Weltall]

This is definitely a case by case thing. On Scadrial, we're told that everybody has the seeds of all the Metallic Arts in their spiritweb but at that base level expression of the powers is much more limited. The use of lerasium in the north added 'extra Investiture' into the system so Allomancy is much more common and while it's degraded somewhat (n the sense that there are no more naturally occurring Mistborn or full Feruchemists, but in return you get the Twinborn) the minimum level of Investiture is still higher, hence you still have a larger proportion of the population with access to magic. We still don't have the details on how Feruchemy arose specifically in the Terris people but it functions along the same principles.

Meanwhile, Nalthis has everyone get exactly the same extra Investiture from Endowment so the only hereditary 'extra Investiture' is what we see with the Royal Locks and we don't know how those work exactly, but as the expression is kind of funky (only potential heirs have it and only the actual successor can pass it on) so we don't know if that Investiture is degrading in any meaningful way or if it's jumping from person to person somehow.

Then you have Surgebinding on Roshar where the spiritweb changes are tied to the Nahel Bond so you don't directly pass anything down except eye color. I don't think we've been told if the Nightwatcher/Cultivation's boon and curse can affect one's descendants but this WoB says that they're intended as specific grants of Investiture to one person (and Cultivation would be Very Unhappy if you messed with this via hemalurgy) so they might not pass down in any way and that extra Investiture just gets returned to Cultivation after the person dies.

Edited May 17, 2022 by Weltall