Why the Seventeenth Shard believes against interference

[Stormlit-man]

The worldhopping group known as the seventeenth shard is for some reason against the mixing of shards and interfering in the events of other world. Today I had a thought as to why this might be, the seventeenth shard might not want people like Hoid to interfere in cosmere events because they know what is going to happen if nobody interferes. It may be possible for this particular group of worldhoppers to have manipulated investiture in such a way as to allow them to see the future or bits of it any way. This could mean that whenever they stop someone from interfering by interfering that they are setting up the cosmere for a particular future. For one we know that the seventeenth shard is trying to hunt down Hoid, but why? Well, to answer this we have to first look at what it seems that Hoid wants at the moment which is to stop odium and trap him on Roshar. So maybe the seventeenth shard wants odium do keep doing what he is doing him being a shard and destroying other shards. This in conclusion leads me to think that The seventeenth shard might want odium to destroy the other shards releasing large out puts of unclaimed investiture that could be used for a nefarious purpose. 

If I have made a large error in my thinking it would be appreciated to respond as such. 

[Mazman]

Your thinking makes sense. Having a bunch of unclaimed Investiture just lying around could make it possible for members of the Seventeenth Shard to become Shards, which would give their organization more power. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that they have the ability to see the future, similar to Renarin, but if they are trying to prevent something bad from happening, and they need people to not interfere, then it would make sense that they could see the future, or the possibilities of the future.

[cometaryorbit]

I was thinking the non-intervention was probably because worldhoppers messed something up large-scale in the past.

Possibly 'awakening' the Evil on Threnody, or giving it more power/more access to the Cognitive/something? It seems that it only became a continent scale problem after Nazh left, whereas the Ambition/Odium/Mercy fight must have been thousands and thousands of years ago, before Odium got stuck on Braize.

Either that or it's more of a 'religious' concept - "these worlds bear the touch and design of Adonalsium". Perhaps they believe Adonalsium had some grander plan beyond the Shattering (a reunification, e.g. the Iriali idea of the One? distributing Investiture to all mortals? who knows).

[apepi]

Maybe they are anti-Adonalsium, and they don't want another one. Maybe lead by people who helped split them but didn't get any shards. They could act as a force to try to make sure the shards stay away from each other, trying to prevent that from happening.

While Hoid is trying to put him back together, maybe thinking he did a mistake(or for some other reason).

Pro Adonalsium:
Hoid?
Iri?
Arclo?

Anti Adonalsium:
Odium, Autonmy, other shards?
Frost
Seventeenth Shard

Sleepless?

Neutral:
Ire
Ghostbloods?

[cometaryorbit]

I think Frost is either of, or allied with, the Seventeenth Shard (Hoid says "your friends of the Seventeenth Shard" in the WoK Epigraphs letter), and in the WoR Epigraphs letter Frost says that " The worlds you now tread bear the touch and design of Adonalsium. Our interference so far has brought nothing but pain." and " However, it seems to me that all things have been set up for a purpose, and if we—as infants—stumble through the workshop, we risk exacerbating, not preventing, a problem" - I think that means Frost sees Adonalsium's design as good.

[Kandrafish]

7 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I think Frost is either of, or allied with, the Seventeenth Shard (Hoid says "your friends of the Seventeenth Shard" in the WoK Epigraphs letter), and in the WoR Epigraphs letter Frost says that " The worlds you now tread bear the touch and design of Adonalsium. Our interference so far has brought nothing but pain." and " However, it seems to me that all things have been set up for a purpose, and if we—as infants—stumble through the workshop, we risk exacerbating, not preventing, a problem" - I think that means Frost sees Adonalsium's design as good.

I agree with cometary orbit.  This seems to imply that Frost is, in appearance at least, working with the Seventeenth Shard. 

I think the simplest explanation is probably correct here. The Seventeenth Shard, like Frost, do not interfere because they think it is bad, like climate change or war. I don't think that this means that they don't interfere a little bit, if they think it is necessary. But, they probably, mostly, stick to themselves and try to study the cosmere.

However, I like this line of thought because it does seem probable that the Seventeenth Shard would have access to investiture and Frost likely trusts them. I cannot help but think about how the second generation kandra refusing to believe that they needed to obey the first contract and instead trying to live on and pretend nothing had happened. 

I think it is feasible that there might be less loyal members of the Shard with nefarious intentions.

[bmcclure7]

5 hours ago, Debarra said:

I do think they have a similar motivation but personally I see it less of them having predictions of the future and more that they think Adonalsium did and those futures should be preserved in some way. Since reading Frosts letter they always struck me as a  quasi religious sort of group with their main goal being to preserve as much of their 'design' as they could in the Cosmere.

 I have similar theory. We know that magic systems did exist before the shattering but I think that these systems were a lot weaker because Adonalsium  Limited what could be done with it. This is why light weaving on oshar is so much stronger than light weaving on hoid's birth planet.  I think  Stop in His control over investiture was th motivation for the shattering.  I think though that Frost now regret this And things that anyone above a certain power limit should separate themselves and not get  involved  With conflicts in order to prevent stuff like what happened to the human planet in the Rosharen system. 

[DiePie]

I assumed that they were non-interventionist because they were more of a scientific/research organization, doing science for science's sake. They don't like to take part in conflicts because choosing a side would sort of go against their stated goal.

[cometaryorbit]

On 3/6/2022 at 9:38 AM, DiePie said:

I assumed that they were non-interventionist because they were more of a scientific/research organization, doing science for science's sake. They don't like to take part in conflicts because choosing a side would sort of go against their stated goal.

That makes a lot of sense - observe while trying to minimally change the things observed.