Shard question

[HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES he/him]

I was wondering about the shardic terminology. they all have names like shards,splinters,slivers which seem to indicate some kind of gemstone would this mean adonalsium was a gemstone? Do we see shards themselves physically? Could you steal a shard from the owner like you could a physical object?

[That1Cellist he/him]

I'm pretty sure shards reside in the spiritual realm. That's where the investiture comes from, anyway. Things like location and time don't really matter there, just like they don't matter for shards. this is of course, unless something weird happens like with the Dor. Still, I don't think investiture can be stolen like that. It just doesn't manifest that way. I guess if you had an object that was invested to the level of a shard, it could be stolen, but that has other problems, such as that object becoming sentient. I don't think we know enough about Adonalsium yet to really speculate with any evidence.

[HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES he/him]

i get that but my problem is that we Do see physical dawnshards and the stuff in secret history with the preservation connecting device. We also do sometimes see some investiture manifested physically. 

[Quantus he/him]

 

The actual Shards are literally 1/16th of all creation in the Cosmere.  Matter, Energy, and Investiture are all different states of the same thing, and in the Cosmere it all emanates from the Spiritual Realm where it's only Investiture and Space/Time barely exist and mostly dont matter.  So the infinite Shard is literally 1/16th of everything that is. 

The Vessels of those shards (also called Shards, kinda like The Crown can be the object, the office, or the person) are the inheritors and masters of their 16th of Everything, but while they are wildly expanded they are still themselves Finite, so they cannot access and control all of their 1/16th at a time, limited mostly by their perception as far as I can tell.

Slivers are Super-Savants, former vessels (or others) who have held so much of a Shards Power that it permanently changed their Spiritweb (per WOB it's like a deflated balloon that's been stretched out).

Splinters are pieces of a Shard that were carved off for some reason.  It can be a granted chunk of power like the Divine Breaths or Honorblades, or a chunk that has gained Sentience like a Spren or Seon. 

Dawnshards are something weird that predate the Shattering, and I think are Splinters that Adonalsium created to empower someone or something. But semantically they are like the shards where the term refers to both the ball of Power and the person that holds it.  The one we've seen was Invested in a separate physical mural in a way that closely resembled a Breath, but didnt have a native physical form.  

[Treamayne]

On 8/13/2022 at 10:21 AM, HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES said:

 Could you steal a shard from the owner like you could a physical object?

Also, we see two instances of something like this:

1. Vin was already "taking" Preservation's Shard from Kelsier when he voluntarily gave it up so she could claim it - mostly because he was a poor vessel for it anyway
2. Taravangian killed Rayse and took (stole) the Odium Shard

So, I would guess the answer would be "in specific circumstances" and "not through physical theft of an object."