Can Endowment not Endow?

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

Can Endowment choose not to give a Nalthian a Breath when they are born? Or is that beyond her control?

Just curious for thoughts.

[Quantus he/him]

Generally no, the Magic becomes part of the Physics of the cosmere so its a lot easier to just smite them:

 

 

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RandyD

Can a Shard just--like, say someone is using their magic system--can they stop the power from them being able to use it?

Brandon Sanderson

No, that's a bit like stopping the laws of physics. So, while they can circumvent laws of physics and things like that, but if you wanted to stop someone from using magic, smiting them would be the efficient way of making that happen, if you are capable of it in the system.

Skyward Seattle signing (Nov. 10, 2018)

 

 

[+Invocation]

7 hours ago, Quantus said:

Generally no, the Magic becomes part of the Physics of the cosmere so its a lot easier to just smite them:

Endowment: This child...does not vibe with the universe. ZAP

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

So if overpopulation occurs on Nalthis, Endowment will eventually go Old Testament to not lose too much power?

[Quantus he/him]

9 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

So if overpopulation occurs on Nalthis, Endowment will eventually go Old Testament to not lose too much power?

If she wanted, and she's apparently a little erratic overall.  But its also not a practical concern:

 

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emailanimal

From a very recent signing, we have this new Word of Brandon...

chasmfriend's son: Is there a finite amount of Investiture?

Brandon: Yes.

chasmfriend's son: So is Nightblood consuming it?

Brandon: Yes. Very, very slowly.

This worries me somewhat because of the following observation.

Nightblood consumes Breath (and other Investiture, but let's limit ourselves to Breath for a second).

Every person on Nalthis is born with one Breath.

Populations tend to grow. Which means that under normal rules of demographics, population of Nalthis should keep increasing.

This in turn means that under normal circumstances the number of people with Breath on Nalthis should be growing.

I can see the following possible explanations to this:

1. Endowment can give Breath to many more people than are currently living on Nalthis. So, the exponential population growth has not yet reached the level at which Endowment's ability to award a Breath to each Nalthis-born human is seriously challenged. When it happens though, things will not go well.

2. There is some built-in mechanism controlling population growth on Nalthis, making certain that the population stays within the limits. Nightblood's consumption of Breath makes these limits smaller, and overall may lead to Endowment's inability to grant Breath to Nalthis-born, but not for a while (essentially, Endowment controls population trends at she sees fit).

Thoughts?

Brandon Sanderson

Just as a point you should understand, the amount of MATTER in the cosmere is finite too. As is the amount of energy.

Worrying that Endowment will run out of Breaths to give is a little like worrying that the amount of carbon on Earth will run out because people keep being born.

uchoo786

So just for clarification, once Nightblood consumes investiture, that investiture gets recycled? That's what I've always assumed. That it enters the cognitive/spiritual realm?

Brandon Sanderson

The investiture he consumes is not gone forever--it's not leaving the system, so to speak.

General Reddit 2015 (Dec. 14, 2015)

 

 

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

3 minutes ago, Quantus said:

If she wanted, and she's apparently a little erratic overall.

That sounds concerning.

3 minutes ago, Quantus said:

But its also not a practical concern

Ah, I forgot about that.

So I suppose that it probably won't become a concern, at least probably not until space age stuff and Nalthis's population reaches the trillions or something.

[Quantus he/him]

15 minutes ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

That sounds concerning.

Ah, I forgot about that.

So I suppose that it probably won't become a concern, at least probably not until space age stuff and Nalthis's population reaches the trillions or something.

Honestly Im not even sure that's would be an issue, at least for normal breaths.  If it's now just a natural part of the Cosmere like gravity, then I think the Investiture flows directly from the actually Infinite Spiritual Realm 1/16th so it doesnt take any intervention on Endowments part (beyond living on the planet) or any of her resources.  The Returned, on the other hand, are a conscious Slivering and more direct Endowment of her Power so if somehow that process where coopted I think you could probably over-populate Returned to eventually Shatter her (in the Death by 1000 Cuts version of Shattering).  

[Frustration he/him]

On 9/8/2022 at 6:53 AM, JustQuestin2004 said:

So I suppose that it probably won't become a concern, at least probably not until space age stuff and Nalthis's population reaches the trillions or something.

It would need to be in the hundreds of decillions before it ever became an issue, and even then it might not.