The Potential for the Democritazation of Innate Investiture

[Gderu]

So far in the cosmere, we have seen that abilities that are fueled by Static Investiture are relativity common (on a cosmere wide scale). These abilities include Allomancy, Feruchemy, Surgebinding, Awakening, the various Selish magics, and more (note that Allomancy is fueled by Preservation's body, which is Static Investiture as it is not being used). I will refer to these as Innate Investiture. The abilities are of course very useful, but they are limited in use to a select few, and this will prove to be a problem going forward with the coming war of the Shards, which we have seen hints of in both RoW and TLM.  Each Shard will want their own armies to be the strongest, and to achieve this they will need the widespread use of magic.

An easy solution to this is for the Shards to simply alter their follower's spiritweb. Grant them powers, much like Sazed gave to Spook in HoA.

The problem with this approach is that it requires direct intervention on the Shard's part. We have seen hints that it could be dangerous for the Shards to reveal themselves like this, but beyond that it can also be blocked by other Shards, as we saw from Vin and Ati in HoA. So active intervention is out of the picture.

A viable alternative is to mechanically create machines that can use Static Investiture. These are being used more and more, as we see with the Malwish cubes and fabrials. That said, while these are undoubtedly useful, some tasks will simply be done better by people using Investiture instead of complex machinery.

Hemalurgy and Bondsmithing can also be means of gaining Innate Investiture, but they have been limited so far by the necessity of taking said Investiture from someone else.

This is where the revelation from TLM comes in - Hemalurgy might be able to be fueled by Static Investiture, and then rewritten so as to provide different abilities based on the metal. This is stated by Shai after overhearing the scientists in the bunker under Bilming.

This is HUGE. On Scadrial, where they don't have easy access to Investiture, this isn't very useful. They can spike multiple non-Allomancers in order to gain abilities, but this is a monstrous process and is not tenable on a large scale with so much human death.

This becomes useful when places with easy access to Static Investiture are considered - namely Roshar and Sel. If it were possible to take an Invested sphere, and use that Investiture in order to create a spike that could grant people Innate Investiture - this could allow for the easy democratization of Innate Investiture.

You could create Allomancers and Feruchemists for virtually no cost. Creating Surgebinders might be harder, as it requires a spren bond, but even that might be able to be fabricated using hemalurgy, seeing as really Allomancy is just a bond to Preservation. The means of aquiring Selish magics are relativity unknown to us as of yet, and so I will refrain from theorizing in that direction. The only Innate Investiture that will not be able to be fabricated in this way is probably Awakening, seeing as it is fueled by a person's own Investiture.

The potential here is huge, and this might also give Harmony/Discord an edge in a cosmere wide conflict.

[Wadders]

I found that a very interisting nugget. Would it just be a matter of sticking a spike in a pool of investiture with the correct intent to invest the spike and then performing an as yet undiscovered process to key it to a particular ability?

Would this power be able to be harvested from a perpendicularity?

I am also curious what was meant by purified Dor. Is it Dor striped of connection and intent? I have a feeling Kelsier may have sent agents to "aquire" the technique or the reserves from the Ire.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Wadders

[Gderu]

On 11/15/2022 at 6:56 PM, Wadders said:

I found that a very interisting nugget. Would it just be a matter of sticking a spike in a pool of investiture with the correct intent to invest the spike and then performing an as yet undiscovered process to key it to a particular ability?

Would this power be able to be harvested from a perpendicularity?

I am also curious what was meant by purified Dor. Is it Dor striped of connection and intent? I have a feeling Kelsier may have sent agents to "aquire" the technique or the reserves from the Ire.

Well I would assume the process is more difficult than simply sticking a spike in Dor, otherwise it would have already been discovered.

Yeah I think purified Dor is just connectionless. I wonder if there is a fundamental difference between purified Dor and say connectionless stormlight?