Preservation's effect on Scadrial's humans

[ElfGift]

Way was the actual effect that Preservation had on the humans of Scadrial? Preservation gave a part of their power (Invested them?) To create life that can think and feel. That was the whole point of the bargain with Ruin. But some things I've seen imply the humans were around before the Shattering, certainly before Ruin and Preservation struck their bargain and created the Scadrians. 

Are humans from Scadrial somehow different from humans say from Roshar or Sel? If so, how?

 

I've been rereading Cosmere from the beginning and just finished Era 1, this has been on my mind.

[+robardin he/him]

10 hours ago, Dunkum said:

My understanding is that humans from Scadrial are based on Yolish humans, but were technically created by Ruin and Preservation. so they are basically the same as humans on Yolen were, but there is no actual ancestry there

Actually, this detail has crossed my mind before.

It's stated or implied a few times in Mistborn that Preservation and Ruin had to work together to create Scadrial and all the life on it ex nihilo, from nothing, because separately, their Intents would not allow for it. OK that makes sense - you can't Ruin what's not already there, nor Preserve it.

And the reason given for Preservation's "weakening" versus Ruin was not because of what he did to imprison Ruin, but because Preservation "gave of himself" just a bit more power into creating humanity on Scadrial - patterned after "that which we'd seen before", Yolen-based humans, which both Leras and Ati originally were - so that they'd exist not just physically, but spiritually, as given by the epigraph to Ch. 54 of The Hero of Ages (in the voice of Harmony, who ought to know):

Quote

Preservation's desire to create sentient life was what eventually broke the stalemate. In order to give mankind awareness and independent thought, Preservation knew that he would have to give up part of himself - his own soul - to dwell within mankind. This would leave him just a tiny bit weaker than his opposite, Ruin.

...Preservation got mankind, the only creations that had more Preservation than Ruin in them, rather than a balance. Independent life that could think and feel.

That certainly implies to me that had Preservation NOT given "a tiny bit" of himself more to Scadrian humans, that they would NOT have had "awareness and independent thought" - that is to say, had "souls". Or, read another way (perhaps more likely), that humans would not have been created on Scadrial at all!

For had Preservation not done so, Scadrial would not even have been at risk, as he would have been able to "cancel out" Ruin's attempts at destroying it. As Ruin also monologues to Vin in Ch. 76 of HoA,

Quote

I find it odd that he expended so much of himself to create you. Why would he weaken himself, eventually giving me the strength to destroy the world, simply to place human beings on his world? I know that others call his death to imprison me a sacrifice, that THAT wasn't the sacrifice. His sacrifice came much earlier. ...

He could only slow me. Forestall. Delay. Since the day we created you, there has been an imbalance. I was stronger. And he knew it.

Ergo, the "extra bit of Preservation" either (a) enabled the humans created on Scadrial to be more than soulless and mindless simulacra of Yolen-formed people, or (b) having independent thought/will is part and parcel of creating Yolenish humans at all, and also required that "extra bit".

Now, Scadrial is the only world we've seen (so far) that has actually been created, and peopled, by Shards of Adonalsium, rather than dating to before the Shattering. That would further imply that all Yolen humans were either created by Adonalsium - the way the singers on Roshar were, per linked WoBs stating that Roshar was specifically crafted by Adonalsium and that the singers were an integral part of that designed ecosystem - or, in fact, pre-dated Adonalsium!

If creating humans from nothing required "a bit more Preservation than Ruin", which represented two of sixteen Shards of Adonalsium, what does that imply about all other humans? Do they all have "a bit extra" of one or more of the Shardic essences to throw them out of balance?

Perhaps it's moot because the Shattering happened after the creation of humans - in fact, was largely perpetrated by Yolenish humans, on Yolen. So each Shard is 1/16 of whatever power Adonalsium retained AFTER imparting consciousness to mankind and singers and other sentient species/races in the Cosmere.

But would it matter for Scadrians to have an admixture of just Preservation and Ruin, slightly tilted to Preservation, while all other humans have some "pre-Shattering blend of Spiritual Investiture"?

I mean yes, we know this is the reason that Preservation/Ruin/Harmony can hear thoughts/project thoughts into Scadrians, and that it somehow forms the Spirtual Connection basis for enabling Allomancy and Feruchemy (Hemalurgy is actually usable anywhere and by anyone in the Cosmere who knows the right metals and binding points). But in terms of their "essential nature"?

Edited May 22, 2023 by robardin

[Dunkum he/him]

My understanding is that humans from Scadrial are based on Yolish humans, but were technically created by Ruin and Preservation. so they are basically the same as humans on Yolen were, but there is no actual ancestry there

[Argenti he/him]

Yup, they were crafted by shards instead of moving and that's really it. Their genetics have been messed with a couple of times but Sazed has reverted most of these.

[alder24]

11 hours ago, ElfGift said:

Way was the actual effect that Preservation had on the humans of Scadrial? Preservation gave a part of their power (Invested them?) To create life that can think and feel. That was the whole point of the bargain with Ruin. But some things I've seen imply the humans were around before the Shattering, certainly before Ruin and Preservation struck their bargain and created the Scadrians. 

Are humans from Scadrial somehow different from humans say from Roshar or Sel? If so, how?

 

I've been rereading Cosmere from the beginning and just finished Era 1, this has been on my mind.

Humans existed in Cosmere before Preservation and Ruin made the deal, before Preservation and Ruin even existed - that's how they knew what they should look like. In that case they are almost the same as everywhere else. But they're invested in a different way. In most of the places in Cosmere humans are invested with a mix of 16 different Shards, in some places people's mix of investiture has one dominant investiture of just one or two Shards, but because they've come from Yolen (where the first humans existed), they are still a mix of 16 Shards.

Not on Scadrial. Here they're invested only with Preservation's and Ruin investiture. That gives a big advantage to Preservation and Ruin in influencing Scadrians. They can place thoughts in their mind, hear them and talk to them, pull on their emotions, push them in the direction they want etc, something that most Shards can't do with their people, because they didn't create them.

Another big difference is that all Scadirians have a "seed" of metalic arts in their soul, which no other people in Cosmere have, granted there are other invested arts on different planets, most are not genetically transferable (Breath are to some degree, and that's mostly it, on Roshar you need to bond a spren, on Sel you need to be born in certain area, or live there long enough to consider this area your home). 

The other, more minor difference, connected to a "seed" of metallic arts, is innate investiture, investiture that invests people, but is more like an additional part of their soul. On Scadrial that's the Preservation's fragment within every person, that extra bit of Preservation in every Scadrian invests them a bit more that people from other planets are invested. On Nalthis innate investiture is in the form of Breaths. Because of that Scadrians are a bit more invested than people anywhere else (in most cases). And this gives them better immunity to illnesses and some other minor things.

And I think that is mostly it. 

Spoiler

zas678 (paraphrased)

Can Odium influence people the same way that Ruin can?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well, you see, the kandra and the koloss have a "hole" in them that allows Ruin to come in and take over. The Parshendi naturally are protected from this, but when they expose themselves to the storms, and the spren come in, many of these spren have that kind of "hole" in them, and that's what allows Odium to take control of them.

zas678 (paraphrased)

No, I'm talking about how Ruin was able to push people, place things in their minds, stuff like that. Can Odium do the same thing?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well, Odium wasn't around when those people were created, so it's a little different for him than Ruin. So if he influences people in that way, it's through the Unmade.

Orem signing 2014 (Dec. 6, 2014)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

In Mistborn, Ruin could talk to you when you were Hemalurgically spiked, and Preservation could hear you. Do other Shards have different abilities?

Brandon Sanderson

It varies, but yes. But that was related to the way they created people.

Kraków signing (March 21, 2017)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Can Odium or any other [Shards] edit text like Ruin could? ...Or is that a special Ruin thing.  

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible for others as well. The trick about it is, [Ruin] saturated everything on Scadrial in a way that not all Shards saturate their planets.  

Questioner

Okay, what do you mean "saturate"?

Brandon Sanderson

Creating it, does that make sense? And so this was partially an aspect of the fact that everything on that planet, every atom was, y'know, had him in it... I mean he didn't create the atoms, let's say that, but yeah... The whole planet's existence and particularly the people on it are [Ruin], attuned to [Ruin].

Shadows of Self London UK signing (Oct. 19, 2015)

 

Spoiler

Comatose

So here's my last question. If there ARE people on the other side of the world, did Vin kill them all by placing the sun on their side, or do they have they're own Ruin/Preservation battle going on over there as well? Do they also have allomancy feruchemy and hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson

No, they're not dead. Yes, Rashek was aware of them. In fact, he placed them there as a reserve. I knew he wanted a 'control' group of people in case his changes to genetics ended with the race being in serious trouble. All I'll say is that he found a way other than changing them genetically to help them survive in the world he created. And since they were created by Ruin and Preservation, they have the seeds of the Three Metallic Arts in them—though without anyone among them having burned Lerasium, Allomancers would have been very rare in their population and full Mistborn unheard of.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

 

[Dunkum he/him]

1 hour ago, Argenti said:

Yup, they were crafted by shards instead of moving and that's really it. Their genetics have been messed with a couple of times but Sazed has reverted most of these.

right, I thought about getting into that, but got side-tracked. in terms of the original population of the planet, they are basically the same as other humans. the current population is a bit different due to the stuff that is described in the first mistborn trilogy

Edited May 22, 2023 by Dunkum