being born in roshar is unfair

[Quantus he/him]

5 hours ago, alder24 said:

I think the Well of Ascension is unique because it's more than some ordinary perpendicularity. It's where Ruin's mind was imprisoned by Preservation's mind, and the Well was a key to that power. The Well was part of that prison.

I tend to agree.  What Im not clear on is if it was something specific to the Well itself, some property of that perpendicularity that Preservation added as part of the Prison Plan, or if it was just side effect and was a normal Shardpool belonging to a Shard who's Mind happened to be actively blocked and imprisoned. In other words, was the Well special, or was it just the fact that the Shard was too Weakened & Distracted to stop it from being absorbed and used. 

If it's the former, then that capability ended with Era1.  If it's the latter, then any Unattended Shardpool could become fair game, including Sel's.  And it means you could probably try it with Cultivation's or Endowment's pool but they're likely to simply Stop You with the full weight of the Shard still in the SR.  

 

 

[Frustration]

5 hours ago, Quantus said:

Yeah, I just meant "Jacked" as in plugged directly into a Spiritual Realm Power Source.  This is limited to Allomancers, Aetherbound (full disclosure I have not ready tress yet), and Lift.  These are the only forms of Investiture that I can think of where the user can pull Investiture directly from the Spiritual realm instead of needing a pre-imported form like Stormlight or Breaths or White Sand, or even Dor in it's own way.  I was sort of discounting Lift and the Aetherbound because they (I assume?) need to ingest significant volumes of food or water to get their Investiture, enough to be mechanically limited when compared to the metal-to-Investiture density of allomancy.

Not really, they need to drink more water, but they aren't chugging gallons or anything.

And Bondsmiths can draw from the Spiritual realm without any resource cost other than their own energy.

[Quantus he/him]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Not really, they need to drink more water, but they aren't chugging gallons or anything.

And Bondsmiths can draw from the Spiritual realm without any resource cost other than their own energy.

Thats true Re. ondsmiths but they are Sharply limited in two ways: The main one is that there will only even be a small handful of them (3 now, I expect 6 total) compared to the entire allomantic population of Scadrial (including any migrating decendant elswhere), but also the Godspren's unique Physical natures might preven them from Ever leaving Roshar, even if the Connectio restraint is lifted for the average Spren; at least in the case of the Stormfather and Sibling they may be entirely incapable of leaving Roshar without physically taking the Tower or Highstorm itself with them.  

[Frustration]

2 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Thats true Re. ondsmiths but they are Sharply limited in two ways: The main one is that there will only even be a small handful of them (3 now, I expect 6 total) compared to the entire allomantic population of Scadrial (including any migrating decendant elswhere), but also the Godspren's unique Physical natures might preven them from Ever leaving Roshar, even if the Connectio restraint is lifted for the average Spren; at least in the case of the Stormfather and Sibling they may be entirely incapable of leaving Roshar without physically taking the Tower or Highstorm itself with them.  

Alright I'll address this in two points:

1. We have proven that the ability to acquire investiture without preexisting investiture is not unique to allomancy, so we can hopefully close that discussion.
2. While the spren cannot leave Roshar, their bondsmiths can, or well the Stormfather's bondsmith can

Spoiler

Questioner

Does the spren have to be present for a Surgebinder to have their abilities? Because with Dalinar, the Stormfather won’t be around all the time...

Brandon Sanderson

Good Question! Fortunately, the Stormfather is a little more omnipresent. Normally you’re gonna have to have your spren close, but the Stormfather absorbed... is basically Honor’s Cognitive Shadow, which means he’s got a connection to a lot of different things, so he’s not bound by a lot of the rules that others are.

Shadows of Self San Francisco signing (Oct. 9, 2015)

 

[Quantus he/him]

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

Alright I'll address this in two points:

1. We have proven that the ability to acquire investiture without preexisting investiture is not unique to allomancy, so we can hopefully close that discussion.

I mean, I was still enjoying the discussion of the relative capabilities of the planets, but if you're bored we can keep going without you.  

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

1. While the spren cannot leave Roshar, their bondsmiths can, or well the Stormfather's bondsmith can

  Hide contents

Questioner

Does the spren have to be present for a Surgebinder to have their abilities? Because with Dalinar, the Stormfather won’t be around all the time...

Brandon Sanderson

Good Question! Fortunately, the Stormfather is a little more omnipresent. Normally you’re gonna have to have your spren close, but the Stormfather absorbed... is basically Honor’s Cognitive Shadow, which means he’s got a connection to a lot of different things, so he’s not bound by a lot of the rules that others are.

Shadows of Self San Francisco signing (Oct. 9, 2015)

 

That's one interpretation, but since it never mentions Roshar or leaving the planetary system, it's equally possible that WOB is just saying that the Stormfather's Bondsmith doesn't have to be physically in or near the Highstorm to access all their powers where a normal radiant would need their spren close by.    

[Frustration]

3 minutes ago, Quantus said:

I mean, I was still enjoying the discussion of the relative capabilities of the planets, but if you're bored we can keep going without you.  

I don't mind the comparison at all, in fact I find it quite invigorating.

I do however feel that it is impossible to argue that allomancy is unique in that it can get investiture without a preexisting source.

[Quantus he/him]

15 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I don't mind the comparison at all, in fact I find it quite invigorating.

I do however feel that it is impossible to argue that allomancy is unique in that it can get investiture without a preexisting source.

Ah, you may have missed a few posts back there, I conceded that there were others options besides Allomancy a little while ago. 

Aethers can do it apparently but are weird, but I havent read Tress to yet so Im missing most of the data (and forgot them entirely in my first post).

Lift can do it, uniquely of Rosharans, and possible never to be repeated.

Sandmasters dont actually use Water or any Non-Invested material to get Investiture, they have a Magic Sun locally that charges a special Investiture Sand Storage, the sand is like gems and the Water's role is closer to the role of Color in Awakening (I think?). 

Surgebinding and Awakening both require the Investiture to be there already, in most cases, except that... 

Bondsmiths can do it but they will always be limited to single-digit numbers so that leaves rosharans huddled around a very limited set of Investiture Nodes (or Brokers, depending on the Bondsmith's personality); we'll have to see if they can produce enough to provide for an entire Space-fairing population.

Elantrians can sort of Do it with Connection tricks back to the Dor if that counts, and most of the Dor systems can probably duplicate it as well, but they may or may not have access to any SR Investiture at all.

So as far as future generations are concerns, I think Scadrians will always be the "Richest"(?) in terms of Investiture abundance while off-world by a wide margin since a large chunk of their population can do it naturally, and we've already seen them mechanize it with Medallions to give to the rest.  At least some of the Aethers can probably match them but I dont really know their limits or capabilities to theorize.  Bondsmiths can do it but there will never be very many of them, all but maybe one of them will face barriers to leaving the planet anyway, and we'll just have to wait and see if the Perpendicularity is something that Fabrial Tech can achieve with a more abundant type of Spren.  

[Frustration]

9 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Ah, you may have missed a few posts back there, I conceded that there were others options besides Allomancy a little while ago. 

Aethers can do it apparently but are weird, but I havent read Tress to yet so Im missing most of the data (and forgot them entirely in my first post).

Lift can do it, uniquely of Rosharans, and possible never to be repeated.

Sandmasters dont actually use Water or any Non-Invested material to get Investiture, they have a Magic Sun locally that charges a special Investiture Sand Storage, the sand is like gems and the Water's role is closer to the role of Color in Awakening (I think?). 

Surgebinding and Awakening both require the Investiture to be there already, in most cases, except that... 

Bondsmiths can do it but they will always be limited to single-digit numbers so that leaves rosharans huddled around a very limited set of Investiture Nodes (or Brokers, depending on the Bondsmith's personality); we'll have to see if they can produce enough to provide for an entire Space-fairing population.

Elantrians can sort of Do it with Connection tricks back to the Dor if that counts, and most of the Dor systems can probably duplicate it as well, but they may or may not have access to any SR Investiture at all.

So as far as future generations are concerns, I think Scadrians will always be the "Richest"(?) in terms of Investiture abundance while off-world by a wide margin since a large chunk of their population can do it naturally, and we've already seen them mechanize it with Medallions to give to the rest.  At least some of the Aethers can probably match them but I dont really know their limits or capabilities to theorize.  Bondsmiths can do it but there will never be very many of them, all but maybe one of them will face barriers to leaving the planet anyway, and we'll just have to wait and see if the Perpendicularity is something that Fabrial Tech can achieve with a more abundant type of Spren.  

Ah, my apologies.

 

Medallions can only do feruchemy, not Allomancy.

And I would say the aethers can pretty easily match them in numbers considering how low Scadrial's population is.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Frustration

[Quantus he/him]

3 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Medallions can only do feruchemy, not Allomancy.

We've seen the one that can Store and Grant Allomantic abilities as well, so Im generally assuming they'll eventually solve whatever scientific hurdle there is on Allomancy medallions, same as I assume they'll eventually solve the Identity/Compounding issue they currently face with Medallions in era2.

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, Quantus said:

We've seen the one that can Store and Grant Allomantic abilities as well, so Im generally assuming they'll eventually solve whatever scientific hurdle there is on Allomancy medallions, same as I assume they'll eventually solve the Identity/Compounding issue they currently face with Medallions in era2.

Possibly, but I doubt it, namely because it gives standard Nicrosilminds something that medallions can't do.

[Forts Board]

As a short person, i want to point out that being born on Roshar does give you a cool height advantage. 

*sigh*