The Core

[Eahlendell]

Hey guys, I loved this book from Brandon and I love the depth that this book provided.

As this book leads up to its end we find out that for the sunlight to restore the us heart it requires some investiture. This investiture forms the resistance needed for the sunheart to interact with investiture from the sunlight.

We learn as we go on that the core of the planet acts like the filament in an incandescent light bulb which generates huge amounts of heat. 
 

I would like to propose that what we are seeing here is the work of two separate shards. One shard that has invested the Sun and another that has invested the planet. I am starting to wonder if the planet is the tenement of a dead shard. A piece if it’s power down somewhere in the core. If the sunhearts require there to be some form of resistance to generate a new charge. This would mean that the planet must contain some investiture that is different to the stars. It would also have to be a source that is either renewable or robust enough to maintain this equilibrium with the star over time.

In my mind I also feel there may be a way to rule out which shard has invested the sun. We know that there needs to be some form of resistance to enable the sunhearts, we know that a Thaylen Sunheart (Cultivation / Honor ) creates a smaller heart than say a Threnodite (Ambition). If this sun was invested by Ambition for example would there be any resistance between that and a soul of a threnodite?

What do you think? Is there anything special at the centre.

 

[ConfusionSpren]

I think I remember that it was confirmed that there are no shards on the planet. They could still be in the sun, but Ambition was splintered and I think that Odium would have destroyed any places where Ambition was invested. There is definitely an invested core in the planet. We also know that Invested metal returns to the place it is invested when destroyed, like in the pits of hathsin. That would let the invested metal remain at the planet's centre without shrinking. The planet also might just be shrinking, we don't know how long it has been there. Perhaps the planet was a trap like how Preservation trapped Ruin and the sun was created to burn away the Investiture before it can gain sentience.

Edit: There was no confirmation that the shards are not there. I imagine that it was either created as a sort of battery or as a place for a shard to hide. It could also be an experiment by Invention.

Edited October 17, 2023 by ConfusionSpren

[teknopathetic]

It seems like the core is actively charging itself since it actively pulls in a massive amount of energy and does not seem to release this energy anywhere we can see. To me that sounds like a created device, and that means either a shard or Adonalsium placed this artifact here.

What it is charging up to do is anyone's guess, but I think Ambition left a couple "ambitious" artifacts scattered around before she finally succumbed to her wounds. 

Edited October 17, 2023 by teknopathetic

[Treamayne]

3 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

It seems like the core is actively charging itself since it actively pulls in a massive amount of energy and does not seem to release this energy anywhere we can see. To me that sounds like a created device, and that means either a shard or Adonalsium placed this artifact here.

This implies that investiture/power is flowing from the sun (light) toward the planet/core. However, the scene with Nomad unaffected by light above the mountain peak would imply that the "completed circuit" is power flowing from the planetary core, not into the planet. 

 

[ConfusionSpren]

3 hours ago, Treamayne said:

This implies that investiture/power is flowing from the sun (light) toward the planet/core. However, the scene with Nomad unaffected by light above the mountain peak would imply that the "completed circuit" is power flowing from the planetary core, not into the planet. 

 

I think that the energy is flowing from the sun to the planet. It is said that the heat is generated by the atmosphere's resistance to conducting Investiture, and he was beyond the atmosphere. 

[Treamayne]

10 minutes ago, ConfusionSpren said:

I think that the energy is flowing from the sun to the planet. It is said that the heat is generated by the atmosphere's resistance to conducting Investiture, and he was beyond the atmosphere. 

This quote? (Ch 45)

Spoiler

“The sunhearts don’t recharge normally…” he said. “But the ground melts. People go aflame. Anything trapped between the sun and the core is like…like interference between two opposite electric poles.” He looked upward at the lights in the ceiling. Modern ones, but reminiscent of those from long ago.

“An incandescent bulb,” he whispered. “I thought of it earlier. It glows when current passes through the filament—but not because the filament is good at conducting. Rather the opposite. That filament resists and loses energy as heat and light. Radiating it. That’s what makes a light bulb work.

“Normal sunhearts…the Investiture just passes through them, doesn’t it? That’s why nothing happens if you leave a used one buried. But when they’re formed in the first place, it’s because a soul is resisting—causing the Investiture there to flare. Like the light of a light bulb. That’s what captures all that power and leaves behind a sunheart.”

The woman folded her arms on the table. “Yes,” she said. “Have you been intercepting our communications? Is that why you know this?”

“How do you do it?” he asked, ignoring her question. “How do you recharge them? Wait. You put something else into them, something to be burned away by the sunlight? That temporarily blocks the circuit—or offers resistance to it.”

“Some heat from a local works,” she said, studying him. “We have a few captives. They prime the sunhearts with a little of their heat, then we leave the sunhearts out. It works.

Duh me. I knew of the quote, but wasn't thinking of the "atmosphere" as "something" - since it was focusing on objects in the quote. . . Still begs the question of how close to the "core" you have to be to complete a circuit, since his "city" was scraping the top of the mountain - so atmosphere or not, there was "something" between the sunlight and the surface.

So, atmosphere is involved - or some other factor of proximity should be required.

[Eahlendell]

Does anyone have an inclination of what all this investiture is being used for or stored for. The planet is constantly charging and giving off heat as a byproduct.

I also feel we didn’t get a good enough and Kerr about the mountains. There is something more going on in them hills .

[ConfusionSpren]

10 hours ago, Eahlendell said:

Does anyone have an inclination of what all this investiture is being used for or stored for. The planet is constantly charging and giving off heat as a byproduct.

I also feel we didn’t get a good enough and Kerr about the mountains. There is something more going on in them hills .

I don’t think the planet is charging. I think that there might be two contesting shard’s  investiture, one invested in the planet and one in the sun. The different investitures might react and produce heat when they are pushed together. We know that something is drawing the heat from the sun into the core and letting the ground harden (almost definitely god metal). Perhaps the god metal uses the heat to recharge and then uses that energy to push back the other investiture. The sun might be Autonomy’s and I have no idea what the planet would be. I think that I might just be an experiment by invention.

 

Edit: It seems like I do think it is charging. After reading my post I now agree. I think it is charging off of the heat.

Edited October 19, 2023 by ConfusionSpren

[Elder]

On 10/17/2023 at 10:05 AM, ConfusionSpren said:

I think I remember that it was confirmed that there are no shards on the planet. They could still be in the sun, but Ambition was splintered and I think that Odium would have destroyed any places where Ambition was invested. There is definitely an invested core in the planet. We also know that Invested metal returns to the place it is invested when destroyed, like in the pits of hathsin. That would let the invested metal remain at the planet's centre without shrinking. The planet also might just be shrinking, we don't know how long it has been there. Perhaps the planet was a trap like how Preservation trapped Ruin and the sun was created to burn away the Investiture before it can gain sentience.

Edit: There was no confirmation that the shards are not there. I imagine that it was either created as a sort of battery or as a place for a shard to hide. It could also be an experiment by Invention.

There’s No Perpendicularity.  That’s a decent indicator, though not necessarily a decisive one.

I’m trying to figure out what the intent of the local investiture is.  I haven’t yet come to any conclusions.