Human species page for Cosmere

[lacrossedeamon]

This should be a thing right?

[Treamayne]

4 hours ago, lacrossedeamon said:

This should be a thing right?

Maybe? However, I can't see it having much information besides "We Don't Know". . . 

• Yolenians - Created by Adonalsium (? - maybe)
• Scadrians - Created by Preservation and Ruin
  • SoScads - Moved by Rashek (assuming the evolutionary changes don't make them a new species)
• Selish - Unknown if they Worldhopped or were created there
• Ashynites - Unknown if they Worldhopped or were created there
  • Rosharans - Worldhopped from Ashyn, but unknown how they got to Ashyn
• Nalthians - Unknown if they Worldhopped or were created there
• Threnodites - Unknown if they Worldhopped or were created there
  • Beaconites - Worldhopped from Threnody
• Komashians - Unknown if they Worldhopped or were created there
• Drominadians - Unknown if they Worldhopped or were created there
• Taldainians - Unknown if they Worldhopped or were created there
• Lumarians - Unknown if they Worldhopped or were created there
• Eggheads - Residents of Silverlight - Worldhoppers or descendants of Worldhoppers

As far as nationalities and part-humans (Horneaters, etc.) - all of that is on the specific Shardworld's page (as applies).

Edited April 17 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood]

2 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Eggheads

I'm a big fan.

[Treamayne]

8 minutes ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

2 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Eggheads

I'm a big fan.

Well, Silverlighters/Silverlitians/Silverlish all sounded wrong, so I figured if the big draw of Silverlight was the University, then the moniker would fit. . .

[Duxredux]

Well... for many things we know about Cosmere humans it feels like they would largely be stubs leading into other topics because many of the relevant points emphasize how they are different or distinct from IRL humans. Cosmere humans are not exactly like IRL humans and we can explain those distinctions beyond ancestry, though as we learn things, we can certainly try to fill out what @Treamayne laid out for heritages.

Things we know:

• Humans were present before the Shattering on Yolen. Most if not all humans seen are descended from or designed off of the Yolish template. (link into Yolen and the Shattering, source M:SH)
• Humans have innate Investiture not found in IRL humans and can accumulate greater levels of innate Investiture into descendants developing on highly Invested planets. The example is how Rosharans with ambient Stormlight are much less susceptible to diseases when compared to the IRL counterpart. (link into Investiture?, WoB on common cold spreading to Roshar, I think)
• Humans, like most things, exist within the Three Realms, the Physical Realm, Cognitive Realm, and Spiritual Realm. When a human dies, ties to the PR are broken, the mind persist for a short time in the CR before passing into The Beyond unless extenuating circumstances intervene. (link into Realmatic Theory, source M:SH)
  • The cognitive aspect of an immediately deceased human can be used as a template for Investiture to create a Cognitive Shadow, see Cognitive Shadows, Returned, Shades, etc.
• All humans have different and distinctly unique Spiritual Identities, including identical twins. This is intrinsic to birth in the Cosmere. As part of this, humans have lifespan tied to their spiritual aspect, as we see when the attribute of Age is altered by feruchemy. This Age dictates when a person should naturally decay or die with TLR aging dramatically due to a forcibly altered Spiritual Age that snapped back when he lost his Atiumminds. (link into Identity, feruchemy, or maybe spiritwebs, WoB on mechanism of death of TLR. A bit of speculation, but there's some disturbing ramifications surrounding the mechanism of death for TLR)
• Humans carry sDNA in addition to typical DNA. Invested attributes are passed on via sDNA that obeys different rules from the standard, including Allomancy, Feruchemy, Sand Mastery, and probably whatever makes a Threnodite become a Shade. (link into sDNA if we have a page for it or whatever is closest)
• Humans can naturally and natively become vessels of Shards of Adonalsium. They also can bond Cognitive beings of Investiture via the Nahel Bond such as spren or Seons gaining access to Invested abilities. (link into Shards, Nahel Bond)
• Humans can interbreed with nonhumans creating hybrid progeny capable of procreation, notably the Horneaters and Herdazians of Roshar have both Human and Singer ancestry. (I don't know if we have any other confirmed cases, be it dragons who have human forms or Sho Del, WoB on Horneater and Herdazian heritage)
• For some reason, dragons spend a portion of their lives in the form of a human.  (link to dragon page
• etc. There's probably more that could go here, but what we have here is longer than some pages.

I was just making a bullet point list without trying to format it for the Coppermind, but we can at least discuss if a compilation of this information is worth making a page for. It's not obvious at first glance, but Cosmere Humans are significantly different from IRL Humans in ways that are not necessarily intuitive or expected for someone new to the Cosmere particularly in how they interact with the magic and realmatics. Sorry I didn't grab any actual WoBs, but I'm just taking a break from a college final project to think about something easier.

Edited April 17 by Duxredux

[lacrossedeamon]

Well we have pages for the other sapients in the series and some of them we have less information than humans so to me it felt like a glaring absence.

[Chaos]

This was intentional initially. Maybe there's enough detail to put in, now, but I'm not convinced. It is perhaps because of my desire to not copy real life topics. It would be a pretty tricky article to write if we did choose to want it.

I feel like at least some of the differences that are listed in this topic are not special to humans, and so are maybe more appropriate on Investiture / Realmatic Theory pages. 

So anyway, this wasn't an oversight, it was intentional as we didn't really want to make one. We could reconsider.

[lacrossedeamon]

That's a very different design philosophy than I am used to but the wiki I am most active on, Assassin's Creed, is a very different franchise from the cosmere. While understandable I would still argue that humans should have a page in a similar way that iron has a page.

[lacrossedeamon]

How about a compromise for now and just a humans category page to at least fall under sapient beings and potentially under applicable [planet] lifeforms as well

[Starwatcher]

On 4/21/2024 at 4:22 AM, lacrossedeamon said:

While understandable I would still argue that humans should have a page in a similar way that iron has a page.

To be honest, the metals having pages is also a bit of an outlier, mostly driven by the fact that they're relevant (and have patterns) across multiple magic systems (compare to the Surges, which don't have individual articles because it all just goes on the Surgebinding page)

10 hours ago, lacrossedeamon said:

How about a compromise for now and just a humans category page to at least fall under sapient beings and potentially under applicable [planet] lifeforms as well

Hmm... as things become more interconnected, I could maybe see some utility in having a category for all humans in the cosmere. Just categorizing things by planet is going to start running into some trouble and potentially restructuring categories is something that's been on our radar.