scientificmotif Posted December 5, 2024 Posted December 5, 2024 I was wondering, "How much energy do the Shards really have? What's the upper limit?" And I thought of a Shardic feat more impressive than moving Scadrial around like a ping-pong ball or Ati's implied destruction of Scadrial if he won. Creating Scadrial. The earth's mass is around 5.97*10^24 kilograms. The earth's gravitational binding energy is ~ 2.49*10^32 Joules (249 Nonillion) The energy if you were to convert 100% of the Earth's mass into energy would be ~5.36*10^41 Joules. (536 Duodecillion) Obviously, nobody knows what that really means. I'll put it like this: The gravitational binding energy of the Sun is about 6.9*10^41 joules. (690 Duodecillion) So creating the Earth is a feat nearly equivalent in energy to destroying the sun. (In Alternatively, that amount of energy could destroy ~ 2237500000 or 2.2375 billion Earths. Scadrial is kind of an earth stand-in, so this should be a rather good estimation for the energy required creation of Scadrial as well. Since the Investiture required to create Scadrial is, y'know, bound up in Scadrial, this Investiture shouldn't return to the two Shards unless they destroyed Scadrial. Yet Odium is still scared of Spoiler Harmony. At minimum their combined power is in the same ball-park as Odium's power. Obviously, Odium invested into the Rosharan system, but it should be a drop in the ocean compared to his power. So the Preservation and Ruin Shards should be at bare minimum half power after Investing Scadrial, meaning the full Investiture of a Shard should be estimated at ~1.94*10^25 kg if converted to mass and ~1.38*10^42 joules. At least. (1.38 Tredecillion) Note that they couldn't have taken matter from somewhere instead of creating it from scratch , since Sazed states that Quote "Instead of being composed of half Ruin and half Preservation—as, say, a rock would be—atium was completely of Ruin." as opposed to Adonalsium, who would create worlds presumably with equal amounts of Investiture of each Intent, or something. Do with this useless information what you will. 1
alder24 Posted December 6, 2024 Posted December 6, 2024 14 hours ago, scientificmotif said: I was wondering, "How much energy do the Shards really have? What's the upper limit?" Well, Shards hold basically an infinite amount of power, they are infinite, so there is no upper limit. Vessels however can't tap all of that, their mind isn't infinite (but it can be expanded) so they are limited. Investiture used to create Scadrial wasn't even the whole investiture available to Ruin and Preservation's minds, it was just a fraction of it - most of their investiture was thrown at each other, preventing them from acting at all. They still had way more power at their disposal. For a Shard, even the most violent events in the cosmos like supernova or killernova are usually nothing to them. Spoiler Questioner With Shards, are there any... limits? What can't they do? Besides being opposed by another Shard and their own intent? Brandon Sanderson It varies a lot. It varies based on experience and situation. They are not omnipotent, though the power is infinite. So that is the weird part that you get into. So, they are limited partially by their own limitations, and also the limitations imposed upon them by the situations they're in. Questioner Is there anything universal about all of them? Brandon Sanderson They all have bits of them in all of the cosmere, so that's universal. They all are bounded more by themselves than by the power itself. Skyward Chicago signing (Nov. 16, 2018) Spoiler Questioner For Adonalsium to create the universe, therefore he must have infinite power to create an infinitely sized universe. Therefore, infinity divided by sixteen is equal to infinity. Therefore, why don't the Shards have infinite power, which they clearly don't, because they can be killed? Brandon Sanderson The power can't be killed. The entity controlling the power can. Infinite power existing and being able to access the infinite power are different things, and a finite mind, even added to a very powerful sense of power, isn't necessarily able to tap all of that. Questioner What about Ruin and Preservation in Well of Ascension? We hear about Ruin using some of its power. Therefore, it must not have infinite power, because if you minus something from infinity, it's still infinity... Brandon Sanderson So, infinite power is changing forms. It's not going anywhere, right? So, the Investiture, the power, is becoming energy, which is doing work, which is being released back into the system. Nothing's growing or shrinking. It is simply changing forms, and potential energy is becoming kinetic. Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017) Spoiler Overlord Jebus Is all Investiture in the cosmere associated with a Shard? Brandon Sanderson Yes, well, okay. So this is a complicated one. *pauses* So, Investiture predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, all Investiture was from Adonalsium, all Investiture got assigned to one of the 16 Shards when Adonalsium was Shattered. Some of the Investiture was not on Yolen but location is irrelevant. So Investiture is related to Shards even on planets where none of the Shards are inhabiting. Overlord Jebus Are they aware of that Investiture? Brandon Sanderson That's part of the whole seeing into the infinite, being beyond even the power of a Shard. So, technically you could make the argument that Harmony could feel the sense of Preservation on every world in the cosmere, right? Because the building blocks of all life and creation are these things. Overlord Jebus So the Shard of Preservation embodies all preservation in the cosmere? Brandon Sanderson Yes but he just can't do that, right? Like, he's not infinite. The Vessels are not, even if their minds are enormously expanded by holding a Shard, they are not infinite. The Connection is all there in the Spiritual Realm. Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017) Spoiler Zas So what's up with the regeneration issue? With Shards? Because they only have so much power they can access at a certain time, but yet they still have more energy. So how does that work? Is it just they have so much power they can use at any given time? Brandon Sanderson What are you talking about? Like which shards? Zas Ruin and Preservation. Since we know the most about them. Brandon Sanderson Ruin and Preservation were a specific instance, because almost all their energy was thrown into resisting each other. Keep that in mind. Even after Preservation was only a shadow, basically all of it was "Let's keep Ruin from destroying the world." So they were polar opposites. Set in balance. But slightly unbalanced in a couple of ways, that eventually, that slight imbalance... They are a special case, because of that. Zas So then why are they hesitant to directly fuel Allomancy? Brandon Sanderson Why are they hesitant to? What do you mean by directly fuel Allomancy? Zas You mention in the Hero of Ages Q&A that they can directly fuel Allomancy, like Vin does with Elend, but it requires expending their energy in a way they are hesitant to do. Brandon Sanderson Because it imbalances them more. Does that make sense? Like, if you are putting your energy here, rather than fighting the other force, you give them an edge somewhere else by trying to gain an edge here. And you have to make sure that's really worth it. Imagine a chess game. Is it worth sacrificing my pawn here to expose myself over here? Orem signing (Sept. 22, 2012) Spoiler faragorn I recently saw on TV some info about some incredibly violent physical events in our universe, namely a collision between two black holes or a star quake on a Magnetar or Neutron Star. Is a shard holder sufficiently independent of the physical realm to be immune to even such mega-violent events, or would even one of them have a tough time shrugging it off? Brandon Sanderson Ruin and Preservation were, together, able to form a planet--so I'd say they could shrug that sort of thing off, depending on circumstances. Stormlight Three Update #6 (Feb. 5, 2017)
scientificmotif Posted December 6, 2024 Author Posted December 6, 2024 38 minutes ago, alder24 said: Well, Shards hold basically an infinite amount of power, they are infinite, so there is no upper limit. Vessels however can't tap all of that, their mind isn't infinite (but it can be expanded) so they are limited. Investiture used to create Scadrial wasn't even the whole investiture available to Ruin and Preservation's minds, it was just a fraction of it - most of their investiture was thrown at each other, preventing them from acting at all. They still had way more power at their disposal. For a Shard, even the most violent events in the cosmos like supernova or killernova are usually nothing to them. Ik, I was just looking at quantifiable feats that could be found in the books
Quantus he/him Posted December 6, 2024 Posted December 6, 2024 1 hour ago, scientificmotif said: Ik, I was just looking at quantifiable feats that could be found in the books We've been told we'll get there but he has teams still working on the math. To clarify, Magical Power is "Investiture", and in the Cosmere Investiture is a 3rd relativistic form of existence alongside Matter and Energy. So it will follow it's own pseudo-science rules and it's interaction with hard science is always going to be squishy, and in-world is likely to be very Subjective thanks to realmic Perception and Intent the Cognitive Realm having so much core presence. But the idea is that as the cosmere continues, the in-world cultures will develop more scientific mindsets and terms to describe Investiture to mirror RL development of Science, until the eventual Space Age of the Cosmere where characters will describe Investiture in quantified terms like BEU's (Breath Equivalent Units).
scientificmotif Posted December 6, 2024 Author Posted December 6, 2024 47 minutes ago, Quantus said: We've been told we'll get there but he has teams still working on the math. To clarify, Magical Power is "Investiture", and in the Cosmere Investiture is a 3rd relativistic form of existence alongside Matter and Energy. So it will follow it's own pseudo-science rules and it's interaction with hard science is always going to be squishy, and in-world is likely to be very Subjective thanks to realmic Perception and Intent the Cognitive Realm having so much core presence. But the idea is that as the cosmere continues, the in-world cultures will develop more scientific mindsets and terms to describe Investiture to mirror RL development of Science, until the eventual Space Age of the Cosmere where characters will describe Investiture in quantified terms like BEU's (Breath Equivalent Units). Yeah. I know. Quote So harmonium, we have a working theory that the reason it's so volatile is because some of the subatomic particles are associated with Ruin and some of them are [of?] Preservation. Is that true? Brandon Sanderson Yeah, that's basically what's going on is that it's creating a very unstable metal. Now, it is in the nature of the Cosmere not a compound but an element. But, you could call it a subatomic particle sure. It's very volatile because it is in nature spiritually in contrast with itself. And so though it is a single element rather than a compound, the spiritual nature is not happy as it is, and you can set up in the physical realm, through reactivity things that would just rip it apart and really your energy is not, your energy in that is actually pulling from the Spiritual realm, and so that's why it can be so much more explosive than even the chemistry would account for. Ironeyes So it's not that the subatomic particles are invested, it's that they have a spiritual identity which causes them to... Brandon Sanderson Yes. Ironeyes So then it's not creating an oxide because after the spiritual energy goes away from the explosion then it's a different metal, right? Brandon Sanderson Right, and... Ironeyes So you can't find harmonium oxide in the water afterwards. Brandon Sanderson Right right right right. Because it's not, it's, yeah. But you might be able to find something else, which is really relevant to the Cosmere. And to Scadrial. Ironeyes So the core elements, the core particles, having extra repulsion causes them to have a nuclear potential. Brandon Sanderson I would not call it nuclear because it's not the same exact thing. But there is a Cosmere equivalent. To - I mean, you could do nuclear power just the same in the Cosmere, but since we have a third kind of state of matter, right? Matter, energy, Investiture. You have a third axis that, you know, you can release energy from matter, you can release investiture from matter, and things like that. So it's similar, but following its own rules that I have a little more - that are controlled by me, right, that are built on this idea. So once you add *inaudible*, matter now can exist in this third state, you get all sorts of weird things, which one of the things that happens is, you can get an energy release in sort of the same way. A reaction, I'm not going to call it a nuclear reaction, but of the same vein. #ettmetal I was just finding how powerful the feat of creating Scadrial was, and therefore the bare minimum amount of Investiture (In terms of how much energy or mass it could be converted to, since we don't know how much a BEU is yet) Vessels can access.
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