Innate BEU Clarifications

[Armadillo]

1) The average person in the Cosmere usually has about one BEU of innate Investiture. Drabs have less (but not nothing), and regular Nalthians have more. Does this mean that Drabs have “half a BEU,” average people have 1 BEU, and regular Nalthians have about “1.5 BEUs?” 

Yumi Spoilers:

Spoiler

2) Nomad says that the people on even “highly invested worlds” only have up to 3 BEUs… is he talking about Elantrians and Yoki-Hijo? Design says that Yumi is more invested than either Elantrians or Returned, but is that because she was technically a Cognitive Shadow/Nightmare?

 

Edited April 2, 2025 by Armadillo
Hiding spoilers, clarifications

[Treamayne]

19 hours ago, Armadillo said:

1) The average person in the Cosmere usually has about one BEU of innate Investiture. Drabs have less (but not nothing), and regular Nalthians have more. Does this mean that Drabs have “half a BEU,” average people have 1 BEU, and regular Nalthians have about “1.5 BEUs?” 

Yumi Spoilers:

  Hide contents

2) Nomad says that the people on even “highly invested worlds” only have up to 3 BEUs… is he talking about Elantrians and Yoki-Hijo? Design says that Yumi is more invested than either Elantrians or Returned, but is that because she was technically a Cognitive Shadow/Nightmare?

 

Unfortunately we don't have this information yet. . . mostly because Brandon is waiting to more fully explain BEUs in future books. TSM was simply a glimpse at how applying the scientific method to Cosmere Manifestations of Investiture (MoI) will change the terms used and how they are applied. The only current WoB on BEUs is:

Spoiler

Questioner

My question is about Investiture and measurement. I liked in Sunlit Man that they used BEUs as a standardized measure. Is this a cosmere-wide measure? Why do they suddenly start using BEUs as a measurement?

Brandon Sanderson

Like the real world, it's a little messier than people would like it.

What's that famous xkcd comic where someone's like, "Wow, there's 16 different measurement methods or archetypes. We should come up with one that unifies them all." And then there's another panel at the end, it's like, "Well, now there's 17 different..."

BEUs are used by some of the universities at Silverlight and are the most common standard for measurement, but not the only one, and there are dissenting opinions that don't like certain things about BEUs as a measurement. But I would say if you use BEU in most space age scholarly circles, they know what it is and have the constants handy to get between the measurements that they like to use and BEUs.

Dragonsteel Nexus 2024 (Dec. 5, 2024)

So, while we know that a Drab is below Cosmere average, and a Nalthian is above that average, we can guess 0.5 / 1 / 1.5 BEUs for Drab / Cosmere Average / Nalthian with a single breath - but that is not confirmed. It could just as easily be 0.75 / 1 / 1.75 (or any other fraction of 1, 1 , 1+ that fraction). And we can only guess that a measurement of 50 BEUs is roughly equivalent to Nalthian First heightening - but even that is not accurate, because not all breaths are equal. From the Warbreaker Annotations:

Spoiler

Annotation to Ch 3:

Quote

Lightsong Feeds on the Child

Why a child? It doesn’t much matter, truthfully. An adult, or even someone elderly, could provide a Breath that would keep a god alive.

But the Breaths of those who are aged aren’t as vigorous as those who are young. If Lightsong was given one of those to feed on, he’d survive for another week—but he wouldn’t feel as vibrant or alive as he does after feeding on the Child’s Breath.

The people of Hallandren are faithful. Even if Lightsong himself doesn’t believe, they do; and they want to provide the best for him. Hence, they use children. Old enough to know what they are doing, yet young enough to give a powerful, vibrant Breath to their god.

 

Hope that helps

Edited April 3, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Armadillo]

Ah so it's more based on vibes than I thought haha. I thought 1 Breath was equivalent between each person, that's interesting.

[+robardin he/him]

On 4/3/2025 at 3:19 PM, Armadillo said:

Ah so it's more based on vibes than I thought haha. I thought 1 Breath was equivalent between each person, that's interesting.

Yeah, I always imagined it like how vampires may view consuming blood from humans.

Sure all humans have blood, and bigger people have more blood due to volume, but there are also different blood types, and different vampires could have different preferences.

Edited April 16, 2025 by robardin

[Armadillo]

On 4/16/2025 at 8:15 AM, robardin said:

Yeah, I always imagined it like how vampires may view consuming blood from humans.

Sure all humans have blood, and bigger people have more blood due to volume, but there are also different blood types, and different vampires could have different preferences.

I love this haha... and the Far Side is a nice touch! Such a great comic.