Do Malwish or Scadrial find a way to subsidize Investiture with electricity?

[Sythrin]

Nazh prison seems to be held through electric locks.

And its mentioned that Scadrians love to use their electronics. A lot of their devices seem to run on electricity instead of investiture. Do you think they kinda managed to transform electricity into investiture or kinda subsidize it?

[lacrossedeamon]

I think its just in tandem.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

Why would they need to? Feruchemy can already turn heat into Investiture.

[lacrossedeamon]

And we saw certain entities can interfere with that. You'd want to IRP harden your gear. (IRP is like EMP but Investo-Realmatic Pulse) And even discounting that, it's always good to have a back up power source/system and not need to rely solely on Investiture when Sazed generously created a bunch of fossil fuels for you.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

41 minutes ago, lacrossedeamon said:

 it's always good to have a back up power source/system and not need to rely solely on Investiture when Sazed generously created a bunch of fossil fuels for you.

Ati and Leras did that. Spook agitated in a coal mine town even in Era 1.

Now for the general question. Technology in general works quite well. What are you reading this message on? What are the shortcomings of technology? That is the question you need to ask if you want to know where a culture with limited arcane powers will use Investiture for.

1. Antigravity
2. Conservation of mass and energy
3. Cooling
4. Selective regeneration and destruction of tissue
5. Objectively processing information according to importance
6. FTL

[Through the Living Wrath he/him]

On 7/12/2025 at 6:25 AM, Oltux72 said:

Ati and Leras did that. Spook agitated in a coal mine town even in Era 1.

Now for the general question. Technology in general works quite well. What are you reading this message on? What are the shortcomings of technology? That is the question you need to ask if you want to know where a culture with limited arcane powers will use Investiture for.

1. Antigravity
2. Conservation of mass and energy
3. Cooling
4. Selective regeneration and destruction of tissue
5. Objectively processing information according to importance
6. FTL

Hhmm… I agree, but I also disagree.

They aren’t going to follow the same technological path as we are - just look at Roshar. On the cusp of discovering electricity (Navani noting that “she needed to look into it”), yet already having flying machines. I think that there are large areas of functional overlap, and not everything in that overlap will be developed as electrical things, just as not everything in that overlap will be invested things.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

1 hour ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

Hhmm… I agree, but I also disagree.

They aren’t going to follow the same technological path as we are - just look at Roshar. On the cusp of discovering electricity (Navani noting that “she needed to look into it”), yet already having flying machines.

This list is specific to Scadrial. And I am afraid I need to point out that baloons generally predate electricity.

1 hour ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

 I think that there are large areas of functional overlap, and not everything in that overlap will be developed as electrical things, just as not everything in that overlap will be invested things.

Scadrial is different from Roshar. Arcane powers on Scadrial are more like superpowers and are very well defined. You just cannot build the Scadrian equivalent of fabrials without some pretty specific stuff. The technological progress will develop differently due to chance, but it'll not develop differently specifically due to magic. Until they get to technology at about the level of 1920, when the contact with the Southerners happens.

So I think the best approach is to look at things that technology you will necessarily discover if you have 1920ies tech and what they cannot do.
For example with that level of technology you will be abe to build a cyclotrone and if you do that you will discover relativity. Hence they will know that FTL cannot be done with mundane means.

[Through the Living Wrath he/him]

11 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

This list is specific to Scadrial. And I am afraid I need to point out that baloons generally predate electricity.

Scadrial is different from Roshar. Arcane powers on Scadrial are more like superpowers and are very well defined. You just cannot build the Scadrian equivalent of fabrials without some pretty specific stuff. The technological progress will develop differently due to chance, but it'll not develop differently specifically due to magic. Until they get to technology at about the level of 1920, when the contact with the Southerners happens.

So I think the best approach is to look at things that technology you will necessarily discover if you have 1920ies tech and what they cannot do.
For example with that level of technology you will be abe to build a cyclotrone and if you do that you will discover relativity. Hence they will know that FTL cannot be done with mundane means.

Ye

Agree

[Nitpicking]

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

This list is specific to Scadrial. And I am afraid I need to point out that baloons generally predate electricity.

Usually? How many planets have you checked that on? 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

Just now, Nitpicking said:

Usually? How many planets have you checked that on? 

Well, technically no planet in our solar system had electricity before balloons.

But that aside do you call rubbing amber with a catskin having electricity? And the development of hot air balloons seems to have happened twice in human history.

[ScadrianTank he/him]

On 7/12/2025 at 11:53 AM, Oltux72 said:

Why would they need to? Feruchemy can already turn heat into Investiture.

But it's still not confirmed if they can turn that attribute into usable Investiture.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

1 hour ago, ScadrianTank said:

But it's still not confirmed if they can turn that attribute into usable Investiture.

True. But why would electricity be any easier? If you are going to develop such a system, would you start from scratch or with something that you already have, but does not quite do what you want?