Shardic Lens Theory

[Senor Feesh]

I had a thought in the bath today (strange how inspiration strikes so often in the bathroom... maybe I should try and spend more of my day there )

 

Forgive me if this post seems erratic and scatty, I've not got all my thoughts in order yet, so this probably won't flow too well.

 

I'm re-reading Warbreaker, highlighting what I think are important sections re: the larger Cosmere as I go (yay kindle!) and I've just gotten to the point at which Lightsong turns away petitioners and gets into a discussion regarding his own religion with Larimar. Larimar tells him:

 

You saw something, Lightsong,. On the other side, the future is visible, like a scroll that stretches into the eternal harmonics of the cosmos.

 

The wording here I think is important, which I'll come back to, but also: we know when you cross over, your soul makes a stopover in the Cognitive realm. Makes me think this is relevant to future-perception magics generally.

 

Now, Isomere has started a topic http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3286-the-focus-on-roshar-is-waveforms/'>here which I think needs some love. He proposes that magic on Roshar is based around the idea of waveforms. I think this has some mileage. It also has implications for crossovers. Why I hear you ask?

 

Breath. With enough BioChromatic Breath, you can perceive perfect colour and pitch recognition. If magic on Roshar is based on waveforms, this immediately becomes relevant (as colour and sound are both a product of wavelength). I'm not sure exactly what implications this may have, but again, stick with me, I'm going to keep going.

 

We also know, in a mostly unrelated way, that Hemalurgy (what? We're on Scadrial now? Stick with me, I promise this get attempt to get stitched together at the end!) can be used to steal many different magical (and mundane) properties. Why should this be? If Ruin created Hemalurgy, why can it be used to steal powers granted by other shards? Why does sDNA have to be able to be affected by another Shard in the first place?

 

We often talk of 'Preservation's power' or 'Honour's power', as though these are completely removed from each other - as though the shattering of Adonalsium split the power of creation along these lines of intent. I now think differently. I think that whilst each Shard has their own unique Intent, they each have a measure of the exact same, universal, power of creation, but this is filtered through the 'lens' of the Shardic intent it's tied to. And we see the evidence of this in the fact that people all over the Cosmere have Hemalurgic bindpoints which those on Scadrial could never have known of, or that the Waveforms on Roshar could be easily interpreted by an Awakener of sufficient Heightening. I might even go so far as to suggest that an Awakener would have an easier time making sense of Allomantic Bronzepulses, or the 'rhythm' of the Dor.

 

This may also go some way to help describe how Odium was able to alter things on Roshar so that he could influence events there - he doesn't need to change the nature of the inherent magics there, only to change the way in which the magic is interpreted (perhaps through altering sDNA, although I'm loathe to tough the topic of sDNA as I don't think we know enough about it yet).

 

Looking back over this, I don't know that I've necessarily said anything that's not been said before... but it feels like a fresh revelation in my head. Does this sound right or wrong to anyone else? Would anyone like to add to this, tweak it, or contradict it? Go nuts! I'd love to know what you all think.

[Isomere]

This is fantastic! If I am understanding correctly, you are saying the following:

 

There is one central Power of Creation represented by a source of powerful Light. This light shines through a Lens called Adonalsium and creates the Cosmere.  Somehow this lens was split into 16 lenses, and each one distorted the light based on their Intent. The filtered light now has 16 different colors as it enters the Cosmere and each of these colors represents an Aspect of Creation. Humans can only use this power if they get a piece of one of these 16 lenses. All 16 colors of light can be used by any lens and they can be combined in various ways to get different effects. The way magic is accessed in a given world depends on the Color of the lens (Shard's Intent), the Planet (Physical Focus), and the Human (Intellect). This corresponds to the spiritual, physical and cognitive realms respectively. 

 

I adapted this to Roshar and developed the Tanavallah

 

Edit: I just realized that Fabrials are very good representations of this theory. Thanks Brandon

The Stormlight is the power of creation.

The Gem is the Shard.

The Metal of the Fabrial is the Intellect.

The pattern of shadow and light is the Physical

You must have all three for any of it to work. 

 

Edited April 26, 2013 by Isomere

[Khmauv he/him]

I really like this theory. I don't have much to add at the moment but I think I will keep it in mind as I reread.  

[askthepaperclip he/him]

damnation. This does seem to make a lot of sense, and does tie together a lot of Isomere's crazy ramblings (j/k Isomere, you are clearly brilliant, but most of your theories make my brain hurt )

 

"Allomantic pulses" from Scadrial and "The Iridescent Tones" from Nalthis jump out as fitting nicely. On Sel, didn't we learn that the Aons act like a filter on the Dor, allowing only the desired wavelength through? Hmm, that seems to fit too. Add this to Isomere's info on wavelength on Roshar, and we have ourselves the makings of a Standard Model Of Cosmere Investiture! Very exciting.

 

This makes me think that Hoid's mission is to gather a sample of each lens/power in order to read their waveforms, and thus reverse engineer the "skeleton key" waveform that was Adonalsium, allowing him to tap into the "full spectrum" of power. Odium's goal of splintering all the Shards would certainly make Hoid's job much more difficult.

 

OOOO just realized something!! If each Shard is a lens that filters out a particular "wavelength band" of the power of Creation, then it makes perfect sense that when Aona was splintered into the Aons, that each Aon was also a lens that filtered out a narrower band of that power!  This means that Adonalsium is really just a very wide-band filter. Which means that it doesn't need to be reassembled, but could in fact be replicated as many times as desired. Now it makes sense why the recipient of The Letter would maybe disagree with Hoid's plan, if it means Comere-scale proliferation of the power of Adonalsium!   Whew, I need to go take a cold shower...

 

Edit: I wrote up the above theory here, called "Adonalsium Proliferation" Although personally I think it lacks some of the breathless punch of what's above...

Edited April 28, 2013 by askthepaperclip

[Senor Feesh]

OOOO just realized something!! If each Shard is a lens that filters out a particular "wavelength band" of the power of Creation, then it makes perfect sense that when Aona was splintered into the Aons, that each Aon was also a lens that filtered out a narrower band of that power!  This means that Adonalsium is really just a very wide-band filter.

 

Firstly, thanks for actually summarising my thoughts in a way that probably makes WAY more sense than my initial post

 

Secondly that's an awesome expansion on the initial idea that I hadn't even really considered, although the foundation was totally there for me to see. Good call!

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Lemme toss this here on the table, where we can all look at it.

Are there any magic systems in the cosmere that aren't shard based?

2) This depends on definitions. The effects of Adonalsium permeate everything, and Adonalsium is also the source of the Shards. It is possible to find a magic that isn't DIRECTLY powered by a specific shard, however, though most of these would have been set up before the shattering and would be much smaller in scope than things like Allomancy and Surgebinding.

Seems you don't need a shard to directly set things up. And even if 'most' of the system that weren't directly shard-powered were pre-shattering, that still implies that there are a few post-shattering neutral systems running around. Edited April 28, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[askthepaperclip he/him]

Exactly! Adonalsium would be a wide-band filter, not a full-spectrum filter, so there could be small sections of the spectrum of the power of Creation that Adonalsium does not reach, which would fuel non-Adonalsium based magics.

 

Sorry Freesh, I just realized that I totally switched your "Lens" terminology to my own "Filter" terminology....sorry!

Edited April 28, 2013 by askthepaperclip

[CabbageHead he/him]

I guess you could tie in the different emission spectra of allomantic alloys to the different effects that are produced by them as well.

[Senor Feesh]

Eh, terminology is mutable. These are only metaphors, so carry the metaphor until it doesn't work any more, or until you find something that works better for what you're trying to illustrate no need for an apology

[Morsk he/him]

I love the idea of Awakeners being better at hearing Bronze pulses, etc., but I completely disagree with the theory. I don't think Shards are the lens, since Brandon is explicit that any Shard can fuel any magic system, and that the intent only changes how they do it, not the magic powers.

If there are different lenses, I guess it's the planets.

[Isomere]

I guess you could tie in the different emission spectra of allomantic alloys to the different effects that are produced by them as well.

Great correlation CabbageHead, this ties in Allomancy in new ways we haven't discussed before. Using the spectra works perfectly with PaperClip's Filter-Theory. 

 

Since I'm quite biased by wave-theory I like to think of it more as a Surgepattern being represented by the quantum waveform of the atom. They really are the same thing though, just with different viewpoints. 

 

Wave-Theory:

Each Surge represents a power of creation and is accessed through an associated Wave, or perhaps through the Concept of how that wave should function, or through a portion of the Ideal Form of the original Wavepattern that sparked the creation of all things. It seems the medium is variable, and you can reproduce a Surgepattern with light, sound, color or even quantum probability waves.

[Windrunner he/him]

I just saw this theory referenced and realized that I'd never had a proper look at it to see what it was all about.
 
As I was reading it, I was struck immediately with the similarity to an old theory Zas678 made called, The Power of Creation. The stuff about the magic system crossovers and whatnot is different and still valid and interesting speculation. However, these two theories, (as well as askthepaperclip's theory) share the basic premise that Shards are not the source of the Power of Creation but rather a "door," "lens," "filter," or what have you that alters the power as it comes through. However, the reason Zach's theory isn't so commonly known anymore is that it was unfortunately disproved by this quote, which seems to be the death knell for these theories as well, unless I'm missing something.

 

ZAS
So Power of Creation. Is the Power of Creation this thing of power that powers Allomancy and powers the Aons, or is the Power of Creation just what each shard has?
BRANDON SANDERSON
I would say [the power] each shard has. Is more the definition.
Source

I didn't come here to necro this topic and attempt to disprove this theory to be a jerk, but rather because I figured you guys would want to know about this. If you think I'm totally wrong, and see a way around this quote that keeps the theory valid, feel free to point it out.

[Senor Feesh]

Nah, thanks Windy I don't see a way around that without serious twisting, and I know this guy Occam who taught me how to shave...

Edit: gah, stupid brain. I do see one possible way, which is that the Shards still each have a chunk of the full-spectrum power innate to each of them, but the use is filtered by intent. I'm still gonna go with Occam and my gut though, and unless I get a good reason to change my mind call this theory toast for now.

Edited May 25, 2013 by Senor Feesh

[Isomere]

Thanks for the info Windy. You have given some pretty convincing arguments, both with that quote and with the post link from Zas. I still see some contradictions that don't seem to work.

Brandon has made a clear separation between the Power of Creation and the Body of a Shard, but in the same breath he says the Shards themselves ARE the Power of Creation. This contradiction is not adequately accounted for in any argument I have read. Accessing one type of power doesn't seem to weaken a Shard, but burning up the Shards Body is compared to sacrificing a piece in chess. The only way I can reconcile these is to think there are divisions within the power of creation that each behave very differently. I'll describe one possible way this division could occur.

Lets assume there is no source of power other than the shards themselves. Each shard is basically a Sun. Some fundamental reaction at the core of each Shard generates a fixed energy output, but the Shard can only retain a small portion of that energy, and the rest is radiated out into the Cosmere. The part that is retained is converted into physical matter in either solid, liquid or gas form and becomes part of the Shard's body.

Burning metals to fuel Allomancy uses the power that is radiating out from Preservation. Burning the mists uses the part that Preservation has already internalized.

Thoughts?

[Kurkistan he/him]

Sorry, Isomere, but no. We already have an explanation for why Preservation can fuel Allomancy for free:

 

Link

Master_Moridin:

Why does Preservation fueling Allomancy not weaken Preservation compared to Ruin?

 

Brandon:

Because the power, once used, returns to him--much as water, after passing over a turbine, continues on in its system.

[Isomere]

I've thought about that quote for quite some time and it leaves me feeling something important is missing. There is a difference between the power in Atium and the power after it was burned by the mistings. It was dispersed, and would require energy to collect it again. With the water example, after passing a turbine the water has much less potential energy because it has gone from the top of the dam to the bottom. To get the energy back it needs to absorb sunlight and evaporate.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Yes, the power in Atium is used up and dispersed because it was not of the proper type of power for Allomancy. Essentially, Ruin was forced (second hand) to fuel Allomancy directly.

 

I think you're putting a bit too much into the metaphor when you start talking about the water losing potential energy. In the context of the question, Moridin asked why Preservation fueling Allomancy did not weaken him and Brandon's answer implicitely accepts the hidden premise--that Preservation is not weakened by fueling Allomancy--as true. So Preservation is not weakened at all by the normal use of Allomancy.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Well, keep in mind that expending power was only a problem for preservation and ruin because it would give their counterpart an advantage in the Divine Shoving Match.

Also, there can be magic systems not linked to a particular shard.

But yeah there's a quote about hemalurgy stapling you onto preservation as well. And another one that distinguishes between of preservation and part of preservation.

my opinion is all shards have access to the power of creation, but differernt shards are better at different things. The quote of 'the power each shard has'is contrasting with just the power that normalish dudes can access in that quote, then. Shards don't have a fundamengtally different source, iow

Normally i'd have quotes for all this but I'm on my phone.

[Isomere]

Yes, the power in Atium is used up and dispersed because it was not of the proper type of power for Allomancy.

 

You seem to be implying that using the Mists to fuel Allomancy would not weaken Preservation, and I disagree based on this quote. Brandon says that directly fueling allomancy imbalances the Shard and is like sacrificing a pawn in a game of chess. It is not clear if there is a net loss of energy or just a redistribution, but another quote says that the Shards are hesitant to directly fuel any of the metallic arts because the energy would be expended. That strongly implies a net loss of energy. The Body can eventually be recovered, but the process of recovery takes time and may require some input of power. 

 

We both agree that when burning a normal metal preservation is not weakened. 

 

So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak—though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly.  source

 

This quote starts out by saying that Preservation's Power is a piece of the Powers of Creation. But then Brandon makes a sharp distinction between the Body of Preservation and the Powers of Creation. So I am left to believe they are both powers of creation, but have fundamentally different uses and consequences.

That is why I think there are divisions in the Powers of Creation, and that the Body of a Shard is separate from the powers people can access through the shard's magic system. 

[Kurkistan he/him]

You seem to be implying that using the Mists to fuel Allomancy would not weaken Preservation, and I disagree based on this quote. Brandon says that directly fueling allomancy imbalances the Shard and is like sacrificing a pawn in a game of chess. It is not clear if there is a net loss of energy or just a redistribution, but another quote says that the Shards are hesitant to directly fuel any of the metallic arts because the energy would be expended. That strongly implies a net loss of energy. The Body can eventually be recovered, but the process of recovery takes time and may require some input of power. 

 

We both agree that when burning a normal metal preservation is not weakened.

 

You're right, I did not think that through properly. And so I am shamed...

[Windrunner he/him]

Nah, thanks Windy I don't see a way around that without serious twisting, and I know this guy Occam who taught me how to shave...

Edit: gah, stupid brain. I do see one possible way, which is that the Shards still each have a chunk of the full-spectrum power innate to each of them, but the use is filtered by intent. I'm still gonna go with Occam and my gut though, and unless I get a good reason to change my mind call this theory toast for now.

I just wanted to say that this is a super classy response. Not every deals so well with theories of theirs being likely disproven.

[Senor Feesh]

I just wanted to say that this is a super classy response. Not every deals so well with theories of theirs being likely disproven.

 

Ha, thanks Windy what can I say, I follow the scientific method. If the evidence disagrees with me, so be it.

 

And to put the lid on this theory for all time, I offer the following:

 

Eric Lake ()

Allomancy provides many very dramatic effects, which some have noted is not very much like Preservation. Could you walk me through how Allomancy is of Preservation, though it does dramatic, dynamic things?

Brandon Sanderson

One of the 'basics' of the magic in all of the worlds is that the energy of Shards can fuel all kinds of interactions, not just interactions based on their personality/role. I did this because otherwise, the Magics would all be extremely limited.

The 'role' of the Shard has to do with the WAY the magic is obtained, not what it can do. So, in Preservation's case, the magic is a gift—allowing a person to preserve their own strength, and rely upon the strength granted by the magic. While Hemalurgy has a huge cost, ending in net entropy.

 

source

 

Look out for my next theory, when I think of one

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Ah, but

Andrew the Great (19 October 2008)

Why can Vin fuel Elend's atium-burning, even though Atium is Ruin's Body and Vin is using Preservation? Or did I misread that and he was just burning atium and had run out of everything else?

Brandon Sanderson (20 October 2008)

Yes, as has been pointed out:

A powerful peace swelled in Elend. His Allomancy flared bright, though he knew the metals inside of him should have burned away. Only atium remained, and the strange power did not—could not—give him this metal. But it didn’t matter. For a moment, he was embraced by something greater. He looked up, toward the sun. (From the text.)

As a note here, the powers granted by all of the metals—even the two divine ones—are not themselves of either Shard. They are simply tools. And so, it's possible that one COULD have found a way to reproduce an ability like atium's while using Preservation's power, but it wouldn't be as natural or as easy as using Preservation to fuel Allomancy.

The means of getting powers—Ruin stealing, Preservation gifting—are related to the Shards, but not the powers themselves.

Shards are better at some things than others, and 'all kinds of' is an idiomatic phrase.

That said your next theory should incorporate this since Brandon seems to have been careful to draw a distinction here.

Interview: Sep 22nd, 2012

Orem Signing Report - Zas (Verbatim)

Zas

So where does the power of Allomancy come from? Does it come directly from Preservation? Does that imbalance him?

Brandon Sanderson

[brandon being cautious about wording] Certain things built into a world are not the same. Not used in the same way. Meaning the energy of Preservation and Ruin inside of something living and growing—yes that's "of" them, but that's not direct force that they're using at that time.

Adam

Would a good example of that be Allomancy versus the blessings the Kandra have?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah sure.

Edited May 26, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[Elementalist he/him]

I don't care if this theory was partially debunked; it shall always remain a part of my personal head-canon.

[askthepaperclip he/him]

Before I realized that this had been pretty much set aside, I got all excited just now when I read this from a signing in Chicago last year:

Q: Could a Seeker who was properly trained and experienced detect AonDor or Awakening? Similarly, does a Coppercloud block an Awakener's life sense?

A: A Seeker could sense somebody else using magic not native Scadrial. RAFO on the Coppercloud blocking similar magic.

The fact that a seeker could detect pulses from magic fueled by all the shards makes me think that there is still something there with the whole filter/lens/waves concept. I shall also keep it in my head cannon :-)