Questions about ruin, and other shards.

[Reborn radiant]

I admit, I feel pretty lame asking this question, and I feel like I am missing something really simple, but I can't find an answer to this question. 

Why don't the shards attack each other? Except for odium, that is.
Ruin intends to destroy everything. Then why did it not try and destroy preservation or any other shard as soon as the shard started influencing ati? What is devotion the shard devoted to? 
It seems like only odium and autonomoy are acting as per their intent.

[Windrunner he/him]

What you've asked is kind of a complex question, that we don't have enough information to fully answer. I can give it a shot though. Firstly, it is important to note that Shards don't just act in accordance with their intent, they also sometimes will aid or encourage others to follow it as well. For instance, Ruin's manipulations leading to the fall of the Final Empire or his absolute control of Marsh. Another caveat is that every Shard's intent is interpreted by its Vessel, so the precise definition of "Ruin" to one Vessel might slightly differ than how someone else might interpret it. It is also important to note that the intent becomes more difficult to resist with time. This is why Vin was able to kill Ruin with Preservation's power, he had held it for only a few hours, she could still resist the desire to only Preserve. Also, we really do not know how difficult it is to "kill" another Shard. Odium manages it pretty effectively but we have it confirmed that it is still taxing for him. It took Ruin millennia to actually kill Preservation. Now, lets break down the known Shards.

Ruin: Ruin, as you said, is pretty straightforward. He destroyed an entire planet, and its system of government, also created an essentially global war, killing most of that planet's populace.

Preservation: While it may not be noticeable immediately, Preservation was rather successful as well, maybe even more so than Ruin. He managed to create a plan that ultimately saved the remnants of humanity on Scadrial and led to the creation of a planet that was more or less just as it was before The Lord Ruler wrecked it all.

Devotion: Devotion is dead, so its hard to say much about what she was like in the past. The Shard is inactive, so we can't see how she would have acted. Looking at her Perpendicularity though, the Pool shows its Devotion when Raoden is thrown in, he can feel its love and sorrow for him.

Dominion: He is in a similar situation to Devotion. However, the skaze, presumed Splinters of Dominion, have heavy influence in the Fjordell Empire, which is above all concerned with dominating all of the world with their religion, forging a global empire.

Endowment: All Endowment does is give, every single person born on her planet is given a Breath (which is confirmed to be more Investiture than people born on planets without Shards get). She also manages the Returned, giving them all the divine Breath, a Splinter, and an opportunity to Return to Nalthis.

Honor: Honor is dead as well, but it has been mentioned several times that Honor has a lot to do with oaths and promises. The Oathpact, forged between the Heralds and Honor is a clear example of Honor obeying his intent. Although we have less information here, I suspect that Honor's agreement with Odium in which Odium was trapped is a similar thing.

Cultivation: Cultivation is one where it is difficult to tell. I see no real instances of her helping things to grow, but then we haven't really seen Cultivation. Dalinar should be meeting the Nightwatcher in his Oathbringer flashbacks, and the Nightwatcher is heavily related to Cultivation, so I will reserve my judgement on this one for now.

Odium: We also have seen little of Odium. However, the overriding theme with the Voidbringers is there hatred, so I suspect that we'll continue to see more hatred from Odium as time goes on.

Autonomy: Likely the named Shard that we know the least about. He's alone in his system, but we're going to have to wait for White Sand to really make a call on him.

Hopefully, this was at least a little bit helpful. It can be subtle, but every Shard acts in accordance with its intent and influences others to do so.

[Bugsy he/him]

As other answered have said, the shard holder maintains control of their own thoughts and actions for a protracted period of time before actually being fully controlled by their intent. 

As for why they didn't just kill each other eventually, the shards contain roughly equal strength, and the shards' intents are not mindless. For example, it's mentioned in the books that Ruin could build up something to later knock down 2 things. Ruin can better accomplish his goal by preserving himself to exert influence in the long term. Therefore, not destroying himself to destroy Preservation helps him eventually at the cost of immediate gratification. Also, when a shard is "destroyed", it's really just split into smaller, less controlled peices (i.e. the Seons and the Dor), and still acts to its intent, so it would have been a waste of ruin's energy. 

Odium, whose intent is hate, loathes the other shards with a passion. Even before being exposed to the intent of his shard, he was dangerous. With the power and intent of his shard, his sole goal became being the last concious shard in existence. His intent is forwarded only by violence, so he is the only shard whose intent requires him to commit it regardless of the situation.  It's unknown why he is able to destroy shards that theoretically have equal power to him; we know he doesn't take investiture from the shards he destroys in an attempt to keep his own intent pure, so he doesn't accumulate power that way. The best working theory (at least in my opinion) is that he's able to accomplish so much by investing less investiture, only doing what is necessary to defeat his enemy, unlike other shards who pour their investiture into things like sculpting planets or creating life that aren't relevant to their success 

[Yata he/him]

In their first times after the Ascension they may control themself better.

Then... it's not easy to kill a Shard, they had the same power at the beginning. We don't know how Odium may kill "easy" other Shards

[Joe ST he/him]

IIRC it took a fairly long time between the Shattering and the Intents to fully take over, so I'm guessing Ati and Leras had progressed far enough along with Scadrial and then got into some kind of semi-equilibrium which satisfied their Intents enough to not need more...that is until Leras did the thing.

[MoS03]

4 minutes ago, Windrunner said:

Cultivation: ... I see no real instances of her helping things to grow... 

The only part I felt the need to comment on, as the rest of what you typed is incredibly accurate, particularly about the time it takes for an intent to set in (Harmony actually specifically says this to Wax at one point).

In the quoted part, I believe we have a WoB that Roshar supporting life is not a natural occurance.  Shinovar is weird because it has soil.  The rest of the world seems to be rock. How does a continent of rock grow enough to support the lush life described in the books? That is what we've seen from Cultivation.

[Jondesu he/him]

1 hour ago, Reborn radiant said:

I admit, I feel pretty lame asking this question, and I feel like I am missing something really simple, but I can't find an answer to this question. 

Why don't the shards attack each other? Except for odium, that is.
Ruin intends to destroy everything. Then why did it not try and destroy preservation or any other shard as soon as the shard started influencing ati? What is devotion the shard devoted to? 
It seems like only odium and autonomoy are acting as per their intent.

The biggest reason I can identify is that the Shards seem to mostly be equal in power. Ruin could have attacked Preservation all-out, sure, but he would have been destroyed too (as we saw with Vin when she attacked Ruin as Preservation's Vessel). It would be suicide to attack directly, and most Shardholders won't be suicidal.

As for not acting out their intents, remember that those intents can be very nuanced. Ruin was acting on his intent: he was bring ruination to Scadrial, blocked by Preservation but still putting forth all the effort he could. Cultivation is presumably cultivating things on Roshar, while Honor was being honorable or making people behave honorably. Endowment is endowing people with purpose and power.

Edit: lol, didn't see all the other replies first. Oh well, I don't think I said anything others didn't, but I think I said it well enough.

jW

Edited June 14, 2016 by Jondesu

[feldi]

and devotion is probably devoted to the people, like when Reoden is in the pool and feel love and etc...

[Windrunner he/him]

7 hours ago, MoS03 said:

In the quoted part, I believe we have a WoB that Roshar supporting life is not a natural occurance.  Shinovar is weird because it has soil.  The rest of the world seems to be rock. How does a continent of rock grow enough to support the lush life described in the books? That is what we've seen from Cultivation.

This is a good point, I left it out intentionally because I wanted to stay quite close to things we know for sure. Cultivation may have a hand in making life possible on Roshar, but highstorms predate the Shattering of Adonalsium, so surely life existed there before Cultivation had a hand on Roshar. The whole timeline is a little shaky right now, which is why I figured I'd leave it alone.

[Argel he/him]

We know Roshar is based on a Julia Set. I think we also have a good idea that it was formed from crem (and other natural processes) building up over time, eventually enough to create the continents, etc. I forget if we have a WoB on that, or just several strong hints. That may have occurred before the shattering.

Do we know if humans existed on Roshar pre-shattering? I thought we did, but I'm drawing a blank on that right now.

Considering Shinovar has soil, it makes me wonder if Cultivation has a stronger presence there. Or maybe less, because life in the harsher regions needs her attention more? Ugh, my head hurts!! Hopefully we will finally learn more about Cultivation in SA3. If we are really lucky, maybe we will learn more in Arcanum Unbound this fall.

[The Sovereign]

2 hours ago, Argel said:

We know Roshar is based on a Julia Set. I think we also have a good idea that it was formed from crem (and other natural processes) building up over time, eventually enough to create the continents, etc. I forget if we have a WoB on that, or just several strong hints. That may have occurred before the shattering.

Do we know if humans existed on Roshar pre-shattering? I thought we did, but I'm drawing a blank on that right now.

Considering Shinovar has soil, it makes me wonder if Cultivation has a stronger presence there. Or maybe less, because life in the harsher regions needs her attention more? Ugh, my head hurts!! Hopefully we will finally learn more about Cultivation in SA3. If we are really lucky, maybe we will learn more in Arcanum Unbound this fall.

A WoB that that is relevant here:

Quote

Interview: Oct 14th, 2015

Shadows of Self-Brookline

Question

Has anyone figured out what the secret in the map was, in Words of Radiance?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, they have. That it's modeled after the Julia Set. Which is meant to indicate that Roshar was designed specifically.

AndrewStirlingMacDonald

Did it happen through crem buildup?

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Tags

Roshar, crem, Julia Set,

 
Also, this WoB seems to imply that Humans are not native to Roshar:
 

Quote

Interview: Mar 21st, 2014

WOR Signing Table Q&A (Verbatim)

EHyde

Were there Desolations before there were humans on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Tags

desolations,

 

[Argel he/him]

Thanks @Iron Eyes!! Some very useful and interesting information there. That leaves whether humans existed on Roshar before or after the Shattering. And if after, was it H&C that created them or was Odium also involved?

Edited June 16, 2016 by Argel

[Eki]

1 hour ago, Argel said:

Thanks @Iron Eyes!! Some very useful and interesting information there. That leaves whether humans existed on Roshar before or after the Shattering. And if after, was it H&C that created them or was Odium also involved?

The Vorin myths kind of imply that humans were brought, by Honor (and maybe Cultivation), to the planet. Where they were before then, we don't know. We also don't know if there were people there already, when the new people were brought there. I don't think they were created by either Honor or Cultivation.

Odium probably arrived after Honor and Cultivation, since he was doing other things in the Cosmere (ie splintering other shards), but where that happens in the timeline, who knows. It's also possible that the Vorin myths are even more true, and Odium was on their heels as they escaped to Roshar, and that they (and their humans) lived somewhere else for a long time.