Hermalurgy Question: Any perceived differences from Era 1 to Era 2

[OneNastyChull he/him]

Mistborn Spoilers:

 

So in Era 1 I know that Hermalurgy caused a loss in allomancy effect which could be reduced to a very minimum amount by spiking directly from the giver into the receiver but do we know if that loss of effect still exists in Era 2 now that Harmony holds both shards? Can't find anything in WoB about this specifically. Or is hermalurgy remaining a reduction magic system. 

Or does Hermalurgy work on allomancy this way just because allomancy is a positive magic system? From all that I can tell it doesn't reduce the neutral system in Scandrial outside of only being able to take one ferochemical ability, which if the giver only has one ferochemical ability it wouldn't be a reduction of the effect. 

[OneNastyChull he/him]

Haven't thought too much about Endowment in relation to this but doesn't the investiture return after being used, it just takes a while? Like the atium that was burned by all the atium mistings will come back it's just supposed to take a long while. 

I thought Scandrial was going through some boom and bust cycles and they were at the end of a boom (Lord Ruler stating it had been a while since he had purged the noble houses) Really though I just need to reread. 

On Harmony getting more Ruin focused I'm actually a believer of this unless the theories on him producing Harmonium in large quantities are right and this is part of it. 

 

Still though my main point on hermalurgy is that I want to know whether the full amount of investiture (not the spiritual DNA part only) is being degraded by hermalurgy or if it's taking up all of that investiture. 

[Calderis he/him]

33 minutes ago, OneNastyChull said:

Still though my main point on hermalurgy is that I want to know whether the full amount of investiture (not the spiritual DNA part only) is being degraded by hermalurgy or if it's taking up all of that investiture. 

And that was what I was trying to say initially. Those aren't two separate things. The SDNA is comprised of that investiture.

[OneNastyChull he/him]

But if it's investiture it's still preservation/ruins power correct?Even if it's a minute piece of power? Are you stating that the reduction of this power source, by hermalurgy, only changes its expression? That no investiture/power is lost in the transfer? 

[Calderis he/him]

12 minutes ago, OneNastyChull said:

But if it's investiture it's still preservation/ruins power correct?Even if it's a minute piece of power? Are you stating that the reduction of this power source, by hermalurgy, only changes its expression? That no investiture/power is lost in the transfer? 

Exactly. Brandon has stated that investiture can not be created or destroyed. 

Ruin increases entropy. He can take investiture out of the active portion of the system. He can kill users to remove their sDNA from being passed on and weaken those abilities for those who receive them. He cannot destroy it though. 

Shards can be Splintered, Adonalsium was Shattered, but all of the investiture still exists. 

[Oversleep]

On 16.07.2017 at 6:14 PM, Calderis said:

unless their are actively burning a metal, they are no more invested than a non-metalborn. They just have the potential to be. 

I assume you're going off that WoB:

Quote

Blightsong
Would it be harder to soulcast a Knight Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson
Yes.

Blightsong
Would it be harder for her to soulcast a mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson
Yes, investiture disrupts investiture. It's harder for her to even soulcast a regular person than, say, a rock.

Blightsong
Is a Mistborn invested?

Brandon Sanderson
The Mistborn, how their burning the metal, you're right. They are not specifically invested when they are not burning. When the investiture becomes active, the yes. Before, no, you're right on that.

source

But if you look at the next WoB in line:

Quote

Blightsong

So Kelsier, he stayed around longer, not because he was invested, but because he had the ability to become invested?

Brandon Sanderson

Over time using the magic will invest you, on Scadrial. Most of the power is not coming from, on Roshar the power isn't coming from the person either (He cut himself off, so I assume this is how it works on Scadrial even though he didn't finish his thought) so I'm going to have to back up on that one and say, yes, the mistborn are as invested as a Knight Radiant, because in both cases the majority of the power is coming from somewhere else, but there is the spirit web. Investing the wrong term, but you have all these connections in the spiritual realm, so yanking you away from them, or rewriting them (like soulcasting or forgery) is harder.

Blightsong

Would they be harder (kek) with more Stormlight or Metals burning?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes. That would increase the difficulty ratio. For instance, wearing shard plate is gonna be a great barrier, right, and things like that so yea. The problem is like, invested is the wrong term for that, their spirit web is connected in different ways. (I deem this "Spirit Web Magical Connectivity Diversity, or SWMCD".
source

Take that as you want.

[Calderis he/him]

17 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

I assume you're going off that WoB:

But if you look at the next WoB in line:

Take that as you want.

I find that... Hard to believe. I mean, I get what he's saying, but I would think that on their own a KR isn't any more invested than a normal Rosharan in and of themselves. The extra investiture they do have when not holding Stormlight is due to their soul being intermingled with that of a splinter. 

A Mistborn doesn't have that kind of connection to anything. When they aren't burning, the cracks are empty... 

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

12 hours ago, OneNastyChull said:

Oh Ive always thought that Preservation grew weaker as more humans came to be. That his depreciation in power partly due to giving up more with each human that came to be. Which is why he grew so weak but very very slowly. Going to have to read both eras again. 

We don't know really. Preservatiom may have given up a lump sum of Investiture upfront to support an arbitrarily large number of scadrians, or he might've parceled Investiture out to each newborn scadrian. It's sort of a moot point.

The Investiture that is "lost" to hemalurgic decay returns to the spiritual realm in some form. It's like what happens to atium when it's burned; the Investiture isn't lost, it goes...somewhere...through...some kind of cycle...and eventually manifests again in someway.

Free Investiture might return to the planet, a nearby shard, or redistribute itself in any number of ways. The reason the specific mechanics of this operation don't matter enough to generally come into play is: Shards and planets have so much more Investiture than people, that a meaningful comparison can't usually be made.

Preservation and Ruin made Scadrial from the void. Matter is made of Investiture. Scadrial contains roughly 25ish orders of magnitude more matter than the combined mass of every scadrian. Harmony bats Scadrial across the solar system like a baseball. Ergo, Harmony is so unbelievably more powerful than an individual scadrian, that any loss of Investiture he might suffer from newborn Scadrians ought to be virtually undetectable at least until Scadrians start colonizing other planets. Even then, off the top of my head, I'm thinking they'd need to overpopulate hundreds of worlds to weaken Harmony detectably. To be fair, that's not canon, it's just my interpretation.