Immortals, sterility, and populations

[Zelly]

The stuff I think about on my commute home.

I was thinking about the different worldhoppers and cosmere aware folks who have been around for hundreds if not thousands of years due to varying magical reasons.  It seems like the number of these people would have to be restricted pretty well, considering that a population of immortals would die from lack of resources fairly quickly due to the continuing rising (and rarely decreasing) number of people.  In most civilizations we've seen, the immortal population is small, tending to be a  group of elite, blessed, etc.  Nalthis is an interesting population as you can actually buy your way to immortality (5th Heightening).

In animals on Earth, there's a definite correlation between the longevity and birth rates.   Animals with long life spans have fewer children less often, while short lived animals breed frequently in large numbers.

Then I wondered if some of the immortals we've met either: have developed some sort of sterility as a side effect, or on the other end of the scale, have rampantly produced children across the cosmere (which could have curious implications for investiture as well as wreak havoc on the gene pool of small populations over time).

Edited August 17, 2018 by Zellyia

[Calderis he/him]

Well, the Returned are effectively sterile without jumping through hoops. 

The only Herald cjild we Know of had to have happened prior to immortality, as she is also a Herald... 

I think that naturally there are controls in place here, but that, as the returned and the royal locks show, they can be circumvented. 

[+Extesian he/him]

It comes down to the type of immortality really. I think many immortals are going to be cognitive shadows and they probably have greater difficulty even when stapled to a body (as the Returned show). The Lord Ruler had children so agelessness by itself isn't a problem, and I see no reason to think the 5th heightening prevents it. Even Shards seem to be able to have children. 

In the end there are many millions of people in the cosmere and I doubt there'd be more than thousands of immortals so I think even if they breed like ageless rabbits it's a drop in the ocean. 

But many of the below categories I don't think would have an issue

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Iceblade44

So White Sand [than Elantris] is earlier... Then how the heck old is Kriss then? Will we ever get an answer as to why every worldhopper is flipin immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

There is some time-dialation going on. I'll explain it eventually; we're almost to the point where I can start talking about that. Suffice it to say that there's a mix of both actual slowing of the aging process and relative time going on, depending on the individual. Very few are actually immortal.

Faera

Implying that some are actually immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on which definition of immortal you mean.

Doesn't age, but can be killed by conventional means. (You've seen some of these in the cosmere, but I'll leave you to discuss who.)

Heals from wounds, but still ages. (Knights Radiant with Stormlight are like this.)

Reborn when killed. (The Heralds.)

Doesn't age and can heal, but dependent upon magic to stay this way, and so have distinct weakness to be exploited. (The Lord Ruler, among others.)

Hive beings who are constantly losing individual members, but maintaining a persistent personality spread across all of them, immortal in that as long as too much of the hive isn't wiped out, the personality can persist. (The sleepless.)

Bits of sapient magic, eternal and endless, though the personality can be "destroyed" in specific ways. (Seons. Spren. Nightblood. Cognitive Shadows, like a certain character from Scadrial.)

Shards (Really just a supercharged version of the previous category.)

And then, of course, there's Hoid. I'm not going to say which category, if any, he's in.

Some of these blend together--the Heralds, for example, are technically a variety of cognitive shadow. I'm not saying each of these categories above are distinct, intended to be the end-all definitions. They're off the cuff groupings I made to explain a point: immortality is a theme of the cosmere works--which, at their core, are experiments on what happens when men are given the power of deity.

Shagomir

Heals from wounds, but still ages.

Would Bloodmaker Ferrings exist in this category as well? If not, what about someone compounding Gold?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you are correct.

Shagomir

As a Bloodmaker ages what keeps them from healing the damage and carrying on as a very old, but very healthy person? Do they come to a point where they can't store enough health to stave off the aches, pains, diseases, and other things that come with old age?

This makes sense for traditional Feruchemy as it is end-neutral, so storing health becomes a zero sum game - eventually, you're going to get sick and you're not going to be able to overcome it with your natural healing ability no matter how much you manipulate it with a goldmind.

...Unless you've got a supply of Identity-less goldminds lying around. Would a Bloodmaker with a sufficient source of identity-less goldminds (or the ability to compound, thus bypassing the end-neutral part of Feruchemy) eventually just die from being too old?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, yes. They can heal their body to match their spiritual ideal, but some things (like some genetic diseases, and age-related illnesses) are seen as part of the ideal. Depends on several factors.

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[tmnsquirtle]

My hunch on this topic is that most immortals will probably fall into the camp of "seeks power and wealth, rather than pleasures of the flesh" if only because the ways to become immortal have generally required something weird like that. But of course there would be exceptions.

[Yata he/him]

If most of Worldhoppers actually use time-dilatation tech to remain around longer... it's possible they don't live longer from their prospective and simply put themselves in statis for time to time