Ripheus23 Posted October 9, 2018 Posted October 9, 2018 Let's start with... Quote Questioner [PENDING REVIEW] For Adonalsium to create the universe, therefore he must have infinite power to create an infinitely sized universe. Therefore, infinity divided by sixteen is equal to infinity. Therefore, why don't the Shards have infinite power, which they clearly don't, because they can be killed? Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW] The power can't be killed. The entity controlling the power can. Infinite power existing and being able to access the infinite power are different things, and a finite mind, even added to a very powerful sense of power, isn't necessarily able to tap all of that. Questioner [PENDING REVIEW] What about Ruin and Preservation in Well of Ascension? We hear about Ruin using some of its power. Therefore, it must not have infinite power, because if you minus something from infinity, it's still infinity... Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW] So, infinite power is changing forms. It's not going anywhere, right? So, the Investiture, the power, is becoming energy, which is doing work, which is being released back into the system. Nothing's growing or shrinking. It is simply changing forms, and potential energy is becoming kinetic. source This is informative as far as it goes. However, I think the questioner was on to something. For example: Quote Questioner Does Odium actually present a real threat to Harmony, because he-- *interrupted* Brandon Sanderson So Harmony is vastly more powerful than Odium. source There's also this: Quote Mason Wheeler (paraphrased) You've said that Splintering a Shard is essentially the same thing as the Shattering of Adonalsium, repeated on a smaller scale. Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) Yeah. source This all adds up to something that sounds like breaking infinity into pieces, which might not make sense. (If it was just about access to knowledge of power, then Harmony, because he knows less than Odium, would not be vastly more powerful than the other, and possibly not even more powerful as such at all.) But I have a different idea... Quote Lance Alvein (paraphrased) You've said that "The Pits of Hathsin were crafted by Preservation as a place to hide the chunk of Ruin's body that he had stolen away". How does one Shard steal a portion of another Shard and create a Physical outlet for it, like the Pits were for Ruin's power? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) It has to do with clash between the two Shards' power. When pressed, he then said that it was "kind of" like splintering source Also: Quote Overlord Jebus [PENDING REVIEW] Is all Investiture in the cosmere associated with a Shard? Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW] Yes, well, okay. So this is a complicated one. *pauses* So, Investiture predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, all Investiture was from Adonalsium, all Investiture got assigned to one of the 16 Shards when Adonalsium was Shattered. Some of the Investiture was not on Yolen but location is irrelevant. So Investiture is related to Shards even on planets where none of the Shards are inhabiting. Overlord Jebus [PENDING REVIEW] Are they aware of that Investiture? Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW] That's part of the whole seeing into the infinite, being beyond even the power of a Shard. So, technically you could make the argument that Harmony could feel the sense of Preservation on every world in the cosmere, right? Because the building blocks of all life and creation are these things. Overlord Jebus [PENDING REVIEW] So the Shard of Preservation embodies all preservation in the cosmere? Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW] Yes but he just can't do that, right? Like, he's not infinite. The Vessels are not, even if their minds are enormously expanded by holding a Shard, they are not infinite. The Connection is all there in the Spiritual Realm source All these WoBs together suggest to me that the question is about two uses of the word "Investiture" in relation to numbers. The difference is between extensive quantity and intensive quantity---extent and degree. All the Shards are Invested to an infinite degree: the degree of their matter and energy is Spiritual. But Investiture also manifests in a distinct way in the Physical Realm. Let's say that there was a field of Adonalsium's power spanning the entire Cosmere, and at each point in this field, Adonalsium could act to an infinite degree. When Shattered, this field of power was divided into sixteen "levels" as well as sixteen sets of regions. To get the idea visually, let's say the following set of numbers and letters represents the extent of the Cosmere-field, with different symbols representing Physical quantities of Investiture: 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 0,0,0,0,0,A,0,0,0 0,[Yolen],0,0,0,0 0,0,A,0,0,0,0,0,0 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,A So the fields are everywhere, but the particles in the fields are not, and 1/16th of the particles were assigned to each Shard, even though the fields themselves are all Cosmere-wide and of potentially infinite degree. (A) are the "pockets" of Autonomy's Investiture particles that are scattered across the Cosmere (she is as it were pre-Splintered, it would seem?), 0 is the default excitation of any field (that is, not all particles in the Cosmere are Invested), and at Yolen there were most of the n + 1 excitations (most of the already-Invested particles). So a Shard can only directly act in the Physical Realm via the packets of Investiture assigned to it. These packets are bound together so Splintering them is a special process. By contrast, becoming a Sliver means attaining the degree of a Shard's power without the full extent of the Investiture being used. So the "prison" of Ruin was like Ruin being Splintered not because a packet of his particles were split off from another packet, but his whole degree of access to his Investiture particles (at the time in the form of atium) was interdicted (it was a Cognitive barrier, after all, that Preservation put in place). And the Well allowed one to Ascend even though the Well was not the sum of Preservation's Physical Investiture. Another implication of this would be that the Shards are all the same rank as Adonalsium was. Adonalsium's distinction in might as such would've been having all the finite quantity of Physical Investiture particles assigned to him. This might help explain how it was mathematically possible for the Vessels to kill a being who otherwise seems likely to have utterly surpassed them. 2
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