Methods of initiation and - Vax?

[+Oltux72]

So I am going to make a list of how you become magical in the Cosmere:

• Bonds - Knights Radiant, Aviars, Ashyn, Singers
• Descent - Allomancy, Feruchemy, (Sandmastery ?), Royal Locks
• Chance - Elantrians [partially]
• Divine choice - Returned, Heralds, (Unmade ?), Nightwatcher, Kandra, the Mists
• Magic items - medallions of Southern Scadrial, hemalurgy, honorblades, shard plate
• Magic substances or technology - Lerasium
• Knowledge - Forgery, Some other Selish systems
• Human sacrifice - Dakhor
• Cooperation - Biochroma
• Death - Threnody
• Geography: Sel, Nalthis

The list is longer than I thought, but it includes some of the odd examples. It can be broken down into broader categories

• Links to entities or machines
• inheritance
• religion
• knowledge
• universal magic (of a place)
• chance
• death

Is something missing? Yes, some of the classics.

1. Mages are made by magic - basically the way vampires make vampires
2. special circumstances - dive into a shard pool during a solar eclipse wearing a silver head band, that kind of stuff
3. the fuel creates the mage

So which will Vax explore? I think number 3.

 

[Scion of the Mists]

Nice list!  You may want to check out the Coppermind page on Initation:

https://coppermind.net/wiki/Initiation

[+Oltux72]

56 minutes ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Nice list!  You may want to check out the Coppermind page on Initation:

https://coppermind.net/wiki/Initiation

Two issues

1. It conflates how to hit the "on" switch and what determines whether you have an "on"-switch
2. It talks about the common case

That is fine for an encyclopedia. But Krisella has a scientific approach. For example how many ways are known to get an allomantic ability

1. Get the right parents and snap
2. Swallow and burn a bead of Lerasium
3. hemalurgy
4. don a medaillon
5. have been present and be lucky when Preservation used the mists
   [and if you go for the ability to cause an allomantic act rather than perform it yourself]
6. use a charged starter cube
   
   So what was she referring to when she wrote about a new method?

[+Invocation]

8 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

1. So what was she referring to when she wrote about a new method?

Probably Hemalurgy

[Scion of the Mists]

7 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Two issues

1. It conflates how to hit the "on" switch and what determines whether you have an "on"-switch
2. It talks about the common case

It's not very common for genetics to play a role (that's only the case for Allomancy and Feruchemy, that we know of), so I don't think #1 is a big issue.  Plus, I think the page is pretty clear about that difference.  

 

8 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

That is fine for an encyclopedia. But Krisella has a scientific approach. For example how many ways are known to get an allomantic ability

1. Get the right parents and snap
2. Swallow and burn a bead of Lerasium
3. hemalurgy
4. don a medaillon
5. have been present and be lucky when Preservation used the mists
   [and if you go for the ability to cause an allomantic act rather than perform it yourself]
6. use a charged starter cube

The normal method is #1, the others are either hacks (#3, #4) or Shardic intervention (#2, #5).  I'm not sure what you mean by #6.  

There are always going to be tons of hacks that you can do; I don't think it's super useful to exhaustively list them all out for each magic system.  Hemalurgy, for example, can be used to do basically anything.  

I do think that it's useful to have groupings of the "normal" ways of Initiating (e.g. genetics, bonds, Connection, no restrictions, etc.).  

 

7 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

So which will Vax explore? I think number 3.

I lean towards Vax being the Aether of Night world, mainly because that's the one Shardworld we know exists, but isn't named yet, and also because [spoiler reasons].  However, discussions of Aether of Night are restricted to the Aether of Night subforum, so I won't go into more detail here.  

[+Invocation]

4 minutes ago, Scion of the Mists said:

I lean towards Vax being the Aether of Night world, mainly because that's the one Shardworld we know exists, but isn't named yet, and also because [spoiler reasons].  However, discussions of Aether of Night are restricted to the Aether of Night subforum, so I won't go into more detail here.  

I still think Vax is a rogue planet sustained by a thick atmosphere and perhaps a Shard actively trying to keep beings alive on it.

[+Oltux72]

Hemalurgy as a major or sole method of initiation would not work. Spikes would get weaker or even be destroyed or lost. At least not independently. TLR could keep making steel inquisitor. But that was because he made them out of allomancers and feruchemists who reproduced sexually.
If you consider it from a highly abstract level hemalurgy and lerasium actually work under the same constraints. You need an external resource which you need to tap in once per mage. Technically that is the same way as Heightenings work.

 

[+Invocation]

1 minute ago, Oltux72 said:

Hemalurgy as a major or sole method of initiation would not work. Spikes would get weaker or even be destroyed or lost. At least not independently. TLR could keep making steel inquisitor. But that was because he made them out of allomancers and feruchemists who reproduced sexually.
If you consider it from a highly abstract level hemalurgy and lerasium actually work under the same constraints. You need an external resource which you need to tap in once per mage. Technically that is the same way as Heightenings work.

 

First generation Hemalurgy, maybe. Brandon has said that there is a chance for majorly Hemalurgy-ified creatures to pass along their "gifts" (notably Inquisitors) to their children in the natural way, much as mistwraiths were able to form their own self-sustaining species.

[+Oltux72]

5 minutes ago, Scion of the Mists said:

It's not very common for genetics to play a role (that's only the case for Allomancy and Feruchemy, that we know of), so I don't think #1 is a big issue.  Plus, I think the page is pretty clear about that difference.

The majority of invested people for now is Allomancers. Population size and relative rarity of abilities makes sure of that.

5 minutes ago, Scion of the Mists said:

 

The normal method is #1, the others are either hacks (#3, #4) or Shardic intervention (#2, #5).  I'm not sure what you mean by #6.

For now. In a few decades the normal case will be medaillions.

5 minutes ago, Scion of the Mists said:

There are always going to be tons of hacks that you can do; I don't think it's super useful to exhaustively list them all out for each magic system.  Hemalurgy, for example, can be used to do basically anything.  

I do think that it's useful to have groupings of the "normal" ways of Initiating (e.g. genetics, bonds, Connection, no restrictions, etc.).

It is certainly a valid way to look at it. Very well, so in high level overview we have:

• genetics: Scadrial
• bonds: Roshar, First of the Sun, (Ashyn)
• everybody: (Nalthis), Sel, Threnody, [hemalurgy], (Ashyn)
• chance: Elantris
• rare natural resources: (Nalthis)

Missing:

• contagion (Ashyn)
• rare natural resources (Nalthis)
• magic

There are corner cases. Ashyn would technically be bonds, but there is no concrete entity to bond. The practical consequences are enormous. You cannot have more Knights Radiant than there are spren. This limit does not exist for disease.

The only method that has not been seen is the magic ability to turn others capable of magic. Infection may sort of be the same in terms of consequences, but the mechanism is not the same.

[Scion of the Mists]

48 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

The majority of invested people for now is Allomancers. Population size and relative rarity of abilities makes sure of that.

Every single Nalthian is Invested, so I would assume that they're more numerous than Allomancers.  

 

56 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

There are corner cases. Ashyn would technically be bonds, but there is no concrete entity to bond. The practical consequences are enormous. You cannot have more Knights Radiant than there are spren. This limit does not exist for disease.

A good point that the numbers of Ashyn magic users is unbounded.  (Although I would pedantically quibble over the phrase "concrete entity")

 

58 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

The only method that has not been seen is the magic ability to turn others capable of magic. Infection may sort of be the same in terms of consequences, but the mechanism is not the same.

I would think that Shades count as the vampiric method of propagation.  

 

1 hour ago, Invocation said:

First generation Hemalurgy, maybe. Brandon has said that there is a chance for majorly Hemalurgy-ified creatures to pass along their "gifts" (notably Inquisitors) to their children in the natural way, much as mistwraiths were able to form their own self-sustaining species.

Here's the WoB.  Koloss also fall into this category.  

[+Invocation]

5 minutes ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Here's the WoB.  Koloss also fall into this category.  

Thank you! I'm really bad at finding WOBs.

[Scion of the Mists]

2 minutes ago, Invocation said:

Thank you! I'm really bad at finding WOBs.

Actually, there's a much more recent WoB that says otherwise:

Quote

Blainethetrain [PENDING REVIEW]

Is the access to Allomancy and Feruchemy granted via Hemalurgy heritable?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

No. Good question.

Skyward Houston signing (Nov. 19, 2018)

[+Invocation]

Just now, Scion of the Mists said:

Actually, there's a much more recent WoB that says otherwise:

CURSES

Foiled again!

[SwordNimiForPresident]

That WoB rules out metallic arts, but what about Hemalurgy’s other effects? Are they inheritable?

[+Oltux72]

1 hour ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

That WoB rules out metallic arts, but what about Hemalurgy’s other effects? Are they inheritable?

At most partially. The Kandra do not sexually reproduce to make new Kandra.

[+ILuvHats]

3 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

That WoB rules out metallic arts, but what about Hemalurgy’s other effects? Are they inheritable?

I’d think so.  The investiture the spikes pin to your soul is recognized as foreign investiture, so traits gained from the donor can’t be passed on genetically.  However, spikes also warp your original spirit web in addition to adding new bits, so any traits arising from this warping could probably be passed on to children.  For example, inquisitors can’t pass on Allomancer, but considering they’re no longer completely human, any children they have might be anatomically different from normal people. 

Edited February 6, 2019 by ILuvHats

[Scion of the Mists]

13 hours ago, ILuvHats said:

I’d think so.  The investiture the spikes pin to your soul is recognized as foreign investiture, so traits gained from the donor can’t be passed on genetically.  However, spikes also warp your original spirit web in addition to adding new bits, so any traits arising from this warping could probably be passed on to children.  For example, inquisitors can’t pass on Allomancer, but considering they’re no longer completely human, any children they have might be anatomically different from normal people. 

I agree this is the best interpretation.  It explains both the Allomancy/Feruchemy not being inheritable and the koloss breeding true.  

[+Oltux72]

OK, how about a matrix of attributes. There is no point in looking at the exact mechanic of initiation. It is different on each world. But it can be seen as obeying a set of attributes. For example on both Scadrial and Nalthis initiation is involuntary. You cannot choose to be an allomancer or your heightening. Wheras on Roshar it is entirely voluntary on both sides. The Spren has to choose you and you can refuse to say the words. But on Nalthis you can give away your Breath. But once an allomancer, always an Allomancer. That yields a second parameter: reversibility

 

I would propose

• voluntary nature
• reversability
• selection