Cosmere FTL and the Mechanization of Spirit Webs

[Steeldancer]

If you aren't familiar with my previous theorizing I highly recommend reading my Spiritual Realm threads, and my Alcubierre Drive theorization.  This is somewhat based on that. 
Some more context for this, is that this is my 4,000th post. I won't be getting to 5,000 posts before I leave on my mission and leave the community for two years, likely missing the release of SA4 and whatever else we happen to get in that time. So, I want to leave one last little gift for the fandom in terms of my theorization before I leave, and what better to do it than on my 4,000th post?

Anyway, one of the major questions raised specifically by my theorization on the Alcubierre drive is, what kind of FTL would Taldain have? And furthermore, what kind of FTL would any other minor shardworld have, that doesn't have the dramatic power of Roshar or Scadrial? After all, we know that

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Darksiders have almost as advanced technology as second Era Scadrians.

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes.

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

But then we see Darksiders in The Secret-- in Mistborn: The Secret History. So are they gonna be the first spacefarers, are they gonna get there before Scadrians?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

So, where it is right now is that certain things have happened to Taldain that have isolated it and cut it off.

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Yeah, a little bit in Arcanum Unbounded talked about that.

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

And some-- they're under-- going through some difficult times, let's say... So, I will RAFO whether or not they're going to make it first to make it to space, but let's just say they were well on target to making it first before certain events happened.

Idaho Falls signing (Dec. 29, 2018)

So, in other words, Taldain was going to be first to space- and by extension, first to FTL tech. And there is no way that they were going to achieve FTL tech by stealing allomantic tech from Scadrial or something like that. Further evidence is brought up by Sixth of the Dusk, where we see that the Ones Above have a sort of Prime Directive, where they aren't allowed to directly trade with the people on the planet until they achieve a similar level of technology, which includes FTL tech. In other words, in order to have the expectation that the people of First of the Sun could achieve FTL, FTL needs to be achievable without outside interference- and without allomancy or surges or anything. And there is no way that either grubs or sand is going to achieve FTL tech by themselves. Therefore, a conclusion needs to be made-

There must be a FTL system that is achievable through universal cosmere principles, that isn't associated with a single magic system like the Allomantic Alcubierre drive is. It'll likely involve a deep understanding of the Cosmere, and of investiture, and will be fairly complex. HOWEVER, if this hypothetical unknown drive is based on universal cosmere principles, while we may not have enough information at the present to predict the details as to how it could be constructed or how it works, we do have a solid enough base in the cosmere that we should be able to predict what this might look like. So, what will this look like? I'm going to take a major leap here, but first I want to give some context to my leap. 

First, I made the jump that the Alcubierre drive would require the mechanization of allomancy to be more powerful than normal allomancers. There is precedence for this. In the recent episode of Shardcast, it is pointed out that the Lord Ruler created a body that is able to output allomantic power far more than even a lerasium mistborn can. In other words, he altered his own spirit web to squeeze way more juice out of his metals than would otherwise be possible. This assumption, that they would be able to do this with mechanized allomancy, means that they will have significant ability to alter and enhance spirit webs, which is important for my leap in logic.

Second, the idea that Allomancy and Surgebinding didn't exist at first. They are things now, but they didn't start off being a thing. Instead, these shapes in spirit webs do things now, where before no ability existed at all. I don't know for sure that specific shapes will always do specific things no matter what, as that's a pretty long jump to make in generalizing about the cosmere, especially as I'm pretty sure Allomancy only exists in the form it does because Harmony allows it to happen that way, due to the fact that the metal isn't the source of power, but simply the key to power. Regardless of the whole "key" business, the effects the investiture drawn from Harmony have are quite specific and interesting. And those abilities didn't exist originally, so I'm going to generalize here and say that, certain shapes in spirit webs can do certain things with investiture, and that it is likely there are general interactions with investiture and spirit webs that haven't been discovered yet. It is a problematic generalization, but one I need to make in order for this to make sense. 

All those confusing assumptions and generalizations aside, here's my pitch: I think the key to the future of the Cosmere, and universal investiture based FTL drives, is the ability to create spirit webs from scratch. Now hear me out before you boo me off the stage and convince Chaos to bring back downvotes just to downvote this theory. There's a lot of hints in the cosmere at more specific interactions with the spiritual realm being very important in the future. First example, hemalurgy looks like it will be important in the future of the cosmere. It can rip out pieces of spirit webs. Then we have shardblades, which can cut spirit webs. Another unexpected thing that can interact with spirit webs is breath, as per WoB: 

Quote

Steeldancer [PENDING REVIEW]

Given a situation where they have perfect knowledge of Hemalurgy--everything is known. Is it possible they could use a Shard-scalpel and spike to carefully...

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

To excise without killing somebody? The real damage is to the soul...

Steeldancer [PENDING REVIEW]

I'm imagining taking out toxic sort of things.

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

You've seen Vasher do something similar, so it's not off books that that's possible.

Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018)

The moment he is mentioning here is when in Warbreaker, Vasher teaches a command to a child, and she is able to excise her own memories with this command. So breath isn't really out of the question as a tool to directly interact with spirit webs, with the right commands, in the future. But if these future people are going to be CREATING spirit webs, they're going to need some other tools. Breath could fit the bill... but I'll be honest, I'm at a bit of a loss trying to guess how this would work. This does lead me to turning to one of my questions from my original spirit realm thread, where I wondered how the spirit webs of children are created from scratch. They've got to be templates from investiture. Another thought, spren are basically made from scratch investiture, are they not? They start off as concepts before the Stormfather or whoever makes them into new spren, going to a special place or something like that. And clearly spren have spirit webs of some sort, right? I theorized upon how the Nahel bond changes the web of both spren and Knight, changing each to be more like the other. So perhaps a process like that might be viable. 

But however they actually create the webs, they aren't going to be doing this spiritual realm manipulation on humans. I'd imagine a mad scientist or two might try it, and then it'll be outlawed for being inhumane or something like that. No, rather they would do it on robots! Or, just tech in general. Which, incidentally, could lead to a very Asimovish question about whether these artificial webs count as being alive or not, and where the line between human and nonhuman really lies. Future plot threads aside, I'm going to make a second giant leap and say these artificial webs will eventually reveal that you can make certain things happen with investiture, using web shapes not normally seen in living creatures, that are not associated with a single magic system. Specifically what I'm imagining is something like a spirit web construct that you can program to connect with different places, and the other side is connected to the ship. Then, you pour investiture into it from your sand batteries or whatever, and once totally powered up, it activates, and folds space to bring the two things it is connected to together. Not too far fetched, right?  

These hypothetical "Spiritual Folds" fit the bill in a couple different ways. They're based on cosmere mechanics, specifically breath, which... sort of makes spirit webs when you awaken things? I'd argue that Nightblood definitely has a spirit web, which would have been 100% created from breath, so that works. But I'm sure there will end up being more universal ways to play with investiture, that any planet could use to manipulate spirit webs. This technology would also be sufficiently advanced, leaps and bounds beyond what anyone is really doing at the moment, and really so far beyond our ability to predict in the Cosmere that there's no way for me to know whether I'm on to something genius or whether I'm just totally off my rocker. I will also note that this isn't ruled out by our knowledge that Sleepless are important in Era 4, because it suggests that it might be possible to connect all the ships directly. I'd imagine however you create a web, once you create it, it's not easy to change, and with new spaceships being made all the time, altering a connection spirit web to facilitate adding every new ship sounds a lot more difficult than just sticking a sleepless bug on board, to connect to all the other sleepless bugs. 

So what are the problems with this? Other than breath, we don't really have any examples of people doing this. Which makes sense, given my idea that it will only be possible with a much more advanced understanding of investiture and how the spiritual realm works in directing investiture to do specific things, but it is still problematic because we don't really have any solid indications that this is where it is going to go. Also, there's the problem that we have absolutely any idea if it's actually true that there are certain identities or web shapes that would direct investiture to do something like fold space. That's a guess and a leap of logic at best. So in all seriousness, what else does this theory actually have going for it? Or is it really just crazy speculation that is unlikely to ever actually happen?

I give you one last piece of evidence: a pitch for the actual story of Era 4. We know it will have crossovers between worlds, with space opera and FTL and... and Hoid. So let's say we have this technology, they are now truly able to create spirit webs from scratch. It isn't easy, but doing so creates useful things. It also calls back to Dragonsteel, because one of the magic systems in that (and no, I haven't read Dragonsteel, I just know about this from this one WoB) can manipulate spirit webs. 

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the.fulgid

It seems to be more apparent that different abilities are granted depending on the design of one's spiritweb. Is the design of a spiritweb, and the abilities it grants, limited to a specific Shardworld or are the designs universal across the cosmere? For example could someone from Roshar go to Scadrial and have Hemalurgy done on them and have it work?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah, some of the magics are more regionally-locked than others. Hemalurgy will work on any planet. But, for instance, you'll notice that Elantrians have trouble even going to the next nation over. There's a specific reason for that. Most of the magics transcend location.

the.fulgid

My question, in regards to Dragonsteel, is: Is there a possibility that somebody with the ability of microkinesis can see the spiritweb and alter it according to their will?

Brandon Sanderson

This is, this is totally possible. But you have to remember this is pre-Shattering of Adonalsium. Dragonsteel is the story of the Shattering of Adonalsium... the whole book is before, the whole series... So there are lots of things going on there that are-- like you will-- yeah. But it’s not canon yet.

Shadows of Self release party (Oct. 5, 2015)

And in further interesting WoB news, I'll just stick this one in as well, because fission reactions are always fun.

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ccstat

There IS historical precedent of accidentally setting off fission reactions in the cosmere using the magic

Now this is a story I look forward to hearing :-)

Brandon Sanderson

One of the first magic systems I designed for the cosmere was based on the manipulation of sub-atomic particles, and involved the ability to look directly at atoms and interact with them. I decided to back off on this, as it was a whopper of a magic system to get right with my limited (at the time) writing experience. It was fun, though, and is still a canonical Cosmere magic.

Stormlight Three Update #4 (Oct. 19, 2016)

 And what do we know about Hoid's motivations? We know he wants to do something perceived as totally impossible (as per the Traveler excerpt and the letters in SA), and it has been strongly suggested by many in the community, including myself, that his endgame involves bringing back Adonalsium. I also went fairly into depth in my original Spiritual Realm thread as to why that's unreasonable and totally impossible. 
Except maybe it isn't?

If they're able to make spirit webs, perhaps Hoid interprets this as the way that he can finally achieve his goals and recreate Adonalsium. And recreating Adonalsium would involve a spirit web that has connection to pretty much everything, right? So that would involve a lot of travel from world to world. So I'm pitching that Era 4 will be a world hopping adventure on a space ship with Hoid, where they deal with stuff on each place they go to, all in order to gain the requisite connection on the spirit web Hoid is attempting to make. They'd probably also need to collect investiture from all 16 shards, which... I would not mind seeing . And of course, they'd have to prevent any rogue Hemalurgists from coming and spiking the web for their own nefarious purposes. Is it actually possible for Hoid to accomplish this goal? Honestly... I have genuinely no idea. But would it be a compelling and interesting story and quest? Absolutely. And what would be the consequences if Hoid actually attempted this? I'm not 100% sure, but my instinct says that at that point, recreating Adonalsium is a bad, bad idea. It would screw up all the magic systems, and what would really be the benefit? 

Well, I'm not here to theorize about Hoid, I'm here to theorize about spirit webs and FTL tech. And while I admit that this idea, creating spirit webs that don't do things we've ever seen before and that aren't possible with any known magic system, seems a little crazy. But at the same time, from where I stand today in my knowledge about investiture and the spiritual realm and FTL, I don't really see any alternatives. Could it be that we literally just don't know enough yet to predict accurately what these universal FTL drives must be using? Absolutely, and if we learn stuff in Era 3 of Mistborn that makes this entirely irrelevant, that's great. But I feel it would be a compelling story, a way to facilitate the end of the story of Adonalsium, which has puzzled me as to how that could get a resolution for a while now. It would also allow us to see all parts of the cosmere in this quest to slowly build the Web of a God. I for one would totally be up for reading something about that. But of course, I could be totally wrong about this. 

I just wanted to try one last time to pull some great theorizing out of my brain, and this is sort of the natural conclusion to my realm of theorization. So, feel free to rip it to shreds or praise it or whatever. I've poured a lot of thought and WoB research into this, so I'm hoping I'm not missing a single WoB that totally topples this theory. Commenters, I'd be happy to hear your own ideas about how a universal method of FTL could be achievable, because obviously I might be missing something here. Furthermore, it is quite possible that in the next two years in which I am gone, we'll get some WoBs that shed light on the topic and totally invalidate this. But this is what I have to offer, one last time, to the 17th Shard. 

It's been fun theorizing and obsessing over the Spiritual Realm and FTL tech. For those who actually read all the way through this beast of a post, congratulations, you're a trooper. I'll miss being able to drop things like this on you guys while I'm on my mission, and it'll be a while before I can do things like this after I come back, since I'll be so behind on cosmere knowledge. Until such a time, I'll call this post good, and thank everyone for making a community where a nerd-scientist like me could thrive enough to output crazy nonsense such as this, and have it not be the weirdest thing on here. 

[Karger]

2 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

So, in other words, Taldain was going to be first to space- and by extension, first to FTL tech. And there is no way that they were going to achieve FTL tech by stealing allomantic tech from Scadrial or something like that. Further evidence is brought up by Sixth of the Dusk, where we see that the Ones Above have a sort of Prime Directive, where they aren't allowed to directly trade with the people on the planet until they achieve a similar level of technology, which includes FTL tech. In other words, in order to have the expectation that the people of First of the Sun could achieve FTL, FTL needs to be achievable without outside interference- and without allomancy or surges or anything. And there is no way that either grubs or sand is going to achieve FTL tech by themselves. Therefore, a conclusion needs to be made-

That principle could have been manufactured latter.  In response to Taldain stealing Scadrain Tech and the disasters that followed.

[Truthless of Shinovar]

This theory is AMAZING

 

2 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

Some more context for this, is that this is my 4,000th post. I won't be getting to 5,000 posts before I leave on my mission and leave the community for two years, likely missing the release of SA4 and whatever else we happen to get in that time. So, I want to leave one last little gift for the fandom in terms of my theorization before I leave, and what better to do it than on my 4,000th post?

And hey, congratulations on your mission! Where are you going?

[Karger]

2 minutes ago, Truthless of Shinovar said:

And hey, congratulations on your mission! Where are you going?

ditto

[Calderis]

I don't disagree that I this will be achieved through some form of Spiritual shenanigans... But I don't believe that it is possible to create "artificial" spiritweb. I also don't think you would need to actually create life.

As to the creation of a spiritweb, everything has a spiritweb. The hierarchy of realms demands it. Something can exist Spiritually, as a Cognitive object/entity with a spiritual aspect, or in all three realms... But the moment you create something you've created it. And if you make that in the Spiritual I think it absolutely real. That leads into my second issue though, because I think you are too focused on living souls here... 

Just look at the way the airship in BoM can be induced to reduce its weight. This is inherently a much larger effect on the ship than it would be in a person. There is no need to make the ship live, or alter its spiritweb to increase the strength of the power granted. 

So overall I agree with the direction that you are pushing towards, but in the specifics I think it will be more about alteration of the Spiritual Aspects of existing objects to increase their capabilities and/or imbue them with aspects of local Investiture than in the creation of new spiritwebs to augment them. 

Edited May 6, 2019 by Calderis

[Steeldancer]

21 minutes ago, Truthless of Shinovar said:

This theory is AMAZING

 

And hey, congratulations on your mission! Where are you going?

 

19 minutes ago, Karger said:

ditto

I’m going to Fort Worth Texas, speaking Marshallese. I leave June 19th. 

[Truthless of Shinovar]

Cool, and good luck!!

[Steeldancer]

25 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I don't disagree that I this will be achieved through some form of Spiritual shenanigans... But I don't believe that it is possible to create "artificial" spiritweb. I also don't think you would need to actually create life.

As to the creation of a spiritweb, everything has a spiritweb. The hierarchy of realms demands it. Something can exist Spiritually, as a Cognitive object/entity with a spiritual aspect, or in all three realms... But the moment you create something you've created it. And if you make that in the Spiritual I think it absolutely real. That leads into my second issue though, because I think you are too focused on living souls here... 

Just look at the way the airship in BoM can be induced to reduce its weight. This is inherently a much larger effect on the ship than it would be in a person. There is no need to make the ship live, or alter its spiritweb to increase the strength of the power granted. 

So overall I agree with the direction that you are pushing towards, but in the specifics I think it will be more about alteration of the Spiritual Aspects of existing objects to increase their capabilities and/or imbue them with aspects of local Investiture than in the creation of new spiritwebs to augment them. 

Well first off nightblood already is an artificial spirit web, and is alive. 

I don’t think creating life is as much the purpose of it, but rather it’ll be the byproduct of having so much investiture go through things. 

I also totally agree there will be spiritual alterations, but I just feel there’s more to the situation that will be in the future. Unfortunately this topic would be extremely powerful RAFO bait, so I doubt we’re going to get information either way on this for a long while. Of course, Brandon could also surprise us with a crazy WoB. 

Also I just realized I left this in Stormlight and not cosmere. If someone could fix that that would be great.

Edited May 6, 2019 by Steeldancer

[StormblessedSurvivor]

This theory is...very complicated, I'll have to think about this a bit to understand it  

4 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

 

I’m going to Fort Worth Texas, speaking Marshallese. I leave June 19th. 

Congratulations! Gonna sneak into Six Flags too?

 

[ZenBossanova]

11 hours ago, Calderis said:

But I don't believe that it is possible to create "artificial" spiritweb. I also don't think you would need to actually create life.

I would say spiritweb ≠ life. 

Perhaps we should say artificial spiritual connections/constructions. 

11 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

 

I’m going to Fort Worth Texas, speaking Marshallese. I leave June 19th. 

I wanted to go somewhere foreign and exotic, and ended up teaching rednecks in Florida. 

Still, it turned out to be what I needed. We are excited for you. Spending two years focusing on everything but yourself changes you. 

Besides, Rhythm of War will just be out when you return. 

[Rainier]

On 5/6/2019 at 7:08 AM, Steeldancer said:

and Hoid. So let's say we have this technology, they are now truly able to create spirit webs from scratch

On 5/6/2019 at 7:08 AM, Steeldancer said:

And what do we know about Hoid's motivations? We know he wants to do something perceived as totally impossible (as per the Traveler excerpt and the letters in SA), and it has been strongly suggested by many in the community, including myself, that his endgame involves bringing back Adonalsium.

I don't think Hoid is trying to bring back Adonalsium, I think he's trying to forge himself a Shard with no intent, that he can wield as he wants to without being corrupted by the shard's intent. He would need to perfectly balance all 16 shardic intents to do so, but your spiritweb thoughts point that this should be possible. In order to avoid being corrupted by the intent of the shard, he'd have to collect all 16 before he's able to do anything with it, so that explains both his long game and his relative reticence to show his power. He can't afford to draw attention to himself, anymore than he has as the most notorious man in the Cosmere, and he can't afford to make powerful enemies until he's ready to launch the plan into motion.

Agree completely on Nightblood being the first artificial spiritweb, although that has somehow raised my anticipation of Nightblood (novel), which I didn't think was possible.

[Kramerfarve]

I wonder how the creation of AIs could tie into spiritweb altering shenanigans?

[Halyo_Alex]

6 hours ago, Kramerfarve said:

I wonder how the creation of AIs could tie into spiritweb altering shenanigans?

I think (keyword think) that i saw a WoB that a sufficiently advanced AI would develop it's own spiritweb and you could spike it with hemalurgy, with it's own crazy consequences (like spiking it with a big copper spike).

[Calderis]

24 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

I think (keyword think) that i saw a WoB that a sufficiently advanced AI would develop it's own spiritweb and you could spike it with hemalurgy, with it's own crazy consequences (like spiking it with a big copper spike).

You're correct.

Quote

NeedsAdjustment

You've said before that if a sentient computer were developed, it would call a soul into itself. Could it be Hemalurgically spiked?

Brandon Sanderson

Theoretically, yes, but I have no idea yet how the logistics of that would work.

Stormlight Three Update #4 (Oct. 5, 2016)

 

[Halyo_Alex]

This sounds like it could be related to keeping your spiritweb intact with cybernetic enhancements (when era 4 rolls around). if a computer with nothing organic can develop its own spiritweb, then i'm fairly confident a person with, say, a cybernetic arm, who perceived that arm as a real part of them, would still have spiritweb in their arm. It might not be their original spiritweb, but.

Edited May 10, 2019 by Halyo_Alex

[Calderis]

9 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

This sounds like it could be related to keeping your spiritweb intact with cybernetic enhancements (when era 4 rolls around). if a computer with nothing organic can develop its own spiritweb, then i'm fairly confident a person with, say, a cybernetic arm, who perceived that arm as a real part of them, would still have spiritweb in their arm. It might not be their original spiritweb, but.

I'm not sure this is the same thing really.

Not saying that you're incorrect, just that the creation of a Spiritual Aspect for an AI or Nightblood isn't "artificial" in the way I read things. It's very very similar in the way its created as it is for a child. 

Quote

Blightsong [PENDING REVIEW]

You've said that, AI in the cosmere, creating one is kind of like having a child realmatically. Would that extend to most sapient creations?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes.

Blightsong [PENDING REVIEW]

So could a created spren from a Returned inherit Royal Locks? Within a reasonable possibility?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

*ahhing in a very curious manner* You could make this happen, but I don't think it would happen naturally.

Skyward Chicago signing (Nov. 16, 2018)

The Spiritweb incorporating pieces into itself, and the "birth" of an entity are very different animals in my mind. 

Edited May 10, 2019 by Calderis