Questions of Assignment

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

Let's start off with what we know,  or think we know, about Investiture.  

It rides along with matter and energy as a force that cannot be created or destroyed,  only transferred or changed.

Adonalasium built the Cosmere and is/was the ultimate source of Investiture. 

Investiture generally flows from the Spiritual Realm down to the Physical. It can be naturally drawn or willfully drawn by intent.

Investiture is coded. Shards code Investiture through Connection, while users of Investiture code their specific uses of Investiture through Identity. 

Blank Investiture's natural inclination is to seek Connection as a means to direct itself.  If one does not code blank Investiture then the magic will eventually forge its own entity with which to connect. 

I throw this list out to serve as a framework for the questions I ask the fandom to ponder upon.  I have no theories,  yet I hope this post sparks a couple, or at the very least some good discussion.  These deal directly with the history of the Cosmere. 

As we know,  Uncle Addie built the Cosmere,  to what purpose if any is unclear.  With the exception of Scadrial,  all the Cosmere planets were built before the Shattering.  We also know that magic existed pre Shattering.  First question,  did all the magics we've seen on screen so far exist then as well, in one form or another.  We already know Lightweaving had a Yolish variant and that it can still be performed if one has the knowledge (thanks Hoid). Are there others? And if there are, did they require an original Connection to Adonalasium or can those magics still be done today? 

Next came the Shattering,  an event that changed both everything and nothing.  The Shards decided to go their separate ways and they kinda did that. How much of a hurry were they to go and invest a planet? Did those planets already have magic systems and if so, who was controlling magic access before the Shard got there? How does magic change once a Shard gets involved? And are Shards drawn to planets where their Intent is expressed more strongly (Cultivation on Roshar for example)? And what about planets with magic but no Shard present.  Who controls access to magic there? Or is there a default condition set up under Adonalasium,  one that changes once a Shard becomes involved? 

[Karger he/him]

24 minutes ago, Bigmikey357 said:

Did those planets already have magic systems

The Parshe people could almost certainly change forms prior to the shattering.  Those are "controlled" by spren.

26 minutes ago, Bigmikey357 said:

Who controls access to magic there? Or is there a default condition set up under Adonalasium,  one that changes once a Shard becomes involved? 

All investiture is flavored to one shard or another.  Even prior to the shattering something resembling the Stormfather existed.  At the shattering the Stormfather was assigned to Honor.  I do not know if this effected his choice to come to Roshar.

[Weltall]

9 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

First question,  did all the magics we've seen on screen so far exist then as well, in one form or another.  We already know Lightweaving had a Yolish variant and that it can still be performed if one has the knowledge (thanks Hoid). Are there others? And if there are, did they require an original Connection to Adonalasium or can those magics still be done today? 

The answer to this is 'Yes, sort of'.

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Questioner

From what I understand, Ruin and Preservation create the world together, and they created humanity as copies of the original humankind. So how did they give Allomancy to Scadrial?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. So the magic systems are kind of built into the setting and the world. And there are certain natural pathways that exist, in the same way there are certain natural pathways for them to create life. Which is my explanation for why life is so similar on all the different planets, is that they're following natural pathways, and these magics are kind of the same way. For instance, Lightweaving predates the Shattering of Adonalsium. A lot of these other things are suggestive of magics that existed before that were built around Adonalsium. They weren't 100% created by the Shards, but they also do have the Shards' influence on them.

Skyward San Diego signing (Nov. 7, 2018)

We know that Hoid's version of Lightweaving was 'broken' to some degree and that he's happy to get access to Rosharan Lightweaving so he can do things he couldn't before. We can assume the Shattering was probably the cause of this but whether it was a direct effect or a side-effect of something else (like whatever happened to make Hoid as immortal as he is) we have no way of knowing right now. It's also vaguely possible it was broken in some other manner unrelated to the Shattering. We do know that either other users of Yolish Lightweaving exist or that knowledge of how it works is readily available, because Khriss has to know a fair amount about it in order to draw the comparison between Yolish and Rosharan Lightweaving that she does in the Ars Arcana.

We also know that Hoid's super-healing predates the Shattering but that's about all we know. As with Hoid's Lightweaving, we don't know what the conditions to access the magic were and whether they could still be done by someone who was born post-Shettering.

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Did those planets already have magic systems and if so, who was controlling magic access before the Shard got there? How does magic change once a Shard gets involved? And are Shards drawn to planets where their Intent is expressed more strongly (Cultivation on Roshar for example)? And what about planets with magic but no Shard present.  Who controls access to magic there? Or is there a default condition set up under Adonalasium,  one that changes once a Shard becomes involved? 

Per the WoB above, most of the magic systems that we see either existed in some form or are echoing magics that existed before the Shattering. Brandon has said that for worlds without Shards (ie 'minor shardworlds') the magic is largely going to be a part of the setting, won't be interacted with as directly and will be generally weaker than worlds with a Shard in residence. Trimmed for length:

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I still consider one of the major dividing lines between "major" and "minor" Shardworlds (other than Shard residence) to be in strength of access to the magic, and control over it. I intend the minor Shardworlds to involve interactions with the magic as setting--coming back to spren, you could have a minor Shardworld with people who use, befriend, even bond spren. (Or the local equivalent--Seon, Aviar, etc.) But you'd never see power on the level of the city of Elantris, the actions of a Bondsmith, or even the broad power suite of a Mistborn.

General Reddit 2018 (March 18, 2018)

So any magic that existed on the worlds without a Shard but which eventually played host to one would probably have looked more like First of the Sun does or what we know of Ashyn, and then the arrival of the Shards provides a way to interact more directly with that magic and makes what can be done with it more potent. We know the general mechanism of access on a major shardworld is based on the intent of the resident Shard(s) so once they arrive, the subtle interactions of their intent, any magic that predated their arrival and the sDNA of the local populations will result in a new way of getting to the magic.

The question of 'who controls access to magic' on minor shardworlds is flawed because it implies a conscious agent, which doesn't fit what Brandon has said or the examples we've been given; Humans access First of the Sun's magic by forming bonds with the Aviar, who themselves get the magic from the grubs. No entity consciously says 'you get magic, you don't' and instead it's more like 'If you (Aviar) eat a grub then you get magic, then if you (human) bond with the Aviar you get to benefit from that magic'. Likewise what we know of Ashyn indicates that bacteria are the source of the magic so there isn't an agent controlling the process, it's just 'you encounter the bacteria in the environment and get magic while also getting sick'. There's a social mechanism that's been put in place by the human population to ensure that specific beneficial magics are readily accessible but actual access to the magic is still an environmental thing and new magics can be found as people catch new diseases whether they intended to or not.

Oh, and since it's somewhat related we know that Adonalsium had established some boundaries before the Shattering so things like creating Fabrials would have been extremely difficult if not impossible unless Adonalsium allowed you to do it.

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

One thing I want to know is if Stormlight and Spren are special when it comes to gemstones interacting with Investiture and/or Splinters. Could you take a gem to Taldain and Invest it with Autonomy's Investiture on Dayside? Would that Sandlight, so to speak, be useable by a KR or a Fabrial? Could you put a Seon in a crystal and make Aon-based fabrials? Or even a Threnody Shade, thus making the shade-gun we hear about in Mistborn era 2's broadsheets (iirc)?