Is it the investiture itself that is programmed to action?

[Trusk'our he/him]

      I'm a bit confused as to how this works; when an allomancer burns a metal, they pull some of Preservation's investiture from the spiritual realm, allowing them to do a thing with that investiture, and depending on the type of metal, the investiture grants a different effect.

     So, is it the investiture itself that is "programmed" while being drawn from the spiritual realm, giving it that effect, or is the spirit web of the allomancer doing the work of the caused effect, and the investiture merely fueling the work?

    For instance, let's say that the investiture that an allomancer gains from a burned metal is somehow removed from them, would the investiture still be programmed to the specific effect that the allomancer would have, or would it be fuel that is more or less up for grabs for any ability?

   A surgebinder holding stormlight can use that investiture to fuel any of their abilities, but an allomancer's investiture already does some specific effect based on the metal. So, even if an allomancer also somehow became a surgebinder, could they not use their allomancy to fuel their surgebinding because it is already programmed to have a different effect?

[Honorless he/him]

It is programmed to a specific ability is what we currently think.

The Spiritweb of an Allomancer gives them Connection to Preservation and allows them to process the metals to get Investiture. The Investiture is programmed by the metals, as we know from WoBs

RoW spoilers

Spoiler

and as we see with fabrials

 

[Dunkum he/him]

I tend to think of it like pushing the investiture through a mold.  the metal shapes the investiture as it enters the physical realm.  this is why burning a metalmind works differently - the ferruchemical charge changes the shape of the mold

[StanLemon]

13 minutes ago, Dunkum said:

I tend to think of it like pushing the investiture through a mold.  the metal shapes the investiture as it enters the physical realm.  this is why burning a metalmind works differently - the ferruchemical charge changes the shape of the mold

This is more or less how Brandon described it too

[+Harrycrapper]

3 hours ago, StanLemon said:

This is more or less how Brandon described it too

Expanding on that, it's similar to how AonDor works. The Elantrian makes an Aon shaped in a particular way and the Investiture is pushed out of the Cognitive realm through that shape and produces an effect based on various specific aspects of the shape(size, modifiers, ect.). In Allomancy, the metal is the Aon, the act of burning it is equivalent to the Elantrian drawing the Aon, and the Investiture comes from the Spiritual realm instead because it didn't get stuffed into the Cognitive realm like it did on Sel.