Kurkistan

@Kaymth Okay, thanks. We've multiple quotes about the Ones Above being from a planet we've seen before, but this WoB might be hinting at something else. Esmale: was this how Brandon phrased it, or was it a paraphrase where he might have said something more direct like "you've seen them"? Because if Brandon was intentionally saying "oh they've been referenced elsewhere" that might suggest that other Cosmere books make oblique reference to the Ones Above already. EDIT: Fixed the link to go to the specific WoB rather than the interview.

@Moogle Ah, you're right, I suppose how I model it is forward time travel. Historically I would agree with this model, and I've argued as such regarding Hemalurgy, Breath, and Feruchemy. But given this (sadly, paraphrased) WoB about how Breath works, it seems like we can't get away with fundamentally distinguishing between the two types of investiture. There's definitely a distinction to be made on some level, but it seems that both "types" are still just investiture, rather than being "investiture" and "freeish energy produced by investiture". This is a problem because if something we want to call "investiture" is left sitting in metalminds at the end of that day then the whole "can neither be created nor destroyed" thing doesn't let us just say it's a different type of investiture and move on.

@Kaymyth Just to clarify, are you saying that Brandon said that the MAG numbers are too high or too low? So is <2% of the population mistings/ferrings or >2%?

@Moogle For diminishing returns, I'd actually prefer to refer you to Aaradel's point that I linked to last post. I think it sounds perfectly sensible to say that connecting up to more than one past time at once takes some more energy to do, thus explaining quotes from Brandon about how you need to spend energy "compounding" together smaller intervals of storage. I'm also disturbed still by metalminds being registered as invested, but... maybe we can get away with it? Brandon's hinted that Shardic power, at least, is enough for time travel. So it's not wholly inconceivable that metalminds are just a smaller manifestation of this possibility, wedging open a little pipe into the past. If so then I wouldn't be surprised if Nightblood would be able to feed through this conduit like it was a straw, without the power necessarily needing to be right there "at the surface", perhaps? EDIT: Here we take up the perhaps dubious stance that Nightblood wouldn't feed on the investiture itself, at least directly, but rather on its "output", leaving the base investiture alone and still firmly attached to the Feruchemist, though expended and in need of the usual retrieval ala how Breath normally works. --- Regarding Feruchemy possibly being similar to Allomancy, I will caution you a bit on that hope by recalling to you that the two were designed for entirely separate worlds, at least at first. It's quite possible they had the same background workings the whole time, or that Brandon retroactively tweaked them to be more similar, but it's a thought worth keeping in mind as we perhaps begin to evaluate models on the grounds of how much it does/does not look like Allomancy. P.S. I lied when I said that I was talking about time-scuttling as an abstraction later in the thread I linked to. The thread instead dissolved into the eventual definition of "surging". The larger discussion I was thinking of occurred in this thread. @Arook First of all, I am not a geo-cultural region. On topic: An interesting way to think of it... One concern, though, is that even with this model we still seem to run afoul of the "infinite investiture" problem, since it looks like we're still getting arbitrary amounts of new investiture being bound to the metalminds alongside the energy from the attributes themselves.

Regarding metalminds: A new thought: Perhaps the good old AoLAAA model of feruchemy could come to the rescue here? As explained most clearly that I've seen by Aaradel (though Chaos is the one to bring up up a few posts earlier), perhaps Feruchemy is best modeled by "time scuttling" the attributes that are stored: pushing them forward through time rather than storing them, in the strictest sense. This is a looser model than what I myself argued for later in that thread (that the time-scuttling was just an abstraction), but may save us now. So, following this model, what metalminds store is not raw investiture, but rather connection to moments in the past when power was "earmarked" for future use. The Feruchemist says "I'm going to use 5% of the strength-aspected investiture output I have later" and that output is pushed into a bit of a temporal limbo, waiting for future use. So what the metalmind stores is a pointer to that piece of investiture at that point in time, rather than storing the power directly. To draw out a metaphor a bit, let's say that you have a computer that's capable of a really lame version of communication backwards/forwards in time. It works just like a normal computer, except for the fact that it can pre-commit some of its processing power to be used by a future version of itself. So if on Monday it says "I'm going to save 50% of my power for later", then on Friday it can operate at 150% by using its past-selves spare processing ability. At no point during all of this does the computer, strictly speaking, "create" more processing power, nor does it really "store" the power: it just allocates it and then does or does not take advantage of this allocation at some future date. EDIT: So under this model metalminds "store" investiture by reference, rather than by value; in order to comply with metalminds still being invested, then it seems we'd have to assume that "by reference" storage of investiture is still enough to count as invested. @Arook What do you think is stored then, that allows metalminds to be invested?

Side note: It's quite disconcerting each time "I" "start" a "new" thread like this... I could see those other ideas working.

The same.

Sure, sorry for being all disruptive with our Awesome.

I'll note for the record that I've historically been of the opinion that the "Age" that Feruchemical atium stores is more properly named "Youth" or "Vitality".

I can't locate the matter-investiture question myself, though I recall it as well. I'd be interested to see it again, at the very least. Re: Monstrsiazation Ah, I get it now. If you don't mind me saying so, I'd suggest heavily tweaking your question then, to expand to the whole realm of "make Koloss able to reproduce, make them live a bit longer when spiked, etc." - If you want my personal opinion I just came up with 10 seconds ago, I'd say none of the above, and rather that Sazed just grabbed the spikes in existing koloss and moved them over a bit to other bind points that achieve a slightly different effect. Then AoL-era koloss just perform the same slightly-modified hemaluryg (perhaps even with Harmonious guidance) on new inductees.

Ah, I see the problem as you see it now. I hadn't considered that Breaths are treated as finite despite creating energy; I was focusing on the fact that they create energy. But if the "energy" we're talking about is Investiture itself, then yes you're right it does sound like I'm talking about the soul being gradually siphoned off into a metalmind. I hadn't meant to imply that. It's odd because energy is energy is energy so far as I'm normally concerned, but here we have to recall that the energy represented by a rock on top of a hill is apparently of a fundamentally different type than what's contained in Breath. Feruchemy being like Lift's ability is an interesting thought. Building on my comment about the oddness of segregating different "types" of energy, perhaps it's a matter of converting the "real" energy you can non-entropically produce with Investiture (like using an Awakened rope to pull up a rock) into yet more Investiture? This runs into the issue of the new "Investiture can not be created or destroyed. It follows it's own version of the laws of Thermodynamics" WoB. As an FYI (not sure if you knew this, as I certainly forgot it for a moment) Lift doesn't create Investiture from food, she "gates" it in. Source: Perhaps Feruchemists can "gate in" energy similarly? But that would run counter to its internal nature. Another option is that they do in fact make non-Invested contributions/sacrifices when storing, but it's at that point that Investiture gets gated in fill the metalmind with proportional amount of investiture... Requires some thought, I think. -- Re: Hemalurgy The AoL MAG doesn't go much beyond that on reproduction, that I recall. There was a short story (written by Brandon) that implied/kindof-stated some of the stuff Peter said, but he covers just about all of it. I see that Peter's comments on reproduction don't address your core concern about monstrosization via Hemalurgy. That is covered in the story: The story ends with Jak finding a cache of charged spikes, which is of great value to the Koloss since they've been running out.

Ah, thanks for the heads up. Removed.

Moderator Note: This series of posts originally appeared in this thread as a response to this post. So I'm guessing that this answer isn't enough to convince you that Feruchemy acts just like Breath in terms of where the power comes from? This is covered in the AoL version of the MAG, I believe. Either way Peter covers it all pretty well in two posts here.

So I'm guessing this WoB still doesn't parse for you?

I guess I'll join the crowd and drop in my mondo-list: I've gotten my fair share of answers for myself as of late, so feel free to pick and choose if any catch your interest but no pressure.

@Joe Right you are. Brandon even explicitly says "because Cosmere" in the State of the Sanderson. My powers have become weak with disuse...

Am I reading too much into this WoB? Source: So it seems like Brandon is saying that storywise the Elantris books have to come before the Era Three trilogy, suggesting interactions...

Yes, but not in the majority of their forms. EDIT: NINJAAAAA!!!! Here's a quick sketch of the location of the line in the meantime.

Shallan's actually normally a flame in Shadesmar, but I agree that the broader question of what it means to "enter" Shadesmar is odd, as well as what it means for spren to "more fully" enter the Physical. Also we just recently got a WoB that the Spiritual doesn't have any correlation at all to location, which makes guessing what it "looks" like a fair bit harder.

The links. There are so many. And Brandon has apparently found mercy in his heart for the Reckoners RP. http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crddfqr?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crddgfu?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/36aanq/wokwor_does_anybody_know_if_brandon_has_started/crddhs1?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crddjf7?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crddkpl?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/36aanq/wokwor_does_anybody_know_if_brandon_has_started/crddky7?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crddn6r?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crde99n?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crdfaie?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crdno8z?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crdnpds?context=3 Most interesting one to me was the one on the moon scepter. Beyond the moon scepter being related to the proximity problem (that's one that's out of left field so far as I know), Brandon's answer also somewhat backs up my staunch and perhaps unsubstantiated belief that there's no need to make such a big fuss about the space rocks.

I don't disagree with you, maxal. The issue is confused by the phrasing of the original question, which I think might be causing us to talk past one another a bit. I'll put it all over for reference. Source: So I read the original questioner as intending to ask specifically about dueling, rather than sparing, as does Brandon, I think. I am in agreement, then, with your interpretation that Brandon is saying that most Orders are fine with dueling. I just also agree with Brandon that a distinction can be made between the two: whether that distinction is enough to justify making the one (sparing) allowable and the other (dueling & prize fighting) forbidden is where some Orders diverge, then.

Okay, thanks. So the full WoB is:

It looks to me like he was grouping those last two together. -- The difference in kind between the sparing vs dueling/prize-fighting is pretty clear in my eyes. Even if you don't necessarily have anything to gain outright from a duel or the like, it's still a matter of fighting to hone your skills (sparing) versus for personal glory/acclaim/satisfaction/wealth (not-sparing). --- Some more answers: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/367b8j/if_there_was_a_smash_brosesque_game_for_every/crcb8lu?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crcbbv7?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/36aanq/wokwor_does_anybody_know_if_brandon_has_started/crcbrbt?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crco006?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crco2mv?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crcp1fm?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crcq0vm?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crctaqh?context=3 Some more interesting stuff in this batch: Aimians being very non-human, proportion of lighteyes to darkeyes, Nightblood destroying stuff in all 3 realms...

It is "news", Weiry.

Hm, a thought. There's not much reason for us to think that Kaladin's Cognitive aspect doesn't remember him having an arm. I can't rule it out, I suppose, but the Cognitive initiating the "hey bro I need an arm" process seems to run counter to the "flow" of how the rest of healing works. So far as the rest of the spirit just filling in the missing info... I'm not so sure. It depends in part on how complex the information is and how "natural" filling in the blanks are. If it just leaves an arm-shaped hole that you can pour investiture into until it's full, then sure maybe you can heal everything back without a template. But if it's more like what happens when you actually rip an arm off, then just saying "yeah I can tell there used to be an arm there" isn't exactly going to help you rebuild an exceptionally complex piece of machinery. In the complex case, a soul with backups might be able to do the trick: if the information on how to build an arm is stored in more than one place, then sure the soul can go from that. But why would the non-arm parts of the soul have that information, at least directly? It seems natural, at this point, to reference the ideals that we already know to exist and that already seem to interact meaningfully with healing, assuming Brandon didn't misinterpret me when I asked about TLR not dying of old age.