scientificmotif

The way *I* use the adjective "wet" is using it to refer to a macroscopic solid that has absorbed a liquid, and that the wetness is evident upon interacting with said object, since it causes the toucher to experience a sensation of "wetness". Therefore, no liquid can be wet, since the object that is wet is the solid that has absorbed it (or the object that is the combination of the two). That being said, the argument is entirely subjective, owing to the fact that there is no single correct definition of "wet". If you think wetness is the attribute of touching or being saturated with a liquid, water is wet. If you think wetness is the attribute of being able to cause someone/something to feel the sensation of "wetness", water is wet. If you think a wet object is a solid that has absorbed water and can cause the sensation of "wetness", then water is not wet. Although, if you think of a body of water as one object, then water is not by default wet because since you have decided it is one object it cannot touch itself. If you think one object can't touch itself, that is... I don't feel like arguing a point even more subjective than "Is Water Wet?" I feel like you don't get the entire point of my post. I wasn't really "arguing" either point. For me, neither "water is wet" or "water is not wet" are "opposing arguments". I was merely providing my perspective and how I define wet. I'd also like to note that dictionaries aren't the end-all be-all of how a word is used. Dictionaries don't by necessity define or create words on a societal level; it was society that gave the word meaning. Again, dictionaries do not create the definitions of the word, neither do dictionaries hold the exact definition of a word. The definition of a word depends on how it is used. Just because there is a precedent of using dictionary definitions doesn't mean I have to. The question wasn't "is water wet by the definition provided in dictionaries". Since some people didn't get it the first time, I will repeat myself. I am saying that the argument is subjective and pointless. As for many definitions mentioning "consisting of water": Wet has many uses. I'll admit that I didn't cover it in the first post, although it doesn't really matter for the point of my post. Some people don't use wet in the same way as others. People don't always use the dictionary definition of words when they use them. Please stop hounding me about this. Wet can be used in several different ways, and they aren't all the same. Case in point (From oxford dictionary, since you believe in dictionaries so much) verb cover or touch with liquid; moisten. noun liquid that makes something damp adjective covered or saturated with water or another liquid. Now that I think about it, "wet paint" implies that a liquid can be wet, but since it's an adjective modifying paint, I think it would imply that a liquid saturated in another liquid is "wet". I no longer want to argue whether "water" in this argument refers to one H20 molecule or a whole body of said molecules in a liquid state, and whether objects are always touching themselves if you consider it as a whole object and not the atoms it is composed of, to infinity and beyond of arguing about what such-and-such word means. Sorry for replying so slowly

Yeah. I know. I was just finding how powerful the feat of creating Scadrial was, and therefore the bare minimum amount of Investiture (In terms of how much energy or mass it could be converted to, since we don't know how much a BEU is yet) Vessels can access.

Ik, I was just looking at quantifiable feats that could be found in the books

EXACTLY. I wasn't really looking for answers for the questions. I was just pointing out that full Shard mechanics are not fully understood. I don't particularly want the Dor to have a vessel. It's just that the power of not one but two godlike beings that can fling around planets like ping-pong balls and potentially create them is just a little concerning and potentially exploitable. It just has implications for the Cosmere at large, that's all. And about Ati... I'm like 99% sure that somewhere in Secret History Leras just straight up stated that Ati wasn't a good match for Ruin. I should get my own copies of the books... :<

1. If Ati wanted to channel the Shard less destructively, then he's rather against the Shard's Intent. I meant "bad vessel" as someone who would have lots of trouble picking the Shard up. 2. Just because the power isn't seeking a Vessel doesn't mean it can't be picked up? I mean, Kell was definitely not sought out by Preservation. How would the Dor being in the Cognitive Realm stop them? 3. Why not? You can use Lerasium (Preservation's essence) to increase your Connection to Preservation's Investiture. Why couldn't the Dor increase your Connection to the Dor?

Not just "Dor" but the Dor. As in the whole thing.

I was wondering, "How much energy do the Shards really have? What's the upper limit?" And I thought of a Shardic feat more impressive than moving Scadrial around like a ping-pong ball or Ati's implied destruction of Scadrial if he won. Creating Scadrial. The earth's mass is around 5.97*10^24 kilograms. The earth's gravitational binding energy is ~ 2.49*10^32 Joules (249 Nonillion) The energy if you were to convert 100% of the Earth's mass into energy would be ~5.36*10^41 Joules. (536 Duodecillion) Obviously, nobody knows what that really means. I'll put it like this: The gravitational binding energy of the Sun is about 6.9*10^41 joules. (690 Duodecillion) So creating the Earth is a feat nearly equivalent in energy to destroying the sun. (In Alternatively, that amount of energy could destroy ~ 2237500000 or 2.2375 billion Earths. Scadrial is kind of an earth stand-in, so this should be a rather good estimation for the energy required creation of Scadrial as well. Since the Investiture required to create Scadrial is, y'know, bound up in Scadrial, this Investiture shouldn't return to the two Shards unless they destroyed Scadrial. Yet Odium is still scared of At minimum their combined power is in the same ball-park as Odium's power. Obviously, Odium invested into the Rosharan system, but it should be a drop in the ocean compared to his power. So the Preservation and Ruin Shards should be at bare minimum half power after Investing Scadrial, meaning the full Investiture of a Shard should be estimated at ~1.94*10^25 kg if converted to mass and ~1.38*10^42 joules. At least. (1.38 Tredecillion) Note that they couldn't have taken matter from somewhere instead of creating it from scratch , since Sazed states that as opposed to Adonalsium, who would create worlds presumably with equal amounts of Investiture of each Intent, or something. Do with this useless information what you will.

I was just pointing out one of many examples of how we don't have a solid understanding of Ascension and Shards. I wasn't trying to present it as a silver bullet proving anyone can take up any Shard. I can provide another few examples: What's stopping world hoppers from using a connection sphere thing and taking up the Dor? Why are Cognitive Shadows so poorly equipped to control Shards? Why are you able to take up a Shard from the previous Vessel's corpse in the first place? Etc. (BTW, I wonder if someone was there where Leras's corpse appeared whether or not they could have taken up Preservation in the same way that Sazed took up Preservation and Ruin. I assume so...)

I think you mistake how Allomancy works... Harmony doesn't have "lines" that he Connects to people during Allomancy. (Also, we know for a fact that there's more and weaker Allomancers.) So when someone uses Allomancy, they aren't using Preservation the Shard's power. Therefore, normal Allomancers shouldn't have a direct Connection to Preservation the Shard that fuels their Allomancy. It's more like they draw on Investiture with Preservation's Intent. So when they "tap into the powers of creation", they tap into the ability to manipulate Investiture. Besides, Preservation shouldn't have a set number of Connections it can make, or a set amount of Connection "units" it can use. Yes, there's a difference between a Shard and Investiture aligned with a Shard. Here's an excerpt from a WoB: The reason I have so much trouble answering these questions (and you'll see me struggling to get an answer in the 10-15 seconds I have when someone asks me in a signing line) is because this isn't an either or. Is this computer I'm using matter associated with Earth, the Big Bang, or such-and-such star that went supernova long ago? Well, it's probably all three. When people ask, "What Shard is this Investiture associated with" it gets very complicated. Shards influence and tweak certain Investiture, giving it a kind of spin or magnetism, but all Investiture ever predates the Shattering--and in the cosmere matter, energy, and Investiture are one thing. I always imagine Investiture having certain states, certain magnetisms if you will, associated with certain aspects of Adonalsium. So it's all "assigned" to a Shard--because it's always been associated with that Shard. To Investiture, Adonalsium's Shattering meant everything and nothing at the same time. 1. More pressure feels like it would make Snapping harder on someone, not better. Harmony just changed how it works in some way. Maybe it happens over a long time period, or something. 2. Harmony has never been referred to has "her" as far as I remember. Harmony is referred to as "they", because Sazed doesn't really have a gender, and Harmony can be referred to as "he/him" because Sazed mostly identifies as a male. 2. Here's my hypothesis: Harmony is becoming Discord because the entity composed of two Shards Sazed holds is by default not Harmony, but Discord. Yes, it's an entity composed of two Shards, not one Shard. And it's an "entity composed of two shards", and not just "two shards", because they've been intermingled to some extent: Harmony is what people call the combination of Sazed, the Vessel, and the two shards, Ruin and Preservation. So Sazed kind of forces Ruin and Preservation to cooperate and is sort of "in harmony". But the Shard all along was really Discord. If you want some evidence, look at Harmonium: it is so in conflict with itself it explodes really easily. It's not in Harmony; it's in Discord. Hmm? Oh yes, of course. The reason why Harmony is trending towards Discord must be because Sazed is changing, because if anything the Shards should be trending to be in balance as they combine further. Why would Sazed be changing? By holding Discord, Sazed trends towards Discord's Intent. Therefore, the entity as a whole currently known as Harmony trends towards Discord because Sazed trends towards Discord. (MY HYPOTHESIS ENDS HERE) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well... it's like... In order to use Feruchemy, you need to tap nicrosil, but in order to tap nicrosil, you have to have Feruchemy. That's why just a metalmind with no Identity, a nicrosilmind, and another metalmind doesn't work. So the Excisor must somehow work around that. I don't feel like storing Connection would change that, with our current knowledge of Feruchemy. Connection to Scadrial shouldn't be involved; Feruchemy seems to work on any planet like Allomancy. Besides, even if Feruchemy required Connection, wouldn't a metalmind that has no Connection to Scadrial (and therefore the whole magic system) immediately stop working? So I don't think your idea would work. If anything, I think the Connection involved should involve Connecting to the user of the metalmind.

Mostly agree. In theory, T's other emotions increase with his Odium-associated emotions, so he shouldn't really be an especially good vessel for Odium (In the sense that he isn't as compatible). Obviously, reading the book, T is pretty obviously the perfect Vessel for Odium, so my logic must be wrong, and it describes how Odium "loves" his passion. I know that Rayse described Odium as Passion, but when T picks up the Shard, he is immediately influenced to destroy and hate, so it just feels strange to me. I also want to point out that Ati was a terrible match for the Shard Ruin, and yet he was able to pick it up. We just don't understand Ascension enough yet.

Time to throw my hat in the ring. Summary of argument: A long complaint about how vague the statement is and applying linguistic philosophy to the question to try to solve the vagueness, and answering some possible meanings of the question. WARNING Inside the text box is a really, really, really, really long answer to such a simple question. It doesn't spoil any stories, but it does spoil your brain, or something, probably. (For those who don't know, "Linguistic philosophy is a philosophical approach that aims to solve or resolve philosophical problems through a closer attention to language and its usage." (Source: Wikipedia page on linguistic philosophy. Yes, I checked it against other sources. As long as this post is, it's still on an internet forum debating a question entirely based on semantics. Sue me.) Yes, I don't have a degree in language philosophy, or have even taken any classes on it, but I can still apply it. Doesn't mean I'm claiming to be an expert.)

YKYASFW when someone says something like "mmmmmm" and you instantly think "they must be a cryptic, where's the lie"

To add to the conversation.. The Radiant bond seems to be replicable with any Cognitive Shadow... and probably that's the case with Singer bonds as well. I mean, the Fused are pretty blatantly Cognitive Shadows, so unless something special is going on it should be possible with any Cognitive Shadow. Could pure Investiture do similar things? I don't know, but I'm leaning towards "no".

Devotion already exists as a shard... and is now 1/2 of the Dor. Devotion doesn't really have any Odium in it, and is only tangentially related to Honor. I feel like for a real combo (Not a pseudo combo like Harmony, going to explain that a bit more later in the post) the resulting shard would be named something like Retribution, Retaliation, or Vengeance. I feel like Judgement and Justice don't have enough of the connotations behind wrath behind Odium to work well. I looked down the "war" route, but didn't find anything there. English doesn't really have a word for "honorable war." "Crusade" or "Crusader" just don't sound right. Considering my three options, I choose to drop Retaliation as not having enough oomph behind it in terms of rage or anger. Finally, between Vengeance and Retribution, I feel like either could work, but I'm going after some consideration with Vengeance. Vengeance has more Odium to it, and Retribution has more Honor to it, but I feel like the words already lean too much towards Honor as it is, and it just kind of sounds better for me. A Shard's name doesn't have to be all of what a Shard represents and its Intent, but it should represent its Shard as well as possible with what words English has. So while I'd suggest Vengeance or Retribution, if it was my job I'd name it Vengeance. (I'm assuming when you say "what would it be", you mean "what would it be named.") And who would combine the Shards anyways? Odium wouldn't... Odium combining with another shard would mean that Odium as a Shard would cease to exist. Because Rayse has held the shard for countless millennia, he's just blatantly unable to act against its Intent in such a big way like that Like how Nomad held the Dawnshard for some amount of time, and as a result has trouble acting against its Intent. And how Preservation couldn't attack Ruin.) So even though he in theory could combine with Shards, he wouldn't. Note that Rayse isn't fully aligned with the Shard, (Maybe since he was well aligned with Odium in the first place, somehow he isn't completely warped to the Shard's Intent like Ati was) and he sees himself as "Passion" and that kind of stuff. (Yet Odium is shown to pretty much purely compel Tarvanigan to hate hate destroy destroy destroy) So in theory Rayse should have been able to act against Odium's Intent in some kind of way. Rodium (And any Vessel+Shard combo except maybe long-term Vessels of Honor) can break deals, though. I can't the WoB (Or odium's dialogue about the matter), but breaking deals makes Shards weaker against other Shards, and there's another WoB I can't find about how Preservation is weak against other Shards too because he broke a deal with Ruin, and "how that will never be a problem ever everything's fine Harmony is fine" (Paraphrased). Basically, Odium won't break deals because it would give him problems with Splintering other Shards. I just wanted to clarify that acting against a Shard's Intent is not the same as breaking deals, and how Rayse can do one but not the other. But now Rodium is Todium, and Tarvanigan hasn't held the shard for any significant amount of time at all, so in theory he could take up Honor. In practice, he can't. Think there was either a WoB or something in the book about how the power needs to be "convinced" to be taken up? Ascension isn't fully understood, so it's a bit unclear what it would involve. Especially putting together Honor. However... So it's like, "taking up the power" might reassemble Splinters? Maybe? In order to help my understanding of Ascension, I'd have to reread Vin's and Sazed's ascensions from Kelsier's POV, and also Kelsier's ascension. It seems like you need to be Connected to some degree to take up Shards, but obviously circumstances matter, and again we don't fully understand. Like how Ruin and Preservation's power manifested in the PR after their Vessels died, but when Leras died (Indicated in the same way, his body drops into the PR where his mind was focused) no such power manifested. And Vin had to be Super-Duper Connected and the mists "chose her" and stuff, and Kelsier had to use the Connection hack sphere, and Sazed was just like "Yoink!" And how the Dor being in the Cognitive Realm instead of the Spiritual prevents is from becoming sentient, and how Rayse technically could have merged with the Shards he Splintered while being essentially completely aligned with Odium (Where Sazed had about equal Connections to Preservation and Ruin), etc, etc. So I suppose it's possible that Todium would want to combine with Honor to get more power so he could "save them all", or to help resist Odium's Intent, or a combination of the two and/or another motivation. However, there's no evidence to say whether Todium does want to, and whether he can at all, and if he would succeed if the aforementioned conditions are true. And even less evidence that he'd be forced to do so. Obviously, there's other possibilities of the combination of the two Shards, like someone reassembling and taking up Honor and then taking up Odium somehow, or both Honor and Odium dying and someone taking up both at once, and more, but there's just too many possibilities to consider. As a final note, there wouldn't be just one possible Shard combination. Brandon doesn't even count Harmony as a combined shard. It's simply an entity that consists of two Shards that are tangled enough to stay in one piece. So different combinations can result from whether the Shards are really actually combined or simply shoved in one Vessel. (Side note, I theorize that the entity that consists of two Shards known as Harmony has been Discord all along. The combination of Preservation, Ruin, and Sazed is what is known as "Harmony'. Think about it like the distinction between Todium and Odium. When Sazed is no longer able to wrangle Ruin and Preservation and act (and people notice and therefore change the name), the Shards+Vessel combo will become known as Discord. The Shard combo was always Discord. Sazed just gets affected by the Shard combo's Intent.) Tldr: 1.. Who would be the Vessel? Vessel: No way to know who would hold it, it depends, pretty much anyone in the Cosmere could take up the shard given the right circumstances. 2. Nature of the shard: Its nature depends on whether it gets actually, fully combined, or whether they just get shoved in one Vessel, left there for a few hundred years, and get tangled enough to be counted as one entity. 3. Naming: Retribution or Vengeance (I lean heavily towards Vengeance).

I already noted in 3b that the recipient's SW does indeed get cracked open and thus damage occurs. I should've been clearer: 3a is the process of stealing Allomantic powers, and 3b is the process of someone receiving a spike. As to some discussion above about states of Investiture, Physical Realm manifestations of metals are strange at best and baffling at worst: Harmonium sort of has a chemical reaction with water, that makes it explode. And Harmonium is an element and not a compound (Which is strange, considering the Shard of Harmony is more of a compound than an element as a shard), and even though it's supposedly an element, when it explodes some measure of Lerasium and Atium powder can be left behind. It feels like PR manifestation of Investiture is just pretending to not be matter, but nope, it's Investiture only.... It feels like this might help to explain why God Metals have different effects than other forms of Investiture...

So, putting together your explanation with how Hemalurgy works, in order to boost a spike's strength with Breaths, you would have to get the Breath to: Manipulate or create Investiture with Preservation's intent and make it Invest the spirit fragment attached to the spike in specific ways Create or strengthen Connections to Preservation All while resisting the already present Investiture.

So, Allomancy is weird. It's been stated in WoBs that your SDNA determines your power in Allomancy and Lerasium overwrites your SDNA, but it's also been stated that Lerasium increases your Connection to Preservation and that increases your power in Allomancy. And also burning more than one Lerasium bead alloyed with a metal (With different metals in alloy) in succession still results in being able to burn 1 metal? And burning them at the same time lets you burn 2 metals? I really, really want to know how it works. I'm very confused. Suffice it to say that it's more than Investiture in the soul that creates power in Allomancy, so it'd be extremely difficult to hack magic systems to increase Allomantic power, if not impossible. The Set are trying to use Investiture (From stealing parts of people's souls without killing them) and somehow convert it into Allomantic power, but they really can't figure it out. There's more to Invested Arts than having Investiture. You need a way to do something with it.

I'm sorry that I wasn't clear enough. What I meant was burning concentrated Investiture is more fundamental to Allomancy than burning Allomantic metals. I did not mean that Allomancy does not follow the model. A few nuances I want to clarify: 1. Spikes AND the body (and Intent, as always) are involved in the filter of Hemalurgy. The Spiritual realm doesn't really have location; "Piercing into the Spiritual Realm" is a crude term that I use to try and describe it. Understanding this, location on the body wouldn't directly effect where the spike pierces on someone's Spiritweb unless it's part of the magic. Magics essentially are the filters, so if body location is part of the magic, it's part of the filter. It should like this: 1. If object piercing the body is metal and the person's Intent is to use Hemalurgy, then Ruin's power is taken from the Spiritual Realm. 2. Use the point where the body is pierced to determine which part of the Spiritweb to pierce, go to 3a. If the spike has a Hemalurgic charge already, go to step 3b instead. 3a. Ruin's power is used to remove the part of the Spiritweb determined earlier and sever its Connection to the rest of the Spiritweb. Because the incision is violent and imprecise, parts of the Spiritweb "around" the part where it is pierced come off with it too, thus Identity Contamination, Inquisitor insanity, and the nastiness of Hemalurgic Constructs. Additional damage (that is healable, unlike the parts taken away) to the Spiritweb is caused by Ruin's Investiture, both because it's violently forcing its way in and, well, it's Ruin's investiture. Connect the "spirit-fragment" to the spike, but only if it's metal corresponding to the spiking point . Because it's un-Connected for a short time, a significant portion of the S-F dissolves, thus the loss of power. The S-F will dissolve further (much more slowly) while the spike is not being used, stored in blood, or other precautions are not taken to prevent the Investiture from leaking away. (Because the spike is an imperfect "vessel" of the power, probably) If the spike is not composed of the correct metal or alloy, the S-F simply dissolves entirely as it stays un-Connected. All of the S-F that dissolves turns into Investiture and is released into the SR. 3b. Ruin's power is used to violently intrude into the SW and Connect the SF to the spikee's SW. Again, the violence and imprecision causes widespread damage to the SW, contributing to aforementioned Hemalurgic nastiness. Note that the spike is still connected to the SF, and if the spike is removed from the spikee's body in the PR the Connection to the spikee's SW is severed. The spike provides an easy entry point into your Spiritweb , although it seems it takes 3+ spikes for an invader to do anything but mess with the spikee's perception of the world. 3+ means intrusion into the Spiritweb is extremely easy (unless additional measures are taken) and mind control is possible. (Ruin, emotional Allomancers, and certainly other things we haven't seen yet) It's likely that other things can be done with these entry points. Without these entry points, brute force (requiring much more power to work) is needed to intrude into the SW (Like what hemalurgy does) and large amounts of damage is caused to the SW, as seen in First of the Sun. 2. In Allomancy, an Allomancer's Connection to Preservation and SW are also used to determine how much Investiture is drawn from Preservation is drawn. I should also add that with God Metals, power is being drawn from the bead itself, so unlike other metals you shouldn't be able to be more powerful in it I want to note that my "filter" metaphor should actually be changed to focuses, as it seems to be a more accurate metaphor. The movies aren't out yet, and non-Allomancers not being able to burn God Metals except Lerasium requires extra explanation, and it kind of Ruins (Ha) a lot of my theories. I'm going to use Ocam's Razor and say that people assume that only Allomancers can use Atium and it's possible but nobody has used the right Intent and only the TLR knows. Or it is possible and known to the general public that non-Allomancers can use Atium and stuff, and Brandon is using "All Allomancers can use Atium" (A true statement if all Scadrians can use God Metals) to keep everyone being able to use Atium a surprise. Might be copium on my part. Wonder what burning that would do?

This theory is a deep rabbit hole started by this thread: Hilariously, I don't even go into my originally intended ideas on God Metal Feruchemy, and my said ideas instead turned into a really long ramble that might end up to be nigh-unreadable for other people. If you don't care about Cosmere "physics", this is not for you. This is a wild theory, but bear with me here. Buckle up, folks! As Era 1 Atium has been retconned to be Atium-Electrum (Yes, it's official): YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022) The jury's still out on whether it's ANYONE anyone or just Scadrians. If the latter, does it have to do with Connection to the planet, or do you have to be descended from a native Scadrian? In my theories coming up soon, I will assume Scadrians only. I'll assume that every Seer was really just an A-Electrum misting: to burn alloys of God Metals you have to be able to burn the metal alloyed with the God Metal. So anybody can burn God metals. In this WOB: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/270-the-hero-of-ages-annotations/#e8028 we find out that when you burn god metals, you do not draw power from preservation, but instead the God Metal is the power source. In other words, burning God Metals is closer to using Stormlight to power surges than burning "regular" metals. It's theory territory from here on out, if I sound sure about something, I'm probably not. High levels of speculation ahead. I suspect that burning the mists is not just similar, but exactly the same as burning extremely small amounts of Lerasium. Just like how it's more difficult to Push non-metals than metals, it's more difficult to burn Investiture in non-metallic form than in metallic form, but it is still possible. Vin could burn the mists because her Connection to Preservation was strong enough to overcome the "resistance" of it being a non-metal. This should mean that any Scadrian with a Connection strong enough with Honor, like a Scadrian that somehow became a Bondsmith, should be able to burn Stormlight and get minor effects of burning Tanavastium (Unofficial name for Honor's god metal). Same with any form of any Investiture! Doesn't matter if it's Dor or a type of Light or whatever. Here's where things go from theory to ridiculously insane conjecture with implications to the Cosmere at large: HOWEVER But wait.... The reason I have so much trouble answering these questions (and you'll see me struggling to get an answer in the 10-15 seconds I have when someone asks me in a signing line) is because this isn't an either or. Is this computer I'm using matter associated with Earth, the Big Bang, or such-and-such star that went supernova long ago? Well, it's probably all three. When people ask, "What Shard is this Investiture associated with" it gets very complicated. Shards influence and tweak certain Investiture, giving it a kind of spin or magnetism, but all Investiture ever predates the Shattering--and in the cosmere matter, energy, and Investiture are one thing. I always imagine Investiture having certain states, certain magnetisms if you will, associated with certain aspects of Adonalsium. So it's all "assigned" to a Shard--because it's always been associated with that Shard. To Investiture, Adonalsium's Shattering meant everything and nothing at the same time. We generally mean the term "Invested" to mean a Shard has taken permanent residence in a location, a kind of base of operations--but at the same time, this is meaningless, since distance has no meaning on the Spiritual Realm, where most Shards are. So imprisonment of a Shard like Ruin or Odium is a crude expression--but the best we have. Autonomy never "Invested" on First of the Sun. But even answering (as someone else asked) if they created an avatar without visiting is a difficult thing to explain--because even explaining how a Shard travels (when motion is irrelevant) is difficult to manage. It's a subject that I intend to be up for debate, discussion, and argument by in-world philosophers and arcanists. You can see why I have such troubles explaining these things at signings--and why I fail when I try to, considering the time limitations and (often) fatigue limitations placed upon me. These are concepts I intend to spend entire, lengthy epic volumes explaining and exploring. Let's say you were Autonomy, and you have--through expanding and exploring your understanding--found a gathering of Investiture that has always been there, you always knew about, but still didn't actually recognize until the moment you considered and explored it. (Because even though your power is infinite, accessing and using that infinity is beyond your reach.) Were you "Invested" there? No, no more than you're Invested on Roshar, where parts of what were Adonalsium still exist that are associated with you (in the very fabric of matter and existence.) But suddenly, you have a chance to tweak, influence, and do things that were always possible, but which you never could do because you knew, but didn't know, at the same time. And...I'm already into WAY more than I want to be typing this out right now. If it's confusing, it's because it's practically impossible for me to explain these things in a short span of time. I'm going to leave it here, understanding that no, I haven't fully explained your question. (I didn't even get into what avatars are, what Patji was, and what happened to Patji the being--and how that relates to Patji the island.) But hopefully this kind of starts to point the right direction, though I probably should have just left this question alone because I bet this post is going to raise more questions than it answers... Overlord Jebus You've confused things so much now. We thought we had a pretty good grasp of this whole Patji situation (Autonomy visited the planet at some point, got themselves all Invested and created an avatar which is called Patji by the locals). Now you're saying no Shard has ever visited there? And that the pool would have existed if no Shard had ever interfered? But that Patji still exists and is a Shard? Does that mean Autonomy edited First of the Sun from afar without actually going there? And that the pool would have already existed without any intervention? Does this mean it was associated with Autonomy from the beginning? I'm really confused now. Brandon Sanderson I don't believe I said no Shard had visited. I said no Shard was there during the events of the story. Investiture on First of the Sun predates any Shards fiddling with it. Shards have fiddled with it by the time of the story. I think fandom might be going down too far a rabbit hole on this one. Chaos Are you saying here that Patji is an avatar of Autonomy, or is it a separate Shard and not an avatar of Autonomy? Brandon Sanderson When I said Patji was a Shard, I was meaning Automony--but it is not quite that simple. Take this post to mean "no, you should not be looking toward another Shard for Patji's origins. Autonomy is the one relevant." But Autonomy's relationships with entities like this (not sure entity is the right word, even) is complex. I'm not trying to confuse the issue, though. There are some contradictions here, but that's a whole other thing. The point is this: there is a nearly infinite or actually infinite number of possible Intents. Godmetal is just concentrated Investiture. More diffused Investitures are still burnable. Putting these ideas together, any Investiture with any Intent should be burnable. (In practice, anything but god metals and rarely other states of Investiture associated with a shard could be burned). Change the Intent, change the effects. A Misting using unkeyed Dor burns it and creates stronger versions of the effects that their own metal would create because of their perception of their powers in the Cognitive Realm filters the effects. The unkeyed Dor seems to have no innate Intent of its own (thus the "unkeyed" part). I'm starting to see something more... fundamental here. It seems possible that Allomancy with the 16 elements is the exception. (If I don't get back to that later, remind me). Burning is simply filtering Investiture through the Allomantic part of your Spirit Web (Much, much easier in metallic form), which interprets the Intent of the Investiture to create an effect, which is also filtered through the Cognitive Realm. I assume that Unkeyed Dor has somehow been turned into "pure Investiture", where either there is no Intent or an equal mixture of all Intents, with no Connection (Thus the "unkeyed" part and why it's described as "pure"). It looks like nearly every magic system works this way: Investiture or energy is "filtered" through something, and creates an effect. AonDor is so versatile because you can change the "filter" by changing your Aons. Feruchemy can flow both ways through the filter of the metalmind: A certain kind of energy to Investiture, and vice verca. Everything makes sense now. Even Hemalurgy can be made to fit: One channels Ruin's power (I think that Ruin's power is the source) to use a spike to pierce a certain point on the body (a filter) to pierce to the Spiritual Realm and steal part of a Spirit Web and affix it to the spike (the effect). So the formula for magic is Source -> Filter -> Effect. Most know most of this this intuitively, but some proof and putting it down in rules helps, and some new revelations can be made along the way! Some more supporting evidence that every magic is a manifestation a single fundamental power: How Allomancy with the 16 Allomantic metals works is there is an extra step: to create the effect. So the extra step is that instead of burning Investiture directly, the metal's subatomic structure (A WoB somewhere said that, I think) resonates with Preservation's power in a certain way and opens a conduit to Preservation's power, which is filtered through the conduit and your Intent to create the effect. I'd like to clean up this post, and explain why I think "F-God Metals" should be performable by everyone, and how that can explain why medallions can be used by anyone, and try to figure out what metals, including nonallomantic silver, having effects in magics on other worlds means, and probably some other things, but I can't write all day, and I have spent far too long writing this already. Tell me what you think, your problems with the theory, alternate explanations, your thoughts on what it could mean for the Cosmere at large, or something else related! Feel free to summarize this for people who don't feel like reading a novel of a post that jumps from topic to topic and WoB to WoB.

We've seen Allomancy powered by other Investiure before. However, you're talking about Heightenings, so I assume you're talking about making the Mistborn themselves more powerful (Being able to pull more power from Preservation) It's not exactly as simple as "Give a person some Investiture and they become more powerful Allomancers." Burning pure Dor doesn't make you a more powerful Allomancer, for example, it's just extremely efficient fuel. The power of your Allomancy is hardcoded into your Spiritual Web. You'd need to have an Invested art that messes with your Spiritual Web specifically, not just any old source of Investiture. *cough* Hemalurgy *cough*, If I remember it correctly, there's also Connection to Preservation involved, so it'd be difficult if not impossible to use Aons to create Allomancers. Forgery could work, but only temporarily: Now that I think about it, using Forgery to temporarily create a Fullborn Feruchemist + Mistborn and then create some Bands of Mourning seems possible (and extremely broken.) Tldr; the vast majority of the power in the Metallic Arts isn't stored in the Metalborn themselves, and that's why there's no mention of heightenings on Scadrial. Power is drawn from Preservation to fuel Allomancy. Even though a jar of unkeyed Dor has far more Investiture in it than even a lerasium Mistborn, it's extremely difficult to Command the investiture to overwrite your spiritweb and make an absurdly powerful Mistborn. What you should really worry about is Feruchemists figuring out how to use unkeyed Dor to fuel their Feruchemy, like how Compounding uses Allomancy to fuel Feruchemy. Get a jar of Dor, and create a source of Feruchemic power that would have taken years to generate! It isn't a constant source of power like Compounding is, it's far, FAR more accessible, as you'd only have to be a Feruchemist instead of a Twinborn Compounder. I see it as entirely possible that the number of Compounders that have existed ever by the end of era 2 to be countable on one hand.

Oh, okay. So the operation was kind of like a tablet powered on while plugged in, and the atium capacity was always at like 1% or something, so if the crystals are destroyed/the tablet unplugged, after not long the operation could not be continued?

But doesn't that mean that there's a bunch of Atium lying ar Then why did they make a big deal out of him destroying the crystals, as if it prevented Atium mining altogether?

It's been a while, but as I remember, Allomancy destroys atium geodes. What exactly does this entail? Specifically, why do atium geodes shatter when Allomancy is used near them, and why does the geodes shattering make the metal inside disappear?

An extreme rarity of Allomancy might help to explain why they worship Metalborn so much