Theory: precognition in the Cosmere

[name_here]

So, there are a number of forms of looking into the future, and I want to analyze them.

1) Atium burning: You see other people's futures. Normally there is only one shadow per person/object, but any Atium or Electrum burner produces a massive, shifting cloud. Furthermore, if someone manages to react to your response to their shadow, their shadow splits.

2) Electrum burning: See only your future, produces a cloud of possibilities

3) Returned visions: I believe the precognition happens prior to actually returning and they they remember it in their dreams. Lightsong sees only one possible future, but then it doesn't happen. I believe he saw only what would happen if he did not Return.

4) Returned art viewing: It is unclear if this actually shows the future or if it shows the present, but it's notable that the priesthood insists that Returned must never interact with the subject of their viewings.

5) Honor looking into the future: Unfortunately, we don't have a viewpoint on this one, but he does indicate that the further ahead he looks the more possibilites he sees.

So, here's the unified theory: Any attempt to look into the future that will show you the effects of your actions will show you, in order, how things would proceed if you didn't look into the future, how things would proceed if you saw that future but not this one, how things would proceed based on your response to that, etc.

Atium only produces multiple shadows if the person you're looking at is somehow obtaining information from the future, either by their own temporal allomancy or by reacting to the actions you take based on your Atium, and the second one is rare simply because the timeframe is so short. Electrum will always (or at least in any situation in which you have options) produce multiple shadows because you're looking into your future and it splits off a new one for every possible response you'd have to that one. Returned visions show only what will happen if they don't show up, and not the results of them showing up, so it doesn't split. Since Honor is interacting with two other Shards, both of whom can also see into the future, he gets an Atium shadow style effect even before accounting for his own actions, which grows progressively stronger as he looks further into the future. Presumably the reason he's able to extract useful information from it is because he's a Shard, and theoretically an Atium/Zinc Twinborn or a Mistborn compounding Zinc could actually take advantage of the shadow cloud, although doing that might expand the shadow cloud too much for them to manage it.

[happyman he/him]

So, there are a number of forms of looking into the future, and I want to analyze them.

1) Atium burning: You see other people's futures. Normally there is only one shadow per person/object, but any Atium or Electrum burner produces a massive, shifting cloud. Furthermore, if someone manages to react to your response to their shadow, their shadow splits.

2) Electrum burning: See only your future, produces a cloud of possibilities

3) Returned visions: I believe the precognition happens prior to actually returning and they they remember it in their dreams. Lightsong sees only one possible future, but then it doesn't happen. I believe he saw only what would happen if he did not Return.

4) Returned art viewing: It is unclear if this actually shows the future or if it shows the present, but it's notable that the priesthood insists that Returned must never interact with the subject of their viewings.

5) Honor looking into the future: Unfortunately, we don't have a viewpoint on this one, but he does indicate that the further ahead he looks the more possibilites he sees.

So, here's the unified theory: Any attempt to look into the future that will show you the effects of your actions will show you, in order, how things would proceed if you didn't look into the future, how things would proceed if you saw that future but not this one, how things would proceed based on your response to that, etc.

Atium only produces multiple shadows if the person you're looking at is somehow obtaining information from the future, either by their own temporal allomancy or by reacting to the actions you take based on your Atium, and the second one is rare simply because the timeframe is so short. Electrum will always (or at least in any situation in which you have options) produce multiple shadows because you're looking into your future and it splits off a new one for every possible response you'd have to that one. Returned visions show only what will happen if they don't show up, and not the results of them showing up, so it doesn't split. Since Honor is interacting with two other Shards, both of whom can also see into the future, he gets an Atium shadow style effect even before accounting for his own actions, which grows progressively stronger as he looks further into the future. Presumably the reason he's able to extract useful information from it is because he's a Shard, and theoretically an Atium/Zinc Twinborn or a Mistborn compounding Zinc could actually take advantage of the shadow cloud, although doing that might expand the shadow cloud too much for them to manage it.

This all seems quite reasonable, and matches what I have long believed. Some time ago, I floated the belief that the Shard's ability to see into the future is essentially "Atium, writ large," which is what I think you are saying (More accurately, I would say that Atium's ability to see the future is Ruin's ability to see the future, writ small). It makes sense. I would like to add that both Preservation and TLR appear to have had this ability writ large, or at least much larger, given that the Kandra prophecies managed to predict both Ruin's attempt to claim the Kandra and Elend's last stand at least a thousand years in advance.

As for the future splitting---well, clearly if two shards interact, they will have multiple "Atium shadows" writ very large, which would certainly explain the glass shattering analogy Honor used. However, based on the notion of Shardic sentience, I suspect that humans themselves have the ability to, after a long enough time or with enough people, change the future as well, thus splitting the future even with only one shard present (see Warbreaker). (Shards are just much better at accounting for all the splitting possibilities, I'm guessing).

Edited November 28, 2011 by happyman

[name_here]

Well, my theory is that the future splitting only occurs when the information you obtain from the future would cause the events you're seeing to happen differently, and in the specific case of Atium this doesn't include what you do but does include people reacting to what you do, so even one human can split the future if they see the results of their actions, but the more people involved the more crazy it gets. This would imply that if a Shard looked into the future and determined it was perfectly fine the future would not split, but if there's multiple Shards they won't agree and things would grow progressively more complex.

I wouldn't read too much into the Kandra prophecies; I'm pretty sure they were more Preservations/TLRs game plan and only appeared to be prophetic because they managed to arrange matters to their desires.

[darniil he/him]

Some time ago, I floated the belief that the Shard's ability to see into the future is essentially "Atium, writ large," which is what I think you are saying (More accurately, I would say that Atium's ability to see the future is Ruin's ability to see the future, writ small).

One thing to keep in mind is that different Shards have different levels of precognitive strength, and Ruin couldn't see as far/as well as Preservation could.

Beyond that, very interesting thoughts.

[Arcanist Lupus he/him]

I've always thought that Atium doesn't actually produce Atium shadows. What it does is provides you with probabilistic information on the future, and enhances your mind's ability to understand the information, and your mind interprets this as Atium shadows. What happens when the shadows split is that the feedback loop overwhelms the mind's enhanced ability to understand the future, and it throws up its hands and sends you multiple best-guess. The distinction isn't really that relevant, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyways.

[happyman he/him]

Sir Read-a-lot, that theory may be correct. With the Shards, their expanded consciousness would allow them to much more accurate visions of the future. However, I do not believe that theory because the true temporal metals affect time directly, and I would be rather disappointed if Atium didn't exceed them in some way.