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Origins of Feruchemy
- In Scadrial, there were only two Shards, yes? And we know that, a.) each magic system in a world corresponds to one Shard, and b.) that each of these Shards had their magic systems. However, Scadrial had three magic systems. Where did Feruchemy, which is confirmed to have existed before Preservation and Ruin's conflict came to a head, come from? And how?
- Either Preservation made it first, and then developed Allomancy later, thus making him the creator of two magic systems, or it was a collaborative effort between Preservation and Ruin when they first (re)created humanity.
- There's one theory bouncing around that it's a natural outgrowth of the magic systems: Each world has one magic system per Shard, then another for interactions. Scadrial has Hemalurgy (Ruin), Allomancy (Preservation), and Feruchemy (Ruin/Preservation). Under this theory, Roshar (which has three Shards, Cultivation, Honor, and Odium) would have seven magic systems: Honor, Odium, Cultivation, Honor/Odium, Odium/Cultivation, Cultivation/Honor, and Honor/Odium/Cultivation.
- It could also be it's an outgrowth of when Shards directly interact, rather than just when they're on the same world. So Preservation had Allomancy, Ruin had Hemalurgy, and when they worked together to create humans, they created Feruchemy in the process. Under this theory, Roshar would have four magic systems: Honor, Odium, Cultivation, and Honor/Cultivation. Since Odium is evil and hates everyone else, he wouldn't help them make a new magic system.
- Word of Brandon is that magic systems do NOT not line up 1:1 with the number of Shards. Feruchemy is the joint product of both Ruin and Preservation, since it neither creates Investiture like Allomancy nor destroys it like Hemalurgy.
Origins of Humans through the Shardworlds
- We know that on Scadrial, the world of Mistborn, humans could only be created through the cooperation of the Shards Preservation and Ruin. Fair enough. But what about on the other Shardworlds? Were all humans created by Preservation and Ruin, or did other Shards create humans of their own with independent origin? And if Preservation and Ruin created humanity, did they create them on all worlds or just one and the rest was a result of colonization?
- Humans originated on Yolen, and that's where all the known Shardholders (except Sazed and Taravangian) were born. The rest is unclear. It seems like Adonalsium shaped a number of worlds, but left them bare of life, and when he was Shattered and his Shards taken up, the Shardholders wandered the Cosmere and settled down on worlds they liked. On Scadrial, Ruin and Preservation explicitly worked together to recreate humanity, and Honor is implied to have done something similar on Roshar (he calls himself "the creator of humankind"), but for the rest, we just don't have enough detail to know. And that's not even getting into the lesser worlds that don't have a Shard, but still have people (the worlds from Sixth of the Dusk and Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell), which are a mystery.
- Threnody, the planet where Shadows For Silence is set, used to have a Shard, Ambition, who is now dead, which causes all the Shades and presumably the Evil. First of the Sun has no Shard of its own but seems to have an Avatar of Autonomy in the form of Patji. This doesn't fully explain why humans are on these worlds. According to Word of Brandon, Sixth of the Dust is very far future in the Cosmere chronologically, meaning there could have been humans on the planet before Autonomy, or vice versa. As for Threnody, that's its own can of worms to deal with.
