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Lifesensing and bronze


Samaldin

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Basicly this is a simple question which occured to me on a reread of Warbreaker. We have a WoB that it´s possible to sense other kinds of Investiture with bronze allomanty than just allomantic one. The fourth heightening Awakeners grants the perfect life sense, but that doesn´t work on drabs, which means it also works with Investiture. So could an Awakener of the fourth heightening (with training) sense allomanty like a Seeker? Or could a Seeker get strong enough to acchieve life sensing?

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As far as I understand of the Lifesense, you can't sense Invesiture uses. Or you will sense also Lifeless or Awakened Object or Object with Breath stored inside.

I have the strong feel that the lifesense allows to you to sense the Connection to the near living being and the Breath improves someone's Connection to the surround. In the end this made someone with a lot of Breath more integrated with the surround.

Or It's possible that the Breath's Lifesense senses the Soul's expansion generates by Investiture (like to feel "how many extra Investiture someone has").

Of course this is a raw idea but it's the better I may offer at the moment.

Edited by Yata
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Well... Perfect life sense does not let you sense if somebody near you is using awakening (other than perhaps a change in the user's aura as they lose / gain breaths). From this evidence, I would venture to say that life sense is actually unable to sense something like allomancy. Or surgebinding. However... I suspect that life sense could be used to gauge how much stormlight a surgebinder has in their body. This is not sensing their magic use, it is sensing how much investiture is in a person. Which is what life sense seems to be good at.

As for whether or not bronze could be used to sense life... I think bronze senses movement and change in investiture, and the spark of life that life sense is able to pick up mostly just sits there. For this reason I doubt bronze could be used to sense nearby people who aren't using magic (maybe however it could sense people dying because the investiture in them is leaving?). If it is possible at all, you would probably need to amplify your bronze allomancy many times over with nicrosil.

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8 hours ago, Morzathoth said:

There is innate investiture, which is in all living things and kinetic investiture, which is the magic. Life sense senses the first, seeking senses the second.

At least that is how I understand it.

I think (but can't be sure) that Innate Investiture may become Kinetic Investiture. We know for a WoB that Nightblood fed of Kinetic Investiture, but we saw it be feeded by Breath and Life spark

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6 hours ago, Yata said:

I think (but can't be sure) that Innate Investiture may become Kinetic Investiture. We know for a WoB that Nightblood fed of Kinetic Investiture, but we saw it be feeded by Breath and Life spark

Nightblood is probably not very picky when it comes to investiture.

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Innate investiture and kinetic investiture? Yes that seems to be the difference... That strikes very close to what I was saying.

But I wouldn't say that these two investitures are inherently different.

I mean, not any more different than a ball that is moving and a ball that is at rest, anyway.

Edited by Drake Marshall
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Personally, I believe life sense has to do with Connection, not Investiture.

Every Breath is essentially a piece of Endowment, meaning there is a Spiritual Connection between all Breaths.
As a person gathers more Breath that Connection becomes stronger and more noticeable, resulting in a better (and eventually perfect) life sense.
Drabs do have innate Investiture (spark of life), but still can't be detected through life sense, however strong, because they don't have their own little piece of Endowment to Connect with.

Bronze operates on completely different principles, mostly explained in the books and WoBs, so I believe there is little or no overlap between Seeking and life sensing.

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On 8/1/2016 at 1:18 AM, Eagle of the Forest Path said:

Personally, I believe life sense has to do with Connection, not Investiture.

Every Breath is essentially a piece of Endowment, meaning there is a Spiritual Connection between all Breaths.
As a person gathers more Breath that Connection becomes stronger and more noticeable, resulting in a better (and eventually perfect) life sense.
Drabs do have innate Investiture (spark of life), but still can't be detected through life sense, however strong, because they don't have their own little piece of Endowment to Connect with.

Bronze operates on completely different principles, mostly explained in the books and WoBs, so I believe there is little or no overlap between Seeking and life sensing.

There is evidence in Words of Radiance against this idea, although it takes a certain amount of knowledge/sleuthing to make all the connections.

Words of Radiance and Warbreaker spoilers

Spoiler

In Words of Radiance, Zahel (aka Vasher, aka Warbreaker the peaceful) wakes up when Kaladin is coming for a visit, before Kaladin knocks on the door.  It is also revealed that Zahel can dense Syl, possibly through the same sense.

This strongly suggests that Zahel can sense Kaladin's life sense, and also sense Syl as well.  If this is true, then life-sense has nothing to do with Endowment, per se.

 

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Too add to this, let's say an ordinary soul's investiture is X. A soul with Breath is X +Y, a soul at the second heightening is X+Y to the second, a Drab is X - Y. A regular Nalthian with Breath has more innate investiture than someone from another world, but a Drab has less. So, perhaps the cut off for Life Sense is X, or the standard amount of investiture inherent in non-Nalthians?

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18 hours ago, CealdishOrbLender said:

I asked Brandon during the Shadows of Self tour if a copper cloud could block an awakener's lifesense and he said that it could, so take from that what you will. 

Also I'm not sure where to put my WoBs, I'm new here.

Try and find the thread for the signing you were at in the Events and Signings forum. If somebody recorded the signing there may already be a transcript of it. If not, I would post it in that thread.

9 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Too add to this, let's say an ordinary soul's investiture is X. A soul with Breath is X +Y, a soul at the second heightening is X+Y to the second, a Drab is X - Y. A regular Nalthian with Breath has more innate investiture than someone from another world, but a Drab has less. So, perhaps the cut off for Life Sense is X, or the standard amount of investiture inherent in non-Nalthians?

I agree with what you're saying, but I don't agree with the math you've set up here. Specifically, I think you need to differentiate between "ordinary souls" from Nalthis and from elsewhere. A Drab doesn't have one Breath's worth less investiture than a normal non-Nalthian. I would say it like this:

X = investiture of the soul of an ordinary non-Nalthian

D = investiture of a Drab

Y = investiture of a Breath

N = D + Y = investiture of the soul of an ordinary Nalthian (a Nalthian person w/ one Breath)

such that D < X < N.

This implies to me that an ordinary person not from Nalthis who gains a Breath will actually then have more innate Investiture than an ordinary Nalthian.

 

Math aside, Lifesense seems a little more complicated then we're assuming in this thread. Awakeners at the higher Heightenings can estimate how much Breath another Awakener has, which is clearly some sort of measure of Investiture. I just reread Warbreaker, but I don't remember the answer to this: can Awakeners with perfect Lifesense detect Lifeless, Returned (ones who are not suppressing their Divine Breath), or Nightblood? I don't believe they can detect Lifeless, but I can't remember exactly. But if that's the case, I'm not sure why as Lifeless also possess one breath. So there would have to be more to Lifesense than strictly detecting Investiture.

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I just finished a Warbreaker reread, and had some of the same confusion. My initial thought was the kinetic vs. potential investiture idea described above, but there are some features that it cannot explain. 

On 8/16/2016 at 11:20 AM, BeskarKomrk said:

Lifesense seems a little more complicated then we're assuming in this thread. [...] So there would have to be more to Lifesense than strictly detecting Investiture.

To sum up:

We know a lot about Seeking, which can detect kinetic investiture. Allomancy registers strongly, while Feruchemy's usually lower power threshold makes it more difficult to recognize. A Seeker can tell what flavor of Allomancy is being used, including (e.g.) the specific emotion being soothed or rioted. WoB says other forms of investiture could also be detected.

In addition, we have seen a skilled allomancer use bronze to locate a perpendicularity and to sense mist spirits. Neither of those seem very kinetic, but it isn't too hard to handwave a plausible explanation. MSH suggests that manifesting a mist spirit is an active process, and it isn't at all surprising that the entities involved would present a strong allomantic signature. The Well is a bit more of a stretch, since the strength of its signature increased dramatically over the last year of the 1024 it was filling, but that much power sitting still is bound to slosh a little, especially with something pushing at it from the other side. The increase as it filled could be an indication that the power had in a sense reached the lip of its container and was starting to trickle over, giving off a pulse as it reached the top.

We know less about Lifesense, and Awakening in general. It can commonly let you feel where people are, how much breath they have, and whether they are looking at you. This last point suggests an element of cognitive attention or spiritual connection. Then again, "Lifesense" seems to be an appropriate term, because at one point Vasher talks of being able to feel grass from the top of the God King's palace, and know how far away it is. Similarly, Lifesong uses his Lifesense to navigate the tunnels toward the conspirators and determine how far away they are. He mentions that if there had been anything besides rock in the way, he wouldn't have noticed their signature, confirming that anything alive could show up.

The exception, of course, is Drabs. Drabs are still alive, but do not register to Lifesense. They don't have Breath, but then again neither does grass (probably). Lifeless do not show up either, despite having a Breath to power them. In fact, no amount of Breath will show up to life sense (perfected at the fourth heightening) if it is an object. It doesn't matter whether it is powering something or just sitting there. It takes the seventh heightening before one begins to detect Breaths invested into an object (which may or may not include Lifeless). The Ars Arcanum calls this "Invested Breath Recognition", being  distinct from "Life Recognition". Regardless of whether that is a valid distinction of separate abilities, or instead a matter of having an order of magnitude more Breath, it is clear that there is something very different about detecting a Breath in a person vs. in an object.

Nightblood is another oddity. He does show up in Lifesense, though not as strongly as you would expect from the number of breaths inside him. It is unclear whether that weaker signature is due to something inherent about Nightblood or to the shielding effect of the scabbard.

This all leaves me a bit confused about the mechanism underlying Lifesense. It doesn't seem to be anywhere near as simple as detecting investiture of a specific type/form, but it also doesn't fall neatly into sensing life or cognition or connection.

Notably, Breath is never "used up" in Awakening. It persists through the life of the object or until you take it back. In this way it seems more analogous to a heartbeat than to a battery. I suspect  a Seeker would be able to detect the moment of Awakening (when the color fuel is consumed), but would not be able to sense a previously Awakened object, a Lifeless, or an Awakener holding lots of breath.

Edited by ccstat
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