Theory on awakening iron/steel

[Helwar]

First and foremost: I'm on my phone and my access to internet is flimsy, so I couldn't search if this had been talked about before or not, and my grammar and format might be plainly wrong so, excuse me on both ends, please.

 

I had a lot of thinking time today (where i have to wait in the car and only wait...) and my mind wandered towards the Cosmere as usual.

It's very simple, really, but I cane up with something: When you awaken something there are 2 things that ease or handicap the process: if the thing had been previously alive, and if it had a human shape (or at least part of one, like... A foot)

The problem with awakening iron or its alloys is that they were never alive. You might make an iron leg to substitute one you lost but awakening that would be hella difficult. But make it out of bone, or wood, and it's a lot more doable.

 

Here is the thing: Trace Elements, or Oligoelements, are small, minuscule amounts of material that our body has and needs but are in such a low percentage that we don't actually count as having them.

Iron is one of those Oligoelements, used to make blood (i think?) and the average male adult has 3.8gr of the things in his body (a little less for women). A very small amount. But it's Iron that has been part of a living body, that "remembers" being alive.

I'm not actually sure how much iron does a sword actually needs. Let's say it weighs 5kg. You'd need around 1320 humans to acquire that much iron. Let's also assume our extracting methods are not 100% effective... Let's say that we actually siphon correctly half of a persons iron with our procedure and the rest goes down the sink with the rest of the blood.

2640 humans, for a sword that's 50% easier to awaken than one made from mined ores (as it isnt in human shape)

It hardly seems practical (if at all), but imagine you GET to do that. Invest a wallop of breaths in the thing, command it to slay evil, and it actually works. damnation... Suddenly, if this method is known, other people might try to repeat it and slaughter another 2640 humans.

Wouldn't it be a secret worth killing to keep?

[Calderis]

That's... Pretty dark. But then again, so is Hemalurgy.

Don't know if it would work, but upvote for an idea I've never seen before. 

[Andy92]

Gave an upvote for originality. I personally feel like the reason Vasher wanted to keep Nightblood a secret was based on the pure destruction the sword causes, not necessarily because the process for making it was so gruesome. But your guess could be along the right track. Maybe the link needed to Awaken metal is a darker process. 

[Helwar]

The whole thing is just a big extrapolation out of facts. As you said, is gruesome and dark as it comes, it would leave the process of creating Inquisitors at the "slightly questionable" spectrum of things if this thing were done. The fact that it checks on the few questions I asked myself doesn't make it even probable... possible, maybe? I'm sure there is a way simpler and more reasonable method of awakening steel, and this method isn't even contemplated to everyone but... It does feel like a possibility, doesn't it?

[Stark]

Super, super dark.  I think the main problem with this is the science.  Modern Nalthis seems to be still in the horse/carriage/ sword state of scientific development.  They may not have progressed far enough to (a) recognize that blood has an iron component, or (b) be able to extract - or - filter the iron out of the blood.  So why this may ultimately work, I do not think it is possible from a tech level given what we no Nalthis.

 

This route is probably best for creating a metal golem, not unlike the D'Denir statues, bone core with blood iron body.  

 

That said, we know this took a ton of breath to accomplish.  If we keep your calculation, but look at it as 1320 humans worth of Breath to awaken the sword, that might work.  But other than that, not technologically possible.

[Helwar]

3 minutes ago, Stark said:

This route is probably best for creating a metal golem, not unlike the D'Denir statues, bone core with blood iron body.  

This is hardcore. For 5kg of blood iron you needed to syphon perfectly 1320 humans. A whole golem, human sized, made of iron?

The human body is mostly water 60/70% iirc, so we take water's density for a human body. 1.0. Steel is 8.05 g/cm3. If the average human male weights 75kg, we multiply that for the density of steel we need 603kg of steel aprox to do that.

As said before, one man has ~3.8gr of Iron in their body. Divide the 603000 gr we needed for the cuantity of it per human, and we need to extract the juice out of, hold yourselves 'cause this is a big one: 158.685 humans. That if we have a perfect method of extracting the iron. Count double that if our efficiency is not as good.

Most expensive golem ever.

[Stark]

51 minutes ago, Helwar said:

we need 603kg of steel aprox to do that.

A couple of small adjustments.  This was assuming that you would be using a skeleton for the framework of the golem, so the use of human bones would very minorly reduce the weight of steel.  Another point is that iron is not steel.  The iron you are collecting would need to be converted to steel, preferably of the stainless variety to prevent rusting.  SO the addition of the carbon to the iron would further reduce the volume of blood iron you would need, but in the end it is still a staggering amount.

 

Final point, for the collection of the iron, you are not thinking like a mad scientist enough.  You need material that was once alive, and humans are not the only mammal that have blood, and therefore blood iron.  A proper mad awakener bent on creating a Lifeless steel golem, possibly sentient like Nightblood, would not limit themselves to human sacrifice to collect the iron.  In fact it is most likely that they would start with animals to keep from being discovered.

 

But yes, at the end you have the Golem of Hallandren, commanded to protect the city from all threats for all time.  Yeah, that is some twisted Blood-magicy-pseudo-hemalurgic-awakening right there.  

 

I could totally see Taravangian getting behind this research from his death hospital...

 

Edit:  Huh, if we are looking for metal that had been alive to yield the best awakening results, wouldn't a Soulcast metal corpse be the least evil option? 

Edited May 29, 2017 by Stark

[Helwar]

8 minutes ago, Stark said:

I could totally see Taravangian getting behind this research from his death hospital...

He's already draining the blood of some people to kill them, might as well put that to good use

 

Edit: I know Steel is not Iron, but you add a VERY SMALL % of carbon to make steel, it's almost negligible. The weight of human bones compared to the weight of a steel golem is negligible too. Also the numbers were rounded so I thought useless to take into account these small percentages

Edited May 29, 2017 by Helwar
adding a response

[Calderis]

Just now, Helwar said:

He's already draining the blood of some people to kill them, might as well put that to good use

And that point brings up a still disturbing but less gruesome option, farming blood from donors. Depending on the level of evil/insanity involved they could be willing or captive and you'd be able to take the blood, allow them time to recover and repeat.

6 minutes ago, Stark said:

Edit:  Huh, if we are looking for metal that had been alive to yield the best awakening results, wouldn't a Soulcast metal corpse be the least evil option? 

This. This wins. As long as you have access to a Soulcaster and Stormlight it meets the requirements for "once living" while avoiding the harvesting, forging, and everything else. Not only is it less evil, but it's also much less work. 

[Helwar]

1 minute ago, Calderis said:

10 minutes ago, Stark said:

Edit:  Huh, if we are looking for metal that had been alive to yield the best awakening results, wouldn't a Soulcast metal corpse be the least evil option? 

This. This wins. As long as you have access to a Soulcaster and Stormlight it meets the requirements for "once living" while avoiding the harvesting, forging, and everything else. Not only is it less evil, but it's also much less work. 

That's perfect too!

Didn't see your edit before Stark.

 

Anyway, this works for building a golem, not a blade. Well, I guess you could made it out of bone or... maybe cut a slab out of those living islands in Roshar, carve the sword, then soulcast into steel?

 

Well, all my endeavors were based on working in Nalthis alone, not merging magic systems. Mixing those makes almost anything is possible  

[Calderis]

5 minutes ago, Helwar said:

Well, all my endeavors were based on working in Nalthis alone, not merging magic systems. Mixing those makes almost anything is possible

Yeah. For that, that's why I suggested the bloodletting option. Depending on the numbers involved it may require some patience, but it eliminates the need to kill, and if you have enough Breath for the 5th Heightening time isn't much of a urgent consideration anyway. 

[Helwar]

Now that we're talking about Awakening soulcast corpses, don't rosharian Lighteyes get theyr corpses soulcast into something (stone or iron, i can't remember)? 

Now imagine Vasher discovers how to awaken with stormlight, and gets into a crypt: Instant army!

But that's a little bit off topic now

[Andy92]

Or you could Soulcast something like an arm into metal, forge it into the shape of a sword...

[Djarskublar]

I made a topic about something similar a few months ago, and that's where the thread I recently made got its inspiration.

The problem with Nightblood is that his morals and understanding of what it is to be human are so rudimentary. So I suggested forging him out of diluted spikes so he would have an element of humanity. The feelings on the topic were pretty mixed, for good reason.

This presents a pretty similar idea, just without the extra end goal. It's super dark, and I love it. I just don't think it particularly likely. Not in its current state. If you were to say that part of the steel had to come from blood iron, then that would be more practical, and I would be inclined to believe it.

Excellent thought though, and definite upvote.

[+Extesian]

I love this idea in terms of lateral thinking, but I wonder if it would work Cosmerically. I think the reason it takes less Breath to Awaken an object, or part of an object, that was once living is because it has Identity. We know that with a Lifeless, it doesn’t take much Breath (only one with the right Command) because the corpse was once living, but I think (maybe it’s confirmed) that is because there is still a sense of Identity attached to that corpse. Well, at least to the spiritweb of the corpse (as we’ve been told that spiritwebs hang around in the Spiritual Realm after death). The flip side of that is you can’t then withdraw that Breath because it attaches to that Identity. On the other hand, Awakening a piece of cloth takes a lot of Breath, because it is further away from having been alive, but you can withdraw the Breath because (I think) the cloth has insufficient Identity for the Breath to attach to it.

If the question is how small a component of a previously living thing was once ‘alive’, I believe the determinant is whether there is still any Identity attached to the thing, which I think is based on the remaining spiritweb of that thing. With everyone’s best friend, Stick, Stick remembered being a stick, being a part of a living thing. But if you took a single cell of Stick, would that still apply? If you extracted a single molecule, would it still apply? I have my doubts that such a small component would regard itself as part of the greater living thing, that it would share that sense of Identity. That molecules of iron that were once inside the blood of a living thing would regard themselves as that living thing, or a part of it. But I know nothing that would say there’s no way it would work. So I like it anyway J

(I do also share the concerns about steel vs iron – once you actually alloy the pieces of iron, that must seriously affect its Identity. And the alternative I guess is having a more brittle, rusty sword – though if it’s that invested that may not matter)

[Calderis]

@Extesian I think the investiture would keep iron from rusting. 

In regards to the meat of your post, fun of speculation aside, I agree that the molecular iron is a small enough piece it probably wouldn't recognize itself cognitively as a part of the preexisting whole life form.

 Had a wall of text here that I think would fit better on your post than derailing this one. So I'll go paste what I started and finish the thought there. 

[Stark]

17 hours ago, Calderis said:

As long as you have access to a Soulcaster and Stormlight it meets the requirements for "once living"

This is the only hiccup I can foresee for this approach.From what little we have seen of Soulcasting, it involves changing the target identity in the cognitive realm.  If the target, in this case a corpse, has a new identity as a metal statue that was never living, it may very well fail the "once living" criteria.  It all hinges on whether the target retains "memory" of its previous identity in its new form.  This may be a question for a forger.

 

It would also require extremely precise 'Casting - to do a partial change of the corpse, leaving the skeleton intact as bone.  

[The One Who Connects]

1 hour ago, Stark said:

If the target, in this case a corpse, has a new identity as a metal statue that was never living, it may very well fail the "once living" criteria.  It all hinges on whether the target retains "memory" of its previous identity in its new form.  This may be a question for a forger.

It would work.

Quote

EMTrevor (Tor.com)

Would an Awakener be able to awaken a corpse that was soulcast into stone more easily because it used to be living, thereby being able to create lifeless similar to Kalad's Phantoms without having bones in the framework?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. That would definitely work.

 

[Farnsworth]

I love this idea! Upvote!

However, I think it's a bit unlikely that this was the origin of Nightblood. Vashar was named "Warbreaker the Peacefull", and killing 2640  people to take the iron out of their blood seems unlikely. This may happen in the future, if a God-King has fewer morals than Vashar did though.

[Stark]

Awesome @The One Who Connects!  Thanks for finding that WOB!

I'm now seeing this legion of metal golems, Soulcast from fallen heroes, awakened as Lifeless protectors, or semi-sentient Nightblood style golems...  With no evil blood harvesting required!

[The One Who Connects]

3 minutes ago, Stark said:

I'm now seeing this legion of metal golems, Soulcast from fallen heroes, awakened as Lifeless protectors, or semi-sentient Nightblood style golems...  With no evil blood harvesting required!

Oh it gets better. Soulcasting was "very interesting" to Vasher.