Shades and Soulstamps

[theRoyalDingus]

I recently saw a topic about how being a gold misting would help your soulforgery:

This got me thinking back to an idea I had a while ago (and then forgot cause I'm such a genius) that Shades do very similar things as soulstamps: they write a new/changed copy of your soul.

So, this opened up several questions: Could you learn why Shades are able to make such powerful and different writings over one's soul, and possibly incorporate this into your soulstamps to make very powerful soulstamps? Also, could you, with a soulstamp, turn a Shade back into a human? Or make a human into a Shade with a soulstamp?

I personally think (or want to) that we could learn to make more powerful soulstamps less likely to be rejected, but I'd like to hear other people's ideas on the subject (Perhaps there is something I'm forgetting that makes me wrong?).

[Calderis]

I personally don't believe they're all that similar. Yes they both overwrite the Spiritual aspect, but in very different ways. 

Forgery creates a temporary overwrite that's reliant on the past of the target, and which is continually fought against until it is rejected and the stamp must be reapplied. 

Shades actively corrupt the Spiritual aspect, destroying the physical body, and essentially transform the target permanently into a copy of themselves. There's no regard for the history of the subject, just a straightforward transformation. 

One creates an overlay from the plausible, the other destroys what was to make something completely different. 

Edited February 14, 2018 by Calderis

[Weltall]

5 hours ago, theRoyalDingus said:

Also, could you, with a soulstamp, turn a Shade back into a human? Or make a human into a Shade with a soulstamp?

Interesting questions both. Assuming you could physically affix a stamp to a Shade and not get killed in the process (which seems rather tricky on both fronts) I imagine that it's technically possible you could temporarily revive a person with it in the same way that you can heal with Forgery or you could technically Forge someone to death but.it would probably have all the usual issues of plausibility, require the right knowledge of the human and the manner in which they first became a Shade and you'd have to work past the extra Investiture they have on account of being a Cognitive Shadow. And it would probably do some funky paradox things. My guess is that the insubstantial nature of a Shade would probably make it impossible right from the start, but who knows?

As for turning a human into a Shade with one, I refer you to the WoB I linked to. I imagine it's possible you could do that if 'this person died and became a Shade' was something sufficiently plausible that you could get the stamp to take. Probably not going to work anywhere but Threnody if it works at all, and it might not hold even if it were possible since they'd become insubstantial, then the Physical aspect that the soulstamp is stuck to would go away, then the stamp would fail just like they do when you physically pry them off a Forged object.

There's also the question whether or not a soulstamp has the necessary Investiture to carry out the Forgery in question (in this case, giving a human the Investiture needed to become a Cognitive Shadow) but Brandon has implied that a Forger could get external power boosts to do things that wouldn't normally be possible so it's not likely to be an insurmountable obstacle on its own.

[theRoyalDingus]

On 2/14/2018 at 0:05 PM, Calderis said:

I personally don't believe they're all that similar. Yes they both overwrite the Spiritual aspect, but in very different ways. 

Forgery creates a temporary overwrite that's reliant on the past of the target, and which is continually fought against until it is rejected and the stamp must be reapplied. 

Shades actively corrupt the Spiritual aspect, destroying the physical body, and essentially transform the target permanently into a copy of themselves. There's no regard for the history of the subject, just a straightforward transformation. 

One creates an overlay from the plausible, the other destroys what was to make something completely different. 

I agree that they are different. That is, in a way, what I was saying. Could you make soulstamps that acted like a Shade, completely corrupting the Spiritual aspect in a way that it could not be rejected, instead of acting like normal soulstamp. Also this makes me wonder how Shades actually do what they do. How do they completely destroy one's Spiritual aspect?

 

Perhaps what I'm saying is that perhaps humans could learn to have the powers of Shades like they have learned to have the powers of Mistborn and Radiants and such.

Edited February 19, 2018 by theRoyalDingus