Stormlight's effect on children and pregnancy

[Gasper]

I am currently reading a few books on medicine and it keeps bringing up the effect of the environment on unborn children. That got me thinking, would the stormlight in a radiant effect an unborn child they were pregnant with? Would it make the child different in some way? Would it be easier for the child to bond spren? 

My theory is that the child's sDNA would be altered in some way and they might be able to bond spren easier or have abilities similar to a horneater. It might also give them abilities similar to Lift or a first or second Oath radiant because they were born heavily invested. Also, if a pregnant woman said an Oath, would that oath and strengthening of the nahel bond extend to the child. I think that it would have to have some sort of protective effect on the child. I am saying this based mainly on the physical effects of some of the surges. What if you have a pregnant Windrunner? I would think that flight (or if you prefer: Upwards falling)  might have a detrimental effect on the child. Hitting 2 or more G's of acceleration is going to have a very bad effect on a child who cannot use stormlight and who does not have the associated durability. I'd like to hear all your thoughts on the issue.

[Calderis]

Gravity effects things uniformly. Your not going to feel anything other than air resistance unless you have a rapid change in direction or a sudden stop, so the child should usually be fine.

I also think that Stormlight healing would extend to the child as being covered by the mothers immune system. 

Their sDNA is going to be altered somewhat, probably just by eye color. The bond and spren attraction should be strictly behavioral. 

[+Ark1002]

I think they would have horneater like abilities.

[Calderis]

1 hour ago, Ark1002 said:

I think they would have horneater like abilities.

Excluding Lift, Radiants aren't able to see spren any better than normal humans. That ability, in the ones that it's present like Rock, comes from their Parshendi blood. I don't think that would be gained. 

[Gasper]

4 hours ago, Calderis said:

Gravity effects things uniformly. Your not going to feel anything other than air resistance unless you have a rapid change in direction or a sudden stop, so the child should usually be fine.

You do have a point, but I am talking about the sudden stops and the high accelerations caused by gravitation surge. What if the mother decided to pull a stunt like Kaladin and Sezth at the Battle of Narak? That cannot be healthy.

I think that the extra investure might make the child savant like because of their exposure over the nine monthish period of pregnancy.  

[CrazyRioter]

I suspect that that the unborn baby would  be protected in the same way the Radiant is against that sort of thing so I don't think it would be a problem. It might agitate the baby and result in being kicked in the ribs but it probably wouldn't do any harm.

[KalaDANG]

I think that whether or not the stormlight could have any kind of effect on the baby would first of all depend on whether or not the mother and baby identified as being part of each other, or as separate people. The stormlight might not even touch the baby if they viewed themselves as separate rather than parts of one whole. On the same subject, I wonder how radiance would work with apair of conjoined twins. Could one of them be a surgebinder and the other not? Could they both be surgebinders but of different orders? If they cut themselves apart from one another, and they both identified as their own person, would they heal up as separate people? They would almost be overpowered if they were different surges and conjoined.

Edited July 17, 2018 by KalaDANG

[CrazyRioter]

Conjoined twins with separate brains are separate people even if they share parts of their bodies. There's at least one real life set of conjoined twins that share almost an entire body but have fully separate heads and brains and fully separate personalities.

They have a wikipedia page.

So I imagine it would be theoretically possible for a set of conjoined twins to bond spren separately from each other.

Edited July 17, 2018 by CrazyRioter

[Calderis]

@KalaDANG a portion of your question has been asked before.

Quote

DrogaKrolow

We have this one bizarre question, that actually was really, really weird but we have to know it.

There was a question about Siamese twins. If they were born gold Feruchemists, and they they were split apart, would they like, form together again?

Brandon Sanderson

Uhhhnn... It depends on how they view themselves

DrogaKrolow

That's the answer to every question like that!

Brandon Sanderson

Right! But that's the whole point of the cosmere is that-- Spiritual Realm is filtered through the Cognitive Realm to the Physical Realm, right? And this lens is going to filter how things work. Perception is really important in the cosmere. That's where most of these things come from, and so-- Yeah that is the answer to everything. But that's the point of the answer to everything, is that there aren't a lot of hard and fast rules when it comes to a lot of these things, with Identity and whatnot is going be filtered through perception.

DrogaKrolow

So it is technically possible for them, if they are seeing each other as one.

Brandon Sanderson

Right.

DrogaKrolow

So we can--

Brandon Sanderson

Now the big hard question is, what if one of them views them as one and one of them doesn't?

DrogaKrolow

Oh.

Brandon Sanderson

Aaaaoooohhh! Then it depends on who's using the magic.

DrogaKrolow

What if both of them are?

Brandon Sanderson

Both of them what? Are gold? If both of them are healing and one doesn't want to and one does, magic's gonna cancel each other out and nothing will happen.

DrogaKrolow

Ok.

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm. Yeah I made your question harder and weirder.

DrogaKrolow

Well it was a very logical answer to a very unlogical question.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. I've had to answer a lot of these. My feeling is that if I can make the fundamental magic principles work then you can answer those questions rationally but really what you would have to do is-- Even I'm not the expert on these things. Like I'm the ultimate word in some ways but in another ways the answer would be "I don't know, let's have a thought experiment and if it ever comes up, try it out and see what happens". But yeah, there you go. There is my best answer to you.

source

 

[Doomdrinker]

From the way Kaladin blacks out briefly while fighting the fused is a clear indication that stormlight doesn't cancel out the effect of pulling G's. I think stormlight simply heals the radiants as they sustain damage during these maneuvers.

 

Spoiler

<Oathbringer spoilers removed by a moderator>

Also given how important perception is to the magic I'd say the baby would be equally protected by stormlight as the radiants themselves are. This is because I think Rosharans wouldn't think of the baby as being it's own distinct individual until it is born.

Edited July 17, 2018 by Argent
Oathbringer spoilers not allowed in this forum.

[Stark]

This Feruchemical Gold siamese twin question could lead to a Cosmere hack clone army.  If you have the twins and separate them, cool.  One views them as two unique individuals, and heals to a unique individual.  The other views them as one, and heals back what is lost - the cojoined twin.  Would they not essentially grow a third person cojoined to the twin who views the two beings as one?

 

And then to escalate it, if the twin who views the cojoined as a part of a whole that views itself as unique, could you not loop this process and essentially grow your own clone army?  Really quickly if you have a stockpile of unkeyed goldminds?  Preferably unkeyed gold being topped up by a gold compounder?

 

Would that work?

 

Edit:  Regarding gravity.  We do not feel the affects of velocity, we feel the affects of acceleration.  As 'G' is a specific measure of acceleration, 9.8m/s/s on earth, the body would feel that changing.  If you up it to 6G, that is enough to knock most people out.  I think a stormlight user would be protected from that effect by the light constantly healing them, but after a certain acceleration they would start to see diminished returns for their light used vs. acceleration achieved.  Eventually they will hit a point where they are using more light to heal themselves per second than they are using to keep falling.  And that is in a straight line, you add turns or fancy maneuvers, and I see it getting less effective.

 

So would they feel it?  Yes.  Would it effect pregnancy?  Probably not, as the baby would be healed with the mother.  But I don't think it would be recommended.  It would be less dangerous for a pregnant surgebinder to fly than for a pregnant woman to use a roller coaster.  This is of course provided the pregnancy is viewed as part of the mother by the mother.  If the baby is viewed as separate, then it is an entirely different conversation, and the risks to the baby are magnified.  

Edited July 17, 2018 by Stark

[Argent]

1 hour ago, Doomdrinker said:

From the way Kaladin blacks out briefly while fighting the fused is a clear indication that stormlight doesn't cancel out the effect of pulling G's. I think stormlight simply heals the radiants as they sustain damage during these maneuvers.

...

Also given how important perception is to the magic I'd say the baby would be equally protected by stormlight as the radiants themselves are. This is because I think Rosharans wouldn't think of the baby as being it's own distinct individual until it is born.

With Oathbringer being out for an entire 8 months, it is easy to forget (or miss) our relevant spoiler policy, so I'll just remind you that Oathbringer spoilers, regardless of whether they are hidden behind spoiler tags, are only allowed in the Oathbringer Spoiler Board and the Cosmere Discussion forums.

[Gray to]

59 minutes ago, Stark said:

This Feruchemical Gold siamese twin question could lead to a Cosmere hack clone army.  If you have the twins and separate them, cool.  One views them as two unique individuals, and heals to a unique individual.  The other views them as one, and heals back what is lost - the cojoined twin.  Would they not essentially grow a third person cojoined to the twin who views the two beings as one?

 

And then to escalate it, if the twin who views the cojoined as a part of a whole that views itself as unique, could you not loop this process and essentially grow your own clone army?  Really quickly if you have a stockpile of unkeyed goldminds?  Preferably unkeyed gold being topped up by a gold compounder?

This is a cool idea. However I think the WOB above says that in that situation, they would cancel out. I imagine that after the twin that views them both as one started the healing process, the twin that views itself as unique would re-merge with it rather than growing a new twin. 

1 hour ago, Stark said:

  This is of course provided the pregnancy is viewed as part of the mother by the mother.  If the baby is viewed as separate, then it is an entirely different conversation, and the risks to the baby are magnified.  

IMO, it doesn't matter whether or not the baby is viewed as separate from the mom. We know stormlight provides oxygen for the body, meaning that it gets into the bloodstream. I assume this means it can get into the baby like other nutrients. I'm kind of worried that the effect that Stormlight has, the one that makes you really tired after you run out, would make the baby dependent on Stormlight, kind of like how babies of mothers who take drugs are affected by the drugs

[CrazyRioter]

I do not think stormlight literally provides oxygen, I think it sustains the body directly without the need for it.