Joint Soothing of Hemalurgic Creatures

[Duxredux]

We learn from TLR's storage cache that multiple Soothers or Rioters working jointly can take over a Koloss or Kandra. Who gets control? I'm assuming it is not Twitch Plays Koloss as funny as that would be. A couple options:

1. The "last" person that breaks through the control resistance after the others have weakened the Koloss.

2. Whomever is Soothing or Rioting the strongest.

 

Maybe I should put my next thought into a new thread, but it's related. I'm pretty sure Inquisitors during the days of TLR could take control the Koloss and direct them for battle, even before Ruin's escape. It looks like Ruin could later direct Inquisitors to take over Koloss armies, though Ruin could I suppose do this directly and give the illusion of ceding control to Vin and Elend. I can't remember if any of the Marsh viewpoints has him directing Koloss. It does look like you can Hemalurgic creatures controlling other Hemalurgic creatures though.

At any rate, assume you are able to capture an Inquisitor and break its resistance and control it by either a Duralumin Soothing or Breeze's whole Soothing team working together. Could you then direct the Inquisitor to assist you with Soothing the next Inquisitor as you try to convert the Steel Ministry to be under your control until it becomes a Soothing control war? That's a different conflict, but in essence I was wondering if the Steel Inquisitors had a hierarchy not just in authority but in emotional control over their peers. When Marsh was made into an Inquisitor why didn't they jointly bind him to their service, particularly before giving him Copper? Why hasn't TLR been directing everything this way? Maybe he did and it didn't matter when Marsh killed the Inquisitors in their sleep, though apparently TLR didn't feel the Inquisitors die. Maybe Ruin was weakening TLR and Karr's control over Marsh to get TLR offed.

 

What I can't tell is if Hemalurgic creatures need to be constantly Soothed, Rioted, or mental control exerted over them to maintain the mind control bond once you take over anything other than the mentally crippled Koloss. Vin deliberately severed her bond with TenSoon to not control him and everything else was probably affected by Ruin. That could explain why this doesn't work for anything other than Koloss.

Thoughts? 

Edited June 10, 2022 by Duxredux

[Elegy]

45 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

2. Whomever is Soothing or Rioting the strongest.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this what happened at Fadrex City when Ati took over the koloss? Sure, he was a Shard, but I feel it should work like this on a way smaller scale as well, theoretically.

Edited June 10, 2022 by Elegy

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, Duxredux said:

We learn from TLR's storage cache that multiple Soothers or Rioters working jointly can take over a Koloss or Kandra. Who gets control? I'm assuming it is not Twitch Plays Koloss as funny as that would be. A couple options:

1. The "last" person that breaks through the control resistance after the others have weakened the Koloss.

2. Whomever is Soothing or Rioting the strongest.

<snip>

Thoughts? 

There's a third option that, while I am unsure of the viability, should at least be considered:

That all participating soothers gain a connection to the Koloss and may control them. In which case the relative strength of the soothers would probably only matter if they were trying to give contradictory orders to the same Koloss. 

41 minutes ago, Elegy said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this what happened at Fadrex City when Ati took over the koloss? Sure, he was a Shard, but I feel it should work like this on a way smaller scale as well, theoretically.

Well, in that case it was Ati stealing control (as opposed to cooperating to gain control), which is likely how an inquisitor felt when Vin or Elend stole control of a Koloss they had. 

***

Some Relevent Era 1 sections:

WoA Ch 47 - Vin Controlling TenSoon 

Spoiler

The secret of the kandra. The last time she’d tried Soothing him, he’d howled with pain. Yet, she saw permission in his expression. It was enough.

She slammed TenSoon with a Soothing. He cried out, howling, but she Pushed harder. Nothing happened. Gritting her teeth, she burned duralumin.

Something broke. She was in two places at once. She could feel TenSoon standing by the wall, and she could feel her own body in Zane’s grip. TenSoon was hers, totally and completely. Somehow, not quite knowing how, she ordered him forward, controlling his body.

WoA Ch 54 - Vin Controlling koloss

Spoiler

Not even pausing to think on what prompted her to use it, she threw a duralumin-enhanced Soothing at the beasts.

It was as if her mind slammed into Something. And then, that Something shattered. Vin skidded to a halt, shocked, child still in her arms as the koloss stopped, frozen in their horrific act of slaughter.

What did I just do? she thought, tracing through her muddled mind, trying to connect why she had reacted as she had. Was it because she had been frustrated?

No. She knew that the Lord Ruler had built the Inquisitors with a weakness: Remove a particular spike from their back, and they’d die. He had also built the kandra with a weakness. The koloss had to have a weakness, too.

TenSoon called the koloss . . .his cousins, she thought.

She stood upright, the dark street suddenly quiet save for the whimpering skaa. The koloss waited, and she could feel herself in their minds. As if they were an extension of her own body, the same thing she had felt when she’d taken control of TenSoon’s body.

Cousins indeed. The Lord Ruler had built the koloss with a weakness—the same weakness as the kandra. He had given himself a way to keep them in check.

And suddenly she understood how he’d controlled them all those long years

HoA Ch 65 - Shows how an inquisitor can be controlled

Spoiler

she Pushed on Marsh’s emotions.

The wall inside of him cracked, then burst. For a moment, Vin felt a sense of vertigo. She saw things through Marsh’s eyes—indeed, she felt like she understood him. His love of destruction, and his hatred of himself. And through him, she caught a brief glimpse of something. A hateful, destructive thing that hid behind a mask of civility.

HoA Ch 69 - Implies Marsh led the Koloss to the Village that Elend defended in Ch 51

Spoiler

And then, Ruin had forced Marsh to run, leaving behind his army of koloss—the army that Marsh had been ordered to let Elend Venture steal, then bring to Fadrex. The army that Ruin had eventually stolen back.

• So, with Koloss Vin feels them in her mind and feel's their bodies as extensions of her own.
• With Kandra, she feels all of that, but also sees through their eyes and experiences "being in two places at once" (similar to Gold Shadows, maybe).
• With Inquisitors, she can glimpse their thoughts and gains an understanding of their mental/emotional state

I think this progression shows how with more spikes, the act of gaining control becomes more difficult; but the quality of control becomes more complete, and likely more difficult to control multiples (though we never see an allomancer control more than one Kandra or Inquisitor at a time) which may be why TLR didn't just Sooth/Riot control all of the inquisitors - having to see through scores of eyes and think the thoughts of scores of minds would likely have been beyond anyone but a Shard. Even a fullborn compounding sliver has limits - or at least a limit on what can be tolerated for long. 

Edited June 10, 2022 by Treamayne
SPAG