Disturbing Note on First Generation

[Duxredux]

So... anyone else suddenly get disturbed by realizing that if the First Generation had their original skeletons... that meant that Rashek transformed the living Feruchemists into Mistwraiths while excluding their bones in the transformation process? That more or less means he melted the flesh right off their bones before restoring their sapience, but also indicates the level of control he had over the power at that phase of his Hemalurgic experimentation if he had already planned for Mistwraiths to be able to copy and shapeshift to match a target. I think it took centuries of practice before the kandra pulled off that kind of transformation.

Shards just got creepier to me, and that was with Preservation's power (probably with some influence from Ruin since he was doing Hemalurgic design).

[NameIess]

Well, that is creepy. Not the creepiest thing we've seen a Shard do, in my opinion, but yeah, Shards can be creepy.

[Veez]

Could be that he left them with their bones, but that they weren't technically part of their bodies, since the idea was for them to be able to swap them around.

[cometaryorbit]

On 6/13/2022 at 2:46 PM, Duxredux said:

 That more or less means he melted the flesh right off their bones before restoring their sapience, but also indicates the level of control he had over the power at that phase of his Hemalurgic experimentation

Well technically the Mistwraith transformation itself wasn't Hemalurgic, it was the power of the Well (Preservation's) -- they were just designed to accept Hemalurgy.

The part I wonder about is where the Blessings came from - could the Well's power create charged spikes of Ruin's magic system? If not, who did Rashek kill -- it had to be relatively quick to preserve their memories, surely?

(I think someone's suggested Alendi's non-Terris companions, which seems reasonable, but the epigraphs kind of sound like it was just Alendi and the packmen.)

But yeah Preservation isn't purely good, though Leras sounds like he was a good guy pre-mind-loss given his self-sacrificing plan. Preservation itself, without the filter of a fully cognizant Vessel, is more stasis. Not destructive like Ruin of course, but Fuzz/post-mind-loss Preservation was all cool with TLR's Final Empire.

Edited June 14, 2022 by cometaryorbit
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[Treamayne]

Don't forget the other half of that transformation. Rashek turned all of the world's living Feruchemists into Mistwraiths (probably leaving bones from all of them), then restored his companions to sapience with blessings and creating Mistwraiths. It was never said if the second half occured while he still controlled the power of the well (it's an assumption in context, but could be "unreliable narrator" - especially if Gen 1 had a hole in their memories like TenSoon developed post-Catacendre.

Likely, having remodeled the continent, we know he moved the well to Era 1 Luthadel but he probably moved a city there too (why build from scratch?). so he left the well and killed the first people to try standing up to him to make the spikes with the knowledge he gained while holding the power and returned his friends' minds.

[cometaryorbit]

14 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Rashek turned all of the world's living Feruchemists into Mistwraiths (probably leaving bones from all of them), then restored his companions to sapience with blessings and creating Mistwraiths. It was never said if the second half occured while he still controlled the power of the well

Hmm I would have assumed it couldn't have been while he was actually in/using the Well, given that the Well's power seems to really dislike Hemalurgy- someone with a spike couldn't use it - so I would have figured making spikes with that power wouldn't work. He couldn't use it to kill (he tried it on Kwaan and failed).

--

Good point that when he was done he wasn't isolated in the Terris Mountains anymore since he moved the Well, and presumably himself with it since he was in the Well cavern at the time. So he could have found people to make spikes from very quickly. That makes sense.

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The history of Hemalurgic constructs is weird. It kind of *sounds* like he made them in the Well, but that's not really possible due to lack of people to spike/inability to kill with Preservation's power. And the HOA epigraphs specifically say that each of the original Inquisitors had a healing spike pounded through a Feruchemist's heart, which rules out Rashek using the Well to manufacture spikes pre-charged without actual killing. (If that's possible, which seems unlikely given how much the Well dislikes Hemalurgy.)

He must have *designed* them in the Well with expanded mind, but not actually created them until later.

(The Inquisitors must have been much later, as there weren't any Feruchemists to steal from except Rashek himself and Kwaan- all the others were now mistwraiths or kandra. He must have waited generations to actually make those.)

[Treamayne]

On 6/15/2022 at 11:07 AM, cometaryorbit said:

The history of Hemalurgic constructs is weird. It kind of *sounds* like he made them in the Well, but that's not really possible due to lack of people to spike/inability to kill with Preservation's power. And the HOA epigraphs specifically say that each of the original Inquisitors had a healing spike pounded through a Feruchemist's heart, which rules out Rashek using the Well to manufacture spikes pre-charged without actual killing. (If that's possible, which seems unlikely given how much the Well dislikes Hemalurgy.)

He must have *designed* them in the Well with expanded mind, but not actually created them until later.

Exactly. We must remember that Sazed is an unreliable narrator, since he was trying to obfuscate certain facts about many things. So, in the Words of Founding, when he says:

Spoiler

It is a testament to Hemalurgy's complexity that, despite a thousand years of trying, he never managed to create anything with it beyond the three kinds of creatures he developed during those few brief moments holding the power.

He isn't "lying" per se, but the use of the term "developed" seems intentionally misleading to imply he made them with the power; rather than learning/understanding how to make them once the power was comsumed. 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Treamayne
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