Using Incomplete Essence Marks

[Pechvarry]

Sure, Shai doesn't sneak into people's homes at night and make them into her thralls, but couldn't a more short-lived Essence Mark prove useful in a pinch? If she can make someone think he had a brother for 15 minutes, surely she could make someone "Remember" that time his buddy stole his girl, getting them to turn on each other. I'll leave the "how" of obtaining physical contact to someone more clever.

If I were breaking out of the palace, I'd want a Shaizan Essence Mark too. But failing that, it really shouldn't take long to whip up a mark to hit yourself with "ten years of kung fu training" and have it stick for 15 minutes.

Is there anything in the book that indicates that short-term single-attribute marks (better botanist, spent-time-as-a-locksmith, etc) wouldn't work? Any reason not to use them on others?

Edited September 19, 2013 by Pechvarry

[Kurkistan]

Things that just flat-out don't work don't take for any time at all. Like Shai's incorrect mark for why Ashraven became the Emperor. So there is a lower limit below "sticks for a day".

 

This is on a somewhat similar vein to the discussion I had with Phantom Thought in this thread, and the feasibility of such "spot" marks might well be tied to which of us is right at the end of the day.

Edited September 20, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Pechvarry]

That thread got long and tangential and technical. Can you summarize the argument?

I think, in the book, we see stamps dissolving immediately, after 1 minute, 2 minutes, 10 and 15 minutes.

Shai required a same-gendered, same-race specimen who had spent time with the emperor. With this requirement met, she had 'Ol Gau resenting his 3rd party self, looking up to a brother he didn't have, and so on. These were a) very personal and deep-seated memories and intended for a target who was not the recipient.

So it seems to me a stamp that makes your guard remember their dog dying yesterday is actually more likely to take.

I think what I'm getting at is: the book shows us 2 fully-developed essence marks. Both of them are intended to last the full day. For all intents and purposes, they're designed to be permanent. Am I wrong in my belief that a temporary mark would be more useful if designed to target short-term goals? We don't need to know about the theoretical guard's family history or net income, so including those things increases the chance of the stamp not taking. We just need to know if he likes dogs. Or am I underestimating the amount of research needed to make any stamp work?

[Kurkistan]

Sorry, I tend to forget that not everyone likes reading reams of technical and tangential argumentation.
 
I agree that a "temporary" stamp is likely a possibility, and perhaps even feasible in many circumstance. Thought disagrees. The argument centered around the idea of whether you could make such "surface-level" changes without also accounting for changes in personality and related aspects of that person's history.

 

Ex: So I wanted to have a Forger have had her arm cut off 10 years before, and accomplish this by just stamping "I got my arm cut off that one time ten years ago" and going about her day. Thought was of the opinion that an amputation would have profound psychological impacts, as well as impacting the course which the Forger's life took, and so we would have to account for that in any stamp which tried to cut off an arm.

 

While I disagreed with Thought about the depth of explanation required to make an amputation stamp stick, I think that he was on the right track when it comes to skills. Becoming a locksmith or a kung- fu master is not a matter of on/off: it's a way of life and a major event within that life. So you need something more than "trained as a lock smith" to get away with it. I do agree, though, that you can probably get away with something slightly more simple than Shai's full 26-hour stamps.

 

As far as temporary memory-stamping: that might work, I think. I would guess that the more "fundamental" the change is, the more you'd need to justify it in the Forgery. So "your dog died" might be doable for a bit without much embellishment.

 

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Tangent:
 
Note of fact: Shai was happy once her final stamp lasted for a minute; this showed that "The stamp had taken, at least for the short term." So it seems that 1 minute might be the lower-bound for any "real" stamp taking, and imply that it will last longer. Just a tangential thing I thought might be useful going down the road.

 

Also, Gaotona's stamps only lasted for ~1 minute each, not 15, though the "aftershocks" last for an hour, it would seem.

Edited September 20, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Pechvarry]

I see you caught that you meant Thought. I didn't dig deep enough to see if you slugged it out with Phantom, but it wasn't on page 1.

Thanks for the correction on the durations. Still, can't help but think 1 minute is a good target duration for a stamp not actually intended for you. Though it would be more beneficial to have more generic stamps.

What could you do with 60 seconds of "we've been friends for years?"

[Kurkistan]

A fair amount, but not much if it's accompanied by "this evil soul-Forger just stamped me and now I feel a new affection for him..."

[Pechvarry]

Quite like unskilled emotional allomancy!