Faceless Mist-Wraith Posted September 6, 2017 Report Share Posted September 6, 2017 Is it possible that Koloss could live longer than we assume? According to the copper mind: Quote The koloss are physically very large and very powerful. A full sized koloss could grow to be as tall as twelve feet. A young koloss has as much skin as it would come to have in its later life. Because of this, the younger a koloss is, the fatter they appear, due to having too much baggy skin covering themselves. The skin itself doesn't hold terribly firmly to the koloss' body.[6] As the koloss grow taller, their skin tears and fits tightly to them. A koloss ancient will have little to no skin at all, being covered instead in leather wrappings.[7]. When a koloss reaches about twelve feet, their hearts can no longer sustain their bodies, and they die shortly thereafter. This suggests that the only reason why a Koloss dies is because their heart can't sustain them after a point. But what if this was no longer a problem? Scadrial is progressing fairly quickly technology wise. They are supposed to get FTL at some point, so high-tech advances in medicine aren't too much of a stretch. If in the future, you gave a Koloss a robotic heart or some form of mechanical circulatory system, how long would Koloss live? Do they have a biological lifespan besides the heart-failure countdown, or would a Koloss with a robot heart be immortal? Follow-up question: If the robot-heart Koloss continues to grow throughout their life, how large could they potentially get? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Cole Posted September 6, 2017 Report Share Posted September 6, 2017 I'm sure they could live longer, but I'm pretty sure that eventually they would collapse from their own weight 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calderis Posted September 6, 2017 Report Share Posted September 6, 2017 At some point also you'd need artificial skin, or blood loss would become a major issue. Their skin doesn't grow with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faceless Mist-Wraith Posted September 6, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 6, 2017 We can rebuild them. We have the technology. 26 minutes ago, Calderis said: At some point also you'd need artificial skin, or blood loss would become a major issue. Their skin doesn't grow with them. In all seriousness, this is true. Mostly I was curious how old and large they could become if given proper opportunity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weltall Posted September 6, 2017 Report Share Posted September 6, 2017 58 minutes ago, Calderis said: At some point also you'd need artificial skin, or blood loss would become a major issue. Their skin doesn't grow with them. If you take parts of Allomancer Jak at face value, the current generation of koloss use leather wrappings once their skin starts to tear to the point that this becomes an issue. So more advanced technological replacement in a later era wouldn't surprise me, same with their hearts. But as King Cole says, there's probably an upper limit to what technology can do for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king of nowhere Posted September 7, 2017 Report Share Posted September 7, 2017 There really is no way to know. Let's look at other hemalurgical constructs we know: inquisitors live longer than humans, but they do get old and die eventually. Kandra are ageless. So, we really can't say anything about koloss lifespan from it. And the lord ruler made koloss with the heart limitation so that they will die off as a sort of failsafe trigger. Once that limitation was in place, he would have no reason to care what's their natural lifespan if their healt issues are taken into account. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unhinged Posted September 7, 2017 Report Share Posted September 7, 2017 If Allomancer Jak is to be believed then Koloss do seem to age/grow slower in era two. During the final empire I believe the average life span for a Koloss was around 13 years at most. however when Jak shot Elizandra's mother in a challenge there was no mention of her being an ancient one and latter when he met the tribes ancients he acted like he'd never seen their kind before(then again this wouldn't be the first time he forgot about an important detail that he'd just talked about) and even if we assume that she got pregnant with Elizandra as soon as she transformed Elizandra seems to be in her twenties which means that her mother had been a Koloss for at least that long meaning she lived around twice as long as the oldest final Empire Koloss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Extesian Posted September 7, 2017 Report Share Posted September 7, 2017 Given Sazed changed them to enable true breeding and rational thought, and spikes are chosen or rejected later in life, I'm guessing that change slows down their extreme growth as well so they can't live forever, but far longer than they did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hafrigado Posted September 7, 2017 Report Share Posted September 7, 2017 2 hours ago, Unhinged said: If Allomancer Jak is to be believed then Koloss do seem to age/grow slower in era two. During the final empire I believe the average life span for a Koloss was around 13 years at most. however when Jak shot Elizandra's mother in a challenge there was no mention of her being an ancient one and latter when he met the tribes ancients he acted like he'd never seen their kind before(then again this wouldn't be the first time he forgot about an important detail that he'd just talked about) and even if we assume that she got pregnant with Elizandra as soon as she transformed Elizandra seems to be in her twenties which means that her mother had been a Koloss for at least that long meaning she lived around twice as long as the oldest final Empire Koloss. Couldn't she have been an already Koloss blooded human, had Elizandra (who would be Koloss blooded), and then she became a real Koloss? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unhinged Posted September 7, 2017 Report Share Posted September 7, 2017 5 hours ago, Hafrigado said: Couldn't she have been an already Koloss blooded human, had Elizandra (who would be Koloss blooded), and then she became a real Koloss? Possible but highly unlikely according to Handerwym's notes in Arcanium unbound children of the tribe are given the choice in their twelfth year whether they accept the spikes and become full Koloss or leave to join human civilization. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crucible of Shards Posted September 11, 2017 Report Share Posted September 11, 2017 (edited) I suppose that if you gave the koloss unsealed iron-F medallions then that would help them in some way as well. They would have to be constantly filling them though. Edited September 11, 2017 by Crucible of Shards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+robardin Posted September 11, 2017 Report Share Posted September 11, 2017 25 minutes ago, Crucible of Shards said: I suppose that if you gave the koloss unsealed iron-F medallions then that would help them in some way as well. They would have to be constantly filling them though. Well, if you go down that line of thought... What would an unkeyed goldmind (with corresponding medallion) do to a koloss? Can tapping gold heal hemalurgic damage to one's Spiritweb? After all, in Mistborn: Secret History, Spoiler we see koloss becoming their original human selves after death in the Cognitive Realm - if Allomantic healing works like Stormlight healing does on Roshar, one's "self-image" is the basis for repair, and Final Empire era koloss viewed themselves as fundamentally "human". Though post-Catacendre koloss appear to make a conscious choice, which most likely would affect how a goldmind would work on them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts