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Somewhat unsavory applications of Kandra.


Zerovirus

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Fair warning: this is going to be really creepy.

 

So, obviously, Kandra are good at imitating the external appearances and the behaviors of people. They are very, very good at this.

 

Wherever there are people, there exists a demand for sex. The supply that fills this demand in our world comes in the form of prostitution and brothels, but in a world where it's trivially, inconsequentially easy to abduct the most sexually appealing members of a disenfranchised population and create exact replicas of them that will obey everything you order them to do, no matter how much they might personally despise it?

 

Kandra brothels must have existed. There's just no way they didn't. At the very least, there must have been Lords in Luthadel who kept Kandra in contracts which were essentially just sexual slavery.

 

The implications of this I will leave you to imagine yourself. No wonder the Kandra hated humans.

 

On a different note, though, there's no biological reason at least why a Kandra wouldn't be able to support a pregnancy in a female body, which leads to the question of whether Kandra-born children would be able to inherit any form of magic- perhaps the Feruchemy which their Kandra parents would have been born with, were they humans instead of Kandra, or perhaps a limited ability to change their own appearances- a half-Kandra, perhaps?

 

(To all of you roleplayer-types: a kandra-born, half-kandra child might be an interesting idea to try, no?)

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Thats... interesting... I can easily imagine a mad noble with a lover who dies... desperate to "resurrect" her...

 

Man though - that is extremely creepy.

 

At a guess though, I would say that a Kandra imitated a human doesn't get every internal organ right. Furthermore, I highly doubt they would alter their DNA. I suspect a Kandra would be unable to conceive with a human.

Its a creepy thought though - and an extremely interesting idea... I am still holding my breath for a Kandra-Misting in the future stories.

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Entirely possible they could have chosen not to create a womb or functioning sperm cells, though.

 

For a hypothetical Kandra brothel, the ability to do away with actual functioning reproduction would only be another convenient reason why Kandra make better prostitutes than skaa.

 

On the other hand, if a 'mad noble' REALLY did want to have a child with a 'lost love'... well, Kandra have to obey /every/ command. Every one.

 

I think I need some brain bleach. Actually, I think I need the whole brain laundromat.

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I'm seesawing back in forth from "Gee, what an interesting idea, let's explore it further" and "ARGH! BRAIN BLEACH! BRAIN BLEACH!"

I guess it's entirely possible. The Final Empire was a corrupted place, and from what we've seen sexual perversion ran rampant. Personally though, I think it was generally more likely for a nobleman to keep skaa women than for them to manage a kandra brothel.

As for the idea of half-kandra... I think if it were possible at all, it would have to be deliberate and carefully arranged. A kandra in a position like you've described should be perfectly capable of simply not forming the correct reproductive anatomy. However, if they were directly ordered to form the proper organs and bear a child... Zerovirus, would you mind sharing some of that bleach?

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It might happen in the "mad noble's lost love" situation, but I doubt the noblemen would use Kandra's for prostitution, even if you found a very (this is disgusting) attractive skaa. Mostly, this is because you have to buy Kandra with atium, while skaa are free. And you could totally have a half kandra, however, you would need to get the right gender. For example, TenSoon is male, and has male DNA. Even though he could replicate a woman, with all of the right... organs, it wouldn't work. (At least, that is what my very limited knowledge of biology tells me.

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Nice to see I'm not the only one in this forum with a devious enough mind to consider the possible sexual perversion made possible by brandon's magic systems. Although I'm not going to post some of the most extreme ideas, cause I feel they are much more brain-bleach-requiring than this one and would probably be considered inappropriate topic anyway.

 

About kandra prostitutes/lovers: the main problem here is that kandra are to be paid in atium. quite a lot of it in fact. so it wouldn't be economically advantageous for wholesale prostitution. Plus keep in mind that there weren't many kandras around - maybe thousands in all the empire? the second generation had only twenty members, the ninth and tenth probably a bit over one hundred. there aren't enough for brothels.

On the other hand, I can totally see a noble ordering a kandra to take the body of a lover, study his/her personality, and pretend to be him/her. the main limitation I see to it is that one need to be able to feel genuine love to be motivated to do something so drastic and expensive, and few nobles in the final empire were capable of devotion towards people other than themselves. those that were, probably also realized that using a kandra that way would only be a mockery of the real thing. Still, it probably happened at least a few times.

But I wonder if a human and a kandra could come to actually love each other. I, for one, wouldn't be put down if a girl I'm dating would tell me "actually, I'm a kandra"; if I like her personality, I'm going to accept whatever body she has, as long as it's not too strange or clearly male. The main obstacle I see would be lack of interest from the kandra, as it appear most of them are asexual; while having a sexual identity, they don't feel physically or romantically attracted to other kandra. But can there be exceptions? A kandra that felt sexual attraction and, not being able to find a partner among his kind, would look for one among humans? Or maybe a kandra that, while on a contract wearing a human body, decided out of curiosity to try sex and found that he actually liked it? damnation, I feel like I'm encouraging cheap dating fanfiction now.

 

About reproduction, I don't think a half-kandra child could be conceived. kandra and humans are different, have different dna. if you crossbreed different animals (by artificial means in a lab) you generally get an embryo that will die soon in the development. that because the genetic instruction that start with a cell and make it grow into a functional living organism are extremly complex, and are different for every living being; taking two different sets of instructions and applying bits of them is a recipe for getting a bunch of dead cells instead of a living organism. kind of like taking the instructions for a car and a plane and trying to follow one page from one and one page from the other.

THe exception to this are animals who are similar enough that the instructions will work: brown bear + polar bear, or tiger + lion, doneky+horse. they are the exception, not the norm.

So, a kandra/human halfbreed could exist, if kandra and humans had very similar genetic codes. But this is likely not the case. kandra have no bones, have flexible bodies, the ability to change the type of cells at will... they are completely different from a human. from any other animal in fact. just because they look like a human, they don't have to be related to them any mroe than a dolphin is related to a fish.

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They have to be paid in atium, true. But hey, they could function as servants during the morning, and during the night, well...

 

Also having a prostitute paid in atium probably turns some people on. Like... "I can afford to pay for bedding you with the most expensive resource known to the Final Empire. I am powerful. I am irresistible. I own you."

 

Brb lobotomizing myself

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Kandra could also be an almost unlimited supply of meat, considering how fast it takes TenSoon to regrow himself. That's a bit closer to unsavoury, especially if the kandra is posing as a human.

EDIT: Kandra would not have to be paid in atium for prostitution. Their employer would have to pay for the contract in atium, but the customers would only have to pay the employer.

Edited by Cromptj
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Kandra could also be an almost unlimited supply of meat, considering how fast it takes TenSoon to regrow himself. That's a bit closer to unsavoury, especially if the kandra is posing as a human.

EDIT: Kandra would not have to be paid in atium for prostitution. Their employer would have to pay for the contract in atium, but the customers would only have to pay the employer.

Wow. The skaa had it pretty good after all... Honestly, it's surprising that the Kandra didn't just kill all the humans and take over Scadrial.

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Kandra could also be an almost unlimited supply of meat, considering how fast it takes TenSoon to regrow himself. That's a bit closer to unsavoury, especially if the kandra is posing as a human.

EDIT: Kandra would not have to be paid in atium for prostitution. Their employer would have to pay for the contract in atium, but the customers would only have to pay the employer.

for the first part: kandra need to eat meat to regrow. so you have a better deal eating whatever you were going to feed to the kandra.

 

for the second part: the employer would still need to pay in atium, which would be terribly expensivee. much more than he can earn by the clients. economically it would still be at a loss.

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It is certainly possible and even likely, especially from a creepy-nobleman-with-perfectly-obedient-servant POV.  

 

Kandra/human reproduction is unlikely for the following reasons.  

 

--Kandra do not appear to have biological gender, and do not appear to be able to reproduce sexually.  If memory serves, WoB or something from one of the books (Final Empire?) is that mistwraiths reproduce by budding or division.  

 

--Even if kandra had biological gender, they are a vastly different species from humans, and have a lot of Investiture in their bodies (Hemalurgic spikes).  

 

Just my 2 cents.  

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Possible? Yes. Likely? I doubt it. 

 

The crazy nobleman/woman is probably the best case scenario of this happening. Either way though, as other have pointed out, the Kandra contracts are VERY expensive, being paid in Atium. We don't have a great scale for the value of Aitum, but per the MAG "The metal is so valuable that caches of it are used instead of money for most critical purchases and deals... all the great house count atium as a core measure of their wealth."

 

The other thing about kandra contracts... while long running, are in fact finite in duration. 

 

I'm on the fence about being able to interbreed with Kandra, though I'm leaning towards "wouldn't work". Though, there is "always another secret."

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I must be more an Elsecaller than I thought, because this fascinates me to no end. 

 

Fanfiction time. 

 

For my own contribution however, the Kandra can choose to create organs or not. If a Kandra wanted to, they could create fully working reproductive organs (as TenSoon melted his genitals away because he found no need of them). And as Kandra use their own body mass to reproduce these organs, they indeed could create half-Kandra hybrids. If the chromosomes are compatible, that is. However, understanding that the Kandra originated from the original Feruchemists, then yes, I would say the DNA is indeed compatible. 

 

There's my stance on it, I invite anyone to criticise my knowledge or logic (as I often overlook the small things). 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Kandra sex workers: I wouldn't be surprised if the First Contract had some kind of escape clause in case of extreme circumstances, but yeah, it's possible. I tend to think the economic factors would keep it from being too widespread (certainly not on the level where you'd call it a kandra brothel), and if it makes you feel any better, it seems like there's a certain element of choice in which kandras go out on contracts, and maybe even in which kandra takes a specific contract. There's every chance that the kandra hired to replace Lord Whatshisname's favorite mistress picked the job because it doesn't see why humans get so worked up about all this "sex" stuff.

 

Half-kandra: Other people have already pointed out that kandra have enough control over their organs to not have to worry about accidental fertilization. I'll also say that I severely doubt that kandra are capable of producing human-compatible sperm or eggs (though maybe it could salvage and preserve those of the body it's wearing, if it acts fast enough--we're all using the same gametes we made during puberty, after all). I could see, maybe, a kandra with a lot of experience and knowledge of human biology and anatomy serving as a surrogate womb for an implanted pregnancy. That could actually be an interesting occupation for kandra in the modern and future trilogies--sort of like a walking uterine replicator (where my Bujold fans at?).

Edited by digitalbusker
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Half-kandra should be impossible. Let's assume that Kandra can perfectly replicate the physical aspects necessary to create a person, including DNA. Cognitive should be fine as well, Kandras have mind. Spiritual is gonna be an issue - the Kandra do not contain the necessary piece of preservation to allow sentience. They are in fact granted it by hemalurgic spikes. Any children produced by such an issue should be malformed spiritually, at best mindless and drooling (no sentience), at worst brain dead or stillborn at birth.

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Half-kandra should be impossible. Let's assume that Kandra can perfectly replicate the physical aspects necessary to create a person, including DNA. Cognitive should be fine as well, Kandras have mind. Spiritual is gonna be an issue - the Kandra do not contain the necessary piece of preservation to allow sentience. They are in fact granted it by hemalurgic spikes. Any children produced by such an issue should be malformed spiritually, at best mindless and drooling (no sentience), at worst brain dead or stillborn at birth.

 

That is not exactly how it works.  Mistwraiths are people that have a blockage between their Cognitve and Physical aspects, the spikes help to bridge the two.  I wouldn't say they "lack the necessary piece of Preservation", at least that is not how I have understood it to be.

 

Anyway, I do not believe kandra can change their genetic material so I don't think they could reproduce with a human.

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I meant, humans on Scadrial have investiture directly from Preservation in them, to grant them sentience.

 

So you are refering to the imbalance between Preservation and Ruin's investiture in humans?  They have both, just more of Preservation? (though it possible to get sentience with more Ruin than Preservation as well)  But in anycase that is not the explanation given for what is going on with the mistwraiths and kandra.

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Okay, so here's my premise.

 

• Investiture grants sentience (I can dig up the WoB on this if you like, there are several)

• All being have sDNA that they inherit

• Kandra that are born (as Mistwraiths) have a blockage between their Cognitive and Physical Aspects

• That blockage can be bridged by application of any increase of investiture in their spirit web (any pair or more of hemalurgic spikes will do, it seems)

• Thus, the Kandra are lacking a necessary component of their spiritual aspect to become sentient, that is most likely directly related to investiture

• It follows then, that any half-child of the Kandra would be likely to inherit the sDNA at least partially of the parent, regardless of whether the pDNA is correctly human or not

• Leading to the scenario previously explained (Half-Kandra children would not function correctly even if the pDNA was perfectly compatible)

• This sDNA seems to be lacking the same sort of investiture that Preservation 'added' to the humans he created, thus my comparison

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Okay, so here's my premise.

 

• Investiture grants sentience (I can dig up the WoB on this if you like, there are several)

• All being have sDNA that they inherit

• Kandra that are born (as Mistwraiths) have a blockage between their Cognitive and Physical Aspects

• That blockage can be bridged by application of any increase of investiture in their spirit web (any pair or more of hemalurgic spikes will do, it seems)

• Thus, the Kandra are lacking a necessary component of their spiritual aspect to become sentient, that is most likely directly related to investiture

• It follows then, that any half-child of the Kandra would be likely to inherit the sDNA at least partially of the parent, regardless of whether the pDNA is correctly human or not

• Leading to the scenario previously explained (Half-Kandra children would not function correctly even if the pDNA was perfectly compatible)

• This sDNA seems to be lacking the same sort of investiture that Preservation 'added' to the humans he created, thus my comparison

 

That isn't how I understand it.  Mistwraiths have a blockage which can be overcome with hemalurgy.  Hemalurgy twists and warps the spirit web, in koloss this leads to them becoming less "human" but in kandra the twisting works to alleviate the blockage, like un-kinking a hose.

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