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Killing using Progression


GhoX

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I'm not sure if this has been covered already, but wouldn't it be possible for an Edgedancer or Truthwatcher to essentially "over-grow" someone until they die? As in, they could touch someone and use Growth or Regrowth to an excessive level, essentially giving someone a time-lapse of their life until they just wither and rot.

If that's within the bounds of the Surge, well... I'd love to see it. 

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I do think there is more to find out about Progression. Whether or not what you are hypothesizing happens or not, we don’t fully realize it’s capacity yet

When Renarin heals Adolin, and when Ym interacts with people, it seems like they can ‘see’ something about the person 

I theorize that it’s the way Illumination interacts with Progression for Truthwatchers

Still, lots to learn 

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I don't think so - Renarin could not use progression to heal Rysn's legs - she had been crippled long enough that her mental image of herself in this form had been solidified.  Trying to use progression on someone beyond what their genetics would normally allow, or to an extent beyond their vision of their normal state?  This just seems like an impossible feat, or one where the cost of Investiture is needlessly high.

 

A better option would be to cause non-sentient life that has the capability to do so, to grow in ways lethal to your target.  Like going full Poison Ivy and causing the plants to grow around your target and constrict/crush them.

 

But causing giantism in a humanoid so that there heart fails as it can no longer support the body?  Don't see that happening.

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Lift makes whole plants grow from a seed.  Bacteria are alive too.  Just target the staph and strep bacteria that exist in your body's normal flora and multiply them rapidly.  The endotoxin produced by a large number of lysed strep cells would produce rapid sepsis and angioedema killing the victim from either shock or closed airway suffocation.

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2 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

Lift makes whole plants grow from a seed.  Bacteria are alive too.  Just target the staph and strep bacteria that exist in your body's normal flora and multiply them rapidly.  The endotoxin produced by a large number of lysed strep cells would produce rapid sepsis and angioedema killing the victim from either shock or closed airway suffocation.

While that would be a particularly nasty trick, it's got a huge problem: Targeting the bacteria themselves. Remember that anything inside a body is going to be 'shielded' by the innate Investiture of the soul and require more work to push through that resistance. Locating the stuff you want to grow and affecting it is going to take more power and hence be inefficient in terms of stormlight required. Also, it's going to require that the Progression-user knows about bacteria and what they do. It should certainly be doable but it would be a lot easier at that point (not to mention more merciful) to just stab them with a shardblade.

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58 minutes ago, Weltall said:

While that would be a particularly nasty trick, it's got a huge problem: Targeting the bacteria themselves. Remember that anything inside a body is going to be 'shielded' by the innate Investiture of the soul and require more work to push through that resistance. Locating the stuff you want to grow and affecting it is going to take more power and hence be inefficient in terms of stormlight required. Also, it's going to require that the Progression-user knows about bacteria and what they do. It should certainly be doable but it would be a lot easier at that point (not to mention more merciful) to just stab them with a shardblade.

Not impossible though, the magic system on Ashyn is bacteria/disease based for example.  Or you could just overcharge the "healing" of the body and give the patient multiple manifestations of cancer simultaneously.

Also, well, "stab them with a shardblade" is probably the most efficient method to kill in 99% of cases anyways.  Thankfully mass killing is generally frowned upon by Radiants.  Just imagine how much damage Kaladin could do by throwing a Syl spear and immediately returning it to his hand.

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1 hour ago, Subvisual Haze said:

Not impossible though, the magic system on Ashyn is bacteria/disease based for example.  Or you could just overcharge the "healing" of the body and give the patient multiple manifestations of cancer simultaneously.

Also, well, "stab them with a shardblade" is probably the most efficient method to kill in 99% of cases anyways.  Thankfully mass killing is generally frowned upon by Radiants.  Just imagine how much damage Kaladin could do by throwing a Syl spear and immediately returning it to his hand.

But the bacteria with Ashyn are forming a symbiotic bond with the person to result in powers. Not someone else's bacteria (as in some person other than the power user).

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I was thinking cancer in terms of overgrowth. The problem is that that type of killing isn't anything like instantaneous. Probably better to go the poison ivy route if you aren't severing souls with Shardblades. The cancer thing though? Long form assassination. Or one can use targeted tumors as a behavior modifier once the Rosharans learn more about biological processes and brain chemistry. Pop a tumor in just so and bam! The target can no longer see blue and rainbows feel like cotton candy and tears.

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It would not surprise me if Cultivation's essence is a normal part of the human body and is the primary investiture that resists everything else.  As progression is part of Cultivation (sort of) then perhaps it works easier on things inside people.

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We've got to remember that "regrowth" the healing aspect of progression, is a specific use of the surge. The way that lift accelerated the growth of plants is more akin to hyper aging, and obviously a different use. 

I don't think the linitions we see on healing are going to prevent the type of growth we see with the plants, though that does seem like it's following a Spiritual framework still... But age is part of the Spiritual so I'm not going to rule out accelerated aging. 

I doubt we've seen all that Progression can do, and I'm not ruling out that it can be used as a weapon. 

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The main problem to me seems to be that stormlight healing is somewhat limited by the persons self-image of what their body "should" be like. So you can't really force them to grow body parts that they don't imagine as naturally being part of themselves. We've seen that with trying to heal injuries that people have ingrained as part of themselves. So I'd imagine that the same would apply if you wanted to force someone to grow a mass of malignant tumors on themselves.

 

The only exception I could imagine is if you had a person who believed their body *should* be filled with life threatening tumors. Then *maybe* stormlight healing would do that to them. Though that seems like it'd be an awful niche and situational way to use the healing surge.

 

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On 4/24/2019 at 2:40 PM, Subvisual Haze said:

Just imagine how much damage Kaladin could do by throwing a Syl spear and immediately returning it to his hand.

Wouldn't a disk, like Xena's chakram be better suited as a thrown shard weapon, due to the larger hitbox?  Or a boomerang?  Syl-arang anyone?

Image result for boomerang you do come back

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I'm going to repeat myself here because, again, Progression is not just healing.

Re-growth is healing. That is not the only thing that Progression can do. 

"healing someone" to death is a no. That doesn't mean it would be useless offensively. 

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Could you speed up someone's aging?

Are the plants Lift grows fully adult plants in a few seconds when she does that? If so, you could maybe use the same process to speed the aging of a person. Aging is a natural part of human life, so it should be less impossible than changing bodies.

But if people think of themselves as being a specific age, they might not be able to be pushed out of it.

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