Are there any unusual things you could do with surges

[SzethIsBadAsHell]

So I know this a wild crackpot theory but for some reason I really think it should work . I also would like for anybody to think you could theoretically do with a surge that it’s really not intended for but theoretically should work.

          Ok here it goes . Progression can make plants grow . A sapling can grow into a tree . A tiny rock bud can grow into large one . So I wonder can you use it to make a young person grow into adulthood ? 

         The plants on Roshar are animate . Grass moves and drinks water . Rock buds open up in the rain . So plants are animate life forms . How come you can make a plant . Grow , and not a person? You can heal people , ressurext people , and even grow back appendages that were lost . So I think you should be able to age a person .

       You might wonder why you would want to age a person . Well they are fighting a War of attrition .. in past Desolotions nine out of 10 people died . You might to age people to just to replace the fighting force . Just like you need to grow plants for food . 

         I’m sure it sounds callous , but theoretically do you think it’s possible.

[Calderis]

Growth and regrowth are different aspects of the Surge of Progression. 

The only one we've ever seen used on a person is regrowth.

I don't see any reason why growth, like what we've seen Lift do with plants, couldn't be used on people. For the time being though, we don't know. Brandon may have some reason why not. 

Mistborn spoilers. 

Spoiler

Similar to how Hemalurgy works on people and animals, but not on plants. 

So it's a wait and see... But I certainly believe that Progression can be used as a weapon. 

[SzethIsBadAsHell]

30 minutes ago, Calderis said:

So it's a wait and see... But I certainly believe that Progression can be used as a weapon

So if I’m following you correctly , your thinking they can age someone until they die , or reverse it so it inflicts harm instead. Of healing ?

[Calderis]

6 minutes ago, SzethIsBadAsHell said:

So if I’m following you correctly , your thinking they can age someone until they die , or reverse it so it inflicts harm instead. Of healing ?

I don't think it's an "instead of" at all. I think they're to completely different applications, like the difference between a basic and a reverse lashing. Both use gravitation, but in very different ways. 

Regrowth is healing. It hats not how Lift made plants grow. 

If you did to a person what was done to those plants, they'd get older. Rapidly. 

[Dancer]

Here is one. Uses the Surge of division to decay/destroy cancers and other growths on a body. It could be a way to get rid of the stigma that Dustbringers have. Progression will not be able to get rid of Cancers because those ailments are hardwired into the Spiritweb but Division should be able to with practice. 

Uses the Surges of either Cohesion or tension (I don't know which one) to strengthen ones skin and body to make them essentially bullet proof. 

  

[SzethIsBadAsHell]

6 minutes ago, Dancer said:

 

Here is one. Uses the Surge of division to decay/destroy cancers and other growths on a body. It could be a way to get rid of the stigma that Dustbringers have. Progression will not be able to get rid of Cancers because those ailments are hardwired into the Spiritweb but Division should be able to with practice. 

 

I think that could be done , and it wouldn’t anything unusual . However it would take an understanding of anatomy and probably a linking of the surge of division with another surge that allows the Radiant using division to identify which cells are cancerous . One I could think of is transmutation . As they can see into the cognitive and perhaps identify the infected cells . 

        What I’m talking about is similar to when Dalinar and shallan put thier Powers together and made the map . On its on the person using Division wouldn’t have any way of indetifying the infected cells . Unless division comes with that inherent knowledge like regrowth does . Then that would be awesome .

 

Here is another. Unusual idea I thought of

Spoiler

Could Dalinar use mental adhesion to touch a book and learn how to read that language . If he can speak it , reading is not that much a step away !

 

[Dancer]

15 minutes ago, SzethIsBadAsHell said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Could Dalinar use mental adhesion to touch a book and learn how to read that language . If he can speak it , reading is not that much a step away !

 

I don't know about this. From what I understand of "Spiritual Adhesion" you need to make a louse Connection with someone to be able to speak their language. You don't learn it because what you are doing is retroactively changing you spiritweb to say that you always knew this language. If you made a connection to a book you would only know it's history and what is inside it. If the words are written in a different language then you wouldn't learn the language you would just read it thinking that it was written in your language. 

[SzethIsBadAsHell]

1 minute ago, Dancer said:

I don't know about this. From what I understand of "Spiritual Adhesion" you need to make a louse Connection with someone to be able to speak their language. You don't learn it because what you are doing is retroactively changing you spiritweb to say that you always knew this language. If you made a connection to a book you would only know it's history and what is inside it. If the words are written in a different language then you wouldn't learn the language you would just read it thinking that it was written in your language. 

That’s what I was getting at . I don’t have to understand the language to read the the book . Have you ever played D&D. I picture like your casting  Read magic spell . He wouldn’t know the language , but he could comprehend the book as long as he was touching it .

[Dancer]

Just now, SzethIsBadAsHell said:

That’s what I was getting at . I don’t have to understand the language to read the the book . Have you ever played D&D. I picture like your casting  Read magic spell . He wouldn’t know the language , but he could comprehend the book as long as he was touching it .

Oh, my mistake. Yes this should work. I don't see why it wouldn't. 

[SzethIsBadAsHell]

Here my last one . I was watching Star Wars new series Manderlorian . Anyways say someone was using illumination . Infused a sphere with a message . A courier takes the message to someone . When someone gets the sphere . And image pops up says the message with a 3D image of the person talking . 

          That would be cool as hell . I think there are lot of uses that people just haven’t thought to try yet . I’m interested in what anybody else can think of !

[Honorless]

Well, Dalinar, Lift and Renarin are some canon examples of weird, though they don't fit your criteria exactly, with a dead god's shadow, a boon & a bane, and a corrupted spren.

Illumination seems to be a weird Surge with a Spiritual aspect, a proclivity for a very hyperspecialized use as illusions as Lightweaving but being in essence the manipulation of waveforms. Same with Adhesion, as a Spiritual aspect melding with Gravitation for the leading, protective Windrunners and acting as Connection for Bondsmiths, used for bindings, but the method of binding in the Physical means certain physics hacks making it the Surge of pressure and vacuum. All Surges will turn out to be weird soon enough.

But for specific weirdness, I've always wondered if one could use Abrasion on things other than oneself. Keep in mind, I think that Lift has only been using this Surge in one direction: to reduce friction, rather than increase it, which given the Surge's name and the Shard whose system it belongs to, as friction can be used for binding things, I think is quite possible. I also think she could use it on other surfaces, like the Lashings and voilà !  Fire. Of course, in this case I'm specifically thinking of Dustbringers' use of Abrasion, alongside Division, which is stated to be the severence of molecular bonds. There's a lot of chemical explosion potential here, I like it.

Oh, and I've changed camp about the possibility of aging via Progression. Why? Because recently I started thinking about Lift's Boon, which was about her age, so maybe her wish wasn't granted as obliquely (still indirectly but not so far as to theorize about her phrasing of it "herself not changing..."). So she got access to the Surge which could age or de-age by being granted a Nahel Bond - tinfoil, I know but it's what made me reconsider.

Healing, or Regrowth is an aspect of the Surge of Progression. I didn't consider aging via Progression a possibility because of how most healing in the Cosmere is supposed to work: by checking your Spiritual Identity and applying this ideal state onto your Physical self. Renarin's healing of Adolin seemed to showcase this to some aspect, but that might just be because the Surges are used a bit differently between the Orders. There should be some component in the Spiritual Realm which also measures growth and decay, i.e. aging. I think it's possible.

Edited November 17, 2019 by Honorless

[bxcnch]

On 11/17/2019 at 9:30 AM, Calderis said:

Growth and regrowth are different aspects of the Surge of Progression. 

The only one we've ever seen used on a person is regrowth.

I don't see any reason why growth, like what we've seen Lift do with plants, couldn't be used on people. For the time being though, we don't know. Brandon may have some reason why not. 

Mistborn spoilers. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Similar to how Hemalurgy works on people and animals, but not on plants. 

So it's a wait and see... But I certainly believe that Progression can be used as a weapon. 

I think we might have seen the growth-aspect of Progression used on a person in OB. There was one point during the battle where Kaladin was fighting Amaram and some voidbringers. I think one of them attacked Kaladin with a club of carapace that grew out of its body. I remember that I wondered if that was maybe a (voidish?) form of Progression, that they applied to themselves. 

Edited November 21, 2019 by bxcnch

[Ciridae]

I dont think you could permanently age someone up with Growth. Your age is written as a spiritual aspect in your spiritweb, and I think it’s similar to how healing doesnt work when perception blocks it (like with Rysn’s legs and Kal’s brands). I feel like age is probably more immutable that even that, because your spiritweb always knows your age. Even when using magic to alter it like we see with

Spoiler

Atium

as soon as the influence of that investiture wears off, you revert to your actual age. 
It might be possible that you could temporarily age someone (or even yourself?) up, if Growth is powerful enough to temporarily overwrite that spiritual aspect. I think that would be a very cool and creative way of using the power. But I think an easier way of using Growth on a person is to grow out their hair or fingernails, which I think is basically what the Fused are doing when they grow out their carapace, only that the carapace is a lot more versatile and has more mass to work with than hair or fingernails. But I definitely agree that what those Fused are using is Progression. 
 

I’m not an expert in this but as far as I know the reason we age is that out cells get worse and worse over time at replicating DNA.  I know a lot of plants can effectively “clone” themselves and some have lived as genetically identical versions of themselves for thousands of years. Others as far as I understand dont experience cellular senescence and are functionally immortal. I think this coupled with the spiritual knowledge of your age is what makes all the difference between using Growth on plants vs humanoids or animals. 
If anybody knows more about how plants age and if the weird moving plants on Roshar can even be compared to how plants on earth age, I would be super interested. 

[Karger]

1 hour ago, Ciridae said:

I dont think you could permanently age someone up with Growth. Your age is written as a spiritual aspect in your spiritweb, and I think it’s similar to how healing doesnt work when perception blocks it (like with Rysn’s legs and Kal’s brands). I feel like age is probably more immutable that even that, because your spiritweb always knows your age. Even when using magic to alter it like we see with

This was my impression.  Besides plants don't age like humans do.