Theory: Hemalurgy can transfer any Investiture

[discipleofhoid]

So to backtrack a little, but to me it seems illogical, following the patterns presented in the ars arcanums so far, for Hemalurgy to be able to steal investiture abilities from other realms.

1. I think this whole "spiritual DNA/spiritweb" is more restrictive than this theory espouses. I do not remember the exact quotes, but Im pretty sure it is said in a couple of different spots that the metallic arts as a whole are a result of how the shard ruin and preservation (and their intents) interact with the genetics of the people of scadrial.

2. Thus, hemalurgy should only work for the people of scadrial. The poeple of other worlds have different genetics. If it did not, shouldnt someone on another world have been accidently spiked at some time and been influenced by ruin or something? I.e. Why have awakeners never noticed this possibility? I do understand though that Brandon might just not have shown this yet.

3. However, keeping in mind that the intent of hemalurgy is to "ruin" something, I think what is being ruined is individual's allomantic and feruchemical abilities. Thus, intent-wise, hemalury isn't necessarily acting on the recipient of a spike, but instead the victim, ruining their investiture capabilities.

4. Consequently, when the AofL Ars arcanum says hemalurgy is potentially the most useful to the cosmere, I think it is because that even though it can only STEAL or RUIN scadrial abilities, it can GIVE those abilities to anyone, regardless of planet of origin.

what do you guys think?

1. The only metals that might be able to steal Investiture or attributes from other planets would be the ones we haven't seen yet. I would probably say only lerasium or atium and their alloys - These metals don't exist on other planets so no accidental discovery. The human attribute stealing ones are actually stealing the parts of preservation in people on Scandrial so they would not work either.

2. Also what are the odds of a piece of metal killing 1 person and then stabbing another in the exact spot needed to transfer attributes by accident? Location does matter for hemalurgy.

Edited November 14, 2011 by discipleofhoid

[Aldric]

I really thought that Brandon had said before that Hemalurgy can be used throughout the cosmere, not just on Scadrial. I have no quote handy, though.

I guess that could mean only that you could transfer the Metallic Arts to people on other worlds, but I always assumed that meant that this thread was correct. That it could be used to steal other magics.

[discipleofhoid]

Another thought here - we were discussing what could weaken the bonds between realms to allow hemalurgy without killing. Extreme emotion seems to have realmatic effects that could be construded as a weakening of the bond between the spiritual and other realms(allomancers/ruin controlling koloss) could this be the key?

[Aeshdan]

so if they got hold of some tears of edgli (supposing they are same thing but for endowment) reckon they could burn them too and do something weird?

Hey, that's my theory!

[Wispsy]

Er np! But I sure said it b4 u!

[Zas678]

Please, no texting language on this site. Stuff like "lol" and emoticons and IIRC, etc. are fine- it's part of the internet culture. But no vowel removal acronyms.

[Rayonn]

Extreme emotion seems to have realmatic effects that could be construded as a weakening of the bond between the spiritual and other realms(allomancers/ruin controlling koloss) could this be the key?

Soothing is used to gain control of koloss--so shouldn't that be 'absence of emotion' rather than 'extreme emotion'?

[MindCanaries]

what would a spike have to be made of to steal a windrunners ability? possibly atium but it seems unlikely to happen without serious knowledge of what you are doing beforehand to have any idea something is possible Oo and no other planet has atium, and the other shards dont appear to use each others magic systems much.

Just throwing this out there: Gem Spikes, to steal magic systems from Roshar.

Edited December 14, 2011 by MindCanaries

[Wispsy]

Please, no texting language on this site. Stuff like "lol" and emoticons and IIRC, etc. are fine- it's part of the internet culture. But no vowel removal acronyms.

I dont usually but i wasn't sure how to deal with the hate QQ it threw me off! (I don't think I do usually, altho I do often miss caps and punctuation!)

[NinjaMeTimbers]

Ok, scenario: there's a Keeper Mistborn who is spiked with atium used to take breaths. Then said Mistborn Keeper stores this investiture in a metalmind which he/she then burns. Would he/she then basically have unlimited breaths? And what if he/she did this with powers stolen from an elantrian? Or if they were to compound surgebinding or soulcasting like this?

[dj26792]

This person would be become incredibly powerful in that given magic system I think, although I think it would take training to learn how to utilise the different forms of investiture for feruchemy.

[discipleofhoid]

Soothing is used to gain control of koloss--so shouldn't that be 'absence of emotion' rather than 'extreme emotion'?

Extreme as in either end of the spectrum - pulled down to nothing(extreme low) or pushed to a extreme high. I think either will work. Extreme high emotions are necessary to allow the extra connection to preservation to form when an allomancer snaps.

[discipleofhoid]

Ok, scenario: there's a Keeper Mistborn who is spiked with atium used to take breaths. Then said Mistborn Keeper stores this investiture in a metalmind which he/she then burns. Would he/she then basically have unlimited breaths? And what if he/she did this with powers stolen from an elantrian? Or if they were to compound surgebinding or soulcasting like this?

I would say that Compounding investiture should increase your spiritual connection to the shard the investiture originally came from. So I would guess that instead of more breaths it would make that breath more potent. Compounding surgebinding of any type(remember soulcasting is just the transformation surge) would IMO be equivalent to saying another of the oaths.

Note that you could temporarily have these effects without Compounding if you just spiked a ferring with the investiture power. He could spend a equal amount of time with the increased connection to the shard that he spent without any connection - or he could surge the stored connection with the respective loss.

This of course is all very speculative. We don't really know what investiture is. Personally I suspect that it is just an increased spiritual connection to the shard - but I could be way off. We were discussing it at one point over here. We came to the conclusion(I think at least no one ever objected) that investiture was "Something that furnishes or endows with a power." We never did decide by what or how that power was furnished. And with the information we have I am not sure we can come to a concrete decision on that.