Commands for lifeless?

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

I have had this weird weird vision of a mistborn using breaths to awaken a small pack of Whitespines and piercing their carapace with metal only to have a vicious pack of predators to chase after their target and use the animals themselves as moving anchors to continually jump with.  

What command would you give to your lifeless whitespine army to make this possible?  Would a simple "follow me" allow yourself to select which one to shove off of at any given time and set your trajectory based off of the angle of the Whitespine you are using?  

Do you think you could accurately select which ones to push off of if they were simply commanded to chase down a specific target and allowed them to home in on it while you try to stick with them?  

I always loved the idea of Vin never touching the ground slashing and chopping her way through koloss from above just pushing off of their swords.  Figured whitespine are probably heavy enough that they shouldn't be too impaired if you shove off of them while they are sprinting below you.  

 

Another question would be this.   Could you awaken and create a lifeless larkin and command it to feed on specific targets?  I imagine its urge to feed would be suppressed by the whole being dead thing... but I also figure Klod would eat if commanded to right?  

[alder24]

18 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I have had this weird weird vision of a mistborn using breaths to awaken a small pack of Whitespines and piercing their carapace with metal only to have a vicious pack of predators to chase after their target and use the animals themselves as moving anchors to continually jump with.  

What command would you give to your lifeless whitespine army to make this possible?  Would a simple "follow me" allow yourself to select which one to shove off of at any given time and set your trajectory based off of the angle of the Whitespine you are using?  

They are Lifeless, they are far more capable of understanding complex Commands than a simple Awakened object. They have brains. So whatever Command would be the best suited for this, they would execute it as you wanted. And you can program them with multiple Commands and responses. Lightsong commanded a squirrel to go to the palace, find the Returned who lived there, jump around her, make noise and bite everything - and it worked.

You can command them to follow your prey, but keep separation between each other of at least 1 meter, and spread more to the sides of your prey. Then when they would feel a force pushing on them from above, they have to brace strongly against the ground, so you can have a stable anchor. Or something like that. Intent and visualization also play a big role, so with proper intent and visualization, you can give them just a simple command "chase my pray" and they will do what I've just described.

23 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Another question would be this.   Could you awaken and create a lifeless larkin and command it to feed on specific targets?  I imagine its urge to feed would be suppressed by the whole being dead thing... but I also figure Klod would eat if commanded to right?  

You can Awaken Larkin. But it depends where his ability to feed on investiture comes from. If it's some sort of connection, then it's lost when Larkin dies. If it's something they can do solely because of their body, then you can do it. And it would eat when commanded, if you want to. You decide, you command. Larking seems to be even more intelligent than Whitespine, so it can execute even more complicated Commands.

[Quantus he/him]

17 minutes ago, alder24 said:

They are Lifeless, they are far more capable of understanding complex Commands than a simple Awakened object. They have brains. So whatever Command would be the best suited for this, they would execute it as you wanted. And you can program them with multiple Commands and responses. Lightsong commanded a squirrel to go to the palace, find the Returned who lived there, jump around her, make noise and bite everything - and it worked.

You can command them to follow your prey, but keep separation between each other of at least 1 meter, and spread more to the sides of your prey. Then when they would feel a force pushing on them from above, they have to brace strongly against the ground, so you can have a stable anchor. Or something like that. Intent and visualization also play a big role, so with proper intent and visualization, you can give them just a simple command "chase my pray" and they will do what I've just described.

Am I correct that Animal Lifeless are like Human Lifeless where there is the original (one-breath?) Awakening Command, and thereafter they can utilize skills from their life and take new complex Commands at least to the level of what they could have understood in life.    At that point, lifeless hunting animals should be up to anything they could be trained to in life plus the advantage of getting a nice specific Mental Image with the Commands (as seen with Lightsong's Squirrel, I think).  

 

17 minutes ago, alder24 said:

You can Awaken Larkin. But it depends where his ability to feed on investiture comes from. If it's some sort of connection, then it's lost when Larkin dies. If it's something they can do solely because of their body, then you can do it. And it would eat when commanded, if you want to. You decide, you command. Larking seems to be even more intelligent than Whitespine, so it can execute even more complicated Commands.

They can talk, so they are pretty far along the Sapience progression, at least once they are old enough.  By that point, would a Lifeless Larkin be able to move without a Luckspren bond, if the living version couldn't? 

Or even weirder, what would the effects of having a Lifeless with a Gemheart Spren Bond, be that Larkin or Singer? Would a Spren even be willing?  Could it be trapped like in Fabrial?

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

29 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Am I correct that Animal Lifeless are like Human Lifeless where there is the original (one-breath?) Awakening Command, and thereafter they can utilize skills from their life and take new complex Commands at least to the level of what they could have understood in life.    At that point, lifeless hunting animals should be up to anything they could be trained to in life plus the advantage of getting a nice specific Mental Image with the Commands (as seen with Lightsong's Squirrel, I think).  

 

They can talk, so they are pretty far along the Sapience progression, at least once they are old enough.  By that point, would a Lifeless Larkin be able to move without a Luckspren bond, if the living version couldn't? 

Or even weirder, what would the effects of having a Lifeless with a Gemheart Spren Bond, be that Larkin or Singer? Would a Spren even be willing?  Could it be trapped like in Fabrial?

I believe the 1 breath command should work.  

Larkin lifeless that would not be consuming all of your breaths would be great.  Zombie leeching bat is straight up my #1 cosmere hope.  

[alder24]

56 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Am I correct that Animal Lifeless are like Human Lifeless where there is the original (one-breath?) Awakening Command, and thereafter they can utilize skills from their life and take new complex Commands at least to the level of what they could have understood in life.    At that point, lifeless hunting animals should be up to anything they could be trained to in life plus the advantage of getting a nice specific Mental Image with the Commands (as seen with Lightsong's Squirrel, I think).  

Yes, that's right, it's the same thing. They are first Awaken with a single Breath Command with a security phrase, and later you can give them almost any command you want, and because they have a brain, they will understand more complex commands than type 3 Awaken objects. Warbreaker ch 21:

Quote

Vasher thought, determined not to run. He reached into a pouch at his belt, pulling out the object within: a dead squirrel. [...]
Vasher knelt, putting a hand on the creature.
“Awaken to my Breath,” he Commanded, “serve my needs, live at my Command and my word. Fallen Rope.”
Those last words, “fallen rope,” formed the security phrase. Vasher could have chosen anything, but he picked the first thing that came to mind.
One Breath was leached from his body, going down into the small rodent’s corpse. The thing began to twitch. That was a Breath Vasher would never be able to recover, for creating a Lifeless was a permanent act. The squirrel lost all color, bleeding to grey, the Awakening feeding off the body’s own colors to help fuel the transformation. The squirrel had been grey in the first place, so the difference was tough to see. That’s why Vasher liked to use them.
“Fallen Rope,” he said to the creature, its grey eyes looking up at him. The security phrase pronounced, Vasher could now imprint the creature with an order, much as he did when performing a standard Awakening. “Make noise. Run around. Bite people who are not me. Fallen Rope.” The second use of the words closed its impressionability, so it could no longer be Commanded.

 

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

They can talk, so they are pretty far along the Sapience progression, at least once they are old enough.  By that point, would a Lifeless Larkin be able to move without a Luckspren bond, if the living version couldn't? 

Oh, that's a very good question. Because that spren bond prevents Larkin from collapsing under his own weight, it's a very physical aspect of Larkin that goes away after his death. So likely a single Breath Lifeless Larkin would have trouble moving under his greater weight, the big ones would be fully unable to do so. However, you can likely Awaken it with more Breath, which would substitute for that spren bond, and absorb much of the weight. If you can repair Lifeless damaged to the point of non-functionality by giving them more Breaths, and Khalad Phantoms were described by Brandon as in need of more Breaths, which would work as joints, you can for sure give more Breath to a Larkin Lifeless that would take some weight out of his cute, little legs.

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

Or even weirder, what would the effects of having a Lifeless with a Gemheart Spren Bond, be that Larkin or Singer? Would a Spren even be willing?  Could it be trapped like in Fabrial?

Wow, that's another great question I've never considered. Spren leaves the gemheart after death, so you would need to bond Lifeless again with that spren. Which would likely be impossible to do naturally. You could give Lifeless A-bronze (spike or medallion), which would allow him to hear and hum Rhythms, and therefore attract a spren during Highstorm, but the transformation requires Stormlight (or Voidlight) to complete, but Lifeless is now infused with Breaths, so investiture would resist investiture, and it would likely prevent transformation from taking place at all. Or you could once again provide more Breaths to that Lifeless, which would be used to fuel that transformation to proper Parshendi form. But intent is also very important part of transformation, and it's questionable if Lifeless would be able to provide that intent. It's likely, they are self-aware, Parsh-Lifeless would understand what is needed and what should he do, and if they can access medallions and use Allomancy, I guess they can provide necessary intent for transformation. 

You could trap the spren in the gemheart like in fabrial, but you need to infuse the gem with Stormlight, make it vibrate in proper Rhythm, and suck the light out of it, which would suck the spren into it, trapping him. So you would need to make a hole to access the gemheart (which would damage your Lifeless). I guess it could act like a fabrial? Especially if you add metal wires to his body? So in some way you could replicate what that spren bond would do in a living Parsh.

Spoiler

Aethenoth

Can an Allomantic bronze burner hear the Rhythms on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, this is possible.

General Signed Books 2016 (May 2, 2016)

 

[Quantus he/him]

14 hours ago, alder24 said:

Oh, that's a very good question. Because that spren bond prevents Larkin from collapsing under his own weight, it's a very physical aspect of Larkin that goes away after his death. So likely a single Breath Lifeless Larkin would have trouble moving under his greater weight, the big ones would be fully unable to do so. However, you can likely Awaken it with more Breath, which would substitute for that spren bond, and absorb much of the weight. If you can repair Lifeless damaged to the point of non-functionality by giving them more Breaths, and Khalad Phantoms were described by Brandon as in need of more Breaths, which would work as joints, you can for sure give more Breath to a Larkin Lifeless that would take some weight out of his cute, little legs.

That's a good example with the Phantoms, it just took more Breaths to let them handle the weight.  And in terms of the general realmics behind the Command, you could probably choose whether that comes from increased Strength or Decreased Weight (F-Iron tyle).  

14 hours ago, alder24 said:

Wow, that's another great question I've never considered. Spren leaves the gemheart after death, so you would need to bond Lifeless again with that spren. Which would likely be impossible to do naturally. You could give Lifeless A-bronze (spike or medallion), which would allow him to hear and hum Rhythms, and therefore attract a spren during Highstorm, but the transformation requires Stormlight (or Voidlight) to complete, but Lifeless is now infused with Breaths, so investiture would resist investiture, and it would likely prevent transformation from taking place at all. Or you could once again provide more Breaths to that Lifeless, which would be used to fuel that transformation to proper Parshendi form. But intent is also very important part of transformation, and it's questionable if Lifeless would be able to provide that intent. It's likely, they are self-aware, Parsh-Lifeless would understand what is needed and what should he do, and if they can access medallions and use Allomancy, I guess they can provide necessary intent for transformation. 

You could trap the spren in the gemheart like in fabrial, but you need to infuse the gem with Stormlight, make it vibrate in proper Rhythm, and suck the light out of it, which would suck the spren into it, trapping him. So you would need to make a hole to access the gemheart (which would damage your Lifeless). I guess it could act like a fabrial? Especially if you add metal wires to his body? So in some way you could replicate what that spren bond would do in a living Parsh.

  Reveal hidden contents

Aethenoth

Can an Allomantic bronze burner hear the Rhythms on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, this is possible.

General Signed Books 2016 (May 2, 2016)

 

We do have that one example where the Rhythm was provided externally to attract the relevant spren: the Singer's Drum Farming Rhythm.  So maybe a group effort could supplement the cognitive aspects of the Spren attraction in the same way? I suddenly love this image of a space era that still has a dark ritual somewhere with a circle of singers chanting  at the sky in Rhythm, attempting to raise the dead.  

 

OK, whomever gets the chance next:  Ask Brandon about a Lifeless Singer's Form capabilities.

[alder24]

18 minutes ago, Quantus said:

We do have that one example where the Rhythm was provided externally to attract the relevant spren: the Singer's Drum Farming Rhythm.  So maybe a group effort could supplement the cognitive aspects of the Spren attraction in the same way? I suddenly love this image of a space era that still has a dark ritual somewhere with a circle of singers chanting  at the sky in Rhythm, attempting to raise the dead.  

I don't remember this from books, but Coppermind states, that Dullform can hear Rhythms, but it's harder for them - "It is also mentally limiting; those in dullform find thinking difficult, as if they were half-asleep, and have a harder time hearing the rhythms.^[10][20]". Slaveform doesn't hear Rhythms and have no spren bond, so Lifeless Singer would be like them - so yes, maybe if you gather Singers in a circle, they could attract spren to bond with Lifeless Singer in this weird, necromantic ritual  But those sprens might end up bonding with the lifting Singers as well, it was common to attract the wrong type of spren and become the wrong form, before they started to use spren captured in gems.

[Quantus he/him]

10 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I don't remember this from books, but Coppermind states, that Dullform can hear Rhythms, but it's harder for them - "It is also mentally limiting; those in dullform find thinking difficult, as if they were half-asleep, and have a harder time hearing the rhythms.^[10][20]". Slaveform doesn't hear Rhythms and have no spren bond, so Lifeless Singer would be like them - so yes, maybe if you gather Singers in a circle, they could attract spren to bond with Lifeless Singer in this weird, necromantic ritual  But those sprens might end up bonding with the lifting Singers as well, it was common to attract the wrong type of spren and become the wrong form, before they started to use spren captured in gems.

It was first actually shown in RoW Ch15. The way singer's use Emeralds for food isnt Soulcasters; they grow crops in the light of infused emeralds, and by drumming the correct rhythm it attracts lifespren, who take Stormlight from the gem and sort of pollinate the crops with it.  

And Oh Yes, and in this dark ritual they'd probably have to use a gem-trapped spren, so it was so happy to get out that it tripped and fell into the nearest gemheart.  The best part is they might still need to do it that way, even in era4 on a spaceship.