Breath farms?

[The Paradoxical Phenomenon]

First of all, I don’t think this is good and I would never condone it, but… do you think later in the Cosmere there might be evil people who enslave Nalthians and make them gov their Breath away? Like, say we’ve got this bad guy named Doug. He goes to Nalthis, and some how takes a ton of people prisoner, and forces them all to give him their Breaths. Or he sells their breath to people who want it, for a lot of money. It’s possible that this already happens on Nalthis, in some sort of evil black market. What do y’all think?

[Trusk'our]

16 minutes ago, TheAlpha929 said:

First of all, I don’t think this is good and I would never condone it, but… do you think later in the Cosmere there might be evil people who enslave Nalthians and make them gov their Breath away? Like, say we’ve got this bad guy named Doug. He goes to Nalthis, and some how takes a ton of people prisoner, and forces them all to give him their Breaths. Or he sells their breath to people who want it, for a lot of money. It’s possible that this already happens on Nalthis, in some sort of evil black market. What do y’all think?

Well...TLM spoilers.

Spoiler

The Set was actually doing something like this. Capturing Metalborn, hiding them underground, convincing them the world had ended and that they needed to stay underground, etc. 

So yes, I could see a maniacal group that already had substantial resources and few moral qualms capturing and striping Nalthians of their Breaths.

It would likely be harder to do than the first glance would make it seem though- a bunch of people just disappearing randomly will cause others with power, whether it be the government or disgruntled friends or family of the captured, to come and seek out the destruction of the human traffickers.

Needless to say, it wouldn't likely end well for the group seeking to steal Breaths unless the group was very, very sneaky about it, and you'd need to capture hundreds to thousands of people before you started seeing real benefits from your evil deeds.

And then you'd also have to consider that you can buy Breaths (at least in Hallendren), so unless the resources used to capture and enslave the Nalthians was significantly less than what you'd need to simply buy them (which I'm not sure is the case), it would be much less advantageous to kidnap people than to just go and buy some from willing individuals.

Edited March 26, 2023 by Trusk'our
Had some more thoughts to add to my original post.

[The Paradoxical Phenomenon]

True. It just kind of seems like a thing humans would do. Not most humans, but there are some of you that love evil and hurting each other.

[alder24]

44 minutes ago, TheAlpha929 said:

First of all, I don’t think this is good and I would never condone it, but… do you think later in the Cosmere there might be evil people who enslave Nalthians and make them gov their Breath away? Like, say we’ve got this bad guy named Doug. He goes to Nalthis, and some how takes a ton of people prisoner, and forces them all to give him their Breaths. Or he sells their breath to people who want it, for a lot of money. It’s possible that this already happens on Nalthis, in some sort of evil black market. What do y’all think?

I think it won't be a problem. Natlhians with Breaths are capable of protecting themselves from any nasty Doug who would try to enslave their population. However Breaths are just a profit waiting to be made, so Nalthians themself will capitalize on this, create a Cosmere wide market to sell Breaths and technology working on Breaths. They will be buying Breath from the poor, and selling them to the rich, which is already happening in Warbreaker. But the scale of this will greatly increase in the future. Why not? That’s easy profit. Only Nalthians possess investiture so easily transportable from a planet in the entire Cosmere. They only need to cash on it, and control the whole market.

[Quantus]

This is not far from my theory on a actual Breath farm: If they are kept ignorant enough of what Breaths actually are, and are immediately healed with some other Investiture while they still feel all crappy from the Drabbyness (an equivalent amount of Regrowth, F-Gold, etc) it's possible that they would be able regenerate their native Breath.  Or at least that's my theory for immoral breaking of the Investiture economy, no clue if it would actually work.  

[AFdooda]

On 27/03/2023 at 3:36 PM, Quantus said:

This is not far from my theory on a actual Breath farm: If they are kept ignorant enough of what Breaths actually are, and are immediately healed with some other Investiture while they still feel all crappy from the Drabbyness (an equivalent amount of Regrowth, F-Gold, etc) it's possible that they would be able regenerate their native Breath.  Or at least that's my theory for immoral breaking of the Investiture economy, no clue if it would actually work.  

This sounds really complicated and expensive, though.

A black market operation would aim to turn a quick profit with minimal need to provide for any people involved or reveal itself to any authorities.

A breath farm would require hundreds, or better yet, thousands of people to finance the acquisition of items from other worlds.

I would speculate that rather than running a 'farm' breathstealers (?) would find some way to scam or force people to give up their breath(s). Think email scams but instead of downloading your life when you click the link it downloads a part of a your 'soul' instead.

I hope I haven't given scammers a new idea.

[alder24]

On 27.03.2023 at 4:36 PM, Quantus said:

This is not far from my theory on a actual Breath farm: If they are kept ignorant enough of what Breaths actually are, and are immediately healed with some other Investiture while they still feel all crappy from the Drabbyness (an equivalent amount of Regrowth, F-Gold, etc) it's possible that they would be able regenerate their native Breath.  Or at least that's my theory for immoral breaking of the Investiture economy, no clue if it would actually work.  

Now when I think of this, I don't think you would be able to heal back Breath - you would need to give the same amount of investiture (at least) as the Breath had, which would make your proposal not economical. Extracting Breath, and giving Breath equivalent of investiture in F-gold health isn't a good business model unless you just want to get Breaths.

But I doubt you could even do that. You gave up a piece of your soul, your Breath, voluntarily, this might change your ideal spiritual image, to which healing is looking at, preventing you from healing it back. The effects of Drabness are because you’re now significantly less invested than you were while having your Breath, therefore to counteract this you would need to be more invested, as simple healing won't change it (at best it would heal any illnesses). Your soul might not perceive this as a damage done to it at all.

[Trusk'our]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Now when I think of this, I don't think you would be able to heal back Breath - you would need to give the same amount of investiture (at least) as the Breath had, which would make your proposal not economical. Extracting Breath, and giving Breath equivalent of investiture in F-gold health isn't a good business model unless you just want to get Breaths.

But I doubt you could even do that. You gave up a piece of your soul, your Breath, voluntarily, this might change your ideal spiritual image, to which healing is looking at, preventing you from healing it back. The effects of Drabness are because you’re now significantly less invested than you were while having your Breath, therefore to counteract this you would need to be more invested, as simple healing won't change it (at best it would heal any illnesses). Your soul might not perceive this as a damage done to it at all.

I'm on the same train. I don't think that you could heal Breaths back if you give them away voluntarily since there is no "damage" done to your Spiritweb; your natural state now is being Drab, and therefore can't be "healed".

I do think that you might be able to heal back your original Breath if it were Hemalurgically spiked out, since it would be actual damage and the Breath was less of something added to you and more a natural part of your being.

Hmmm. Perhaps Hemalurgy does still have some use for producing Heightenings more easily- unless Compounding Breaths stored in Nicrosil becomes a thing, of course.

[Quantus]

On 4/8/2023 at 0:23 PM, alder24 said:

Now when I think of this, I don't think you would be able to heal back Breath - you would need to give the same amount of investiture (at least) as the Breath had, which would make your proposal not economical. Extracting Breath, and giving Breath equivalent of investiture in F-gold health isn't a good business model unless you just want to get Breaths.

Yes, precisely.  It would require an equivalent amount of Investiture from a more abundant source like Stormlight or Allomancy, and convert it into what I believe is the most dense, stable, and versatile form of Investiture we've seen (not counting Shardpools).  It stacks, sticks, doesnt leak or Bind you to a planetary system, turns Intent to Effect more directly than any other system, and can easily recalibrate its Identity.  WOB says you can fuel surges just by having them, and I would not be surprised if you can just Command them to flush themselves out to charge other storage media like Gems or Metalminds (if you had the Heightenings).

On 4/8/2023 at 0:23 PM, alder24 said:

But I doubt you could even do that. You gave up a piece of your soul, your Breath, voluntarily, this might change your ideal spiritual image, to which healing is looking at, preventing you from healing it back. The effects of Drabness are because you’re now significantly less invested than you were while having your Breath, therefore to counteract this you would need to be more invested, as simple healing won't change it (at best it would heal any illnesses). Your soul might not perceive this as a damage done to it at all.

 

On 4/8/2023 at 2:03 PM, Trusk'our said:

I'm on the same train. I don't think that you could heal Breaths back if you give them away voluntarily since there is no "damage" done to your Spiritweb; your natural state now is being Drab, and therefore can't be "healed".

I do think that you might be able to heal back your original Breath if it were Hemalurgically spiked out, since it would be actual damage and the Breath was less of something added to you and more a natural part of your being.

Hmmm. Perhaps Hemalurgy does still have some use for producing Heightenings more easily- unless Compounding Breaths stored in Nicrosil becomes a thing, of course.

 

Agreed, the whole idea depends on the fundamental line between conscious Awareness and the whole Cognitive Aspect self image with it's weird feedback effect on the Platonic Idea. I fully believe that if the person is Realmically aware enough to consider their native Breath a separate thing, a ball of Energy or a Commodity or otherwise something they Have instead of something they Are, it would not work. 

But the court of gods regularly convinces Children to give up their Breath and I doubt they need or get much of an education on what's actually happening.  If (Big If) they were ignorant enough of Breaths completely (no cultural reference at all) they might have internalized the heightened Investiture state as their native self.  Then if they were talked through the Command to give away the Breath, but couched in terms of "Vitality" or something that by default would heal and/or regenerate, they might be able to give up a real Breath and then take in an equivalent amount of stormlight via ReGrowth to restore it.  Basically convince the person that the act of giving away a Breath is a form of damage, akin to a classic Chi Vampire or something.

A lot of things could go wrong with this theory. Giving it away is just a Command, and Commands take Intent.  We dont know how much education is needed for that, but it's entirely possible that the Intent required to make the transfer work requires too much Understanding for this loophole to work.  Or the understanding of the person might not play a role at all, and no amount of Self-Image will incorporate the Breath into the person's Platonic Ideal where Healing Magics could restore it.   

[AFdooda]

On 12/04/2023 at 5:55 PM, Quantus said:

Yes, precisely.  It would require an equivalent amount of Investiture from a more abundant source like Stormlight or Allomancy, and convert it into what I believe is the most dense, stable, and versatile form of Investiture we've seen (not counting Shardpools).  It stacks, sticks, doesnt leak or Bind you to a planetary system, turns Intent to Effect more directly than any other system, and can easily recalibrate its Identity.  WOB says you can fuel surges just by having them, and I would not be surprised if you can just Command them to flush themselves out to charge other storage media like Gems or Metalminds (if you had the Heightenings).

 

 

Agreed, the whole idea depends on the fundamental line between conscious Awareness and the whole Cognitive Aspect self image with it's weird feedback effect on the Platonic Idea. I fully believe that if the person is Realmically aware enough to consider their native Breath a separate thing, a ball of Energy or a Commodity or otherwise something they Have instead of something they Are, it would not work. 

But the court of gods regularly convinces Children to give up their Breath and I doubt they need or get much of an education on what's actually happening.  If (Big If) they were ignorant enough of Breaths completely (no cultural reference at all) they might have internalized the heightened Investiture state as their native self.  Then if they were talked through the Command to give away the Breath, but couched in terms of "Vitality" or something that by default would heal and/or regenerate, they might be able to give up a real Breath and then take in an equivalent amount of stormlight via ReGrowth to restore it.  Basically convince the person that the act of giving away a Breath is a form of damage, akin to a classic Chi Vampire or something.

A lot of things could go wrong with this theory. Giving it away is just a Command, and Commands take Intent.  We dont know how much education is needed for that, but it's entirely possible that the Intent required to make the transfer work requires too much Understanding for this loophole to work.  Or the understanding of the person might not play a role at all, and no amount of Self-Image will incorporate the Breath into the person's Platonic Ideal where Healing Magics could restore it.   

breaths are, ultimately, just Investiture. They are linked to Identity but so are other things in the Cosmere. If someone could get rid of the Identity part of the Breath (feruchemy etc) then that Breath would be usable by anyone. Regenerating the Breath would require mental conditioning to consider the health effects of having a Breath (rather than being a Drab) as part of the person. Theoretically the Breath can be 'healed' then although I would say this would not be done in the normal way.

Feruchemical gold etc regenerates the body based on people's ideas of themselves. Perhaps the Investiture stored in the gold could be used to regenerate the Breath but I don't know. However, ignoring that minor issue, a Breath as a piece of Investiture linked to a person via Identity (which is readily removable) could perhaps be regenerated and so a 'farm' would work in essence?

The Coppermind describes Stormlight as being able to heal Spiritual damage such as that from a Shardblade and if Breaths are connected to people's Spiritual part then perhaps this is a basis for regenerating Breaths. However, regenerating Breaths is 100% linked to how people see their Breath(s) as part of themselves, like @Quantus said, either a part of their soul or as an Investiture commodity such as infused spheres.

That's my conclusion from all this, I'm no expert but the idea of a Breath farm seems sound but it would be hella complicated and convoluted for a Worldhopper organisation to manage but perfectly possible, if one had a master understanding of how to use the various magical arts from across the Cosmere to bypass the innate roadblocks with each.

Edited April 17, 2023 by AFdooda
Just realised this is a giant reply, sorry about the wall of text!

[The Stormfather]

maybe you could capture animals and breed them, because no one has said that they don't have breaths.

with some connection tricks you could let them speak in a way you understand, and get the breaths.

still expensive.

[alder24]

1 hour ago, stormform wert said:

maybe you could capture animals and breed them, because no one has said that they don't have breaths.

with some connection tricks you could let them speak in a way you understand, and get the breaths.

still expensive.

No one said that thay have Breaths. Well, Vasher said only people have Breaths, Warbreaker prologue: 

Quote

Each person had one. Or, at least, that was how it usually went. One person, one Breath.

 

[The Stormfather]

yes but has anyone bothered to check if animals have breath? I think It could possibly work.

another way could be to convince someone you gave them fifty when you gave them twenty, and over time their cognitive aspect could come to have 50.

maybe.

thoughts work weird.

[alder24]

17 hours ago, stormform wert said:

another way could be to convince someone you gave them fifty when you gave them twenty, and over time their cognitive aspect could come to have 50.

What? No. Perception won't magically multiply the number of Breaths somebody has. They can feel how many Breaths they have. You can't make something out of nothing. And that's not how Endowment works.

17 hours ago, stormform wert said:

yes but has anyone bothered to check if animals have breath? I think It could possibly work.

Yes, I'm pretty sure animals don't have Breaths. They aren't humans, they aren't sentient, no animal has ever said to Returned etc. Not to mention they can't speak. They can't understand what Breath is nor can they visualize what they can do with them, they can't give that Breath to somebody. It's impossible to use animals for various reasons.

[The Stormfather]

yeah.

but alos people can''t sense how many breaths they have. they know what heightening, and if they were in shadesmar, they might be able to multiply breaths unintentionnally.

[alder24]

27 minutes ago, stormform wert said:

but alos people can''t sense how many breaths they have. they know what heightening

Yes, that's enough to prevent your idea from working. Not to mention you can't just multiply them out of nothing with perception. Investiture, like energy, can't be created - 1st Law of Thermodynamics.

28 minutes ago, stormform wert said:

and if they were in shadesmar, they might be able to multiply breaths unintentionnally.

How? That's impossible. This doesn't work like that. Breaths are Breaths, they come directly from Endowment only when a person is born. You can't make a Breath out to nothing, you can't even make a Breath out of investiture just like that. Even Hoid doesn't know how to convert investiture into Breaths.

[The Stormfather]

Ok.

but if breaths can't be created at some point would people be born as drabs?

[alder24]

1 hour ago, stormform wert said:

Ok.

but if breaths can't be created at some point would people be born as drabs?

There is basically no point at which Endowment wouldn't be able to give Breaths to Nalthians.

Spoiler

emailanimal

From a very recent signing, we have this new Word of Brandon...

chasmfriend's son: Is there a finite amount of Investiture?

Brandon: Yes.

chasmfriend's son: So is Nightblood consuming it?

Brandon: Yes. Very, very slowly.

This worries me somewhat because of the following observation.

Nightblood consumes Breath (and other Investiture, but let's limit ourselves to Breath for a second).

Every person on Nalthis is born with one Breath.

Populations tend to grow. Which means that under normal rules of demographics, population of Nalthis should keep increasing.

This in turn means that under normal circumstances the number of people with Breath on Nalthis should be growing.

I can see the following possible explanations to this:

1. Endowment can give Breath to many more people than are currently living on Nalthis. So, the exponential population growth has not yet reached the level at which Endowment's ability to award a Breath to each Nalthis-born human is seriously challenged. When it happens though, things will not go well.

2. There is some built-in mechanism controlling population growth on Nalthis, making certain that the population stays within the limits. Nightblood's consumption of Breath makes these limits smaller, and overall may lead to Endowment's inability to grant Breath to Nalthis-born, but not for a while (essentially, Endowment controls population trends at she sees fit).

Thoughts?

Brandon Sanderson

Just as a point you should understand, the amount of MATTER in the cosmere is finite too. As is the amount of energy.

Worrying that Endowment will run out of Breaths to give is a little like worrying that the amount of carbon on Earth will run out because people keep being born.

uchoo786

So just for clarification, once Nightblood consumes investiture, that investiture gets recycled? That's what I've always assumed. That it enters the cognitive/spiritual realm?

Brandon Sanderson

The investiture he consumes is not gone forever--it's not leaving the system, so to speak.

General Reddit 2015 (Dec. 14, 2015)

 

[+robardin]

I don't think it would qualify as a "Breath farm" unless it was a renewable resource, or at least a constantly replenished one.

The mechanism you describe - get a whole bunch of Nalthians and pressure them to give up their one Breath - already happens on Natlhis, in that poor people are often "tempted" to sell their Breath to the Court of Gods. Like Jewels did. After all, you can always buy Breath later if you put the money to good use.

I'd imagine the Nalthian equivalent of an OTB would be a common place for Breath buyers to congregate.

No, a "Breath farm" would be a lot darker. I mean, we have WoBs stating or implying that being born with a Breath is related to being from Nalthis originally, that an off-Nalthis child born of two Nalthian-born parents would still have a Breath:
 

Quote

JoyBlu

In order to have a Breath, do you have to be native to Nalthis?

Brandon Sanderson

Not to be given Breaths, but people who are not native to Nalthis are not born with that Investiture.

JoyBlu

So, you have to be born on that planet?

Brandon Sanderson

There are exceptions. Most of the time.

JoyBlu

If both your parents were Nalthians, and they moved off planet, and they had a child that was born on a different planet—

Brandon Sanderson

It is possible for that child to have a Breath, but it would not continue too long. But yes, that child would probably have a Breath, depending...

Joyblu

If both of his parents had Breaths.

Brandon Sanderson

Mmmhmm.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

But he didn't say that having both parents having Breath originally was a requirement. Just that "if both his parents had Breaths", a child born off-world would have a Breath as well.

Supposing it would work with just ONE parent with a Breath, or even at a 50/50 rate. Then capturing/enslaving a male Nalthian to serve as "stud" for a rotating set of women to impregnate would indeed be a "Breath farm" of sorts, though the children would have to be kept until old enough to be able to form the Intent to say the Command "My Breath to yours, my Breath become yours" before they could be "harvested".

Edited June 15, 2023 by robardin

[teknopathetic]

I wonder if only human species get breath. 

[+Oltux72]

On 26.3.2023 at 10:49 PM, Trusk'our said:

It would likely be harder to do than the first glance would make it seem though- a bunch of people just disappearing randomly will cause others with power, whether it be the government or disgruntled friends or family of the captured, to come and seek out the destruction of the human traffickers.

Needless to say, it wouldn't likely end well for the group seeking to steal Breaths unless the group was very, very sneaky about it, and you'd need to capture hundreds to thousands of people before you started seeing real benefits from your evil deeds.

Not if you have enough time. You need a viable breeding population and a plot of land on Nalthis. You then sell the resulting drabs as slaves off planet or outright kill them. Humans are mammals and as such a breedable renewable resource

On 8.4.2023 at 8:03 PM, Trusk'our said:

Hmmm. Perhaps Hemalurgy does still have some use for producing Heightenings more easily- unless Compounding Breaths stored in Nicrosil becomes a thing, of course.

That looks like a much better way forward. Would you get more breaths or one "megabreath" though?

[heliovox]

As hard as it might be to believe, I actually think we might be able to go darker with this.

 

Humans are already kind of neotenizing themselves (making themselves more childlike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny_in_humans) through natural genetic drift.

This is similar but not identical to what we did by domesticating animals with artificial selection (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny#In_domestic_animals).

 

There are estimates that one could achieve domestication like effects in ~10-12 generations.  For humans, this is a lot of time (probably a little more than 1000 years), but, over the course of the cosmere timeline, a focused enough force could almost certainly achieve a breeding group of breathed humans somewhat comparable to modern earth's cattle farms (https://xkcd.com/1338/) which actually outweigh humans by mass.

 

My *suspicion* is that Edgli would probably step in to prevent this (/possibly already has stepped in to prevent this through returned?), but breath is just so danged useful, and producing it quickly is annoyingly hard.

 

I also have a really hard time picturing Brandon writing something this dark... now.... Dan.....?

 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

9 hours ago, heliovox said:

As hard as it might be to believe, I actually think we might be able to go darker with this.

 

Humans are already kind of neotenizing themselves (making themselves more childlike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny_in_humans) through natural genetic drift.

This is similar but not identical to what we did by domesticating animals with artificial selection (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny#In_domestic_animals).

 

There are estimates that one could achieve domestication like effects in ~10-12 generations.  For humans, this is a lot of time (probably a little more than 1000 years), but, over the course of the cosmere timeline, a focused enough force could almost certainly achieve a breeding group of breathed humans somewhat comparable to modern earth's cattle farms (https://xkcd.com/1338/) which actually outweigh humans by mass.

 

My *suspicion* is that Edgli would probably step in to prevent this (/possibly already has stepped in to prevent this through returned?), but breath is just so danged useful, and producing it quickly is annoyingly hard.

 

I also have a really hard time picturing Brandon writing something this dark... now.... Dan.....?

 

Mistborn spoilers.  Isn't this basically the 

Spoiler

The Skaa

?

[Treamayne]

15 hours ago, heliovox said:

Humans are already kind of neotenizing themselves (making themselves more childlike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny_in_humans) through natural genetic drift.

This is similar but not identical to what we did by domesticating animals with artificial selection (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny#In_domestic_animals).

 

6 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Mistborn spoilers.  Isn't this basically the 

  Hide contents

The Skaa

?

I think it's actually the opposite. Mistborn Era 1 Spoilers:

Spoiler

The Skaa were magically regressed (but not neotinized-though they were treated like cattle, they were not child-like), then that was reversed over generaltions of interbreeding with nobles such that Sazed remarks (HoA Epigraphs to Ch 25):

Quote

The Balance. Is it real?

We've almost forgotten this little bit of lore. Skaa used to talk about it, before the Collapse. Philosophers discussed it a great deal in the third and fourth centuries, but by Kelsier's time, it was mostly a forgotten topic.

But it was real. There was a physiological difference between skaa and nobility. When the Lord Ruler altered mankind to make them more capable of dealing with ash, he changed other things as well. Some groups of people—the noblemen—were created to be less fertile, but taller, stronger, and more intelligent. Others—the skaa—were made to be shorter, hardier, and to have many children.

The changes were slight, however, and after a thousand years of interbreeding, the differences had largely been erased.

 

 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

 

I think it's actually the opposite. Mistborn Era 1 Spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

The Skaa were magically regressed (but not neotinized-though they were treated like cattle, they were not child-like), then that was reversed over generaltions of interbreeding with nobles such that Sazed remarks (HoA Epigraphs to Ch 25):

 

 

Mistborn 1 spoilers: 

Spoiler

Thanks for that. It makes sense that it is the opposite.  I think you are absolutely right. There were 3 different groups of humanoids and each of them was more like a different breed of dog to eachother than the way we look at race. It was like the hound to the terrier to the wolf. All canine but totally different.  Humans on Scadrial were either Terris, Skaa or Nobel. And they absolutely had far more physiological differences than just color and size. Thanks for the quote.