Hemolurgy gun

[PinkPlasma she/her]

Quote

Sorana (paraphrased)

Would a spike charge if I threw it at someone with the intention to spike something out of him and hit the right bindpoint?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes.

Sorana (paraphrased)

So spike darts are a thing.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, and spike guns are a thing as well.

Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

I just read this WOB, and it got my brain churning. is there a potential for us to be seeing gunslingers with the express intent to shoot peoples invested abilites right out of their soul in combat? we know that being spiked is already seriously damaging to a person, and i just can't stop thinking about how utterly devastating this could be in combat. and if this is the case, i could see it being a pretty efective method against some of our top teir invested type peoples (Higher oath surgebinders, Compounders, Fullborns) while i doubt it would be enough on its own, if combined with other abilities, even if they could heal their soul, I can't imagine it would be immediate. it would certainly make characters on these power scales far more vulnerable. Do yall think this stuff is popping up in era 3? or 4?

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

I'd think that while it would be a devastating method of combat, it would probably be something that would be pretty specialized and niche. Since you'd have to learn as many bindpoints as possible and have incredible aim to make full use of it. Though I feel like a future war between Scadrial and Roshar would involve this method of combat against the ridiculously OP healing of Surgebinders.

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

It's a fun idea, but it's gonna be insanely hard to spike someone in the middle of combat with a gun, because the bindpoints are really precise. Then again, Hemalurgic spikes in the wrong place cause immense pain, so maybe you could create bullets out of a Spike and then shoot someone with it to set their soul on fire for a bit.

[alder24]

4 hours ago, PinkPlasma said:

I just read this WOB, and it got my brain churning. is there a potential for us to be seeing gunslingers with the express intent to shoot peoples invested abilites right out of their soul in combat? we know that being spiked is already seriously damaging to a person, and i just can't stop thinking about how utterly devastating this could be in combat. and if this is the case, i could see it being a pretty efective method against some of our top teir invested type peoples (Higher oath surgebinders, Compounders, Fullborns) while i doubt it would be enough on its own, if combined with other abilities, even if they could heal their soul, I can't imagine it would be immediate. it would certainly make characters on these power scales far more vulnerable. Do yall think this stuff is popping up in era 3? or 4?

Theoretically possible, practically impossible. People are moving. Hitting one of 4 binding points in the heart of your opponent with surgical precision is impossible when the target is moving. A simple metal armor would deflect and deform the bullet enough to prevent you from getting spiked. A Surgebinder has a Shardplate, it won't work against them. Fun idea, applicable only in some rare circumstances and that's it. 

35 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Then again, Hemalurgic spikes in the wrong place cause immense pain, so maybe you could create bullets out of a Spike and then shoot someone with it to set their soul on fire for a bit.

Bullets would go right through the body. Or fracture. It would work like you say but not every time. And I think a spike still needs to be placed in the binding point to cause pain.So that's the same problem again.

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

 

2 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Bullets would go right through the body. Or fracture. It would work like you say but not every time. And I think a spike still needs to be placed in the binding point to cause pain.So that's the same problem again.

Don't have to be bullets necessarily, they could be larger and built to stop. Fracturing I don't think would be an issue here, in fact it might count as multiple Hemalurgic spikes and thus cause even more pain. I disagree about needing to be placed in a bind point to cause pain. The pain is precisely caused by not being in a bind point. We see spikes for the same powers in different bind points, so I don't think there's any difference in effect on which bind point you receive a spike. So long as the spike is not in a bind point, pain should be caused

[PinkPlasma she/her]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Theoretically possible, practically impossible. People are moving. Hitting one of 4 binding points in the heart of your opponent with surgical precision is impossible when the target is moving. A simple metal armor would deflect and deform the bullet enough to prevent you from getting spiked. A Surgebinder has a Shardplate, it won't work against them. Fun idea, applicable only in some rare circumstances and that's it. 

i think it is important to point out that very few surgebinders have shardplate, in fact most never get shardplate. so while, yes, shardplate will stop this, it wasn't exactly my target victim. second to this, does it actually need to hit a bind point? I know that we need to hit a bind point for the spike to be useful to the recipient, but if our goal is only to tear of peices off the soul, do we need to be as precise? can we hit close enough to the bind point that we are still ripping a hole in the soul, but not useful beyond that?

as for regular metal armour, i think getting them to do this puts them in enough weakness that we won't need our creative solution anymore, we just need to call a local coinshot and lurcher, unless of course the person is rich, and has a full suit of aluminum armour. which is very heavy, and hard to run away in. there's a reason peoples stopped wearing it in the real world, it becomes more of a hindrance when people have things like guns

Edited July 29, 2023 by PinkPlasma
forgot to mention something

[alder24]

4 minutes ago, PinkPlasma said:

i think it is important to point out that very few surgebinders have shardplate, in fact most never get shardplate. so while, yes, shardplate will stop this, it wasn't exactly my target victim. second to this, does it actually need to hit a bind point? I know that we need to hit a bind point for the spike to be useful to the recipient, but if our goal is only to tear of peices off the soul, do we need to be as precise? can we hit close enough to the bind point that we are still ripping a hole in the soul, but not useful beyond that?

For all we know for Hemalurgy to work it has to always pierce a specific binding point to steal part of the soul. Usually it's through the heart (there are 4 binding points in the heart). So yes, as we understand it now it has to go through the heart. We don't have any examples of "failed" spikes. 

[PinkPlasma she/her]

we know that there are many throughout the body though yes? I think a gunslinger could, while maybe not with every shot, shoot someone in the bind point on the shoulder, or through the eye, or even in the back, which are spots we know inquisitors all had spikes, so unless donor and recipient spots are different, which i will accept as a fairly real possiblity, i can't imagine its as immpossible as you're making it seem.

just checked the coppermind, and it mentioned that there were somewhere between 200 and 300 different bind points in the body, if a person were to be knowledgeable of even a fraction of these and intend to shoot them, I can't imagine it would take an expert long to hit one.

just checked again and i got the recipient and donor mixed up i'm sorry. i do still find it diificult too belive that there are only bind points in the heart however. is there a wob on this maybe?

 

Edited July 29, 2023 by PinkPlasma
went for more info on the coppermind

[therunner he/him]

3 hours ago, PinkPlasma said:

we know that there are many throughout the body though yes? I think a gunslinger could, while maybe not with every shot, shoot someone in the bind point on the shoulder, or through the eye, or even in the back, which are spots we know inquisitors all had spikes, so unless donor and recipient spots are different, which i will accept as a fairly real possiblity, i can't imagine its as immpossible as you're making it seem.

just checked the coppermind, and it mentioned that there were somewhere between 200 and 300 different bind points in the body, if a person were to be knowledgeable of even a fraction of these and intend to shoot them, I can't imagine it would take an expert long to hit one.

Just hitting a target the size of human is very difficult in combat. The best success in police force is NYPD, and they have ~30% hit rate, which includes officer suicides as 'hit'. Even a trained shooter would have basically no chance to hit specific bind point, or indeed any bindpoint, not without assistance of e.g. atium.

To add to it, Olympic level shooters when in ideal conditions (e.g. not a fight, and stationary target) when hitting 10/10 shot are targeting circular area 2,5 centimeter in radius, ~at least ~20 times the size of a bind point.
So even literally the best shooters on planet would need to be lucky to hit bind point even under ideal conditions.
Add to it that target won't be standing still, and hitting bind point is simply luck and nothing else.

So Atium burner, or someone compounding Chromium could possibly do it. No one else.

The only spikes made on the fly were by individuals nudged or controlled by Ruin, not by Intent of ordinary human.

3 hours ago, PinkPlasma said:

just checked again and i got the recipient and donor mixed up i'm sorry. i do still find it diificult too belive that there are only bind points in the heart however. is there a wob on this maybe?

We don't have any confirmation of if donor and recipients bind points are the same. We do know that every single spike (with the exception of those made under Ruin influence) came from the heart.

In TLM non-specific spikes are made without piercing heart, however we don't know how viable the procedure is, or if it could be done on the fly also.

Edited July 29, 2023 by therunner

[alder24]

6 hours ago, PinkPlasma said:

we know that there are many throughout the body though yes? I think a gunslinger could, while maybe not with every shot, shoot someone in the bind point on the shoulder, or through the eye, or even in the back, which are spots we know inquisitors all had spikes, so unless donor and recipient spots are different, which i will accept as a fairly real possiblity, i can't imagine its as immpossible as you're making it seem.

They are. Donor powers and attributes are always stolen through the heart, using one of the 4 binding points there. You need to be super precise with your spike here. Hitting with an already charged spike into a binding point is still very hard, as bullets don't stop in your body, it goes through. It can also shatter into pieces on impact. It's not as easy as it seems, especially with moving people. You're slightly off and the spike won’t work.

6 hours ago, PinkPlasma said:

just checked again and i got the recipient and donor mixed up i'm sorry. i do still find it diificult too belive that there are only bind points in the heart however. is there a wob on this maybe?

In TLM we saw innate investiture being stolen through a point around the neck. This requires precision, intent and command. Other than that, everything else is stolen through the heart.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

So, since I was doing other things.  Hemalurgy-when you spike, you place the spike in a place that determines which charge the spike gets.  

Kythis

Through the heart seems to pick up universally.

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on where in the heart. It's like acupuncture. This was designed from acupuncture and you get very specific on which nerve you're hitting and things like that

Kythis

So the spike will never pick up more than one power.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, the way they know how to do it.

Footnote: This clarifies two previous questions.
Words of Radiance Omaha signing (March 13, 2014)

 

[Through The Living Grub He/Him]

Someone can tap physical or mental speed to increase chances of hitting and with a prisoner you can partially charge a spike, shoot it and even if you hit someone they would pause or collapse because of extreme pain and would be easy to capture or kill.

[Newly Awakened]

9 hours ago, Xiahida said:

Someone can tap physical or mental speed to increase chances of hitting and with a prisoner you can partially charge a spike, shoot it and even if you hit someone they would pause or collapse because of extreme pain and would be easy to capture or kill.

You would need mental speed first to know where to put them, and physical speed to get it there, but this would be a deadly combination. You might even be able to use A-pewter instead of F-steel to place the spike and increase the strength with which you place the spike. Charging it beforehand is only good if you want to cause pain and not steal anything.

[alder24]

11 hours ago, Xiahida said:

Someone can tap physical or mental speed to increase chances of hitting and with a prisoner you can partially charge a spike, shoot it and even if you hit someone they would pause or collapse because of extreme pain and would be easy to capture or kill.

How would you ensure that the bullet will stay in the body and not pass right through it just like it does in most cases? Or that it doesn't deform on impact like it usually does? Or that it won't shatter? Bullets don’t stop in the body where you want them to. The softer material you use for bullets, like aluminum, the easier it will break and deform. That's why lead is used to make bullets, as they are super dense, but it passes through the body.

[PinkPlasma she/her]

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

How would you ensure that the bullet will stay in the body and not pass right through it just like it does in most cases? Or that it doesn't deform on impact like it usually does? Or that it won't shatter? Bullets don’t stop in the body where you want them to. The softer material you use for bullets, like aluminum, the easier it will break and deform. That's why lead is used to make bullets, as they are super dense, but it passes through the body.

would it not work correctly if it passed completely through the body? this kind of soul staple/tearing in quick succsession could seriously storm someone up. the deforming is a serious issue though, they might use something more like a harpoon gun in this situation? 

 

[alder24]

2 hours ago, PinkPlasma said:

would it not work correctly if it passed completely through the body? this kind of soul staple/tearing in quick succsession could seriously storm someone up. the deforming is a serious issue though, they might use something more like a harpoon gun in this situation? 

If the spike is already charged it won't. It depends on the intent and binding point. If your intent is to charge a spike and hit one of four points in the heart it will work, elsewhere won't.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

I just had a thought.

In the far future of the Cosmere, they'll likely have more advanced guns. Perhaps even special Awakened guns that automatically aim at what you Intend to shoot at?

So instead of having to go through the painstaking process of learning the bindpoints, having dawnshot-levels of aim and just being perfect in general. You could just load a spike of whatever metal, maybe aluminum, point your Awakened Gun at your Invested enemy, have the Intent to Spike them, then pull the trigger as the Gun aims for you.

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

5 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

I just had a thought.

In the far future of the Cosmere, they'll likely have more advanced guns. Perhaps even special Awakened guns that automatically aim at what you Intend to shoot at?

So instead of having to go through the painstaking process of learning the bindpoints, having dawnshot-levels of aim and just being perfect in general. You could just load a spike of whatever metal, maybe aluminum, point your Awakened Gun at your Invested enemy, have the Intent to Spike them, then pull the trigger as the Gun aims for you.

Auto-aiming guns might be a bit too OP for the Cosmere. The most we've seen of an "advanced gun" is in SoTD2 where

Spoiler

A Rosharan Knight Radiant pulls out a Shardgun and straps a box onto it, which is presumably a power source, perhaps Stormlight.

So the most advanced gun I think we'll ever see in the Cosmere is Shardguns which maybe shoot energy blasts instead of ordinary bullets, which might be able to aim better than a normal gun because the Spren would be helping too. Still not enough for Hemalurgy purposes.

And remember, metal matters. Use the wrong metal and you might not steal what you want, or steal anything at all.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

5 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Auto-aiming guns might be a bit too OP for the Cosmere.

I respectfully disagree on that.

 

5 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

The most we've seen of an "advanced gun" is in SoTD2 where

  Reveal hidden contents

A Rosharan Knight Radiant pulls out a Shardgun and straps a box onto it, which is presumably a power source, perhaps Stormlight.

So the most advanced gun I think we'll ever see in the Cosmere is Shardguns which maybe shoot energy blasts instead of ordinary bullets, which might be able to aim better than a normal gun because the Spren would be helping too. Still not enough for Hemalurgy purposes.

That's likely just Roshar's most advanced gun, not necessarily Scadrial's most Advanced gun.

 

5 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

And remember, metal matters. Use the wrong metal and you might not steal what you want, or steal anything at all.

Unless you don't care about stealing powers and just want to make sure they're dead, then you could just use an Aluminum Spike which just 'Removes all powers', plus it couldn't be directly affected by any type of Investiture, so it could be more effective than most other metal types.

And if the user has some kind of scanner on hand, or maybe just some form of Wikipedia, they could just search up what metals steal what powers, then put in the right type of spike if they wanted to bother with stealing the powers. Just be sure to carry spikes of each type of metal.

 

[therunner he/him]

3 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

That's likely just Roshar's most advanced gun, not necessarily Scadrial's most Advanced gun.

Rosharan's fabrial tech is and will continue to be ahead of Scadrial (Scadrial being primary Earth analogue with some magical tech, and Roshar being full blown magitech).

So when it comes to advanced Invested weapons, Roshar will most likely have Scadrial beat.

Not to mention that autoaiming gun is most closely within scope of Nalthis, not Scadrial.

Also, the gun would have to include swivels which would be Awakened independently (similar to joints in Kalad's phantomns) because metal cannot move on its own (see Nightblood).

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

 

2 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Unless you don't care about stealing powers and just want to make sure they're dead, then you could just use an Aluminum Spike which just 'Removes all powers', plus it couldn't be directly affected by any type of Investiture, so it could be more effective than most other metal types.

True, but if you just want to kill them a headshot would be better, if the gun can just auto-aim. No amount of any Invested Healing will save you in that case. If the aim is to kill without specifically removing or stealing powers, the need for a Hemalurgy gun goes out of the window. No need to bother with any Hemalurgy when a plain and simple Aluminum bullet to the skull will do. Regardless, there's still a problem here, in that Aluminum is a horrible metal for making bullets. It would run the risk of deforming, shattering, not penetrating far enough into the body to do damage, or even breaking inside the barrel. Era 2 Scadrians get away with it because they use alloys of Aluminum that can't be Pushed, but there's no evidence that those would produce a Hemalurgic effect at all, or even be debilitating to Invested Healing.

2 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

And if the user has some kind of scanner on hand, or maybe just some form of Wikipedia, they could just search up what metals steal what powers, then put in the right type of spike if they wanted to bother with stealing the powers. Just be sure to carry spikes of each type of metal.

There are only 16 metals, at most you'd just need to be Realmatically knowledgeable enough to know where the power is coming from to steal it; Using steel for disabling a Pewterarm, and using Duralumin to take out a KR, for example. But again, the problem remains the aim, which auto-aiming guns would solve, though think the chances of one being built are dubious at best for except for Awakening, 

[PinkPlasma she/her]

On 8/2/2023 at 0:21 PM, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

True, but if you just want to kill them a headshot would be better, if the gun can just auto-aim. No amount of any Invested Healing will save you in that case.

someone forgot about miles hundredlives. dude took a shotgun to the face if i remeber. and we know for a fact that most surgebinders have healing on par if not above that scale. we also have legends of rashek going from a skeleton to fully healed in seconds, so i seriously don't see how you kill these people with anything other than magic shenanigans or a shardblade. we have a scene where kaladin gets his spine repeatedly severed, and continued to heal just fine, so loss of the brain shouldn't be any different.

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

21 minutes ago, PinkPlasma said:

someone forgot about miles hundredlives. dude took a shotgun to the face if i remeber. and we know for a fact that most surgebinders have healing on par if not above that scale. we also have legends of rashek going from a skeleton to fully healed in seconds, so i seriously don't see how you kill these people with anything other than magic shenanigans or a shardblade. we have a scene where kaladin gets his spine repeatedly severed, and continued to heal just fine, so loss of the brain shouldn't be any different.

That's a headshot from an Aluminum bullet, not just a normal one.

Edited August 6, 2023 by Underwater_Worldhopper

[PinkPlasma she/her]

Just now, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

That's a headshot form an Aluminum bullet, not just a normal one.

can wounds from aluminum not be healed? I would've thought they'd bring that up with Wayne if it were the case

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

16 minutes ago, PinkPlasma said:

can wounds from aluminum not be healed? I would've thought they'd bring that up with Wayne if it were the case

They cannot. It probably wasn't mentioned for Wayne because the Set uses Aluminum alloys for their bullets (because of the aforementioned horrific ballistics) which retain the Allomantic inertness, but evidently don't carry any of it's other properties. That said, they may have mentioned it, I'll check in a second and update this post if it is.

Excerpt from the Coppermind:

Quote

Aluminum metal (and some of its alloys) are "Allomantically inert" -- they cannot be Pushed or Pulled, and can shield people from emotional Allomancy.^[4][5] Aluminum generates no atium shadows^[6] and can create dead zones within cadmium and bendalloy bubbles, where the shielded area is not included within the time bubble.^[7] It also interferes with Feruchemical healing, by making it impossible for wounds to heal around the aluminum until it is removed from the body. There is a similar effect on pewter Allomancy.^[8]

Other than Feruchemy and Hemalurgy (where it isn't yet canon) Aluminum cannot be Invested in any form, and disrupts most Invested Arts. The ones it doesn't disrupt, it interacts really weirdly with.

Edited August 6, 2023 by Underwater_Worldhopper

[PinkPlasma she/her]

healing around the aluminum is a little different than unhealable. the hole might be able to partaily close up in front of the bullet if it went deep enough in, or if it went clean through it wouldn't have trouble healing at all. however the idea of aluminum bullets that shatter once inside could be super deadly as well