Generational Hemalurgy

[Trusk'our he/him]

I had a little idea about Hemalurgy that lead to a much bigger one.

The little idea was about whether an ancient Koloss could be used to fuel the creation of an iron spike to create new Koloss. After all, from what we know of with Jack's adventures with the Koloss suggests that they are pretty limited in how many can undergo the transformation due to the limited number of spikes in their possession. If some of their elders decided to be the donor's for those spikes, more Koloss could be made over time- they may even be far more powerful due to the fact that the strength that they grant is that of a 12 - 13 foot tall slab of muscle than some scrawny human. Which is then multiplied by four.

But, would there be side effects? Would the Spiritwebs of the Koloss donors make the recipient even more twisted and removed from humanity?

This might actually be a concern, as I believe we may have seen something similar to this with the Chimera; they have Trellium (or Bavadinium, whichever you prefer) spikes, which we know take powers, not attributes (I mean, I guess they could do both, but I'm skeptical as we've seen no other metal do anything like that) due to Set members having Trellium spikes without losing their humanity.

I believe that this ties into my Hemalurgy, Powers, Human Attributes, and Blessings thread on the Cosmere discussion board- when you take something from a donor via Hemalurgy you can also take some extra stuff depending on the skill and knowledge of the Hemalurgist.

The direction I was wondering here was, what if you charge a Hemalurgic spike and take a desired characteristic- say a certain body type (tall, muscular, etc.)- then give it to another person who also has that characteristic. Then you spike that person, giving the newest spike an exaggeration of the desired characteristic. This could continue through as many "generations" as you needed to get the desired characteristic.

Anyway, that's kind of what I was thinking along the lines of. What say you guys? Do you think it's doable?

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

The little idea was about whether an ancient Koloss could be used to fuel the creation of an iron spike to create new Koloss. After all, from what we know of with Jack's adventures with the Koloss suggests that they are pretty limited in how many can undergo the transformation due to the limited number of spikes in their possession. If some of their elders decided to be the donor's for those spikes, more Koloss could be made over time- they may even be far more powerful due to the fact that the strength that they grant is that of a 12 - 13 foot tall slab of muscle than some scrawny human. Which is then multiplied by four.

I don't think that's possible. The strength of Koloss comes from his spikes, which drafts pieces of souls into his soul. You can't spike out those pieces, as they're already in the spike. While spiking Koloss for strength, you would spike out his base human strength, not any attribute that is added with spikes. If that Koloss survives, he would be a weird Koloss as if he was made with 3 spikes, not 4 (because he would lose his base strength). But you wouldn't get that strength that came from his spikes, and I don't think even from physical deformations, as those are the effect of spikes. 

But the spike itself would be messy as rust - you're still spiking a Koloss, and if in HoA Koloss reusing spikes were somehow able to make themselves more human, then that spike would make you more Rashek-Koloss like, less human. You do not want to have such a spike.

[Trusk'our he/him]

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

I don't think that's possible. The strength of Koloss comes from his spikes, which drafts pieces of souls into his soul. You can't spike out those pieces, as they're already in the spike. While spiking Koloss for strength, you would spike out his base human strength, not any attribute that is added with spikes. If that Koloss survives, he would be a weird Koloss as if he was made with 3 spikes, not 4 (because he would lose his base strength). But you wouldn't get that strength that came from his spikes, and I don't think even from physical deformations, as those are the effect of spikes. 

But the spike itself would be messy as rust - you're still spiking a Koloss, and if in HoA Koloss reusing spikes were somehow able to make themselves more human, then that spike would make you more Rashek-Koloss like, less human. You do not want to have such a spike.

Sorry, I didn't mean to reuse one of a Koloss's spikes, I meant that you take a non-Invested iron spike and then charge it with a decade-old nearly killed from sheer mass Koloss acting as the donor- the donor Koloss's spikes remain untouched, but a new spike is made from the Koloss's actual Spiritweb.

Now, I do want to point out that the Koloss's actual muscle mass isn't directly granted by the spikes, otherwise Koloss would immediately become incredibly swole as soon as they got their spikes but instead it takes them years to continue growing; there is the magical, almost A-pewter like aspect of the spikes, the Blessing of Potency, and then there are the "side effects" of having those spikes as a non-Kandra which cause you turn into something no longer human, with the result being that your new genes cause you to grow and gain more and more strength in the form of larger muscles.

At least, that's how I currently understand it.

The point on the Koloss reusing spikes to gain more humanity I agree with though, which means at the very least if a Koloss acted as the donor then the next Koloss made would likely be less civilized and more aggressive.

 

[alder24]

50 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Sorry, I didn't mean to reuse one of a Koloss's spikes, I meant that you take a non-Invested iron spike and then charge it with a decade-old nearly killed from sheer mass Koloss acting as the donor- the donor Koloss's spikes remain untouched, but a new spike is made from the Koloss's actual Spiritweb.

I know, that's what I've been talking about. In my opinion you will get only normal human strength, nothing more, as most of Koloss strength comes from 4 spikes and changes done to the body due to those spikes. You can only take what's in your original soul, and that's human strength - you can't take what's given by spikes, and body deformations are given by spikes. 

53 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Now, I do want to point out that the Koloss's actual muscle mass isn't directly granted by the spikes, otherwise Koloss would immediately become incredibly swole as soon as they got their spikes but instead it takes them years to continue growing; there is the magical, almost A-pewter like aspect of the spikes, the Blessing of Potency, and then there are the "side effects" of having those spikes as a non-Kandra which cause you turn into something no longer human, with the result being that your new genes cause you to grow and gain more and more strength in the form of larger muscles.

That's happening because they are now Hemalurgic constructs, not humans, at least physically. Their body is twisted by spikes and tries to adapt - and spikes tell it to grow. But the spirit of Koloss is still human, as that's how they look in CR after death - that's what you're stealing, and only that, as rest is given by spikes - the growth of body muscle over time is the effect of spikes.

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

I know, that's what I've been talking about.

Ah, my apologies. I see I presumed a little too much 

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

 You can only take what's in your original soul, and that's human strength - you can't take what's given by spikes, and body deformations are given by spikes. 

That's happening because they are now Hemalurgic constructs, not humans, at least physically. Their body is twisted by spikes and tries to adapt - and spikes tell it to grow. But the spirit of Koloss is still human, as that's how they look in CR after death - that's what you're stealing, and only that, as rest is given by spikes - the growth of body muscle over time is the effect of spikes.

Hmmm, that's a good point on the CR aspects of Koloss.

Personally, I'm still leaning toward the muscle growth leading to more strength that could be taken via Hemalurgy, but I your points are reasonable enough that I am willing to consider your opinion as being a very plausible outcome as well. 

Hope we can ask Brandon about this matter at some point. It seems like something he wouldn't RAFO immediately.

[..... he/him]

On 9/2/2023 at 4:26 PM, alder24 said:

I know, that's what I've been talking about. In my opinion you will get only normal human strength, nothing more, as most of Koloss strength comes from 4 spikes and changes done to the body due to those spikes. You can only take what's in your original soul, and that's human strength - you can't take what's given by spikes, and body deformations are given by spikes. 

you can steal those modifications and the charge of the four spikes. that would make one really powerfull koloss

wob:

 

Quote

 

Questioner

Can hemalurgy be used to steal hemalurgically granted powers?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, technically.

General Signed Books 2017 (May 31, 2017)

 

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

6 minutes ago, ..... said:

you can steal those modifications and the charge of the four spikes. that would make one really powerfull koloss

wob:

That one's a bit confusing to me; it seems like it's saying that, yes, you can charge a new spike by tearing off Spiritweb chunks from another spike implanted into a person, but the "technically" part could simply refer to taking the spike and implanting it into someone else.

But for the sake of discussion let's assume Brandon meant the former. This could be interesting, but I think you'd probably have to deal with Identity contamination from having multiple donor's Identities filling one spike.

Maybe that's what the "technically" was about- you can technically take those extra pieces of Investiture from the other Hemalurgist's spikes, but you can't really use them effectively as they are due to conflicting Identities. I'll have to theorize on this more now.

[..... he/him]

5 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

That one's a bit confusing to me; it seems like it's saying that, yes, you can charge a new spike by tearing off Spiritweb chunks from another spike implanted into a person, but the "technically" part could simply refer to taking the spike and implanting it into someone else.

But for the sake of discussion let's assume Brandon meant the former. This could be interesting, but I think you'd probably have to deal with Identity contamination from having multiple donor's Identities filling one spike.

Maybe that's what the "technically" was about- you can technically take those extra pieces of Investiture from the other Hemalurgist's spikes, but you can't really use them effectively as they are due to conflicting Identities. I'll have to theorize on this more now.

I thought that when he said technically he ment that it would be hard but that works to who knows