Hemalurgic Commands

[Trusk'our]

We've learned from TLM that Hemalurgy is actually a lot like Awakening, especially in that they both can use Commands to achieve better results.

But what could those Commands actually do?

Well, here's a few ideas I came up with. Let me know what you guys think 

1. Command to take more: apparently, the creation of Kandra Blessings is a bit different that the creation of Koloss spikes, mostly because Kandra spikes take more from the donor and different portions of the Spritweb as well;

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/90/#e4652

Questioner

What's the difference between a spike prepared for a Koloss and a spike prepared for a Mistwraith or Kandra? What side effects might occur from... [?]... Koloss spikes?

Brandon Sanderson

It's the pieces of the soul that are being ripped off and the amount of the soul that's being ripped off. That's a big part of it. What side effects would there be? You would probably not get something as intelligent.

Questioner

What's the difference in how you prepare those spikes?

Brandon Sanderson

The Koloss spikes, you've seen how they're done. The Kandra spikes were prepared by the Lord Ruler. He gave them to them, and so we don't know what he did, at least in canon.

Questioner 2

That means that we kind of screwed up the role playing.

Brandon Sanderson

You can totally do- I imagine all the role playing happening in a slightly different alternate universe, where there are slight variations and differences.

But yeah, there are no- Kandra spikes are prepared and given by the Lord Ruler, they didn't even know how to make them themselves. I mean they had an inkling of what went on, but they didn't know.

This also may be why Chimera were able to be made; a single Trellium spike took more from the donor and grafted it onto the recipient, causing a larger change than would normally happen (there may be more to it as well, but I'll leave that for another time).

This suggests that a Hemalurgist could learn to take more or different things using a certain metal through the use of Commands and Intent.

2. Command to take less: Just as a Hemalurgist could learn to take more, they could potentially learn to take less. Perhaps this would leave a non-lethal spiking having less of a harmful impact on the donor (though it would be impossible to fully remove).

If the creation of the Chimera did involve taking more Spiritweb chunks than normal, perhaps a Hemalurgist could learn to make Blessings that work on humans by mitigating or fully removing the flesh-warping aspect of the spikes (I have another thread that talks about this one in particular).

3. Command to control host: Perhaps a spike could be bestowed a Command to impose a measure of control on the bearer, causing the spike to directly force the bearer to follow the Hemalurgist's commands. Perhaps this could also be used to make it more difficult for other Metalborn to steal control of the Hemalurgist's constructs.

4. Command to selectively grant powers(s): If the spikes could be given the correct Command, they might be able to selectively grant powers to their bearer. The spike(s) would read their bearer's Intent and deprive said bearer of their power should they go against the Intent that the original Hemalurgist encoded into the spikes.

Any other ideas for Hemalurgic Commands, or comments on the ones I've come up with? (I'm especially asking you @alder24, @Koloss17, @Quantus, @therunner, @Tamriel Wolfsbaine, and @Treamayne. Anybody else who I forgot can join in too )

EDIT: here's a few more.

5. Programmed death: Perhaps a Hemalurgist could Command a Linchpin spike to fail if its bearer had an undesirable Intent, such as if they every tried to kill the Hemalurgist who made the spike.

6. Autonomous spikes: We actually may have seen something like this already with Trellium spikes- spikes that can more autonomously activate powers, such as when the Cycle Marasi shot in the head was still able to heal despite not having the cognitive functions to do so. Such spikes could perhaps be made with Commands, allowing for similar effects.

Additionally, you could possibly create autonomous spikes that forced their Bearer to Feruchemically store certain attributes, such as having a someone store all their non-essential strength away so that they could be apprehended more easily. Maybe you could force the bearer to store something like Identity, making it easier to spike them for Identity-free spikes. Or maybe you could selectively steal somebody's memories via F-copper and Identity blanking.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Trusk'our

[alder24]

Sorry, I wanted to answer later but forgot.

On 21.09.2023 at 5:38 PM, Trusk'our said:

3. Command to control host: Perhaps a spike could be bestowed a Command to impose a measure of control on the bearer, causing the spike to directly force the bearer to follow the Hemalurgist's commands. Perhaps this could also be used to make it more difficult for other Metalborn to steal control of the Hemalurgist's constructs.

No. This is due to numbers of spikes in recipient causing sufficient cracks in soul for emotional allomancy to put pressure on mind and take control. 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

The Resolution

TenSoon and the other kandra resist Ruin and are able to pull the spikes from their shoulders. There are a couple of reasons why they can do this.

The power that Allomancers have to take control of them is the same power Ruin has. That control is exerted in the form of mental pressure through emotional Allomancy. As can be seen from Marsh's viewpoint, it is more than simply forcing the body to act as Ruin wishes. The extreme pressure on emotions changes the very way the mind thinks, tricking it into doing exactly what Ruin wants. The flaw in Hemalurgists leaves them open to this kind of manipulation.

Kandra, who only have two spikes, are far more difficult to control than koloss or Inquisitors. Vin is able to control TenSoon with ease in book two, but that's partially because he wanted her to do so. He would have been able to resist her. If she'd continued to push, she could have broken him, but it would have taken time.

Even Ruin's pressure wasn't enough to take control immediately. The kandra had a few moments during which they could overcome him and maintain their free will. Beyond that, they were in a cavern surrounded by metal ore in the walls, making it very difficult for Ruin to see what was going on and interfering with his ability to control them.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (May 13, 2010)

 

On 21.09.2023 at 5:38 PM, Trusk'our said:

4. Command to selectively grant powers(s): If the spikes could be given the correct Command, they might be able to selectively grant powers to their bearer. The spike(s) would read their bearer's Intent and deprive said bearer of their power should they go against the Intent that the original Hemalurgist encoded into the spikes.

That sounds a lot like Surgebinding bound to Spren and Oaths. Hard maybe.

On 21.09.2023 at 5:38 PM, Trusk'our said:

5. Programmed death: Perhaps a Hemalurgist could Command a Linchpin spike to fail if its bearer had an undesirable Intent, such as if they every tried to kill the Hemalurgist who made the spike.

No. Spike can't move on its own, even if Awakened. I don't see a way for your spikes to suddenly kill you.

On 21.09.2023 at 5:38 PM, Trusk'our said:

6. Autonomous spikes: We actually may have seen something like this already with Trellium spikes- spikes that can more autonomously activate powers, such as when the Cycle Marasi shot in the head was still able to heal despite not having the cognitive functions to do so. Such spikes could perhaps be made with Commands, allowing for similar effects.

Actually that's the effect of the body's intent taking over. Body forces the intent of survival and reaches out to the nearest source of healing available - tapping metalmind. That's what Radiants are doing when unconscious, Mistborn by burning pewter etc. Mind isn't needed anymore if the mind, the body and the soul are still connected.

Spoiler

Aradanftw

Kaladin and Vin both have used magic subconsciously. Kaladin while training with the bridge plank and drawing in Stormlight, and Vin burning pewter while being beaten. Does that mean that Intent is not always required, or is a simple Intent like "I will be strong" enough to activate the magic system?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to go with the simple Intent answer that you're giving there. So, at the basic level... the more specific and the more powerful you want to be, the more you need to understand your Intent, is where this is. The body has an Intent. Kaladin uses the magic while he's unconscious, right? The Intent is survive, basically the body knowing it needs to survive. And this is possible to an extent with a lot of the magic systems, just kind of in the base, physical sense, your body knowing how to use what it's been given, is going to happen. You're going to see this with other instances in the magic as well. And even kind of not knowing or not wanting to face it, you can get some base level of power in most of the magics. Yes, it's the second one in that you can make the argument that your body just wants to survive, and things like this, but Intent really starts to play into it when you're doing distinct and increasingly powerful things with the magics. Intent is like your ability to focus, right? You can fire a sniper rifle on accident, but hitting the thing that you want to hit with it requires a lot of practice and focus. That practice and focus in the magic systems is often Intent-related.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

But maybe you could do something like that. If there is a specific intent, like the body's intent to survive, your spike can be programmed to activate and burn duralumin, for example, to heal you instantly as your body reaches for your goldminds. Basically you might be able to program your spikes to react to certain intents, but that's not really so different than literally burning metals, and would only be useful in very specific situations.

But this seems not how it works - spikes just hold a piece of soul - it's your mind that's activating them, not spikes. You would need to Awaken spikes to work like that, to be able to activate when some intent is provided. On their own they won't just start burning metals - you need to do that. Commands in Hemalurgy work most likely only for stealing and granting powers, I doubt they would affect spikes in the long term. 

 

 

Hemalurgy isn't Awakening. Don't expect spikes to do something that they don't do naturally. Most of this seems far-fetched, the first two propositions are certain in my opinion, and by their own would allow you to do a looooot - like steal all 4 physical Allomantic powers with a single spike from a Mistborn, or do precise stealing etc. Commands can also allow for precise insertion of charged spikes into recipient, to connect spikes to their soul with minimal damage to it. So while you won't overcome the limit of 4 spikes, your spikes could possibly be full of different powers, even from different people, and a good Command might even allow you to steal them without any identity attached to them (doubtful).

[Underwater_Worldhopper]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Actually that's the effect of the body's intent taking over. Body forces the intent of survival and reaches out to the nearest source of healing available - tapping metalmind. That's what Radiants are doing when unconscious, Mistborn by burning pewter etc. Mind isn't needed anymore if the mind, the body and the soul are still connected.

  Reveal hidden contents

Aradanftw

Kaladin and Vin both have used magic subconsciously. Kaladin while training with the bridge plank and drawing in Stormlight, and Vin burning pewter while being beaten. Does that mean that Intent is not always required, or is a simple Intent like "I will be strong" enough to activate the magic system?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to go with the simple Intent answer that you're giving there. So, at the basic level... the more specific and the more powerful you want to be, the more you need to understand your Intent, is where this is. The body has an Intent. Kaladin uses the magic while he's unconscious, right? The Intent is survive, basically the body knowing it needs to survive. And this is possible to an extent with a lot of the magic systems, just kind of in the base, physical sense, your body knowing how to use what it's been given, is going to happen. You're going to see this with other instances in the magic as well. And even kind of not knowing or not wanting to face it, you can get some base level of power in most of the magics. Yes, it's the second one in that you can make the argument that your body just wants to survive, and things like this, but Intent really starts to play into it when you're doing distinct and increasingly powerful things with the magics. Intent is like your ability to focus, right? You can fire a sniper rifle on accident, but hitting the thing that you want to hit with it requires a lot of practice and focus. That practice and focus in the magic systems is often Intent-related.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

But maybe you could do something like that. If there is a specific intent, like the body's intent to survive, your spike can be programmed to activate and burn duralumin, for example, to heal you instantly as your body reaches for your goldminds. Basically you might be able to program your spikes to react to certain intents, but that's not really so different than literally burning metals, and would only be useful in very specific situations.

Is it not specified that a bullet to the head would kill a Bloodmaker that wasn't actively tapping before the injury?

Quote

He loomed overhead, a terrible shadow, his arm raised to smash her skull. In response, she delivered three shots straight into his face. He dropped. Oh hell,  she thought, sitting up despite the pain. Wax did things like this all the time. Leaping off cliffs, jumping around and slamming into things. How on  Scadrial  was his body not horribly ruined by it all? She prodded at her ribs, hoping nothing was broken. Her left shoulder protested the most, and she winced. The pain was so distracting that she had to force herself to focus. A shot to the head should stop a Bloodmaker from healing, but some part of her insisted she should check anyway. She lurched over to inspect the corpse. And found the bullet wounds pulling closed on the man’s head, the holes in the skull resealing. Rusting  hell. She heaved the slumped-over body onto its back and scrambled to pull her knife from his belt. He was healing from bullets to the head? Something was very wrong here. She shot him again, but that would only be temporary.

And I swear Wayne himself is the one who specifies that you need to be tapping beforehand to be able to survive them, though I can't be asked to look for that one right now. I don't think the body's Intent to survive is enough to tap from a Metalmind. You can't store while you're unconscious, so I don't think you could tap either, no matter how horribly you're wounded. Wax is the only real example of a non-Trellium spiked person tapping Health near death (and even that from an Unsealed Metalmind, which we know push on the boundaries of what you can unconsciously do with Metalminds), and he's unique because Harmony kept his mind around and he had to consciously choose to tap the health. A Bloodmaker Savant could maybe do it, but that's because of Savantism than anythng else.

[Trusk'our]

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

Sorry, I wanted to answer later but forgot.

It's all good, I'm just impatient to hear your thoughts is all 

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

No. This is due to numbers of spikes in recipient causing sufficient cracks in soul for emotional allomancy to put pressure on mind and take control. 

True, but the spike is effectively inside the person's Spiritweb already, which is how others are able to control them- they manage to push through the cracks of the Spiritweb made by the spikes and wrestle control over them. The spike is already in there, and therefore could influence them in some way. 

Now, I don't think that a regular spike, even with a specialized Command, could fully control the person it's embedded in. It's just too weak an influence. What I propose is that the spike could weaken the bearer's resistance to resist its creator's already established control, sort of like a constant flux of Emotional Allomancy.

Maybe it could reinforce the Connection between the bearer and the controller as well, but that sounds more like Hemalurgic duralumin than a Command (possibly; there's too much we don't know yet about Hemalurgic Connection and Identity taken by all spiking for me to say for certain).

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

That sounds a lot like Surgebinding bound to Spren and Oaths. Hard maybe.

Yes, indeed it does. That's the idea 

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

No. Spike can't move on its own, even if Awakened. I don't see a way for your spikes to suddenly kill you.

No, I don't mean that the spike physically moves itself, I mean that it shuts down its purpose of acting as a Linchpin to all the other spikes, which would then kill the bearer by causing their Spiritweb to collapse. Basically, it's a continuation of the idea of the spikes being able to shut down their powers, just used in another way.

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

Actually that's the effect of the body's intent taking over. Body forces the intent of survival and reaches out to the nearest source of healing available - tapping metalmind. That's what Radiants are doing when unconscious, Mistborn by burning pewter etc. Mind isn't needed anymore if the mind, the body and the soul are still connected.

  Reveal hidden contents

Aradanftw

Kaladin and Vin both have used magic subconsciously. Kaladin while training with the bridge plank and drawing in Stormlight, and Vin burning pewter while being beaten. Does that mean that Intent is not always required, or is a simple Intent like "I will be strong" enough to activate the magic system?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to go with the simple Intent answer that you're giving there. So, at the basic level... the more specific and the more powerful you want to be, the more you need to understand your Intent, is where this is. The body has an Intent. Kaladin uses the magic while he's unconscious, right? The Intent is survive, basically the body knowing it needs to survive. And this is possible to an extent with a lot of the magic systems, just kind of in the base, physical sense, your body knowing how to use what it's been given, is going to happen. You're going to see this with other instances in the magic as well. And even kind of not knowing or not wanting to face it, you can get some base level of power in most of the magics. Yes, it's the second one in that you can make the argument that your body just wants to survive, and things like this, but Intent really starts to play into it when you're doing distinct and increasingly powerful things with the magics. Intent is like your ability to focus, right? You can fire a sniper rifle on accident, but hitting the thing that you want to hit with it requires a lot of practice and focus. That practice and focus in the magic systems is often Intent-related.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

But maybe you could do something like that. If there is a specific intent, like the body's intent to survive, your spike can be programmed to activate and burn duralumin, for example, to heal you instantly as your body reaches for your goldminds. Basically you might be able to program your spikes to react to certain intents, but that's not really so different than literally burning metals, and would only be useful in very specific situations.

But this seems not how it works - spikes just hold a piece of soul - it's your mind that's activating them, not spikes. You would need to Awaken spikes to work like that, to be able to activate when some intent is provided. On their own they won't just start burning metals - you need to do that. Commands in Hemalurgy work most likely only for stealing and granting powers, I doubt they would affect spikes in the long term. 

Sounds reasonable. I just remember it being made a big deal in TLM that the Cycle could regenerate with F-gold even though he wasn't a Compounder or a Savant. That suggested to me that the spikes may hypothetically be able to achieve such effects if created correctly (which of course I then extrapolated the crap out of, cause that's what I do).

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

Hemalurgy isn't Awakening. Don't expect spikes to do something that they don't do naturally. Most of this seems far-fetched, the first two propositions are certain in my opinion, and by their own would allow you to do a looooot - like steal all 4 physical Allomantic powers with a single spike from a Mistborn, or do precise stealing etc. Commands can also allow for precise insertion of charged spikes into recipient, to connect spikes to their soul with minimal damage to it. So while you won't overcome the limit of 4 spikes, your spikes could possibly be full of different powers, even from different people, and a good Command might even allow you to steal them without any identity attached to them (doubtful).

Fair enough, I respect your opinion. I will say that I disagree with this though; Hemalurgy may not be Awakening, but they have a lot of similarities, most fascinatingly is that of being able to use Commands to achieve far more complex and diverse effects than would normally be achievable through the majority of Invested systems. There are even ways that Breath can be utilized beyond the standard format of Awakening (such as storing memories in the Breaths), which suggests to me that Hemalurgy may be able to do the same.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that I think (as of right now) that you could pseudo-Awaken a spike via normal Hemalurgy, similar to how the Malwish medallions are able to automatically function- they have more of an Identity and "life force" than normal Metalminds, which allows them to do things that aren't normally allowed via Feruchemy (WoB), such as functioning in a more automatic fashion. As for what the medallions (and by extension Hemalurgic spikes) could do, we don't know yet, but I think that some cool things might be able to be done.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Trusk'our

[alder24]

34 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Is it not specified that a bullet to the head would kill a Bloodmaker that wasn't actively tapping before the injury?

And I swear Wayne himself is the one who specifies that you need to be tapping beforehand to be able to survive them, though I can't be asked to look for that one right now. I don't think the body's Intent to survive is enough to tap from a Metalmind. You can't store while you're unconscious, so I don't think you could tap either, no matter how horribly you're wounded. Wax is the only real example of a non-Trellium spiked person tapping Health near death (and even that from an Unsealed Metalmind, which we know push on the boundaries of what you can unconsciously do with Metalminds), and he's unique because Harmony kept his mind around and he had to consciously choose to tap the health. A Bloodmaker Savant could maybe do it, but that's because of Savantism than anythng else.

Good point. Looking at the chapter, he might be healing in the moment when Marasi shot him - earlier she wounded him in the arm, and later, after she shot him, he somehow had a broken jaw - likely from her 3 shots. So either he was healing already, or Marasi shots weren't precise as she was stunned, with her vision blurred, and they weren't immediately lethal, thus possible to heal for a Bloodmaker. Or third option - Autonomy was interfering. After all, his eyes started to glow red before she shot him. Or indeed, there was something to Trellium spikes, given by a proper Command, that allowed him to heal those wounds (still I think that's the least likely scenario). TLM ch 6:

Quote

As her eyes started to water, she brought up a small glittering weapon and stabbed him straight through the arm. [...]
He glared at her, then held up his arm. The bleeding wound began to heal.
[...]
Then, horribly, his eyes started to glow faintly red.
[...]
She smashed back-first into the wall. That was enough to stun her, but then the grenade’s charge gave out. She dropped to the ground. Safely across the chasm as she’d planned, but winded and dazed.
Through teary eyes, she saw the Cycle run and leap across the chasm. So she scrambled, half-blinded by pain, searching the dusty stone, looking desperately for the pistol …
There!
He loomed overhead, a terrible shadow, his arm raised to smash her skull. In response, she delivered three shots straight into his face. He dropped.
[...]
She lurched over to inspect the corpse. And found the bullet wounds pulling closed on the man’s head, the holes in the skull resealing.
[...]
The Cycle’s eyes snapped open, despite his broken jaw and the holes in his skull.
[...]
Those eyes. They were glowing a vivid red now.

 

8 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

True, but the spike is effectively inside the person's Spiritweb already, which is how others' are able to control them- they manage to push through the cracks of the Spiritweb made by the spikes and wrestle control over them. The spike is already in there, and therefore could touch them in some way. 

Now, I don't think that a regular spike, even with a specialized Command, could fully control the person it's embedded in. It's just too weak an influence. What I propose is that the spike could weaken the bearer's resistance to resist its creator's already established control, sort of like a constant flux of Emotional Allomancy.

Maybe it could reinforce the Connection between the bearer and the controller as well, but that sounds more like Hemalurgic duralumin than a Command (possibly; there's too much we don't know yet about Hemalurgic Connection and Identity taken by all spiking for me to say for certain).

I still don't think it would be so straightforward. What you need to do, if you want to have an easier Hemalurgic control, is to widen cracks in a soul - this might be achievable with a proper Command. But this would be done in the moment of spiking and that's when the Command would work. 

4 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Fair enough, I respect your opinion. I will say that I disagree with this though; Hemalurgy may not be Awakening, but they have a lot of similarities, most fascinatingly is that of being able to use Commands to achieve far more complex and diverse effects than would normally be achievable through the majority of Invested systems. There are even ways that Breath can be utilized beyond the standard format of Awakening (such as storing memories in the Breaths), which suggests to me that Hemalurgy may be able to do the same.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that I think (as of right now) that you could pseudo-Awaken a spike via normal Hemalurgy, similar to how the Malwish medallions are able to automatically function- they have more of an Identity and "life force" than normal Metalminds, which allows them to do things that aren't normally allowed via Feruchemy (WoB). As for what the medallions (and by extension Hemalurgic spikes) could do, we don't know yet, but I think that some cool things might be able to be done.

Yes, Awakening and Hemalurgy have some similarities. And that's exactly what I've tried to say - for your ideas to work you need to grant spikes self-awareness, a mind to control them. Without that they can't just turn on and off and do stuff like that. They need to be made similarly to how Malwish medallions are made, but we don't know how they are made (except that there is a device for that) and if they even use some Command. It might be possible to make self-aware spikes, then your ideas might work. But how to make them is the question now.

[Trusk'our]

On 9/22/2023 at 4:34 PM, alder24 said:

Yes, Awakening and Hemalurgy have some similarities. And that's exactly what I've tried to say - for your ideas to work you need to grant spikes self-awareness, a mind to control them. Without that they can't just turn on and off and do stuff like that. They need to be made similarly to how Malwish medallions are made, but we don't know how they are made (except that there is a device for that) and if they even use some Command. It might be possible to make self-aware spikes, then your ideas might work. But how to make them is the question now.

Agreed; the Spikes wouldn't be able to accomplish what I suggest unless they had at least a simple mind to carry out the Commands.

It's funny though- I doubt that you'd be able to make an Identityless spike (to counteract Identity contamination) without forgoing the more complex Commands. Maybe you could still combine Identityless charges with a single charge that had a strong Identity, but more complications would still arise, I'm sure.

In any case, I wish we knew more about the medallion creation, as those seem closest to what I hypothesize with the spikes. Perhaps in era 3 we'll learn more.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Trusk'our