Invested Prosthetics

[+Invocation]

We've seen prosthetics and assistance devices created already in the cosmere, but what Investiture system do y'all think would be best suited for creating them? I'm torn between Awakening (for obvious reasons) and AonDor (for even more obvious reasons), but I think Allomancy could potentially have a shot if the prosthesis was metal.
Edit: Allomancy was mostly a good idea for limbs, something I thought I'd mentioned and apparently didn't! I stand by AonDor being best for most forms of prosthesis though.

Edited September 27 by Invocation

[Treamayne]

5 hours ago, Invocation said:

We've seen prosthetics and assistance devices created already in the cosmere, but what Investiture system do y'all think would be best suited for creating them? I'm torn between Awakening (for obvious reasons) and AonDor (for even more obvious reasons), but I think Allomancy could potentially have a shot if the prosthesis was metal.

Would it not depend significantly on the type of prosthesis? An artificial leg, for example, is very different if the amputation is above or below the knee. Also, are you only talking about limbs? A prosthetic eye is very different from a prosthetic hand. . .

[+Invocation]

2 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Would it not depend significantly on the type of prosthesis? An artificial leg, for example, is very different if the amputation is above or below the knee. Also, are you only talking about limbs? A prosthetic eye is very different from a prosthetic hand. . .

You know, I thought I'd specified that my initial ideas were mostly for limbs but I guess I forgot to. My bad! I'll edit.

[Duxredux]

13 hours ago, Invocation said:

We've seen prosthetics and assistance devices created already in the cosmere, but what Investiture system do y'all think would be best suited for creating them? I'm torn between Awakening (for obvious reasons) and AonDor (for even more obvious reasons), but I think Allomancy could potentially have a shot if the prosthesis was metal.
Edit: Allomancy was mostly a good idea for limbs, something I thought I'd mentioned and apparently didn't! I stand by AonDor being best for most forms of prosthesis though.

If you're talking about an actual physical prostheses that can be sold and marketed, then it becomes a question for why the prothesis is necessary in the first place. For any prothesis need that arose from a recent injury, get them to an Edgedancer, Truthwatcher, Regrowth Fabrial, or hand them a Unsealed Goldmind. If it's a long-term injury, with enough practice you might be able to give them a single Breath and have them store all of their memories of having to adapt to and adjust to life without the missing body part to remove the cognitive blocks on Invested healing and then heal them to full fitness. If the deficiency is congenital, then these workarounds to just heal the condition probably won't work short of infusion of a Divine Breath and that's unlikely statistically speaking. Okay, Shardic intervention, dying heroically on Nalthis and hope to be Returned, and a visit to the Nightwatcher probably could do the trick, but don't count on consistent results. 

Added this in later, but for theoretical purposes, we have Kandra prosthesis, which you yourself posited last year. Have a kandra take a bite, grow a new body part using spare bones, graft it on. In fact, if this is anywhere close to how Ulaam operates as ship's surgeon and can genuinely swap out eyes and kidneys, then get a Kandra surgeon to operate and we lose the need for a prosthesis, it's just called replacement surgery.

If Kandra limb replacement is out, congenital cases may be the few circumstances where prostheses are the only viable solution if you have access to the varieties of Investiture systems. Then it depends on what exactly they need the prosthesis to do and where they live. If the goal is to provide the patient with as close to an analog to the missing limb as possible, that's separate from giving the patient the ability to perform Activities of Daily Living (ADL), the list of activities that allow a person to independently care for themselves. AonDor has a lot of solutions, but until we know for sure how to overcome the geographical constraints it has limited application. Awakening could do it, but for sheer versatility, giving a person a bunch of Breaths, a long sturdy rope with tassel cords on the ends, little cloth dolls, a glove, a stack of colored handkerchiefs, a jug of dye to recolor the handkerchiefs, and a crash course on Awakening would probably give them far more flexibility to perform ADL then a single Awakened limb replacement could. It might well be cheaper too, depending on the complexity of the Command to Awaken the prothesis, and give them all of the other quality of life improvements that a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Heightening would provide when they are not actively using Awakened Objects to do jobs for them. Hemalurgic spike through the eye socket granting Steelsight is one of the earlier "prosthetics" we've seen in use in the Cosmere, but that has nontrivial ethical constraints on acquiring the spikes.

Depends on what you're going for, but one of the most straightforward and versatile prostheses is to become a Roseite Aetherbound. Silajana can see via the Roseite and describe what is going on to you if visual assistance is necessary, and Roseite can provide all sorts of quality of life improvements, almost certainly including limb replacement. Being able to form utensils, dishes, pen nibs, glasses, etc. from Roseite means the person in need of a prothesis may not need to move to acquire tools for activities of daily living as frequently. Being able to create a chair on command to use to sit down also can be very handy for toileting, bathing, or just resting. The fact that the Aether vanishes after use means you don't even need to clean up after yourself. Someone mute could just write with Roseite as a communication method. With water as the only maintenance cost, locality and maintenance on the prothesis isn't even a concern if you were planning on surviving with accessible water anyway. It's a bit telling that the first Roseite Aetherbound we see is a geriatric and is still highly capable.

Again, it depends on what exactly you need the prothesis to do, where the recipient lives, recipient's pertinent medical history, acceptable production and maintenance costs on the prosthesis, and probably more. Overall though, Invested healing is generally preferred, then surgery with a Kandra expert, while prostheses are pretty low down the list.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

On 9/26/2023 at 2:48 PM, Invocation said:

We've seen prosthetics and assistance devices created already in the cosmere, but what Investiture system do y'all think would be best suited for creating them? I'm torn between Awakening (for obvious reasons) and AonDor (for even more obvious reasons), but I think Allomancy could potentially have a shot if the prosthesis was metal.
Edit: Allomancy was mostly a good idea for limbs, something I thought I'd mentioned and apparently didn't! I stand by AonDor being best for most forms of prosthesis though.

I am genuinely shocked that this thread was started yesterday. After having the YouTube algorithm heathens send me a "Lie's of P" short and then binging more than a couple game play videos (though I don't play any games anymore) I couldn't help but immediately wonder how I could place a character with that asthetic into the cosmere and have it be functional. 

I really like @Duxredux point about Roseite. There isn't a ton of information on it but I assume that if the artwork of twinsoul sitting cross-legged inside of the roseite golems torso is legit then the Aether has perfect qualities for acting as a prosthetic... being able to move on its own it could absolutely function as any limb.  

Things I wish I knew about roseite would be this.  When roseite is used to make something does it require constant flow of water to maintain it and work it or is the cost frontloaded enough that maintaining it is trivial?  

The Kandra point is great. For my purposes (lies of P arm stuff) It makes perfect sense to have a kandra with metallic truebody mixed up with some steampunk-ish tech going on to make sweet arms. 

Awakening is another one I really want to explore with this. I think awakened shirt tassles becoming as hands plus seeing ropes lift persons up and over ledges is prefect proof that Awakening can do it easily.  I have had visions of ramping that up with the 9th heightening and using a bunch of steel cables and ropes as Doc Ock arms.  Even thin cables have insane tensile strength and working loads... at the 9th heightening it wouldn't even just be long metal limbs for carrying you around and fighting for you but you could also forge the inner section of the steel cable into long thin daggers and the outer pieces of cable to lay over the blades as an awakened and invested sheath. This would give you access to longer limbs that are awakened metal plus awakened blades hidden in the cable wraps.  The breath cost might be high but they could likely carry you around as limbs plus be extra arms and shields to bat away even shardblade attacks all while concealing awakened shardblade daggers.  You could use them to run up walls hold on to the ceiling... break your falls... 

With awakened rope you could un wrap the last few inches of ropes and create fingers and hands for the ropes too. 

 

For a whacky combining of powers... 

Awakened ropes with roseite grown up them and able to be shaped into whatever you need.  I don't know how well this would work but if a golem was able to form joints enough to move around I don't see why there couldn't be some roseite / awakened version of an Iron Spider suit with the instant kill command... roseite spikes and points growing off the ends of the ropes and the awakened ropes acting on their own to stab/ punch any enemies. 

Get yourself bendalloy compounding and you have unlimited regrowing roseite armor / weapons / prosthetics.  Not to mention a time bubble of awesomeness that lets you fine tune the commands and a god adjacent character whispering into your mind what they want you to know.  I imagine that any of the Aethers would be beyond happy to give a bud to a bendalloy compounder. At least I picture them as being thirsty and greedy. My head cannon is that they want the water at least as badly as the user wants to use the power. (In fact my head cannon has Silajana coaxing Twinsoul to use his powers the way Nightblood wants to be drawn.)  

Anyways very likely I am far off topic now. 

I would imagine that other systems could do more as well and potentially do it better but this is the limit of my readings so far and the systems I went to as I googled: 17th shard invested prosthetics.  

[OokIa the Believer]

What if you just got stormlight?

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

47 minutes ago, ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ said:

What if you just got stormlight?

Yeah healing kind of kills the fun here.  My mind goes beyond that though.  Thinking prosthetics I start thinking 6 million dollar man. Not just a matter of having some invested item to replace an arm or a hand or whatever but something created via the magic systems to act and perform better than a hand or an arm.  Again the ropes Vasher awakens to lift him up onto ledges or lower him down. They did it effortlessly.  Awakened limbs are likely better than non augmented limbs.  Heck they are likely better than limbs on stormlight. Healing is busted in the cosmere and it is hard to argue with that.  But for those who don't have access to healing they could be augmenting and creating prosthetics that go far beyond what a normal fleshy limb could do even with all of the cosmere arts.  

Flash back to (Alcatraz spoilers)

Spoiler

The Scrivener's Bones and their augmented bodies.  

All really neat visuals and really fun ways to use the magic that likely won't need to be explored because cosmere healing overshadows all.  

With limitless power on Roshar and 2 classes that literally can raise the dead (except for beloved characters who Brandon wants to die for dramatic effect). I really don't know how anyone would need prosthetics.  It would be a complete shame if somehow the surge of regrowth usage were to become monetized... 

Edited September 28 by Tamriel Wolfsbaine

[alder24]

10 hours ago, ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ said:

What if you just got stormlight?

You can't heal an old wound, or a wound that you perceive as a part of you. Rysn couldn't heal her legs, Kal couldn't heal his scars. Even a Divine Breath can't heal such wounds. If you lost your hand and through the years you started to perceive yourself as a person without a hand, a prosthetic hand is your only option if you can't do mental gymnastics or you don’t want a Bondsmith or Elantrian to mess with your spirit.

Spoiler

Questioner

Given Sanderson's Laws about limitations...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

What would you say are any spiritual, cognitive, and or physical limitations to a Returned's healing ability?

Brandon Sanderson

That they can do it once.

Questioner

That they can do it once, and that's it?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, right? The Returned get one heal and then they die. That's a pretty big limitation. Like you have to choose really well. However, what they can heal is bounded by cosmere limitations on healing, but it is a supercharged version.

Questioner

Okay. Could you define more cosmere limitations on healing?

Brandon Sanderson

Cosmere limitations on healing can be affected by your own perception.

Questioner

Okay. Cognitive stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

Cognitive stuff. And so there's a part of that, and... But that's really-- cognitive interferes. And if your spirit is gone? Right? Cosmere healing, you know, if your spirit is passed on you just get a dead body even though you've healed it.

Questioner

So potentially Vasher, having a much greater cosmere knowledge than others could potentially have a much greater usage of that healing than regular--

Brandon Sanderson

Well the healing-- What I mean by that is yourself. You impose limits. So the person being healed can impose some limits on the healing working. It doesn't happen as often as I'm making it sound. But, you know-- why Kaladin's scars have not healed, right? So Kaladin being hit by a Returned would still not heal his scars. He's got a major hangup about those scars.

Footnote: The questioner seems to have been asking about cosmere healing in general for Returned, but Brandon focused on their ability to give up their Divine Breath to heal somebody else.
Arcanum Unbounded release party (Nov. 22, 2016)

 

On 26.09.2023 at 10:48 PM, Invocation said:

We've seen prosthetics and assistance devices created already in the cosmere, but what Investiture system do y'all think would be best suited for creating them? I'm torn between Awakening (for obvious reasons) and AonDor (for even more obvious reasons), but I think Allomancy could potentially have a shot if the prosthesis was metal.
Edit: Allomancy was mostly a good idea for limbs, something I thought I'd mentioned and apparently didn't! I stand by AonDor being best for most forms of prosthesis though.

Awakened prosthetic limbs would work pretty well, just connect ends of your existing muscles, or nerves, to straps and make sure to have a proper command and visualizations, and by trying to move your thumb, the Awakened limb would pick up the movement of muscles, or signals from nerves, and move accordingly. Vasher did complicated Awakening of rope, which responded differently based on his finger tappings. You can also make an Awakened limb like Fort's tablet from Tress, some kind of Awakened predictive Connection thing, working only for you and predicting your future needs and moving accordingly. Warbreaker ch 49:

Quote

She never noticed Vasher hanging just outside. He wasn’t surprised—he was currently a Drab, his excess Breath stored in his shirt.
She replaced the cup, and he pulled himself up as she walked back. Of course, the mechanics of how he moved about with the ropes were far more complicated than they seemed. His Command incorporated making the rope respond to taps of his finger along its length. Awakening was different from creating a Lifeless—Lifeless had brains and could interpret Commands and requests. The rope had none of that; it could only act on its original instructions.
With a few taps, he lowered himself again [...]
He had the rope lower him to the ground. He ordered it to let go up above, then—once it had twisted down around his arm— he recovered his Breath and climbed the external steps to the room.

Allomancy isn't really helpful unless you learn how to push/pull from a different place than the center of your body. Even then it would be really hard to make a working prosthetic base only on linear pushes or pulls. AonDor can obviously replicate everything, that's too easy, Awakening is more fun.