Can you tell a Hemalurgic spike into thinking it's in a body?

[AltonicKeys he/him]

Since a spike probably has a cognitive aspect, could a soulcaster, forger or some other invested art convince it into thinking it's in a body, like coating it in blood would? Could you stop charge decay just by convincing or tricking it, with no meat or blood or whatever? Or is that more spiritual stuff?

[alder24]

14 hours ago, AltonicKeys said:

Since a spike probably has a cognitive aspect, could a soulcaster, forger or some other invested art convince it into thinking it's in a body, like coating it in blood would? Could you stop charge decay just by convincing or tricking it, with no meat or blood or whatever? Or is that more spiritual stuff?

I don't think so. There is some cognitive aspect in a spike, everything has it, but it's probably not significantly developed. "Talking" to it won't change anything, the spike isn't sapient, sentient or fully self-aware. Soulcasting a spike into something else is pointless (it wouldn't change anything) and would require a looot of investiture, because investiture resists investiture, and spikes are invested. Forgery also wouldn't work. In both cases, Soulcasting and Forgery, you can only affect the metal and the charge it holds, and I don't think you can convince it to think it's in a body without adding anything else. It would be easier to take a piece of wood, nail a spike into it and then Soulcast/Forge it into a piece of meat - that's possible and much easier to do. But just sticking it in a piece of meat is even easier to do. 

It's probably more spiritual, I think a spike needs some spirit web to attach itself to it, which stops decay. The spirit web needs to be big enough to trick a spike into thinking that's something living, some animal, person etc. A piece of meat is ideal for it. 

Spoiler

LadyLameness

The Inquisitors keep spikes in jars to stop the Hemalurgic decay. Is that clotted blood? Like, does it just work with clotted blood?

Brandon Sanderson

It will. So what's going here is the spikes have to - this is a weird Cosmere thing - the spikes have to think they're in a body and you gotta trick them. You don't need to use blood but that's the easiest thing that they could do to make it work. You could also leave it in a piece of meat.

LadyLameness

You can put the stake in the steak!

Brandon Sanderson

You can put a stake in a steak. But there are plenty of ways to do this without doing that. But yes, it's pretty gross.

LadyLameness

Not that I think they have consciousness very much, but I imagine that they're a bit stupid if they think that clotted blood is the same as a human body.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. You're just tricking the stupid piece of metal that has a little bit of extra Investiture and has become slightly self-aware, and so it keeps its charge and doesn't... yeah. There are much better modern ways of doing this that have started to be used.

JordanCon 2021 (July 16, 2021)

 

Spoiler

the_archduke (paraphrased)

If the Lord Ruler captured Shai and gave her 100 days to craft a soulstamp that could turn an iron Hemalurgic spike into a steel Hemalurgic spike, could she do it?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, but she would need a boost of power to do it. Affecting an Invested object is hard.

the_archduke [Alternate wording from stormfather's report] (paraphrased)

Can Shai change Hemalurgic spikes?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, but it costs a lot of power and she wouldn't be able to do it alone.

Firefight Phoenix signing (Jan. 21, 2015)

 

But this isn't needed anymore. TLM Ars Arcanum states that Hemalurgic decay is a thing of the past - they've found an easier way to stop it or it's because of Harmony's nature which somehow stopped, like it stopped Hemalurgic compounding. The easiest solution might be to put a spike into an aluminum box for example. But I would guess it's something different, not some object, maybe a proper Command? Set's scientists handled spikes openly, with no box or no additional objects so I think this might be something different, Relmathic in nature (if this wasn't Harmony's doing, WoB seems to deny it, telling decay still happens in Cosmere, they just know how to avoid it). TLM Ars Arcanum:

Quote

I have, after lengthy questing, obtained an interview with Marsh, the one known as Ironeyes on Scadrial. [...]
I can confirm, as best as it can be attested, that he is fully capable of Compounding to expand his life. He speaks of things of the past, like Hemalurgic decay and the toll that holding so many spikes takes upon the body.

 

Spoiler

Argent

The Lost Metal Ars Arcanum calls Hemalurgic decay a thing of the past. The term has been used to describe the loss of power in spikes outside of bodies, as well as the small amount of power that is lost at the moment a spike is created. Which one of those things no longer happens?

Brandon Sanderson

The first one, the decay of spikes outside of a body. They have figured out how to make that no longer a thing.

Argent

So it's still a thing that happens in the cosmere, they just know how to avoid that completely?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023)

 

Spoiler

swieczq

Had a hemalurgic spike been encased in aluminium, would it still decay?

Brandon Sanderson

Nobody has tried that! (It might work.)

Kraków signing (March 21, 2017)

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

17 hours ago, AltonicKeys said:

Since a spike probably has a cognitive aspect, could a soulcaster, forger or some other invested art convince it into thinking it's in a body, like coating it in blood would? Could you stop charge decay just by convincing or tricking it, with no meat or blood or whatever? Or is that more spiritual stuff?

That's. . . a pretty interesting concept, actually. I hadn't considered doing this kind of thing before.

I will say that I think @alder24 has a point; I don't think this is what the Set is doing to prevent Hemalurgic decay (they can't easily "talk" to the spikes after all, as they don't have the necessary powers available as far as we can tell), but I would not discount this as a possible method to do so either- after all, if you can talk to and convince non-Invested inanimate objects to do stuff, I bet you could do more with an Invested spike that contains an actual portion of a person's Spiritweb.

The possibility of this all depends on whether it's the spike "choosing" to decay- following Ruin's Intent- or whether it is more of a Realmatic condition of having a portion of a Spiritweb separated from a physical body.

I will have to make a post on this on Cosmere Forum to further discuss this at some point. I think speaking to the Cognitive Aspect of spikes could lead to some interesting shenanigans .