Atium and agelessness

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

So we know F Atium stores age. 

How would that work for someone who has achieved agelessness through either being Returned or the 5th Hieghtening?  

Could someone who is ageless store youth into an identity blanked atium metalmind and then sell literal youth to people who will tap it while under supervision?  

[MerlinArcane]

I doubt it. Tapping is temporary; once you’re stopped tapping, you’re back to whatever age you were before. And considering how you need to age, and immortality tends to be either through cognitive shadow (you don’t age cause you’re not exactly alive) or dawnshard (you have the power of creation altering your genes) it can’t really store what you don’t do. Can a blind man store sight? Probably not. So an ageless being can’t either

[Duxredux he/him]

3 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

So we know F Atium stores age. 

How would that work for someone who has achieved agelessness through either being Returned or the 5th Hieghtening?  

Could someone who is ageless store youth into an identity blanked atium metalmind and then sell literal youth to people who will tap it while under supervision?  

Hm. Immortality is a bit tricky. I'm going to expand the question to everyone who has functional immortality and not just from holding Breath. In the end though, yes, they probably could sell youth (like anyone who could blank Identity and store into an Atiummind, both of which are nearly impossible or face stringent resource limitations), but the buyers are going to suffer from the same drawbacks as Marsh and TLR. This may be a method to prolong a few friends, but it likely is not sustainable. It's borrowed power, it hasn't changed the nature of their soul.

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Iceblade44

So White Sand [then Elantris] is earlier... Then how the heck old is Khriss then? Will we ever get an answer as to why every worldhopper is flippin' immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

There is some time-dilation going on. I'll explain it eventually; we're almost to the point where I can start talking about that. Suffice it to say that there's a mix of both actual slowing of the aging process and relative time going on, depending on the individual. Very few are actually immortal.

Faera

Implying that some are actually immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on which definition of immortal you mean.

Doesn't age, but can be killed by conventional means. (You've seen some of these in the cosmere, but I'll leave you to discuss who.)

Heals from wounds, but still ages. (Knights Radiant with Stormlight are like this.)

Reborn when killed. (The Heralds.)

Doesn't age and can heal, but dependent upon magic to stay this way, and so have distinct weakness to be exploited. (The Lord Ruler, among others.)

Hive beings who are constantly losing individual members, but maintaining a persistent personality spread across all of them, immortal in that as long as too much of the hive isn't wiped out, the personality can persist. (The Sleepless.)

Bits of sapient magic, eternal and endless, though the personality can be "destroyed" in specific ways. (Seons. Spren. Nightblood. Cognitive Shadows, like a certain character from Scadrial.)

Shards (Really just a supercharged version of the previous category.)

And then, of course, there's Hoid. I'm not going to say which category, if any, he's in.

Some of these blend together--the Heralds, for example, are technically a variety of Cognitive Shadow. I'm not saying each of these categories above are distinct, intended to be the end-all definitions. They're off the cuff groupings I made to explain a point: immortality is a theme of the cosmere works--which, at their core, are experiments on what happens when men are given the power of deity.

Shagomir

Heals from wounds, but still ages.

Would Bloodmaker Ferrings exist in this category as well? If not, what about someone Compounding Gold?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you are correct.

Shagomir

As a Bloodmaker ages, what keeps them from healing the damage and carrying on as a very old, but very healthy person? Do they come to a point where they can't store enough health to stave off the aches, pains, diseases, and other things that come with old age?

This makes sense for traditional Feruchemy as it is end-neutral, so storing health becomes a zero sum game - eventually, you're going to get sick and you're not going to be able to overcome it with your natural healing ability no matter how much you manipulate it with a goldmind.

...Unless you've got a supply of Identity-less goldminds lying around. Would a Bloodmaker with a sufficient source of Identity-less goldminds (or the ability to compound, thus bypassing the end-neutral part of Feruchemy) eventually just die from being too old?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, yes. They can heal their body to match their spiritual ideal, but some things (like some genetic diseases, and age-related illnesses) are seen as part of the ideal. Depends on several factors.

Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 29, 2016)

Returned are odd as the young can age, older ones can revert back to their prime (Lightsong and the other male Returned playing Tarachin all looked rather similar in age) and some can look old like Allmother. Heralds have looked pretty much the same for the last 4500 years and in the case of Ash, they don't even sleep.

Secret Project 3 and 4 spoilers:

Spoiler

Yumi is functionally immortal like a Returned with a huge stockpile of Breath, though her perception make cause to feel like she's aging.

 

Nomad in contrast looks younger than when he became immortal, so his brand of immortality might override self-perception.

The Investiture to fill an Atiummind has to come from somewhere. I could see this potentially accelerating the Investiture consumption needs of a Returned or other Cognitive Shadows that must consume Invesititure to persist. Another consideration is if the style of Immortality merely pauses the aging process or will pull the individual's age to an idealized prime. I could see a case where storing age still changes the apparent age while the individual either is now immortal at the new older state, or that they will naturally over time revert to their idealized age at an undetermined rate.

There's other possibilities, I'm sure, but those are my preliminary thoughts on the subject.

[alder24]

8 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

So we know F Atium stores age. 

How would that work for someone who has achieved agelessness through either being Returned or the 5th Hieghtening?  

Could someone who is ageless store youth into an identity blanked atium metalmind and then sell literal youth to people who will tap it while under supervision?  

I think that would work. You don't store age, you store youthfulness. Not age itself. So yes, you would be able to store your "youthfulness" as a Returned or 5th Heightening Awakener. You would get older when storing, and younger when tapping. For Returned this wouldn't be that useful, because they are able to change their age and appearance based on their perception of themselves. Warbreaker epilogue:

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“Those are my secrets,” he said, not looking at her. “Though you should have figured out that Returned can change their forms.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“You’ve got Returned blood in you,” he said. “The royal line. Where do you think that ability to change your hair color comes from?”
“Does that mean I can change more than just my hair?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Takes time to learn. Go stroll around the Hallandren Court of Gods sometime, though. You’ll find that the gods look exactly as they think they should. The old ones look old, the heroic ones become strong, the ones who think a beautiful goddess should be well endowed become unnaturally voluptuous. It’s all about how they perceive themselves.”

But as you said they can monetize it. Kind of. If you can make a Malwish medallion that gives you F-Atium powers - this can be just F-electrum with Atiummind, just like Atium Misting were Electrum Misting, Atium Ferrings would be Electrum Ferrings. But getting Atium is the problem. This would be nowhere near what Rashek was able to do with Atium compounding, they would be able to remain younger as long as they tap, and because they don't have a compounding amount of youth stored in metalminds, they would run out quickly and get back to their original age. It's not that useful without compounding, they can only masquerade as young person for a short while and that's it. They can have fun at a party but they can't stop aging.

F-Atium doesn't stop or pause your aging, because your soul still ages and knows how old you are. Rashek immediately aged by 1000 years when he stopped tapping, because his soul knew he was 1000 years old. It’s just a cheat code that stretches your soul, which later snaps back to its original form, adding the time you’ve spent tapping Atiummind to your age. F-Atium isn't a good way of immortality. 

[Returned he/him]

Yes, I could do that. 

More seriously, I think that it depends on the particular details of how such immortality is achieved, and I'm not sure we know enough to speculate with much confidence. Youth is meaningless to an ageless immortal, and in the mode of a zen koan can we even say that such a concept exists for them?

Most other immortals (or "immortals") we've seen still show signs of wear as ages pass. The Heralds suffer mental problems, Rashek dealt with some kind of weariness along with diminishing returns on his atium use, we know that Hoid has some special trick that shields him, Kandra show signs of physical change (if not outright degradation). Maybe they would have some youth, in some sense, to fiddle with Feruchemically.

But Returned and people with 5th Heightening or greater? I haven't seen enough to feel like my intuition is all that reliable here, but Vasher seems pretty hale. For that matter, Elantrians might also be able to escape the ravages of time, though they might also just have a constant influx of spiritual energy de-aging them just as it heals their bodies. I would be very interested to know how similar the Nalthian agelessness is for Awakeners with enough Breath compared to the nature of the Returned .