[Discuss]Could Connectors Speak With Animals?

[Longshot97 he/him]

I was casually reading The Lost Metal when I came across an interesting description of everyone's favorite character: Allomancer Jak.

Quote

"Dang Ma," Wayne said. "That's gruesome. You sure you should be tellin' me this story?"

"Should I stop?"

"Hell no! How'd Jak get across the water?"

 "He flew," Ma said. "Using his Allomantic powers. Jak can fly, and talk to birds, and eat rocks."

In the above excerpt (emphasis mine) we see a couple of faulty descriptions of Allomancy. Flight obviously refers to Coinshots or Lurchers. Eating rocks is, technically, a very good description of what Allomancers do to fuel their abilities. 

The talking to birds, though...that's a new one. As best we know, no Allomantic ability is capable of this. Obviously, the story is conflating a few different aspects of Scadrial's magic systems under the broad term "Allomancy" and we can't expect a miner in (what was very likely) the Roughs to get all the details right.

So, where did Wayne's mother get the idea of talking to birds? Well, the obvious answer is a kandra. Obvious, so long as you have a modicum of sanity left to you. But I, free from the mortal constraints of such petty things as rationality, had a thought. What if Wayne's mother wasn't conflating Hemalurgy with Allomancy, but Feruchemy?

We're all familiar with how F-Duralumin works to a certain extent by now. Tap blank Connection in a foreign land, and you are instantly able to speak and comprehend the local language, albeit with an accent. The implication is that this is among the simplest application of Feruchemical Connection, and that more sophisticated uses likely exist.

So, I propose a fairly intuitive extrapolation. What if you somehow manipulated Connection to facilitate communication between animals?

Quote

Connector Ferrings can store Spiritual Connection in a duralumin metalmind, reducing other people’s awareness of and friendship with them during active storage, and can tap it at a later time in order to speedily form trust relationships with others.

-Ars Arcanum, The Lost Metal

Inherently, a Feruchemist tapping Connection could make animals more trusting. So, this isn't a huge step forwards.

But, yeah. This was just fun to type out. Thoughts?

Longshot97

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

Oooohhh, okay now this is a fun one.

I would expect that any change in how one is perceived by, and connected to, flora and fauna as a result of tapping/storing Connection would very seriously depend on their personal Identity. What I mean is, if one were a butcher, or sociopath who kills squirrels in their spare time, or just a really nasty mean-spirited person, tapping Connection would probably drive any animals around them into a rage or cause them to flee because of the natural aversion to such a metaphysically horrible person connecting themselves into their lives. It would be like if a known serial killer walked up to you on the street and offered you a small gift and a free lunch while soaked in the blood of a new victim; you would likely not instantly become their new best good friend or have your pants charmed off. You would probably feel very powerfully connected to them in the absolute worst possible way short of having their knife in your own stomach.

On the flipside though, pacifists, veterinarians, and animal trainers might probably enjoy the exact opposite benefits of such an augmentation of Connection. Would it amount to the level of being able to talk to them and be understood? No. Tapping Connection does not increase the size and complexity of the speech center of the brains of sapients around oneself, so I can't possibly imagine it would do so for sentients. Might it allow one to approach strange wild animals without their being startled or gesture to them and have them approach out of curiosity or natural affection/affinity? Totally yeah! (Think Snow White vibes)

I think we're going to find that tapping Connection is far more bi-directional than has been implied on screen thus far.

[Trusk'our he/him]

15 hours ago, Longshot97 said:

I was casually reading The Lost Metal when I came across an interesting description of everyone's favorite character: Allomancer Jak.

In the above excerpt (emphasis mine) we see a couple of faulty descriptions of Allomancy. Flight obviously refers to Coinshots or Lurchers. Eating rocks is, technically, a very good description of what Allomancers do to fuel their abilities. 

The talking to birds, though...that's a new one. As best we know, no Allomantic ability is capable of this. Obviously, the story is conflating a few different aspects of Scadrial's magic systems under the broad term "Allomancy" and we can't expect a miner in (what was very likely) the Roughs to get all the details right.

So, where did Wayne's mother get the idea of talking to birds? Well, the obvious answer is a kandra. Obvious, so long as you have a modicum of sanity left to you. But I, free from the mortal constraints of such petty things as rationality, had a thought. What if Wayne's mother wasn't conflating Hemalurgy with Allomancy, but Feruchemy?

We're all familiar with how F-Duralumin works to a certain extent by now. Tap blank Connection in a foreign land, and you are instantly able to speak and comprehend the local language, albeit with an accent. The implication is that this is among the simplest application of Feruchemical Connection, and that more sophisticated uses likely exist.

So, I propose a fairly intuitive extrapolation. What if you somehow manipulated Connection to facilitate communication between animals?

Inherently, a Feruchemist tapping Connection could make animals more trusting. So, this isn't a huge step forwards.

But, yeah. This was just fun to type out. Thoughts?

 

RoW spoilers;

Spoiler

Yes, I think this should theoretically be possible.

We see with Kaladin and Syl in RoW that the stronger your Connection, the stronger your ability to sense the thoughts and emotions of your Bond partner. 

We also see that Connection forged via Emotional Allomancy or F-duralumin to a Hemalurgic construct can let you perceive their thoughts somewhat, though they wouldn't exactly count for what you intend.

[alder24]

17 hours ago, Longshot97 said:

Inherently, a Feruchemist tapping Connection could make animals more trusting. So, this isn't a huge step forwards.

But, yeah. This was just fun to type out. Thoughts?

Connection can allow you to break into a Hemalurgic Construct and once under your control, you can talk to them in their mind, but you don't hear their thoughts. This approach might require a cracked soul, if not Hemalurgic spikes, but this might be possible with animals. I wouldn't say you're gonna talk with them, more like you will communicate your thoughts to them, but it would be more like Vin talking to Koloss-Human - they would be very confused and had a hard time understanding you. They still don’t have a very developed brain or speech. This would be more useful with dogs who can understand some of your words, gestures and the tone of your voice.

[Duxredux he/him]

Uh... people who talk to birds. Feruchemy or parrots and macaws... We also have that Nicki Savage story with KeSun who purportedly can turn into birds. Could "legit" be from one of Jak's stories that we never read since Wayne and his ma got all of Jak's stories from the broadsheet.

Larger Cosmere Spoilers, especially TotES

Spoiler

According to Ulaam, talking animals, known as familiars are known to occur around strong users of Investiture. Not saying Jak counts, but talking animals is... apparently not unheard of to worldhoppers?

What we see with Vasher makes it very likely to me that a Connector can very quickly befriend animals (see below), though I'm iffy if they'll talk. Besides, even a stick can communicate via CR, though it's not a particularly good conversationalist. I'd guess even if a Connector can communicate with animals, the animal may be as single-minded as those telepathic rodents (can't remember the name) that Sixth of the Dusk tries to train on Patji.

Brandon Sanderson

Notice how he grows in size here when he isn't paying attention. That's his Returned nature beginning to manifest, much like Vivenna's hair reacts to her emotions, because of the moment of great passion from him during the fight.

In this chapter, we also get the first hints that children and animals like Vasher. That's another hint about his nature—though a very, very subtle one, since I haven't talked about how animals and children all like Returned. They can sense the divine Breath within him, and it comforts them.

Warbreaker Annotations (April 9, 2011)