CtrlAltDepressed Posted June 20, 2024 Posted June 20, 2024 (edited) Hi All, Fair warning: full cosmere spoilers ahead. So we have seen several types of awakened constructs. What I mean by that specifically for this post are Lifeless, and the metal men we see in Tress. I would like to propose an alternative approach. If you took all of the organs of a dead person - heart, lungs, brain, everything. Could you awaken them individually to perform their biological function (ie: pump blood) and create a cosmere Frankenstein? More specifically: you make some form of artificial body. Can be made out of whatever. Then you awaken the organs individually to perform their function, and surgically add them to the artificial body where they should be. Once you got to the brain you could command it to 'think as if a person" or something similar. Do you all think you could make a Frankenstein this way? I dont see why not. I see this as distinct from a Lifeless, because thats more of an awakening controlling the body rather than a body made from awakening. I imagine the metal men are very similar to this, but entirely of metal. They would have gears and such inside them with an awakened metalmind for thought processing or even basic commands and no higher level thinking (like Lifeless). In addition, this could be used for organ transplants. When someone dies, awaken their dead heart to function like a normal heart and implant it, without having to worry about time or compatability. Thoughts? edit: partial credit to @listerfeend for this idea. I know that lifeless are far more efficient and useful, the point of this thought experiment is to think about a way to create an artificial human. Not a lifeless that follows a command and cant really think very much (still unclear). Edited June 20, 2024 by CtrlAltDepressed 3
listerfeend Posted June 20, 2024 Posted June 20, 2024 Wouldn't it be easier to try to find a command that would awaken an entire corpse to be a thinking thing? Awakening anything is exponentially harder when it isn't at least in the shape of a living organism. (EG, cut the piece of cloth into the shape of a person). So, this process is going to use a LOT of Breaths, I think, unless we are counting organs as "living organisms" but I don't know how those definitions would work. Second, we have the issue of blood, and we'd probably end up using Ichor alcohol. So, at that point, wouldn't it be "easier" to just awaken a corpse like a lifeless, but with some kind of command like "Be as an entire person" or something like that?
Quantus he/him Posted June 20, 2024 Posted June 20, 2024 1 hour ago, listerfeend said: Wouldn't it be easier to try to find a command that would awaken an entire corpse to be a thinking thing? Awakening anything is exponentially harder when it isn't at least in the shape of a living organism. (EG, cut the piece of cloth into the shape of a person). So, this process is going to use a LOT of Breaths, I think, unless we are counting organs as "living organisms" but I don't know how those definitions would work. Second, we have the issue of blood, and we'd probably end up using Ichor alcohol. So, at that point, wouldn't it be "easier" to just awaken a corpse like a lifeless, but with some kind of command like "Be as an entire person" or something like that? Agreed, it would certainly be VERY expensive compared to a Lifeless. It was a major development to make Lifeless work with less than 50 breaths (I theorize they found a Spiritual Command rather than a Physical "meat-animation" method), and the individual pieces resemble a full human a lot less (which typically makes an awakening more expensive). There's also the issue of Breath-Use. WOB says the reason you didnt see infinitely moving machines is that normal/traditional Awakenings will use up breaths over time if left active for too long (though there is no loss if recovered soon enough). Quote DavidB Also, it seems to me like it would be more internally consistent if Awakened objects consumed Breath, to make all of these Breath-consuming powers in the last few chapters fit in better. So for example, if Vasher Awakened a shirt and left it Awakened and doing stuff for a day, then he might be down one-seventh of a breath when he took it back at the end of the day. (Of course, that mechanic requires it to be possible to transfer or Awaken with portions of a Breath, and if you could do that, then using the "putting the Breaths you don't want to transfer into a cloth until after the transfer" thing, you could feed the Returned by taking a tiny fraction of all the Halladren's breaths, instead of taking some people's entire Breaths and turning them into Drabs.) Brandon Sanderson Hum. I like that suggestion, actually. I think I'll use it. Though, what I'll do is say that if you leave the breath in for too long, one of them vanishes. If you can get them back quickly enough, however, there is no loss. That gives a bit of a better explanation of why there aren't a lot of awakened objects doing things all over the place. True, using the breath to make them would be initially expensive--but if you got a magic object that never winds down, then that might be worth the expense. TWG Posts (May 3, 2007) 1
alder24 Posted June 21, 2024 Posted June 21, 2024 18 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: If you took all of the organs of a dead person - heart, lungs, brain, everything. Could you awaken them individually to perform their biological function (ie: pump blood) and create a cosmere Frankenstein? I see no reason why not - you can Awaken just bones, so you can Awaken just heart or lungs. It will cost more Breaths and require some maintenance, but that should work. 18 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: More specifically: you make some form of artificial body. Can be made out of whatever. Then you awaken the organs individually to perform their function, and surgically add them to the artificial body where they should be. Once you got to the brain you could command it to 'think as if a person" or something similar. Do you all think you could make a Frankenstein this way? I dont see why not. That's what Kalad's Phantoms were. It did require additional Breaths and Awakening to provide movement for the stone body that Lifeless bones were encased in, but that's more or less the same thing you're asking for, except the Phantoms were made by Awakening all bones as one Lifeless. You don't need organs - Lifeless is dead anyway - you just need a Lifeless at the core of the Construct. But you can Awaken a Lifeless and put it in an artificial body - Kalad's Phantoms. Spoiler DylanHuebner I was wondering how the animation of the lifeless statues worked, in regard to the use of Susebron's Breath. If they were lifeless, then vasher wouldn't have been able to take his Breath back out of them, nor would susebron have needed such a great deal of breath to revive them—he just would have needed a password. But if they were simply Awakened, no password would have been necessary to animate the statues, just Breath and Command. It seems like the statues could be neither lifeless nor awakened. Are they unique, because of the use of bone, or am I missing something? The only other explanation I could think of was that they were lifeless, but Susebron's breath wasn't used to activate the statues, he simply had it passed down from vasher, in addition to the statues. If that's the case(and then I've simply been confusing myself with unnecessary, convoluted logic), why was it necessary to keep the breath safe for all these years? Brandon Sanderson Wow, there are a lot of questions in there. If you follow the drafts, I think you can see the evolution of what became of the Lifeless army. Originally I had planned for the statues to simply have been placed there so that you could Awaken them—just in my original concepts, before I started the writing—and then that became the army. I eventually decided that didn't work for various reasons. Number one, as I developed the magic system, Awakening stone doesn't work very well. You've got to have limberness, you've got to have motion to something for it to actually be stronger. So a soldier made out of cloth would be more useful to you than a soldier made out of stone, if you were just Awakening something. At that point, as I was developing this, I went back to the drawing board and said okay, I need to leave him a whole group of really cool Lifeless as the army. But that had problems in that the ichor would not have stayed good long enough. Plus they already had a pretty big Lifeless army, so what was special about this one? Remember, I'm revising concepts like this as the book is going along. You can see where in the story I could see what needed to be there. So I went back to the drawing board again. I think the original draft of WARBREAKER you can download off my website has them just as statues, though at the time when I was writing that I already knew it would need to change. I was just sticking to my outline because I needed to have the whole thing complete on the page before I could work with it. A lot of times that's how I do things as a writer—I get the rough draft down, and then I begin to sculpt. I eventually developed essentially what you've just outlined in the first part, before you started worrying if you were too convoluted. I said, well, what if there's a hybrid? What happens if you Awaken bones? Can you create something? The reason that you can't draw the Breath back from a Lifeless is because the Breath clings to it. If the Lifeless were sentient enough, it could give up its own Breath, but you can't take it, just like you can't take a Breath from a person by force. You have to get them to give it up willingly. So it sticks to the Lifeless. A Lifeless is, let's say, 90% of a sentient being. The Breath doesn't manifest in them, because they aren't alive, yet they're almost there. A stone statue brought to life would be way down on the bottom rung. Is there something in between? That's the advancement I had Vasher discover—what if we build something out of bone, but then encase it in stone to make it strong, and build it in ways that the bone is held together by the force of the Breaths? That's really what you're getting at there, that you need a lot of Breath, a lot of power, to hold all that stone together. There are seams at the joints. What the Breath is doing is clinging there like magical sinew, and it's holding all of that together. Vasher left the Phantoms Invested with enough Breath to hold them together but not to move. You needed another big, substantial influx of Breath in order to actually make them have motion, to bring them enough strength to move and that sort of thing. So it's kind of a hybrid. Goodreads Fantasy Book Discussion Warbreaker Q&A (Jan. 18, 2010) 18 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: I see this as distinct from a Lifeless, because thats more of an awakening controlling the body rather than a body made from awakening. The problem with your approach is that it doesn't matter if the organs are all there working or not - the Lifeless is dead, it's not sentient enough and sentience is all that matters. This won't change with adding more organs, which you propose to separately Awaken each, which means each organ is its own Lifeless. You will end up with a body that's made out of several Lifeless, each Commanded to act as a single being, while each is not sentient enough to be alive. So you can make it like this, it's an overly complicated way of creating a Lifeless in an artificial body - just arrange a set of bones in the correct shape, Awaken it and plant it in a metal body and you have far better Construct. You probably can Awaken a body part without making it Lifeless - it's most likely a matter of Command and Intent. So that can be done, but you don't need to Awaken each organ separately, just one thing will work (like nervous system, muscles, or something). 18 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: In addition, this could be used for organ transplants. When someone dies, awaken their dead heart to function like a normal heart and implant it, without having to worry about time or compatability. That won't work that well, because the organ is dead and Awakening it won't change it - it will drain it out of color if you're making a Lifeless which will make it even worse. It can still function like a heart, but it's dead now, it will break after some time, just like every Lifeless does (and it requires ichor-alcohol for preservation, as Lifeless bodies with it last longer than without it). It's not as perfect as transplanting a living heart, which will be sustained by your body. 18 hours ago, listerfeend said: Wouldn't it be easier to try to find a command that would awaken an entire corpse to be a thinking thing? Yup, it would be. It's not about the body, it's about the mind. Lifeless is not sentient yet, they are self-aware, but not fully sentient. Apparently some unsealed medallions can make Lifeless alive again, so there are ways of making people out of Lifeless. Spoiler AndyGranny If you used a Lifeless body, would a Lifeless be able to access an untapped metalmind... Brandon Sanderson An unkeyed type of metalmind? AndyGranny Thank you, I could not think of that word. Would they be able to access an unkeyed metalmind if the intent when the Lifeless was created, if the intent was that they could... Brandon Sanderson Right, I see what you're getting at. Yes, they could. As they could access and use any tool that is appropriate for what they're Commanded to do, they could indeed access a metalmind in the same way. In fact, doing so may, depending on the metalmind, be dangerous for keeping your Lifeless a Lifeless. JordanCon 2021 (July 17, 2021) Spoiler Brandon Sanderson Lightsong Sees the Lifeless and Takes Command of Them They keep them in the dark. This is a bad idea. They don't realize it, but the Lifeless are far more aware than everyone assumes. Clod in this book is a foreshadowing of that, and there won't be much more about it in the rest of the novel. It's one of the focus points for the sequel, if I ever write it. (Which will actually have a Lifeless as a viewpoint character, if I can find a way to swing it.) Warbreaker Annotations (March 21, 2011) 18 hours ago, listerfeend said: Second, we have the issue of blood, and we'd probably end up using Ichor alcohol. So, at that point, wouldn't it be "easier" to just awaken a corpse like a lifeless, but with some kind of command like "Be as an entire person" or something like that? That's type 4 Awakening, Nightblood. Or rather depending on what you want to achieve, Commanding it to "be like a person" won't make it sentient, it will be just masquerading as a person (which is fine if that’s what you want it to do). If you want to Awaken a person, create sentience, you need to do what was done to Nightblood - which doesn't require a human body. 1
listerfeend Posted June 21, 2024 Posted June 21, 2024 (edited) 2 hours ago, alder24 said: That's type 4 Awakening, Nightblood. Or rather depending on what you want to achieve, Commanding it to "be like a person" won't make it sentient, it will be just masquerading as a person (which is fine if that’s what you want it to do). If you want to Awaken a person, create sentience, you need to do what was done to Nightblood - which doesn't require a human body. So I think I know that Nightblood's sentience is related specifically to his Command, essentially the Breaths had to find a way to make a sword understand "Evil" to be able to follow the command "Destroy Evil". I'm wondering, and I think part of the original question was about this: Is there a way to create a new race of living beings, from Awakening. Some command, and Heightening level, maybe with the same, undefined and nebulous "help" that Endowment gave to the creation of Nightblood, that would create an entirely new Sentient life? Perhaps something that could replicate some way, make more of them on its own? Quote The problem with your approach is that it doesn't matter if the organs are all there working or not - the Lifeless is dead, it's not sentient enough and sentience is all that matters. This won't change with adding more organs, which you propose to separately Awaken each, which means each organ is its own Lifeless. You will end up with a body that's made out of several Lifeless, each Commanded to act as a single being, while each is not sentient enough to be alive. So you can make it like this, it's an overly complicated way of creating a Lifeless in an artificial body - just arrange a set of bones in the correct shape, Awaken it and plant it in a metal body and you have far better Construct. I'm also now curious if you could even make an Awakened construct that could actually control other Awakened constructs? So in the case of building a body out of Awakened organs...Can you actually have the brain of that body in direct control over the rest of the body? I'm thinking of how our brains work, how there is a signal that is telling our heart to keep beating, and our lungs to keep breathing, and our muscles to contract to perform the movements. How these signals are direct signals, and not something like a spoken Command, or anything like that. I know that Awakened constructs can use tools, but can an Awakened construct subconsciously tell the Awakened muscle fibers to contract, if they are separately Awakened in this manner? Edited June 21, 2024 by listerfeend 1
alder24 Posted June 21, 2024 Posted June 21, 2024 3 hours ago, listerfeend said: So I think I know that Nightblood's sentience is related specifically to his Command, essentially the Breaths had to find a way to make a sword understand "Evil" to be able to follow the command "Destroy Evil". I'm wondering, and I think part of the original question was about this: Is there a way to create a new race of living beings, from Awakening. Some command, and Heightening level, maybe with the same, undefined and nebulous "help" that Endowment gave to the creation of Nightblood, that would create an entirely new Sentient life? Perhaps something that could replicate some way, make more of them on its own? Possibly, Vivenne's blade is a step towards it. I personally believe that "destroy evil" was a sub-Command that only specify the purpose of Nightblood, while the Awakening to sentience was done by a similar method as Awakening Lifeless - it's a two stage process, you first Awaken a body to be a Lifeless with a Command "Awaken to my Breath, serve my needs, live at my Command and at my word," then you give it Commands to carry a box, or fight etc. I think a similar thing should apply to type 4 entities because "destroy evil" doesn't tell it to be sentient, it only tells Nightblood what to do with that sentience. 3 hours ago, listerfeend said: I'm also now curious if you could even make an Awakened construct that could actually control other Awakened constructs? I don't think so, but you can certainly make them cooperate - Lifeless city guards are working together. 3 hours ago, listerfeend said: So in the case of building a body out of Awakened organs...Can you actually have the brain of that body in direct control over the rest of the body? I'm thinking of how our brains work, how there is a signal that is telling our heart to keep beating, and our lungs to keep breathing, and our muscles to contract to perform the movements. I think it can work like our body, each organ doing its own thing while also responding to signals sent out by the Awakened brain, which makes decisions based on senses etc. I wouldn't say the brain is in control, more like it would be coordinating the rest of Awakened organs. 3 hours ago, listerfeend said: How these signals are direct signals, and not something like a spoken Command, or anything like that. You don't need spoken Commands, Vasher can Awaken a rope that responds to the taps of his fingers. Lifeless are already responding to their senses and their surroundings. 3 hours ago, listerfeend said: I know that Awakened constructs can use tools, but can an Awakened construct subconsciously tell the Awakened muscle fibers to contract, if they are separately Awakened in this manner? Yes, just like our brain sends signals via the nervous system, Awakened organs can do the same in a similar way. An Awakened brain can send a physical signal, which will mean a specific thing and a heart will receive it, responding with a pre-programmed way - like by increasing the heartbeat rate. All of this is kind of pointless, because Lifeless doesn't need any organ, not even a brain. It just adds unnecessary complexity for no reason at all, when all you should do is Awaken a body, bones. or a brain and put it in a mech-suit.
CtrlAltDepressed Posted June 22, 2024 Author Posted June 22, 2024 Ok I agree with all that has been said, but im looking for something different. My thinking with awakening the organs individually was to prevent the Lifeless and Nightblood condition. Only responds to commands, has very little in terms of actual sentience. Nightblood is fully sentient but has issues understanding more complex topics, has a terrible sense of time and scale, needs to consume investiture constantly.... I know this is extremely inefficient but I think more specifically im asking if, with insane amounts of breath, you could create a type 5 entity (i know this is possible, more about the shape that takes). A creature who is as sentient (or more) than a human and functions biologically through awakening, instead of the awakening wrapped around a body that is not functional. I have a suspicion that part of the reason Nightblood consumes and corrupts investiture is to strip the Identity from what he eats since he has no Identity of his own. I dont know why I think you could avoid that by making the body function biologically, but that was the thought. By using as close to a working human as possible, you could make something that doesnt have those drawbacks. This has also raised a side question. With enough breath, could someone break Nightbloods command? Another side question: can a fused take over a Singer Lifeless? I imagine they would be invested enough to overcome 1 breath, but im not sure if thats the only consideration. Maybe if the Singer Lifeless no longer viewed itself as Singer the fused would be unable to. Hmmm.
alder24 Posted June 23, 2024 Posted June 23, 2024 21 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: I know this is extremely inefficient but I think more specifically im asking if, with insane amounts of breath, you could create a type 5 entity (i know this is possible, more about the shape that takes). A creature who is as sentient (or more) than a human and functions biologically through awakening, instead of the awakening wrapped around a body that is not functional. How do you know it's possible? What you want is type 1 entity - Returned - in which the Divine Breaths serves the function of sustaining the deceased body. Because you're Awakening a dead body, you need a constant supply of power to keep it alive. I don't see a way of doing it as you described it - separately Awakening multiple organs won’t make a single sentient entity (and won’t make those organs alive). Spoiler Haverworthy Just had a question, when a Returned consumes a Breath, is it a property of their body that does so or the Divine Breath itself? It's been contentious in the community. If it's specifically just their body and a hemalurgist were to spike a Divine Breath as indicated was possible here*, would the hemalurgist not need to consume a weekly breath? *https://wob.coppermind.net/events/364/#e11389 Brandon Sanderson That's a very interesting question. The thing that requires the Returned to continue gaining investiture is their nature as cognitive shadows--they are dead, and in this case, need a power source to continue persisting in the physical realm. The Divine Breath is part of this. Imagine the Divine Breath as the thing that Infuses their soul, making it persist initially, and then and sticks it to the body. So if you stole it, but you yourself were not in need of being kept alive, I would say that you wouldn't need to be fed a new breath each week to maintain the Divine Breath. General Reddit 2020 (Oct. 4, 2020) 21 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: I have a suspicion that part of the reason Nightblood consumes and corrupts investiture is to strip the Identity from what he eats since he has no Identity of his own. He has his own Identity, that's why it's impossible to recover the Breaths he was Awakened with, as they are stick to his new Identity (just like with Lifeless). Spoiler Shadow Guardian Nightblood, being a sentient object, could he give away his Breath? Brandon Sanderson Ah, Nightblood...could not give away his Breath. It's a good question. It's because that Breath is making him...like something weird has happened to him where the metal is Invested almost to a Hemalurgic or Feruchemical way, right? Like it's no longer just an object with a bunch of Breath. It's become permeating the whole thing. So it's more like the soul of a person, the part of the Breath they can't give away. Like when you give away your Breath, you retain some of your Investiture, you can't give that part away. It's the same thing. Shadow Guardian Cuz I imagine it would be kind of like a Lifeless where that Breath is probably stuck so close that it would not be removable by an Awakener at least.? Brandon Sanderson Yeah, Yep. It's stuck in there, yep. I mean there are ways to get the Investiture out, but it's not the simple "We give it away" thing. Yeah, he can't just give it away. Shadow Guardian <inaudible> corrupted or? Brandon Sanderson Yes, that is part of it, that is part of what that means. Arcanum Unbounded release party (Nov. 22, 2016) Spoiler Djarskublar I'd like confirmation/denial of a theory of mine. Is the reason people can recall breaths from objects but not Lifeless or sentient awakened objects because they no longer have the same Identity as the awakener? Brandon Sanderson You are on the right track. Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 20, 2016) 22 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: I dont know why I think you could avoid that by making the body function biologically, but that was the thought. Vivenne's sword doesn't corrupt investiture. That's a way to avoid what Nightblood does. Nightblood's corruption is partially from the fact that it's about investiture trying to become sentient but being held back by something. This is a specific thing, shared by multiple other entities (like Midnight Essence or the Father Machine). Spoiler Questioner My question is around connections between corrupted Investiture on different planets. We have the shroud; we have Midnight Essence; we have the nightmares; and we have Nightblood. All of them have, like, oozy black smoke. Are they all connected somehow with the corrupted Investiture of Odium, Ambition...? Brandon Sanderson Yes and no. The question is: all of these different manifestations (we've got the Midnight Essence, we've got the shroud, we've got Nightblood), are they connected? Are they all related in some way to Odium or Ambition? The answer is no to the second. When I was building the Cosmere, one of the things that I knew is that I wanted to explore magic systems really in depth. And in order to do that, I built fundamental principles by how magic, Investiture, would manifest. And I wanted it to be consistent. For instance, I wanted the rules... if you're making illusions in one world, I wanted those illusions to behave a lot the same way that they would on other worlds. So I built these fundamental principles that I build up from. And one of those fundamental principles is about Investiture that is trying to become alive and is being held back by something. And that is where you get Midnight Essence sort of things. It's, like, one step from being able to become self-aware, but it's being held back. And there's even, kind of, some frustration in there, as much as something not truly self-aware can have. So if you watch for that theme, you'll see it more and more. C2E2 2024 (April 26, 2024) 22 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: This has also raised a side question. With enough breath, could someone break Nightbloods command? Theoretically yes, practically no. Nightblood is more invested than Unmades, he's the most invested object in Cosmere. Shards may be able to do it and maybe a Bondsmitch unchained (if that would be considered command breaking). Spoiler Storming Radiant Can Susebron break Nightblood's commands? Brandon Sanderson Nope. Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) Susebron just isn't strong enough. ICon 2019 (Oct. 17, 2019) Spoiler [...] Brandon Sanderson Do keep in mind, people like to ask, you've probably seen people ask, "Could I rewrite myself to be a Knight Radiant?" Right? WELL... There are certain things that you just-- you can't fake without enough energy that it becomes impractical. Usually what I use as an example to that is: Yes, we can turn hydrogen into gold, if we wanted to. Right? We can do that! It might take more energy than the earth creates in an entire year, but we can do that. I get a lot of questions with this that I'm like "is it possible?" and I'm like "Guys, is it possible?" ...You should probably be like, "Is it possible, with reasonable amounts of energy provided by one Invested person". Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing (Dec. 6, 2016) Spoiler Questioner You've previously said that Nightblood is the most powerful non-Shardic being in the Cosmere. Is he more powerful than the Unmade or Stormfather in terms of raw Investiture? Brandon Sanderson Raw Investiture? Here's the thing, when you say powerful, it can mean lots of different things. More raw Investiture than the Stormfather... probably not. Than the Unmade, probably. I would have to look, I don't have the numbers on this. But the Stormfather is very restricted in what he can do. Orem Signing (March 16, 2019) Spoiler Scott Beckman (paraphrased) Which is scarier... Which is more dangerous: a sword that wants to destroy evil, or a Bondsmith with no bounds? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) A Bondsmith with no bounds. Scott Beckman (paraphrased) Can an unbound Bondsmith take that sword's... ability for himself? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) Not exactly, but something similar. Probably not what you're thinking, but he could essentially take what that sword is, yes. Miscellaneous 2022 (Sept. 17, 2022) 22 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: Another side question: can a fused take over a Singer Lifeless? I imagine they would be invested enough to overcome 1 breath, but im not sure if thats the only consideration. Maybe if the Singer Lifeless no longer viewed itself as Singer the fused would be unable to. Hmmm. That's an interesting question. I think yes because Fused are dead anyway and they are fully sustained by Odium's power directly, so the state of the host's body shouldn't matter, as long as it's somewhat alive. There might be some complications, they would probably function as a drab-Fused - now that I mentioned this there is a WoB which states a Lifeless can become a Returned and they would be a drab-Returned. It should work the same with Fused as they're both Cognitive Shadows. Spoiler ReaderAt2046 What would happen if, right after someone died, they were made into a Lifeless, and then Endowment tried to Return that person? Brandon Sanderson Oooh...now that's a spicy one. Endowment's gift of a superpowered Breath would come down, strike the Lifeless, and all kinds of craziness would occur. You'd end up with a drab god, which would be hilarious. 17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012)
CtrlAltDepressed Posted July 15, 2024 Author Posted July 15, 2024 On 6/23/2024 at 7:14 AM, alder24 said: How do you know it's possible? I mean theoretically there could be any number of Types of awakened things. Heres what we have currently: BioChromatic Entities: Type 1-- Returned (Human soul (or copy of soul) stapled back to body with investiture) Type 2-- Lifeless (Human/Animal body reanimated with investiture, but no soul) Type 3-- Awakened organics (ordinary awakening) Type 4--Awakened inorganics (nightblood) I imagined a Type 5 entity would be a cross between a returned and Nightblood. An artificially created Returned. That is, a Lifeless with full sentience, autonomy, and freedom. Returned were created directly by Endowment so that doesn't really count for this in my book. There should absolutely be a way to create an artificial person using awakening. Nightbloods main problem purely in terms of his mind is that he is a sword. His perception will always be limited by being a sword. It may be related but he also is terrible at telling time. My whole thought experiment with awakening the organs individually to create a Cosmere Frankenstein was trying to figure out a way that this could be done (hypothetical Type 5). It should be possible to perform a Nightblood level of awakening on organic material such as cloth or wood (Type 6). This would be distinct from regular awakening because it would have its own sentient mind like Nightblood and would be distinct from Type 4 because it uses organic material. Not to derail the topic but there should theoretically be a lot of other types as well. Shouldn't it be possible to awaken just breaths with no object? Basically an artificial Nalthian spren (Type 7). This is crackpot theory time but I imagine awakening something that is dead but used to be magical would be something different. For instance, an aviar dies, and you awaken it like a lifeless or Nightblood. Would we expect any spiritual mumbo jumbo to cause some interesting effects here?
alder24 Posted July 15, 2024 Posted July 15, 2024 2 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: I mean theoretically there could be any number of Types of awakened things. We don't know this. 2 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: Heres what we have currently: BioChromatic Entities: Type 1-- Returned (Human soul (or copy of soul) stapled back to body with investiture) Type 2-- Lifeless (Human/Animal body reanimated with investiture, but no soul) Type 3-- Awakened organics (ordinary awakening) Type 4--Awakened inorganics (nightblood) Type 0 - investiture that gained sentience on their own. Type 3 and 4 are dead objects, it doesn't matter if organic or inorganic. The fact that they are organic - thus they were once alive - only makes it easier to Awaken. But you can Awaken stone or metal without sentience as type 3 entities. 4 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: I imagined a Type 5 entity would be a cross between a returned and Nightblood. An artificially created Returned. That is, a Lifeless with full sentience, autonomy, and freedom. Returned were created directly by Endowment so that doesn't really count for this in my book. There should absolutely be a way to create an artificial person using awakening. Nightbloods main problem purely in terms of his mind is that he is a sword. His perception will always be limited by being a sword. It may be related but he also is terrible at telling time. It doesn't matter who created them, what matters is how they function. Returned are a full sentience attached to a living host. What you want to have is exactly the same thing. There is no need to put it in a new classification, just broadening the already existing one - Type 1 consists of Returned and whatever you call your creation. 6 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: My whole thought experiment with awakening the organs individually to create a Cosmere Frankenstein was trying to figure out a way that this could be done (hypothetical Type 5). I see no reason to Awaken individual organs - once sentience is Awaken they will have to have a functioning body, just like most Cognitive Shadows do. Their body is alive. 7 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: It should be possible to perform a Nightblood level of awakening on organic material such as cloth or wood (Type 6). This would be distinct from regular awakening because it would have its own sentient mind like Nightblood and would be distinct from Type 4 because it uses organic material. Again, this is not something new. It's the same as Type 4. It's just a different material used. Yes, it should be possible to Awaken cloth or wood to sentience, but they would still be Type 4. It's not metal that makes Nightblood this type of entity, it's the fact that he's sentient in a non-living host. Wood or cloth is dead, not alive. Warbreaker ch 46: Quote “What is a Type Four BioChromatic entity?” Vivenna asked, glancing back at Vasher. He fell silent. “Type One is a human body with sentience,” Vivenna said. “Type Two is a human body without sentience. Type three is an Awakened object like a rope—an object with no sentience. Is there a way to create an Awakened object with sentience? Like a Returned, but inside of something other than a human body?” 13 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: Not to derail the topic but there should theoretically be a lot of other types as well. Shouldn't it be possible to awaken just breaths with no object? Basically an artificial Nalthian spren (Type 7). Theoretically yes. It should be considered as Type 0 then. 14 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: This is crackpot theory time but I imagine awakening something that is dead but used to be magical would be something different. For instance, an aviar dies, and you awaken it like a lifeless or Nightblood. Would we expect any spiritual mumbo jumbo to cause some interesting effects here? No, because its spirit web is gone. Lifeless has its soul replaced by an external Breath, unconnected to what that person used to be. An Avair or a Mistborn Awakened without any sentience would be just a normal Lifeless - Type 2 entity. Giving them their sentience back won't make them like Nightblood, they would be like Returned - Cognitive Shadows. But you have to catch their spirit to do that. Spoiler little wilson Can a Mistborn turned into a Lifeless still use Allomancy? Brandon Sanderson *long-ish pause* Uh, no. little wilson So I would assume that is the same for a Feruchemist? Brandon Sanderson Yeah if you-- taking some-- Yeah. No they can't. Holiday signing (Dec. 12, 2015) Spoiler Oudeis16 If Bob the Awakener Awakened fifty straw men to dance around, then died, then Returned as FormerBob the Appropriately Named, would FormerBob be able to reclaim the Breath from the straw men in the normal fashion (once he learned the "Your Breath to Mine" Command)? Brandon Sanderson Yes. He has enough of his original Identity, and the spiritual connection would remain. sonofstannis What if he instead were reincarnated as a lifeless? Is there a way he could reclaim it then? Brandon Sanderson Lifeless have someone else's investiture replacing their own. (As opposed to Returned, who are augmented.) Depends on how much of them is left, and if they can achieve sapience again, but I'd say this is unlikely. WeiryWriter What if the Lifeless is Awakened with their own Breath? (i.e. they gave it away right before they died and the person they gave it to then used it in the Awakening) Brandon Sanderson This has happened already in the world, and it does help. -Nayrb Did this happen "on screen"? Brandon Sanderson RAFO. /r/books AMA 2015 (July 30, 2015) 2
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