Assembling Forgeries

[Trusk'our he/him]

What determines an item is how it's perceived, and how long.

So, what if I am in a carpenter's workshop with lots of table parts that aren't yet assembled, and I decide to help the carpenter out by making a few likely Forgeries of unassembled table legs and bodies to have been sanded and polished up with more care.

Awesome. Now we've got a likely Forgery in place that doesn't require more time or resources on the carpenter's part.

However, what happens if those table parts that are individually stamped are assembled? Will the Forgeries dissolve, as they are no longer individual parts but now a table with multiple incompatible Forgeries on a single object? Will the Forgeries force the Cognitive Aspects of the table parts to stay table parts, thus freezing its ability to change and thus maintaining the Forgeries? Or, do the Forgeries themselves change to fit the table's new history and Cognitive Aspect, effectively merging into a single Forgery?

In short, what happens to a stable Forgery if an object changes its nature without being outright destroyed?

[Treamayne]

7 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

What determines an item is how it's perceived, and how long.

So, what if I am in a carpenter's workshop with lots of table parts that aren't yet assembled, and I decide to help the carpenter out by making a few likely Forgeries of unassembled table legs and bodies to have been sanded and polished up with more care.

Awesome. Now we've got a likely Forgery in place that doesn't require more time or resources on the carpenter's part.

However, what happens if those table parts that are individually stamped are assembled? Will the Forgeries dissolve, as they are no longer individual parts but now a table with multiple incompatible Forgeries on a single object? Will the Forgeries force the Cognitive Aspects of the table parts to stay table parts, thus freezing its ability to change and thus maintaining the Forgeries? Or, do the Forgeries themselves change to fit the table's new history and Cognitive Aspect, effectively merging into a single Forgery?

In short, what happens to a stable Forgery if an object changes its nature without being outright destroyed?

From TES Day 30:

Spoiler

“These stamps will not take,” she said, holding up one of them. “That is a Forger’s term for a stamp that makes a change that is too unnatural to be stable. I doubt any of these will affect you for longer than a minute—and that’s assuming I did them correctly.”

Gaotona hesitated, then nodded.

“The human soul is different from that of an object,” Shai continued. “A person is constantly growing, changing, shifting. That makes a soulstamp used on a person wear out in a way that doesn’t happen with objects. Even in the best of cases, a soulstamp used on a person lasts only a day. My Essence Marks are an example. After about twenty-six hours, they fade away.”

“So … the emperor?”

“If I do my job well,” Shai said, “he will need to be stamped each morning, much as the Bloodsealer stamps my door. I will fashion into the seal, however, the capacity for him to remember, grow, and learn—he won’t revert back to the same state each morning, and will be able to build upon the foundation I give him. However, much as a human body wears down and needs sleep, a soulstamp on one of us must be reset. Fortunately, anyone can do the stamping—Ashravan himself should be able to—once the stamp itself is prepared correctly.”

I would guess one of two outcomes - based on the situation's unique circumstances:

1. The Object changes, and its soul changes - so the Stamps wear off like they would on any living thing that changes enough (but probably not nearly as quickly)
2. By the time the parts are seen-as and considered a whole, the owner (not the builder or stamper) already knows and considers *this* table to look *this* way and the stamped parts are a part of its cognitive identity, so though the object changed, and the Identity changed; the stamps remain because it is in this quality that they have been incorporated into the whole. After all (Days 30 and 76):

Spoiler

Quote

Day 30:

 A stamp from Shai in the bottom right corner had restored the window, rewriting its history so that a caring master craftsman had discovered the fallen window and remade it. That seal had taken immediately. Even after all this time, the window had seen itself as something beautiful.

Or maybe she was just getting romantic again.

Quote

Day 76:

“Your Forgery puts him in this room instead?”

“Yes. That was before the water damage that seeped through the ceiling last year, so it’s plausible he’d have been placed here. The wall remembers Atsuko spending days too weak to leave, but having the strength for painting. A little each day, a growing pattern of vines, leaves, and berries. To pass the time.”

“This shouldn’t be taking,” Gaotona said. “This Forgery is tenuous. You’ve changed too much.”

“No,” Shai said. “It’s on the line … that line where the greatest beauty is found.” She put the seal away. She barely remembered the last six hours. She had been caught up in the frenzy of creation.

“Still…” Gaotona said.

“It will take,” Shai said. “If you were the wall, what would you rather be? Dreary and dull, or alive with paint?”

“Walls can’t think!”

“That doesn’t stop them from caring.”

 

 

[Duxredux he/him]

It may depend on the skill of the Forger. For example, as seen in that first quote from @Treamayne, Shai built the capacity to learn, grow, and change into Ashravan's seal, even with the daily stamping requirement. That implies that a Forgery can tolerate and retain changes even if the stamp is refreshed. It is worth noting that Ashravan's stamp was only a Cognitive/Spiritual change, not a Physical one. From this, I think if you put the necessary markings (and possibly describe the expected type of changes, I'm not sure) then the stamp may persist through change.  In a similar vein, Ashravan is evidence that multiple stamps can work together for a greater whole, so if you craft the individual stamps for the table components to work together then they probably will after assembly. Run-of-the-mill Forgeries probably won't have either provision and are more likely to fail with change.

That said, it may also depend on if the changes are additive or subtractive in nature. Say you have a Forgery bringing a poorly  constructed table to a nicely sanded and properly formed state, but the head carpenter wants to add variations to the finished product. Adding a layer of paint, stain, or varnish seems a different matter than if you were to remove material through decorative carving or etchings. Anything that directly damages the material - even if it would be considered an improvement - is still removing substance from the soul of the object that is the foundation of the seal. Even if you build in the capacity to change, I'm not sure if the stamp would persist after too much physical damage.

This also may go out the window if the Forgery is boosted with a powerful Investiture source and the exact phrasing of the stamp. It wouldn't surprise me if a stamp could reinforce a historical state and "heal" any changes by continuously going back to the stamped state. 

Edited July 29, 2024 by Duxredux

[Dalluminum he/him]

On 7/3/2024 at 5:38 AM, Treamayne said:

By the time the parts are seen-as and considered a whole, the owner (not the builder or stamper) already knows and considers *this* table to look *this* way and the stamped parts are a part of its cognitive identity, so though the object changed, and the Identity changed; the stamps remain because it is in this quality that they have been incorporated into the whole.

I agree with this interpretation. I would think the parts would stay Forged, but their Identity would combine to become a table. My question, though, is what happens if you try to stamp the table once it's been assembled? Would it not work at all (because Investiture resists Investiture), or would the table take the stamp? To my knowledge, we don't have any examples of a stamped object being stamped again, so it might just be impossible. How does Identity interact in something like a door? A doorknob is distinct from the rest of the door, but stamping the door would probably affect the doorknob. Would a stamp on the door overwrite one on the knob?

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

[Treamayne]

24 minutes ago, Dalluminum said:

My question, though, is what happens if you try to stamp the table once it's been assembled? Would it not work at all (because Investiture resists Investiture), or would the table take the stamp? To my knowledge, we don't have any examples of a stamped object being stamped again, so it might just be impossible.

Well, we do have the opposite confirmation. TES Day 76:

Spoiler

Quote

Gaotona looked across her chamber and its fine furniture that had been carved and polished. Its marble floor with silver inlay, the crackling hearth and small chandelier. A fine rug—it had once been a bed quilt with holes in it—covered the floor. The stained-glass window sparkled on the right wall, lighting the beautiful mural.

The only thing that retained its original form was the door, thick but unremarkable. She couldn’t Forge that, not with that Bloodseal set into it.

Also, it was implied she had to remove her bed stamp to add the new one:

Day 42:

Quote

Shai lay back on her bed, which by now she had Forged to something more comfortable, with posts and a deep comforter. She kept the curtains drawn.

Day 98:

Quote

He smiled broadly, then jumped for her, leaping onto the bed.

It promptly collapsed. During the night, while crawling under the bed to get her notes, she had Forged the wood of the frame to have deep flaws, attacked by insects, making it fragile. She’d cut the mattress underneath in wide slashes.

<snip>

Beyond them was a locked door. She had to Forge the wood of that door into some that had been damaged by insects—using the same stamp she’d used on her bed—to get through. It didn’t take for long, but a few seconds was enough for her to kick the door open.

Though it is not explicitly stated she removed the first stamp to use the second. However, since the second stamp was also used on the door, it might have only affected one aspect and could have been added to the original stamp (with a connecting stamp) the same way the wall mural was made from multiple, connected stamps. 

While not related directly, this shows Brandon confirmed it is very difficult (but not impossible) to Stamp an invested object (likely needing an outside source of unkeyed investiture to provide enough power)

WoB:

Spoiler

Questioner

If a Mistborn were to burn a metal that's been Forged by a Soulstamp, is there a different effect from another, or?

Brandon Sanderson

So they Forged it from one metal into another metal?

Questioner

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

So once they started to burn it, it would break the Forgery and it would turn back into its original metal. So you'd have just the briefest moment of getting what it said it was and then it would go back to the other and then if you were a Misting of the wrong type, you would get no more from it.

Questioner

What about Feruchemy or Hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson

So Feruchemy and Hemalurgy. You would have a lot of trouble Investing it because it's already Invested. So you would run into troubles right away trying to Invest it, because it's already got all the Investiture messing with it. You could theoretically make it happen, but it would take enough work and conniving that it just wouldn't be worth it.

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

Hope that helps