Soulcasting with Spikes?

[Trusk'our he/him]

Soulcasting works by altering the Spiritual Aspect of an object/entity, which then causes changes in the Physical Realm. 

Hemalurgy works similarly by taking a pre-existing Spiritweb fragment and stapling it onto another Spiritweb to produce effects in the Spiritual and Physical Realms.

So, does this mean you can Soulcast with Hemalurgy?

Say, you spike an Awakened Metalmind or other metallic construct and target whatever Spiritweb fragments that determine its physical makeup. 

It you implant that Spiritweb fragment into an animal or human, will they transmute into the substance in question? Maybe you could even recycle the spike and get a more or less indefinite supply of rare metals this way.

[alder24]

24 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

So, does this mean you can Soulcast with Hemalurgy?

What are Koloss if not Soulcasted humans?  

24 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Say, you spike an Awakened Metalmind or other metallic construct and target whatever Spiritweb fragments that determine its physical makeup. 

It you implant that Spiritweb fragment into an animal or human, will they transmute into the substance in question? Maybe you could even recycle the spike and get a more or less indefinite supply of rare metals this way.

I don't think so. Soulcasting replaces parts of the spirit web, while Hemalurgy is adding something new to it. In Soulcasting you tell the part of the spirit web of a body that's saying "I'm flesh" that now "it's a crystal" and that body turns into crystal. In Hemalurgy you don't change that flesh part, you add a new thing to it, which together approximates the body into "my skin is blue now and it doesn't grow."

Good luck spiking a piece of metal  But if you were able to do this and steal a part of it's spirit web that tells it "my body is metal," then implant it into a human, I suspect that human body would mutate into some weird combination of flesh and metal - and I don't even mean it would  have metal arms, rather it would have some properties of this metal, like becoming harder, bulletproof, brittle etc. You won't get metals out of this.

[Through The Living Grub He/Him]

15 hours ago, alder24 said:

rather it would have some properties of this metal,

If the spiked metal in question was gold, could you use yourself as a metalmind? I made a post a while ago about how gemstones hold investiture that might help with this question but I can't find it. I said something along the lines of: The atoms in the crystal lattice form VERY weak chemical(?) bonds that holds the Light in place, so large flaws leave holes for Investiture to escape.

[alder24]

16 minutes ago, Xiahida said:

If the spiked metal in question was gold, could you use yourself as a metalmind?

Only if a part of your body turns into a Feruchemically viable metal - which I don't believe would happen at all. 

But then if your hand turns into gold and is still a spiritual part of your body, I don't think you could use it in Allomancy/Feruchemy. This is because it would be very similar to a Shardblade, which is a living metal and living metals aren't treated as metals anymore.

Spoiler

Questioner

What would happen if a person from Scadrial were to try to burn a manifested metal from Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

So you're meaning they're in Shadesmar, they manifest it, and they try to burn it, right?

Questioner

Say a Spren of a Radiant manifests as a bead of metal instead of a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

You're not going to be able to burn that if it's something that's coming from a spren, because that's not going to be treated as a metal in your body. Like, those are God Metals, and that one is actually alive and awake and it's just not gonna work. There are ways, though, that you could make that work. So it's totally possible, but you're gonna need something that's not an alive spren that's manifest like that. You're gonna need some way to get access to some tanavastium or something like that that's not, like, some living being.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

 

[CtrlAltDepressed]

19 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Only if a part of your body turns into a Feruchemically viable metal - which I don't believe would happen at all. 

But then if your hand turns into gold and is still a spiritual part of your body, I don't think you could use it in Allomancy/Feruchemy. This is because it would be very similar to a Shardblade, which is a living metal and living metals aren't treated as metals anymore.

Do you think if a gemheart was soulcast to gold, that you could use it as a metalmind?

 

You could start with a gold feruchemist and spike a gemheart into them, or start with a singer and spike gold feruchemy into them. 

 

This raises another question, if you spike someone to grow a gemheart, that is part of their spirit web, and then you soulcast it to gold, would they start growing a new gemheart?

 

Would soulcasting the gemheart kill a singer?

 

hmmmmm

[alder24]

2 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Do you think if a gemheart was soulcast to gold, that you could use it as a metalmind?

No, it's part of your body, so it may not work for reasons presented above.

2 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

This raises another question, if you spike someone to grow a gemheart, that is part of their spirit web, and then you soulcast it to gold, would they start growing a new gemheart?

No. To Soulcast a gemstone, you would most likely have to change the charge of the spike, because that's where the gemheart's soul is located. Soulcasting changes the soul directly, so there would be nothing wrong with your body once you Soulcast a gemstone into gold. But that would most likely break the spike and prevent it from working. And it might kill you.

2 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Would soulcasting the gemheart kill a singer?

Yes.

[Treamayne]

19 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Say, you spike an Awakened Metalmind or other metallic construct

Hemalurgy requires Blood (it's right there in the name), and flowing blood at that:

Spoiler

Quote

Master_Moridin

What is the relationship between blood and the Spiritual Realm? (Since Hemalurgy needs blood to graft the sDNA in a spike into someone else's sDNA)

Brandon Sanderson

The blood being in motion is part of it.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 28, 2012)

Quote

<edited for length and relevance>

Oversleep

Could you steal from a spren?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you could steal the Investiture of a spren. Any Investiture can be used in a spike if you know what you’re doing. It’s actually not that hard to use one on a spren.

Oversleep

Because I thought you said Hemalurgy needs moving blood.

Brandon Sanderson

It needs, uh, yeah… there are places where spren have more physical form, more tangible form.

<snip>

Questioner

The Cognitive Realm on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, if you go to the Cognitive Realm on Roshar the spren act differently than they do.

Oversleep

So you could spike in the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah I’ll leave a RAFO with you on that.

Kraków signing (March 21, 2017)

Where Notum showed in RoW that Spren "bleed" in a way in their Shadesmar form. 

Quote

WeiryWriter

Hemalurgic spikes lose power unless they are in a person’s body (or immersed in blood), does that body need to be living, or would a corpse suffice? If so, at what point in the decomposition process would the spikes cease to be protected? When they are no longer encased in flesh, before, after?

Brandon Sanderson

I haven't put a specific number or date on it, but I'd say as long as the blood itself would be viable if moved to a living body, it will work.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 22, 2018)

 

That's not to say there are not other ways to create a Hemalurgic charge - but "spiking" a "metalmind" is probably not possible. . . 

[Trusk'our he/him]

4 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Hemalurgy requires Blood (it's right there in the name), and flowing blood at that:

  Hide contents

Where Notum showed in RoW that Spren "bleed" in a way in their Shadesmar form. 

 

That's not to say there are not other ways to create a Hemalurgic charge - but "spiking" a "metalmind" is probably not possible. . . 

While it is true that Hemalurgically spiking something requires blood of some type, it is theoretically possible to Spike an Awakened computer.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/181-stormlight-three-update-4/#e3793

NeedsAdjustment

You've said before that if a sentient computer were developed, it would call a soul into itself. Could it be Hemalurgically spiked?

Brandon Sanderson

Theoretically, yes, but I have no idea yet how the logistics of that would work.

As such, I imagine that there would be some kind of substitute when dealing with spiking exotic entities, like Spren or Awakened constructs.

Maybe if it's an Awakened machine, oil would play that roll?

22 hours ago, alder24 said:

I don't think so. Soulcasting replaces parts of the spirit web, while Hemalurgy is adding something new to it. In Soulcasting you tell the part of the spirit web of a body that's saying "I'm flesh" that now "it's a crystal" and that body turns into crystal. In Hemalurgy you don't change that flesh part, you add a new thing to it, which together approximates the body into "my skin is blue now and it doesn't grow."

Hmm, actually, thinking about this further, maybe this is why spiking Savantism isn't doable; if you can only add or subtract Spiritweb fragments and not truly change the Spiritweb base of the recipient, you can't just take the Savant's warped Spiritweb with a spike and get the same results they would have from using their power, as your Spiritweb isn't technically changed by that power yet.

Still, if you can change someone into something as drastic as a Koloss just from adding human Spiritweb fragments, it doesn't seem implausible that some Hemalurgic spike configuration could let you achieve a physiological transformation on par with, say, what the Soulcasting Savants have.

22 hours ago, alder24 said:

Good luck spiking a piece of metal 

Meh, should be super easy, barely an inconvenience ; just heat the Awakened Metalmind enough to make it softer, then spike it.

Or, maybe create an android thingy with rubber or leather bits at the right Bindpoints to be more spikable. Artificial Spiritweb, artificial body for Bindpoint piercing. 

Edited August 19, 2024 by Trusk'our