Future investiture tracking

[Sythrin]

A lot of modern technologies will be supplemented with investiture technology in the cosmere. So a thought occured to me if we could see in future some form of tracking fueled by investiture. Maybe something along the lines of an awakend metalmind that you can put into the body of somebody and it forces you to burn or something else miniscule ammount of metal in your body, so that a seeker could always find you.

Does anybody else have an idea how to make that happen or ideas for investure application.

[alder24]

43 minutes ago, Sythrin said:

A lot of modern technologies will be supplemented with investiture technology in the cosmere. So a thought occured to me if we could see in future some form of tracking fueled by investiture. Maybe something along the lines of an awakend metalmind that you can put into the body of somebody and it forces you to burn or something else miniscule ammount of metal in your body, so that a seeker could always find you.

Does anybody else have an idea how to make that happen or ideas for investure application.

We already did see a device like that in the Sixth of the Dusk novel - there was a device capable of tracking invested Aviars. With similar devices you can track other invested beings or active use of investiture. Many invested arts can create effects similar to Seeking. On Roshar there are Secretspren capable of sensing the use of fabrial and Surges - I bet you can make a fabrial out of them.

[Sythrin]

1 minute ago, alder24 said:

We already did see a device like that in the Sixth of the Dusk novel - there was a device capable of tracking invested Aviars. With similar devices you can track other invested beings or active use of investiture. Many invested arts can create effects similar to Seeking. On Roshar there are Secretspren capable of sensing the use of fabrial and Surges - I bet you can make a fabrial out of them.

Yeah I know that, but that seems to only track when you use actively use kinetic investiture. So if somebody would not use their magic or their magic is not kinetic like for example a Kandra or they cannot use a form of magic, than seeking is useless. My thought was more like if you put the awakened metalmind inside of somebody and grant them the ability to burn a miniscule ammount of iron inside in your body and the metalmind forces you to do that, than you could be trackend 24/7.

[Duxredux he/him]

TSM's premise is that Nomad is getting tracked across the Cosmere from what appears to be Connection made traceable via Hemalurgy if I'm remembering correctly. Visible Connection looks like one of the best ways to track an individual since apparently it can work on an interplanetary scale and couldn't be disrupted even by a former Dawnshard. If the Night Brigade had implanted something in Nomad he would have just dug it out and been done with it.

We also see Hemalurgy used to let Wax Connect to Telsin with a Trellium spike dug out of a random Cycle's body, letting him hear her thoughts and I think even get a vague sense of direction.

I think Bondsmiths who can make Connection visible could also put a tracer on someone.

Navani's discovery of force multiplication with differently sized conjoined gemstones technically could be reworked to let you get geospatial coordinates by placing one conjoined ruby on the target and a much, much smaller ruby that is located on a map that has the same scale as the difference in ruby size. I could see space age spaceships outfitted with those trackers allowing a tactical room to get real-time positioning, though by that stage other options will exist.

 

The trick though is that you would want something that can't just be disabled by a Coppercloud, walking next to Aluminum, or someone digging out the tracker (since Cosmere healing is powerful enough that even placing it in vital organs just makes it slightly more difficult depending on circumstance).

[Quantus he/him]

41 minutes ago, Sythrin said:

Yeah I know that, but that seems to only track when you use actively use kinetic investiture. So if somebody would not use their magic or their magic is not kinetic like for example a Kandra or they cannot use a form of magic, than seeking is useless. My thought was more like if you put the awakened metalmind inside of somebody and grant them the ability to burn a miniscule ammount of iron inside in your body and the metalmind forces you to do that, than you could be trackend 24/7.

That sounds like a really complicated way around to creating a Connection that you can track.  "Connection Tricks" are how they refer to a lot of different methods for manipulating Connection enough to speak a local language, so it sounds like low power Connections are not necessarily difficult to create.  Tag a person with the right kind of  Connection you should be able to find some ways to track that (depending on what magics are available to you).  

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Sythrin said:

Yeah I know that, but that seems to only track when you use actively use kinetic investiture. So if somebody would not use their magic or their magic is not kinetic like for example a Kandra or they cannot use a form of magic, than seeking is useless. My thought was more like if you put the awakened metalmind inside of somebody and grant them the ability to burn a miniscule ammount of iron inside in your body and the metalmind forces you to do that, than you could be trackend 24/7.

Unless they burn copper, have a device burning copper, or have an Aviar clouding them. For every push there is a pull. Every device can be countered by something else, so you won't be able to create anything that will work all the time. Even Harmony with all his powers was unable to locate Paalm in SoS. And if you have access to Breaths and Awakening, 1st Heightening allows you to judge how invested a person is, while 4th Heightening grants perfect life sense - you don't need any device, just life sense will sense every invested person around you that isn't clouded. 

And how would you even put a metalmind inside someone? They would be able to feel it, they would be able to push it out with healing, not to mention it would be painful. Putting it on their finger is better, but much easier to remove. Also the smaller the amount of metals burnt, the smaller the pulses, the harder it is to detect them. 

The best way to track someone is via Connection - Nomad is being tracked like this (it looks like) and Silverlight is using this method to deliver mail all across Cosmere. It's already here. But you can hide from this as well - F-duralumin and store your Connection or spike it out with Hemalurgy. For every push there is a pull.

[Duxredux he/him]

This is less Investiture and more of a species ability, but I'll add in one more we have seen that even managed to work on Hoid for a while. A Dysian Aimian hordling stowing away in the target's possessions - in this case mimicking and replacing I think one of Hoid's pens. Simply spreading out and monitoring the whole planet may be possible for the Sleepless, and when they can monitor you through hundreds of pebble shaped hordlings, they may not even need to move or hitch a ride. While directly tracking someone is possible, I'm not sure if global monitoring counts as tracking or not.