Trusk'our he/him Posted October 22, 2024 Posted October 22, 2024 (edited) When you Awaken something, you are essentially giving it a "counterfeit soul". Spoiler https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100-rbooks-ama-2015/#e3644 Phantine Would a lifeless Koloss still be super strong? Brandon Sanderson You see, what is happening to create a koloss is a human soul is taken, sliced up, and sutured back together--with the spikes being the "stitches" that holds it all together. That's a problem, since the various forms of investiture don't play very well together. In Awakening, you're basically giving something a counterfeit soul. (But without the skill or knowledge of something like an Essence Mark.) This means that in investing the corpse of the koloss, you have troubles. It's going to want to snap back to the original human shape and strength. If you COULD overcome this, then yes, it would be stronger. I wonder then, could Hemalurgic spikes Awaken something? Let's say you have a corpse and place Hemalurgic spikes in place to coordinate with one another as the natural Spiritweb would. Just to clarify, you're not stapling Spiritweb fragments onto a base Spiritweb, you're just trying to weave multiple Spiritweb fragments together in a body to make a fake soul, like a Lifeless. I personally see no reason why this couldn't be done (though it would probably be a terribly inefficent use of spikes for most intentions), though this is a simpler method of Awakening as you already have a vessel for the Investiture, complete with a record of the original Spiritweb to fill (which I think is what Awakening does with Lifeless). Spoiler https://wob.coppermind.net/events/183-stormlight-three-update-6/#e3910 Argent Is death in the Cosmere a two-stage process? It seems to me like (under normal circumstances) the body dies first, sending the mind fully in the Cognitive Realm; the soul, presumably, remains in the Spiritual for the entire process. I am a little unclear on what happens after that though - what is it that passes into the Beyond, just the mind? Does the soul / spiritual aspect / Spiritweb just kind of... break down in the Spiritual Realm, turn into free iInvestiture? Brandon Sanderson Yes. It's a two stage process, and most of what you said is correct. The odd thing is, though, that the Spiritweb doesn't completely break down (just like your body doesn't immediately break down.) Even after a long time, there's a record of that Spiritweb in the Spiritual Realm. Oversleep Wait wait wait. If there is a "corpse" of Spiritweb (so to speak) and actual, physical corpse is also there... Could it be still viable for Hemalurgy? Could it be still viable for Hemalurgy if you really know what you're doing and have some useful powers (manipulating Connection comes to mind)? Could you patch the remnants of the Spiritweb and staple it to the body and end up with some zombie-zombie Lifeless? You'd still need to give it a mind but I figure Awakening is just doing that? Brandon Sanderson RAFO. What about going a bit further? We know Awakened Metalminds will become a thing in Scadrial's future, indicating that it's quite possible to achieve. Maybe if you had a Metalmind you could splice a Hemalurgic spike's Spiritweb with it (maybe weld it on?), adding to its spiritual complexity to shortcut its Awakening process. I doubt this is strictly necessary, but for earlier Awakening of Metalminds it might prove a useful if gruesome tool. Edited October 22, 2024 by Trusk'our
JustQuestin2004 he/him Posted October 22, 2024 Posted October 22, 2024 9 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: When you Awaken something, you are essentially giving it a "counterfeit soul". Reveal hidden contents https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100-rbooks-ama-2015/#e3644 Phantine Would a lifeless Koloss still be super strong? Brandon Sanderson You see, what is happening to create a koloss is a human soul is taken, sliced up, and sutured back together--with the spikes being the "stitches" that holds it all together. That's a problem, since the various forms of investiture don't play very well together. In Awakening, you're basically giving something a counterfeit soul. (But without the skill or knowledge of something like an Essence Mark.) This means that in investing the corpse of the koloss, you have troubles. It's going to want to snap back to the original human shape and strength. If you COULD overcome this, then yes, it would be stronger. I wonder then, could Hemalurgic spikes Awaken something? Let's say you have a corpse and place Hemalurgic spikes in place to coordinate with one another as the natural Spiritweb would. Just to clarify, you're not stapling Spiritweb fragments onto a base Spiritweb, you're just trying to weave multiple Spiritweb fragments together in a body to make a fake soul, like a Lifeless. I personally see no reason why this couldn't be done (though it would probably be a terribly inefficent use of spikes for most intentions), though this is a simpler method of Awakening as you already have a vessel for the Investiture, complete with a record of the original Spiritweb to fill (which I think is what Awakening does with Lifeless). Reveal hidden contents https://wob.coppermind.net/events/183-stormlight-three-update-6/#e3910 Argent Is death in the Cosmere a two-stage process? It seems to me like (under normal circumstances) the body dies first, sending the mind fully in the Cognitive Realm; the soul, presumably, remains in the Spiritual for the entire process. I am a little unclear on what happens after that though - what is it that passes into the Beyond, just the mind? Does the soul / spiritual aspect / Spiritweb just kind of... break down in the Spiritual Realm, turn into free iInvestiture? Brandon Sanderson Yes. It's a two stage process, and most of what you said is correct. The odd thing is, though, that the Spiritweb doesn't completely break down (just like your body doesn't immediately break down.) Even after a long time, there's a record of that Spiritweb in the Spiritual Realm. Oversleep Wait wait wait. If there is a "corpse" of Spiritweb (so to speak) and actual, physical corpse is also there... Could it be still viable for Hemalurgy? Could it be still viable for Hemalurgy if you really know what you're doing and have some useful powers (manipulating Connection comes to mind)? Could you patch the remnants of the Spiritweb and staple it to the body and end up with some zombie-zombie Lifeless? You'd still need to give it a mind but I figure Awakening is just doing that? Brandon Sanderson RAFO. What about going a bit further? We know Awakened Metalminds will become a thing in Scadrial's future, indicating that it's quite possible to achieve. Maybe if you had a Metalmind you could splice a Hemalurgic spike's Spiritweb with it (maybe weld it on?), adding to its spiritual complexity to shortcut its Awakening process. I doubt this is strictly necessary, but for earlier Awakening of Metalminds it might prove a useful if gruesome tool. Book of Nails anyone? An adventurous woman with erratic magical powers travels with an expedition to an island to find a legendary book with the power to raise an undead army. 1
Sythrin Posted October 22, 2024 Posted October 22, 2024 I don‘t think you could do that, unless maybe with direct interference of a shard. In the exact quote of Sanderson, it is already explains. The spikes are the stitches to staple souls together, but you don‘t have a soul to stitch onto it. I believe the problem lies, that spikes miss some fundamental parts to accomplish it, as they only can take 1 piece out of a persons soul but miss some of the other. Maybe with enough spikes you could do something, but than you ran into the problem of too many different souls inhabiting one body. They don‘t like that. That is one reason as well why no one after ruins fall can have more than 4 spikes. Just too many souls in one body. It maybe could be possible. But it would be as hard as awakaning a liquid probably. 1
alder24 Posted October 22, 2024 Posted October 22, 2024 9 hours ago, Trusk'our said: When you Awaken something, you are essentially giving it a "counterfeit soul". Reveal hidden contents https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100-rbooks-ama-2015/#e3644 Phantine Would a lifeless Koloss still be super strong? Brandon Sanderson You see, what is happening to create a koloss is a human soul is taken, sliced up, and sutured back together--with the spikes being the "stitches" that holds it all together. That's a problem, since the various forms of investiture don't play very well together. In Awakening, you're basically giving something a counterfeit soul. (But without the skill or knowledge of something like an Essence Mark.) This means that in investing the corpse of the koloss, you have troubles. It's going to want to snap back to the original human shape and strength. If you COULD overcome this, then yes, it would be stronger. I wonder then, could Hemalurgic spikes Awaken something? Let's say you have a corpse and place Hemalurgic spikes in place to coordinate with one another as the natural Spiritweb would. Just to clarify, you're not stapling Spiritweb fragments onto a base Spiritweb, you're just trying to weave multiple Spiritweb fragments together in a body to make a fake soul, like a Lifeless. I personally see no reason why this couldn't be done (though it would probably be a terribly inefficent use of spikes for most intentions), though this is a simpler method of Awakening as you already have a vessel for the Investiture, complete with a record of the original Spiritweb to fill (which I think is what Awakening does with Lifeless). Reveal hidden contents https://wob.coppermind.net/events/183-stormlight-three-update-6/#e3910 Argent Is death in the Cosmere a two-stage process? It seems to me like (under normal circumstances) the body dies first, sending the mind fully in the Cognitive Realm; the soul, presumably, remains in the Spiritual for the entire process. I am a little unclear on what happens after that though - what is it that passes into the Beyond, just the mind? Does the soul / spiritual aspect / Spiritweb just kind of... break down in the Spiritual Realm, turn into free iInvestiture? Brandon Sanderson Yes. It's a two stage process, and most of what you said is correct. The odd thing is, though, that the Spiritweb doesn't completely break down (just like your body doesn't immediately break down.) Even after a long time, there's a record of that Spiritweb in the Spiritual Realm. Oversleep Wait wait wait. If there is a "corpse" of Spiritweb (so to speak) and actual, physical corpse is also there... Could it be still viable for Hemalurgy? Could it be still viable for Hemalurgy if you really know what you're doing and have some useful powers (manipulating Connection comes to mind)? Could you patch the remnants of the Spiritweb and staple it to the body and end up with some zombie-zombie Lifeless? You'd still need to give it a mind but I figure Awakening is just doing that? Brandon Sanderson RAFO. What about going a bit further? We know Awakened Metalminds will become a thing in Scadrial's future, indicating that it's quite possible to achieve. Maybe if you had a Metalmind you could splice a Hemalurgic spike's Spiritweb with it (maybe weld it on?), adding to its spiritual complexity to shortcut its Awakening process. I doubt this is strictly necessary, but for earlier Awakening of Metalminds it might prove a useful if gruesome tool. I think you can Awaken a corpse with Hemalurgic spikes but not in the way you're thinking about. Awakening is essentially using investiture to give sentience and life to dead objects - any investiture. You don't need Breaths. You can use investiture in spikes to act as a fuel for Awakening replacing Breaths and it will create this "fake soul" - but you won't get powers that those charged spikes had. It will just act as raw investiture for Awakening to take. At best those stolen fragments of a spirit web, if taken from the same person whose corpse you're trying to Awaken, will act as Breaths owned by the corpse you're trying to Awaken and they will help him become more self-aware. Spoiler Argent Staying with Yumi, since we're asking the big questions here. I want to talk about the big machine, the father machine. Brandon Sanderson Yes. Argent There are some really interesting what feel like intentional parallels between it and Nightblood. Brandon Sanderson Yes. Argent There's smoke involved, there's eating of souls, there's a whole bunch of things. So what I do want to ask is: one, was the father machine Awakened using Breaths, using Nalthian Awakening? Or are you using Awakening as Lightweaving or Bondsmithing which is an overarching system in the Cosmere? Brandon Sanderson It's the second. This wouldn't exist in the pre-space-age as much; by space age there's a certain terminology that is going between... basically it's starting with the arcanists and moving to the general population. What certain themes in the Cosmere magics mean. And so when Hoid says "this is an Awakened machine" his audience understands what that means. It does not necessarily mean Breaths Awaken, but Breaths are one of the main ways that people see things be Awakened. You should be noticing those parallels, but that's a term that in the Cosmere is becoming genericized to mean un-living object being given some measure of sentience and even sapience by application of Investiture, Commands, and these sorts of things. By this point they've all interacted with various Awakened machines of sorts in the future Cosmere. They know what this means. They've talked to an Awakened computer. [...] Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023) 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)
JustQuestin2004 he/him Posted October 22, 2024 Posted October 22, 2024 5 hours ago, Sythrin said: That is one reason as well why no one after ruins fall can have more than 4 spikes. That is not confirmed, we know that there is a cap on how many spikes a person can have, but there is no confirmed number on that cap by any source that we have. Having 4 or more spikes leaves one open to being controlled through the Hemalurgic Flaw. Good day. 1
Sophrosyne he/him Posted October 23, 2024 Posted October 23, 2024 I think it's possible but in the same way that NCIS 2 IDIOTS 1 KEYBOARD is possible. You'd need to know what parts of the corpse's web need replaced stich those into place, and likely still need a jumpstart of investiture to make it work. I have to imagine that if you want an unthinking army for cheap hemalurgy is the way but I also imagen a few breaths stored in a spike and the right command can make that happen.
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