Oudeis he/him Posted January 9, 2013 Report Share Posted January 9, 2013 Could identical twin Archivists access each others' copperminds? Pigeon carrying a clip = unbreakable secret codes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inkthinker Posted January 9, 2013 Report Share Posted January 9, 2013 I think there's a distinction between "spiritual DNA" and "genetic DNA". Two twins might share identical genetics but not spirits. Don't actually know, though. I have a lingering sense that someone's asked this before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Monstrosity Posted January 9, 2013 Report Share Posted January 9, 2013 (edited) I think there's a distinction between "spiritual DNA" and "genetic DNA". Two twins might share identical genetics but not spirits. Don't actually know, though. I have a lingering sense that someone's asked this before. I actually just dug up that quote a couple days ago... http://mistbornrpg.17thshard.com/topic/230-questions-for-brandon "If two people are identical twins, and one is a Mistborn, will the second be Mistborn?" " No. They could have different Spiritual DNA." "In the Cosmere, a person has three sets of genetic material. Biological DNA, Personality/Cognative self, Spiritual Soul. All are influenced by heritage and parents. All all are also influenced by the land you are born in. A Punnett square wouldn't cover it. Think of a 4-dimensional Punnett square." There's also that quote about aluminum feruchemy. It stores spiritual identity, and apparently could (somehow) be used to access someone else's metalminds. So it looks like the twins would have different spiritwebs, and it seems that whatever is used to determine metalmind ownership is spiritual in nature. So as far as I can tell, the twins wouldn't be able to do it. Of course, there's always the off chance that there's some (unknown) way for twins to share a spiritual identity. You could maybe pull it off with a good enough Forgery. Edited January 9, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis he/him Posted January 9, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2013 Interesting... if people can, however, have identical physical DNA but different spiritual DNA, does that mean it's possible to have identical spiritual DNA even if you have different physical DNA? A soultwin, as it were? I realize the odds of this happening by coincidence are preposterous, but perhaps like with genetic twins there's some very rare but still plausible event that can occur that would lead to this happenstance. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ursus Posted January 9, 2013 Report Share Posted January 9, 2013 Interesting... if people can, however, have identical physical DNA but different spiritual DNA, does that mean it's possible to have identical spiritual DNA even if you have different physical DNA? A soultwin, as it were? I realize the odds of this happening by coincidence are preposterous, but perhaps like with genetic twins there's some very rare but still plausible event that can occur that would lead to this happenstance. I'd put money on this getting RAFO'd in a Q&A cuz it's too cool of a concept to be passed up later in cosmere novels. I suspect we'll see this eventually. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mailliw73 he/him Posted January 15, 2013 Report Share Posted January 15, 2013 (edited) -Ursus, I accidentally -1 that post instead of +1, I'll try to make up for it somewhere else. If there were two twins who were identically alomantically as well as physically and they had the twin "telepathy" thing that twins talk about, they could make a great thieving team. Edited January 15, 2013 by Mailliw73 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis he/him Posted January 15, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 15, 2013 I assume you mean "telepathy"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mailliw73 he/him Posted January 15, 2013 Report Share Posted January 15, 2013 Yes, you're correct, that was my mistake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethling he/him Posted January 16, 2013 Report Share Posted January 16, 2013 Two people with the same soul. That might be fairly interesting to pursue, but it would take one heck of an explanation. Easiest way to explain it would be multiple universes, but we haven't seen anything like that in a cosmere work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis he/him Posted January 16, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2013 Two people with the same soul. Not the "same" soul, any more than identical twins have the "same" body. Identical souls. If you think about it, of all the uncountable combinations DNA can come in, the idea of two people getting the same ones are astronomical, which is why that's not what ever happens. When a person is a fertilized egg, with the complete blueprint inside, something interesting occurs that separates the egg and the result is a genetic twin. So... when, in the "cosmere", is the 'soul' made? When does it start, and when is the spiritual aspect of a person first attached to the physical aspect? Conception? Birth? Coming-of-age? On Scadrial, do you not have your soul until you Snap? If any cosmere scholars want to speak up, please feel free to do so; I do not know a lot about what Brandon has told us about how spiritwebs are gestated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Monstrosity Posted January 16, 2013 Report Share Posted January 16, 2013 Presumably sDNA is handed out at the same time as regular DNA. After all, rocks have spiritual aspects, so it'd be kinda weird if embryos didn't. The extra Preservation in people is what gives them sapience. So anyone sapient on Scandriel obviously has a spiritual bit attached. We know that stillborn babies can Return, which implies that it's at least present at birth. IIRC, there's also some comment about how the God King passes on his Breaths that implies it involves in utero stuff... which means it predates birth. Personally, what I find weirdest is the fact that your cognitive self is also inherited - we haven't seen any of that happen yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis he/him Posted January 16, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2013 Hrm. Well, you clearly have a spiritweb in utero, then. But if one egg has one spiritweb, but when it splits into genetic twins, they get different spiritwebs (if, as I believe I've seen written, it's possible to have twins who are Mistings of different metals). I'm going to espouse a theory now, based on really nothing more than rampant speculation. What if, at conception, almost all humans DO have the same spiritweb? Just a blank, default, "THIS IS A HUMAN" and nothing more spiritweb? And then perhaps the process of gestation develops this web? Though that sorta flies in the face of sDNA. I suppose maybe not, if there is such a thing as sDNA, it just isn't as completely immutable as typical DNA is. Like, you're not actually going to mutate your babies by using a cell phone, but perhaps sDNA can be modified slightly by outside stimuli. If so, do you think there's a window during development that this can happen, or even outside of magic does a person's spiritweb constantly change and evolve in minute ways? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
name_here Posted January 16, 2013 Report Share Posted January 16, 2013 I think everything in the Cosmere has a spiritweb-ish thing, like how they all have cognitive aspects. Human spiritwebs definitely change over time, according to Shai, but apparently not so as to render people to have different magic or keep them from accessing metalminds absent Hemalurgy or similar influences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Monstrosity Posted January 17, 2013 Report Share Posted January 17, 2013 If so, do you think there's a window during development that this can happen, or even outside of magic does a person's spiritweb constantly change and evolve in minute ways? I quoted something upthread about it. Where you're born *does* have an effect - and Brandon also mentioned that after a few generations, immigrants from other worlds who ended up in Sel would be able to be transformed into Elantrans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis he/him Posted January 17, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2013 immigrants from other worlds who ended up in Sel would be able to be transformed into Elantrans. Hrm, but isn't that Sel-specific? From the coppermind wiki: "King Rhashm led his people from other lands to Arelon, discovering the city of Elantris completely abandoned. Despite superstition about Elantris being haunted, Rhashm made it his capital. After a few decades, Princess Elashe, one of his descendants, was the first Aonic person to be taken by the Shaod to become an Elantrian." Admittedly, this has no source on the page, so who can say how accurate it is. Either way, it seems that Elantrians themselves are location specific: Any genetic line that lives there over multiple generations might gain that power, as has been shown to happen historically. Does that necessarily mean that the same is true of other systems of Investiture? Also, I wonder, is "potential Elantrian" written into your spiritweb? Or is part of the Shaod the transformation of an otherwise unremarkable spiritweb into an Elantrian one by the presence of such a large Aon? Which, incidentally, means "Spirit". My theory, and admittedly this is based mostly on speculation, is that while most forms of investiture around the cosmere are genetic, and inherent in either the entire or certain segments of the population, the Shaod is an environmental magic that has little or nothing to do with the participant's initial spiritweb. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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