A question concerning immortality

[Kadrok she/her]

Not quite, as presumably there's a limited amount of Splinters Endowment can give off, and s/he'd get wise eventually.

True, but I'd only need about 5 immortality spikes... maybe 10 to cover interesting people I will meet while being immortal... and besides... s/he is Endowment; I wouldn't be surprised if s/he is Intent-whipped by now and can't help but hand over (er, I mean endow victi...people with) splinters!

 

Now, baby mills for lots of normal Breath. . .

You could breed Scadrians into the mix for efficiencies sake... one breath per baby, and the potential for a bunch of mistings just waiting to be spiked... I think we're bad people Kurk...

Edited June 13, 2013 by Kadrok

[Phantom Monstrosity]

You could breed Scadrians into the mix for efficiencies sake... one breath per baby, and the potential for a bunch of mistings just waiting to be spiked... I think we're bad people Kurk...

That mixture could do some strange things, though.

 

 

Anyway, given that the process of Returning heals up your physical injuries (since they aren't zombies and have a very attractive, not at all covered in slime city), using the fact that their body post-Return is also at an ideal age as well as an ideal state of health isn't much of an argument. 

[king of nowhere]

on a side note, are we sure fifth heightening grants agelessness? The only people with it we've seen are returned.

If it indeed granted it, it would seem strange to me that there were no rich people around with enough breath to live forever. a breath cost enough to maintain a poor family for a year. 3000 breaths therefore should be within reach of the richer people in the city

[Senor Feesh]

In answer to that, there's an in-text quote on page one if this thread from Hoid, that the fifth heightening does indeed give agelessness. I'm not 100% convinced that's the same thing as immortality, though I have no evidence to go either way.

[Leuthie]

5th heightening does result in agelessness. Each Breath gives you more resistance to disease and toxins and slows your aging. At 5th, this effect reaches a maximum. Full resistance and no aging.

Being able to control your age at will is Returned ability. If you're 65 when you get your 2000th Breath, you'll be 65 forever. You won't gain the ability to choose to be 20.

TLR at 5th heightening will have full control over his age without having to juggle age as he's been doing. He can store Breath elsewhere, store the accumulated age, get the Breath back when he wants to stop aging. He can probably keep his youthminds full all the time. Not sure how being ageless would hurt him.

[skaa he/him]

For those who like quotes, here is the source for what Leuthie said (from the Warbreaker Ars Arcanum):

 

Note Four: Each additional Breath grants some things, no matter which Heightening an Awakener has achieved. The more breath one has, the more resistant to disease and aging a person is...

 

This is something I've completely forgotten. Thanks, Leuthie!

 

I would like to speculate, given the above passage, that the age-freezing granted by the Fifth Heightening to a person with ~2000 Breaths is just a side effect of the fact that the person's aging has already slowed so much that there is nothing more left to slow down. A regular person would age by 1 second per second. If he starts receiving Breaths continuously, he'd age at a slower and slower pace until, at around 2000 Breaths, people can no longer notice him aging at all.

 

But what if the person's aging isn't 1 second per second before he receives the Breaths? When Rashek's Atiumminds were taken from him, he started aging at a rate of approximately a thousand years over perhaps several minutes. That's tens of millions of seconds of aging per second. Even if he received those ~2000 Breaths the instant his Atiumminds were taken, would that be able to slow his super-accelerated aging down enough for him to survive that fight? Or will he still be doomed?

 

On a slightly different note, what would happen if a Feruchemist-Mistborn with Breath infuses an Allomantic metal with part of his Breath and then attempts to burn a piece of that metal?

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Agelessness is also listed under the fifth heightening in the Ars Arcanum as well. I figured that citing Hoid as 'this is how the Returned are immortal' should help sidestep arguments over whether their immortality was heightening induced or not

On a slightly different note, what would happen if a Feruchemist-Mistborn with Breath infuses an Allomantic metal with part of his Breath and then attempts to burn a piece of that metal?

That's been asked. Brandon RAFOed.

I'd assume you'd get the Breath, but... I have to wonder if Nightblood would be similar to atium, with his 'Destroy Evil' command being similar to Ruin's 'destroy everythin'g.

Edited June 13, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[skaa he/him]

Agelessness is also listed under the fifth heightening in the Ars Arcanum.

Yep.

At the Fifth Heightening, an Awakener’s resistance to aging and disease reaches its maximum strength.

Since each consecutive Breath slows down aging a bit, obviously there's going to be a point where aging reaches 0 seconds per second and there's nothing left to slow down. For Nalthians at least, that point is reached at ~2000 Breaths, and that's what makes them ageless. This is still technically just speculation, of course, but that's where the evidence leads.

Now, imagine a person who grows old so fast that the combined aging-resistance strength of ~2000 Breaths still isn't enough to stop his aging. In that case, he'd just need to get even more Breaths, enough to finally make even him ageless.

What I'm really trying to get at here is that since each Breath slows down aging, it could be theoretically possible to give someone like Rashek enough Breaths to counter the accelerated aging caused by removing his Atiumminds. It might take two thousand Breaths, or it might take fifty million, or whatever, but I'm thinking it's something that could work.

Edit: It all comes back to my previous point: when two opposite Realmatic effects interact, the stronger one wins out.

Edited June 14, 2013 by skaa

[Observer]

Investure would normally be overwritten by anything stronger than itself. However, this is all internalized. There are no reports of a person burning Pewter being weakened by simultaneously burning Steel and Tin. So long as it is your own Investure, it seems to have no problems. If thi ssame concept applies to Breath, TLR should be able to change his age and get stuck at it when not tapping it.  Otherwise,  Breath would overwrite the Atium and render it useless, having the same effect as him not being able to tap it, killing him. Still, what about the allomancy example. Is there a reason it doesn't overwrite itself?

[skaa he/him]

Investure would normally be overwritten by anything stronger than itself. However, this is all internalized. There are no reports of a person burning Pewter being weakened by simultaneously burning Steel and Tin. So long as it is your own Investure, it seems to have no problems. If thi ssame concept applies to Breath, TLR should be able to change his age and get stuck at it when not tapping it. Otherwise, Breath would overwrite the Atium and render it useless, having the same effect as him not being able to tap it, killing him. Still, what about the allomancy example. Is there a reason it doesn't overwrite itself?

Perhaps because Pewter, Steel, and Tin are not opposites. Now try Pushing and Pulling on the same coin at the same time.

[Kurkistan he/him]

SO MUCH REPLYING!
 

True, but I'd only need about 5 immortality spikes... maybe 10 to cover interesting people I will meet while being immortal... and besides... s/he is Endowment; I wouldn't be surprised if s/he is Intent-whipped by now and can't help but hand over (er, I mean endow victi...people with) splinters!

 
So selfish Kadrok! We can make everyone (besides a few thousand babies each) immortal! Otherwise the general populous gets jealous and tries to do what age could not. The key to making society accept vampires is to make society vampires. 
 

You could breed Scadrians into the mix for efficiencies sake... one breath per baby, and the potential for a bunch of mistings just waiting to be spiked... I think we're bad people Kurk...

 
Way ahead of you, Kadrok. That was totally just a test on my part  . You're on The List now.
 
But yes, were I evil, that would be a good way to double up on output.
 

Anyway, given that the process of Returning heals up your physical injuries (since they aren't zombies and have a very attractive, not at all covered in slime city), using the fact that their body post-Return is also at an ideal age as well as an ideal state of health isn't much of an argument.

 
But instant snapping to a state of ideals is in itself a Returned attribute; see their weirdly good healing, as well as general adherence to ideals of physical perfection.
 
Also, fun fact: I'm fairly sure that they are zombies. They might be a bit prettier than reod!Elantrians, but they can't get sustenance from food and are uniquely dependent upon their Breath-diet to survive, as opposed to normal Awakeners at the Fifth Heightening. Vasher even calls Returned "Spontaneous Sentient BioChromatic Manifestations in a Deceased Host."

 

Being able to control your age at will is Returned ability. If you're 65 when you get your 2000th Breath, you'll be 65 forever. You won't gain the ability to choose to be 20.

 
Yes!
 

TLR at 5th heightening will have full control over his age without having to juggle age as he's been doing. He can store Breath elsewhere, store the accumulated age, get the Breath back when he wants to stop aging. He can probably keep his youthminds full all the time. Not sure how being ageless would hurt him.

 
No! (look further down for why)
 

I would like to speculate, given the above passage, that the age-freezing granted by the Fifth Heightening to a person with ~2000 Breaths is just a side effect of the fact that the person's aging has already slowed so much that there is nothing more left to slow down. A regular person would age by 1 second per second. If he starts receiving Breaths continuously, he'd age at a slower and slower pace until, at around 2000 Breaths, people can no longer notice him aging at all.
 
But what if the person's aging isn't 1 second per second before he receives the Breaths? When Rashek's Atiumminds were taken from him, he started aging at a rate of approximately a thousand years over perhaps several minutes. That's tens of millions of seconds of aging per second. Even if he received those ~2000 Breaths the instant his Atiumminds were taken, would that be able to slow his super-accelerated aging down enough for him to survive that fight? Or will he still be doomed?

Now, imagine a person who grows old so fast that the combined aging-resistance strength of ~2000 Breaths still isn't enough to stop his aging. In that case, he'd just need to get even more Breaths, enough to finally make even him ageless.

What I'm really trying to get at here is that since each Breath slows down aging, it could be theoretically possible to give someone like Rashek enough Breaths to counter the accelerated aging caused by removing his Atiumminds. It might take two thousand Breaths, or it might take fifty million, or whatever, but I'm thinking it's something that could work.

Edit: It all comes back to my previous point: when two opposite Realmatic effects interact, the stronger one wins out.

 
I do like this idea of considering someone who aged unnaturally fast: think Robin Williams . Sadly, though, I think you're doing the wrong thing with it when you apply this analysis to TLR.
 
The thing is, I think its very very wrong to say that "aging rapidly" is what actually happened when TLR had his atiumminds ripped away. Yes, the effect is the same, but Sazed describes it as "snapping back" to his real age, and I think that's the right way to talk about it.
 
Consider any other Feruchemical effect: when you stop storing or tapping, you revert to normal as a matter of course. Your muscles deflate because that's just what they do, not because you are suddenly afflicted with the effects of a wasting disease. In fact, this leads to another insight: your muscles are described as inflating and deflating, not instantly being massive or small. At least where appropriate, then, it seems that Feruchemists (rapidly) traverse the stages between their two states, rather than instantaneously switching between them.
 
Age, then, seems to work in the same way. Now a normal Feruchemist might take a second tor two to switch from 10 to 30. TLR had to go from ~30 to ~1050. It'll take some time. On top of that, I think we can allow for a bit of sluggishness since TLR's body was so very used to being not-a-pile-of-sticks.
 
From this, I think describing TLR's "rapid aging" at the end of the FE as actual "aging, but really really rapid" is not right. They have the same effects, but radically different causes.
-Though I'm a tad doubtful on the effects being truly identical. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a "rubber band" effect or some such where the "rate of change" is a bit different depending on how close you are to the start/end points. This as opposed to a linear rate of change from just "faster aging."
 

Investure would normally be overwritten by anything stronger than itself. However, this is all internalized. There are no reports of a person burning Pewter being weakened by simultaneously burning Steel and Tin. So long as it is your own Investure, it seems to have no problems. If thi ssame concept applies to Breath, TLR should be able to change his age and get stuck at it when not tapping it.  Otherwise,  Breath would overwrite the Atium and render it useless, having the same effect as him not being able to tap it, killing him. Still, what about the allomancy example. Is there a reason it doesn't overwrite itself?

 
See: My previous comments (which most others seem to agree on) about Breath as maintaining age against decay, not locking it in; also, the various quotes on how gaining more and more Breath gives you more and more of an "agelessness" effect, which basically locks some version of this interpretation in.

Edited June 14, 2013 by Kurkistan

[skaa he/him]

The thing is, I think its very very wrong to say that "aging rapidly" is what actually happened when TLR had his atiumminds ripped away. Yes, the effect is the same...

 

Whoa. Um... since the effect is the same, may I request my status to be lowered from "very very wrong" to simply... I dunno... "unacceptable"?

 

... but Sazed describes it as "snapping back" to his real age, and I think that's the right way to talk about it.

 

I agree. It's in the text of the novel, after all. The thing is, "snapping back" Rashek's age would cause a very accelerated rate of aging, the same way a stretched rubber band accelerates when let go. Accelerated aging is how I've been describing it all along!

 

Removing Atiumminds of Atium Compounders accelerates aging. Receiving Breaths decelerates aging. Opposite effects. Does that make sense to you now?

Edited June 14, 2013 by skaa

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Also, fun fact: I'm fairly sure that they are zombies. They might be a bit prettier than reod!Elantrians, but they can't get sustenance from food and are uniquely dependent upon their Breath-diet to survive, as opposed to normal Awakeners at the Fifth Heightening. Vasher even calls Returned "Spontaneous Sentient BioChromatic Manifestations in a Deceased Host."

Nope, vampires.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Whoa. Um... since the effect is the same, may I request my status to be lowered from "very very wrong" to simply... I dunno... "unacceptable"?

 

A Resealer's stamp and Feruchemical gold both have the same effect: they heal you back to "the form of yourself." But they work through different mechanisms.

 

A man raising his arm is different from his arm being raised by some (unstoppable, for the sake of examples) external force, but both have the same "effect." This difference matters (beyond the merely philosophical) when you talk about how to stop that man from raising his arm. If you say "well, you raise your arms through electrical impulses, so we just need to counteract those electrical impulses" then you will only be able to actually stop the arm from raising in one of these two cases.

 

P.S. I wrote "Form of yourself" automatically on the first draft. I may need to take a break. . . 

 

I agree. It's in the text of the novel, after all. The thing is, "snapping back" Rashek's age would cause a very accelerated rate of aging, the same way a stretched rubber band accelerates when let go. Accelerated aging is how I've been describing it all along!

 

It's the difference between a man flying through the air because he jumped versus being thrown: You can stop the one by interfering with his impulse to jump (counteracting TLR's inclination to age), but you need a different technique to catch the thrown man (counteracting TLR's inclination to snap back to his real age).

 

Removing Atiumminds of Atium Compounders accelerates aging. Receiving Breaths decelerates aging. Opposite effects. Does that make sense to you now?

 

I understand what you're saying perfectly, given your claims about what happens when you remove Atiumminds. I do not, however, agree with your views on that score.

 

@Phantom

 

Okay, I'll give you that. Still, undead.

Edited June 14, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Being able to control your age at will is Returned ability. If you're 65 when you get your 2000th Breath, you'll be 65 forever. You won't gain the ability to choose to be 20.

 

Yes!

 

There's a difference between 'controlling your age at will' and 'having a fixed age based on your internal cognitive 'ideal' age'.

 

And despite that, Lemex mentions that having more breath made him 'spry despite [his] age' - and he only had a couple hundred.  Even if a Fifth Heightening Lord Ruler was set to a thousand years old, I think the secondary effects

Agelessness: At the Fifth Heightening, an Awakener’s resistance to aging and disease reaches its maximum strength. These persons are immune to most toxins, including the effects of alcohol, and most physical ailments. (Such as headaches, diseases, and organ failure.) The person no longer ages, and becomes functionally immortal.

  Would prevent him from actually dying despite being old as dirt.  I mean, if you don't have any organ failures or disease or whatever, what's the difference between 90 or 120 or 1000?

Edited June 14, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[Kurkistan he/him]

There's a difference between 'controlling your age at will' and 'having a fixed age based on your internal cognitive 'ideal' age'.

 

And despite that, Lemex mentions that having more breath made him 'spry despite [his] age' - and he only had a couple hundred.  Even if a Fifth Heightening Lord Ruler was set to a thousand years old, I think the secondary effects

  Would prevent him from actually dying despite being old as dirt.  I mean, if you don't have any organ failures or disease or whatever, what's the difference between 90 or 120 or 1000?

 

Now now Phantom, there's organ failure and there's organ failure. A mellinarian is going to have the latter. Recall that we've just gone through an entire process to show that the Fifth Heightening is simply a threshold, quantitatively different from having fewer Breath, not qualitatively. The same gradual buildup that eventually halts your aging is probably seen in the robustness of your organs, and I imagine that you'll need quite a bit more juice to keep them going after you're dealing with a century or two of (pre-Heightening) age.

Edited June 14, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Satsuoni he/him]

Well, IIRC, TLR didn't die from old age to begin with - he died from acute spearinchestitis. That goes nicely with my idea that a Gold compounder could live to a thousand... Provided enough gold and no self-respect.

As for Breaths - I think that he'll stay at his thousand, surviving, and possibly, with additional Breaths, revert a bit over time, to look younger, though not actually becoming younger (This reflects my confusion about age vs health, since I always considered growing up and, in particular, aging to be a common genetic disease...). How that would interact with Feruchemical atium is debatable, though.

[Kurkistan he/him]

But he was well on the way to dying of acute age, if we're to believe Sazed. I'm not sure how something so pitiful as a spear in the chest is supposed to faze someone capable of indefinitely fighting off a millennium of age, and Miles was going to die eventually.

 

So far as Health vs Age goes, it's just the way the cookie crumbles, Realmatically. Heck, it's half the motivation for my mildly insane "Forms" obsession.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

My point is, even without getting across the threshold, an 80 year old guy with 500 Breath has the spryness of, say, a 50 year old guy. 

 

t's clear that you've got increases in function beyond just 'you'll go from 80 to 90 more slowly' and 'you don't get sick', since loss of flexibility is an age-related thing.

[Satsuoni he/him]

Hm. Could you pull a quote, Kurk? He seemed fine for his age, and I am pretty sure he stopped aging by that point. Sure, he would have died without help, and the expenditure of health to keep his bones from snapping was probably enough to overload even Compounding - which is why he died from spear and being thrown from a large height, probably. But where does Sazed say that he was going to die from old age?

 And, Phantom, what flexibility do you mean? I agree with the point that Breath gives more energy and whatnot, and that enough Breath may be enough to revert aging. But I doubt it would be instantaneous.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

And, Phantom, what flexibility do you mean? I agree with the point that Breath gives more energy and whatnot, and that enough Breath may be enough to revert aging. But I doubt it would be instantaneous.

Lemex says that buying up a ton of breath made him spry, despite his age.  The loss of joint flexiblity is a symptom of aging - so having a lot of breath not only slows your rate of aging, but also offsets the effects of it.

[Satsuoni he/him]

Lemex says that buying up a ton of breath made him spry, despite his age.  The loss of joint flexiblity is a symptom of aging - so having a lot of breath not only slows your rate of aging, but also offsets the effects of it.

Ah, I see. I still think that is a comorbid disease, rather than aging itself, since the loss of flexibility varies greatly amongst  olde people I know. But common, sure. And Breath is well known to stave off diseases, boost immune system and recovery rates.

As an aside, sparkling glowing, pretty vampires. I seem to have heard something like this before...

[Phantom Monstrosity]

The Lord Ruler also gets a hunched spine and starts coughing when he gets super old. 

[Kurkistan he/him]

@Phantom

 

And I'm totally fine with flexibility and all. It's all granular, with incremental improvements from each additional Breath. That still won't save our resident antique from becoming dust, though, unless he has at least tens of thousands of Breath tucked away

 

@Satsuoni

 

Epilogue, Page 636 of my paperback

Sazed: "His own aging would have killed him soon anyway, Mistress [Vin]. What you did [stabby stabby] was right. This way, I can record that the Lord Ruler was struck down by one of the skaa he had oppressed."

 

Also, as an aside, I note that Sazed said "he aged incredibly quickly because his body was trying to stretch back to where it should have been" on the page before that. Now, this is just Sazed speculating, but it's also Brandon telling us what just happened, so I'll go with it as the body actively trying to get back to its natural base age, not just a side effect (yes, I'm rather prejudiced to trust the text on this point).

[Satsuoni he/him]

@Kurkistan

Ah. Well, Sazed probably never seen a human live to a thousand before, so everything he said was speculation... And I have no doubt that TLR would have died - see above about Healing not keeping up for long. Now, a few thousand Breath might have been able to stabilize him