Hemalurgy on other planets

[Jozomby he/him]

Maybe this has already been answered before, but I just had a thought.  Hemalurgy can work anywhere, correct?  And it isn't really reliant on any particular shard or magic system?  I mean, if you know what you're doing, you can spike someone who's not a feruchemist or allomancer?  I've seen a decent amount of discussion about spiking nahel bonds, and that got me thinking. 

 

Why has hemalurgy not been discovered on planets other than Scadrial?  I suppose the immediate response is that it's not intuitive, and if you don't know it works, then you're not likely to ever figure it out.  As far as we know, the only reason hemalurgy even exists on Scadrial is because the Lord Ruler had his moment of omniscience.  

 

However, there are just too many accidental hemalurgic spikings in mistborn for me to believe that no one, for thousands of years, across an entire galaxy, would ever figure this out on their own.  I mean, at some point, somewhere, someone would have (accidentally or otherwise) gotten spiked, and after a while, people would have figured out they were able to do things they shouldn't have, and why.

 

Now, I know that a lot of the accidental spikings in mistborn were actually set up by Ruin, but they were situations that legitimately could have happened, and likely have happened in other places at other times (I'm looking at you, Spook).  

 

Does anyone have any answers?  Why has no one in the cosmere, (that we know of) over who knows how many thousand years figured out hemalurgy?

 

*Note - Thinking about it, I realize that in Stormlight and Elantris magic is not at all common.  So, at least in those worlds, perhaps we just aren't in the right time period or haven't had the chance to see this happen yet.  But the question still stands.

[natc]

If Ruin wasn't involved with the intent of hemalurgy, those accidents would have produced absolutely nothing. Intent from some involved party is said to be necessary to perform hemalurgy. Ruin probably aimed the spikes too; only very precise theft points can steal the attribute, and the spike must pierce the proper bind points as well.

It's apparently impossible to perform hemalurgy by accident, and it seems it is still nearly as impossible to do it on purpose without someone explaining it or doing all the tough parts for you.

[Voidus]

Also the only metal that we know for sure could steal abilities other than allomancy and feruchemy is Atium and there's not exactly a lot of that lying around the cosmere.

[Jozomby he/him]

If Ruin wasn't involved with the intent of hemalurgy, those accidents would have produced absolutely nothing. Intent from some involved party is said to be necessary to perform hemalurgy. Ruin probably aimed the spikes too; only very precise theft points can steal the attribute, and the spike must pierce the proper bind points as well.

It's apparently impossible to perform hemalurgy by accident, and it seems it is still nearly as impossible to do it on purpose without someone explaining it or doing all the tough parts for you.

 

Ahh, I didn't know that.  Requiring intent would explain a lot.  Thanks!

[Landis963 he/him]

Also the only metal that we know for sure could steal abilities other than allomancy and feruchemy is Atium and there's not exactly a lot of that lying around the cosmere.

Not necessarily. There's 5 base metals unaccounted for (Electrum, Cadmium, Bendalloy, Chromium, and Nicrosil), any of which could steal the ability to use any of the magic systems we've seen. Leaving them aside, there are the godmetals and their alloys, which balloons the number of candidate spikes to an obscene amount, at the cost of making them punishingly rare, as you pointed out.

[Yata he/him]

Not necessarily. There's 5 base metals unaccounted for (Electrum, Cadmium, Bendalloy, Chromium, and Nicrosil), any of which could steal the ability to use any of the magic systems we've seen. Leaving them aside, there are the godmetals and their alloys, which balloons the number of candidate spikes to an obscene amount, at the cost of making them punishingly rare, as you pointed out.

The point of Voidus was that from the other "complete quadrant" of the Hemalurgy's metal we may see that in any quadrant 2 metals steal Human's trait, one a Power from the same Quadrant in the Feruchemy and One a power from the Same Quadrant in Allomancy. There is no metal left to other magic systems

[Khyrindor he/him]

Maybe certain gems could work on Roshar, spiking the spren bond out of someone. Maybe its how the Parshendi capture spren as well?

[Voidus]

Not necessarily. There's 5 base metals unaccounted for (Electrum, Cadmium, Bendalloy, Chromium, and Nicrosil), any of which could steal the ability to use any of the magic systems we've seen. Leaving them aside, there are the godmetals and their alloys, which balloons the number of candidate spikes to an obscene amount, at the cost of making them punishingly rare, as you pointed out.

Hence 'that we know for sure'

But given that the AA was only referring to Scadrial magics at all it's possible that each base metal also steals something from other magic systems, or maybe you'd need to hack it somehow first but it might still be possible. That being said it'd also take ages to find not only the correct bindpoints for other magic systems but also the correct metal so I think Atium is the safest bet for now.

Although all that aside the metals that steal human traits should all work fine on other planets so turning people into Koloss wouldn't be too hard and now I'm imagining a worldhopping Allomancer with some Hemalurgic knowledge travelling to other worlds and starting Kolosspocalypses. 

[natc]

We also have to wonder if the various species of "human" even have the same bind points.

[Landis963 he/him]

We also have to wonder if the various species of "human" even have the same bind points.

 

Hemalurgy cares about the Spiritweb, which has very little to do with internal physiology.  As long as the basic silhouette is the same, I wouldn't be surprised if they did.  (At the very least it would make in-world experimentation much easier)

[Yata he/him]

To be honest my "idea" about the hemalurgy was that "Steal Allomantic Cognitive powers" is "Steal End-Positive Cognitive Powers" and the same with "Feruchemical End-Neutral" (and of course with Physical/Spiritual).

 

But there isn't proof about therefore I have to be realist and think that probably there is another "rules"

Edited October 19, 2015 by Yata

[Ari he/him]

To be honest my "idea" about the hemalurgy was that "Steal Allomantic Cognitive powers" is "Steal End-Positive Cognitive Powers" and the same with "Feruchemical End-Neutral" (and of course with Physical/Spiritual).

 

But there isn't proof about therefore I have to be realist and think that probably there is another "rules"

 

That's pretty reasonable speculation I think, at least until we see more about how Hemalurgy reacts with non-Scadrian investiture, which is definitely worth keeping an eye on in Bands of Mourning and the last Wax & Wayne book. It seems likely that the answer lies in either the rules being broader than  we think they are, or that the remaining Hemalurgical metals relate directly to other magic systems.

[Yata he/him]

Yes my idea is "pretty but there is a problems with it.

- The "MyHemalurgy" can't steal end-negative magic (only with atium).

- Some "powers", the physical one have 2 quadrant and therefore there is a 50% about what metal could steal them.

- The God metals and their alloy are useless (with the exception of Atium) and seems to me strange.

 

It's quite oddly to find contros to your own Theory