Random: Koloss plus Biochromatic equal?

[Sheridan_rd]

I have a question (admittedly kind of stupid) about how a Koloss's unique life cycle would be effected by Nathlis's magic system.

1. Heightenings increase a person's life span and health. A Koloss grow larger the older it gets until its health gives out.  Would a Koloss with a high enough Heightening continue to grow until it hit the "square-cube law" or would magic override that?

2. If a Koloss happened to be selected by Empowerment to be Returbed, would it Koloss size, Returned size, or bigger than both?

[Merrickz he/him]

We learn from the

Spoiler

death of Blushweaver that the Returned (and therefore people above the 5th heightening) can be killed

This means that at the very least the Koloss would still die at 20 or so years from excessive growth. Whether or not they would continue growing is not so clear however the term "Agelessness" Suggests that they don't age and therefore I'd assume they would not grow however this is a question for Brandon as we don't really have enough information on BioChroma to speculate any further

[Farnsworth]

If Heightenings aid health, and health is defined by Spiritual essence filtered through Cognitive essence, Heightenings might make Koloss more human. We know from Secret History that 

Spoiler

Koloss have human Spiritual aspects

So wouldn’t the Heightenings make Koloss more human? Maybe not fully human since they are still spiked, but a bit more.

[Calderis he/him]

The fifth heightening causes aging to cease.

For Koloss, their size is a matter of age.

So they should stop growing at the fifth heightening and be functionally immortal like everyone else. 

[Weltall]

Yeah, a Koloss at the Fifth Heightening would presumably cease to age and thus grow, so they'd be immortal as long as their body wasn't already in the process of failing due to their biology.

3 hours ago, Sheridan_rd said:

2. If a Koloss happened to be selected by Empowerment to be Returbed, would it Koloss size, Returned size, or bigger than both?

Endowment, FYI. And assuming such a thing could happen (very tricky to become a Returned if you're not from Nalthis) they would probably be whatever size they were pre-Return. Your appearance as a returned is based on how you think you should look, so a Koloss would likely envision themselves the way they were pre-death and Return. The reason the Returned are larger than life is because they unconsciously expect their gods to be 'like us, but bigger' and so that's how they appear when they Return.

[Yata he/him]

11 hours ago, Weltall said:

Yeah, a Koloss at the Fifth Heightening would presumably cease to age and thus grow, so they'd be immortal as long as their body wasn't already in the process of failing due to their biology.

Endowment, FYI. And assuming such a thing could happen (very tricky to become a Returned if you're not from Nalthis) they would probably be whatever size they were pre-Return. Your appearance as a returned is based on how you think you should look, so a Koloss would likely envision themselves the way they were pre-death and Return. The reason the Returned are larger than life is because they unconsciously expect their gods to be 'like us, but bigger' and so that's how they appear when they Return.

It's hard to make a not Nalthian to return but not to turn a Nalthian into a Koloss.

Anyway returning to the original question, I think Breath to a Koloss would allow him/her to reach a superior size (thanks to the improved Health) but slowly (for the slowed aging process).

To arrive at peak (as @Calderis already pointed) with the ageless and therefore the statis of the Koloss status/size at whatever size he reached back then.

[Wandering Investor]

The 5th Heightening appears to stop DNA degradation, which is what leads to aging. The body isn't frozen in time however, bodily functions continue to act as normal. So the Koloss would keep growing. The additional health benefits of the 5th Heightening would likely allow the Koloss to more easily repair itself, so it would be able to get bigger before experiencing problems, but eventually it would still run into the problem of being unable to pump blood through the body, or perhaps being crushed by its own mass.

[Weltall]

Oh, interesting WoB I found that's somewhat on topic. Missed it earlier because I was looking for topics on the Returned and this deals with Lifeless.

Quote

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.

source

So based on that, assuming you could get a koloss to Return (the easiest way would be to spike a native Nalthian) and assuming the spikes don't interfere with the process, what you would probably get is a Returned that wants to revert to its original human form rather than the koloss one it had prior to death. We see recently killed koloss in the Cognitive Realm in Secret History and we know their self-image is still human (see also: Human the Koloss) so that makes sense.

[Yata he/him]

14 hours ago, Wandering Investor said:

The 5th Heightening appears to stop DNA degradation, which is what leads to aging. The body isn't frozen in time however, bodily functions continue to act as normal. So the Koloss would keep growing. The additional health benefits of the 5th Heightening would likely allow the Koloss to more easily repair itself, so it would be able to get bigger before experiencing problems, but eventually it would still run into the problem of being unable to pump blood through the body, or perhaps being crushed by its own mass.

Your logic is based on a physical influence of the 5th on aging and biology.
While it is indeed Spiritual (for how the Cosmere aging works). It alters in some way your soul to allow it to bypass the mechanism who dictate aging. Indeed if you lose the 5th someway, you will not simply start to aging again....But you will be pushed at your rightful age. The Soul without the weirdness the Breaths include will syncro your physical with your spiritual causing a massive fast aging exactly the same stuff that happenes to TLR at TFE's ending

[Wandering Investor]

9 hours ago, Yata said:

Your logic is based on a physical influence of the 5th on aging and biology.
While it is indeed Spiritual (for how the Cosmere aging works). It alters in some way your soul to allow it to bypass the mechanism who dictate aging. Indeed if you lose the 5th someway, you will not simply start to aging again....But you will be pushed at your rightful age. The Soul without the weirdness the Breaths include will syncro your physical with your spiritual causing a massive fast aging exactly the same stuff that happenes to TLR at TFE's ending

Your logic is based on how Feruchemy anti aging works which is different from the heightenings.

Aging in the cosmere is both spiritual and physical since it is all connected. The spiritual aspect determines the age, the physical aspect the aging. The Lord Ruler reversed his aging, but didn't stop the aging process itself, or change his spiritual aspect. Because of that, he required greater and greater amounts of youth to maintain his youth, and upon stopping, his body fast forwarded to the proper age recorded in his spirit and experienced the equivalent amount of aging. Breath users don't require larger and larger amount of power, because they do not appear to be reversing the aging process, but instead stop the aging, whether its the spiritual or physical aspect. Fast forward a thousand years, accounting for food and water, and the body of a 5th Heightening will still be the same, unlike the Lord Ruler who's body will have continued aging. Following that logic, a breath user could give away their breath and they would likely just start aging from where they left off, because for awhile they stopped the aging process and still experienced time, instead of reversing/covering it up like TLR.

[The One Who Connects he/him]

2 hours ago, Wandering Investor said:

Following that logic, a breath user could give away their breath and they would likely just start aging from where they left off, because for awhile they stopped the aging process and still experienced time, instead of reversing/covering it up like TLR.

Brandon currently thinks otherwise.

Quote

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine
If a person held enough breath to attain the 5th heightening, lived for a thousand years, and then sold all but their initial breath, would their spiritual age force them to rapidly age as we saw with Rashek, or would they resume natural aging from the point at which they ceased?

Brandon Sanderson (written)
I think they would rapidly age. But I'm not ready to say 100%.

Edited May 15, 2018 by The One Who Connects

[Wandering Investor]

42 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Brandon currently thinks otherwise.

Holding out for that not 100%. It would seem weird if Feruchemy required larger amounts of youth and breath didn't require more breath as time passes, but I guess it depends on how Brandon wires the background mechanics.

[The One Who Connects he/him]

21 minutes ago, Wandering Investor said:

Holding out for that not 100%. It would seem weird if Feruchemy required larger amounts of youth and breath didn't require more breath as time passes, but I guess it depends on how Brandon wires the background mechanics.

I agree that it seems odd. We all do. Calderis flat-out stated that it wasn't the answer that he was expecting when he gave Grapevine the question.

As an aside: Though it doesn't appear to be lost, Breath does weaken over time.

Quote

Weltall (paraphrased)
I asked if someone who had a lot of Breath would have it weaken collectively, in the same way that the single Breaths of children are more vibrant than others and move one slightly closer to a Heightening, then weaken as they grow older (and contribute slightly less towards a Heightening).

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
He said that it wouldn't be noticeable once you accumulate enough Breath and, for example, Hoid wouldn't find himself suddenly losing perfect pitch as a function of time.

"wouldn't be noticeable" seems to imply that it does happen, just very gradually. Breath slightly weakens over time, and holding breath extends someone's lifespan. Is it too far to assume these could be linked in some way?

When in an awakened object though, it seems breath can be lost(jeez, this WoB is from 2002)

Quote

Brandon Sanderson
Though, what I'll do is say that if you leave the breath in for too long, one of them vanishes. If you can get them back quickly enough, however, there is no loss. That gives a bit of a better explanation of why there aren't a lot of awakened objects doing things all over the place. True, using the breath to make them would be initially expensive--but if you got a magic object that never winds down, then that might be worth the expense.

[Weltall]

24 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

As an aside: Though it doesn't appear to be lost, Breath does weaken over time.

"wouldn't be noticeable" seems to imply that it does happen, just very gradually. Breath slightly weakens over time, and holding breath extends someone's lifespan. Is it too far to assume these could be linked in some way?

Just to interject since that's 'my' WoB, I really wish I'd had a recording of the exact words he used there. I got the strong impression that it was basically a non-issue but I had to go from the notes I jotted after the fact. If there is a weakening effect even at higher amounts, there's probably a limit to how much weaker a breath can get so you would eventually hit a point of maximum degradation and they wouldn't weaken further.

I also wish I'd had a recording from that signing for something Brandon said about instant noodles (nothing lore significant, just a curiosity) but that's neither here nor there. xD

Quote

When in an awakened object though, it seems breath can be lost(jeez, this WoB is from 2002)

This one came up recently and I very much doubt that we can consider it canon. In the wider context of the WoB, he's soliciting ideas from his readers and mentioned that he liked the idea of breath loss in Awakening and would incorporate it, but if you look at the various drafts and final product it's clear that he didn't actually put it in. Since it's a matter of an offhand line and there were plenty of opportunities for him to do so but he never put it in, it's possible he changed his mind. The WoB is more aspirational than definitive, I think.

[Yata he/him]

Simply the Breath induces a change that lessen or bypass at all the aging Soul check (I wrote a Short theory about that some time ago, maybe It's in my signature I can't remember) but this is true only as long as the Breath is in place and does its job.

[+robardin he/him]

So, how about stapling four Returned together into a koloss?

 

[Yata he/him]

18 hours ago, robardin said:

So, how about stapling four Returned together into a koloss?

 

Do you mean Spiking four Returned to make a Koloss or add others four Spikes to an already made Koloss.

In the second case no idea.

In the First It Will depend by what are you stealing from the Returned.

If you steal their Strenght...you Will have a regular Koloss.

If you steal other stuffs...you can't make a Koloss from those

[Rage_Fortress he/him]

On ‎5‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 10:04 AM, Weltall said:

In Awakening, you're basically giving something a counterfeit soul. (But without the skill or knowledge of something like an Essence Mark.)

Does this mean that what Shai did to the Emperor's soul was a form of Awakening, only more precise?

[Wandering Investor]

4 minutes ago, theuntaintedchild said:

Does this mean that what Shai did to the Emperor's soul was a form of Awakening, only more precise?

No, Shai's essence marks essentially cover up whatever they're applied to. The thing they're stamped into is still there, it just that you see/interact with whatever the essence mark was instead. Breaths actually imbue themselves directly into the awakened object. Also throw in the forgery has to be believable, while the awakening does not.