Manufacturing allomancers with a stamp and a spike

[+Extesian he/him]

I'll keep this simple. 

You can spike out allomancy from someone soulstamped to be an allomancer. But there were reservations about how viable that is. 

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Questioner

If you Stamp yourself, to have another, overwritten spiritweb, and you get Spiked-- *laughter* What would happen?

Brandon Sanderson

We actually worked this out. *laughter*

Questioner

Well, you'd die, or very close to it, but would it revert when the Stamp reverts?

Brandon Sanderson

So what’s probably going to happen here is that you’re going to rip off the Investiture you’ve put on your soul, and your own soul will have less damage. Now, the spike is only gonna get the-- the spike, you're like "What will it do?" It will do what you've been overwritten with, but again remember, becoming an Allomancer takes so much energy, and things like-- But it is theoretically possible in the cosmere to rewrite yourself "You're an allomancer", someone spikes you to get this. The Investiture doesn't care that it was fake on you, you have managed to get that Investiture to work. Uhh, this is really tough. And really, like, you need Connection, and you need, like, the right kind of Investiture, but then it rips off and yes you have made a spike that makes you an Allomancer, even though the person was a Forger. So yes, okay? But this is the kind of stuff that is like the thought experiments for physicists in the cosmere as opposed to, y'know--

source

But a delicious new WoB indicates stamping someone to temporarily be an allomancer is easier than we thought because fooling the magic via Connection and Identity is not so hard. 

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Aurora_Fatalis Truthwatchers • 18h You'll have to ask Brandon how that'd interact with gastric acid breaking down the stamp. Or how porous/loose material interacts with stamps in the first place. Come to think of it... There's a WoB saying the Nightwatcher could change your species, but have a hard time making a spren bond to you. So... could the Nightwatcher turn you Scadrian and make you eligible for Allomantic powers? Or does the Nightwatcher's boons operate on Soul Stamp principles? Hell, let's say you bought a vial of the wrong metal on your field trip to Sel. Could you pay a Forger to stamp the vial into being a vial of the right metal (it's believable that you would check before such an important trip) and then drink the metal contained in the vial to fuel your Allomancy? mistborn Author • 13h

All right, all right. Let's see... /u/Aurora_Fatalis, changing metals around with other forms of investiture is generally going to work, according to how I view the magic right now. The power is there, you just need to align the matter the right way. So forging new metals: not too difficult. This is because Allomancy isn't actually using investiture in the metals, but using it as a key to get power from somewhere else.

Forging a sword to be a Shardblade, however, would be very, very difficult for multiple reasons. The most obvious one is that the investiture required would be enormous. A Shardblade is a highly-invested object, with its own self-aware soul.

If you could overcome the initial resistance invested objects have to being influenced by other magics (something that forgery is particularly good at doing anyway) you'd theoretically be able to change Shardblade/spren's personality like you could a person's.

Fooling the magic via Connection and Identity is not so hard, under the right circumstances, so making a forger into an Elantrian (or an Allomancer) for a short time is plausible. Making yourself into a Radiant, however, would be more difficult--because the limitations placed on that magic have to do with persuading a sapient being you are worth the bond.

Source

Manufacturing allomancers has moved into the realm of reasonable. Long live Forgery, the Cosmere's most delicious low-investiture magic. Long live Shai's unstoppable army of allomancers.

[Quantus he/him]

The main downside being that there's a good chance the stolen Investiture, which was still formed via Forgery, would begin to fail as you moved further away from Sel.  I also suspect that you'd need to get the Moon Scepter to be able to translate the correct symbols for "Allomancer" to be able to forge it in the first place.

 

Probably be "easier" to create some sort of really horrible breeding program to regain full Mistborn and Feruchemists for spike materials.

 

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Making yourself into a Radiant, however, would be more difficult--because the limitations placed on that magic have to do with persuading a sapient being you are worth the bond.

Im curious if the flip-side is true: If you'd already convinced a spren you were worthy, is that all that would be needed or would the two of you need Connection shenanigans to allow the Bond to form. 

[Calderis he/him]

I mean, if your going all hemalurgic army I doubt this is a bother to begin with, but the biggest problem I can see is that you still have to spike someone, and that's probably going to kill them. 

Per the first WoB, once the investiture is in the spike you've tricked the system and it's probably not going to revert, but you still have to write a stamp particular enough to each person you spike that it holds at least well enough for you to be able to spike them. 

If the stamp fails quickly enough that the ink stays wet, I doubt your going to be stealing anything other than a person's life. 

Edited August 28, 2018 by Calderis

[Jazzy Kandra she/her]

I really like that new wob, I feel like I could use it in a completely different topic (that is basically unrelated to Forgery beyond Connection and Identity...*flips medallion*) xD

25 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I mean, if your going all hemalurgic army I doubt this is a bother to begin with, but the biggest problem I can see is that you still have to spike someone, and that's probably going g to kill them. 

Per the first wob, once the investiture is in the spike you've tricked the system and it's probably not going to revert, but you still have to write a stamp particular enough to each person you spike that it holds at least well enough for you to be able to spike them. 

If the stamp fails quickly enough that the ink stays wet, I doubt your going to be stealing anything other than a person's life. 

Yeah, I feel like while this is "easy" from a technical point of view, creating each stamp for each individual is going to be difficult (you have to figure out at least enough about their Connections and Identity to make even a temporarily workable stamp). Plus, forgery is a rare art. This might be something that people in Silverlight experiment with for science, but I can't see it being all that useful for most regular users of hemalurgy... Thus, you have the efficiency problem. It might be easy compare to other systems on a technical level, but it would be inefficient and time consuming, too. Better to ask if you could steal the powers (when tapped) from a medallion than if you could spike someone (when stamped) for those powers. Ultimately, though, if might be better to just farm a metalborn who can get a high degree of healing (a Radiant metalborn, someone who can temporarily tap gold, etc). That way, you can have as many spikes as possible and be able to spike them even more...

So, while this is plausible, there are better methods to bake more cookies, so to speak.

Edited August 28, 2018 by Jazzy Kandra

[Corax]

Just to be clear... every time you take a power with hemalurgy, you're also murdering the person you took it from. 

So... yeah. Carry on. I'll just hide over here. *edges away nervously*

[tmnsquirtle]

38 minutes ago, Corax said:

Just to be clear... every time you take a power with hemalurgy, you're also murdering the person you took it from. 

So... yeah. Carry on. I'll just hide over here. *edges away nervously*

With enough science, anything is possible!

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Questioner

Hemalurgy, does the person having the metal shoved through them have to die?

Brandon Sanderson

It has to rip off a piece of their soul. That normally results in death.

Questioner

Because I'm thinking you're going a bit into the future, surgery, precise things like that...

Brandon Sanderson

It's plausible but-- I mean it would leave the person like-- it's ripping off a piece of their soul. But the same thing happens when you give up your Breath. So you're giving up a piece of your soul. There are-- It's plausible you could take off pieces of a soul without killing the person.

source

 

Edited August 28, 2018 by tmnsquirtle

[Corax]

11 minutes ago, tmnsquirtle said:

With enough science, anything is possible!

I stand by my discomforted fear. And my hiding over there. *hides again*

[Calderis he/him]

26 minutes ago, tmnsquirtle said:

With enough science, anything is possible!

Well, it's probable that you could manage it in a way that they'd survive... 

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The_Vikachu

I remember reading you answer earlier that a person being used to charge a hemalurgic spike does not necessarily have to die. Would that victim be similar to a Drab from Warbreaker?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, making a spike rips off a piece of someone's soul. So...yeah. I'd need to see my exact quote from before, but let's say it's not going to leave a person in good shape.

source

Is that preferable? 

[Oversleep]

8 hours ago, Extesian said:

Long live Forgery, the Cosmere's most delicious low-investiture magic.

I'm sorry, Extes.

But Forgery is high-Investiture magic, for the love of Adonalsium!

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Questioner

What if you Soulstamped a city?

Brandon Sanderson

Soulstaped a city... So if you're a really good Forger-- It is possible to do things like that, but it requires a lot of work and time. Just one thing to keep in mind with Soulstamps, and anything that does this, rewriting your spiritweb, right, like, requires Invesiture. A lot of Investiture. And so, for instance, what Shai can do is really cool, but what an Elantrian can do is gonna look a lot more dramatic, right? Shooting a column of fire, you would say "Which takes more power, making the wall have flowers on it or shooting a column of fire?" Making the wall have flowers takes way more Investiture. It's a lot easier to pull off some dramatic effects with others, but the actual changing of the soul and overwr-- ...So just keep in mind the extent-- This is why you don't see Shai Forge it so the whole building disappears. Right? And stuff like this. Which is not outside of reason for a couple of Elantrians with the right program to put into place. But I mean effectively-- They could blow it up, essentially, that's what they would do

Bystander

Make a new hole, rather than making one that has existed.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Exactly. Do keep in mind, people like to ask, you've probably seen people ask, "Could I rewrite myself to be a Knight Radiant?" Right? WELL... There are certain things that you just-- you can't fake without enough energy that it becomes impractical. Usually what I use as an example to that is: Yes, we can turn hydrogen into gold, if we wanted to. Right? We can do that! It might take more energy than the earth creates in an entire year, but we can do that.

I get a lot of questions with this that I'm like "is it possible?" and I'm like "Guys, is it possible?" ...You should probably be like, "Is it possible, with reasonable amounts of energy provided by one Invested person".

source

The second bold is more related to the topic we're discussing but I guess fakign having a spren takes way more power than faking being an Allomancer?

8 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Well, it's probable that you could manage it in a way that they'd survive... 

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The_Vikachu

I remember reading you answer earlier that a person being used to charge a hemalurgic spike does not necessarily have to die. Would that victim be similar to a Drab from Warbreaker?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, making a spike rips off a piece of someone's soul. So...yeah. I'd need to see my exact quote from before, but let's say it's not going to leave a person in good shape.

source

Is that preferable? 

With the first WoB which states that the actual soul would take less damage and the fact that there are bindpoint on non-vital parts of the body (like ears), this would minimize the damage due to Hemalurgy. Still horrible but should be surviveable. With some regeneration kind of healing magic (so not the Selish kinds but more like Feruchemical gold or Stormlight) you could even patch up the soul, so it should be kinda OK.

[Quantus he/him]

4 hours ago, Calderis said:

I mean, if your going all hemalurgic army I doubt this is a bother to begin with, but the biggest problem I can see is that you still have to spike someone, and that's probably going to kill them. 

Per the first WoB, once the investiture is in the spike you've tricked the system and it's probably not going to revert, but you still have to write a stamp particular enough to each person you spike that it holds at least well enough for you to be able to spike them. 

If the stamp fails quickly enough that the ink stays wet, I doubt your going to be stealing anything other than a person's life. 

Can we chase this for a second?  In a context of using one form of Investiture to drive another, would that be the case?  Forgery is not a permanent change, it requires refreshing and physical proximity to the Dor, right, since per the Op's first WOB the part that the spike is stealing is the Spiritweb overlayed by the forger (hence taking less actual damage).  So that particular sort of Investiture should retain it's own traits (the same way Stormlight always wants to leak, breaths is sticky, etc), Id think, unless you managed to perform the initial Forgery with non-Dor investiture (which cold be what he meant in the WOB about "needing the right kind of Investiture").

 

OR, is the Dor investiture of the Forgery just warping/rearranging the Spiritweb, stretching into a new shape and only necessary to maintain that stretching on the target).  This could also make sense, but would not explain why the forged soul takes less damage.

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine he/him]

One possible means of creating the army of Hemalurgic Forgery derived allomancers would be for the Ire to employ a Forger and take a page out of the TFE Inquisitor's playbook. If the Ire (disguised through forgery) did their research on the Genealogy of the Noble blooded houses (like Marisi did), and started snatching orphans from Elendel, the targets of the Forgery would be relatively young (easier to overwrite their history), have innate connection to Scadrial, and the Ire already have a system of bringing Dor juice to the outskirts of the Scadrian sub-astral if a stronger Selish connection is needed to fuel the Forgery. Obviously, this is a terrible and cold hearted way to accomplish this, but Hemalurgy's not really all about making cute and fluffy bunnies, is it.

This combined with southern Scadrial technology could potentially allow the Ire to create their own bands of mourning, and they might even be able to power their unkeyed allomantic/ferechemical creations with Dor juice instead of ettmetal.

I have a feeling the the Ire are going to be paying close attention to the technological developments on Scadrial, and with the their ability to bottle Selish connection, and get into the Allomancy/Feruchemy game, they might end up using Scadrian technology to acieve FTL as well.

[+Extesian he/him]

I was being a bit hyperbolic in my OP There are obviously some challenges to doing this on a large scale, mostsignificant in the difficulty in using a personalized stamp for each victim as @Jazzy Kandra pointed out. 

My excitement is that magic hacks are in my mind the thing that will decide the fate of the cosmere and the new WoB is pretty significant for forgery hacks. Not just for allomancy but for a range of other systems (Elantrian is specifically mentioned).

Yes I think for the reasons mentioned its more possibleto do this without killing victims than with some other hemalurgy options. But even if not, for many in the cosmere one murder in exchange for building allomancers (and indeed twinborn or fullborn for more murders) is absolutely something they'll accept. That said you're right jazzy that medallion tech could potentially be a better way.I'm not solid enough on medallions to comment too much. 

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I'm sorry, Extes.

But Forgery is high-Investiture magic, for the love of Adonalsium

@Oversleep quite right actually. I was thinking of a stamp being not very invested but you're right, they do draw a lot of investiture. 

Either way there are many exciting implications to this WoB and to one of my absolute favorite systems, forgery.

[Steel Inquisitive he/him]

After using a spike to steal from someone, couldn't you give them the spike to keep them from dying? They would still be a misting ( or mistborn) and wouldn't have to stay on sel. If so than that removes a lot of the moral problems.

[Ripheus23]

What if you Forged a Spike to be a Spike that had stolen Soulstamping from someone who was a Hemalurgist after having used another Spike to steal Hemalurgy from someone Soulstamped to have been Spiked? 

[Steel Inquisitive he/him]

16 minutes ago, Ripheus23 said:

What if you Forged a Spike to be a Spike that had stolen Soulstamping from someone who was a Hemalurgist after having used another Spike to steal Hemalurgy from someone Soulstamped to have been Spiked? 

Wow! I totally thought you were going somewhere else with that

Like what if you stamp a piece of metal to believe that it had been used as hemalurgic spike.

Edited August 29, 2018 by Steel Inqusitive

[tmnsquirtle]

32 minutes ago, Steel Inqusitive said:

Wow! I totally thought you were going somewhere else with that

Like what if you stamp a piece of metal to believe that it had been used as hemalurgic spike.

Couldn't find anything on the WoB archive. This would be a good question for the man himself.

[LiquidBlue]

On 8/28/2018 at 8:12 PM, Steel Inqusitive said:

After using a spike to steal from someone, couldn't you give them the spike to keep them from dying? They would still be a misting ( or mistborn) and wouldn't have to stay on sel. If so than that removes a lot of the moral problems.

I was scrolling down to the bottom of the thread to make this point. I think that this is probably one of the few times that self-hemalurgy makes sense. I don't believe that you would have to give the spike back, just leave it in. They might not even suffer any real physical injury that way.

I agree that the spike ability isn't going to revert. I believe that in forgery, the forgery ultimately fails not because it ran out of investiture to maintain the change, but because the original nature of the item is pushing back against the changes and may eventual overcome them. Once the attribute has been spiked away, there is no longer any thing pushing back against the change.

 

In some ways a forger using self-hemalurgy makes a lot of sense. The hemalurgical spike pins parts of the soul forgery in place. It is a funny image to imagine a forger walking around with a bunch of spikes so that they can permanently keep various attributes of their different essence marks continuously in place.