Does a forged object age?

[+Oltux72 he/him]

If you break the seal on a forgery, will the underlying object have aged? Let's say you make a belt from fresh leather and decorate it by forgery. After a hundred years somebody breaks the seal and does a radiocarbon dating. Will it show zero years or one hundred years?

[+ILuvHats he/him]

I couldn't find any WoBs that explicitly answer this, but I'm sure you searched the Arcanum already. Here are some WoBs that are relevant though.

Quote

BipedSnowman

In theory, could you create weird structures or even alloys [with Forgery]?

Two scenarios: using Forging how you might use Soulcasting, such as turning something into wood, bending and carving it to make a new shape, then breaking the seal so it turns back into the original material without changing shape.

Second: Forging one metal into another, and forming an alloy to reduce operation costs. For example, tungsten has a melting point of about 3.5k C, but it's useful as part of a steel alloy for certain applications. Could you Forge it into, say, zinc, which has a melting point of about 500 C, create the steel, then turn it back into tungsten? Presumably the investiture would adjust the molecular structure so it acts as if it has been alloyed with tungsten originally too, otherwise the same process happening with food could be deadly.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, this is in theory similar to Soulcasting. The difference is that a Forged object, upon "Forgetting" the rewriting to its spiritual nature is going to try to snap back and match what it "thinks" it should be like--which isn't going to lead to as much stability as Soulcasting, where the actual soul is changed. The object is going to try to get back to the way it "should" be, with varying results.

The reason the Lord Ruler aged hyper-quickly is related to this as well.

General Reddit 2018 (Aug. 27, 2018)

Quote

Questioner

If you Soulstamp somebody to give them a Connection to Arelon, and they became an Elantrian, could they become and Elantrian, and if the Soulstamp is removed, would they remain?

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, so you're asking a better one than people have asked. So you say "You get Soulstamped, you move to Arelon, your soul thinks that it is this, you do have spiritweb of Connection" I will go ahead and RAFO this with the caveat of why it might not work, is because, you might think you’re something, right? That doesn't necessarily mean-- Like, this is not completely invisible and things like this. And so, whether the power is going to follow those lines of Connection or not I will leave up to discussion, but it is a possibility worth theorizing upon.

Questioner

So a Soulstamp doesn't necessarily change the core of your spiritweb.

Brandon Sanderson

It does, but it's overwriting it. It's like Hemalurgy. What you are is still there underneath when it's ripped away, right?

Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing (Dec. 6, 2016)

Since the original spirit web is still there, this makes me think that the underlying object will age. Spirit webs record time passing, and when one extends one's life with either atium compounding or reaching the 5th Heightening, removal of the life extending effect will cause the body to snap back to its original age. Forgery is a little different because the original object is no longer visible like it is with the aforementioned effects, but it appears to me to use a very similar underlying mechanism. 

[Karger he/him]

If you take the stamp off I think it will have the same effect as TLR loosing his bands

[+Oltux72 he/him]

21 hours ago, Ookla the Prolific said:

If you take the stamp off I think it will have the same effect as TLR loosing his bands

But that is a difference. In terms of radiocarbon dating you get a burst of radiation which quickly reaches the expected age or the object has that age.

Let's make a thought experiment. We break the seal tossing the belt into an electric arc. The cognitive aspect changes. Which radiocarbon age does the resulting vapor show?

[Karger he/him]

49 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Let's make a thought experiment. We break the seal tossing the belt into an electric arc. The cognitive aspect changes. Which radiocarbon age does the resulting vapor show?

The progress is not quite instantaneous so you would probably get a mixed reading that approaches the new one.