Consequences of an object changing dimensions due to (un)Forgery

[+Oltux72 he/him]

Suppose you have two production lines for sturdy boxes. One line makes reasonably large boxes, the other line makes tiny boxes. You have a tiny box but you want a large box. So you make a Forgery to the effect that orders were mixed up and you got a large box. Should be rather simple.

Your cute family pet "Fluffy", who fits snugly into the larger box climbs into it. You destroy the soulstamp. What happens now? Does it involve pet juice, remorse, traumatized children and a divorce?

[Honorless he/him]

Did you have to phrase it like that?

[ScadrianTank he/him]

If the soul of the box grows accustomed to its size, we can hope that the change will occur slow enough for Fluffy to escape compression.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

8 minutes ago, ScadrianTank said:

If the soul of the box grows accustomed to its size, we can hope that the change will occur slow enough for Fluffy to escape compression.

But any intermediate size is extremely unlikely. The boxes are made in two sizes.

[Brgst13]

You just invented Sel's first trash compactor!

[Quantus he/him]

Im going with No crushing effect, because it's reverting to a state that never could have fit a cat in the first place.  When the Forgery reverts, I think it reverts that objects entirely role/history.  So when it reverts I think the box would blink small and get shunted out to the side of Fluffy.  If it was small enough to be practical it might it a lesser energy change to revert to a timeline where the cat ate the tiny box instead of being inside the bog box. We know there is a specific energy associated with each timeline change, so I think the universe would force it to the least different scenario (representing the lowest energy state) that fits the new current arrangement of things.  And presumably by Forgery rules the change to "the cat was never in the box" is a smaller change than "the cat got crushed by a spontaneous warp of space-time".  

[Frustration]

The box would break before fluffy did.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

8 hours ago, Honorless said:

Did you have to phrase it like that?

If you had a "Fluffy" I am sorry. Losing somebody you love always hurts.

[Experience he/him]

I that that in this case, because the box would have always been too small for the cat to fit, then it would have been as if the cat pushed the box over instead of going inside. Or maybe just it's foot is in it.

[Skaromas he/him]

to all the people who said it wouldn't have been large enough, I suspect it wouldn't change the history of the animal and the box only the box because otherwise you would get chunks of history for many objects just lost whenever a soul stamp is removed, the soul stamp only affects the object it changes the history of's history and only the parts detailed in the soul stamp, and because their was probably nothing saying, animalscan get in you in the change (other than the boxes size but that isn't saying animals can now get inside this box its just making it bigger) so it depends on the material e.g. cardboard would break, would or metal would end up in pet juice.

 

[Master Knapper]

There seems to be a general misunderstanding to how a soul stamps works.  It does not actually change the history of the object, it changes the object's concept of what it's history was.  You have a tiny box, you put the stamp on it, and it changes size.  Was it always the larger size?  No, you just convinced it's Soul that it always was, and the Soul changes the physical appearance to match what it believes it should look like. 

The only thing that can save Fluffy is how fast the transition takes.  In TES both the stamping of the mural and the removal of the stamp from the horse take a few seconds to complete, and you can watch the changes occur.  If it behaves the same, then fluffy may have a second or two to jump out.  Oltux has a point that the reaction may be quicker for the box.  the horse and the painting have a large number of intermediate states they could be in: painting is 25 % complete, 50% etc.  The horse has been neglected for 1 week, 1 month, 1 year etc.  The box is either large or small.  If the delay seen in TES is because it has to quickly go through the intermediate states, then Fluffy is in trouble.  If the delay is that it takes the object some amount of time to align reality with what the soul believes is reality, then Fluffy has a chance.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 7.8.2020 at 4:23 PM, Quantus said:

Im going with No crushing effect, because it's reverting to a state that never could have fit a cat in the first place.  When the Forgery reverts, I think it reverts that objects entirely role/history.  So when it reverts I think the box would blink small and get shunted out to the side of Fluffy.

So I forge a copper ring into a platinum piece with a honking big diamond and use it to get married (Sel is not very enlightened). My mother-in-law finds the soul stamp and scratches. Do the children vanish?

[Quantus he/him]

8 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

So I forge a copper ring into a platinum piece with a honking big diamond and use it to get married (Sel is not very enlightened). My mother-in-law finds the soul stamp and scratches. Do the children vanish?

Im going to say No, because everythign we've seen implies the Forgery effect doesnt extend past the stamped Object itself.  You scratch off the Stamp, the ring just changes back to copper, with everyone remembering the full, factual history of the enchantment.  Same way you can Stamp skills into yourself, but external things you make with those skills dont blink out of existence when the stamp expires.   

Im less certain on what would happen to the children if you Soul-forged a sterile person to be fertile, though I suspect the timeline reversion would just replace your involvement with a fate-approved "likely" replacement. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

6 hours ago, Quantus said:

Im going to say No, because everythign we've seen implies the Forgery effect doesnt extend past the stamped Object itself.

That is the point. What is the object? Let's say I have a plank and Forge into into a small table. I put an apple onto the table. If I delete the mark will the apple fall? Or will it rest on the plank? But nobody would have put an apple onto a plank on the ground.

 

[Quantus he/him]

8 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

That is the point. What is the object? Let's say I have a plank and Forge into into a small table. I put an apple onto the table. If I delete the mark will the apple fall? Or will it rest on the plank? But nobody would have put an apple onto a plank on the ground.

 

Hmm, I see where you're coming from.  I should really go back and reread Emperors Soul and keep an eye on the edge interactions when forging. 

In the mean time, let me take another stab:  the Investiture required for Forgery is a variable cost relative to how "Likely" something is, with relative likeliness being an objective and measurable thing in the Cosmere.  I think a better way to describe what happens is that reality is going to revert using the least-energy path (the same way Physics likes to). 

So in the case of the Cat being crushed in a box, it would be a lot less energy (because of less total temporal changes required) to have the cat simple glitch next to the box than find some scenario where it got crammed in there (involving falling from orbit or something?). In the case of the table, Is it less total temporal change if somebody randomly set an apple on a plank on the floor, or if they let go of an apple at table height causing it to fall onto a plank?  Hard to say without experience, but as a general rule I would think the route that lead to less lasting change/damage to adjacent objects is the safer bet.  In the case of the Engagement Ring, reality is more likely to glitch into a timeline where she accepted the simple copper ring, or maybe sold the platinum and started wearing the copper, or if she's materialistic enough married and had kids with somebody that could afford the Expensive Ring. 

So I think my money is that the apple was placed in a whimsical place on the floor before the forgery could bruise the apple, the cat would next to the box rather than being crushed or historically underfed enough to fit in the box, and "the woman loves you for YOU and not for the Shiny things, Dummy" (Cue RomCom soundtrack).  But I also think it is really going to come down to the relative Investiture cost of the Change in question, as determined by all the weird specifics of the craft that make it difficult and powerful, and also the actual Investiture available to the Forger.  

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 9.10.2020 at 10:44 PM, Quantus said:

So in the case of the Cat being crushed in a box, it would be a lot less energy (because of less total temporal changes required) to have the cat simple glitch next to the box than find some scenario where it got crammed in there (involving falling from orbit or something?). In the case of the table, Is it less total temporal change if somebody randomly set an apple on a plank on the floor, or if they let go of an apple at table height causing it to fall onto a plank?

But where does that end? If I had put the table om a sandy place before I erase the stamp, the tracks stay, don't they?

But If I have put it there and erase the mark while it is still standing there, the tracks vanish? If not, why wouldn't the apple fall down?

 

[Quantus he/him]

23 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

But where does that end? If I had put the table om a sandy place before I erase the stamp, the tracks stay, don't they?

But If I have put it there and erase the mark while it is still standing there, the tracks vanish? If not, why wouldn't the apple fall down?

 

I dont think it has to end, it can just a linear (or whatever) relationship between Relative Temporal Likelihood and Investiture Cost, all teh way up to the shardic level where it morphs into straight-up reality revision

[Trutharchivist he/him]

On 12.8.2020 at 9:05 PM, Skaromas said:

to all the people who said it wouldn't have been large enough, I suspect it wouldn't change the history of the animal and the box only the box because otherwise you would get chunks of history for many objects just lost whenever a soul stamp is removed, the soul stamp only affects the object it changes the history of's history and only the parts detailed in the soul stamp, and because their was probably nothing saying, animalscan get in you in the change (other than the boxes size but that isn't saying animals can now get inside this box its just making it bigger) so it depends on the material e.g. cardboard would break, would or metal would end up in pet juice.

 

That sounds logical to me, assuming I truly understood that.

I myself always wandered what would have happened to the horse if he died before Shai removed the stamp from him.