discuss Alternative methodes to avoid Hemalurgic decay

[mathiau he/him]

At JordanCon Brandon gave us this WoB

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LadyLameness

The Inquisitors keep spikes in jars to stop the Hemalurgic decay. Is that clotted blood? Like, does it just work with clotted blood?

Brandon Sanderson

It will. So what's going here is the spikes have to - this is a weird Cosmere thing - the spikes have to think they're in a body and you gotta trick them. You don't need to use blood but that's the easiest thing that they could do to make it work. You could also leave it in a piece of meat.

LadyLameness

You can put the stake in the steak!

Brandon Sanderson

You can put a stake in a steak. But there are plenty of ways to do this without doing that. But yes, it's pretty gross.

LadyLameness

Not that I think they have consciousness very much, but I imagine that they're a bit stupid if they think that clotted blood is the same as a human body.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. You're just tricking the stupid piece of metal that has a little bit of extra Investiture and has become slightly self-aware, and so it keeps its charge and doesn't... yeah. There are much better modern ways of doing this that have started to be used.

JordanCon 2021 (July 16, 2021)

The purpose of this thread is to brainstorm what these other methods could be, I have three ideas :

1. Use a piece of meat soulcasted into something imperishable, maybe a rock that already have filling slots for the spikes. We know soulcasted flesh remember it use to be alive and can be made into lifelesses, maybe it'd be enough to trick the spike?
2. Use the same kind of Soulcasting Fabrial Melishi used for the shield to have the material around the spike believe it's alive
3. Bath the spike in ichor-alcohol. Ichor-alcohol is basically lifeless blood so it should manage to trick the spike and it's far easier to obtain than blood. It's possible you would have to use ichor that used to be in a lifeless which would make things more difficult but it'd still be far better than blood

[Inquisitor #5]

3 hours ago, mathiau said:

Use a piece of meat soulcasted into something imperishable, maybe a rock that already have filling slots for the spikes. We know soulcasted flesh remember it use to be alive and can be made into lifelesses, maybe it'd be enough to trick the spike?

I think this one has a good chance of working, though it might need to be spiked before it's soulcast. Also, it may not work as being made into a lifeless is about having been alive while the spike wants something that registers as body, which a lump of former meat might not.

3 hours ago, mathiau said:

Use the same kind of Soulcasting Fabrial Melishi used for the shield to have the material around the spike believe it's alive

That really depends on the limits of soulcasting, though I don't think a spike would care if the mateial was alive (sidenote, can rock soulcast into flesh be Awakened?) Also, sphere of meatification, yuck.

3 hours ago, mathiau said:

Bath the spike in ichor-alcohol. Ichor-alcohol is basically lifeless blood so it should manage to trick the spike and it's far easier to obtain than blood. It's possible you would have to use ichor that used to be in a lifeless which would make things more difficult but it'd still be far better than blood

I don't think this would work at all, ichor-alcohol probably doesn't register as blood realmatically. Sure, it fills a similar function in Lifeless, but I don't think it fills the same functions as blood, like oxygen transfer. It's there to keep the zombie fresh and lifelike, presumably prolonging time between re-infusions of Breath and generally improving the shelf-life, not letting various fun decay processes set in.

 

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[Halyo_Alex he/him]

5 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

9 hours ago, mathiau said:

Use a piece of meat soulcasted into something imperishable, maybe a rock that already have filling slots for the spikes. We know soulcasted flesh remember it use to be alive and can be made into lifelesses, maybe it'd be enough to trick the spike?

I think this one has a good chance of working, though it might need to be spiked before it's soulcast. Also, it may not work as being made into a lifeless is about having been alive while the spike wants something that registers as body, which a lump of former meat might not.

Or, or... Spike an awakened object with a command involving just sitting around and being a convenient spike receptacle. It might not even need to have been a person/animal, like you could make a hemalurgic voodoo doll!

[Inquisitor #5]

1 minute ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Or, or... Spike an awakened object with a command involving just sitting around and being a convenient spike receptacle. It might not even need to have been a person/animal, like you could make a hemalurgic voodoo doll!

My only problem with this is that this might count as a creature enough that the spikes would bestow their powers on it, leaving you with much less potent second hand spikes once you want to use them.

Like the idea though.

 

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[Halyo_Alex he/him]

3 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

My only problem with this is that this might count as a creature enough that the spikes would bestow their powers on it, leaving you with much less potent second hand spikes once you want to use them.

Like the idea though.

Eh? Isn't that the whole point? Tricking the spike into not decaying because it thinks it's inside a valid host... Why would that make it a weak secondhand spike? Spikes don't get weaker when you take them out except for the part where they decay while in transit, right??

[Inquisitor #5]

Just now, Halyo_Alex said:

Eh? Isn't that the whole point? Tricking the spike into not decaying because it thinks it's inside a valid host... Why would that make it a weak secondhand spike? Spikes don't get weaker when you take them out except for the part where they decay while in transit, right??

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Sporkify

Before, Inquisitors had supernatural healing. How did they get the Feruchemists for the spike? Were the keepers not so hidden after all?

Brandon Sanderson

The keepers have been hunted for years. Much like skaa Allomancers, they were often captured and taken by the Inquisitors. It didn't happen nearly as often, of course. Two things to remember, however: Not all Inquisitors had the same spikes, and spikes CAN be reused with much less effectiveness. The longer they are outside of a body, the more their power degrades.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

My reading of this is that there's both the Hemalurgic Decay Constant, that is the inevitable loss when outside a body, and some sort of additional loss upon death of/removal from the original recipient, otherwise I don't see why a reused spike would be much less effective.

 

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[Halyo_Alex he/him]

3 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

My reading of this is that there's both the Hemalurgic Decay Constant, that is the inevitable loss when outside a body, and some sort of additional loss upon death of/removal from the original recipient, otherwise I don't see why a reused spike would be much less effective.

Interesting... But I'm still skeptical. Maybe you're right, but in the end I guess it'll just be a RAFO.

[ScadrianTank he/him]

On 01.08.2021 at 9:39 PM, Inquisitor #5 said:

That really depends on the limits of soulcasting, though I don't think a spike would care if the mateial was alive (sidenote, can rock soulcast into flesh be Awakened?) Also, sphere of meatification, yuck.

On 01.08.2021 at 5:36 PM, mathiau said:

Use the same kind of Soulcasting Fabrial Melishi used for the shield to have the material around the spike believe it's alive

Invested embalming by soulcasting air to flesh with actual corpses as models. I wish I hadn't thought of that.

 

 

[apepi]

I wonder if you could soothe the spike itself.

Or what if you like...surround a spike with aluminum?

[mathiau he/him]

On 01/08/2021 at 11:08 PM, Inquisitor #5 said:

My only problem with this is that this might count as a creature enough that the spikes would bestow their powers on it, leaving you with much less potent second hand spikes once you want to use them.

Like the idea though.

 

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On 01/08/2021 at 11:09 PM, Halyo_Alex said:

Eh? Isn't that the whole point? Tricking the spike into not decaying because it thinks it's inside a valid host... Why would that make it a weak secondhand spike? Spikes don't get weaker when you take them out except for the part where they decay while in transit, right??

On 01/08/2021 at 11:17 PM, Inquisitor #5 said:

My reading of this is that there's both the Hemalurgic Decay Constant, that is the inevitable loss when outside a body, and some sort of additional loss upon death of/removal from the original recipient, otherwise I don't see why a reused spike would be much less effective.

 

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Fascinating, so we have to something alive but not very alive (a platipus can gain Hemalurgic powers)

2 hours ago, apepi said:

I wonder if you could soothe the spike itself.
 

That's interesting, I have no idea

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Or what if you like...surround a spike with aluminum?

We have confirmation it would work, but I doubt it's what Brandon was talking about with how aluminium is expansive in Era 2

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

6 hours ago, mathiau said:

Fascinating, so we have to something alive but not very alive

That soulcasting fabrial shield sounds like a potential mechanism... Obviously tweaking it to fit the need.

...Ha, it would literally be a meat shield.

[apepi]

Couldn't you just spike an animal till you need it?

[mathiau he/him]

25 minutes ago, apepi said:

Couldn't you just spike an animal till you need it?

Not if there's a charge loss for reusing a spike

Also, using four spike or more on someone is deadly in most cases and I doubt you can store spikes of the size generally used could be given on something smaller than a dog so that'd not be exactly size-efficient

[apepi]

7 hours ago, mathiau said:

Not if there's a charge loss for reusing a spike

Also, using four spike or more on someone is deadly in most cases and I doubt you can store spikes of the size generally used could be given on something smaller than a dog so that'd not be exactly size-efficient

I mean, I don't see how it is any different than putting it into a steak.

[mathiau he/him]

4 hours ago, apepi said:

I mean, I don't see how it is any different than putting it into a steak.

Did you mean a living animal or a dead animal?

[apepi]

10 hours ago, mathiau said:

Did you mean a living animal or a dead animal?

I mean, I dont see the difference of putting it in a living animal rather than a steak.

[mathiau he/him]

4 hours ago, apepi said:

I mean, I dont see the difference of putting it in a living animal rather than a steak.

The difference is that putting it in a living animal count as using the spike to give a power, which mean there will be loses when you remove it

And once again, four spikes are often deadly

[+asmodeus]

If the spikes only have to think they're inside a body, and they're not particularly good at it (as evidenced by the fact that one can keep them in blood and that's fine), then maybe what we should be asking is how far can this be pushed.

If blood is okay, then what else is? Would animal products derived from the body work? Would carved bone work just as well? What about the skin, or even tanned leather? Because then, something as simple as leather, maybe specialised with added blood or something, could work. Like a leather sheath, or a leather belt that you "spike" with the spike.

Edited August 11, 2021 by asmodeus

[LewsTherinTelescope]

On 8/9/2021 at 3:52 AM, mathiau said:

The difference is that putting it in a living animal count as using the spike to give a power, which mean there will be loses when you remove it

If the way keeping it in blood works is by tricking it into thinking it's in a body and behaving accordingly, wouldn't that likely apply either way?

[mathiau he/him]

11 hours ago, asmodeus said:

If the spikes only have to think they're inside a body, and they're not particularly good at it (as evidenced by the fact that one can keep them in blood and that's fine), then maybe what we should be asking is how far can this be pushed.

If blood is okay, then what else is? Would animal products derived from the body work? Would carved bone work just as well? What about the skin, or even tanned leather? Because then, something as simple as leather, maybe specialised with added blood or something, could work. Like a leather sheath, or a leather belt that you "spike" with the spike.

That is a very good question

2 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

If the way keeping it in blood works is by tricking it into thinking it's in a body and behaving accordingly, wouldn't that likely apply either way?

Empirically it doesn't apply to putting it in blood, otherwise Inquisitors wouldn't store spikes at all. I suspect it's because when you want to spike something living you have to overcome their intrinsic investiture (you are after all trying to drill a hole in their soul) which is not something a gallon of blood would have

[+Harrycrapper]

I don't think any of the solutions that require a magic system from another planet are what Brandon means by "much more modern ways of doing this." That gives me the impression that it's some sort of technological advancement. Though I don't really see any way this could be done without some sort of biological component. 

[+Invocation]

11 hours ago, asmodeus said:

If blood is okay, then what else is? Would animal products derived from the body work? Would carved bone work just as well? What about the skin, or even tanned leather? Because then, something as simple as leather, maybe specialised with added blood or something, could work. Like a leather sheath, or a leather belt that you "spike" with the spike.

I'm just imagining sticking a charged spike in a jello cup.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

43 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Empirically it doesn't apply to putting it in blood, otherwise Inquisitors wouldn't store spikes at all. I suspect it's because when you want to spike something living you have to overcome their intrinsic investiture (you are after all trying to drill a hole in their soul) which is not something a gallon of blood would have

I mean, that's assuming he means that re-using a spike inherently weakens it significantly, as opposed to it just being difficult to do efficiently (you have to always keep a bunch of vials of blood on-hand to make sure the spikes don't decay when you remove them, or else you have to lug the corpse around until the next time you find a victim, and then you do need to expose it to be able to move it over from one person to another in the first place, and over time this adds up). If not for the last sentence in the WoB, I might agree, but to me it does read as implication that the last sentence is the cause.

[+asmodeus]

53 minutes ago, Invocation said:

I'm just imagining sticking a charged spike in a jello cup.

lmao

Now I'm imagining a modern era scadrian propagonda poster saying "Don't forget to butter your spikes when not in use!"

[metal get in my tummy he/him]

Put spike in a box and pour molten aluminium over it. Smash open when you want to retrieve. Then eat the aluminium scraps. Gotta get that iron in