Shardcast: Skyward Tour Words of Brandon #1

Youtube doesn't want to show my comment properly for some reasons so I'm going to post this here as well. 

CW: Blood, Decomposition process, Bodily Functions

Re. This wob: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/361-skyward-pre-release-ama/#e11334

I’m not a doctor, but can give some more information about potentially storing hemalurgic spikes in a corpse. I would estimate that you would have, comfortably four-eight hours, to a maximum of twelve hours (though you would really be pushing it), before the blood is no longer viable to store hemalurgic spikes.  

When the human body dies and the heart stops beating, blood will cease flowing and settle towards the bottom of the body, in a process known as livor mortis. The settling of blood cells is what gives the skin of corpses a blue/purple tinge, as the red blood cells are drawn away as they are no longer resisting the pull of gravity. Livor mortis begins immediately, with signs being visible from as early as twenty minutes after death. Lividity will become obvious between two-four hours and peaks between eight and twelve hours, at which time the blood has fully settled and will become ‘fixed’, no longer moving at all if the body is manipulated. Cells will also begin to break down immediately after death, as the body stops taking in oxygen and the blood stops distributing oxygen, which leads to an increase in carbon dioxide, causing autolysis or self induced cell death. Hydrogen sulfide (H2S), produced in the abdomen, will react with haemoglobin to form sulfhaemaglobin, leading to the green hue seen beneath the skin of corpses, creating mosaic like patterns that are referred to as marbling. By the point of fixed lividity the blood will be largely unusable, and will appear gluggy in composition.

Despite the breakdown of cells and the settling of blood after death, it does remain viable to be used up until a certain point. The exact point, however, is hard to pin down and there’s only so many creative ways I could think of to ask one of my colleagues about the stability of blood in corpses. However, successful transfusions have been performed from cadavers over the last 100 years by both Russian and American medical professionals. In the 1920s, Russian doctor, Sergei Yudin advised that blood from a cadaver could be considered usable up to six hours in warm weather and eight in cold. Less than a decade later, American scientists Dr. Donald Farmer and Dr. Leonard Charpier transfused an estimated 35 patients with blood taken from four hour old cadavers. 

So based on previous experimentation within this area, you could avoid hemalurgic decay by using relatively fresh corpses, though anywhere after eight hours post death would run the risk of loss of power. However, there are a *lot* of factors that would affect this time frame including, but not limited to, ambient temperature, humidity, and exposure of the corpse to the air. Cause of death would also play a factor - if your friendly neighbourhood Inquisitor has severely maimed you and you die from massive blood loss then you’ll hardly make a good incubator for those spikes, unless they’re really desperate. They’ll also want to keep in mind the movement of blood as it settles and place the spikes on the lower side of the body so the blood pools on top of them, instead of draining away due to gravity. 

"If you are well versed in hemalurgy". Are we secretly Brandon?

@Chaos, the Whos that cosmere character entrance got screwed up.

@LadyLameness my guess is that your comment got flagged by YouTube for talking about death and corpses so much. 

4 hours ago, Ark1002 said:

"If you are well versed in hemalurgy". Are we secretly Brandon?

@Chaos, the Whos that cosmere character entrance got screwed up.

It didn't get screwed up, it got edited out because we can't include it anymore.  

Just now, Chaos said:

It didn't get screwed up, it got edited out because we can't include it anymore.  

Copyright?

1 minute ago, Ark1002 said:

Copyright?

Yes  We talked about it in the last episode I think.

18 hours ago, thegatorgirl00 said:

@LadyLameness my guess is that your comment got flagged by YouTube for talking about death and corpses so much. 

That would make sense, I had assumed it was because I’ve never done anything under that account before and it was some sort of anti-spam measure. 

Kaise and daorn are officially not twins, it is mentioned in Elantris.

Yay!  You used my Cosmere Character and it didn't get randomly guessed on the first round!  I was half-expecting that it would, just by someone automatically guessing "Hoid" as a stock first-round response.