Cell Injection as a Progression Hack

[The Stick]

If the cells of a surge binder were injected into another person's wound, let's say a papercut, could the surgebinder use Stormlight healing to seal that wound. I would feasibly say this could work, although the issue would be differing cellular DNA. However, if plain stem cells that were a match were injected in, could you use truth serum or some other method to make the surgebinder perceive these cells as theirs to make the healing work. I suppose the other way to do it would be to somehow connect the wound to the surgebinder so the Stormlight will heal it like seen in the Ishar scene in RoW.

 

Does anyone have any thoughts?

[Trusk'our he/him]

40 minutes ago, The Stick said:

Does anyone have any thoughts?

So, let me see if I understand your train of thought; you suggest injecting a Surgebinder's cells into the wound of another individual in the hopes that these cells will metabolize Stormlight to repair that damage. 

I don't think that this will work in quite the way you hope; a Surgebinder's power is part of their Spiritweb, and that seems to be tied to their "self", so amputated body parts (or cell injections) won't transfer that ability to another. 

However, your idea of utilizing Connection to repair another person with a Surgebinder's own Stormlight may hold more ground; if the Investiture transfers over to the non-Surgebinder and sees them as a part of the Surgebinder just as the stones thought the Windrunners were in RoW, I could see this as a plausible (albeit probably less efficient) alternative to the Surge of Regrowth. 

[The Stick]

I guess based on the Spiritweb but you have to consider if you can forge cells to work on this way. The way I see this is we don't know how small Soulstamps can feasibly get. Can they apply to things on the cellular level? I am thinking that eventually forgery characters will become akin to transistors, and the struggle is fitting as many as possible into one Soulstamps.

[alder24]

10 hours ago, The Stick said:

If the cells of a surge binder were injected into another person's wound, let's say a papercut, could the surgebinder use Stormlight healing to seal that wound. I would feasibly say this could work, although the issue would be differing cellular DNA. However, if plain stem cells that were a match were injected in, could you use truth serum or some other method to make the surgebinder perceive these cells as theirs to make the healing work. I suppose the other way to do it would be to somehow connect the wound to the surgebinder so the Stormlight will heal it like seen in the Ishar scene in RoW.

No, because those cells don't carry the Spiritual DNA with them, as that stays with the Surgebinder's soul from which those cells got separated during this process. Not to mention that another person can't use Surgebinder's powers cause of Connection and Identity differences and other factors. A Surgebinder's cells or body parts in another person's body are no longer "his" and perception can't change it all due to the fact that the soul stays with the larger portion of a body.

Spoiler

Soronir

About Miles from Alloy of Law and his regenerative powers. If he was bisected down the middle and the halves were separated immediately before the healing process could begin, would the two halves each regrow into a whole Miles?

Nepene

I heard this sort of situation arose with Hoid in Dragonsteel. He had his head cut off.

Brandon Sanderson

Good question. In all of the Cosmere's Shard-based magics, the greater portion of a bisected body regrows the lesser portion. If it were done EXACTLY halfway, the soul wold jump to one or the other randomly and that would regrow.

Amusingly, this first came up in 1999, six years before I got published. (I see someone else already mentioned the situation where I had to consider it.)

General Reddit 2013 (Feb. 20, 2013)

 

8 hours ago, The Stick said:

I guess based on the Spiritweb but you have to consider if you can forge cells to work on this way. The way I see this is we don't know how small Soulstamps can feasibly get. Can they apply to things on the cellular level? I am thinking that eventually forgery characters will become akin to transistors, and the struggle is fitting as many as possible into one Soulstamps.

I don't think you can Forge just your individual cells to have Radiant powers, as that's coming from your Spirit Web, not from cells. Forging yourself to become Radiant to heal is extremely difficult and requires a ton of investiture. If you want to use Forgery just use Resealing, which heals physical damage. 

Spoiler

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".

Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing (Dec. 6, 2016)

 

[Duxredux he/him]

On 6/22/2024 at 6:46 PM, The Stick said:

If the cells of a surge binder were injected into another person's wound, let's say a papercut, could the surgebinder use Stormlight healing to seal that wound. I would feasibly say this could work, although the issue would be differing cellular DNA. However, if plain stem cells that were a match were injected in, could you use truth serum or some other method to make the surgebinder perceive these cells as theirs to make the healing work. I suppose the other way to do it would be to somehow connect the wound to the surgebinder so the Stormlight will heal it like seen in the Ishar scene in RoW.

 

Does anyone have any thoughts?

I think this is a clever and out of the box idea, but I don't see it being practical. The hoops to jump through to get this to work require having access to abilities with more effective methods of healing than this hack - and whether or not it even could work seems to be in doubt. Let's say that hypothetically we introduce a Surgebinder's cells into another person's body. In order to heal the person we would need the transplanted cells to have sufficient Connection to the recipient to infuse their body with Stormlight, Connection to the Surgebinder granting access to Stormlight, but we can't have the Surgebinder too Connected in case their Identity forces the injured party to be healed toward the Surgebinder. Using Connection, hypnotism, truth serum (if one exists that doesn't get negated by Stormlight healing), or whatever to force the Surgebinder to view a different person as part of their self - but only to a certain extent - looks like it would take much more Connection shenanigans or brain twisting than convincing the Surgebinder that the injured party is a temporary Squire. Becoming a temporary Squire should allow for as full healing as anything else available. Even if the Surgebinder on hand is only a Squire, the Squire can only Surgebind within close proximity to the full Radiant, meaning that there is a full Radiant nearby.  Again, trying to enable this hack requires resources that are more effective at the task you are trying to perform.

Same with Forgery. If you have the knowledge and skill to Forge on a cellular level, you might as well just use Flesh Forgery and work at the tissue and organ scale rather than what is basically cellular level microsurgery to install a temporary implant.

Again, a clever idea, but impractical based on existing options.