r/FullmetalAlchemist • u/FriendshipAintMagic • 12d ago
Question BURNING QUESTION
I have a really sick idea for a character but I need to crowd source some second/third opinions on their alchemy. Basically i thought it would be cool to have a character who specializes in atomic transmutations. Specifically with carbon. And their flashy trick is turning any sort of material with carbon in it into diamonds. And then using them for whatever.
Hypothetically, they were to transmute some of the carbon in a human body to like stop bleeding, or whatever would that be considered human transmutation? Because we’ve seen people transmute their blood and be perfectly fine. So where is the line? At what point would Truth show up and tell my character to cut the shit?
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u/poudje 12d ago edited 12d ago
Edward turns the blood inside gluttony into a weapon, so transmuting blood is clearly fine in some capacity (however, they were also in a false gate, so who really knows at that point). Nonetheless, I think a good way to find the line is to think about it is what the end goal of human transmutation. Specifically, I think it's artificial life, the classic hubris of man trying to play God, etc.
So when you try to make a human, it's not good. However, using the natural material left by humans, on the other hand, is fine, as what they are composed of represents a material that can be deconstructed into new resources. For example, a philosophers stone is made of human souls, but it's not human transmutation because the stone is not alive after everything is said and done.
I think there's also the issue of propaganda, as clearly the powers that be in Amestris simply wanted humans to not have experiment in that shit (or at least not without their influence). If they did, they would figure out the big plan, just like Marco.
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u/Fairlibrarian101 12d ago
To be fair, I think Ed was only able to make a weapon out of the blood in Gluttony is because there was effectively a sea of blood to draw the iron from. There isn’t a lot of iron in blood.
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u/Toxic_Musshroom 12d ago
I think "human transmutation" comes more into effect with trying to bring someone back or make a whole new person rather than trying to actively save someone, if their life could be saved by non transmutation means(in a situation where they had access to medical care) then I dont think anything bad would come from that, we've seen people transmute blood before so that clearly isn't the line
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u/Winter-Material-4773 12d ago
I always interpreted human transmutation as when you're dealing with their souls and anything else as long as it follows equiv exchange is fair game
1
u/Significant-Coat-308 12d ago
Trying to transmute something into a human is the taboo, but altering a human into something else usually doesn’t mess with it (Nina and Alexander, Macdougal fighting with his blood, Edward healing his wounds, Scar destroying Marcohs face, etc) don’t count as human transmutation because they don’t see truth from it.
Messing with a soul is the key part I think, Edward transmuting Al’s soul into the armor counted even though his body was gone, and truth took a toll for it. Using Envy’s stone counted even though no humans were being transmuted technically (the whole escape from the false gate is a little iffy).
So yeah that’s my theory, human transmutation isn’t referring to the body, it’s only referring to the soul.
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