Post by mandapanda on Oct 18, 2006 16:48:24 GMT -5
It is based on the legend of the Philosopher's stone, able to transmute inexpensive materials into gold and grant immortality to its user. It is a legendary item said to allow the holder to completely bypass the law of Equivalent Exchange. It's rumored that the Stone could give its owner the ability to perform a flawless "human transmutation."
The real Stone takes a high toll. Only an expert alchemist could transmute it, using as raw material a very large amount of human lives, ranging from thousands to millions.
Using a Stone
The Philosopher's Stone has many potential uses for an alchemist.
A genuine Philosopher's Stone is capable of amazing feats, among them complete human transmutation and allowing a soul to be transferred into a new body. Such transferrence comes at the cost of a fraction of the alchemist's soul, and runs the risk of the new host body decomposing into a living corpse. Even a true Philosopher's Stone is not immune to Equivalent Exchange: every time it is used, a bit of it vanishes, and its power is likewise reduced.
The Mechanism of the Stone
The two types of Stone operate in the same manner. When a transmutation is performed, the matter is usually supplied by the alchemist himself. A broken radio can be reshaped into a fully functional radio, some scrap iron can build a sword, a spear, a gun, etc., but the source of the energy necessary to the process is only revealed in the final episodes. This energy is supplied by the mysterious Gate, a passage present in every human soul, linked to the "real" world (in the movie, the Fullmetal Alchemist world was thought to be the mystical Shamballa by the Thule Society). Every death in "our" world generates energy, meaning the souls of our dead became the energy harnessed by alchemists to perform their transmutations. The Philosopher's Stone supplies an additional energy source, utilizing not the souls from the other side of the Gate, but souls collected in the alchemy world which are transmuted into the Stone. This allows amazing feats, such as human transmutation and incredible alchemic augmentation, to be performed as the souls from the stone are sacrificed as Equivalent Exchange for the desired power, effectively meaning giving up more than what you initially had. But as you use the stone the souls used in making it are sent through the gate as energy, so over time the stone "rots" by using it.
The real Stone takes a high toll. Only an expert alchemist could transmute it, using as raw material a very large amount of human lives, ranging from thousands to millions.
Using a Stone
The Philosopher's Stone has many potential uses for an alchemist.
A genuine Philosopher's Stone is capable of amazing feats, among them complete human transmutation and allowing a soul to be transferred into a new body. Such transferrence comes at the cost of a fraction of the alchemist's soul, and runs the risk of the new host body decomposing into a living corpse. Even a true Philosopher's Stone is not immune to Equivalent Exchange: every time it is used, a bit of it vanishes, and its power is likewise reduced.
The Mechanism of the Stone
The two types of Stone operate in the same manner. When a transmutation is performed, the matter is usually supplied by the alchemist himself. A broken radio can be reshaped into a fully functional radio, some scrap iron can build a sword, a spear, a gun, etc., but the source of the energy necessary to the process is only revealed in the final episodes. This energy is supplied by the mysterious Gate, a passage present in every human soul, linked to the "real" world (in the movie, the Fullmetal Alchemist world was thought to be the mystical Shamballa by the Thule Society). Every death in "our" world generates energy, meaning the souls of our dead became the energy harnessed by alchemists to perform their transmutations. The Philosopher's Stone supplies an additional energy source, utilizing not the souls from the other side of the Gate, but souls collected in the alchemy world which are transmuted into the Stone. This allows amazing feats, such as human transmutation and incredible alchemic augmentation, to be performed as the souls from the stone are sacrificed as Equivalent Exchange for the desired power, effectively meaning giving up more than what you initially had. But as you use the stone the souls used in making it are sent through the gate as energy, so over time the stone "rots" by using it.