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Let’s do the math…
You can donate three times a year to the red cross (once every 112 days). According to some page, you donate around 10% of your blood volume each time.
That means, for a volume equivalent of 300 people, you’d need to donate 3000 times, which would take around 1000 years.
The vampire is going to need more people, or to keep a person alive 1000 years with vampire magic.
When you’re harvesting the blood iron of your enemies you don’t have time for ethics. A controlled study managed 4 weeks within ethical boundaries, maybe we can cut that in half unethically. So 14 days, 3000 . 14 = 115 years. So when you torture two people, you could manage to do 58 years. Better start early!
Orrrrrr capture the entire family of your foe and then you can name the sword something super cool about ending family lines
Maybe the sword is just the product of a small cult which drains blood to create it?
And then they do really cool cult stuff with the sword?
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The same blood bank? You sure that’s not plasma instead of blood? Plasma re-makes itself way faster than red blood cells.
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Oh. That explains it. Normally in the US a typical donation is a full pint. Not a half pint.
You’re off on blood production. “Safe” would be once every six to eight weeks for a pint. Plasma can be taken a lot more often. The red blood cells take a while to replenish.
But let’s get real. You’re not concerned about your enemy feeling well. Force them to take iron supplements and take a pint every other week. They’ll likely stay alive that way. Fuck em, right?
Slaanesh approves
But then you need to feed them iron-rich foods which could be used to make a vegan alternative instead, expanding your potential market.
You could also get a big sword-shaped ice cube mold, a chest freezer and probably not even a whole enemy.
You would have to do battle in freezing climates too though in order for it to remain physically effective
Though I imagine the psychological effectiveness might persist a bit longer
I’d suggest a warhammer mold, just for stability.
Mythbusters did this on their first episode: ice bullet. I think a sword might also be too brittle unfortunately.
These are the required elements for making steel:
- Iron
- Carbon
- Manganese
- Chromium
- Phosphorus
- Sulphur
- Nickel
- Molybdenum
- Titanium
- Copper
- Boron
Source: https://www.cliftonsteel.com/education/11elementsfoundinsteel
So, iron is only step 1. Humans are carbon based lifeforms, so I’m guessing that carbon is also sorted, that’s step 2.
There’s plenty of other elements in the human body, like phosphorus and sulphur, but I’m guessing that it’s going to take more than 300 adults.
Source: https://sciencenotes.org/elements-in-the-human-body-and-what-they-do/
Source: https://sciencenotes.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/PeriodicTableHumanBody.png
Yes
- Your link says these are elements commonly found in steel, not that they are all required. In fact it says of phosphorus and sulphur that they are generally undesirable.
- We don’t need to make a steel sword, an iron sword could do.
Either way you would definitely need carbon, but as you say that’s pretty easy. I don’t think any of the other elements are absolutely required.
Steel requires only iron and up to about 2% carbon
Rest are minor alloying elements used mainly in modern steel alloys to improve the steel beyond what just carbon steel could do like for example stainless steels
Someone else did the math, accounting for waste made during forging. https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-gaming/blood-iron-sword-myth-explored/
Those are all of them, but that’s for a lot of different types of steels. You don’t have to have all of those metals to make steel. You really just need iron and a tiny bit of carbon. A few of your ingredients help with purity, and the rest are additives for different steel properties you may want. Like a touch of nickel for stainless steel.
So about 3150 pints of blood (10.5 being average for an adult).
Sounds doable XD
Edit: New ethical dilemma just dropped - kill 300 to forge the sword, or deny 3150 people blood in an emergency to forge the sword…
New ethical dilemma just dropped - kill 300 to forge the sword, or deny 3150 people blood in an emergency to forge the sword…
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New ethical dilemma just dropped - kill 300 to forge the sword, or deny 3150 people blood in an emergency to forge the sword…
Listen. If they used surplus blood to do this (blood that was expired) and then held a raffle at the end of each year where all blood donors were entered to win a knife or sword made from the expired human blood iron, I bet they’d see blood donations skyrocket.
Somebody call NileRed asap
You know there’s a writer reading this meme somewhere: here; where ever it came from; where ever it will be reposted; and adding it to the story they are working on. Wonder where we’ll come across it first?
Glory.
Id love to see the math on the amount of iron in a person’s blood, because I find it HIGHLY questionable that there’s enough iron in only 300 people to make a full iron sword. I’m too lazy to do it myself though.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longsword
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body#Elemental_composition_list
The numbers roughly check out. Not sure how much one can extract by just draining the blood though.
You’re both in luck! Someone else linked to an article that breaks down how it could work in reality: https://startrek.website/comment/9430643
All three of you are in luck! Someone made a video attempting to actually forge a sword this way!: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
XcQ
Gotta hide it better than that chief
You could even use the carbon from their flesh to make the steel!
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Chingis Khan approves.
My very rough calculations using 85kg as an average adult weight, results in 153gr of iron
My problem is, that i dont have any expectations as to how heavy a longsword is but i’d assume it to be a lot heavier!
After further research it looks like the more appropriate number of humans needed to make an average longsword would be closer to 25.000