Copper Compounders

[Vortaan]

Ah, you're misunderstanding feruchemical basics, it sounds like. Copper isn't like steel. With steel, you can store half your speed. With copper, you can't store half your memory of something. It is all or nothing. And, when you tap the mind, you don't get back only half your memory of something, you get it all bad, permanently. Copper is binary. Thus, we should expect copper compounding to likewise be binary. It might increase the force of the memory, but once its been transferred, that transfer is complete and no longer needs to be powered. Compounding produces normal feruchemical effects, but it is fueled by allomancy. That, however, doesn't change the the actual effects are the same old feruchemical ones.

That's actually a good point. It does bring up why copper is the sole binary storage. Everything else is incremental.

[Eric]

That may be an assumption on our part. Could one store part of a memory? Say, having a meeting and stripping out a person you don't like from your recollection of it? You still remember the meeting, but you don't remember that person being there. Or forget the moment of panic where you almost forgot your boss's name. Or strip out all the words spoken and transcribe the meeting later.

It could also be an in-universe misunderstanding. Maybe you aren't storing the actual memory so much as your ability to recollect the event. Compounding that would give perfect recall. It would also neatly explain TLR's memory: he drops just about everything into a coppermind, swallows it, burns it very lightly, storing enough to repeat the process later while just basking in the recollection of anything ever experienced. (Kwaan, who had an excellent natural memory, is also the only one to notice when the copperminds get changed. If he's storing as much ability to recall as others do, but has more naturally, he might still recall after storing the 'memory' of his learning. It might just be hard to do increments. Clue or herring?)

Edited August 9, 2012 by Eric

[Sir Jerric]

. . . Lurker approaching . . .

It could also be an in-universe misunderstanding. Maybe you aren't storing the actual memory so much as your ability to recollect the event. Compounding that would give perfect recall. It would also neatly explain TLR's memory: he drops just about everything into a coppermind, swallows it, burns it very lightly, storing enough to repeat the process later while just basking in the recollection of anything ever experienced. (Kwaan, who had an excellent natural memory, is also the only one to notice when the copperminds get changed. If he's storing as much ability to recall as others do, but has more naturally, he might still recall after storing the 'memory' of his learning. It might just be hard to do increments. Clue or herring?)

This is an interesting angle. If copperminds store your ability to recall, then shouldn't there be a broad application mode (like storing half your speed) wherein you store half your ability to recall, and later tap the coppermind to enhance your ability to recall everything?

This has a significant problem in Ruin's ability to modify a stored memory to something you never actually memorized, while memories that remain in your head are inviolate. If you are storing only the ability to recall, then the memory is still in your head, and Ruin shouldn't be able to edit that.

I would also like to point out how tinminds exhibit a different behavior than most metalminds. You cannot store your sensory abilities as a whole; just one sense per tinmind. Copperminds store any memories that you put in them, but the memory is stored as a whole unit.

That may be an assumption on our part. Could one store part of a memory? Say, having a meeting and stripping out a person you don't like from your recollection of it? You still remember the meeting, but you don't remember that person being there. Or forget the moment of panic where you almost forgot your boss's name. Or strip out all the words spoken and transcribe the meeting later.

Now this part seems much more possible. I think Sazed's scene in WoA at the inquisitors' lair would be the closest canon reference, though I do not have it on hand at the moment.

[Eric]

This is an interesting angle. If copperminds store your ability to recall, then shouldn't there be a broad application mode (like storing half your speed) wherein you store half your ability to recall, and later tap the coppermind to enhance your ability to recall everything?

This has a significant problem in Ruin's ability to modify a stored memory to something you never actually memorized, while memories that remain in your head are inviolate. If you are storing only the ability to recall, then the memory is still in your head, and Ruin shouldn't be able to edit that.

These are the very problems that prompted me to phrase it as the "ability to recollect the event". Ruin could alter the way you recollect the event to give you misinformation. Instead of recalling that you had a vivid blue shirt, you could recall a vivid yellow shirt, or a dull blue shirt, or a vivid blue jacket. Ruin was subtle for some reason, minimizing the changes he made. To me, this has always implied that Kwaan was exceptional, but had Ruin been more blatant, even mundanes would have noticed. If it were actual memory, would this be possible? Couldn't Ruin create memories whole-cloth to more easily acquire his goal?

I would also like to point out how tinminds exhibit a different behavior than most metalminds. You cannot store your sensory abilities as a whole; just one sense per tinmind. Copperminds store any memories that you put in them, but the memory is stored as a whole unit.

Entirely possible.

Now this part seems much more possible. I think Sazed's scene in WoA at the inquisitors' lair would be the closest canon reference, though I do not have it on hand at the moment.

In looking it up, I discovered another reason the phrase "ability to recollect the event" seemed to fit so well for me.

Well of Ascension, p124: "Sazed had memorized each sentence, then shoved those memories into the coppermind for later retrieval. Sazed remembered very little of the actual experience -- but he could draw forth any of the books or essays he wished, placing them back into his mind, gaining the ability to recollect them as crisply as when he'd first memorized them. He just had to have the bracers on."

That seems to have stuck with me subconsciously, and may have led me to an entirely erroneous conclusion. I thank you for this, and will rethink the merits of my points later.

[Sir Jerric]

These are the very problems that prompted me to phrase it as the "ability to recollect the event". Ruin could alter the way you recollect the event to give you misinformation. Instead of recalling that you had a vivid blue shirt, you could recall a vivid yellow shirt, or a dull blue shirt, or a vivid blue jacket. Ruin was subtle for some reason, minimizing the changes he made. To me, this has always implied that Kwaan was exceptional, but had Ruin been more blatant, even mundanes would have noticed. If it were actual memory, would this be possible? Couldn't Ruin create memories whole-cloth to more easily acquire his goal?

I am in agreement with you on the phrasing "ability to recall/recollect the event". You might notice that I left out "the event" in my analysis. Your phrasing on the Ruin issue is far better than I was coming up with on short notice, so I avoided it.

And thank you for the page number; that got me back to the scene far faster. I had been thinking more about the portion where Sazed is actively storing as he enters the Conventical.

The ability to recall a visualization degrades very quickly, so he mentions having to store it very directly; he uses this technique on a pillar. Most of his storage during the scene is combined visual and vocal descriptions of the environment. He does vocalize a few other cues, like how the steel floor is cold underfoot. He casually discards the idea of a photo-style memorization of the writing in the basement, noting that "no man could stare at a wall of so much text, then remember the words." [pg 133, PB]

It is hard to say if a Feruchemist can strip a person out of a scene, though storing the audio of a meeting should be easy enough. But would you end up storing just the audio, or would associated body language and other closely tied factors be stored as well? It is hard to define the unit size of a memory.

However, would a Copper Compounder be able to burn a visual memory of the plate back into his head in such a way that he could read the words? Would this make the memory so tightly associated in his head that he couldn't forget it (without storing it again, at least), or does compounding simply increase your ability to recall the item to a level far beyond normal that will take far longer to decay? And does this distinction have any real meaning?

Most likely, a compounded visual memory will be readily recalled for several years after the burn-in, while faces and conversations could last many decades after burn-in. A dramatic, emotional event would become unforgettable (it may already have been, after all).

Specific burn-in durations would depend on the strength of recall at time of storage, how fast your normal decay rate for that type of memory is, and how much you use the memory afterward. For example, I naturally forget names told to me within approximately two hours, so compounding would possibly get me a few months of solid recall. As long as I am around the person at least few more times during those months (or I compound the memory again *hint*), I should not have trouble recalling the name for about a decade. On the other end of the spectrum, I recall anything I read very accurately for months or even years in some cases, so compounding fresh memories of a book's text would probably allow me to recite the book at will; I'd die of old age before it would noticeably decay.

Edited August 30, 2012 by Sir Jerric