megatheory On the Excision of Investiture

skaa · May 2, 2017

Introduction: What We Know About Southerner Medallions

I'm sure some of you are already sick and tired of medallion-related speculations, so before I start giving my own take on this Scadrian mystery, let me first summarize what we already know. Let us clear our minds first and take a hard look at what was already revealed about these medallions, both in BoM and in various WoBs, because there are facts about these objects that many people forget or aren't even aware of.

The Southerners create medallions using devices called Excisors.

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“[...]He gave us devices, and started the Firemothers and Firefathers, who live to fill these medallions so the rest of us may leave our homes and survive in this too-cold world. After he left, we used his gifts to figure out the rest, like these that make us fly.”

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“These,” Waxillium said, plucking the heat-giving medallion off the dash. “You can create these, as you wish?”
“If we have the Metalborn to do so, and the Excisors, yes. The Excisors are the gifts the Sovereign made for us.”

These excerpts from BoM show that any medallion theory cannot be complete without an Excisor theory, because it is through these devices that medallions are created. We should always keep Excisors in mind. In fact, while we already have a canon term for an Identity-less metalmind (what Marasi calls an unkeyed metalmind), I would like to propose this fan term: "excised metalmind" for a metalmind created with an Excisor, as opposed to the "unsealed metalmind" term I've been seeing that is frankly confusing. (Update: As @Oversleep pointed out, "unsealed metalmind" actually came from Brandon. So...oh well.)
Creating medallions require Connector powers.

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Q: Does creating unsealed metalmind involve Feruchemical duralumin?
A: (hesitating)...Yes. I will write it all out for you eventually. I want to get at least one more book done, then you find out exactly why and how.

This is a WoB from a recent signing in Germany. As you all know, Feruchemical duralumin stores Connection. Strangely enough, I have yet to see anyone post a medallion/Excisor theory involving Connection (everyone seems to believe VenDell in that it only involves Identity and Investiture), so I don't know what prompted that question. But suffice to say that thanks to this WoB, my medallion theory will involve Connection.
The key to understanding medallions is that they are a way of fooling the magic system into thinking that you have the right sDNA.

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So nicrosil. Wax couldn’t use a blank gold metalmind because he’s not a gold ferring, why can he use a blank nicrosil metalmind?

BRANDON SANDERSON

So this will all come out eventually but the idea is there are certain ways to connect yourself to the magic, to hack the magic and make it think you have the Spiritual DNA that you don’t actually have. And this is one of the ways.

QUESTION

And the people who made this medallion have this thing that a regular nicrosil Ferring couldn’t--

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yeah, you’re picking up on it. We’ll dig deeper into it as the series progresses.

Take note, this is a totally different thing from what the Set's unkeyed metalminds do. The unkeyed goldmind that Wayne uses is a hack on the ownership requirement of Feruchemy. What Brandon is saying here is that medallions require a separate hack.
Medallions can be used by non-Scadrians

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Q: Could non-Scadrians use Southern Scadrian Amulets?
A: Yes, they could.

This is from the same Germany signing as above. This should put to rest any theory involving the need for Terris or Scadrian blood. Sorry, VenDell fans.
The medallions interfere with each other.

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“So wear multiple medallions,” Waxillium said. “Strap thirty-two to your body, and have all the abilities.”
“I’m sorry, great Wise One,” Allik said. “You are obviously very knowledgeable about this, and know things that none of us would ever think to try. How could we be so foolish as to not realize that we could simply—”
“Shut it,” Waxillium growled.
Allik flinched.
“Doesn’t work?” Waxillium asked.
Allik shook his head. “They interfere with each other.”

Unlike Hemalurgic spikes, one cannot obtain multiple powers by getting multiple medallions. Again, this is a problem that has gotten little attention from Sharder theorists. I intend to rectify that.
The Southerners had to figure out two-powered medallions by themselves.

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“It is a grand combination—two attributes, from separate rings. Took us long to make these work, yah? The one I wear now, also grants two. Weight and Connection. I’ve seen medallions with three. Twice in my life only. Every attempt at four has failed.”

This gives the following implications:
- The Sovereign only taught them how to use Excisors to create single-powered medallions like the memory coin we've seen.
- The method for creating a multi-powered medallion from multiple Metalborn is very difficult to scale.

So, those are some things we know for sure about the medallions. Before I continue, here's one thing that I'm pretty certain of, even though we don't have direct confirmation of it:

You cannot Feruchemically tap Investiture from the medallions unless they contain Nicrosil Feruchemy
As @Moogle repeatedly points out in this thread, we don't ever see people being described as tapping the nicrosilminds in the medallions (with the exception of the Bands of Mourning), despite the numerous descriptions of them tapping or storing from the non-nicrosil part of the medallions. For example, in the Epilogue Wax only senses the Memory store of the copper part in the memory coin, not the Investiture store of the nicrosil part. Remember that aside from the Bands, each nicrosil ring in a medallion only contains one power. In the memory coin, the nicrosilmind contained Copper Feruchemy. In a Weight+Heat medallion the inner nicrosil ring contains Iron Feruchemy while the other nicrosil ring stores Brass Feruchemy. Without Nicrosil Feruchemy, one cannot Feruchemically tap Investiture from a nicrosilmind.

Hence, while Nicrosil Feruchemy was obviously used to create Southern medallions, something else entirely must be responsible for their ability to grant powers.

Now, allow me to go into deep speculation based on those facts. First I will discuss the different ways an object can be Connected to another object in the cosmere and how that relates to Feruchemy and Hemalurgy. Then I will discuss several theories about Hemalurgy that will form the backbone of my Excisor theory. Of course, I'll need to cover soul interference and the theory behind multi-powered medallions. Finally I will describe the steps of creating medallions, both single-powered ones and multi-powered ones.

This will be a huge undertaking, so much that I've decided to divide everything into several posts. For those who don't have time, I will attempt a TL;DR: An unsealed metalmind can form a hybrid Being consisting of a person and itself, allowing the person to use the metalmind's Investiture without Feruchemically tapping it first. This property, shared with Hemalurgic spikes, exists because the unsealed metalmind contains a Hemalurgic charge, though this charge was taken without killing the donor. Finally, multi-powered medallions involve using the Connection of religious devotion to counteract soul interference between a medallion's nicrosilminds.

Edited May 3, 2017 by skaa
removed instances of "excised metalmind"

skaa · May 2, 2017

Part I: Soul Connection

There's an old philosophical problem: How can you say that something is part of you? How do you differentiate your Self from your environment? It's an interesting question, popularly exemplified by the Theseus's Paradox (I won't discuss it here, but go read on it if you haven't yet), which Brandon conveniently resolves in his fictional universe using his concept of the Spiritweb.

Basically, while everything in the cosmere is connected in some way to everything else in the Spiritual Realm, there is still a concept of "self" or "soul", defined by the Spiritweb. Your Spiritweb can be thought of as all the Spiritual Connections between the things that are considered part of your Identity. This includes Connections to your Physical parts, Cognitive parts, and Spiritual parts.

These Connections that make up a person's Spiritweb are what I call his Internal Connections. All other Connections to that person would be what I call External Connections. Basically anything with an Internal Connection to you is part of your Spiritweb, and is therefore part of your Identity. If something is only Connected to you Externally, then it's not really part of you. There is also the concepts of Connection strength, direction, and duration, which we'll get back to later.

One might wonder if Connectors (Duralumin Feruchemists) can use their power to manipulate the Internal Connections of Spiritwebs, but I think that's too overpowered. It's likely that Connectors can only manipulate External Connections.

This concept of Internal and External Connections is an important issue with regards to the cosmere-wide concept of Investiture, because there are ways to integrate a Shard's Investiture into a person's soul. It is said that the soul itself is made of Investiture, so if a Shard's Investiture could somehow find its way through openings or cracks in a person's soul, it could incorporate itself into the Spiritweb, being Internally Connected to it.

This is why a Nicrosil Feruchemist, someone who can put his own Investiture inside a piece of nicrosil, is called a Soulbearer, because that Investiture is part of his soul.

The Connections of Hemalurgy
What I would like to focus on now is this requirement for a soul to have cracks for some types of Investiture to become part of it. This is obviously not ideal, because you are requiring a person to be harmed before Investing him. This harm is most apparent in Hemalurgy, which violently Invests into a person's Spiritweb a twisted piece of soul that itself was violently ripped away from another person.

One major limitation of Hemalurgy is that unless the metallic spike that holds this piece of soul remains inside a person or is covered in fresh blood, it slowly decays. I believe this is because Ruin's Investiture creates a strong Internal Connection between metal and a piece of soul when blood is present. This Internal Connection is stronger than the Internal Connection between the targeted piece of soul and the rest of the damaged Spiritweb, which is why the piece of soul sticks to the metal when the spike is pulled free.

But without blood, the Internal Connection of Hemalurgy weakens and the severed piece of soul, Internally disconnected to everything, is slowly released "back to the cosmere" as Harmony would say. This is what causes Hemalurgic decay.

The Connections of Feruchemy
What's interesting is that Feruchemy has no such limitations. Not only does Feruchemical charges not decay the way Hemalurgic charges do, Feruchemical tapping doesn't even seem to require harming the soul. Why is it different?

I theorize that the combined power of Ruin and Preservation allows Feruchemy to safely widen the tiny openings located at bindpoints of the soul to allow certain Internal Connections to be created. This widening of Spiritweb openings happens for both the soul of the Feruchemist and the soul of its target vessel (usually some form of metal). My basis for this is this bit from Secret History:

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He easily found which ones had souls that were open to him, and eagerly he swung down in. Surely among these he could find one who could deliver a message to Vin.
Yet they didn’t seem to be able to hear him, no matter how he whispered to them. It was frustrating and baffling. He held the powers of eternity. How could he have lost the ability he’d had before, the ability to communicate with his people?
Around him, Ruin laughed.
“You think your predecessor didn’t try that?” Ruin asked. “Your power cannot leak through those cracks, Preservation. It tries too hard to shore them up, to protect them. Only I can widen cracks.”
Whether his reasoning was correct or not, Kelsier couldn’t tell. But he did confirm time and time again that madmen could no longer hear him.
However, now he could hear people.

As we learned in the first Mistborn trilogy (and in this WoB), Preservation can hear the thoughts of all people (but cannot be heard), while Ruin can only speak to mentally unstable people or people with spikes. I theorize that Preservation has access to all Spiritweb bindpoints (including the bindpoints related to the person's Cognitive parts) but can only create Internal Connections that go one way from the person to the Shard. Ruin, on the other hand, can only access cracked bindpoints (e.g. ones Connected to damaged Cognitive parts) and can only create one-way Internal Connections from him to the person. On the other hand, Ruin can widen the cracked bindpoints that he uses in order to make his Connections stronger, while Preservation cannot. This is why Preservation relies on Snapping; He needs a large enough opening to insert the huge amounts of Investiture involved in Allomancy even in people already born Allomancers, so those Allomancers have to experience trauma first.

Feruchemy, being a combination of the Intents of Ruin and Preservation, has access to all bindpoints (or at least the bindpoints required by the specific type of Feruchemy) as well as the ability to widen the bindpoint openings without the need of cracking them first. Feruchemy also creates Internal Connections that go either direction to or from a piece of metal, letting things in or out. This is probably why we never hear of Feruchemists Snapping; their Investiture can widen bindpoint openings on its own.

(As an aside, Harmony should be able to widen cracks in the soul by himself, which is probably why the Snapping threshold is now much lower. I can imagine Sazed's black mist Snapping Allomancers during slightly uncomfortable bar mitzvah-like rituals. Anyway...)

One limitation of Feruchemy is that before it widens the necessary bindpoint opening, it requires physical contact with the target (an External Connection in the Physical Realm?) as well as a mental identification of the metal as a metalmind (an External Connection in the Cognitive Realm?). Whatever these requirements mean, once they are met the soul of the Feruchemist as well as the soul of the target opens up to each other, creating a sort of two-way Spiritual tunnel. Let's call it a Feruchemical Tunnel. This Feruchemical Tunnel ceases to exist when the two requirements are no longer met.

There is, of course, one more requirement related specifically to tapping the Attribute in a metalmind: ownership. In order to recover a stored Attribute, there has to be an External Connection showing that the Attribute considers the person as its owner. Only then can the Feruchemist create an Internal Connection that can be pulled to bring the Attribute into his Spiritweb. This is why Feruchemists normally can't access the metalmind of another Feruchemist unless that other Feruchemist performs the Identity-storing trick that creates unkeyed metalminds.

Edited May 2, 2017 by skaa

skaa · May 2, 2017

Part II: Soul Excision

Two years ago I wrote a theory about how acupuncture can be used to safely transfer Feruchemical Attributes in a Hemalurgic way. That theory was inspired by this particular WoB:

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Hemalurgy-when you spike, you place the spike in a place that determines which charge the spike gets. Q: Through the heart seems to pick up universally. A: It depends on where in the heart. It's like acupuncture. This is designed from acupuncture and you get very specific on which nerves you're hitting and things like that Q: So the spike will never pick up more than one power. A: Not the way they know how to do it.

I don't want to debate about the merits of my old theory here, but I have now thought of another possible connection between Hemalurgy and acupuncture.

Hemalurgy and Spiritweb Microsystems
From the above WoB ("It depends on where in the heart..."), it seems that the heart has multiple bindpoints. This means that when you want to Hemalurgically steal something (lets call it Attribute X), you need to know where in the heart the bindpoint for Attribute X is for you to steal it. But at the same time, when you place the Attribute X-charged spike onto the intended recipient you almost never place it in the heart (with a few exceptions). The question is: Why does Attribute X have a bindpoint in the heart and a bindpoint somewhere else? And why does the heart contain bindpoints for all attributes?

In the meridian system (which acupuncture is based on), there are certain special body parts that somehow have acupuncture points representing other body parts. This web page calls such a special body part a "microsystem" that mirrors the whole body. I don't know if "microsystem" really is the accepted English translation of the Chinese concept, but I have certainly encountered the concept itself several times in the past. For example, as a kid I met a practitioner of foot reflexology who showed me a diagram of the different pressure points in the feet, each labeled based on which body organs you can stimulate through them. Depending on which Asian country you are in, alternative medicine practitioners make use of other "microsystems"-- the ears, the hands, the wrists, the scalp, the tongue, the abdomen-- all of these supposedly contain acupoints for other body parts. Even Western alternative medicine has its own counterpart for this called iridology: the belief that a wide variety of health problems can be diagnosed just by examining your iris.

(Disclaimer: I don't believe the meridian system, and I'm certainly not an expert. I'm just speculating on a possible real life inspiration for Hemalurgy.)

Given this, I think it's obvious that the heart is a microsystem of the Spiritweb, containing Hemalurgic bindpoints to many other places in one's soul. What I'd like to propose is threefold:

One can only steal attributes Hemalurgically through a Spiritweb microsystem.
There is more than one Spiritweb microsystem. It's not just the heart.
There is a Spiritweb microsystem that can be used without killing the person.

It's easy to imagine why the heart would be the preferred microsystem: Hemalurgy requires blood to create Internal Connections, and the heart is the center of the circulatory system. It's possible that using any other Spiritweb microsystem would only steal a smaller piece of soul and create a weaker Connection, leading to a much faster decay rate.

But what if you don't really want to store a piece of soul in a spike for Hemalurgic use anyway? What if, say, you just want to excise a smaller piece of soul in a non-fatal manner and store it somewhere non-Hemalurgic, say, a nicrosilmind?

Hemalurgy and Nicrosil Feruchemy
As we all know, when a Hemalurgist spikes someone through the heart and removes the spike, a piece of soul is forcibly ripped out. On several occasions (e.g. in this annotation), Brandon describes this piece of ripped-out soul as a "twisted" power. On the other hand, there is no indication that a typical Feruchemical charge (which is also a piece of a person) is similarly twisted. I think this is because Hemalurgy does not sever souls cleanly, while Feruchemy does. Imagine a Hemalurgic charge as a frayed uneven piece of cloth aggressively torn from a larger whole and a Feruchemical charge as one sheared neatly off.

Basically, Feruchemy can create self-contained Attributes, while Hemalurgy cannot. This is why when a Feruchemical Tunnel is created (as described in Part I), the Feruchemist still needs to tap the Attribute deliberately and consciously; because the Attribute sees itself as a whole, it doesn't automatically jump into the Feruchemist's Spiritweb. On the other hand, a Hemalurgic charge forms an Internal Connection the moment it penetrates the Spiritweb barrier; the twisted piece of soul sees itself as incomplete and wishes to rectify that situation.

So what does this have to do with Nicrosil Feruchemy and unsealed metalminds? Imagine a Soulbearer storing a piece of a Hemalurgic charge in a nicrosilmind. It should be possible, for soul is Investiture. To avoid any Identity issues, let's say the piece of soul in the Hemalurgic spike was taken from the Soulbearer himself. Such a nicrosilmind would have two notable characteristics:

The Hemalurgic charge inside should no longer be reliant on blood and should not decay, because Feruchemy prevents that.
Since the charge is still a twisted piece of ripped-out soul, it would not consider itself as complete, and would try to Internally Connect to a person as soon as it finds an opportunity.

This opportunity comes when a Feruchemical Tunnel is formed between the nicrosilmind and another person (who could be any person). As discussed in Part I, the Feruchemical Tunnel forms when a person touches a metalmind knowing that it is a metalmind and with Feruchemical Investiture present. In this case, Feruchemical Investiture does not need to be pre-existing in the person if the nicrosilmind already contains Feruchemical Investiture (which would be the case if the Hemalurgic charge came from a Feruchemist).

I will repeat something I said in the Introduction: You cannot Feruchemically tap Investiture without Nicrosil Feruchemy. Even after a Feruchemical Tunnel is created, even if the unsealed nicrosilmind was created without Identity, if neither the user or the metalmind contains Nicrosil Feruchemy sDNA then no Feruchemical tapping of Investiture may occur.

But something else does occur. The soul inside the nicrosilmind automatically creates an Internal Connection with the person. This is not the same as Feruchemical tapping because the piece of soul is not removed from the nicrosilmind. But for the duration of the Feruchemical Tunnel's existence there exists a being that is both a metalmind and a human person, and this hybrid being has Spiritual DNA that the human part did not originally have.

And that's one way to "hack the magic and make it think you have the Spiritual DNA that you don’t actually have."

Edited May 3, 2017 by skaa

skaa · May 2, 2017

Part III: Soul Interference
There is still one problem: We know that medallions interfere with each other, but we don't know why. Why would the process described above result in such an interference? After all, Hemalurgists usually stick multiple spikes into themselves, each spike containing pieces of souls from different people, and yet Hemalurgists can use the powers in all of their spikes. If unsealed metalminds work by harnessing pieces of souls ripped out by Hemalurgy, why would such pieces of souls interfere in nicrosilminds but not in spikes? And how did the Southerners overcome this interference in their two-powered medallions?

First of all, soul interference is indeed a thing. As Brandon has said several times (for example here), Investiture resists Investiture. He even uses the term "soul interference" here in relation to spikes embedded in the soul (though in the context of the soul interfering with Iron and Steel Allomancy). So it stands to reason that the soul pieces in multiple Hemalurgic spikes do interfere with one another, but this interference is mitigated somehow.

I think that when a Hemalurgist has at least two spikes, the interference between the Hemalurgic charges is counteracted by the Internal Connections created by Ruin's Investiture between the Hemalurgist's blood and the metal spikes. Nonetheless, soul interference is there and it does take a toll on the Hemalurgist's Spiritweb. This is why Steel Inquisitors have such fragile Spiritwebs. Not only is a Steel Inquisitor damaged at his affected bindpoints, his whole Spiritweb suffers from internal forces pulling it apart because of soul interference.

Medallions on the other hand do not involve blood so the presence of a second medallion simply results in the Internal disconnection of the first. Note that Edwarn's spikes did not seem to interfere with medallions, but that's probably because he got the spikes first and those spikes are already embedded into the Spiritweb. I predict that if you wore a medallion and then stabbed yourself with a Hemalurgic spike, the medallion would stop working; you'd have to remove the medallion and wear it again to reset the Connection.

Multi-powered Medallions
So why do two-powered and three-powered medallions created from multiple Metalborn exist? Allik implies that it took Southern Scadrians a long time to figure out how to make those and that three-powered medallions are very rare. If you've been paying attention to Part II, you already know one big motivation for creating such medallions: If an unsealed metalmind has to contain Feruchemical sDNA for it to initiate a Feruchemical Tunnel with a non-Feruchemist, then single-powered medallions can only have Feruchemical powers. You can't have single-powered medallions that grant Allomancy.

So in order to have Allomantic medallions, you need to figure out how make at least two-powered medallions, with one nicrosilmind containing a Feruchemical power and another containing an Allomantic power.

Now, the problem of soul interference can only be solved if you find a way for two pieces of souls from two different people to see themselves as compatible. Unlike unkeyed metalminds, it would take more than just being Identity-less for this to work because even without Identity, a small twisted piece of soul will not accept another small twisted piece of soul as its owner.

But if a Connection of ownership cannot exist, perhaps another kind of Connection can.

(Update: The original version of this post contained a section here that I no longer believe is accurate. I am keeping it here in spoiler tags so that people can see the development of my ideas.)

Spoiler

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“The trouble with Hemalurgy is in its limitations,” he said. “If you kill a man and steal his Metallic abilities, the resulting gift to you is weakened. Did you know that? What’s more, if you spike yourself too much, you become subject to Harmony’s … interference. Indeed, by the stories, you might open yourself to the interference of any idiot Soother or Rioter with enough talent.” He shook his head. “I am limited to three boons, even if we have discovered how to make someone else be weak, while we gain the benefit.”

It seems like the Set has found a way to use Hemalurgy, not only to gain Feruchemical abilities, but also to fill up their metalminds without having to store their own Attributes. Rather, they fill up their own metalminds with other people's Attributes. There is another excerpt earlier in the novel that shows another hint of this:

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“Templeton?” a quiet voice asked, peeking in. Destra had bags under her eyes, hair frazzled. Her nightgown seemed to have swallowed her. The woman had lost more weight. Soon she would be positively skeletal. “Are you coming to bed?”
[...]“Later.”
She winced at his tone and pulled the door closed behind her. The woman should know better than to disturb him. Sleep. How could he sleep until he knew what had happened at the graveyard? One did not disappoint the men with whom he had been dealing. They asked for something to be done, and you saw it done.

Templeton was a Trellist and was subservient to the Set. I wouldn't be surprised if his wife has been spiked and is somehow being used by a Set member to fill his goldminds with her Health. But how does that Set member do this?

Here's my theory: There is a certain External Connection between the Set member and Destra that, along with the widened crack in her soul, somehow allows the Set member to access Destra's own Health and store it in his own gold mind.

Such a Connection might indeed be useful in making the separate pieces of soul in a medallion work with each other. But what kind of External Connection could access someone's Spiritweb so freely? Shouldn't that require an Internal Connection?

Apparently there is indeed one such type of Connection.

(Update: @Pagerunner has convinced me that a more obvious interpretation of Edwarn's line is that the Set makes people store Identity-less Health for Set members to use. So I'm abandoning my line of thinking above. Note that in the original post I used the Religious Connection idea below to speculate that Destra sees the Set as the representative of her god Trell, and was therefore susceptible to the Religious Connection hack. I no longer believe that's the case.)

Religious Connection
Here is an excerpt for Secret History and a couple of WoBs that show people being especially Connected by a combination of a damaged Spiritweb and religious devotion:

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It didn’t notice Kelsier as he drew back from the power, exposing his own soul and drawing it close to Spook. Those lines were there, the lines of familiarity, family, and Connection. Strangely, they were even stronger for Spook than they’d been for Marsh and Vin. Why would that be?

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Spook was the only one in the crew he could speak to. That’s because Spook truly has faith in Kelsier as a deity—which, for these few weeks between Preservation’s death and the coming of the Hero of Ages, Kelsier is. (Source.)

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Another factor to consider here is that Wax was given a special earring designed for communication with a being that he actually worships. (Source.)

We know that Spook already had his Spiritweb damaged both by being a Savant and having a spike. That last WoB is about Wax, whose religious earring pierced his soul whenever he prayed to Harmony.

As we can see, there is something special about the Connection between a person and his god. Religious devotion appears to be a much stronger Connection than even familial ties (something that might puzzle atheists and agnostics, but would make perfect sense to any religious person). What should just be an External Connection somehow behaves like an Internal Connection in the right circumstances, as if a person becomes a part of his god (at least temporarily).

The Southern Metalborn, who are worshiped by their people, would have no problem obtaining Religious Connections. I propose that they use Religious Connection to connect their soul to another Metalborn's soul when creating two-powered medallions in order to counteract the effects of soul interference.

(Update: I discuss how Vin as Preservation used Religious Connection to influence the kandra here.)

Edited May 4, 2017 by skaa

skaa · May 2, 2017

Part IV: Soul Medallions

Given everything I've discussed above, assuming my speculations are accurate then we can already build a general Excisor theory that covers all the bases.

The Excisor
Since an excised nicrosilmind is basically one that contains a Hemalurgically-ripped piece of a Feruchemist's soul, an Excisor must be something that facilitates the creation of such a thing. Here are some things it might do:

It must grant Nicrosil Feruchemy in order to let someone store a Hemalurgic charge.
It might grant Gold Feruchemy and a lot of stored Health, for healing Hemalurgic damage. Though since an alternative Hemalurgic microsystem would allow for non-fatal stabbing, this might not be necessary. The user could always borrow a health medallion afterwards.
It might have empty spikes of various metals incorporated into it for Excising specific powers. Perhaps the spikes are procured separately, but having spikes attached (perhaps chained?) to the Excisor would definitely add to its mysterious nature.
It might grant other powers that could be handy for the task. I don't think storing Identity is all that useful for a Southern medallion, but hey why not?

Since it grants powers, an Excisor must either be a set of Hemalurgic spikes containing those powers or it is itself a set of excised nicrosilminds. I am betting on the latter, because the Sovereign could obviously create multi-powered excised metalminds himself and there would be no point in making his followers stab themselves more than is necessary.

The Microsystem
In Part II, I speculated that there is another body part that like the heart can act as a source of Hemalurgic charges. Where is this so-called bindpoint microsystem alternative? Frankly, we don't have any strong clues, and it really wouldn't matter to me which one Brandon chose, but in the spirit of sportsmanship I will make a random guess and say that the hands are a bindpoint microsystem. I am basing this on the fact that hand acupuncture is popular in Korea, a place very close to Brandon's heart.

The Religious Connection
We established in Part III that the Connection formed by religious devotion is strong enough to overcome soul interference. So in order to create multi-powered medallions, one must make the piece of soul in one nicrosilmind "worship" the piece of soul in the other nicrosilmind. This is done by using Duralumin Feruchemy to store a Southern commoner's religious devotion to the Metalborn owner of the first nicrosilmind and using that Connection on the Metalborn owner of the second nicrosilmind. That's how to make two-powered medallions.

The problem when creating a three-powered nicrosilmind has to do with balancing Connection strength: A third Metalborn will have to be equally Connected religiously to both the first and second Metalborns. The religious devotion must be completely balanced in order for one "god" to not outdo the other "god". Messing up this balance will cause one or two of the three nicrosilminds to disconnect from the user. This is why three-powered nicrosilminds are very rare, and why four-powered nicrosilminds are unheard of: nobody could be equally religiously devoted to three gods at once.

The Process
Here is how you create a single-powered medallion:

Be a Ferring.
Wear an empty medallion containing a nicrosil ring and another portion composed of your metal.
Fill the non-nicrosil portion of the medallion (unless you are a Soulbearer, in which case fill the other nicrosil portion).
Wear an Excisor. Even if you are already a Soulbearer, you might want to avail of the Excisor's other powers if any.
Using a spike of the proper composition, stab the bindpoint on your hand corresponding to your Feruchemical power but don't remove the spike yet.
Using the Nicrosil Feruchemy granted by the Excisor, move the piece of excised soul from the spike into the medallion's nicrosil ring.
Remove the spike.
Heal yourself with Gold Feruchemy (hopefully your Excisor has one).
Remove the Excisor.

And here's how you create a two-powered medallion:

Be a Ferring (or ensure that the other Metalborn is a Ferring).
If you are not a Connector, wear a Connection medallion created using the steps above.
Find a commoner who worships you, then store his religious Connection in a duraluminmind.
Tap this religious Connection and Connect it to the other Metalborn. He should now have religious devotion to you.
Wear an empty medallion containing two nicrosil rings, your metal, and the other Metalborn's metal if he is a Ferring.
Fill your designated metal.
Wear an Excisor. The Connection medallion can stay because its creator most probably worships the creator of the Excisor (the Sovereign).
Using a spike of the proper composition, stab the bindpoint on your hand corresponding to your power but don't remove the spike yet.
Using the Nicrosil Feruchemy granted by the Excisor, move the piece of excised soul from the spike into the medallion's inner nicrosil ring.
Remove the spike.
Heal yourself with Gold Feruchemy (hopefully your Excisor has one).
Remove the Excisor and hand it and the medallion to the other Metalborn.
The other Metalborn performs Steps 6-11 for his part of the medallion.

And there you have it! To be quite honest, I would be very surprised if all my speculations above turn out to be correct. There are in fact a few questions lefts unanswered:

Why can't the Set figure out how to refill the Heat medallions? Do those medallions not have the "storing" part of a Firesoul's Investiture? Can such a trick be done using Hemalurgy?
Do the medallions have Identity? I don't see a need for the Identity-storing trick when it comes to Southern medallions, but at the same time I feel it's a bit of a waste to discard that concept, so there's a sense that I might be missing something.

Anyway, even if I do end up mostly wrong, I hope I have sparked other theorists' imagination. Who knows? Maybe my musings would nudge someone else towards the actual correct answers.

Edited May 3, 2017 by skaa

8bitBob · May 2, 2017

Alright, I've given this a full read, but this isn't the sort of post you can tackle without multiple reads. Initial response: I like it, but have some issues with the exact mechanics, and theorized abilities of the Set.

Additionally, I feel the need to point out one glaring flaw. We have seen someone tap Nicrosil while using a medallion, though it was a bit of a special case in many ways: Wax and the Bands of Mourning.

Quote

He was strong. Incredibly strong. The Bands, still clutched in his left hand, somehow gave him not just Allomancy, but ancient Allomancy. The potency of those who had lived long ago, during the time of the Lord Ruler. Perhaps even more. Was that possible?

What did you create? he wondered. And how long will it last?

His resources were diminishing. Not merely the metals inside of him, but the reserves stored inside the Bands. Stores that changed his level of Investiture.

Now, this is indeed a special case, but the Bands have still been presented as essentially a medallion in nature. Thing is, I feel it is possible to reconcile this with your larger theory, though it may change the specific mechanics of medallions, if not the process or effect.

What I think is important to consider is the fact that this is the only case of a medallion granting Allomancy, and it is also the only the only case where we are explicitly told they're draining the Investiture. Why is this? Well, my theory is based on this WoB:

Spoiler

KURKISTAN

How exactly does hemalurgic decay work for Feruchemy? Is it like a leaky tube or something, or…?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yeah… yeah. (Here misunderstanding and thinking that the question’s about the power of the Feruchemy itself, not storing/tapping metalminds)

KURKISTAN

So they try to store 10 units of health and only 9 gets through, or…?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Hemalurgic decay meaning someone who has been spiked is less powerful? That Hemalurgic decay] or the Hemalurgic decay when a Hemalurgic spike is left outside of blood?

KURKISTAN

Less powerful. So like the Inquisitors are less powerful Feruchemists so they had to spend longer storing: so _why_ did they have to spend longer storing?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yeah they lose a little bit, it’s a leaky… You’re there, exactly. It just doesn’t quite… it’s not as efficient: it’s [an] efficiency thing.

Basically, weaker Feruchemists suck at storing attributes. The example given is via Hemalurgy, but it's possible that this is a more general phenomenon. I theorize that, while they are bad at storing, they are no worse at tapping. This would make a lot of sense for the medallions we've seen, and why using the Bands of Mourning drains the Investiture inside.

Under the logic of your theory, the Iron or Brass medallion forms a Connection with the wearer and makes them a very, very weak Ferring. So weak that if you store, you barely put any attribute in. For Iron, this could be considered a feature, as it means you wouldn't have to periodically dump the excess "weight" from the Iron ring. For Brass, it is possible that this does not have an effect on tapping unkeyed Heat. Same goes for unkeyed Connection.

This is not possible with Allomancy. Being a weak Allomancer is not something you can trick your way around, as you'll be too weak to even Steelpush yourself off the ground, let alone Ironpull a ship out of the sky. This is why Wax needs to actively tap Investiture with the Bands, rather than simply rely on available unekeyed stores.

Alright, back to rereads for a larger opinion on the theory as a whole.

skaa · May 2, 2017

Thanks for the insightful response, @8bitBob! I could've sworn I mentioned the Bands in a previous draft, but apparently I messed up and accidentally deleted something. Yes, the Bands most likely includes Nicrosil Feruchemy as part of the package. I wasn't saying that it's impossible to create a medallion containing Nicrosil Feruchemy (in fact, that's exactly what I think Excisors are). I was just saying that if a medallion does not contain a Nicrosil Feruchemy nicrosilmind, the user obviously can't tap Investiture.

I'll edit my Introduction section to make that clear.

Edited May 2, 2017 by skaa

+Extesian · May 2, 2017

What a beautiful thought out theory Skaa. The medallions have always been one of my weaker realmatic topics so I'll leave it to others to pick apart the details (and I hope they do, this is something that deserves the scientific method being thoroughly applied to it). The analysis of internal and external spiritual connections and identity is intriguing, and makes sense to me, but I'm curious to see any differences of opinion on that. But it's one of the better descriptions of how medallions work (or may work).

I feel like the biggest 'if' is the idea that religious devotion (in combination with spirit web cracks) leads to the level of connection you're talking about, but it's also one of the most intriguing ideas here and you've supported it well. And it made me immediately think of Bavadin creating or hijacking religions, something I was always looking for a compelling reason for - this would be just that. The ability to control, or have your priests tap the powers of, religious devotees.

And whether or not you're right, you've given me a fresh level of interest in Southern Scadrian magic-tech and wanting to delve into some serious research on it. Nice work.

skaa · May 2, 2017

27 minutes ago, Extesian said:

I feel like the biggest 'if' is the idea that religious devotion (in combination with spirit web cracks) leads to the level of connection you're talking about, but it's also one of the most intriguing ideas here and you've supported it well. And it made me immediately think of Bavadin creating or hijacking religions, something I was always looking for a compelling reason for - this would be just that. The ability to control, or have your priests tap the powers of, religious devotees.

Yeah, the idea of harnessing religious belief to gain magical benefits is indeed something that can be explored more in a general cosmere theory. Unfortunately I feel that I really need a break right now so I won't attempt that any time soon. Feel free to take a stab at it if you wish, though!

And thanks for the kind words!

Oversleep · May 2, 2017

5 hours ago, skaa said:

while we already have a canon term for an Identity-less metalmind (what Marasi calls an unkeyed metalmind), I would like to propose this fan term: "excised metalmind" for a metalmind created with an Excisor, as opposed to the "unsealed metalmind" term I've been seeing that is frankly confusing.

You're confusing two separate terms.

Unkeyed metalmind is one without Identity - it can be shared between Ferrings of that metal.

The thing is, the medallions are something else, as they're nicrosilminds tappable by everyone, not only Soulbearers as would be the case with unkeyed nicrosilminds. That's what is called an '"unsealed metalmind" and it's a term Brandon gave us.

If you address that issue later, I apologize as right now I don't have brainpower to go through all of your theory

Edited May 2, 2017 by Oversleep

skaa · May 2, 2017

10 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

You're confusing two separate terms.

Unkeyed metalmind is one without Identity - it can be shared between Ferrings of that metal.

The thing is, the medallions are something else, as they're nicrosilminds tappable by everyone, not only Soulbearers as would be the case with unkeyed nicrosilminds. That's what is called an '"unsealed metalmind" and it's a term Brandon gave us.

Actually, I know quite well what the difference is between "unkeyed metalmind" (a term first used by Marasi, as I said) and "unsealed metalmind". You might want to re-read the sentence you quoted.

What I did not know, though, was that Brandon gave us the term unsealed metalmind. Or maybe I just forgot. Thanks, anyway!

Now that I know the origin of the term, I still don't like it very much. It's still far too easy for a newbie to mistake "unsealed metalmind" for "unkeyed metalmind", which is what I meant when I said it was confusing. In fact, I think it would make my posts above a bit less readable if I replaced the instances of "excised metalmind" with "unsealed metalmind".

But hey, the boss has spoken. Unsealed it is.

Edited May 2, 2017 by skaa

Oversleep · May 2, 2017

I've read a bit further and I also have to disagree on that:

5 hours ago, skaa said:

There's an old philosophical problem: How can you say that something is part of you? How do you differentiate your Self from your environment? It's an interesting question, popularly exemplified by the Theseus's Paradox (I won't discuss it here, but go read on it if you haven't yet), which Brandon conveniently resolves in his fictional universe using his concept of the Spiritweb.

It's not resolved by Spiritweb. Actually the Spiritweb (and Cognitive aspect too) of the new parts would change in the Theseus Ship experiment to match the original ship. Here's the WoB:

Quote

Question: I have a philosophy question that could actually be answered in cosmere:
Ship of Theseus in cosmere. If I went and replaced every part of the ship, would it still - Cognitively - be the same thing?
What if I replaced everything and made a second ship out of the parts from the first one? What could somebody watching all of that from Shadesmar tell me?

Answer: You're right, part of the design of the cosmere (which has some deep roots in classical philosophy) was an attempt to answer the Ship of Theseus question.
In the cosmere, part of the Cognitive--and even spiritual--aspect of a thing (particularly if it isn't sentient) is delineated by the way that thinking beings define it. Per the old joke about the axe, if you replace your axe head and think of the new axe as "Your Axe," then the cognitive and spiritual aspects of that thing will grow to reflect that.
If you replaced every part of your ship, and gave the sailors time to sail it, thinking of it as the same ship--it would become the same ship.

(emphasis mine)

source

skaa · May 2, 2017

32 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

I've read a bit further and I also have to disagree on that:

It's not resolved by Spiritweb. Actually the Spiritweb (and Cognitive aspect too) of the new parts would change in the Theseus Ship experiment to match the original ship. Here's the WoB:

Your Spiritweb, as I said in Part I, is the collection of all your Internal Connections (the Connections of everything that is part of you). Even if those Connections change, as they obviously do, the thing that is the collection of your Internal Connections is still the collection of your Internal Connections. In other words, your Spiritweb is still your Spiritweb no matter how much your aspects have changed.

Another point I'd like to make is that, as time does not exist in the Spiritual Realm, your Spiritweb is not just a collection of your Internal Connections now, but also of all the Internal Connections you ever had and will have (which is why atium and malatium works by peering at Spiritual aspects). That is in fact a classic response to the Ship of Theseus: Identity must be seen as a four-dimensional thing that contains all the temporal changes to it, so the Ship of Theseus is still the Ship of Theseus after all of its parts have been replaced one by one.

I understand that Brandon said that your spiritual aspect can change and that must have made you think my conclusion was wrong. What I'm saying is that just because some parts of your spiritual aspect change at some point in time doesn't mean the whole four-dimensional thing has suddenly been replaced by something else. The whole remains even when the parts change.

Edited May 2, 2017 by skaa

8bitBob · May 2, 2017

Alright, I've read the theory a few times now. There's some interesting ideas here that I find compelling, such as your thoughts on microsystems, Harmony using Ruin to fix Snapping, distinctions between Internal and External Connection, and some other things I forgot to list. That being said, I think there's some fundamental issues with the theory as a whole that are not addressed adequately enough to elevate it from simply interesting to genuinely compelling. I'm going to address them individually and in no particular order.

1) You do not need to tap Nicrosil to use a metalmind.

This is directly contradicted by Wax and Allik in BoM:

Quote

“Investiture,” Waxillium said. “This inner ring is nicrosil. You tap it, and it grants you Investiture—turning you into a temporary Feruchemist who has the ability to fill a metalmind with weight.” He held up the medallion. “The iron on this is for convenience, right? You can fill it, but so long as you’re tapping the Investiture, you could touch any source of iron and turn it into a metalmind.”

“You know much about this, Mysterious One,” Allik said.

Wax specifically says you must tap the Nicrosil and Allik says he is correct. You can argue that Allik could be misleading Wax, or he himself does not understand it, or that nobody says they're tapping Nicrosil when using medallions, but the fact of the matter is that the theory is predicated on the idea that we are being deliberately mislead here. That is possible, but it is a fairly large jump to take as inherently probable.

Additionally, as it's mentioned in the theory, it's actually very unclear on whether or not there's multiple Nicrosil rings in medallions with multiple powers:

Quote

“I learn quickly,” Waxillium said, glancing at Marasi. She nodded for him to continue. This was fascinating … but the Metallic Arts was not one of her areas of expertise. Waxillium had a passion for it though. “What’s this other ring built into the medallion?”

“That grants the warmth,” Allik said. “It is a grand combination—two attributes, from separate rings. Took us long to make these work, yah? The one I wear now, also grants two. Weight and Connection. I’ve seen medallions with three. Twice in my life only. Every attempt at four has failed.”

It's easy to go by this line and simply interpret it based on your initial impressions, but the characteristic lack of description in Mistborn means this can be describing two different scenarios: Wax is asking about a second Nicrosil ring, or he is asking about a third ring of an unknown metal and Allik explains that it is Brass, which is filled with warmth. This is important, because it doesn't tell us whether or not Nicrosil behaves like Tinminds, in that each individual sense requires its own metalmind, or a Coppermind, which can hold many individual, distinct memories.

Unfortunately, WoB doesn't help us here. All that has been said on the matter is that you store each power individually, but you do the same with memories, and they can still share a Coppermind. It's not even a requirement for there being multiple Feruchemists, as it's confirmed that multiple people can store in the same metalmind even if their Identity interferes.

Ultimately, this isn't that big a deal for the theory, just thought I'd bring it up.

2) Religious devotion as a key component

My issue here is that you're reading very heavily into a single line and annotation, coming to a fairly radical conclusion. Once again, I am not saying this is impossible, but the basis of the theory is reliant upon how well this idea stands up to scrutiny. Unfortunately, this is simply one idea to explain what's happening here out of infinite possibilities. In that way, I feel it is not very convincing, even if it is compelling.

For instance, it is entirely possible that Spook can hear Kelsier not because of some special feature of religious Connection, but because Spook has the right Connection. Spook sees Kelsier as a god and, for a time, he is. Via this daisy chain of deific worship, Spook has a greater Connection to Preservation, even though Vin and Marsh are more Connected to Kelsier personally.

A subtle distinction, but an important one, and just one of many possible explanations.

3) The Set uses deific worship to store other people's attributes

This section honestly came out of left field for me, as there's not even any indication that Templeton had Goldminds. Once again, it's heavily reading into a single line, and only makes sense in the larger context of your theory. It ignores simple realmatics that the Set obviously knows and could use (Hemalurgy, Compounding and Identity) in favor of a highly advanced use Connection that could have potentially taught them how to make medallions from scratch, if the theory is correct.

In essence, this seems like a very complicated way to achieve something they could probably already do, all based on the description of one skinny, haggard woman. Rather than being internally consistent, it only exists as a means to support the theoretical idea that religious Connection is important and powerful.

4) Soulbearer Ferrings can tap Hemalurgical spikes

This idea is cool, but it ignores what we understand about Feruchemy. For one, it would require you to tap metals other than Nicrosil, which is fundamentally problematic. I realise that this is based around the idea that Hemalurgy forms a Connection when spiked in, and the Soulbearer then taps this part of "their" spirit web rather than the metal itself, but spikes are still treated as fundamentally separate things from the person they're inside. Brandon describes it as soul "tacked on" rather than truly being a part of the person's spirit web, and thus I remain skeptical that they could innately tap and move this Investiture trapped in a different metal.

Additionally, we have indication that just because Investiture is inside the right metal does not mean you can tap it. Brandon describes it as acting like corrupted sections of a hard drive. It is possible that Soulbearers are the exception here due to the nature of their power, but technically all Feruchemy involves Investiture already.

I really like this idea, but have issues getting past idea that they can just innately tap other metals, even if they're connected to their spirit web. I have less issues with the idea that Soulbearers could move around Hemalurgical charges already inside Nicrosil though.

I'm sure there was more I meant to cover, but oh well. May as well start from these points for now.

**Argent** · May 2, 2017

7 hours ago, skaa said:

Feruchemy, being a combination of the Intents of Ruin and Preservation, has access to all bindpoints (or at least the bindpoints required by the specific type of Feruchemy) as well as the ability to widen the bindpoint openings without the need of cracking them first. Feruchemy also creates Internal Connections that go either direction to or from a piece of metal, letting things in or out. This is probably why we never hear of Feruchemists Snapping; their Investiture can widen bindpoint openings on its own.

Wouldn't that make Feruchemists tapping (or filling?) their metals susceptible to Ruin's influence? I feel like he would've been able to wreck a lot more havoc a lot faster if he had access to a few full Feruchemists.

But other than this, I find it difficult to comment on anything and be useful. It's a mammoth of a theory - in fact, I think there are at least three different theories I can identify - and that makes it difficult to discuss without investing (heh) much time; it's a problem I had when reviewing @Confused's big ol' theory of everything too. As with him, had I known you were going to post something like this, I would've encouraged you to post each building block separately, let them simmer in people's minds for a few days, and then do a "the story so far" at the beginning of the next building block's thread.

This being said, I think your idea is unnecessarily convoluted. I know that Brandon said the explanation wouldn't be straightforward, so I agree that we should be looking for something that's not very linear, but I think you've gone a little overboard here. I do agree that Hemalurgy probably has a role to play in the creation of unsealed metalminds, and the the Excisors are probably some kind of Hemalurgic artifact, and I found it interesting to consider storing a Hemalurgic charge inside a nicrosilmind, but I think your thoughts veered off in a direction I was both unable and in disagreement with after that. The entire section about the religious Connection feels off to me (though it was good to be reminded that there is something special going on between gods and their worshipers); my personal headcanon lies more in line with Edwarn's comments about splitting the filling and tapping of metalminds between pairs of people, I feel that's a slightly stronger clue to how the medallions might work.

Then again, all of this feedback is kind of a "gut feeling" feedback, because it's so difficult to wrap my head around the entire theory without spending more time than I can afford to spend, so take it as you will.

skaa · May 2, 2017

2 hours ago, 8bitBob said:

Alright, I've read the theory a few times now. There's some interesting ideas here that I find compelling, such as your thoughts on microsystems, Harmony using Ruin to fix Snapping, distinctions between Internal and External Connection, and some other things I forgot to list. That being said, I think there's some fundamental issues with the theory as a whole that are not addressed adequately enough to elevate it from simply interesting to genuinely compelling. I'm going to address them individually and in no particular order.

Thanks! I'll try to answer your issues one by one

2 hours ago, 8bitBob said:

1) You do not need to tap Nicrosil to use a metalmind.

This is directly contradicted by Wax and Allik in BoM:

Wax specifically says you must tap the Nicrosil and Allik says he is correct. You can argue that Allik could be misleading Wax, or he himself does not understand it, or that nobody says they're tapping Nicrosil when using medallions, but the fact of the matter is that the theory is predicated on the idea that we are being deliberately mislead here. That is possible, but it is a fairly large jump to take as inherently probable.

Additionally, as it's mentioned in the theory, it's actually very unclear on whether or not there's multiple Nicrosil rings in medallions with multiple powers:

It's easy to go by this line and simply interpret it based on your initial impressions, but the characteristic lack of description in Mistborn means this can be describing two different scenarios: Wax is asking about a second Nicrosil ring, or he is asking about a third ring of an unknown metal and Allik explains that it is Brass, which is filled with warmth. This is important, because it doesn't tell us whether or not Nicrosil behaves like Tinminds, in that each individual sense requires its own metalmind, or a Coppermind, which can hold many individual, distinct memories.

Unfortunately, WoB doesn't help us here. All that has been said on the matter is that you store each power individually, but you do the same with memories, and they can still share a Coppermind. It's not even a requirement for there being multiple Feruchemists, as it's confirmed that multiple people can store in the same metalmind even if their Identity interferes.

Ultimately, this isn't that big a deal for the theory, just thought I'd bring it up.

Yeah, one can choose to believe that Allik wasn't being sarcastic or sycophantic or deceptive or imprecise when he said Wax "knew much about this". But frankly, Wax knew not a rusting bit about Southern medallions for certain at that point. For all we know, he was only mostly right, and Allik wasn't in the mood to nitpick. By the way, Allik never says anything about brass; all he says is that the other ring "grants the warmth". So yeah he was being very ambiguous.

The main reason why I believe they aren't tapping Investiture is that Spiritual DNA is important in Investiture. If you don't have the right Investiture to tap a Feruchemical Attribute, then you can't tap it. Period. Even if we say, for example, that the memory coin Hoid gave Wax contains the Investitures of both Copper Feruchemy (to tap the memory) and Nicrosil Feruchemy (to tap the Investiture of Copper Feruchemy), we still need to explain how someone who doesn't have a pre-existing Investiture of Nicrosil Feruchemy can tap the Investiture of Nicrosil Feruchemy in that coin. And since the Southerners apparently found a way of using a nicrosilmind without first being a Soulbearer, then they wouldn't need to put Nicrosil Feruchemy in the coin, would they? They just needed to put Copper Feruchemy in there, along with a piece of copper containing the memory.

But that doesn't mean Wax was Feruchemically tapping the Investiture of Copper Feruchemy, because he can't; he's not a Soulbearer. Something else was happening there aside from him tapping Investiture.

Does that make things clearer?

2 hours ago, 8bitBob said:

2) Religious devotion as a key component

My issue here is that you're reading very heavily into a single line and annotation, coming to a fairly radical conclusion. Once again, I am not saying this is impossible, but the basis of the theory is reliant upon how well this idea stands up to scrutiny. Unfortunately, this is simply one idea to explain what's happening here out of infinite possibilities. In that way, I feel it is not very convincing, even if it is compelling.

For instance, it is entirely possible that Spook can hear Kelsier not because of some special feature of religious Connection, but because Spook has the right Connection. Spook sees Kelsier as a god and, for a time, he is. Via this daisy chain of deific worship, Spook has a greater Connection to Preservation, even though Vin and Marsh are more Connected to Kelsier personally.

A subtle distinction, but an important one, and just one of many possible explanations.

I am okay with it not being very convincing-- again, I'd be surprised if I actually got all these correct-- but you're forgetting about the WoB about Wax. The question in that WoB was how Harmony can communicate with Wax. Brandon already gave the obvious answer (Harmony had both Ruin and Preservation and so could speak to spiked people and listen to them at the same time) but he didn't stop there; he went on to add that bit about Wax's religious connection to Harmony. So that, in addition to Spooks case, made it clear to me that in Brandon's mind religious connection is Realmatically important.

2 hours ago, 8bitBob said:

3) The Set uses deific worship to store other people's attributes

This section honestly came out of left field for me, as there's not even any indication that Templeton had Goldminds. Once again, it's heavily reading into a single line, and only makes sense in the larger context of your theory. It ignores simple realmatics that the Set obviously knows and could use (Hemalurgy, Compounding and Identity) in favor of a highly advanced use Connection that could have potentially taught them how to make medallions from scratch, if the theory is correct.

In essence, this seems like a very complicated way to achieve something they could probably already do, all based on the description of one skinny, haggard woman. Rather than being internally consistent, it only exists as a means to support the theoretical idea that religious Connection is important and powerful.

Again, I feel that you missed an important bit. I didn't start with Templeton. I started with Edwarn's passing remark that he could make someone else weak while he gains the benefit. Given that he said this in the context of his Hemalurgic "boons" (which incidentally included Gold Feruchemy), he was obviously talking about some bizarre process where he's making someone else suffer what he ought to be suffering in relation to his boons. That implies a special Connection between him and someone else, a Connection that does not only benefit him but obviously affects someone else's Spiritweb (in a negative way).

This was exactly the sort of solution we needed when creating multi-powered medallions: a way for one soul to Connect with another in a way that mimics Internal Connection, in order to solve the soul interference problem. Given the WoB that Duralumin Feruchemy is involved in medallion creation, it's no surprise that I latched onto that idea.

In order to make a guess as to what kind of Connection that is, I needed to see what the Set and the Southerners had in common. What special Connection would both groups be able to create? That's when I remembered that both groups are religiously motivated, and that we've seen evidence of religious connections doing weird things before.

It's not a solid thing, but it led to progress in my speculation, so that was good enough for me.

2 hours ago, 8bitBob said:

4) Soulbearer Ferrings can tap Hemalurgical spikes

This idea is cool, but it ignores what we understand about Feruchemy. For one, it would require you to tap metals other than Nicrosil, which is fundamentally problematic. I realise that this is based around the idea that Hemalurgy forms a Connection when spiked in, and the Soulbearer then taps this part of "their" spirit web rather than the metal itself, but spikes are still treated as fundamentally separate things from the person they're inside. Brandon describes it as soul "tacked on" rather than truly being a part of the person's spirit web, and thus I remain skeptical that they could innately tap and move this Investiture trapped in a different metal.

Additionally, we have indication that just because Investiture is inside the right metal does not mean you can tap it. Brandon describes it as acting like corrupted sections of a hard drive. It is possible that Soulbearers are the exception here due to the nature of their power, but technically all Feruchemy involves Investiture already.

I really like this idea, but have issues getting past idea that they can just innately tap other metals, even if they're connected to their spirit web. I have less issues with the idea that Soulbearers could move around Hemalurgical charges already inside Nicrosil though.

Yeah, as you can tell, I tried to make it as close to "normal" as possible (i.e. the piece of soul is still inside him, and it actually came from him), but obviously a Feruchemist storing a Hemalurgic charge is not something we've ever seen before (though of course, we haven't even met a Soulbearer Ferring before). This is just another speculative part of the theory that you don't really need to accept. The only reason I made this speculation is that if an "unsealed metalmind" really is forming a hybrid being of itself and its user (as was my suspicion from the start), then that sounds eerily like Hemalurgy. It was this mental connection that made me speculate that unsealed metalminds contain Hemalurgic charges.

Anyway, I've tried describing what led me to some of the speculations I've made. Feel free to ask more questions, keeping in mind that I claim no certainty about any of this craziness.

@Argent, given that I needed to explain so many weird things about the medallions (see the list in the Introduction section), I am very happy I ended up with just four parts. Just take a look at what I had to deal with:

I had to explain what Excisors are.
I had to show how someone could access a metalmind without being a Feruchemist.
I had to somehow involve Duralumin Feruchemy in medallion-creation. (Heck, I was starting to panic when I developed my Excisor theory without even using Duralumin!)
I had to describe a hack for "fooling the magic system into thinking that you have the right sDNA."
My theory must allow medallions to be used by non-Scadrians.
I had to explain why medallions interfered with each other.
Why is making three-powered medallions so rusting hard?

And what, you were expecting something that's just a tiny bit "not very linear"?! You gotta be kidding me!

But seriously, just look at that list and tell me again how convoluted you think my speculations are.

Edited May 2, 2017 by skaa

8bitBob · May 2, 2017

6 minutes ago, skaa said:

Yeah, one can choose to believe that Allik wasn't being sarcastic or sycophantic or deceptive or imprecise when he said Wax "knew much about this". But frankly, Wax knew not a rusting bit about Southern medallions for certain at that point. For all we know, he was only mostly right, and Allik wasn't in the mood to nitpick.

This goes beyond simple minor details, or being mostly right though. This is the difference between whether or not your car needs gasoline to run, or if it just needs a little inside to function. The fact that Allik does not contradict this is incredibly important, and probably the single most significant obstacle for the theory as a whole. A simple "they might be lying or wrong" just feels flaccid when speaking of something so important.

That being said, the fact that the characters pretty much explicitly said that you have to actively tap the Investiture does not necessarily mean the theory has to be thrown out for this reason alone. It could be that this is simply the "unsealing" required to get the process started, and then they continue tapping the Investiture from there. In the car metaphor, this would be the spark plug that ignites the gasoline. Or something. Basically, just because you need a Connection to tap doesn't mean you can use a medallion without Investiture. They need not be mutually exclusive.

19 minutes ago, skaa said:

Brandon already gave the obvious answer (Harmony had both Ruin and Preservation and so could speak to spiked people and listen to them at the same time) but he didn't stop there; he went on to add that bit about Wax's religious connection to Harmony. So that, in addition to Spooks case, made it clear to me that in Brandon's mind religious connection is Realmatically important.

You may be conflating two separate things here. The context on Spook answers why he can hear Kelsier while Vin and Marsh cannot, despite them being closer to him personally. The context for Wax answers why Harmony appears to be so much better at speaking to Wax than Ruin was for his "followers," and there's actually a pretty simple answer to this. Wax literally worships Harmony and understands who he is, what he's about and if he's actually God. Of course he has a stronger Connection to him than random crazy people had to Ruin, who was just a voice or feeling in their head. This is not necessarily due to the fact that religious Connection is stronger, but rather that Wax's Connection is stronger.

They share a theme of religious devotion, but that does not imply a causality.

19 minutes ago, skaa said:

Again, I feel that you missed an important bit. I didn't start with Templeton. I started with Edwarn's passing remark that he could make someone else weak while he gains the benefit. Given that he said this in the context of his Hemalurgic "boons", he was obviously talking about some bizarre process where he's making someone else suffer what he ought to be suffering.

That was not how I interpreted this line at all, so I wouldn't consider it obvious. Full context:

Quote

“The trouble with Hemalurgy is in its limitations,” he said. “If you kill a man and steal his Metallic abilities, the resulting gift to you is weakened. Did you know that? What’s more, if you spike yourself too much, you become subject to Harmony’s … interference. Indeed, by the stories, you might open yourself to the interference of any idiot Soother or Rioter with enough talent.” He shook his head. “I am limited to three boons, even if we have discovered how to make someone else be weak, while we gain the benefit.”

He glanced toward the bracers. “But if there is a way to gain more powers, and not be subject to Harmony … now that would be something. I see why Telsin was so eager.”

He left Wax, passing the frozen corpses of the dead masked ones, bits of them sticking from beneath fallen rocks. Crushed. Some even looked to have shattered.

Suit stepped up to the pedestal. “Behold me, Waxillium. Today, I become a god.”

Consider the greater context of what Suit is saying here. He's describing the fact that, even though they figured out how to spike people for their abilities, or "make someone else be weak, while we gain the benefit," he cannot have more than three due to the limitations of Hemalurgy. It's even part of the same sentence, so he'd literally be going on a complete tangent for half a sentence. He then goes on to explain that the Bands could help them get around this limitation and are more powerful.

If there was a theme to what Suit is saying here, it is about how Hemalurgy is limited and the Bands are not. In this context, it makes perfect sense for "making someone else be weak" to refer to spiking, and fits within the natural flow of ideas that he's presenting. But, even if this is wrong, even if, then this line could still refer to any number of possibilities other than an implication about special Connections. Off the top of my head it could refer to:

Stealing things other than metalborn abilities with spikes
Learning how to spike away powers without killing them
Making others fill unkeyed metalminds

Because of this, I find the idea that it is "obvious" that he is making others suffer instead of him, or that this implies a special Connection, to not be a very strong argument. It rejects a perfectly logical interpretation and then assumes a direct implication that I honestly don't see.

Again, I don't think any of this is impossible, and am more arguing against the idea that any of this religious Connection stuff is directly implied, inside or outside of the books. I think I understand your thought process a bit better now though.

Pagerunner · May 2, 2017

I like a lot of where you're going, but I don't like how you got there. I've suggested before that I don't think they're truly 'tapping' F.Nicrosil, either, but rather that the Investiture can still contact their souls and allow them to use the magic encased in the metalmind without needing to be drawn out of the it. I view this similar to Hemalurgy, but not quite identical; more that I don't think a 'Hemalurgical Charge' is anything special, unlike a Feruchemical Charge, but a Hemalurgical Charge is just a piece of a spiritweb. (Where a Feruchemical charge will be some property converted to Investiture, unless it was already Investiture to begin with.) All that goes to say, I like that part of the theory.

But that doesn't really address the Connection aspect of it. I think your explanation of Internal vs External Connections is incorrect. I actually like the distinction you've made, but I don't think what you've identified as Internal Connection is Connection at all, and thus wouldn't be involved in F.Duralumin. I think, to understand how External Connection truly works (Or, as I like to call it, Connection), we need to look at the one source that actually explains it in any detail: Secret History. When Kelsier looks into the Spiritual Realm:

Quote

Time didn't pass; time had no relevance here. It was not a place. Location had no relevance. Only Connection, person to person, man to world, Kelsier to god.

I think it's interesting that Brandon rarely refers to singular objects in the Spiritual Realm as 'Connections'; rather, he refers to the spiritual substance of Connection, which forms lines of Connection. And it's not just a simple cross-reference table, either, that one person is either Connected to something or not. There are hundreds of lines of Connection between Kelsier and Ruin alone. I think, just maybe, that a line of Connection is an event, the way that the Spiritual Realm manifests anything that will influence a person.

Anyways, from this description, there are three kinds of Connection:

Person to person. Kelsier leverages this when he speaks to Vin, and later to Spook. I believe this Connection is also used by Forgers and Soulcasters, who both need to understand and leverage the history of an object with respect to individuals (Forgers more than Soulcasters, but Shallan's transformation of the boat in WoR definitely illustrates the concept.)
Man to world. This is the kind of Connection that the translation medallions utilize.
Kelsier to god. This is probably going to be the Connection that would be involved. I'm not sure of the extent of this sort of Connection needed to manifest magical abilities, or even what this type of Connection means in general unless it's more of the behind-the-scenes influence that gods have. This kind of Connection is definitely needed to Ascend, so maybe it is also an important component of Initiation. I don't think this is primarily of a religious nature; Kelsier didn't worship Ruin, he was influenced by him. I think religious ties are covered in Person to Person Connection, so even though this is between a person and a Shard, I think what you're looking for to explain drawing on someone else's powers would fall under the first kind of Connection.

I'm struggling with a specific mechanism for how any Connection would be used in granting magic, unless it's a component of Initiation, along with a crack in the soul and the provision of a piece of a Shard's Investiture. But, since there is no duralumin on the medallions themselves, that would mean that the Connection is only used in their creation, not in their implementation.

That all being said... I don't have an alternate mechanism for Connection being involved. At this time, I don't see any relationship between lines of Connection and obtaining magical powers, which is what medallions are all about. (Like you, I have no idea how the original question-asker thought to approach from this angle.) It almost seems simpler if this was a misheard question; if Brandon was answering for Feruchemical Aluminum or Hemalurgical Duralumin, both of which could easily be used. But that would be bad hermeneutics to assert, so at the moment I'll just publically air my musings and leave it at that.

There are a lot of tangents that I won't address for the sake of staying on topic, especially since some of those I've addressed elsewhere. (Edwarn's weak/benefit is 'only' unkeyed metalminds, Feruchemy is not storing part of the spiritweb like Hemalurgy does, Excisors are clearly a new term for Spikes.) I like the acupuncture analogies, and would like to see that properly spun off into a theory that I can Espouse. But, best I can gather, the core of your theory is that an artificial Line of Connection can allow Person A to use Feruchemy on Person B's Spiritweb. While I like much of the Realmatic fundamentals you've presented and disagree with a lot of your specific interpretations, on the whole, I find it to be too much of a leap from what we have seen from Connection.

So, I guess I do need to expand on what the Set is doing, then, since that is where you're drawing direct manipulation of another's spiritweb. Wayne found the unkeyed goldmind. Someone filled that up; if someone like Templeton's wife was a willing participant (I don't recall that exact scene, but I think I had a vastly different interpretation), they would have suffered the weakness. But Wayne was the one who drew out of it, and received the benefit. The Set already has a secret method that can accomplish exactly what Edwarn described, so I disagree with looking for a more complicated explanation of his words. Sure, you can wonder why anyone would do that, take a F.Aluminum or F.Gold spike and spend all your time storing for someone else. I think there could be a number of personal reasons someone might be willing to do that, and it doesn't necessitate developing this new Connection mechanism.

EDIT: @8bitBob, I don't think the second half of Edwarn's sentence is referring to Hemalurgy. It is a bit of a tangent ("even if..."), but still connected. He's saying something like 'We're limited to being triple Ferrings, even if it is Feruchemy+. But the Bands could make me a Full Feruchemist.' The Set has figured out a Feruchemy+ that lets you get energy out that you didn't put in; even if some of us disagree on exactly what that mechanism is.

Edited May 2, 2017 by Pagerunner

+hwiles · May 2, 2017

@skaa Love the theory; some of the specifics about religious Connection seem somewhat inelegant to me, but the overarching concept of how/why hemalurgy is fundamental to medallion technology seems highly plausible.

I suspect you understand hemalurgic soul interference just fine, but I wanted to add a couple points for any readers who may not recall offhand just how important this phenomenon and its consequences are, as it's something I've been rather interested in.

9 hours ago, skaa said:

Nonetheless, soul interference is there and it does take a toll in the Hemalurgist's Spiritweb. This is why Steel Inquisitors have such fragile Spiritwebs. Not only is a Steel Inquisitor damaged at his affected bindpoints, his whole Spiritweb suffers from internal forces pulling it apart because of soul interference.

Discussions of hemalurgy tend to gloss over a few potentially important aspects of the magic system, specifically when they're centered on granting multiple powers to an individual:

Spoiler

Inquisitors' spikes cause them constant pain and that pain changes (it's unclear if it gets worse or better) when they experience strong emotions. They also need to sleep a lot more than normal people because just having the spikes puts intense strain on their bodies. It seems reasonable to assume that this phenomenon scales with the number of spikes, being more-or-less tolerable at 3, and constant agony at >=11.
Inquisitors' spirit webs are so damaged that they are literally held together by hemalurgic spikes. Removing just the spike in their neck kills them instantly, and it's speculated in-book that removing other combinations of spikes could result in death via initiating a cascade unraveling of the spirit.
Hemalurgists appear to develop Connection with their spikes. Kandra can't just trade spikes with each other (even if those spikes grant the same attribute); doing so appears to damage their body, mind, and spirit.
Over time, hemalurgic spikes appear to absorb, or possibly copy, some of their user's Identity (or maybe Connection). New koloss were more "human" and possessed more personality than their predecessors following TLR's death due to having been created from recycled spikes. I don't believe this phenomenon is explained well by simple hemalurgic decay, as the spikes wouldn't have been outside a host for long.

I suspect that the rules of hemalurgy, soul interference, and reforging (and transfering hemalurgic charge to/from) spikes, are going to be integral to the final explanation of how the medallions work and why creating >3-power medallions appears to be prohibitively difficult (maybe impossible) without access to full feruchemists and mistborns. However, I have to admit that your proposed Connection-based explanation for these two points seems internally consistent and makes some interesting predictions.

Hope you don't view these additional points on hemalurgic soul interference as a needless distraction; your critique on hemalurgy, and indeed your theory as a whole, was thought-provoking and well argued, thanks for posting!

8bitBob · May 2, 2017

12 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

I don't think the second half of Edwarn's sentence is referring to Hemalurgy. It is a bit of a tangent ("even if..."), but still connected. He's saying something like 'We're limited to being triple Ferrings, even if it is Feruchemy+. But the Bands could make me a Full Feruchemist.' The Set has figured out a Feruchemy+ that lets you get energy out that you didn't put in; even if some of us disagree on exactly what that mechanism is.

This is possible, but it's a bit out of character for Suit, as his final confrontation with Wax showed he was more focused on Allomancy. He's limited to three "boons," two of which are Allomancy, not Feruchemy. At minimum, it means he's not just referring to Feruchemy when he says "boons", so it would be odd for Suit to go on a complete tangent about having other people store attributes for the Set and not even mention that he was talking about Feruchemy.

Basically, I admit that it's possible that he's not talking about Hemalurgy, but considering that everything else he says is about Hemalurgy's limitations and why the Bands are better, it seems likely to me that that is what he's talking about.

MPHRD · May 2, 2017

12 hours ago, skaa said:

But what if you don't really want to store a piece of soul in a spike for Hemalurgic use anyway? What if, say, you just want to excise a smaller piece of soul in a non-fatal manner and store it somewhere non-Hemalurgic, say, a nicrosilmind?

Maybe the Hemalurgic charge is store via burning the spike? Or buring the spike is how to create more "powerful" version of an attribute, since just compounding a nicromind would be to easy and the Southerns would have already made nicrominds as powerful as the Bands but with only two or three powers.

skaa · May 3, 2017

5 hours ago, MPHRD said:

Maybe the Hemalurgic charge is store via burning the spike? Or buring the spike is how to create more "powerful" version of an attribute, since just compounding a nicromind would be to easy and the Southerns would have already made nicrominds as powerful as the Bands but with only two or three powers.

That is an interesting idea. It will require Excisors to grant Allomantic powers as well just for Compounding to occur, so I'm not sure if I'm going to espouse that idea, but it might be a more acceptable option for those who don't think a Soulbearer can store his own piece of soul directly if it's sealed in a spike.

Anyway, guys, Pagerunner is probably right about Edwarn, so I'm abandoning my idea that the Set is using Religious Connection to siphon Health from people. I have updated Part III accordingly.

Edited May 3, 2017 by skaa

skaa · May 3, 2017

I really wish we had a canon term for "the Spiritual relationship between one part of a Spiritweb and another part of the same Spiritweb", so that I wouldn't have had to invent the term "Internal Connection", as it forced me to give another name ("External Connection") to a concept that already has a canon term ("Connection").

*sigh*

10 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

I think your explanation of Internal vs External Connections is incorrect. I actually like the distinction you've made, but I don't think what you've identified as Internal Connection is Connection at all, and thus wouldn't be involved in F.Duralumin.

Here is another reason why I regret having to invent "Internal Connection". You accuse me of saying Feruchemical Duralumin can manipulate Internal Connections when I said the exact opposite in Part I:

21 hours ago, skaa said:

One might wonder if Connectors (Duralumin Feruchemists) can use their power to manipulate the Internal Connections of Spiritwebs, but I think that's too overpowered. It's likely that Connectors can only manipulate External Connections.

In Part III, I discuss the possibility of Religious Connection (an External Connection) acting like an Internal Connection when mixed with Spiritual damage. I was proposing that Religious Connection is an exception to the rule, a sort of bridge between the External and the Internal for spiritually damaged people (e.g. those with Hemalurgic spikes). At least, that's how I interpret the WoBs about Spook and Wax's interactions with their gods. That's how Connectors can use Religious Connection for the purpose I described in Part IV.

I think I also need to clarify that not all Connections between a god and a person is necessarily religious in nature. Kelsier's many Connections to Ruin doesn't mean Kelsier worshiped the Shard (he obviously didn't). Preservation has Connections to all Allomancers (and indeed to all Scadrians, though to a lesser extent), but those Connections aren't religious.

The only spiked people who actually worshiped Preservation were the kandra, who practiced the old Terris religion:

Quote

The Terris religion, as one might have expected, focused heavily on knowledge and scholarship. The Worldbringers—their word for Keepers—were holy men and women who imparted knowledge, but also wrote of their god, Terr. It was the ancient Terris word for “to preserve.”

Look back to the scene where TenSoon was forcing himself to not kill Sazed and to pull his spikes free:

Quote

Above him, TenSoon jerked. Something within the kandra seemed to be fighting—tradition and a lifetime of training warred against the control of an outside force. TenSoon released Sazed with one hand, but kept choking him with the other. Then, with his free hand, the kandra reached toward his own shoulder.

That mirrored the scene where Spook was being tempted to kill Beldre. We now know that during that event Kelsier was using his (religious) Connection with Spook, who ended up pulling his spike free and saving the city.

In the case of the kandra, Vin as Preservation also succeeded in influencing the kandra:

Quote

Ruin must have noticed what she was studying, or perhaps he sensed her smugness. You think you’ve won? he asked, sounding amused. Why, because you managed to stop a few kandra? They were always the weakest of the minions the Lord Ruler created for me. I have made a habit of ignoring them. Either way, Vin, you cannot really think that you have beaten me.

What's important to remember here is that Preservation normally can't influence people with damaged souls the way Ruin and Cognitive Shadows can. Leras said it himself:

Quote

“No. You must tell . . . her. You can reach . . . through the gaps in souls . . . when I cannot. Tell her that she must not trust . . . pierced by metal.[...]"

This was how Kelsier was able to whisper to madmen, and how he got to tell Vin not to approach Hoid. When Kelsier Ascended, he stopped being able to do this:

Quote

He easily found which ones had souls that were open to him, and eagerly he swung down in. Surely among these he could find one who could deliver a message to Vin. Yet they didn’t seem to be able to hear him, no matter how he whispered to them. It was frustrating and baffling. He held the powers of eternity. How could he have lost the ability he’d had before, the ability to communicate with his people?

Notice also what Kelsier had to do in order to communicate with Spook:

Quote

It didn’t notice Kelsier as he drew back from the power, exposing his own soul and drawing it close to Spook. Those lines were there, the lines of familiarity, family, and Connection. Strangely, they were even stronger for Spook than they’d been for Marsh and Vin. Why would that be?

As you can see, Kelsier had to draw back the power of Preservation and expose his own soul before he could affect Spook the way he did. Why? Because Spook did not worship Preservation. Spook worshiped Kelsier.

The kandra, however, worshiped Preservation. Their faith somehow let Vin (as Preservation) into their souls in a way she wouldn't be able to do with other beings. (Except Elend, though that's another issue and is outside the scope of this discussion.)

Edited May 3, 2017 by skaa

megatheory On the Excision of Investiture

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KURKISTAN

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