Gencon Hemalurgy WoB (Random realmatic discussion)

[Calderis]

9 hours ago, Yata said:

(if we could create a not Insanelly Invested Tanavastium it would be compatible too for me, it's the amount of Investiture in a Shardblade who prevent it from be used in the metallic arts, its composition will be fine).

I disagree, primarily because of Vin's attempt to burn Sazed's metalmind. She was able to burn the metal without issue, but couldn't access the keyed investiture. If the metal being invested were the only issue, I think that a feruchemically charged metalmind wouldn't be burnable by anyone other than the person who filled it. 

If Shardblades were automatically allomantically viable solely by virtue of being a godmetal, than the metal should have an effect, and the investiture in the metal itself should be bypassed and return to the system in the same manner as burning someone else's metalmind. 

[AbsentKeeper]

9 hours ago, Yata said:

I think we are mixing together some indipendent aspects.

First of all, the Old Magic is not a Magic System so try to make it fit with the Magic Systems' rules we know is probably a good way to screw all, then about the VoidBinding (the famous third Roshar's Magic System) we didn't see it yet (unless it is showed into OB's material, but I didn't read it) and therefore the Listeners' Forms of Power are not Voidbinding (again try to fit others phenomens with the Magic Systems' rules could be useless).

I have to disagree with you here. The old magic may be strange and different from the other three Rosharan systems doesn't mean that it doesn't follow rules.

What would be different about the old magic that makes it 'not a a magic system'? The only difference I can think of is that it doesn't require a stream of investiture, just a one time change, like Calderis said, but that is definitely still magic, and should still follow all the rules that the other systems have to.

Edit: @Calderis a couple things that are worth noting, I think:

When Vin tried to burn Sazed's metalmind, it was pewter, not a god metal.

Also, I always found it strange that she sensed his power at all, even though she couldn't use it, since she was not a Feurchemist.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Agent34]

4 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

I have to disagree with you here. The old magic may be strange and different from the other three Rosharan systems doesn't mean that it doesn't follow rules.

What would be different about the old magic that makes it 'not a a magic system'? The only difference I can think of is that it doesn't require a stream of investiture, just a one time change, like Calderis said, but that is definitely still magic, and should still follow all the rules that the other systems have to.

Quote

QUESTION

How many magic systems are in The Stormlight Archive, and how many of them [have been seen?]

BRANDON SANDERSON

I would see the only major one you haven’t seen is Voidbinding, it depends on how you count them. I count fabrials as one, Surgebinding as one, and Voidbinding as one. And then the Old Magic is kind of its own weird thing.

Source

This potentially casts doubt on the Old Magic being a magic system as opposed to a Investiture based phenomenon.

[Calderis]

10 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

What would be different about the old magic that makes it 'not a a magic system'?

Well, it's not a system. It's the name given to the way one spren, one massive splinter of a Shard, has chosen to interact with the world. 

She's confirmed as on the same level of spren as the Stormfather, and he is literally the source of stormlight. 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1177#12

Quote

QUESTION

Question about the stormlight itself : a highstorm, full of stormlight, fills the spheres. Then, the KR use the stormlight or the stormlight evaporates with time. Question : where does the stormlight in highstorms come from ? Is there like a "rain cycle", but for the stormlight ?

BRANDON SANDERSON

the stormlight in the highstorm is transferred from the Spiritual realm through the Stormfather into the highstorm.

For splinters of that magnitude, I don't think you can constrain them under the same rules as apply to mortals. 

11 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

When Vin tried to burn Sazed's metalmind, it was pewter, not a god metal.

So? If the metal has an allomantic effect it should be burnable. If it has separate investiture placed inside, that investiture should be treated no differently than that instance.

If Sazed had stored in Atium and handed it to Vin, do you think the result would have been different? 

[AbsentKeeper]

17 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Well, it's not a system. It's the name given to the way one spren, one massive splinter of a Shard, has chosen to interact with the world. 

She's confirmed as on the same level of spren as the Stormfather, and he is literally the source of stormlight. 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1177#12

For splinters of that magnitude, I don't think you can constrain them under the same rules as apply to mortals. 

So? If the metal has an allomantic effect it should be burnable. If it has separate investiture placed inside, that investiture should be treated no differently than that instance.

If Sazed had stored in Atium and handed it to Vin, do you think the result would have been different? 

As for the Nightwatcher, personally I believe that she should be still be mostly constrained by the same Realmatic rules that govern magic when used by a human. The highstorm is essentially just the Stormfather leaking massive amounts of Investiture in the same form as it naturally occurs on Roshar (since it is confirmed that Stormlight predates the shattering)

By my logic, the old magic should still have a focus, an original source (probably directly from Cultivation), and rules than govern what she can or can't do (curses are neurological).

[Edit: I forgot a point: I don't know whether it would be different had Sazed given Vin Atium instead, that's why I didn't draw any hard conclusions from it. I do believe it's possible that it would make some kind of difference though, because of the fundamental difference between god metals fueling themselves, and regular metals pulling from Preservation.]

 

@Agent34

If I'm missing the difference,  please inform me, but I though the only difference between a magic system and an 'investiture based phenomenon' was human control. Shades on Threnody, for example, are a phenomenon because its naturally occurring, but they still have mostly the same rules.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Yata]

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

I disagree, primarily because of Vin's attempt to burn Sazed's metalmind. She was able to burn the metal without issue, but couldn't access the keyed investiture. If the metal being invested were the only issue, I think that a feruchemically charged metalmind wouldn't be burnable by anyone other than the person who filled it. 

If Shardblades were automatically allomantically viable solely by virtue of being a godmetal, than the metal should have an effect, and the investiture in the metal itself should be bypassed and return to the system in the same manner as burning someone else's metalmind. 

I am unsure to follow you here, why is Vin's attempt relevant to my point ?

41 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

I have to disagree with you here. The old magic may be strange and different from the other three Rosharan systems doesn't mean that it doesn't follow rules.

I didn't said that Old Magic doesn't follow Realmatic Rules, I said as it is not a magic system that it has not to follow the magic Systems' rules.

For example (and I am quite sure to point this in a previous post on this topic) the Stormfather could manage the Highstorm, accelerate it and probably make them slow down. Would you call this a magic system ? is it not. It's an effect of a Splinter (the Stormfather) but it's not part of any magic system. The same thing are the Listeners' Forms this could potentially fit also with the Magic Systems' rules (if in the end we will discover that Roshar's focus is Bond or Spren) but it have not to.

In the same way, the Old Magic could be a features unique of the Nightwatcher, a power of her and therefore we could not use the Magic Systems' rules to define. We may discover that the NW have to bond to a degree with the supplicant to mess with his Aspects (and honestly I think this is likely) but this has not to be the case.

By the way, a powerful Splinter is not really constrained by the same mortal rules. We know that above a certain threeshold you could do almost everything with investiture and power (the Shards are a clear example) so it's not impossible a powerful Spren could do "weird stuff" in a limited scope.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Yata

[Calderis]

2 minutes ago, Yata said:

I am unsure to follow you here, why is Vin's attempt relevant to my point ?

My point was, why does it matter that Tanavastium (or whatever the honor/Cultivation alloy it is may be) in a Shardblade is heavily invested? If the metal is allomantically viable, it should be burnable by an allomancer.

Like a charged metalmind, if that metal is invested, burning it should still work, it would just release the investiture "charge" back into the system unused, the same way that Sazed's feruchemical store was unused when Vin burned his metalmind. 

Either the metal of a Shardblade is allomantically viable and burnable universally, because it is a godmetal, or the Shard needs to invest into Scadrial to make it allomantically viable. 

Any non-physical investiture in the metal should not matter. If it did, Vin shouldn't have been able to burn a metalmind with a charge she could not access. 

[AbsentKeeper]

37 minutes ago, Yata said:

I didn't said that Old Magic doesn't follow Realmatic Rules, I said as it is not a magic system that it has not to follow the magic Systems' rules.

Ahh, I think I just misunderstood what you were saying. I was referring to a 'magic system' as any system at uses Investiture according to Realmatic rules.

Really, the only use of Investiture that I don't consider a magic system is the direct power of Shards themselves, since they seem to be able to do pretty much whatever they want as long as another Shard isn't in the way.

I wasn't implying that all the systems have to follow the same rules, that would make the cosmere a very boring place. 

Edit: This isn't really even a cosmere issue, but rather one from the fact that I've read a lot of non-Brandon, soft magic books. Because of this, 'magical phenomenon' has different connotations for me than 'magic system' does. More semantic issues, but I just think of the second as involving a lot more 'science'. These are the kind of misunderstandings that happen when I get on the Shard still half asleep 

Edited August 25, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Calderis]

53 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

The highstorm is essentially just the Stormfather leaking massive amounts of Investiture in the same form as it naturally occurs on Roshar (since it is confirmed that Stormlight predates the shattering)

Yes, Stormlight predates the shattering as do the storms. 

There is no "natural" form of stormlight. That's my point. All Stormlight comes from the Stormfather. 

The entire Rosharan ecosystem, and all of its investiture requirements fully rely on one massive splinter feeding Stormlight into the world. 

The "natural" form of stormlight is trapped in the Spiritual Realm. 

[Yata]

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

My point was, why does it matter that Tanavastium (or whatever the honor/Cultivation alloy it is may be) in a Shardblade is heavily invested? If the metal is allomantically viable, it should be burnable by an allomancer.

Like a charged metalmind, if that metal is invested, burning it should still work, it would just release the investiture "charge" back into the system unused, the same way that Sazed's feruchemical store was unused when Vin burned his metalmind. 

Either the metal of a Shardblade is allomantically viable and burnable universally, because it is a godmetal, or the Shard needs to invest into Scadrial to make it allomantically viable. 

Any non-physical investiture in the metal should not matter. If it did, Vin shouldn't have been able to burn a metalmind with a charge she could not access. 

ok now I got what you want to say, before I missed your point.

First of all, as I said before, it is theorically possible to have a metal in the Metallic Arts that nobody could burn (for example imagine the Atium before Rashek's Ascension. Nobody could burn it but it was already a metal compatible with the Metalic Arts (and indeed Feruchemist and Hemalurgist could use it).

In the same way, if a Shard isn't Invested in Scadrial, the Scadrial's magic user will have not the right S-genetic to burn or store/tap that metal (this is a bit unclear with Mistborn/Full Feruchemist and how far their "burn everything" goes). In this context you have right, Vin would be not able to burn Tanavastium or Raysium regardless they are Invested or not because she misses the right genetic to do....But a System without the genetic costrain (Hemalurgy) would work quite fine.
Regard the "if the high Invested is not burnable, Vin can't burn Sazed's Metalmind" you have to put on the table the amount of Investure. A Shardblade (an example of Hyper Invested Godmetals' alloy) is so Invested to be almost impossible to influence with other magics (Allomancy for example) but this would be caused by the amount of Investure it carries. As proof, just took Nightblood, Nightblood is made of mundane metal (Steel) but for his insane amount of Investutre an Allomancer could not burn it. Also all the WoB regard the "burning Shardblade or burning Nightblood" refer to their insane amount of Investiture as the problem.

Lastly notice that already the "standard Metalmind" starts to act differently than mundane metal. Alluminium/Chromium took a longer time to destroy them and they are affected only after the regular metal is removed.

1 hour ago, Cowmanthethird said:

Ahh, I think I just misunderstood what you were saying. I was referring to a 'magic system' as any system at uses Investiture according to Realmatic rules.

Yeah I suspected you misunderstood what I wrote ;-)

[AbsentKeeper]

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

Yes, Stormlight predates the shattering as do the storms. 

There is no "natural" form of stormlight. That's my point. All Stormlight comes from the Stormfather. 

The entire Rosharan ecosystem, and all of its investiture requirements fully rely on one massive splinter feeding Stormlight into the world. 

The "natural" form of stormlight is trapped in the Spiritual Realm. 

I say that stormlight is the 'natural' form of investiture on Roshar, in the same way that breath is the natural form on Nalthis. Not raw investiture in the spiritual realm, as a Shard has it, but the natural form in the physical realm, you could say. 

There were spren and Parshendi on Roshar before Honor and Cultivation showed up there, so presumably there was also an invested storm, even if all stormlight comes from the Stormfather now, he's still just holding investiture and dumping it out through a natural process (a storm) so I don't see how that is outside the normal rules. A human surgebinder can also hold stormlight and breathe it out into the wind, just like the Stormfather does on a much larger scale

Edited August 25, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Calderis]

@Cowmanthethird the Stormfather was one of those initial Adonalsium spren. He's associated with Honor now, but he has always been the source. There's no Stormlight without him. Period. 

5 minutes ago, Yata said:

As proof, just took Nightblood, Nightblood is made of mundane metal (Steel) but for his insane amount of Investutre an Allomancer could not burn it. Also all the WoB regard the "burning Shardblade or burning Nightblood" refer to their insane amount of Investiture as the problem.

And that is precisely why I disagree. 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1145#1

Quote

CTHULHUSPREN

Could Wax, Vin, or TLR burn nightblood?

BRANDON SANDERSON

(paraphrased) Firstly, you're assuming Nightblood is not allomantically inert (he didnt say if it was or not), but if it was, it would be like trying to burn someone else's metalmind.

That WoB implies to me, that if he is made from an allomantically viable metal, you could burn the metal for it's effect, and Nightblood's investiture wouldn't matter as it's keyed to him by identity. 

[AbsentKeeper]

13 minutes ago, Calderis said:

@Cowmanthethird the Stormfather was one of those initial Adonalsium spren. He's associated with Honor now, but he has always been the source. There's no Stormlight without him. Period.

I dont disagree with this, I just don't see why that means that he's outside the rules? All he's doing is dumping Investiture into the physical realm, just like he's been doing since before Tanavast's Shadow merged with him, and like he was doing before Honor's Investiture ever touched him.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Calderis]

5 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

I dont disagree with this, I just don't see why that means that he's outside the rules? All he's doing is dumping Investiture into the physical realm, just like he's been doing since before Tanavast's Shadow merged with him, and like he was doing before Honor's Investiture ever touched him.

I don't don't see how he can completely bound by the rules of a system that couldn't have been formed or function without him. 

His role as a Bondsmith spren is well within that system obviously, but he is able to do things outside the system. He has to be, he's existed longer than it has. 

[AbsentKeeper]

9 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I don't don't see how he can completely bound by the rules of a system that couldn't have been formed or function without him. 

His role as a Bondsmith spren is well within that system obviously, but he is able to do things outside the system. He has to be, he's existed longer than it has. 

I don't necessarily think that he is bound by all the rules of Surgebinding (to name a system), I think that the rules that bind Surgebinders probably stem from the ones that already bound him.

It's logical to me that the causation goes the other way, because, as you said, he predates any other use of stormlight.

Edit: What this means to me is that the Stormfather should be the example of the most basic rules for all magics on Roshar, not that he is outside of them.

Edit again: Except maybe the old magic, if it's all Cultivation.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Calderis]

8 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

I don't necessarily think that he is bound by all the rules of Surgebinding (to name a system), I think that the rules that bind Surgebinders probably stem from the ones that already bound him.

It's logical to me that the causation goes the other way, because, as you said, he predates any other use of stormlight.

For him (and I believe the Nightwatcher as well, and whatever the third Bondsmith spren is) her is why I disagree. 

The natural laws of the magic centered around bonds, especially symbiotic bonds, is grown out of the nature of Roshar itself interacting with the investiture of Adonalsium (as this is a world whose systems, ecosystem, magic focus, and native life, predates the shattering.) for it to have developed as it has, centering around the use of ambient investiture in the form of stormlight, Adonalsium had to break off the splinter that is the Stormfather before life existed on Roshar for evolution to take the path that it has there. 

The system relies on the Stormfather to feed investiture, but he predates it. The rules that govern that system are a production of investiture interacting with the shardworld, and so by being present there, he can work within the system, but he can't be fully constrained by it as he predates it. 

At this point I'm just spouting feelings so I'll stop. 

[AbsentKeeper]

11 minutes ago, Calderis said:

For him (and I believe the Nightwatcher as well, and whatever the third Bondsmith spren is) her is why I disagree. 

The natural laws of the magic centered around bonds, especially symbiotic bonds, is grown out of the nature of Roshar itself interacting with the investiture of Adonalsium (as this is a world whose systems, ecosystem, magic focus, and native life, predates the shattering.) for it to have developed as it has, centering around the use of ambient investiture in the form of stormlight, Adonalsium had to break off the splinter that is the Stormfather before life existed on Roshar for evolution to take the path that it has there. 

The system relies on the Stormfather to feed investiture, but he predates it. The rules that govern that system are a production of investiture interacting with the shardworld, and so by being present there, he can work within the system, but he can't be fully constrained by it as he predates it. 

At this point I'm just spouting feelings so I'll stop. 

I don't disagree with anything you're saying, I just think that the rules (caused by the Investiture interacting with the planet, like you say) would affect the Stormfather as well, from the point that he started residing on Roshar in the first place onward.

I think we are gonna have to wait and see what information we get about what the Stormfather is actually capable of though. I'm just speculating based on what makes sense to me.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Calderis]

3 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

I think we are gonna have to wait and see what information we get about what the Stormfather is actually capable of though. I'm just speculating based on what makes sense to me.

And I'm doing the same, which is why I ended my post the way I did. It's entertaining talking about this stuff, and seeing other people's viewpoints, but there's definitely points that it gets to where it's like "I can't really explain why I think this" 

[AbsentKeeper]

22 hours ago, Cowmanthethird said:

I can agree that its possible to store the human attributes that Hemalurgy can steal, because they are (presumably) the parts of the spiritweb that are infused with the innate Investiture that makes us function as sentient beings.

I still say that it would probably be incredibly dangerous to even attempt though, and I don't know if it will ever be used in practice.

For example, if you stored only a small percentage of your human strength, its possible that your heart wouldn't be strong enough to beat, or you might store too much human intelligence and memory and forget how to breathe.

This might be a problem that we run into as nicrosil ferrings become more common, they might discover that they can do things that don't have the magical protections of storing strength in a pewtermind, for instance.

Edit: Note that the above is based on the idea that when you store strength to the utmost of your ability in a normal pewtermind, your innate human strength is still there, and is what's keeping you from dying of heart failure/collapsing under your own weight/ect. I could be totally off with this assumption, but that's how it works in my head.

Edit: I'm honestly a little lost on how we got to this topic. Did something about nicrosil go against my theory or are we just talking about all kinds of crazy stuff now? If so, I have an Excisor theory and a god command theory that have got to go somewhere 

If we've run out the 'Stormfather' discussion, do you have any thoughts on what Oversleep and I were talking about? Storing human attributes with nicrosil? I'm curious to see if the potential dangers of pulling investiture directly from your soul vs storing the excess from your physical body makes sense to anyone else.

23 minutes ago, Calderis said:

And I'm doing the same, which is why I ended my post the way I did. It's entertaining talking about this stuff, and seeing other people's viewpoints, but there's definitely points that it gets to where it's like "I can't really explain why I think this" 

Unfortunately, I think most Realmatic discussion hits this point eventually if you go deep enough.

All that means is that we need more starvin' Cosmere books!

Edit: Another possible discussion inspired by @Yata's post.

What do you guys think of the WoBs that suggest that a Shardblade could be used as a Hemalurgic spike, if it weren't full, when all the evidence seems to say that the same is not true for Allomancy and Feruchemy.

Quote

HEROWANNABE () Can an infused Hemalurgy spike be affected by Allomancy—steel pushes and iron pulls? Or does the charge interfere with the Allomancy much like a persons body would?

BRANDON SANDERSON Anything infused (regardless of the world or magic that infused it) is resistant to magic. So you'd have a lot of trouble pushing or pulling on a spike, unless you had access to a boost of some sort to overcome the resistance.

THEOFFICETROLL So, Nightblade would be resistant to steelpushing? Good to know ;-)

HEROWANNABE My friend and I asked him something like this at a book signing, but for some reason it never seemed to make it onto 17th Shard. We asked if a shardblade or Nightblood could be used as a hemalurgic spike (i.e.: two different investitures of magic). Brandon said that yes, in theory you could do that, but objects have a limit to how much investiture they can hold, and that it could be argued that things like Nightblood and Shardblades are already "full"

Emphasis mine. This is actually one of the things that started to lead me toward the idea that Hemalurgy had a differenf focus in the first place.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, Cowmanthethird said:

Edit: Note that the above is based on the idea that when you store strength to the utmost of your ability in a normal pewtermind, your innate human strength is still there, and is what's keeping you from dying of heart failure/collapsing under your own weight/ect. I could be totally off with this assumption, but that's how it works in my head.

I didn't notice this edit the first time, or I would have mentioned this then (hooray for unfocused discussions) but tapping a power seems to have protective mechanisms, like reaction time being enhanced so speed doesn't kill you, or not being crushed by your own weight. But storing doesn't seem to have those safeguards. You could kill yourself with your own Feruchemy pretty easily if you didn't instinctively keep yourself from doing so. I'll include this whole WoB because it's interesting, but the relevant section is how storing 20% of your strength feels like much more.

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=727#71

Quote

SPORKIFY (18 OCTOBER 2008)

And this is more towards the whole physics stuff, but is Feruchemy really balanced? If it gives diminishing returns, wouldn't this end up as a net loss of power?

BRANDON SANDERSON (20 OCTOBER 2008)

It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does—but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself.

In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful.

FOOTNOTE

When Brandon says "compounding" here, he is speaking in a purely Feruchemical sense.

 

[AbsentKeeper]

14 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I didn't notice this edit the first time, or I would have mentioned this then (hooray for unfocused discussions) but tapping a power seems to have protective mechanisms, like reaction time being enhanced so speed doesn't kill you, or not being crushed by your own weight. But storing doesn't seem to have those safeguards. You could kill yourself with your own Feruchemy pretty easily if you didn't instinctively keep yourself from doing so. I'll include this whole WoB because it's interesting, but the relevant section is how storing 20% of your strength feels like much more.

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=727#71

 

Hmm... That's very interesting. I don't think I've seen that WoB before, but I guess in that case it would come down to what the actual difference is between 'human strength' and whatever it is you store in pewter. If they are the same thing... I don't like it at all, because, as I said before, that basically makes a nicrosil Ferring a full Feruchemist.

Edit: Perhaps they just don't have safeguards either way? They might tap too much, as well as store too much, because they are storing something more specific?

Edited August 25, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, Cowmanthethird said:

Hmm... That's very interesting. I don't think I've seen that WoB before, but I guess in that case it would come down to what the actual difference is between 'human strength' and whatever it is you store in pewter. If they are the same thing... I don't like it at all, because, as I said before, that basically makes a nicrosil ferring a full Feruchemist.

I don't think so. I think that with Nicrosil the wider variety probably also negates the inherent protections. And some things I think you just couldn't. Like body heat. Your heat is a product of physical functions, not the spirit. Same with your weight. 

Hmm... The senses are purely physical processes two... But they'd have a spiritual source... Same with strength... I... Oh dang this may turn into a separate topic I make in it's own right. I think I just figured out part of how the rest of Feruchemy works. 

So what's the difference between storing the human strength in your spirit, and storing in pewter? The spiritual aspect. 

In pewter your only storing the physical result of the investiture in your spirit, but in nicrosil you store the source. So yes, storing and tapping human attributes would make you something akin to a full feruchemist, but you be constantly twisting your very nature. 

Nicrosil is scary. If you knew how bleeder made those chimaeras you could store and tap accordingly to become that monster. I'm gonna think about this for a bit. 

[AbsentKeeper]

19 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

Edit: Perhaps they just don't have safeguards either way? They might tap too much, as well as store too much, because they are storing something more specific?

 

7 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I don't think so. I think that with Nicrosil the wider variety probably also negates the inherent protections. And some things I think you just couldn't. Like body heat. Your heat is a product of physical functions, not the spirit. Same with your weight. 

Hmm... The senses are purely physical processes two... But they'd have a spiritual source... Same with strength... I... Oh dang this may turn into a separate topic I make in it's own right. I think I just figured out part of how the rest of Feruchemy works. 

So what's the difference between storing the human strength in your spirit, and storing in pewter? The spiritual aspect. 

In pewter your only storing the physical result of the investiture in your spirit, but in nicrosil you store the source. So yes, storing and tapping human attributes would make you something akin to a full feruchemist, but you be constantly twisting your very nature. 

Nicrosil is scary. If you knew how bleeder made those chimaeras you could store and tap accordingly to become that monster. I'm gonna think about this for a bit. 

This is pretty much what I was thinking, I really need to start proofreading and making sure I got everything I wanted to say before I post it, instead of editing nearly every post with more thoughts afterward.

I agree that there are a few things that probably aren't spiritual in source, like weight, and the point about constantly warping yourself is very valid. I was thinking more of the direct consequences though. For instance, normally when you tap speed, your reaction time increases as well, so it seems likely that your reaction time also decreases when you are storing in steel. Reaction time isn't a direct effect of the speed your muscles move though, so I wonder if storing human speed in nicrosil would allow you to tap physical speed without that slight touch of mental speed that it normally has (to disastrous consequence)

This would essentially put a cap on what a nicrosil ferring is capable of, since it would be a lot less intuitive to draw out a mix of 95% physical speed and 5% mental speed from your nicrosilmind than it is to just tap steel.

Alternatively, they probably can't store mutiple things in a single metalmind and choose which to pull out(like a coppermind). It would instead be more like a tin ferring, where each subtype requires a sperate metalmind. I'll admit that I like the idea of nicrosil ferrings returning the old Terris style of being covered in different pieces of jewelry, though thiers would be all nicrosil.

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, Cowmanthethird said:

 

This is pretty much what I was thinking, I really need to start proofreading and making sure I got everything I wanted to say before I post it, instead of editing nearly every post with more thoughts afterward.

I agree that there are a few things that probably aren't spiritual in source, like weight, and the point about constantly warping yourself is very valid. I was thinking more of the direct consequences though. For instance, normally when you tap speed, your reaction time increases as well, so it seems likely that your reaction time also decreases when you are storing in steel. Reaction time isn't a direct effect of the speed your muscles move though, so I wonder if storing human speed in nicrosil would allow you to tap physical speed without that slight touch of mental speed that it normally has (to disastrous consequence)

This would essentially put a cap on what a nicrosil ferring is capable of, since it would be a lot less intuitive to draw out a mix of 95% physical speed and 5% mental speed from your nicrosilmind than it is to just tap steel.

Alternatively, they probably can't store mutiple things in a single metalmind and choose which to pull out(like a coppermind). It would instead be more like a tin ferring, where each subtype requires a sperate metalmind. I'll admit that I like the idea of nicrosil ferrings returning the old Terris style of being covered in different pieces of jewelry, though thiers would be all nicrosil.

Yeah. But it would be far more complicated than that I think. 

Let's use the speed example. Let's say you have human speed stored to be able to move 25% faster than normal. 

Because this is a spiritual effect, your body would physically change to be able to move that fast, rather than you just moving faster as you are. But it would only change the physical aspect to incorporate that ability, so you'd need to tap the appropriate amount of mental speed to react quickly enough, and the amount of strength needed to supply the new muscle structure, and the senses to physically process stimuli at an increased rate of motion. 

It would be incredibly complex. Someone who actually figured this out though would be terrifying. 

[AbsentKeeper]

13 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Yeah. But it would be far more complicated than that I think. 

Let's use the speed example. Let's say you have human speed stored to be able to move 25% faster than normal. 

Because this is a spiritual effect, your body would physically change to be able to move that fast, rather than you just moving faster as you are. But it would only change the physical aspect to incorporate that ability, so you'd need to tap the appropriate amount of mental speed to react quickly enough, and the amount of strength needed to supply the new muscle structure, and the senses to physically process stimuli at an increased rate of motion. 

It would be incredibly complex. Someone who actually figured this out though would be terrifying. 

I agree, I just think that it would be so incredibly complex that they'd never be able to use thier powers instinctively the same way that someone using conventional metalminds (let alone an Allomancer) could.

I think that a very skilled nicrosil ferring might figure out, at most, a couple applications well enough to actually use them safely. The complexity alone though should prevent anyone from ever becoming too overpowered in practice.

All that is without considering twinborn though, let alone *gulp* a nicrosil compounder.

Now I have this crazy thought in my head about a Nicrosil University on future Scadrial, where they have whole courses of study dedicated to teaching people to use specific applications of nicrosil Feurchemy without killing themselves.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Cowmanthethird