Maximizing Efficiency of a Hemalurgic Spike

[The Deity]

As we know H-spikes can take various shapes: BoM spoiler

Spoiler

Whether spiked metal minds or even earrings, even bullets which is my main concern.

Could you in a way develop a bullet that would instantly pass through the person into the spiked possibly providing near same Investure levels? I know it is a gruesome thought, but it might be possible with a bullet with a great enough resistance to pass through one and into the other. 

Edited April 19, 2018 by FeruchemicalBreath

[Quickbronze]

I believe something more on the order of crossbow would be more on the level required. Bullets would simply be too fast to do this accurately. Even with something less energetic, calibrating such a device would be very difficult.

[King Cole]

I mean, it would go through the bodies a bit quicker, but you are running the risk of the bullet going off track or simply going through both the bodies. 

A more accurate rifle may be better for the job, but there is always the chance that the bullet goes through the heart and hits a rib or spine on the exit path, thus keeping it from going to the next body

[Xtafa]

Spike recipient.. meet POWER HAMMER. Have you seen the speed and force they can drive steel? 

[Weltall]

As mentioned, it's technically possible but aside from the problems of getting the bullet to stop in the recipient, you have the problem of positioning. Spikes need to go into the victim and the recipient in just the right places or it won't work properly. Even the heart which looks like a universal bind point requires that you hit specific parts, not just the organ generally. Getting two people to line up exactly in the right positions relative to each other and a shooter is impractical to say the least, though not impossible.

Now if you're thinking more 'how can we efficiently transfer powers via hemalurgy in a controlled environment' then what the Inquisitors already did is about as efficient as it gets. Maybe in the future Scadrial could do it in hospitals with precision instruments and less blood if 'voluntary hemalurgy' ever became a thing, but I imagine it would still look a lot like the old-fashioned approach.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Weltall

[Xtafa]

@Weltall

I'd like to see voluntary hemalurgy in the future books. Like, if I was dying/getting old, i'd give my power to friend/family who wanted it.

[+robardin]

Well the way I figure it's going to work eventually (if hemalurgy becomes a standard, instead of a dark, magic on Scadrial) is that people get outfitted with the equivalent hemalurgic jacks at the bind points at some point in their life - either rich/powerful people, or as part of their job, like a police detective - and then you can buy or even rent hemalurgic spikes to insert into them.

Getting the bind point "just right" is difficult to do by accident or happenstance and a hard skill to learn - so, get a few people trained to do it exactly right, and they just do hemalurgic pre-op for a living.

In another thread, I already suspected the Set are hot-swapping hemalurgic spikes; as technology advances not much further from Era 2, it would make sense to make that more widespread.

In terms of :"jacks" they couldn't actually be metal sleeves, as hemalurgy needs contact with blood to work, so it'd be a little more gruesome, in that the jack would have to be "naked flesh" and you'd have to stick in a kind of prep needle into the jack to scrape up the healed wound a bit before putting in the spike.

[Yata]

Like others said Inquisitors already pushed the efficiency as far as It possible. With Spikes that don't lose any Power other than the forced One.

Notice you could do the same Simply covering the Spike with blood. So you could Spike someone, store the Spike in a jar full of Blood and gave It to someone else without further decay

[The Deity]

If someone used F-steel and pushed the spike through very quickly, could the energy that decayed be reduced in any way? Or for the spike to be pushed through using a Bendalloy bubble, to reduce the overall decay of the Allomantic energy transferred?

[Yata]

14 hours ago, The Deity said:

If someone used F-steel and pushed the spike through very quickly, could the energy that decayed be reduced in any way? Or for the spike to be pushed through using a Bendalloy bubble, to reduce the overall decay of the Allomantic energy transferred?

The Inquisitors already don't expose the Spike to any time outside the body. You can't go Beyond that.

[Voidus]

On 4/20/2018 at 9:46 PM, robardin said:

Well the way I figure it's going to work eventually (if hemalurgy becomes a standard, instead of a dark, magic on Scadrial) is that people get outfitted with the equivalent hemalurgic jacks at the bind points at some point in their life - either rich/powerful people, or as part of their job, like a police detective - and then you can buy or even rent hemalurgic spikes to insert into them.

Getting the bind point "just right" is difficult to do by accident or happenstance and a hard skill to learn - so, get a few people trained to do it exactly right, and they just do hemalurgic pre-op for a living.

In another thread, I already suspected the Set are hot-swapping hemalurgic spikes; as technology advances not much further from Era 2, it would make sense to make that more widespread.

In terms of :"jacks" they couldn't actually be metal sleeves, as hemalurgy needs contact with blood to work, so it'd be a little more gruesome, in that the jack would have to be "naked flesh" and you'd have to stick in a kind of prep needle into the jack to scrape up the healed wound a bit before putting in the spike.

That's an interesting concept, I'd be visualizing something more along the lines of a metal jack which when not in use has an artificial vein to carry the blood from one side of it to the other but when you insert a spike you can flip a switch to close off the artificial vein and open a small port in the jack itself so blood flows around the spike.

[The One Who Connects]

8 hours ago, Yata said:

The Inquisitors already don't expose the Spike to any time outside the body. You can't go Beyond that.

The only thing they can really do differently is to get the transfer done in one swing of the hammer, but as you say, the spike is internal for the whole process, so I'm not sure that would actually do anything.

[Voidus]

Given how functional Vin's earring was after how long it was left outside the body, I'd say that the amount of time you could save compared to what Inquisitors were already doing would only result in a difference of power in the hundredths or thousandths of a percent.

[Yata]

15 hours ago, Voidus said:

Given how functional Vin's earring was after how long it was left outside the body, I'd say that the amount of time you could save compared to what Inquisitors were already doing would only result in a difference of power in the hundredths or thousandths of a percent.

This is more complex than that:

The Spikes follows a not linear Decay.

The Spikes will lose a great amount of charge in the First seconds/minutes outside of the body and It Will decrease over time to the point where the decay stops and the Spikes is as weak as It could be (a new WoB from Jordancon).

 

Honestly Vin's case is weird because her Spike has too much charge if we compare It with the Vin's story... The Spike is too powerful for what Vin exibits in books.

[Voidus]

1 hour ago, Yata said:

This is more complex than that:

The Spikes follows a not linear Decay.

The Spikes will lose a great amount of charge in the First seconds/minutes outside of the body and It Will decrease over time to the point where the decay stops and the Spikes is as weak as It could be (a new WoB from Jordancon).

 

Honestly Vin's case is weird because her Spike has too much charge if we compare It with the Vin's story... The Spike is too powerful for what Vin exibits in books.

Didnt say it was linear but unless the first .01 second causes 50% power loss and from then on its functionally 0 then you're still not going to improve on the inquisitor method.

[The Deity]

13 hours ago, Yata said:

Honestly Vin's case is weird because her Spike has too much charge if we compare It with the Vin's story... The Spike is too powerful for what Vin exibits in books.

That's a good point, but could that be because Vin had copper on a lot and she could've gained a kind of savantism or because she had a high Investure amount and it was only restricted by the Earring Spike.

[shadowwisp]

Just adding a tidbit to the discussion since I haven't seen it brought up. 

Ignoring cost/availability, using an Atium spike will outperform any other spike in terms of power and efficiency.

So using the Inquisitor method in a tank of blood (probably doesn't have to be human) performed with only Atium Spikes would give the theoretical maximum in efficiency. Although we are probably talking about a very small difference.  

 

Edit, found the WoB:

 

Quote

Their experiments (very expensive ones) are what determined that atium (which they thought was just one of the sixteen metals) granted the Allomantic Temporal powers. What they didn't realize is that atium (used correctly) could steal ANY of the powers. Think of it as a wild card. With the right knowledge, you could use it to mimic any other spike. It works far better than other spikes as well.

 

Edited April 25, 2018 by shadowwisp

[Random Reader]

What would a lerasium spike do?

[Weltall]

Brandon hasn't told us what lerasium's feruchemical or hemalurgic properties are yet. He did mention that using it for hemalurgy would be wasteful, akin to using a nuclear bomb as a paperweight.

[Curious Kid Dan]

On 4/20/2018 at 4:57 AM, Xtafa said:

@Weltall

I'd like to see voluntary hemalurgy in the future books. Like, if I was dying/getting old, i'd give my power to friend/family who wanted it.

Imagine some kind of religious sect where lower members are convinced to give some power (be it an actual allomantic/Feruchemal ability or simply physical strength, mental fortitude, etc) higher ups get more "donations" then others... hmmmmm sounds kinda familiar.... 

[Weltall]

14 hours ago, Curious Kid Dan said:

Imagine some kind of religious sect where lower members are convinced to give some power (be it an actual allomantic/Feruchemal ability or simply physical strength, mental fortitude, etc) higher ups get more "donations" then others... hmmmmm sounds kinda familiar.... 

Dakhor? xD

[Curious Kid Dan]

7 hours ago, Weltall said:

Dakhor? xD

I was actually going to say Steel Inquisition, but Dakhor works as well xD

Now i'm picturing an Inquisitor training in a Dakhor monastery... Frightening stuff  

[+robardin]

On 5/1/2018 at 3:21 AM, Curious Kid Dan said:

I was actually going to say Steel Inquisition, but Dakhor works as well xD

Now i'm picturing an Inquisitor training in a Dakhor monastery... Frightening stuff  

Well, forms of AonDor are bound quite tightly to geographic location on Sel. So a Dakhor practitioner pretty much has to come from Fjordell.

But hemalurgy is very portable. You could do the reverse, and make an Inquisitor of a Dakhor monk.

[Curious Kid Dan]

1 hour ago, robardin said:

Well, forms of AonDor are bound quite tightly to geographic location on Sel. So a Dakhor practitioner pretty much has to come from Fjordell.

But hemalurgy is very portable. You could do the reverse, and make an Inquisitor of a Dakhor monk.

Thats why i was thinking of an Inquisitor worldhopping to Elantris and training with the monks there, sorry, i get the misunderstanding xD