medallion and unkeyed metalmind economy in Era 3

[Isilel]

Now, after TLM we just don't know enough to theorise about how the Nicrosil parts of medallions are made and why they only copy some, though not all, feruchemical abilities in Era 2, but not allomancy. However, there are a few interesting hints about their future role:

 

 

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Raddatatta

In Era 1, Sazed says the only thing you can Feruchemically store while sleeping is wakefulness, but in Era 2 they have the sky ships that require everyone to be storing weight to fly and they don't land while people sleep. Was Sazed just wrong, or is that a difference between normal Feruchemy and using the unsealed metalminds?

Brandon Sanderson

Unsealed metalminds, I am moving toward complete—you probably already guessed this—mechanical uses of Investiture, and this indeed is a step toward that. And so we are stepping toward having a little machine that gives you powers. That's what the world wants to try to find. And this is—this being mechanical—we'll just say that the medallions and the things that they're building have more of a life-force, more of an Identity of their own than a traditional metalmind does, even though they're unkeyed and all of this stuff.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

 

Now, the books text suggests that medallions have limitations that normal feruchemy doesn't - the translation medallion, for instance, didn't offer other applications of Connection, and they also seem to only provide a one-way access - i.e. it very much seemed in BoM that they allowed either storing or tapping of a given feruchemical store, but not both. They do have one big advantage over traditional feruchemy, though, that you don't need to be awake to store (or tap?) - once you start the process it continues going automatically. Which only randomly reading this WoB made me realise, heh.

After TLM's revelation that Twinborn of the same metal hemalurgically created post-Catacendre  can't compound, I have been vaguely wondering how SoScads, with their few Metalborn, manage to supply themselves with enough unkeyed brass heat metalminds. But of course, the likely solution was right in front of me the whole time - a medallion that stores Identity  and a given attribute at the same time! A normal person could put it on when going to bed, say, and have an unkeyed metalmind to use or sell come morning. It would even make storing easier for  actual Ferrings in many cases! Not to mention render wide-spread use of medallions and unkeyed metalmind economy possible in Era 3.

[Underwater_Worldhopper]

23 hours ago, Isilel said:

Now, after TLM we just don't know enough to theorise about how the Nicrosil parts of medallions are made and why they only copy some, though not all, feruchemical abilities in Era 2, but not allomancy. However, there are a few interesting hints about their future role:

 

 

 

Now, the books text suggests that medallions have limitations that normal feruchemy doesn't - the translation medallion, for instance, didn't offer other applications of Connection, and they also seem to only provide a one-way access - i.e. it very much seemed in BoM that they allowed either storing or tapping of a given feruchemical store, but not both. They do have one big advantage over traditional feruchemy, though, that you don't need to be awake to store (or tap?) - once you start the process it continues going automatically. Which only randomly reading this WoB made me realise, heh.

After TLM's revelation that Twinborn of the same metal hemalurgically created post-Catacendre  can't compound, I have been vaguely wondering how SoScads, with their few Metalborn, manage to supply themselves with enough unkeyed brass heat metalminds. But of course, the likely solution was right in front of me the whole time - a medallion that stores Identity  and a given attribute at the same time! A normal person could put it on when going to bed, say, and have an unkeyed metalmind to use or sell come morning. It would even make storing easier for  actual Ferrings in many cases! Not to mention render wide-spread use of medallions and unkeyed metalmind economy possible in Era 3.

The only Tapping or only Storing feature is interesting and something I hadn't seen pointed out before, but it makes sense. As for how they get enough Unsealed Brassminds, There are something called Firemothers and Firefathers who basically devote all their time to storing heat so that the rest of the SoScads can go about normally. Shouldn't be too hard, given that you could store a lot of heat really quickly by storing as much as you can while stepping into something like a bonfire, or however it is Firesouls can make themselves fireproof.

[Isilel]

On 27 May 2023 at 2:58 PM, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Yes, but given that everyone in the South needs to use heat medallions on a daily basis in order to function and extreme rarity of Metalborn there, how could there be enough Firesouls to produce requisite metalminds? Kelsier may have brought some spikes with him when he first came, but F-Brass wouldn't have been the most common spike among the Inquisitors either. He couldn't have found more than a handful. But putting harvesting medallions on regular people would have allowed him to quickly scale up production of unkeyed heat metalminds. Allik never claimed that Firemothers/fathers had to be Metalborn, IIRC, just that the Sovereign founded the institution.

 

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Shouldn't be too hard, given that you could store a lot of heat really quickly by storing as much as you can while stepping into something like a bonfire, or however it is Firesouls can make themselves fireproof.

 

We don't really know that it is that easy, and there is still the fact that even in the Basin there is less than 1 Ferring per thousand of population according to Khriss. Even if Firesouls are one of the most common varieties, I still don't see how they could each store enough for the continous daily use of thousands . Leave alone in the South, where Ferrings are considerably rarer.

Anyway, in my first post I didn't actually get to how I envision the economy. 

Well, I think that while harvesting medallions are going to make storing more convenient, unkeyed F-gold metalminds are still going to be the most valuable, because it would be very unsafe to store health at anything other than very low ratio if one doesn't want to develop a chronic disease. According to this WoB  "strength" of individual Ferrings is expressed in efficiency of their storing:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/467/#e14740

This is how I rationalize Wayne's ease of quickly saving enough health to survive ridiculous amount of damage - that he was an extraordinarily healthy individual, who was also an extraordinarily powerful Ferring. Well, a regular Bloodmaker  should be worse at storage and a harvesting medallion worse still. However, multiple persons would be able to work at filling a metalmind by storing around the clock for a few hours each. That could  be a fairly widespread method for young people to make some extra money while studying/sleeping, etc. 

F-Zinc and F-Steel would be the next value tier - their storing would become less onerous once possible while asleep, but still only  at a low ratio so as not to disrupt mental/physiological processes . F-Cadmium may not be far behind  - it would be more unpleasant to store, though the process could also be used to train endurance and lung capacity.

F-Copper might just be the one ability where you won't want to use a harvesting medallion, because storage efficiency likely affects quality of stored memories. So, it would be just Archivist Ferrings storing their identity + memorization time. Frankly, these metalminds should be expensive and of somewhat narrow utility. 

F-Bendalloy (calories) would have to account for price of food, metal, time spent eating, etc. Travel rations would likely be preferable in most cases. OTOH, F-Bendalloy (hydration) should be much cheaper to fill and much more convenient than the alternatives for journeys, consequently more popular. 

F-Duralumin (place connection) - obviously useful for travel, but could become pretty cheap to store, once aluminum becomes cheap and with harvesting medallions. Local demand might be limited, but it would become an extremely desirable off-world export. 

Not sure about F-electrum - storing while asleep may side-step depression and listlessness or it may not. If it doesn't, the metalminds would be have to be quite expensive. Would there be  much demand for it in this case?

F-Bronze - storing wakefulness doesn't let you rest while you sleep, IIRC, so it has to be worth your while to spend more time in bed. There should be a lot of demand, though. 

F-Tin (all senses) and F-Pewter would be much easier to store sleeping and could be done at high ratios too, so they should be reasonably common and somewhat affordable.

F-Brass - storing would be of benefit in a lot circumstances, so heat metalminds should be widely available. 

F-Iron would be the cheapest of all because storing weight is so helpful  - and mostly of interest only if they develop industrial processes using it.

I ommitted F-Chromium and other applications of F-Duralumin, as we don't know enough about them.

Anyway, I imagine that people are going to mostly rent or more rarely buy harvesting medallions to make some extra money. Ferrings would be able to natively produce more,  but even they might use them for convenience - and of course they'd still need to be able to store Identity if they want to sell. People using these unkeyed metalminds in their own medallions or with their own powers would buy them. Some would be more affordable and widespread than others. 

[Trusk'our]

On 5/28/2023 at 2:15 PM, Isilel said:

Well, I think that while harvesting medallions are going to make storing more convenient, unkeyed F-gold metalminds are still going to be the most valuable, because it would be very unsafe to store health at anything other than very low ratio if one doesn't want to develop a chronic disease. According to this WoB  "strength" of individual Ferrings is expressed in efficiency of their storing:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/467/#e14740

This is how I rationalize Wayne's ease of quickly saving enough health to survive ridiculous amount of damage - that he was an extraordinarily healthy individual, who was also an extraordinarily powerful Ferring.

Yeah, F-gold is actually pretty powerful even without Compounding; normally it would take 3-6 months to heal from a bullet wound, but Wayne can heal from about three from only two weeks spent storing (as he mentions in AoL)- and he's probably not storing at a very high rate (WoB, most Feruchemists can only store at around 80% their normal capacity due to the strain it puts on their body for things like strength, health, and speed).

I always imagined the reason Wayne could heal wounds the way he did was because his Feruchemy allowed him to focus his body's healing ability more efficiently than if it were to do so naturally; it allows all the energy that would have been expended over the whole body into a much smaller section, allowing for a much greater efficiency.

On 5/28/2023 at 2:15 PM, Isilel said:

F-Zinc and F-Steel would be the next value tier - their storing would become less onerous once possible while asleep, but still only  at a low ratio so as not to disrupt mental/physiological processes . F-Cadmium may not be far behind  - it would be more unpleasant to store, though the process could also be used to train endurance and lung capacity.

F-Copper might just be the one ability where you won't want to use a harvesting medallion, because storage efficiency likely affects quality of stored memories. So, it would be just Archivist Ferrings storing their identity + memorization time. Frankly, these metalminds should be expensive and of somewhat narrow utility. 

F-Bendalloy (calories) would have to account for price of food, metal, time spent eating, etc. Travel rations would likely be preferable in most cases. OTOH, F-Bendalloy (hydration) should be much cheaper to fill and much more convenient than the alternatives for journeys, consequently more popular. 

F-Duralumin (place connection) - obviously useful for travel, but could become pretty cheap to store, once aluminum becomes cheap and with harvesting medallions. Local demand might be limited, but it would become an extremely desirable off-world export. 

Not sure about F-electrum - storing while asleep may side-step depression and listlessness or it may not. If it doesn't, the metalminds would be have to be quite expensive. Would there be  much demand for it in this case?

F-Bronze - storing wakefulness doesn't let you rest while you sleep, IIRC, so it has to be worth your while to spend more time in bed. There should be a lot of demand, though. 

F-Tin (all senses) and F-Pewter would be much easier to store sleeping and could be done at high ratios too, so they should be reasonably common and somewhat affordable.

F-Brass - storing would be of benefit in a lot circumstances, so heat metalminds should be widely available. 

F-Iron would be the cheapest of all because storing weight is so helpful  - and mostly of interest only if they develop industrial processes using it.

I ommitted F-Chromium and other applications of F-Duralumin, as we don't know enough about them.

Anyway, I imagine that people are going to mostly rent or more rarely buy harvesting medallions to make some extra money. Ferrings would be able to natively produce more,  but even they might use them for convenience - and of course they'd still need to be able to store Identity if they want to sell. People using these unkeyed metalminds in their own medallions or with their own powers would buy them. Some would be more affordable and widespread than others. 

Interesting. I hadn't thought of using Medallions to store while sleeping to make other attributes easier to access, but that would be a pretty powerful advantage- nobody is going to care if their thoughts or movements are sluggish while they sleep, or if they lose half of their muscle mass, but everybody would want to be able to tap those attributes whilst awake.

I see no reason this wouldn't work, and it seems like a clever way to overcome some of the pains of Feruchemical storing. Good ideas! 

[cometaryorbit]

I think it's also that F-Gold stores not "wound healing rate" but a broader concept of "health". So it's not as simple as 4 weeks of storing at 75% = 1 week's worth of natural healing. It includes lots of other things (immune system strength, general vitality, etc) so it's not just putting healing from the whole body into one wound, it's also that much time worth of all those other aspects becoming healing.