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Shardblades and Hemalurgic Decay


KOuellette

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Sorry I wasn't clearer before. Yeah the problem is that we don't know enough about Compounding, but I was sure we had confirmation that when you burn it you need to store the attribute again, this means that if storing had a limit that you couldn't compound with Hemalurgy. I've got to side with Dyring and say it get's diminishing returns.

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Ok, here goes. In your post Dyring, you practically agree with me. My post was heavily unclear, but what I was trying to say with the percentage things was about maximum storage rate (ie, realistically only 75%). Not about the actual amount stored. So I agree, half stored equals half added, 50KG stored equals 50KG added.

However, where we disagree, you and Voidus, Windrunner and I, is where the decay factors in. You believe it is in the Feruchemy itself, whereas me and Windrunner think it is in the spike that the decay happens (and we have proof that the decay happens in the spike). So we argue it is to do with decay of the sDNA.

So, your image is that the sDNA allows the same storage rates, ie, no different to a normal Feruchemist. However, upon tapping this power, and it returning through the sDNA back into the Physical Realm, you believe that the sDNA is corrupted and some of the power is abraded off and stuck in the sDNA. Main issue here: where does the power go if still within the human? To Ruin? Why, its the humans 'power' originally, due to the nature of Feruchemy. Where can it go but out? Or back in? So either, there is an expulsion of power, which we haven't seen or detected with Bronze, or the human has a 'vital capacity' for power. There is a part of their power, as with breath in the lungs, that they can never quite expel?

Next, me and Windrunner envision it that the 'latched' sDNA is in some way broken, some genes decayed, and so the gateway for power is 'smaller'. This means, that a lower percentage can be at once stored, but done over enough time, this doesn't limit so much, as if they rest a little longer, the Inquisitor can reach the same health levels as a normal Feruchemist. This is what Windrunner's quotes were meant to point out; not that Inquisitors have to rest at all, but that the have to rest longer. With withdrawal, it is presumably the same, because the power isn't funneled so much as it is 'released'. This is why there is no practical limit. Main issues: not provable, also issues with what the nature of the decay is.

In summary, yours I believe is at least superficially wrong because you believe the decay is in the system of Feruchemy itself, which is outside the bounds of Hemalurgy to affect a natural cycle so, whereas we believe that Hemalurgic decay limits how much the user can access the full world of Feruchemy, but that Feruchemy operates the same under them. Also, ours has no 'backlog' of power.

In finality, why does Hemalurgy have to lose power, instead of efficiency? Plus, those sDNA genes being lost before the transplant could be described as the 'decay'. Plus, in your world, the decay happens while the spike is still in the body? Whereas in ours, the impact is stopped upon entry to the body, and it is a matter of 'limitation' rather than 'destruction of power'.

Feel free to argue otherwise, and make any necessary revisions or ask questions or disregard my whole theorem. Also, make sure to at some point prove me entirely wrong, so that I am less presumptuous when entering a topic next time!

EDIT: Apologies for speaking on your behalf, Windrunner, but this is how I interpreted your posts as feeling!

Edited by Odium's_Shard
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Ok. Ill need to think on some parts, but one thing I wish to object to immidiately.

3 problems Ill take up now.

First:

I assume we both agree that a feruchemist can store all of his weight?

(consider Sazed at the Inquisitor base, it is written that the heaviest thing on him was the thin metalminds)

If you could store all your weight, why should you only be able to store health to 50%, or 75%, or whereever the realistic level is?

Answer - Because storing more would either mean your sure to catch a disease making you haveto spend more health healing, or simply kill you.

Theoretically, you could surely store 100% health - But you´d die.

So then, if your theory on decay was thrue, it would not make a difference on health, as for example a 20% decay would happend in the region where noone could store anyway.

Second:

Compounding.

If you could not store more then a certain amount of health, how could TLR, or Miles hundredlives, store the health they compounded?

As you explain it, it is impossible for anyone to store more that your max health. so when Miles burned his own metalmind to compound it, the fact that he gets 10 times the health back would not matter - he could only store 50, or 75%, or whereever the limit would be for a "real" feruchemist. The rest would then go to waste.

It doesent make sense that there is such a limit. To tkae weight again, the only reason someone weighing 100 KG can´t store more then 100 is that there is nothing to draw from after that. If there was an elantrian drawing an AEon for triple weight on Sazed lasting for an hour, he could most likely store 300 KG, and then be three times as heavy for an hour afterwards. I cannot see there being a hard limit downwards when there isnt one upwards.

Third:

Inquisitors resting.

In the end of mistborn, when March, Vin and Sazed talks, Marsh have been awake for a few hours and Vin is considering that he already seems to be tireing greatly. He havent been storing anything there, yet he still needs to rest after only a few hours. That indicates that inquisitors need to rest more then regular people for more reasons than just to fill their metalminds.

Edited by dyring
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Sorry if someone else already said this and/or if I'm misunderstanding points, but let me just throw in my 2 cents and then run away very very quickly.

My impression about Hemalurgic decay for Feruchemy was that tapping is all that would be directly affected, with seemingly "slow" storage rates as a mere side effect.

We had that mondo-discussion about "surging" in Feruchemy, remember? But it all originated in a thread about Hemalurgy and Feruchemy.

The original topic was quickly buried under a wave of proposed jargon, but we even more quickly concluded that the energy lost from "surging" Feruchemcial abilities was determined by the strength of the Feruchemist. So a hBloodmaker might simply be counted as a weak Feruchemist--losing a large amount of energy when surging time-scuttled power at a greater rate than when he put it in. So all Feruchemists can draw at or lower than the rate that they put an attribute into a metalmind without wastage, but hFeruchemists have a greater cost when they draw at a higher rate,

Sazed might be able to store 20% health for an hour in order to get an extra 500% for a minutes (just random percentages of loss, here), but a Catquisitor will only get 400% for that same minute because he is a fundamentally weaker Feruchemist.

It might also be the case that weaker Feruchemist can't even manage a 1:1 transfer, but I doubt it, since that would take us outside of the strong->weak continuum for Feruchemy that holds well enough in Allomancy.

Edited by Kurkistan
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I'm going to go with Kurkistan's position, I was just thinking something like that, and makes more sense because the decay is about how much of the Feruchemists strength is needed to actually compound instead of just a loss of attribute. So yeah, that. :P

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I don´t have a problem with Kurkistans way of seeing it. Not sure if I agree with it without considering it abit longer but it makes sense. My explanation was never perfect, frankly it was more a case of that being the best I could come up with as I considered the "low limit" explanation faulty ;)

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Kurkistan's answer may not be correct, but it is by far the most coherent theory I have seen on the subject. If it is something else, I will be disappointed. After all, by far the most impressive use of Feruchemy is to "surge," or whatever, so this definition is a very good way of measuring Feruchemical strength.

Incidentally, surging is also a key part of making compounding so impressive. After all, Miles is using health up at an impressive rate whenever he takes damage. An hCompounder (Hemalurgical compounder) would be, in principle, less powerful than an otherwise natural Doppelganger, and in a direct fight, the natural one would have the edge, being able to compound for longer at the same strength with the same amount of metal.

Edited by happyman
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Hm, I'm inclined to revise my point of view, as I was so busy trying to argue on the lower bound, where the Compounding takes no impact, due to the Brandon quote on the subject.

However, dyring, you make interesting points about the 'decay' only being able to take off the 20% you couldn't draw anyway... But I do not agree on the 100% storage rate.

This is, scientifically, impossible. For health, this much is obvious, as you would of course die immediately if you had no 'health', due to the necessity of immune systems in the body, as well as with healing power.

But, if you stored 100% of your weight, this too, is impossible. Everything MUST have mass. No exceptions, up too and not including light. Even so, a few have argued even light has mass. The only way to have no mass, is to travel at the speed of light. So a Feruchemist standing still CANNOT have no mass whatsoever, without the potential ending of the Universe as we know it. Obviously, as the Physical Realm filters this power, the power must obey to the Physical Realm. That means, mass. I can however agree with your that you could theoretically store up to 99.9 recurring % storage.

But usually, this is not practical, such as with weight or speed, you couldn't function in any way with that little mass or movement. Besides, who knows if your heartrate slows down with steel storage too?

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While a hemalurgicalized feruchemist might store energy more slowly, from what we know of how magic works across the cosmere, they should also not get as much energy back.

First, it should be noted that our understanding of feruchemy is incorrect. Metalminds seem to be seen as batteries: you charge it with energy, then take that energy back, but it is the exact "same" energy. However, if that were the case, then neither Preservation nor Ruin could "fuel" it because the power is never coming from creation. We know that they both can fuel it, so the energy must come from the power of creation. It seems that as part of fueling allomancy, Preservation also creates the "gateways" through which to shove power. It would make sense for a similar process to happen with Feruchemy (opening a gateway and shoving power through it).

Sanderson has said that metal doesn't fuel allomancy directly, but that the molecular structure of the metal acts as a gateway that releases the power of creation, much like an aon does. For feruchemy, it appears that the metal itself doesn't act as a gateway in the same sense as in allomancy, since both Aons and allomantically used metals disappear. I would propose that in actuality, when one stores an attribute, one creates a gateway imprinted on the molecular structure of the metal (rather than the structure itself being the gateway). The more one stores, the stronger that gateway is (like making an aon with thick lines). The energy that a feruchemist puts into a metalmind is "lost," since it is the energy that makes the gateway. Tapping draws "new" power through the gateway from a shard/creation. The process causes the gateway to decay (like burning metal causes the metal to disappear), and it is arranged in such a way that the rate of "burn" is equal to the rate of "storage."

Because the same amount of energy expended is also gained, the entire system is normally end-neutral. However, since we know that hemalurgy is end-negative, hemalurgically granted feruchemical powers should differ so that the process becomes end-negative as well.

Since hemalurgy causes stolen allomancy to be less powerful, it seems reasonable to assume that a similar process is at work in feruchemy. However, the rate of burn in allomancy is a constant. That is, a lerasium-created mistborn will burn two ounces of iron (assuming it isn't being flared) in the same amount of time as a far-removed lurcher. The first individual, though, would be able to pull much more effectively. Thus, it seems, allomantic strength effects how well one can "open" a gateway, with stronger allomancers being able to open it further. But, once opened, the gateway decays at a set rate.

If feruchemical strength works in the same way, then a hemalurgically created feruchemist shouldn't be able to get as much power from a gateway as a natural feruchemist: they couldn't open the gateway as well. However, the storage rate should remain the same, at least from the gateway side of things. That is, both types should be able to create a gateway worth 60 points. Even if a natural feruchemist can storage 1 point a minute for an hour and a hemalurgically created one can store 0.5 points a minute for two hours, the actual energy expended should be the same. The rub, however, comes in opening that gateway to get power: a less powerful feruchemist shouldn't be able to open it as much as a more powerful one, meaning that the system goes from end-neutral to end-negative. That is, normally, a 60 point gateway will give you 60 points of energy, but a hemalurgically created 60 point gateway would only get, say, 59 points of energy (or less, depending on an individual's strength).

Alternately, while the variable in allomancy is power (a strong allomancer produces more potent effects than a weak allomancer, but they both burn at the same rate), we could assume that the variable in feruchemy isn't power but rather burn. That is, both a natural and a hemalurgically created feruchemist can get the same power from a gateway, but the hemalurgically created one burns through that gateway faster. Which, actually, should still produce an end-negative system. If a normal feruchemist can get 1 point of power per minute for an hour from a gateway, then a hemalurgic feruchemist might get 1 point of energy for 59 minutes from the same gateway. That last point of energy would still be lost because the gateway just can't handle it.

Either way, hemalurgy should result in inefficient feruchemy. Knowing this, an inquisitor would need to store more energy to account for the loss. If they are slower at storing, then that just compounds their problem. Given how rarely Inquisitors should get hurt or die, and given how much they are implied to rest, it makes sense that both would actually be true.

This also suggests that in Awakening, colors function as the gateway, akin to aons and allomantically used metals. Stormlight probably is the same for Surgebinding (not sure about soulcasting: gems can crack from use, which seems to imply that they are part of the gateway in a manner that isn’t relevant for surgebinding).

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Excellent, excellent points Thought! You've put me into a new perspective. Firstly, allow me to say, that I agree with the essence of your post, how Hemalurgy affects Feruchemy.

But its the details where I disagree. So, you state that it is the opening of a gateway in the metal, that takes energy, and that this energy is returned by the Power of Creation. Only major loophole: what causes a return of power? And why does hitting a gateway with calories, bring back the Power of Creation as calories?

So, I propose that the metalminds work in a 'similar' way to the battery, but on a different scale. Say, you have a goldmind (health is the most well understood example, thanks to Miles Hundredlives). You wish to store health in it. So, you become slightly sick, etc., and you 'put your health in the metal'. However, I think you're wrong that the metal does not act as the gateway, but the foundation on which to place the gateway.

The metal is the gateway. It is the same in Allomancy. When the metal is 'burned' what is really happening is that the Power of Creation is being drawn through the metal from Preservation, and the gateway of the metals molecular trace warps the power to purpose. The metal is consumed in the process due to the great voluge of energy that is drawn through at once. This energy is 'funneled' through the gateway, so Allomancy can only operate at a steady rate (not variable, flaring opens the gateway further), but the abrasion leads the metal to be destroyed.

In Feruchemy, it is the same, but in a different way. The health is taken, and through the molecular structure of gold, passed into the Spiritual Realm by the sDNA that determines you are a Bloodmaker. It is now pure, Creation energy. This is stored in your Spiritual 'locker' as it were. If it were in the metal, or the gateway, how could you control when the energy returns? Or why could no one else tap the reserve? If it is stored in your very soul, and the metal is just the key, no one else could take it! This then cycles back through the metal, to you. The energy is slight, so now abrasion occurs. There is no real upper bound because you control the gateway in the metal (your energy).

However, through Hemalurgy, your Spirit locker is an attached part of you. To get to the locker, it enters through the metal, gold, and then through the attached sDNA, essentially through the spike. In this time, it is attributed to Ruin, before entering your own locker. And due to the end negative principle of Hemalurgy and Ruin, some energy is stripped by going through the corrupted, transplanted genes, through Ruin. Ruin can fuel this by adding his own Power at this time.

Preservation can fuel it by adding Power, through your soul and into your locker directly (you soul is part of Preservation, and thus he has the key too).

Please correct any issues, argue Thought's point, or mine, or disprove us both! Revisions advised.

Odium's_Shard

Edited by Odium's_Shard
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If it is not stored in the metal, how come it behaves differently when it is compounded?

And how could Vin sense Sazed´s power when she tried to burn it?

Also, there are quite a number of big hints that you can by ways of identity steal other peoples metalminds.

And regarding fueling it, Feruchemy is half preservation, half ruin. How would ruin go about fueling Feruchemy for a "real" feruchemist then?

Edited by dyring
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Its all about the gateways, in answer to Compounding. The gateway is expanded, and the Power of Creation's direction is changed from, say, being an Augur, to Health.

Its getting late, I'll come up with a lengthy post soon. Please feel free to pick holes in it while I think of how to patch them up.

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It's important to understand that Shards do not create magic systems: they adopt systems that already exist. Ruin doesn't "make" Hemalurgy end-negative; he adopted Hemalurgy because its end-negativity suits him.

Thus, when Hemalurgy is used to steal an Investiture, what you get is a weaker Investiture, not a "corrupted" end-negative form of the Investiture being stolen. The result of stealing Feruchemy is a weaker Feruchemist, not an "end-negative Feruchemist". The same goes for Allomancy.

What does it mean to be a weaker Feruchemist? The only hard limit in Feruchemy is that you can't store what you don't have: if I weigh 150 pounds, then nothing (short of gaining weight) will make me able to store 200 pounds of weight at once. That doesn't affect how much I can store in total, but it does mean that I can't "afford" to store as much as a heavier Feruchemist might be able to.

But there's also a soft limit to how much of what you have that you can store at once, and this is what makes you a stronger or weaker Feruchemist. A beginner might only be able to store 15 pounds of weight at a time, while a more practiced Feruchemist of the same weight might be able to store 30, 50, or even more: he (or she, of course) can charge faster. Over time, either one could store huge amounts of weight, but the weaker Feruchemist has to do it more slowly.

This is why Steel Inquisitors need so much downtime between Missions: the standard-issue gold spikes are so weak that they can't store health very quickly. On the upside, storing can't hurt their health very much, so they can still handle internal affairs like making more Inquisitors and spikes, but it's too risky to go out on missions without a good store of health, and that takes time to rebuild. This gave rise to the "exhausted Inquisitor" rumor, which they allow to continue because it's a convenient way to cover up the truth, but there's a reason we never see any exhausted Inquisitors.

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Millennium:

Ill repeat what I wrote earlier

Inquisitors resting.

In the end of mistborn, when March, Vin and Sazed talks, Marsh have been awake for a few hours and Vin is considering that he already seems to be tireing greatly. He havent been storing anything there, yet he still needs to rest after only a few hours. That indicates that inquisitors need to rest more then regular people for more reasons than just to fill their metalminds.

Inquisitors needing additional rest is not a rumor. Its a fact, wich is described several times in the book, not only on March, but also in a POV from Kar. They get exhausted much faster then regular persons even without any storing of feruchemy.

And on another point, I cannot recall having seen anything indicating that a beginner feruchemist can store less then a well trained one. If you got anything indicating this, please put it forward.

Edited by dyring
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@Kurkistan : I was never in agreement about this whole "surging" debacle (in particular, the "rate of filling vs rate of pulling", since the interpretation in your post implies that there is some fundamental difference in the full metalmind filled at different rates, while there is nothing in the books to indicate this. Rather, I always though about it as non-linear relationship: 1 full mm - 3 hours double, 7 hours at 1.5 , 1 hour quadruple kind of thing.

@Dyring. I rather agree with your theories. Of course, that still doesn't answer the question of what happens if you have 3 people's worth of feruchemy in the spike, and spike a ferring (of the same attribute). Will it become end-positive? There was a discussion somewhere about that...

@Millenium: Shards can affect their magic systems, some more some less. The combination of Shard and the world, as well as the sDNA of the created people give rise to a particular system. There was a quote somewhere... Also, nowhere is the level of experience/power for Feruchemist mentioned like that, iirc, all Feruchemists were quite able to store most (or all) of their weight, and there was nobody with half that ability.

@Odium_Shard: Mass... Well, they don't actually store mass, you know. They store weight, or, if you want, spiritual connection to other objects. It was mentioned by Sazed (unreliable, of course), but not really mass. At least, they don't seem to lose density per se. So the point of zero mass does not apply... Also, there are 3 masses per object anyway.

Sorry for muddled post, too sleepy.

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Of course, that still doesn't answer the question of what happens if you have 3 people's worth of feruchemy in the spike, and spike a ferring (of the same attribute). Will it become end-positive? There was a discussion somewhere about that...

I never thought about that one either but this is an excellent point.

Mass... Well, they don't actually store mass, you know. They store weight, or, if you want, spiritual connection to other objects.

No they do store mass.

QUESTION

Does Iron store mass or weight?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Excellent question. The thing is it really does involve mass, but I’m breaking some physics rules, basically. I have to break a number of physics rules in order to make Magic work in the first place. Those whole laws of Thermodynamics, I’m like “You are my bane!” (laughter) But I try to work within the framework, and I have reasonings built up for myself, and some of them have to be kind of arbitrary. But the thing is, it does store mass if you look at how it interacts, but when a Feruchemist punches someone, you’re not having a mass transference of a 1000 pounds transferring the mass into someone else.

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Actually, Odium, it is the forming, not the opening, of the gateway that I was supposing the original investment of energy went to. It's basically like Raoden drawing an aon. Only in this case, the drawing of the aon-like thing is on metals. Why metals? Presumably because they're already connected to magic, but I couldn't really say.

As for what releases the power, again, I don't know, but would suggest it is the same thing that an allomancer uses to release the power of his metals, or a surgebinder uses to release her powers, or an Elantrin uses to release an aon's power, or an awakener uses to transfer breaths.

It is notable that is many forms of magic, something is "consumed" in the process. In allomancy, metals are consumed. In surgebinding, stormlight. In Awakening, color. I suspect that if we understood hemalurgy and AonDoor better, they'd follow the same pattern (aons are consumed, but there are a few that are permanent and thus violate this supposition). Same with soulcasting (which appears to consume both stormlight and occasionally gems).

I like your argument that metalminds aren't themselves consumed because the amount of power coming through the gateway isn't sufficient to cause it to "burn out," as it were. However, under such an assumption, shifting a lot of energy all at once (say by Wax making himself as heavy as a building, or Miles recovering instantly from an explosion) should then have a possibility of burning out the metal. Because we never hear of that happening, I am inclined to reject your supposition.

As for why no one else can use a metalmind but its creator, I don't honestly know. But the same could be asked of Breath: what is it about shoving a couple hundred breaths into a rug that prevents someone else from taking them out? Most, if not all, those breaths aren't even originally the awakener's own. Why couldn't a drab whose original breath is in that rug come along and take it back? And why can anyone draw stormlight, not just the owner of the gem? Which is to say, this limitation seems to be a part of cosmere magical physics that we don't properly understand. It's a good question, certainly, but one that I think we don't know enough to answer either way.

To note, it's been implied that a feruchemist using an identity metalmind could manipulate themselves in such a way as to gain access to someone else's metalmind reserve. If that is correct, then it would suggest that one isn't storing the power in one's soul.

I suspect that what gets "burned" in hemalurgy is the charge (aka, the bit of soul it stole). The magic of hemalurgy isn't that it grants abilities, but that it keeps a soul "alive" outside of its native environment. Adding an ability to someone who is spiked is sort of a side effect. It's possible that a spike would steal a feruchemists spiritual "locker," but it seems a bit strange that a single spike would take two things from an individual, when in most other cases it only takes one. That is, it is taking the ability to store an attribute, and the stores of the attribute already accumulated.

Dyring, the power for allomancy is not in the metal in the first place, so why would saying that the power for feruchemy isn't in the metal either make a difference for compounding? In fact, it makes less sense for the power to be in the metal itself, because by burning it allomantically, one is opening a gateway to the power of creation. If the feruchemical powers are on this side of the gateway, why would they get a boost? Indeed, where would that extra power be coming from? It seems that if you burn a metalmind allomantically, you are adding on the score multiplier that is inherent to allomancy. But for that score multiplier to have umph, the power of creation has to be involved.

As for Vin and Sazed, same way she can sense the power of any other metal she ingests. The metal itself doesn't have the power, remember. So, she must be sensing the gateway that her own metals represent. Since the metalmind has a gateway, she's sensing that,but since she lacks the proper trigger, she can't use it.

Ruin should be able to fuel feruchemy the same way as preservation, but he's just better at doing it if hemalurgy is involved.

Millennium, the lower limit for storing is simply what one can do safely. While I believe Sanderson may have hinted that a feruchemical "savant" could learn to store more than a safe amount at a time, that is a result of their body adjusting to operating at lower than normal levels (like how Spook's body gets used to him working at higher than normal levels). It isn't a magical ability, but a biological one. For your theory to be correct, then a hemalurgic spike would have to make someone's body inherently less capable of withstanding stress. There's no hint of that (and generally the opposite).

Also, where did you get your information about an "exhausted" inquisitor rumor? The only time I recall that being brought up is when Vin observes them, and when we get PoVs from them. Given that Marsh was able to kill all the ones at Kredik Shaw himself, that seems to imply that they actually really were tired, not that they were just acting a part. That means they must have been storing a lot of feruchemical power, which made them sluggish when Marsh acted. Storing a lot of power is in contradiction to your supposition.

**EDIT** Ah, there's been some good points about Marsh being tired even when he isn't storing health, so I'm wrong here.

Anywho, Millenium, the reason why hemalurgy would make feruchemy end-negative is because being neutral is really hard to do. There's essentially any number of ways that two things can be imbalanced, but only one in which they can be balanced. Normal feruchemists are strong enough to maintain that balance. A weak one can't. Even just a smidgeon is enough to make it end-negative.

Edited by Thought
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<snip>

This also suggests that in Awakening, colors function as the gateway, akin to aons and allomantically used metals. Stormlight probably is the same for Surgebinding (not sure about soulcasting: gems can crack from use, which seems to imply that they are part of the gateway in a manner that isn’t relevant for surgebinding).

That's almost certainly a "no" for colors being a gateway in Awakening. Color is only drained at the moment of Awakening with seemingly infinite energy forever thereafter, presumably provided by self-replenishing Breaths.

---

Overall, interesting analysis, though I'm not sure if I completely understand all of your points.

I don't see Preservation's ability to fuel Feruchemy as definite evidence that Preservation always fuels Feruchemy. Infact, some Feruchemical attributes don't jive with that interpretation. For memory, in particular, it seems much more natural that discrete memories are pushed forward in time by a Feruchemist than that those memories are "burned" onto a metalmind to provide a gateway for Preservation's power. How is "power" really necessary to get a memory back? This isn't definitive, but it is a line of questioning that ought to be followed up before committing to a "gateway theory" for Feruchemy.

We do have a another slight problem with you're idea of "building gateways" actually. As far as surging and the AoL's Ars Arcanum goes, metalminds actually don't act as simple power sources. They instead provide a "gateway," to energy which the Feruchemist is pushing forward in time. This is why it's fundamentally different to tap a half hour of 20% storage for a minute than it is to tap an hour of 10% storage for a minute, for all Feruchemists.

As was discussed on the thread I linked to, storage likely consists of a Feruchemist pushing discrete amounts of energy from discrete time spans into the future. Normal tapping is a 1:1 correspondence of timespans, adding one span's energy (the past) to another's (the future). Surging is a disproportionate correspondence, say 2:1, bringing together multiple time spans of the past into a single timespan in the present, and so diverts some of that energy to synthesize the two moments from the past into one energy stream.

@Kurkistan : I was never in agreement about this whole "surging" debacle (in particular, the "rate of filling vs rate of pulling", since the interpretation in your post implies that there is some fundamental difference in the full metalmind filled at different rates, while there is nothing in the books to indicate this. Rather, I always though about it as non-linear relationship: 1 full mm - 3 hours double, 7 hours at 1.5 , 1 hour quadruple kind of thing.

I don't think it was a "debacle." :(

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

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.

This was a big part of our basis for saying that how much you store at a time matters. He says that 1 hour at 50% -> 1 hour at 150%. This heavily implies our conclusion of variable storage -> variable efficiency of withdrawal, unless 50% just happens to be below some threshold where the function doesn't kick in. A natural tipping point, it would seem, would be that you see diminishing returns after tapping 100% of an attribute, but not before. But we only get 25 minutes at 200% for an hour of storage, so that's no good.

EDIT: Also, Brandon flat out says "you get 1 for 1 back." Kind of missed that while I sprinted to the pretty pretty percentages. :unsure:

Unless my memory fails me, we've also seen other percentages (that aren't 50%) bandied about in the Mistborn books when discussing the efficiency of tapping Feruchemical attributes, and they all seem to lead back to a relationship between how much you stored at any given time and how much you want to tap at another time (sorry, no quotes right now).

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Also, unless the Ars Arcanum author is simply making stuff up, Feruchemy is described as a "time shuttling" process--not like filling and emptying a bucket--and so would seem to be affected by how much you store at any given time.

@Odium_Shard: Mass... Well, they don't actually store mass, you know. They store weight, or, if you want, spiritual connection to other objects. It was mentioned by Sazed (unreliable, of course), but not really mass. At least, they don't seem to lose density per se. So the point of zero mass does not apply... Also, there are 3 masses per object anyway.

Sorry for muddled post, too sleepy.

Actually, they most definitely do store mass. That's the only thing to explain Wax's shennanigans in AoL. Sazed's wise elders were mistaken from the get-go and/or Brandon made a mistake in leaving that reference in after he realized how much better messing with mass is than with mere weight.

Edited by Kurkistan
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@Voidus: Ah, good quote. OK. Mass, but not quite physical mass. With gravity being based upon Spiritual connection, what does mass in cosmere even mean?

@Kurkistan: So, are you of opinion that a full metalmind filled over 10 years is inherently weaker than the same metalmind filled over one day? Because that is what that would mean... And the quote from Brandon can just as well be interpreted as nonlinear dependency, like t=C/(p^al), where t is time, C is charge in the metalmind, p is added power (say, added strength percentage), and al>1 (is feruchemical weakness).

@above - you can tap and store at the same time. Otherwise Compounding probably won't work, since compounder has to store excess from burning a metal while tapping it. (IMO)

The gateway-forming theory is a good one, I think. Brandon said, that feruchemists, in effect, make a new metal when they store attribute. Apparently, that metal is different enough for feruchemists that they cannot use storage from another, unless their, let's say, spiritual fingerprint is close enough.

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I've just had a thought on our so-quickly-discarded "soul locker" theory for Feruchemical storage. What if it is not the Spiritual aspect of the Feruchemist which stores attributes, but the Spiritual aspect of the metalmind?

Apparently the physical molecular structure of a metal is what allows Allomancy, so we still need some kind of physical change to metalminds so that compounding works. That's a bit irritating, but okay. It might be the case that the existence of a Spiritual "hey, there's other Investiture here!" flag simply overrides the molecular key, but it might possibly work either way.

If this is the case, then Investing a metalmind changes the signal a smidgen, redirecting from "this looks like Allomancy, filter it through the Spiritweb of the user" to "this looks like Feruchemy, grab the attribute stored in the metal's Spiritual aspect." The power has to take a detour through the Spiritual realm at some point, so it could work. As I said, this either works through slight alterations to the physical makeup of the metal or through Investiture in the metal interferring with Allomancy directly. I vastly prefer the second option.

AoL Ars Arcanum (just for reference)

The body then filters it into various forms. (The actual outlet of the power is not chosen by the practitioner, but instead is hardwritten into their Spiritweb).

If my theory is true, then it would explain metalminds storing discrete attributes rather than just "power," since we now have somewhere to put everything without relying on some 3rd party "remembering" your memory or the "gates" you burn into the metal being essentially infinitely complex in order to store everything.

Those attributes could very easily be keyed to the Spiritual aspect of their storer, much like invested Breaths are, allowing someone who alters their Spiritual aspect through Hemalurgy or manipulation of Identity to fool someone else's metalmind into giving him/her access.

This also offers an interesting method for how Ruin can mess with Feruchemical Copper. Previously, my belief was that Ruin got in there at the moment of transition (as is his wont), while memories were being "time shuttled," but I did not have a very good mechanism for it.

EDIT: Under this model, Ruin messes with the Feruchemical part of the Spiritual aspect of Invested metalminds, which are presuambly more easily accessible than the living minds of ensouled people. We already know he has "write" capabilities on people who are unstable (less robust spirit/mind) or spiked (wounded spirit), so it's not too much of a stretch to see him messing with relatively unsheilded metalminds.

There is the whole "blind to metal" problem, true, but it could be that invested metalminds are somehow different, or that he can still interact with metal easily enough in the other realms. We know he got at the metalminds storing the Terris Prophocies somehow.

---

We know that burning other Invested metals (the One Ring, Hemalurgic spikes, etc.) has odd results, so Feruchemy is not terribly unique in this regard. I don't think that a Shardblade has "gateways" burned into it, so if we want to generalize the reason for these odd effects, it's far better to look to the unifying feature, a Spiritual investment of the metal, then to try to construct a narrow model of Feruchemy which leaves us perplexed as to why/how any other Invested metal ought to react oddly to being Burned.

@Voidus: Ah, good quote. OK. Mass, but not quite physical mass. With gravity being based upon Spiritual connection, what does mass in cosmere even mean?

Mass means more than gravity, as we've seen, and gravity as a Spiritual connection could easily be a case of the Spiritual realm saying "accelerate towards other objects as a function of mass and distance" (as well as providing the energy). If you change the mass of an object, then these Spiritual directives obviously have different outcomes, but they remain the same and mass still remains an important part of how gravitation works.

I may or may not have posted a mondo-theory to this effect. ;)

@Kurkistan: So, are you of opinion that a full metalmind filled over 10 years is inherently weaker than the same metalmind filled over one day? Because that is what that would mean... And the quote from Brandon can just as well be interpreted as nonlinear dependency, like t=C/(p^al), where t is time, C is charge in the metalmind, p is added power (say, added strength percentage), and al>1 (is feruchemical weakness).

A metalmind being "full" does not necessarily mean what you think it means.

Let's say that an earing metalmind has 1024 "storage space" available. Under a "battery" model, then that space can be filled with 1024 "units of power" which are essentially indistinguishable from each other, with the rate of filling simply determining how fast the space is filled.

Under a time-shuttling model, though, two related options exist for how storage works.

1) "Space" in a metalmind is purely a measure of time, say 1024 time spans. So this means that you can store 1024 time units worth or an attribute in the metalmind, regardless of the strength of that storage. A year of storing 1% is thus the same as a year of storing 10%, and both take up the same space and can potentially "fill" a metalmind. I doubt this, since it would result in Wax very rapidly filling up his metalminds with low levels of storage.

2) "Space" used by the storage of any attribute is more likely actually a function of both time spent storing and the strength of storage; but with storage units still fundamentally tied to how strongly they were initially stored. At first blush, this looks exactly like a "battery" or "bucket filling" model, but it differs in one key regard.

Two metalminds at 100% capacity do store the exact same amount of power in this model, no matter how they were filled over what time period. But the "sizes" of the smallest quanta of energy are fundamentaly different. A Ferring who stores 10% weight for ten years will have 10,240 "time units" of energy stored in the metalmind, each taking up 1/10 of one of the 1024 "standard" units. A Ferring who stores (infinitely close to) 100% weight for 1 year will have 1024 "time units" of energy stored in the metalmind, each unit 10 times as powerful as the quanta of the 10-year Ferring.

How you access that energy is the rub. The 10-year Ferring can access their metalmind at 100% efficiency only over a 10 year period, while the 1-year Ferring can access theirs at 100% efficiency over a 1 year period. The discrete quanta of power stored within the metalmind still need to be surged together, at cost, if you want to get more than 1:1 energy gain.

So yes, both full metalminds have the same amount of energy available, but the quick-storing Ferring can access it in much larger quantities at a higher efficiency.

The second option is more likely, I think.

I tell you this primarily because it is a subtle but important difference between our models, but also because I think it simply makes more sense (thus supporting time-shuttling by implication). If there isn't some kind of ultimate, discrete unit for storage (as opposed to everything being thrown in the vat) then attributes like Memory and Identity are much harder to understand. Given these discrete units, and given that Brandon has stated that the reason why costs go up is because you use energy to "compound" large amounts of Feruchemical power together, it makes sense that the point you run out of 1:1 discrete units is the point when you need to start surging them.

EDIT 2: As far as your equation goes, I am nearly positive that multiple percentages of "total recall" have been cited in the books. I also vaguely recall Sazed (possibly) referencing different percentages, meaning that the same Feruchemist had different points of perfect tapping on the graph of your function. I wish I had my books with me :(.

EDIT 3: Actually, never mind. I don't need book evidence. Look 2 posts up.

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.

That was a general question about all Feruchemy and he answered in a general manner about Feruchemy. So a Feruchemist always get 1-1 at perfect efficiency (although hFeruchemists aren't a sure thing for this), and storage strength is remembered.

Edited by Kurkistan
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Um well, I am still not convinced, since it makes two full metalminds so vastly different. I do, however, think that there are quanta of storage, perhaps per-atom, I just don't think they are different. Memories can be stored as bits and bytes, after all, so there need only be 2 kinds (possibly as stored/unstored).

Oh, and I am reading your theory. It seems sound enough :) And my opinions diverge somewhat (mostly in the relative importance and closeness of the realms).

Now, mass. It is known that each object has 3 masses: inertial, gravitational active and passive, which are usually one and the same, but it is still not proven that it is always so :) Still, gravitational masses govern power of the spiritual link. Why not say that inertial mass governs power of spiritual connection to other objects, like how much that object can affect others? I really need to formulate my own theory :(

Closer to topic:

My modification of the gateway theory : multiple gateways (sorry if it was mentioned. I skimmed some posts :( ). Instead of one big gateway, metal consists of many small gateways. When you burn metal, some of them open. How much you pull (or maybe, how much you get, with some energy being lost between you and metal), depends on your Allomantic ability. The power destroys gateways, and other ones open in the metal, as long as the metal abides. Flaring forces more power through the gateway, but speeds up destruction (or opens several more gateways with the same result). Feruchemists create gateways as they store power (maybe one per atom cluster), and reset them freeing the energy as they tap it. Burning them give the same kind of energy, but mor of it, destroying the metal instead of resetting the gateway. Memories can be stored as full/empty gateways, or gateways with different power. (A question - what happens if you split coppermind? can you split an image memory into halves?) SO, well, that is how I think of that anyways.

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Just wondering, in the "send attribute forward in time" theory, how do you know how far to send it? or how do you call it back?

I mean, you don´t know when your going to need it at the time you store it. Do you mean it is sent forward in time to an unspecified point, then called back somehow whenever used or?

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Well, the best thing that comes to my mind now is that you essentially shove your attribute out of time, and then reach and get when you need it, there fore "shuttling" it over a certain time span.

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Just wondering, in the "send attribute forward in time" theory, how do you know how far to send it? or how do you call it back?

I mean, you don´t know when your going to need it at the time you store it. Do you mean it is sent forward in time to an unspecified point, then called back somehow whenever used or?

I see it as essentially putting the attribute into a limbo space where it can be called out again at any point in the future. It's not, strictly speaking, a case of pushing it forward in time, but merely of storage. "Time" terminology comes in handy because of the nature of that storage and the way that you withdraw it.

EDIT: What Satsuoni said.

Edited by Kurkistan
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That's almost certainly a "no" for colors being a gateway in Awakening. Color is only drained at the moment of Awakening with seemingly infinite energy forever thereafter, presumably provided by self-replenishing Breaths.

A good point about the awakened object functioning even after the color has stopped being drained, but Breaths are already providing a seemingly endless supply of energy inside the user. Vivenna, for example, gains resistance to illness and aging, and she can detect other people, because of the breaths she holds. This is actually rather similar to hemalurgy: koloss, for example, don't need calories to function, and their strength is permanently increased. As long as the actual effect of awakening in the imbuing of breaths, then the fact that color isn't constantly drained is to be expected.

Regardless, we know that in many magic systems, something is consumed in the use of magic (metals, stormlight, colors, and usually aons). We know that aons and metals act as gateways. This isn't a definite trend (its only two out of four), but if there is a pattern, then colors are likely gateways.

I don't see Preservation's ability to fuel Feruchemy as definite evidence that Preservation always fuels Feruchemy.

There seem to be two ways a shard can fuel magic, but these are different things. Allomancy, for example, channels the energy of creation. So, it seems to be tapping into Preservation's power, but in a passive, non-conscious sort of way. We might say that it is fueled by Preservation, but Preservation isn't fueling it. In contrast, Preservation can actively fuel allomancy as well (see Elend and Vin). In the first instance, one has to use metals as gateways to let that power out. In the second instance, the metals don't seem to be needed at all (Elend was out). Presumably in this manner, Preservation is opening the gateway between the individual and the power itself. Since the power still has to enter the physical realm and it still has to be directed, it seems likely that Preservation is opening the gateways itself. If Preservation and Ruin can directly fuel feruchemy, then it is likely that they are taking advantage of the established processes.

As far as surging and the AoL's Ars Arcanum goes, metalminds actually don't act as simple power sources. They instead provide a "gateway," to energy which the Feruchemist is pushing forward in time. This is why it's fundamentally different to tap a half hour of 20% storage for a minute than it is to tap an hour of 10% storage for a minute, for all Feruchemists.

There is a fundamental problem with that theory. Namely, it should result in an end-negative system. To illustrate: a feruchemist stores 10 points of weight, they push that weight forward in time (possibly indefinitely!), and then remove 10 points of weight. Where is the energy for that push through time coming from? And, since there isn't a set expiration date, where does the extra energy come to keep pushing the attribute forward through time? If the power of creation isn't involved, the energy would have to come from the user. But we know that 10 points in is 10 points out. We could suppose that the power of creation is what is allowing the power to be pushed forward, but then, neither Ruin nor Preservation would really be able to actively fuel it: they could provide more energy to push attributes through time, but if a feruchemist didn't store it, then they couldn't provide it. Indeed, given that there aren't any known limitations on how long a feruchemical charge can be stored, the active intervention of Preservation or Ruin at this point would be entirely useless.

Regarding the theoryland quote, the energy loss seems to be entirely an effect of tapping, not storing. Storage seems to happen under the following equation: E*1T=S. E is the effective amount of energy being stored, T is the period of time it is being stored for, S is the total storage, and 1 is the compounding factor (it could be represented by X here, but in storing, X=1, so I've simplified it). In contrast, tapping seems to function (ideally) like this: E=S/XT. E is still effective power, S is still the total storage, T is still time, and X is the compounding variable (here, it can be 1, but it can also be anything else). You can only store at the rate of X=1 (thus, one time unit per time unit), but you can tap at different rates. The smaller X, the greater E, and the reverse. However, since there is that rate of loss when compounding, we know that this isn't the exact equation. Since there isn't a loss when not compounding, we also know that when X=1, there is no loss. Hence why storing (which always functions at X=1) has no loss associated with it. The actual tapping equation is probably something like E=S/(T(X-Q)) where Q = the square root of X or some such. Which is to say, how much you store at a time would never ever ever ever ever (that's four ever's ;) ) influence the rate of loss, because the compounding factor isn't a variable in storage, but is in tapping.

As for the Ars Arcanum in AoL calling Feruchemy a "time-shuttling" process, I think you're taking the comment far too literally:

"The art [feruchemy] also requires metal as a focus, but instead of being consumed, the metal acts as a medium by which abilities within the practitioner are shuttled through time... It is a well-rounded art, with some feelers in the Physical, some in the Cognitive, and even some in the Spiritual."

The "metal acts as a medium" seems to indicate that this is a simile. A robot might behave "as" a man, but we understand that a robot isn't a man. Likewise, the metal might act as a time shuttling process, but we should understand that it isn't a time shuttling process. Likewise, the metal is like a medium by which, but we should know that it isn't actually a medium by which.

As I said, this either works through slight alterations to the physical makeup of the metal or through Investiture in the metal interferring with Allomancy directly. I vastly prefer the second option.

But don't we know from Vin and Sazed's experiment that an allomancer could still use the metal as normal? Alas, I don't have my book with me right now, but I thought she could. If so, then a feruchemical charge shouldn't inherently alter an allomantic one. It might overlay, but the allomantic makeup would still be preserved and accessible.

If my theory is true, then it would explain metalminds storing discrete attributes rather than just "power," since we now have somewhere to put everything without relying on some 3rd party "remembering" your memory or the "gates" you burn into the metal being essentially infinitely complex in order to store everything.

It isn't nearly as complex as you make it out to be. Your brain does it rather nicely without you paying any attention at all, and your entire lifetime of memories can fit in about 3 lb of mostly-watery goo. The metalminds that Sazed is said to wear sound far more impressive than that, but also can contain far less. Further, we know that Sazed used his metalminds to store books (well, his memory of the words he had recited to him: it doesn't appear that these memories put every aspect of the experience back into him mind). Warbreaker is around 1 gb, by itself. I bet there are three difference devices within twenty feet of you that could easily handle that requirement, all of which could easily be carted around with you. To further and further emphasize the point, a single cell in your body contains roughly 1.5 gigabytes of information in its copy of your DNA. This information is copied entirely automatically: no oversight required. Easy, breezy, beautifully simple.

I don't think that a Shardblade has "gateways" burned into it, so if we want to generalize the reason for these odd effects, it's far better to look to the unifying feature, a Spiritual investment of the metal, then to try to construct a narrow model of Feruchemy which leaves us perplexed as to why/how any other Invested metal ought to react oddly to being Burned.

That's a bit of a non-sequitur. But I think you are again making things appear more complex than they are. We know that allomancy is fueled by the power of creation. We know that the power of creation can fuel feruchemy. Thus, because they are alike, we can theorize on shared principles. Are shardblades fueled at all? And if so, by what? We don't know enough about them to comment intelligibly.

As for burning "invested" objects in general, I suspect one would also have odd things happen if one awoke invested objects. In either case, one is mixing different forms of power. It is as simple as that. Mix eggs with salt and pepper, and you get a tasty breakfast. Mix eggs with brownie mix, and you get a delicious dessert. I'm not seeing what is supposed to be complex about this.

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