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Feruchemical Brass as Cognitive


Kurkistan

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Awhile back, I once promised (or was it a threat?) Phantom that I could explain Brass being Cognitive, despite the apparent absurdity of this notion. I am now fulfilling that declaration of intent. Enjoy.

Background:

The Feruchemical metals have an interesting history, so far as their breakdown goes. The four metals that correspond to the mental metals in Allomancy are Copper for memory, Bronze for wakefulness (how alert you are, essentially), Zinc for mental speed, and Brass for... warmth??? :huh:

So clearly something is odd here. And then we tumble down the rabbit hole.

Turns out that Brandon made a whoopsie. He accidentally switched Electrum (determination) with Brass. Instead of retconning this error, though, he canonized it, making Electrum a "Hybrid" metal--aka a Physical metal--and Brass Cognitive. This ends up in Feruchemy being Realmatically based, with "a quadrant of Spiritual, a quadrant of Cognitive and two quadrants of Physical."

So, switcheroos aside, this leaves us with an issue. Warmth, of all things, is Cognitive. Let's explain that.

-Side note: Also, Bronze is weird, as it seems more a physical requirement, on first blush. I would think, then, that the need for sleep is modeled in the Cosmere as being an absolute mental/psychological requirement, in regards to alertness and mental fatigue. See: Miles' only two restrictions being the need for sleep and aging (Forms!), despite his ability to Heal away physical fatigue.

Evidence:

Evidence-wise, we don't have much. The main trilogy only really has Sazed tapping small amounts to keep himself warm in cold environments, while the AoL Ars Arcanum gives us the name "Firesoul" for Brass ferrings.

Though I usually hesitate to cite the MAG (because of the evil evil things it does to time bubbles, if for no other reason)--specifically in cases that may run afoul of its acknowledged (and, to a large extent, intentional) inaccuracies about Feruchemy--it may be edifying in this case.

As was brought to my attention when I tried to have our resident Feruchemist set fire to a warehouse the other day, Brass has a rather interesting constraint in the MAG: It can't light things on fire. Tapped Brass can warm the area around you and melt ice, as well hurt other people if you touch them skin-to-skin, but it can't cause fires: "no matter how hot you get you may not burn or ignite objects." Despite this restriction, "A Feruchemist who taps huge amounts of warmth radiates heat like a furnace, melting nearby snow and ice, and even boiling water."

This bit on fire may or may not be accurate. It makes sense for a game to not want Feruchemists setting stuff on fire, and the threshold for spontaneous combustion is usually pretty high, by my understanding. But not so high for charring. And boiling water isn't exactly a low-energy feat. We may have a clue here.

----

I'm going to try something new this thread. Normally, the "workflow" for my threads is "hmm, that's an interesting question," followed by a week or two of thought, followed by a few hours or days of writing down everything I can think of on the subject, followed by a mondo-post like you see before you today.

But in this case, I am really not sure as to the accuracy of my answer. What follows is really just speculation that may be totally wrong, and I'm interested in any other theories people may have to explain why Feruchemical brass is Cognitive--or why Feruchemical electrum is Physical, for that matter. So feel free to ignore the "spoiled" section and just post your own thoughts, if you have some ideas of your own.

Main Theory:

Realmatics as a whole and Feruchemy in particular give off a fairly Aristotelian vibe (which makes some sense, given the role that Plato plays in the idea of a Physical/Cognitive/Spiritual division). Look to Feruchemical iron: It's rather absurd, isn't it? Mass goes up without changing velocity, resulting in free energy out the wazoo. And yet it "makes sense," intuitively, until we start going all Newton on it.

The same goes to some of the other applications of Forms [Digression: At this point, I'm just going to go about my day as if I'm right on these. I apologize to anyone who thinks I'm wrong] and Cognitive aspects, and even the very existence of Cognitive aspects.

People heal back to their whole selves because that's "just how healing works," a man with infinite "Health" still ages and dies because all men are mortal, and objects are viewed and treated as aggregate wholes by magic systems (time bubbles, Awakening, Iron/Steel Allomancy to some extent...) because that's what they are.

Perhaps, then, we ought to be taking "Warmth" at face value rather than transforming it into "heat" in our heads and going on from there. Without reading AoL or getting Word of Brandon, we would not have assumed that "Weight" functions as "intuitively" as it does. Let's apply the same basic level of intuition to Brass Feruchemy, rather than going all sciency on it.

What is "warmth", then? In the context of Feruchemy, it seems that it is the intrinsic "warmth" of the Feruchemist: he is cold, or he is hot. Not his skin surface or core body temperature or extremities, just his "self." This gives rise to some confusion when we (or at least I :P)try to examine it, given that different parts of the body are naturally different temperatures in our daily lives: how should all those calories be distributed, if you're just dumping in heat?

If we read how the MAG describes Brass Feruchemy (though, once again, with a grain of salt), we see the Feruchemist described as "radiating heat like a furnace". This visualization might be helpful.

Looking at it in purely Aristotelian "common-sense" terms, we could say that it is part of a furnace's function to radiate heat. Its being, when properly stoked, is such that it gives off warmth and warms its environment. It's purpose is not, however, to cause nearby kindling to spontaneously combust. Only fire can give birth to fire and all that.

Feruchemy is about changing the nature of one's self. In the case of Brass, then, it changes the nature of one's self such that the Feruchemist's intrinsic warmth is greater (or lesser) than the usual. And so his heat acts as a furnaces does, warming that which is around him and burning those who get too close.

Getting to the Point:

How is this Cognitive, then? I would posit that Brass Feruchemy changes the Cogntive identity of its user such that his basic "warmth" is different, and that his warmth is then radiated on in a "common-sense" manner to those objects and people which surround him. They bask in his warmth on a Cognitive level, and are so warmed in a secondary manner, rather than from the direct application of heat in the Physical Realm as is normally the case.

And just so; when a Feruchemist stores the heat from a fire he sits next to, he is really taking part of its warmth into his brassmind, rather than into himself as would usually occur.

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Alternatively, Brass could work on a Cognitive level such that it can only deliver heat to objects up to the point where they would become other than themselves (so the intact branch won't start burning because to do would change its form/type). That could work too.

Alternatively alternatively, the "no fires for you" stipulation could just be a quirk of the MAG, and we'd be better off just saying "Feruchemical brass increases you temperature on a Cognitive level, which then trickles down the Physical."

Edited by Kurkistan
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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, now I have to ask, how is electrum then a Hybrid/Physical metal? Does storing/tapping cause hormonal imbalances?

 

Hmm.. actually that could work. If bendalloy can store calories, of all things, then why can't hormones be stored? This would make electrum fit much better with the other metals in its group since they all have a "biological processes" theme.

 

I claim this officially as my theory  :P .

Edited by Serendipity
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Well, now I have to ask, how is electrum then a Hybrid/Physical metal? Does storing/tapping cause hormonal imbalances?

 

Hmm.. actually that could work. If bendalloy can store calories, of all things, then why can't hormones be stored? This would make electrum fit much better with the other metals in its group since they all have a "biological processes" theme.

 

I claim this officially as my theory  :P .

 

I would point out that calories are energy and hormones are chemicals.

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  • 2 weeks later...

For Electrum Ferrings and their storage of determination, I would consider it a soft counter to a Rioter or Soother, as they would have to be able to detect that there is something that they need to be determined to do against something. In terms of what determination does to our bodies it is mainly hormonal manipulation and heightened brain activity in a centralized region of the brain (least that is my understanding from the little psychology that I have taken). So when you store determination I feel that your mind goes into a depressed state as Brandon says and then later on flooding the brain with hormones and activity to create that determination, which I would say is similar to the Bronze and Zinc Ferrings storing Wakefulness and Mental Speed. The differences between the three are slight but major, and all three seem to accomplish the same thing through different means as I see it.Electrum functions through hormones and intent, Bronze through different hormones and our ability to recognize our surroundings, and Zinc through synapse speed.

Oops, so it seems some one had thought of it before. :wacko:

I'm still proud of myself for coming up with it...Hormones does makes a lot more sense than just "determination".

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I'm not so sure about the end of Lanscaper's point (note: it's always best to link directly to such things, even if a quick Google will get the job done). Bronze and Zinc are both Cognitive, so their mechanisms are almost similarly "floaty" rather than being a matter of chemistry.

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