[Bands Spoilers] Tapping investiture

[fyodor]

So, as I understand it, the various amulets are a combination of some sort of Nicrosil metalmind, which includes the investiture associated with the Feruchemical ability (heat, weight, etc) and a second metalmind ( brass, iron) containing stores of whatever attribute needs to be tapped.  Both were originally filled by an aluminum-drained feruchemist so that they're not keyed to  a particular person.

 

Setting aside how an individual ferring could fill all of these (which would seem to require at least one person with three abilities or two with two abilities), how can regular people without Nicrosil feruchemical abilities tap the investiture in the first place? The aluminum deprivation trick would allow the investiture to not be keyed to a particular person (much like the third party goldmind that Wayne is able to tap) but you'd still need to be a Nicrosil ferring to tap the investiture in the first place, right?

 

 

[icy1155]

Wasn't there also speculation that an aluminum ferring could tap anyone's metal mind if they got rid of all of their identity, but the Kandra were more worried about the un-keyed metal minds more?  It seems like it's a pretty simple work around the whole getting started thing if that does indeed work. 

[fyodor]

An aluminum ferring, by not having enough identity, could get around the problem of the metal being keyed to someone else, but couldn't gain the ability to tap a metal they didn't have. So you'd still need multiple abilities. And the users of the medallion wouldn't be able to tap the investiture in the first place, regardless of how it was made, unless they themselves were nicrosil ferrings.

[Pagerunner]

For getting it started, remember it was TLR/Kelsier/Sovereign (I'm still not sure how to refer to that guy), who was a Mistborn and Full Feruchemist, so he could have easily created whatever medallions were necessary to keep things going. Also, he was spiked through the eye, so he might have given them knowledge of Hemalurgy to combine a few powers into one person, so they could make more medallions.

 

As for how anyone can tap Nicrosil... you're right, it doesn't fit the Pre-BoM understanding of feruchemy. Maybe everyone's a Nicrosil ferring? Or maybe it's like Breath on Nalthis, where there's a kind of Investiture that anyone can take in (so, everyone could tap Nicrosil, but not necessarily fill it). It's a shame there's no tour for this book; it certainly raises a lot of questions.

[natc]

It doesn't fit the post-BoM understanding either, since Wax tested the goldmind he picked up and it didn't work for him. Whatever is going on, it only happens with nicrosilminds.

[Ari]

For getting it started, remember it was TLR/Kelsier/Sovereign (I'm still not sure how to refer to that guy), who was a Mistborn and Full Feruchemist, so he could have easily created whatever medallions were necessary to keep things going. Also, he was spiked through the eye, so he might have given them knowledge of Hemalurgy to combine a few powers into one person, so they could make more medallions.

 

As for how anyone can tap Nicrosil... you're right, it doesn't fit the Pre-BoM understanding of feruchemy. Maybe everyone's a Nicrosil ferring? Or maybe it's like Breath on Nalthis, where there's a kind of Investiture that anyone can take in (so, everyone could tap Nicrosil, but not necessarily fill it). It's a shame there's no tour for this book; it certainly raises a lot of questions.

 

Or perhaps other abilities are gated by investiture, but Nicrosil isn't. That is, anyone can tap a blank-identity Nicrosilmind, otherwise you couldn't tap your own when you're out of investiture, because it wouldn't register you as either a Nicrosil ferring or feruchemist.

 

But to use any other ability you need the relevant type of investiture and you need to pass the identity gate, either by storing your identity and unkeying yourself, or by using an unlocked metalmind created by someone storing their identity, and then tapping the relevant Nicrosilmind to allow you to also tap the other metalmind..

 

Personally I'm more interested in the question of whether the southern Scadrians are spiking their ferrings, or whether they have full feruchemists walking around. Because to create any unlocked feruchemical metalminds, you need two feruchemical abilities. And then there's imparting allomantic abilities, which you would either need an allomancy-spiked feruchemist for, or a feruchemistry-spiked twinborn, who already started with either feruchemical aluminium or nicrosil. Of course, storing Allomancy has the advantage of only requiring a single metalmind to use. (the relevant Nicrosilmind)

Edited January 29, 2016 by Ari

[fyodor]

So on this question, on page 31 of the Kindle edition VenDell floats the idea that most people have some feruchemist blood in them and thus even non feruchemists could tap one of these metal minds. I don't find this particularly satisfying but that is probably how non nicrosil ferrings can tap the amulet investiture.

[Sirscott13]

I think it's the unkeyed metal mind, combined with tapping investiture. Example: you store identity and store something like health. This allows any gold ferring to tap the unkeyed health, but not for someone who can't already tap health.

Now however you use necrosil for investiture which is raw power. This acts like a money changer in normal feruchemy. Let's say you store weight in combination with investiture. You actually store investiture, so you don't really have any weight stored now, but let's say you go to tap health. Now you can draw the extra reserve of investiture for extra health instead. This means you turned weight into health with investiture being the money changer.

Now you use unkeyed nicrosilminds that would allow anyone to use them, because investiture is raw power and doesn't need specific spiritual keys to use. This allows anyone to store and tap any unkeyed Metalmind so long as they are tapping and storing the raw investiture used in the money changing process.

I'm pretty sure the medallions also work in a way where you store your weight with investiture, then tap the investiture for heat.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Sirscott13

[Pagerunner]

I think it's the unkeyed metal mind, combined with tapping investiture. Example: you store identity and store something like health. This allows any gold ferring to tap the unkeyed health, but not for someone who can't already tap health.

Now however you use necrosil for investiture which is raw power. This acts like a money changer in normal feruchemy. Let's say you store weight in combination with investiture. You actually store investiture, so you don't really have any weight stored now, but let's say you go to tap health. Now you can draw the extra reserve of investiture for extra health instead. This means you turned weight into health with investiture being the money changer.

Now you use unkeyed nicrosilminds that would allow anyone to use them, because investiture is raw power and doesn't need specific spiritual keys to use. This allows anyone to store and tap any unkeyed Metalmind so long as they are tapping and storing the raw investiture used in the money changing process.

I'm pretty sure the medallions also work in a way where you store your weight with investiture, then tap the investiture for heat.

That interpretation of F.Nicrosil comes from the RPG, right? I don't think I've seen it anywhere else. It's not necessarily canon - in the Aluminum section, Brandon mentions that he's not telling us everything correctly, to preserve some surprises he has coming.

 

That being said, even if it was, I'm not sure your interpretation fits. It would require all medallions to have two powers - one for the ability you're using to store, one for the ability you're using to tap. But, according to Allik, even though two- and three-powered medallions are possible, most have one power.

 

Allik also mentions Firemothers and Firefathers as the way they fill the heat medallions. If the Southerners could fill them up themselves, they wouldn't need... well, whatever those are, anyways.

 

That being said, it's a great idea. "Oh no, we're freezing to death, let's all run around extra light to make up for it." Brilliant. It could definitely work for the southerners, if Nicrosil works the way it is described in the RPG. However, I think some of the details we can glean about the medallions indicate that Nicrosil functions very differently than we've been told.