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[BoM spoilers]The upper limit of Mistbearer power (Nicrosil Compounders)


Oversleep

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So, as BoM has shown us, Nicrosil Compounders can get ridiculously powerful... if they have other powers. Nicrosil Compounding by itself doesn't seem super useful (unless there's more to nicrosil than storing powers).
Storing Nicrosil Feruchemy in Nicrosil
Anyway, I have got something on my mind: how does storing Nicrosil Feruchemy in nicrosil works? (I mean, how can you store the ability to store in nicrosil? It's a little like trying to lift yourself off the ground by grabbing your hair and pulling upwards)

For example, let's say a Fullborn stores half of their Iron Feruchemy. It should mean that his Iron Feruchemy is (for the time of storing in nicrosil) half as powerful, so they can store only half of what they can usually store (so up to 50% of their weight, not 100%). And they would lose more power when overtapping, perhaps.

(rambling about math)

 

Now, imagine what would happen if Fullborn stores 80% of their Nicrosil Feruchemy? It would mean that his ability to store powers is five times weaker. Now, if he tries to store all he can of his Iron Feruchemy, he can only store 20% of his ability to store weight.
This would apply to every ability he has. He could only store 20% of any ability.
But since it applies to all of his abilities, wouldn't that also mean he can only store 20% of his Nicrosil Feruchemy? And by trying to store all of it, he could only store 20%? Since he isn't trying to store all of it (but only 80%), effectively he can only store 16%... But then... et cetera.

So... how would that work?


Mistpoint
Okay, when Wax tapped a lot of nicrosil, he started to emit mist from his body. It seems that if you tap enough nicrosil, you can basically achieve the power level of burning the mists (as what Marasi and Wax did was comparable to what Vin did - Pushing on trace metals et cetera).

I propose this as the upper limit of Nicrosil Feruchemy. You can't tap nicrosil above mistpoint... because if you did, you'd surpass what human body is capable of channeling and disappear (as Vin's body vaporized when she was burning mists). Except you don't have a Shard to Ascend to. Perhaps this could be comparable to lerasium savantism - there is a WoB that lerasium savantism is what Ascension basically is. We don't know what would happen if there is already a Shardholder around, either, so this two situations could be basically the same.

Edited by Oversleep
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that makes me wonder, because at mistpoint someone is channeling a significant fraction of the power of a shard. it was all well and good as long as one single person in the world was doing it, but with a mixture of medallions and hemalurgy, millions could gain that ability. and if they all reached mistpoint at the same time, the shard may not have enough power to fuel them all at the same time. What would happen then?

 

Also, I agree that the limit iis where you tap enough investiture than you burn yourself. Vin was favored of the mist, and  she ascended, but I doubt a normal person could do the same.

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I think the Mistpoint is far to be a significant amount of Shard power... It's an overcome power if you compare it to the average amount Mortal manages... but in the Shardic balance it's hard relevant, I think

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm not sold on Nicrosil requiring other powers.  Metal burning begins an investiture, so it's very possible it could  use stored charges to begin another investiture. 

In theory...

 You could use it to begin burning metals, and to sustain the burn. You could use it to access the Dor, or to store or tap different metals. 

 

We see in BoM that you can power every investiture with Nicrosil, if you had to store different investitures like senses I suspect they'd require different metal minds.

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1 hour ago, [email protected] said:

I'm not sold on Nicrosil requiring other powers.  Metal burning begins an investiture, so it's very possible it could  use stored charges to begin another investiture. 

In theory...

 You could use it to begin burning metals, and to sustain the burn. You could use it to access the Dor, or to store or tap different metals. 

 

We see in BoM that you can power every investiture with Nicrosil, if you had to store different investitures like senses I suspect they'd require different metal minds.

As far as we saw the Nicrosil may be used to store/tap Innate Investiture alone...it's possible there are other possibilities for this metals but the books seems to disprove it.

For example Wax&Marari (when they used the Bands ang gain a lot of Metallic Abilities) need still metals to burn for their Allomancy.

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the think terms should be established to make this easier.

 

Ritual to describe the beginning of an investiture (Burning Metal)

Mana to describe raw energy investiture

And magic to describe the result investiture (pushing metal, Soothing, etc)

 

The mana stored in Nicrosil was used by Wax to start the ritual of burning metals that were not Steel. Do we think that's a thing Nicrosil mana can allow, or that "Sovereign's " Nicrosil had some different special properties?

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1 hour ago, [email protected] said:

the think terms should be established to make this easier.

We have good nomenclature here. Introducing new terms is going to make it harder to understand.

From what I read here it seems you misunderstood how nicrosil works. It allows you to weaken abilities and later strenghten them by tapping nicrosil. But to be able to tap specific ability, it first had to be stored there. So if there is a charge only for Tin Feruchemy, you can only become Tin Ferring for the time of tapping nicrosil. Bands of Mourning contained all the Allomantic and Feruchemical powers and only them; only those can be tapped.

(The bit about all the powers is unconfirmed - I don't know how could you make a medallion gifting aluminium Feruchemy, for example)

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But the spear head is one solid piece of metal isn't it?

 

Do you have terms that differentiate the different forms Investiture takes, I will gladly use them. 

 

I thought the Nicrosil piece of the medallion was granting investiture to tap (bronze) and store (iron)? 

 

So you can use nicrosil to use an unidentified metal mind, but not to create a metal mind. That being the limiting factor in needing Ferrings.  Does it ever come out and say otherwise? I was mildly distracted for that chapter, I'll go back and reread for clarity sake.

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Ya, I was way off. 

 

It says that the inner band is Nicrosil, and infers the second is too. Iron for conveinience to store weight. It means the powers are stored in separate metal minds. 

The confusing part is the spear is sixteen different metals, not all of them are Nicrosil. Unless it is making a distinction between each power stored in each piece of Nicrosil.

 

My mistake. Been reading the MAG and it implies Nicrosil Feruchemy can duplicate other Feruchemy. 

Edited by [email protected]
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It's similar to copper - you can store different memories in copper. Similarly, you can store various powers in just one nicrosilmind. The Bands contained various metalminds + nicrosilmind, all of them filled to the hilt. Nicrosilmind contained abilities required to tap the other metalminds.

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TyCould it be as simple as generic investiture and flavored investiture?

Or the ring is a stamp and not a separate piece of metal?

If the Excisors are what people anticipate them to be then creating complex medallions shouldn't be as difficult as they say if it can be in the same metalminds.

 

You could pass them all around and let different people fill the same metal of they were without identity.

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7 hours ago, [email protected] said:

Then why would it require two seperate rings in the medallions? Hmm. Always missing a piece of the whole.

Because the Medallions with a single power-gifted (for example with just Heat Feruchemy) are made by a ring of Nicrosil who gift you the abilities stored (in this case just Heat Feruchemy, but potentially the whole FullBorn's powers like the Bands) and a Brass to use the gifted power without search another source of Brass.

In the end a "Medallion Tech" is just an Unsealed NicrosilMind. But some smart engineer decide to integrate in the Medallion's design also Metals of the right type for Medallions who gift Feruchemy. To avoid for an user to have to carry separately these metals.

The Bands for example are made by a lot of "layers" of different metals. The Nicrosil part made you (probably) a FullBorn with a great Allomantic Strenght and the others are useful reserve of Feruchemical Charge to actively use the Feruchemical power gained from the Nicrosilmind. Notice that you have to still ingest Metals to use the Allomantic Powers gained with from the Nicrosilmind.

But you can't gain abilities that someone don't actually put in the NicrosilMind.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On June 27, 2016 at 5:12 PM, Oversleep said:

It's similar to copper - you can store different memories in copper. Similarly, you can store various powers in just one nicrosilmind. The Bands contained various metalminds + nicrosilmind, all of them filled to the hilt. Nicrosilmind contained abilities required to tap the other metalminds.

I think it may not be simply that different powers can be stored in the same metalmind, but that there is a distinction between the power of a misting and the power of a Mistborn. We know that mistings are either born with one power or all of them, which says to me that misting and Mistborn powers are fundamentally different. Same with Feruchemy. So a medallion would have two rings of Nicrosil, granting two powers, say F!brass and F!iron. But the bands would also have only two rings of Nicrosil, granting two powers- that of a full Mistborn and a full Feruchemist. 

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that a single Nicrosilmind can still only store one power, (like how Sazed needed multiple tinminds to store different senses) but that the power of a full Mistborn still qualifies as "one" power. 

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3 hours ago, Irkutsk said:

I think it may not be simply that different powers can be stored in the same metalmind, but that there is a distinction between the power of a misting and the power of a Mistborn. We know that mistings are either born with one power or all of them, which says to me that misting and Mistborn powers are fundamentally different. Same with Feruchemy. So a medallion would have two rings of Nicrosil, granting two powers, say F!brass and F!iron. But the bands would also have only two rings of Nicrosil, granting two powers- that of a full Mistborn and a full Feruchemist. 

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that a single Nicrosilmind can still only store one power, (like how Sazed needed multiple tinminds to store different senses) but that the power of a full Mistborn still qualifies as "one" power. 

If I don't remember wrong, we saw many times Medallion with 2 powers and they are made of just three rings of metals (Nicrosol to gift the two power, Metal1Mind to store/tap power1 and Metal2Mind to store/tap power2.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/18/2016 at 1:10 PM, Yata said:

If I don't remember wrong, we saw many times Medallion with 2 powers and they are made of just three rings of metals (Nicrosol to gift the two power, Metal1Mind to store/tap power1 and Metal2Mind to store/tap power2.

Yes. My theory is that Nicrosil stores "blank" Investiture. Say you're a Coinshot-Soulbearer. You burn Steel, and funnel the Investiture into your Nicromind. When you store it, the " Allomantic Steel" part gets rubbed out, like erasing a word written on a whiteboard. When you tap it, you have to "flavor" it by using a non-blank Investiture, like...Feruchemical Chromium, for example. Thus, two other metalminds, one Nicromind.

The closest analogy I can think of is that Feruchemical Nicrosil is like a battery. You charge said "battery" using "electricity" (Investiture) from an existing "circuit" (Metallic Art), and can then use the "electricity" in the "battery" to charge a "circuit" at a later time, or to add to what "electricity" is already flowing through it. The person must already possess the "circuit" that the "electricity" runs through, in Allomancy's case, while in Feruchemy, the "circuit" is in the Metalmind, although it is a circuit which will only fully complete itself when it is open, and it will only open for one person. Otherwise, the circuit will remain closed. Of course, with Aluminum Feruchemy, the circuit of a metalmind will always be open, although you need the corresponding "key" (Feruchemical power) to access it. And in this, Nicrosil acts like a master "key", being "blank" Investiture, without a flavor like other Investitures on Scadrial.

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I don't think you need to do this. You store your Innate Investure and your SpiritWeb.

You don't actually have to use Steel Allomancy (for example) to store Coinshoot power. You simply store your ability to burn Steel. Like any other Attribute.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Bit late but I'd like to weigh in. I think the Ars Arcanum, and other mentions of nicrosil feruchemy, is misleading. It seems to me, based on what we've seen so far, that nicrosil is not about storing investiture (which, technically, you're doing with every metalmind. You're investing into it when you're storing), but rather, it stores the ability to use manifestations of investiture. 

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  • 1 month later...

To answer question 1: Clearly, if you try to store all your Nicrosil feruchemy, it will fail and you'll store nothing due to not being a Nicrosil ferring for the duration.  If you try to store none, obviously none will be stored.  In the middle, you can store some.  If we knew how store rate/efficiency and tap rate/efficiency scaled with the power of the Feruchemist, we could use math to get more detailed info.

 

On 7/30/2016 at 4:17 AM, Yata said:

I don't think you need to do this. You store your Innate Investure and your SpiritWeb.

You don't actually have to use Steel Allomancy (for example) to store Coinshoot power. You simply store your ability to burn Steel. Like any other Attribute.

The problem is that while storing the ability to be a Coinshot, you can't be steelpushing at the same time at the strength you normally would.

Likewise, while storing the ability to store attributes, you can't store at the same strength you normally would.

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OK. I'm going to try to put my thoughts here despite a headache sapping my mental speed. 

Storing nicrosil shouldn't effect your ability to store nicrosil. While storing in a nicrosilmind your storing your ability to use F. Nicrosil, but for the purposes of storing, like with any attributes, you have a base level of 100‰ and store however much accordingly. If your storing another ability, like F. Iron into nicrosil, and subsequently try to store iron there should be a change because you are effectively changing your base level of power, but when directly storing F. Nicrosil, your only storing an attribute like any other and it shouldn't negatively effect your ability to store.

It would effect your ability to tap, because while your storing an ability, you effect your ability to use that attribute, but by storing, your temporarily removing an ability without changing your baseline strength. Am I making sense? 

If the ability to store nicrosil negatively effected your ability to store, it would be essentially unusable. You would start to store a percentage, which lowers your ability to store and compounds upon itself to accomplish nothing. It has to treat your initial strength as 100‰ and store accordingly, otherwise it would be nearly impossible to store with any amount of speed. 

Edit: and just noticed I responded to a thread necro. I'm going to bed. 

Edited by Calderis
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59 minutes ago, Yitzi2 said:

The problem is that while storing the ability to be a Coinshot, you can't be steelpushing at the same time at the strength you normally would.

Likewise, while storing the ability to store attributes, you can't store at the same strength you normally would.

Yeah sure, and what is the matter?

 

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There's a WoB about weaker Feruchemy that would probably resolve my problems with storing nicrosil:

Quote

Kurkistan

How exactly does hemalurgic decay work for Feruchemy? Is it like a leaky tube or something, or?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah yeah. (Here misunderstanding and thinking that the questions about the power of the Feruchemy itself, not storing/tapping metalminds)

Kurkistan

So they try to store 10 units of health and only 9 gets through, or?

Brandon Sanderson

Hemalurgic decay meaning someone who has been spiked is less powerful? That Hemalurgic decay] or the Hemalurgic decay when a Hemalurgic spike is left outside of blood?

Kurkistan

Less powerful. So like the Inquisitors are less powerful Feruchemists so they had to spend longer storing: so _why_ did they have to spend longer storing?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah they lose a little bit, its a leaky Youre there, exactly. It just doesnt quite its not as efficient: its [an] efficiency thing.

source

So storing nicrosil would not affect the amount they have but the amount that ends up in the metalmind. If you store half of your Iron Feruchemy, you can still make yourself float but only half of that weight would end up in ironmind.

So if you store half of your Nicrosil Feruchemy in nicrosilmind 1 you can still try to store your nicrosil Feruchemy into nicrosilmind 2... but only half of it would end up in nicrosilmind 2. Elegant and simple. And works.

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  • 7 months later...

OK hold up,  Isn’t the medallion tech Nicrosil (Investiture) then ALUMINIUM (Identitity) THEN the power (for convenience? The Identity letting you tap/store nicrosil and the other power, then the Nicrocil letting you fill the other band? That’s how I thought it worked, When the other Kandra talked about Identity and Investiture. Might be mistaken but that’s how I viewed it.

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