Theory: Allomancers can compound feruchemical charges

[8bitBob]

Gotcha, sorry for the mistake.

16 minutes ago, Vecna said:

As for the burning/tapping - is he burning burning or compounding burning?  Because the latter is functionally equivalent to tapping in my mind.

If I am understanding your question, you're asking is he burning the goldmind for its Allomatic effect or its Feruchemical effect? I assume for the Feruchemical effect, seeing as it's healing him. I actually assume it's impossible to burn a metalmind as regular metal if you can compound it.

[Vecna]

Just now, 8bitBob said:

Gotcha, sorry for the mistake.

If I am understanding your question, you're asking is he burning the goldmind for its Allomatic effect or its Feruchemical effect? I assume for the Feruchemical effect, seeing as it's healing him. I actually assume it's impossible to burn a metalmind as regular metal if you can compound it.

Yep - that's what I was assuming as well.

I need to go and reread the passage where he does actually use A-Gold to see if it implies he burns a metalmind, some gold flakes, just some spare gold he has in his system (presumably to make into a metalmind later on or a metalmind he's emptied) - that might shed more light on if you can just get the Allomancy out of a metalmind if you're a Compounder (I also assume you cannot).

[8bitBob]

6 minutes ago, Vecna said:

I need to go and reread the passage where he does actually use A-Gold to see if it implies he burns a metalmind, some gold flakes, just some spare gold he has in his system

Quote

He turned, studying his domain, such as it was. Thieves, murderers, and braggarts. He took a deep breath, then burned gold.

It was considered one of the least of the Allomantic metals. Far less useful than its alloy, which was in turn far less useful than one of the prime battle metals. In most cases, being a gold Misting was little better than being an aluminum Misting—a power so useless, it had become proverbial for one who did nothing.

There's no context where this gold comes from or what shape it is, but he simply refers to it as gold here, whereas earlier he says that he's constantly tapping goldminds, not gold. Keep in mind, all he has to do to burn a goldmind Allomatically is transfer all of the health inside to another goldmind, rendering it plain gold to burn. Not that big of a deal for a true Twinborn.

[Vecna]

1 minute ago, 8bitBob said:

There's no context where this gold comes from or what shape it is, but he simply refers to it as gold here, whereas earlier he says that he's constantly tapping goldminds, not gold. Keep in mind, all he has to do to burn a goldmind Allomatically is transfer all of the health inside to another goldmind, rendering it plain gold to burn. Not that big of a deal for a true Twinborn.

Aye - agreed.

I wonder, actually, if Intent plays a part.  We know that it is involved in much, if not all, uses of Investiture - can you Intend to only use the Allomantic effect or does the filtering of the Feruchemy charge always kick in?

[8bitBob]

4 minutes ago, Vecna said:

I wonder, actually, if Intent plays a part.  We know that it is involved in much, if not all, uses of Investiture - can you Intend to only use the Allomantic effect or does the filtering of the Feruchemy charge always kick in?

My interpretation is that it's automatic, though I don't have any proof that Intent doesn't play a part. Allomancy is described as instinctive, and the effect of the Investiture is said to be shaped by passing through the metal, not by the intent of the Allomancer. It just seems natural to me that the user wouldn't have any direct, conscious control over this process.

[Djarskublar]

I'm late to this party, but I'm with 8bit here. I would like to add one WoB I obtained a few weeks ago, though it is lateish and I'm feeling ill, so I'll just summarize rather than dig it up.

Me: Could you withdraw Breaths from an awakened object if the person who Awakened it had a blank Identity at the time he Awakened the thing.

Brandon: (hems and haws)

Me: What about both of them being blank?

Brandon: (still pretty reluctant about answering something about Identity in an open Q&A) Yeah, that should work. (goes into a fairly long discussion that boils down to many powers would be accessible if one party is Identity blanked, and almost all can be used if both parties are blank. I assume that the exception would be Surgebinding because of bonds making things difficult)

I think of Identity as a literal key. If power matches your Identity, it goes through the locks on your soul and the power reaches you. If the power is keyed to someone else, the power just runs up against a different lock and can't enter you, but you can still feel the power pushing up against you, like Vin does when she burns the metalmind. If you have no Identity on the power, it is like the power is a key with no teeth, a bare tiny cylinder of metal that will slot into most any lock. If you have no Identity, it is like your lock is just a massive circle, able to accept almost any shape with room to spare. There would only be a few keys or locks that would require both cases to be true, but they are possible. Also, sometimes spren just block the key anyway.

So for this specific example, when you burn the unkeyed metalmind, you get a flow of power (that is compounded because the Allomancy is powering it, rather than just returning 1:1). This flow of power can enter you since the power has had the teeth of its key stripped off. I'm not 100% sure how to reconcile getting normal allomantic power from burning a metalmind that is keyed to someone else, but I would just guess that the power wants to enter you properly, so it bucks off the feruchemical filtering and gives you allomantic power. That is definitely something I would like to clarify with Brandon, since it looks like that part of the relevant WoB may have just been something added to an afterthought that isn't actually accurate. He has certainly misspoken in the past.

[The One Who Connects]

14 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

I'm not 100% sure how to reconcile getting normal allomantic power from burning a metalmind that is keyed to someone else, but I would just guess that the power wants to enter you properly, so it bucks off the feruchemical filtering and gives you allomantic power. That is definitely something I would like to clarify with Brandon, since it looks like that part of the relevant WoB may have just been something added to an afterthought that isn't actually accurate. He has certainly misspoken in the past.

To use your own analogy, the identity is the key. The Metalminds have two doorways, an Allomanctic one and a Feruchemical one. Compounding opens both doors, but when the Metalmind isn't yours and the metal is viable: it only opens one door because the locks aren't the same. That path is the Allomantic one, so you get that power, separate from the Feruchemy, but you can still feel it pressing against the door.

Does that make sense or have I misinterpreted in some way?

Edited March 12, 2017 by The One Who Connects
Wrong word

[Djarskublar]

Sounds good. I guess that works for me, then. I take it you liked the analogy, too.

[8bitBob]

On 3/11/2017 at 10:29 PM, Djarskublar said:

I'm late to this party, but I'm with 8bit here. I would like to add one WoB I obtained a few weeks ago, though it is lateish and I'm feeling ill, so I'll just summarize rather than dig it up.

Me: Could you withdraw Breaths from an awakened object if the person who Awakened it had a blank Identity at the time he Awakened the thing.

Brandon: (hems and haws)

Me: What about both of them being blank?

Brandon: (still pretty reluctant about answering something about Identity in an open Q&A) Yeah, that should work. (goes into a fairly long discussion that boils down to many powers would be accessible if one party is Identity blanked, and almost all can be used if both parties are blank. I assume that the exception would be Surgebinding because of bonds making things difficult)

Thanks for this. It's certainly interesting, and also lends credence to the original theory of the thread if it's assumed that many powers can be accessed via Identity manipulation. I'd love to see the full WoB if you have it on hand. Identity is swiftly becoming a fascinating topic for me.

On 3/11/2017 at 10:29 PM, Djarskublar said:

I think of Identity as a literal key. If power matches your Identity, it goes through the locks on your soul and the power reaches you.

I think of Identity as a sort of Investiture "Wavelength" rather than a key for access, where Investiture can only interact if it's tuned to the right station, so to speak. The metaphor slightly falls apart when it comes to unkeyed Investiture, but this would be the equivalent of broadcasting on all stations.

The reason I like this interpretation is because it removes any associated "role" for different things in this process. Neither Investiture is a "key" or "lock" but rather two things that have rules on how they can interact. It removes any need for a soul to be involved too, which explains why two Feruchemists can store in the same Metalmind because the Investiture doesn't interact.

Under this interpretation, the reason you get regular Allomancy when burning a Metalmind that is keyed to someone else is simply because the Investitures aren't interacting, so the Feruchemical charge cannot shape the magic, but the Allomancy Investiture is still passing through the metal to be shaped.

[Pattern]

On 13.3.2017 at 2:45 PM, 8bitBob said:

The reason I like this interpretation is because it removes any associated "role" for different things in this process. Neither Investiture is a "key" or "lock" but rather two things that have rules on how they can interact. It removes any need for a soul to be involved too, which explains why two Feruchemists can store in the same Metalmind because the Investiture doesn't interact.

I would be careful to draw this conclusion, since a soul is Investiture:

Spoiler

Interview: Mar 20th, 2014

WOR Signing Report - IronCaf (Paraphrased)

Chris_from_Warrenton

Would it be possible to Soulforge NIghtblood and change the command that was given to him when he was Invested?

Brandon Sanderson

That is possible. That would actually not be a very difficult Soulforge. The problem is, he's Invested. So reInvesting him, which is what Soulforgery is, is really hard. So you'd have to figure out how you could use Forgery on something that is already Invested. But forgery can get through some of those hoops a lot easier than some other magic systems can.

Chris_from_Warrenton

Do you have to be a willing subject to be Soulforged?

Brandon Sanderson

You do not. Working with the soul is really hard though. You have to be a supreme expert in what you're doing, because soul is Investiture

I guess the attributes stored by two identity-blank Feruchemists would just add up (superimpose) in a metalmind, the different souls involved being temporarily indistinguishable. This would be analogous to the which-way-problem in quantum mechanics, where interference between two paths can only occur as long as it it unknown which path actually is taken.

So when the Investiture knows which soul stored them, they won't interact.