Almost Assuredly Bendalloy Coins

[LiquidBlue]

Maybe bendalloy coins do show up in Bands of Morning, but I don't remember them. Surely the south scandrian expeditions traveled with bendalloy minds filled with food and water. Their ships just barely fly, they really don't have any room for supplies of food and water.

Expanding on this...

If there are enough people capable of filling unsealed bendalloy minds, a significant portion of south scandrian nutrition might come from bendalloy coins. A large challenge with getting food to people is both preserving it and transporting it. Feruchemical bendalloy solves these problems. With it, food can be preserved indefinitely, and transportation is both logistically easier and time insensitive.The gains from preventing spoilage may make up for the additional cost of bendalloy. 

It seems like they have already established a system than can produce filled Feruchemical bronze medallions for the population, they might be able to create a similar system to fill Feruchemical bendalloy medallions.

Feruchemical coins may be South Scandrian currency. 

[Calderis]

To your post. It's perfectly feasible and weight efficient. Can definitely see this working with regards to the way the use their tech. 

Now the horrible mental image created by an industrialized bendalloy storing facility. People just constantly gorging themselves and filling medallions to be sent out to the populace. Food, even the best food, would become torturous if it was a constant necessity to just eat and eat and eat. 

[LiquidBlue]

44 minutes ago, Calderis said:

To your post. It's perfectly feasible and weight efficient. Can definitely see this working with regards to the way the use their tech. 

Now the horrible mental image created by an industrialized bendalloy storing facility. People just constantly gorging themselves and filling medallions to be sent out to the populace. Food, even the best food, would become torturous if it was a constant necessity to just eat and eat and eat. 

I had the same image. Industrial farming practices with immediate consumption seems grotesque.

I've been working various scenarios out, and one seized my attention, and leads to a question for Brandon.

If a dysian amian has access to feruchemical abilities, do they apply to all of its constituent hordelings?

I feel that the answer is yes, the feruchemical ability is tied to the spirit web, and is presumably shared by the entire horde. This isn't being used in south scandrial, but a single dysian amian may be able to consume and store in bendalloy metal minds vast amounts of food.

[Weltall]

While bendalloy medallions make perfect sense and probably do exist (even if we didn't see them) for the reasons you suggest, I do want to point out that even with the weight-reduction medallions a factor the airships we've seen are capable of carrying passengers (ie, complete deadweight from an operational perspective) and bombs which presumably weigh a decent amount. It's only the skimmer that seems to be right on the edge of a Cold Equations scenario and that's meant as an emergency escape pod more than a full-fledged vessel. So there's probably enough tolerance built into the larger ships to carry at least some consumables.

[Samaldin]

From what we´ve seen i guess the southeners can´t make allomantic medaillions, like in the Bands, and worship allomancers. I believe this is a clue to the importance of Allomancy for their society and they use compounding to fill the unsealed metalminds. So the Bendalloy facility is probably just some Bendalloy allomancers with medailions who spend their time compounding so they don´t have to continiously eat, but just eat a great deal in the beginning so that the compounding has a better starting point. (Since the "Brass-medaillion fillers" are called Firefathers/-mothers maybe the Bendalloy one are called Hungerfather/-Mother)

[8bitBob]

I've been thinking about topics like this a fair bit lately, and I think it's almost guaranteed F-Bendalloy coins are used extensively (assuming they have the correct metalborn to create them.) The benefits are many and obvious. One thing I suspect is not done though are "feeding factories" like described here:

11 hours ago, Calderis said:

Now the horrible mental image created by an industrialized bendalloy storing facility. People just constantly gorging themselves and filling medallions to be sent out to the populace. Food, even the best food, would become torturous if it was a constant necessity to just eat and eat and eat. 

I suspect that nearly all attribute production is done through compounding, rather than mass storing. Why? Because unless the person doing the storing is a natural or hemalurgically gifted Subsumer, then it means that they would need to constantly be tapping Investiture to store Energy. Why do I think it drains the Nicrosil? Relevant BoM passage:

Quote

He was strong. Incredibly strong. The Bands, still clutched in his left hand, somehow gave him not just Allomancy, but ancient Allomancy. The potency of those who had lived long ago, during the time of the Lord Ruler. Perhaps even more. Was that possible?

What did you create? he wondered. And how long will it last?

His resources were diminishing. Not merely the metals inside of him, but the reserves stored inside the Bands. Stores that changed his level of Investiture.

It's clearly implied by Wax that using the Bands of Mourning drains the stored Investiture, i.e. Nicrosil. Seeing as the BoM is basically just a Super Medallion, I cannot imagine regular medallions not being limited in the same manner.

Now, I suspect that Wax was tapping large quantities at once, which is why they drained so fast, but you would still need to tap at a rate that allows you to be as strong as a regular Ferring if you wanted to store food. Why? Because we know that Hemalurgy granted Feruchemy (meaning weak Feruchemy) is "leaky" when storing, so you lose some of the attributes while storing. Relevant WoB:

Spoiler

INTERVIEW: Feb 22nd, 2016

Calamity-Chicago

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 question’s 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, it’s a leaky… You’re there, exactly. It just doesn’t quite… it’s not as efficient: it’s [an] efficiency thing

This means that, even if everything is 100% efficient, you would need to waste 5 minutes of Nicrosil tapping to store 5 minutes of food consumption. Seeing as Nicrosil is made from Chromium, which is a fairly rare metal, and is required in every medallion to both create the device and compound the Investiture, I suspect it is immediately going to become the most valuable metal on Scadrial.

Because of this, I cannot imagine it would be cost efficient to spend Nicrosil to create Bendalloy reserves. I think it's more likely that almost all metal reserves, including Bendalloy, are created through compounding. This would also result in a net increase in food overall, rather than simply better storage and transport, which is much more desirable.

Edited March 29, 2017 by 8bitBob

[dyring]

Depends on the cost of the different metals.

If Bendalloy is sufficently expensive, then the cost of compounding(since you burn the metal when compounding) would be greater then having people gorging themselves and then storing. On the other hand, if you need to spend nicrosil to refuel the amulets, then the opposit may be true depending on wich of the metals is the more expensive one.

They might be able to setup filling stations for civilians. Its a perfect way to loose weight without having to eat less. It be extremely popular here on earth. Less so in Scadrial I assume, as they wouldent have the obesity problems of the modern world yet. Wonder how efficent it would be.

1 kg of weight is something like 7500 Cal. Wonder if it would be possible to give an amulet to the Scadrial equivalent of the fattest man ever(635 kg´s according to this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_heaviest_people), and store 7500*535= 4012500 Cal, while at the same time giving him a much more healthy weight of 100 kg.

And ofcourse, on a ship like that, crew could propably get by on 2000 Cal or so on average(well, its abit low but easy to count with), meaning that dude alone would provide 2006 daily rations;)

Someone having those amulets on earth would get really really rich..;)

 

Edited March 29, 2017 by dyring

[8bitBob]

28 minutes ago, dyring said:

Depends on the cost of the different metals.

Yeah, that's how I see it. I can't imagine mass storing being efficient if Nicrosil is consumed though. Compounding is just way too efficient at that point.

30 minutes ago, dyring said:

They might be able to setup filling stations for civilians. Its a perfect way to loose weight without having to eat less. It be extremely popular here on earth. Less so in Scadrial I assume, as they wouldent have the obesity problems of the modern world yet.

Uh, did I miss something? I've never seen anything about being able to convert fat into Bendalloy reserves, and I was under the impression that you had to store while you were consuming. Is there a WoB I missed?

[dyring]

 

1 minute ago, 8bitBob said:

Uh, did I miss something? I've never seen anything about being able to convert fat into Bendalloy reserves, and I was under the impression that you had to store while you were consuming. Is there a WoB I missed?

No, honestly I dont know wich. If you store energy and you got energy stored in your body it should work to my mind, same as how you can for example store memories you memorized some time ago in copper, you do not need to store it as you read it. But it might not work too.

The part about  quick dieting was meant mostly humorous.

[Djarskublar]

There is one issue with this approach. Bendalloy stores calories, not nutrition in general. You couldn't survive on tapping alone, you would experience vitamin deficiency. The ships would need to carry supplements. Those are light, though.

Now I'm imagining a fast food joint where you literally pay, touch a medallion on the wall, tap till you're full, and leave. That would be sooo fast.

[8bitBob]

2 minutes ago, Djarskublar said:

There is one issue with this approach. Bendalloy stores calories, not nutrition in general.

This contradicts the Ars Arcanum:

Quote

A bendalloy Ferring is known as a Subsumer. Bendalloy is used to store nutrition and calories. While filling a bendalloymind, a Feruchemist is able to eat large quantities of food without becoming full. Tapping such a metalmind will allow the user to go without food. A separate bendalloymind can be used to store fluid intake.

Is there some WoB that says otherwise?

[The One Who Connects]

6 minutes ago, 8bitBob said:

This contradicts the Ars Arcanum:

Is there some WoB that says otherwise?

I feel like there was a reddit conversation about this, and I distinctly remember "having to store specific vitamins to avoid shortages," but I cannot confirm whether Brandon or another user said it. Give me a minute... or a day, it seems

[Calderis]

Well if it is literally storing as you consume, I'd imagine the nutrients actually being consumed would be stored accurately. So if you survived solely by bendalloy metalminds, and the person filling those metalminds was compounding off of a piece he stored a full cheesecake in, you might run into some issues down the line as you're essentially eating fat and sugar without a huge range of micronutrients. Whereas if someone had stored a full days food supply, with the range of fruits and vegetables and everything else, then used that to fabricate metalminds through compounding, their "customers" would have a much more balanced nutrient intake. 

Edited March 29, 2017 by Calderis

[Farnsworth]

This would be an excellent way to wage war. You just get them foodminds, speedminds, sleepminds, healthminds, and you have an immortal army. 

[Steeldancer]

On 3/29/2017 at 5:21 PM, Figberts said:

This would be an excellent way to wage war. You just get them foodminds, speedminds, sleepminds, healthminds, and you have an immortal army. 

Which would be interesting pitted against a rosharan army with soulcasters