Metal burn rate not adding up [Bands Spoilers]

[Richard Kopelow]

Something that bothered me when reading about Wax flying around using trace metal in the ground while he was tapping the Bands was, how could he get all that steel into his body? If I remember correctly, in HoA it is stated that Elend is more powerful than Vin because he burns metal faster than her so he gets more juice/second. If burn rate is proportional to Allomantic strength than when you tap the Bands to the point Wax was, would you not deplete any metals you use almost instantly?

[Spoolofwhool]

Allomantic strength increases burn rate and investiture per volume burned. His level also might not have been that high. I think steel is a fairly medium burn speed metal; Vin could use a vial for a few hours. 

[The One Who Connects]

The Bands likely had a Nicrosil "Battery" like Medallions do. It's what allow non-powered people to use the powers. I recall someone making a remark about the Bands feeling drained/almost empty towards the end of the book, so perhaps...

[Kurkistan]

2 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Allomantic strength increases burn rate and investiture per volume burned. His level also might not have been that high. I think steel is a fairly medium burn speed metal; Vin could use a vial for a few hours. 

I know you're right here because we have a relatively recent WoB on it, but I can't recall from where... :|

[Spoolofwhool]

28 minutes ago, Kurkistan said:

I know you're right here because we have a relatively recent WoB on it, but I can't recall from where... :|

Here's the WoB:

Quote

Q: Allomantic strength. They are stronger Allomancers, they can burn metal faster right? 

A: Yes, they can also squeeze more power out of it. They can  use it more efficiently. 

Unfortunately, when I posted this in a chat, I failed to link the source. The only note I made was that it was near-verbatim. I think it's Leipzig event since I was just checking it for something else before I posted it. I'll take a look. 

Edit: Bingo. I am an unmitigated genius. 

 

Edited April 7, 2017 by Spoolofwhool

[king of nowhere]

the key concept here is that the bands were so heavily invested. They can be filled insanely because of the tricks of compounding.

- you store your feruchemical power into nicrosil.

- you compound and tap that nicrosil, becoming a more powerful feruchemist

- you store your greater feruchemical powers into nicrosil

- you compound/tap that, and become even more powerful

and the more powerful you become, the less metal you need to achieve the same power. So you probably need some relatively large amount of nicrosil to become all-powerful, but once you reach that point, you can burn a small sliver of metal and get more than elend could get from dozens of vials. compounding allomancy actually works with scale economy,

there is probably an upper limit somewhere to how powerful you can become, but it's very high. so yes, wax was burning really fast, and he would have exhausted an ordinary metalmind in moments, but the stored powers were so vast, they could support him for a while.

the bands were invested so much, in fact, I am surprised they did not develop sentience.

[Richard Kopelow]

I was talking about depleting his Allomantic supply not the bands themselves. But if Allomantic strength increases your efficiency in addition to your burn speed and steel burns for much longer than I was thinking, it makes sense.

[king of nowhere]

4 hours ago, RichardKopelow said:

I was talking about depleting his Allomantic supply not the bands themselves. But if Allomantic strength increases your efficiency in addition to your burn speed and steel burns for much longer than I was thinking, it makes sense.

oh, you were talking about the steel he was burning. makes sense.

except, he wasn't burning steel.

with feruchemy you can store investiture, and a steelpush is investiture. So you can burn steel and, instead of pushing metals, store that steel burn into a metalmind (i believe nicrosil is also the metal for this, but not 100% sure). then you tap the metalmind, and you can steelpush. Wax wasn't burning steel, he was drainig the bands.

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

oh, you were talking about the steel he was burning. makes sense.

except, he wasn't burning steel.

with feruchemy you can store investiture, and a steelpush is investiture. So you can burn steel and, instead of pushing metals, store that steel burn into a metalmind (i believe nicrosil is also the metal for this, but not 100% sure). then you tap the metalmind, and you can steelpush. Wax wasn't burning steel, he was drainig the bands.

Nicrosil stores the ability to perform allomancy, not the investiture obtained from burning. He steals some vials of metal from the allomancers of the Set and swallows them to burn. No feruchemical power is known to be able to do what you describe. 

[king of nowhere]

31 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Nicrosil stores the ability to perform allomancy, not the investiture obtained from burning. He steals some vials of metal from the allomancers of the Set and swallows them to burn. No feruchemical power is known to be able to do what you describe. 

really?  i got it wrong the whole time then. well ok, by making yourself a more powerful feruchemist you can fill to burst your metalmind of "becoming an allomancer", and by becoming a very powerful allomancer you can get a lot of power from little metal, so the explanation still holds.

[Spoolofwhool]

21 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

really?  i got it wrong the whole time then. well ok, by making yourself a more powerful feruchemist you can fill to burst your metalmind of "becoming an allomancer", and by becoming a very powerful allomancer you can get a lot of power from little metal, so the explanation still holds.

Indeed, which brings us back to the crux of the problem, as increasing your allomantic power increases your burn rate as well as investiture per volume burned ratio. 

[+hwiles]

On 4/7/2017 at 6:25 PM, Spoolofwhool said:

Nicrosil stores the ability to perform allomancy, not the investiture obtained from burning. He steals some vials of metal from the allomancers of the Set and swallows them to burn. No feruchemical power is known to be able to do what you describe. 

Your statement is correct, however, I believe there's a WoB out there that, similar to how allomancy can be used to "fuel" feruchemy, feruchemy should theoretically, in some fashion, be able to be used to "fuel" allomancy.  When you drain a metalmind, you're pulling Investiture into your physical form that is, by virtue of its focus metal, in the correct "shape" to be used for its corresponding allomantic power.

For example a steel compounder should theoretically be able to fuel, or possibly augment, their steel pushing by drawing on their steelminds in lieu of burning/flaring their swallowed steel reserves.

Pretty sure the physics/quirks of this process aren't canon yet and haven't officially appeared on-screen, so for the time being it's not a good explanation for how Wax used the Bands, but it could become a retroactive explanation in the future.  Though the more elegant explanation will probably always be: "There were a lot of steel flakes in the vials he stole" 

[Spoolofwhool]

31 minutes ago, hwiles said:

Your statement is correct, however, I believe there's a WoB out there that, similar to how allomancy can be used to "fuel" feruchemy, feruchemy should theoretically, in some fashion, be able to be used to "fuel" allomancy.  When you drain a metalmind, you're pulling Investiture into your physical form that is, by virtue of its focus metal, in the correct "shape" to be used for its corresponding allomantic power.

For example a steel compounder should theoretically be able to fuel, or possibly augment, their steel pushing by drawing on their steelminds in lieu of burning/flaring their swallowed steel reserves.

Pretty sure the physics/quirks of this process aren't canon yet and haven't officially appeared on-screen, so for the time being it's not a good explanation for how Wax used the Bands, but it could become a retroactive explanation in the future.  Though the more elegant explanation will probably always be: "There were a lot of steel flakes in the vials he stole" 

You are, of course, 100% correct. However, everything you have just described lies entirely outside the scope of the statement I was addressing, as well as my answer. I'm well aware of the fact that any manifestation of investiture can be fueled by any investiture. The statement and answer however, was addressing the actual storing of allomantic power obtained from burning into metalminds. 

[DocHoliday]

Steel and Iron actually are some of the faster burning metals

22 hours ago, hwiles said:

Your statement is correct, however, I believe there's a WoB out there that, similar to how allomancy can be used to "fuel" feruchemy, feruchemy should theoretically, in some fashion, be able to be used to "fuel" allomancy.  When you drain a metalmind, you're pulling Investiture into your physical form that is, by virtue of its focus metal, in the correct "shape" to be used for its corresponding allomantic power.

For example a steel compounder should theoretically be able to fuel, or possibly augment, their steel pushing by drawing on their steelminds in lieu of burning/flaring their swallowed steel reserves.

Pretty sure the physics/quirks of this process aren't canon yet and haven't officially appeared on-screen, so for the time being it's not a good explanation for how Wax used the Bands, but it could become a retroactive explanation in the future.  Though the more elegant explanation will probably always be: "There were a lot of steel flakes in the vials he stole" 

I believe you are thinking of Nicrosil Tapping, and we HAVE seen it on screen in Mistborn. TLR Taps his Nicrosil and augments his Steelpush to pummel poor Vin. However the actual mechanics of what he did hasn't been explained.

Best guess, he had actual Steel in his stomach, and simply Pushedwhile Tapping

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, DocHoliday said:

I believe you are thinking of Nicrosil Tapping, and we HAVE seen it on screen in Mistborn. TLR Taps his Nicrosil and augments his Steelpush to pummel poor Vin. However the actual mechanics of what he did hasn't been explained.

Best guess, he had actual Steel in his stomach, and simply Pushedwhile Tapping

No, he's talking about using the feruchemical charge to fuel allomancy, which is theoretically possible as any magic system can be fueled by any type of investiture. 

[DocHoliday]

Sure, but the the main issue therein is that Allowmancy needs the "key" to tell whatever Investiture your using what form it's sopposed to take.

I never TLR was burning Steel, only that it was in his stomach, using it to give the form for the Investiture he had to Tap.

Am I misinterpreting something?

[Spoolofwhool]

9 minutes ago, DocHoliday said:

Sure, but the the main issue therein is that Allowmancy needs the "key" to tell whatever Investiture your using what form it's sopposed to take.

I never TLR was burning Steel, only that it was in his stomach, using it to give the form for the Investiture he had to Tap.

Am I misinterpreting something?

Yes. Any manifestation of investiture can be powered by any type of investiture. At its root, all types of investiture are the same, and at their roots, all manifestations of investiture just require investiture to function. However, they default to accepting and using a specific type, which in allomancy's case is Preservation's power filtered through metal. In theory however, you could hack allomancy and power it using something, such as a feruchemical charge. Presumably this hack would also include manipulating the investiture and allomancy so that the appropriate power is produced, without using a metal to filter the power into the appropriate power. 

For example, allomancy regularly is like buying a game digitally. You pay the price and download the game then play it. Hacking allomancy and powering it with a feruchemical charge is like buying a physical game online. You pay the price, then you wait for the game to arrive. When it does, you realize you don't have a disk-drive on your computer, so you go out and get out. Then you have to install it, download the drivers. Finally you get to install the game and download it. The net result of both paths is the same. You have a game, and you can play it. The effort and cost is marginally higher, but perhaps you're afforded a bit more flexibility, such as if you lived in a place with no internet. 

[The One Who Connects]

4 hours ago, DocHoliday said:

I believe you are thinking of Nicrosil Tapping, and we HAVE seen it on screen in Mistborn. TLR Taps his Nicrosil and augments his Steelpush to pummel poor Vin. However the actual mechanics of what he did hasn't been explained.

Whether the Lord Ruler had any Nicrosil on him has never been confirmed. He certainly knew of it, but he hid the existence of both it and Chromium to keep his Inquisitors from having tools to use against him.

It stands to reason that he did not use it for that reason. Besides, he didn't have to use Nicrosil. He became much more powerful than even a Lerasium bead could make him when he used the Well. Vin can pierce Copperclouds with one small spike, I don't see why the power of Preservation itself couldn't let him overcome innate investiture.

Every time we ask about his great strength in Allomancy, Brandon directs us back to the Well. TLR specifically made himself super strong in Allomancy, and we know that his Soothing could only be matched by Elend with Duralumin.

If I recall correctly the Bands drained rather quickly, while TLR could soothe a hundred thousand people for several hours. I just don't see him somehow having an even larger Nicrosil battery store than the Bands did.

Edit; Better argument: The Inquisitors can see metal inside people's bodies after becoming Savants (they had to learn that way, while a normal savant wouldn't, but..) They only needed 1 A-Steel & 1 A-Iron Spike for this. TLR was far more powerful than one extra spike, so he could push on it with ease.

Edited April 11, 2017 by The One Who Connects
Realization