Allomantic Nicrosil ("nicrobursting")

[+robardin]

In Mistborn Era 1, we see Mistborn like Vin and Elend discovering Allomantic  duralumin (mega-bursts and uses up all reserves for other metals being burned with it).

 

Vin, who is not as strong an Allomancer as the lerasium-created Elend, needs to use a duralumin stack to Soothe or Riot strongly enough to take control of koloss or kandra, where Elend does not. And when Elend uses duralumin, hoo boy. Either way, it "levels up" what the Allomancer could do with that metal even at maximum flare.

 

We are introduced to Leechers and Nicrobursts in Era 2, as chromium and its alloy nicrosil were only discovered after the Catacendre. They are the "external" versions of aluminum and duralumin, where the Mistings of those metals can drain another Allomancer of metal reserves, or do the bursty-stacky thing to someone else.

 

Given the "leveling up" effect we saw in Era 1, and the asbsence of any natural Mistborn in Era 2, you'd think Nicrobursts would be in VERY high demand (especially in the constabulary forces that Marasi is a part of). Somehow we haven't seen one yet in any of the three Era 2 books, though we have seen Leechers (the guy on the train who uses the ettmetal cube as a "Leecher grenade", and Edwarn/Suit having stolen the ability through hemalurgy). But they should be exactly as common as Leechers, or as any other type of Misting (they're all equally common, right? Including the unfortunate "Allomantic gnats"?).

 

Furthermore, the Ars Arcanum entry on nicrobursting mentions that "this can cause issues with metals such as tin, where the mental overload can cause unconsciousness". Also sounds like fun.

 

I'd really like to start seeing both of these uses happen: the "stacking" and the "disrupting" aspects of nicrobursting!

 

And, might there be any extended uses of A-nicrosil?

 

Nicrobursting and Compounding. While ultra-rare, Compounding Twinborn like Miles (gold/gold) do exist, who can burn their own metalminds for a 10x return on the Feruchemical attribute stored therein.

 

And it stands to reason that following the discovery of "unkeyed" metalminds as of "The Bands of Mourning", even ordinary Mistings can now access Feruchemical power (even if they couldn't store the "excess" back into other metalminds and would have to be quite fine with their "burn rate"). Well, what if they were nicrobursted while doing so?

 

When tapping a pewtermind for strength, the Feruchemist physically "Hulks out", and per the Coppermind, "it's possible for a feruchemist to tap so much tha their girth makes it difficult to maneuver."

 

So, imagine a Pewterarm finding an unkeyed pewtermind, ingesting it thinking it was ordinary pewter, then getting an unexpected shock of physical growth when he burns it... And then a Nicroburst lying in wait zaps him to burn the entire pewtermind in one burst. Boom, an immobile tortoise of muscle! LOL!

 

Nicrobursting and... Nicrobursting? What if you chained nicrosbursts together? I'm hoping for something like this:

 

 

Actually, I don't think nicrobursting a nicroburst to try to "mega-burst" a third Allomancer would do more than a straight up one-level nicroburst, because by definition, the burst is releasing the target Allomancer's metal stores all at once, right? But it's fun to imagine all the same.

 

 

 

[Calderis]

6 hours ago, robardin said:

And it stands to reason that following the discovery of "unkeyed" metalminds as of "The Bands of Mourning", even ordinary Mistings can now access Feruchemical power (even if they couldn't store the "excess" back into other metalminds and would have to be quite fine with their "burn rate"). Well, what if they were nicrobursted while doing so?

The medallions grant Feruchemy of type crafted to the wearer. The metal within it is only added for convenience for a place to tap/store. And they can store, as the use of the iron medallions is  the airship shows. 

So as long as the nicrosil portion of the medallion hold out, they should be able to compound in truth. 

6 hours ago, robardin said:

Actually, I don't think nicrobursting a nicroburst to try to "mega-burst" a third Allomancer would do more than a straight up one-level nicroburst, because by definition, the burst is releasing the target Allomancer's metal stores all at once, right? But it's fun to imagine all the same.

This may actually be viable, as nicrosil and duralumin are not a one-to-one thing. It's been implied that nicrosil is a slower burn/boost. 

Spoilered for length. 

Spoiler

Kirrin

Also, you should tell us what the last two metals are.

Brandon Sanderson

The last two metals are Chromium and Nicrosil. We'll reveal what they do on the Allomancy poster. Suffice it to say that in the next trilogy, the main protagonist would be a Nicrosil Misting. And, to make a Robert Jordan-type comment, what those two metals do should become obvious to the serious student of Allomancy... (It has to do with the nature of the metal groupings.)

Happy Man

If I read the poster correctly, and have the correlations down, these metals are the external enhancement metals.

The simplest idea is that they do to another person what Aluminum and Duralumin do to the Allomancer burning them. If this is true, then Chromium would destroy another Allomancer's metals (useful skill, that, especially in a group of Mistings fighting a Mistborn) while Nicrosil would cause the target's metals that are currently burning to be burned in a brief, intense flash. This could be used either to enhance a group of Mistings or to seriously mess up an enemy Allomancer.

Peter Ahlstrom

The other metals do not have exact one-to-one power correlations like that, so it seems more likely to me that they would work differently. It could be like an area effect weakening or enhancing spell. You would want an enhancer in your party, and you wouldn't want to go up against a weakener.

Nicrosil is a rather more complicated alloy than the others. It's an interesting one to pick, rather than something simpler like nichrome (though I guess that's actually a brand name)

Brandon Sanderson

Nicely done.

Ookla is right, the others don't have 1/1 correlations. But I liked this concept far too much not to use it.

In a future book series, Mistborn will also have become things of legend. The bloodlines will have become diluted to the point that there are no Mistborn, only Mistings—however, the latter are far more common. In this environment, a Nicrosil Misting could be invaluable both as an enhancer to your own team or a weapon to use against unsuspecting other Mistings.

Douglas

I take it either Spook did not have children or Sazed made him a reduced-strength Mistborn rather than giving him the full potency of the 9 originals and Elend?

Brandon Sanderson

Spook is a reduced power Mistborn.

Chaos

Very interesting about the Nicrosil.

So, if there is no more atium, then that would mean in any future trilogy, there would only be 14 metals, right? Somehow, that doesn't seem right, but maybe that is because it irks me that one quartet to be left incomplete with the absence of atium.

Would it be possible for Sazed to create a replacement metal, by chance, or will the temporal quartet remain inherently empty? It doesn't seem like it's too far of a stretch for Sazed to make more metals: after all, the metal Elend ate was a fragment of Preservation, and now Sazed holds Preservation.

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid. Suffice it to say that what the characters think they understand about the metals, they don't QUITE get right. If you study the interaction between the temporal metals, you might notice an inconsistency in the way they work...

Peter Ahlstrom

Uh-huh. That was already noticed by theorizers in the forums here. Gold works like Malatium and Electrum works like Atium. Yet they're on opposite corners of the metal square.

Brandon Sanderson

Ah. I wondered if that had been noticed.

source

While that WoB is 10 years old, so things may have changed some, it still implies that duralumin and nicrosil won't simply be a matched internal/external pair. 

So a chain of nicroburst may very well function like you imagine. 

[LH1407]

10 hours ago, robardin said:

So, imagine a Pewterarm finding an unkeyed pewtermind, ingesting it thinking it was ordinary pewter, then getting an unexpected shock of physical growth when he burns it... And then a Nicroburst lying in wait zaps him to burn the entire pewtermind in one burst. Boom, an immobile tortoise of muscle! LOL!

 

Doesn't the person have to recognise the metalmind? In BoM, the main characters are holding metalminds like Kelsier's coin and the Bands of Mourning themselves but they can't access the power until they realise what it is.

[Yata]

38 minutes ago, LH1407 said:

Doesn't the person have to recognise the metalmind? In BoM, the main characters are holding metalminds like Kelsier's coin and the Bands of Mourning themselves but they can't access the power until they realise what it is.

Yeah unwilling Compound is impossible and also willing It's not automatic.

[+robardin]

6 hours ago, Yata said:

Yeah unwilling Compound is impossible and also willing It's not automatic.

I am not so sure.

I thought the part where one had to recognize an unkeyed metalmind in order to tap it, as per the medallions or the "coppermind coin" that Hoid flipped to Wax, was part of being able to use the unkeyed nicrosilmind that granted one the Feruchemical ability to tap the other metalmind (i.e., the nicrosil ring in the coin that granted F-copper so Wax could then tap the unkeyed coppermind - he had to realize the nicrosil ring was a nicrosilmind that would give him F-copper for it to do so).

But when Wayne picked up the unkeyed goldmind, as someone who already had F-gold natively, he recognized it as such right away - "Maaaate, it's someone else's goldmind, but I can use it."

I think the right scene to compare it to would be when Vin tries to burn one of Sazed's metalminds, and senses something additional there (the Investiture) that she can't access, due to Sazed's Identity being associated with it. But a Misting who tried to burn an unkeyed metalmind wouldn't have that barrier.

The only question is, would it even be possible to burn an unkeyed metalmind, and NOT release the Investiture therein, or to burn it with the embedded Investiture and NOT have it Compound? I can see how it might be the case that "unavoidable Compounding is not a thing", but I can also totally see how it WOULD be a thing.

 

 

Edited February 23, 2018 by robardin

[+robardin]

14 hours ago, Calderis said:

The medallions grant Feruchemy of type crafted to the wearer. The metal within it is only added for convenience for a place to tap/store. And they can store, as the use of the iron medallions is  the airship shows. 

So as long as the nicrosil portion of the medallion hold out, they should be able to compound in truth. 

Ah, but my point was that a Misting may not need a medallion to Compound. The technology behind whatever creates the medallions, that can create unkeyed metalminds (and which the Set apparently already had, even before discovering the existence of medallions), is all you need, because Compounding is the act of allomantically burning a metal with a feruchemical store of an attribute, resulting in a 10x release of that attribute.

Normally, you'd need to be a Feruchemist both to access the metalmind (identity restriction) and to tap it (to use the stored attribute).

We've seen Vin be able to burn Sazed's pewtermind as ordinary pewter, while sensing something else there that she couldn't access, which Sazed explained as being the same reason that another Feruchemist couldn't tap his pewtermind, either - the identity restriction.

We've seen that unkeyed metalminds mean any Feruchemist with the ability to do so can tap them for the stored attribute.

So, was Vin's inability to access Sazed's metalmind via Allomancy ONLY because of the identity issue, or ALSO because she wasn't able to touch it Feruchemically? Because the identity issue is now removable.

Edited February 23, 2018 by robardin

[Calderis]

21 minutes ago, robardin said:

So, was Vin's inability to burn Sazed's metalmind ONLY because of the identity issue, or ALSO because she wasn't able to touch it Feruchemically? Because the identity issue is now removable.

Ah, I did misunderstand and I see now. 

And that's a good question. My gut reaction is that it's not just identity... But I think my gut is wrong. The power is already in the metal, so while yes she wouldn't be able to store the power, if it weren't blocked from her she may have been able to burn it... I do however think that just like she couldn't sense the pool without looking for it, she wouldn't be able to accidentally compound even if it had been unkeyed. 

I see where your brain went now, and good question. I haven't see it asked before. Thinking about it more though, I absolutely believe that identity was the only issue there because of this WoB. 

Quote

Kurkistan

If you spiked out Miles' Feruchemical gold, would he be able to burn his Allomantic reserves [read: Feruchemical reserves using Allomancy] and heal it back?

Brandon Sanderson

If you spiked out his ability to heal gold and somehow left him alive?

Kurkistan

Yeah, but still having Allomancy.

Brandon Sanderson

Still has Allomancy...

Kurkistan

And he’s like in the middle of burning a goldmind.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that would still work. It'd still have a Spiritual Connection to him.

Kurkistan

So if you're a Coinshot and you get [spiked] to have Feruchemical steel, and then you lose the spike after making a store, you can still Compound that for speed?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes... Yeah, that should still work.

Kurkistan

Was Paalm doing that?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO.

source

Having the identity keyed to Miles would allow him to burn his gold for healing even after his Feruchemy were spiked out (if he somehow survived). So if that power weren't identity locked in the first place and your aware that it's there to use... 

[+robardin]

2 hours ago, Calderis said:

Having the identity keyed to Miles would allow him to burn his gold for healing even after his Feruchemy were spiked out (if he somehow survived). So if that power weren't identity locked in the first place and your aware that it's there to use... 

But is the "need to be aware it's there to use" a requirement to access the investiture in an unkeyed metalmind in general, or a requirement to tap a nicrosilmind specifically?

The part where Wax is only able to access the coppermind in the coin at the end of BoM is ambiguous. He'd handled and examined the coin in detail before, but only after he'd been introduced to the idea of the medallions did he notice the coin was copper and possibly nicrosil, and thought to himself "maybe this worked like a medallion" -- at which point "as soon as he thought of it - as soon as he knew what it might do - the metalmind started working, and he found a store within him, a reserve he could tap [F-copper, the ability to tap the coppermind - a "store" of that Ferring-ness that would dwindle with use]".

The way I read it is that where "tapping" a metalmind usually involves intent on the part of the Feruchemist, that intent is conveyed as a component of the "spiritual connection" mentioned in that WoB you quoted how a "spiked Miles" who'd had F-gold stolen from him could still Allomantically burn his goldminds from earlier for healing. And a "spiritual connection" is linked to identity.

But for an unkeyed metalmind, maybe it latches on purely to intent to form the connection? (Which is different, I guess, from the "Connection" that allows for "translation to locally predominant language" medallions to work?)

Anyway, that's veering off into a different topic of "how do the medallions work, exactly?" - maybe a simpler way to boil this particular question down would be: could a Compounder burn his/her own metalmind as an ordinary allomantic metal without "using" the feruchemical store? (If we assume that an "unkeyed" metalmind for an Allomancer of that metal is essentially equivalent to a Twinborn Compounder or Fullborn using their own metalmind); and, if so, would it take a special action to avoid Compounding, or a special action to do the Compounding?

 

Edited February 23, 2018 by robardin

[Calderis]

@robardin I'm of the opinion that compounding isn't something that can happen accidentally. I don't think there's enough evidence to definitively say that either way though. 

[+robardin]

13 minutes ago, Calderis said:

@robardin I'm of the opinion that compounding isn't something that can happen accidentally. I don't think there's enough evidence to definitively say that either way though. 

Burning a metalmind might be similar to eating a Tootsie Pop, where the feruchemical store in the metalmind can be "burned around" if it's not completely saturated. Literally.

The mass of the metalmind limits how much you can store in it, which suggests some kind of actual physical limitation, and it's been stated by Brandon that two Feruchemists could store in the same metalmind - it'd just end up "compartmentalized" between the two stores in the same object. But if one could burn up the metalmind completely without releasing the feruchemical investiture, that feels wrong too, since isn't Allomancy of Preservation, and that feels like a "net loss" of Investiture?

In other words, I'm thinking Vin's experiment with burning Sazed's little earring stud pewtermind (that was not completely full) should have resulted in her pooping out an even tinier bit of pewter that Sazed could have tapped out to retrieve his stored strength. (Ew.)

Is there then an Allomantic equivalent to "tasting" the feruchemical store in the metal and then to instinctively be able to "burn around it", or would it take training?

 

[Calderis]

10 minutes ago, robardin said:

But if one could burn up the metalmind completely without releasing the feruchemical investiture, that feels wrong too, since isn't Allomancy of Preservation, and that feels like a "net loss" of Investiture?

And that's where I disagree. I don't believe anything is lost. 

In normal Allomancy, Preservation's investiture flows in and is shaped by the metal structure to be expressed as the corresponding power. 

In compounding, that same investiture flows in and is shaped by the feruchemical power stored... But that stored power isn't actually what's being used. It's being "burnt" along with the metal (and all of that investiture, directly used or not, returns to the spiritual realm.) you are effectively making a new allomantic metal. 

So, at least in the way I understand it, in the event of burning a metalmind without accessing the stored trait, Preservation's power just bypasses the storage and flows through the metal as normal, and the stored trait disapates the same as in proper compounding.

I may very well be wrong, but that's the way that I see it.