Compounding Copper

[Quantus]

OK, I know this question has been RAFO'd more than once because it's a Compounding question, so Im more curious what people's current thoughts on it are since we won't have a definitive answer.  The only particularly relevant WOB I found was This One that says Compounding Copper would "do some things", as compared to Aluminum Identity that wouldnt give you much. 

 

Normally compounding works because you are "hacking" the two systems together, you are able to make the external Investiture from Preservation (via the metal burning) to resonate and behave the way feruchemy treats/stores it.  But unlike every other metal, the investiture that copper stores is specific and unique, they are actual memories that were specifically chosen for storage, degrade when removed, etc. rather than just some commodity energy like Heat or Breath. 

So if you used compounding to fill a coppermind, what memories would you find in there? Would it just duplicate the original feruchemical memory over and over, givng you multiple copies (would be helpful to counter the degradation)?  Would it be the same memory but clarified and "perfected" because it was exposed to a direct conduit to the Spiritual Realm?  Rather than just that specific memory, might it make a detailed imprint of your entire intellect (the way comic books love to do whenever somebody wants to make an AI)? Or would it just be investiture that you couldnt recover because the memory "files" that they store are all blank?  

 

Thoughts?  This seems like an issue unique to Copper, since none of the others store anything as specific with the investiture.  Unless Bendalloy is storing the specific nutrients that are being eaten?  Does a Subsumer still need to eat a balanced diet, or does it fulfill all their various nutritional needs once its gone through a Pure Investiture stage?  If a Subsumer eats nothing but potatoes will they need vitamin supplements?

[Ashertliden]

24 minutes ago, Quantus said:

So if you used compounding to fill a coppermind, what memories would you find in there?

How exactly do you plan on going about this? As far as I know compounding destroys a metalmind, and releases the stores of the metalmind. When tapping a copper mind, the memories are returned to YOUR mind, not stored. I figure that compounding copper either gives you the memory back more clearly, or lets you retain it permanently. Either way I fail to see how you use it to fill a coppermind.

 

24 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Does a Subsumer still need to eat a balanced diet, or does it fulfill all their various nutritional needs once its gone through a Pure Investiture stage?  If a Subsumer eats nothing but potatoes will they need vitamin supplements?

As for the Subsumer question, I assume they will need a balanced diet, but I we just don't think we know enough yet to answer that.

Edited September 26, 2018 by Kal-Eldin

[Dunkum]

18 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Thoughts?  This seems like an issue unique to Copper, since none of the others store anything as specific with the investiture.  Unless Bendalloy is storing the specific nutrients that are being eaten?  Does a Subsumer still need to eat a balanced diet, or does it fulfill all their various nutritional needs once its gone through a Pure Investiture stage?  If a Subsumer eats nothing but potatoes will they need vitamin supplements?

Pretty sure Bendalloy can be used to store specific nutrients, i think it works a lot like Tin where you store one specific facet to a specific metalmind (though do we know if that is a requirement, or just how Sazed liked to do it to keep things organized?).  the difference then would be that a coppermind stores any/all memories together, not just one memory per metalmind. so even if bendalloy is specific nutrients, i think they are generally being stored in a different way than copper does.

also, regarding the imprinting whole intellect question, remember that compounding comes up when you retrieve the attribute, not while you are storing, so all that added investiture just gives you more stuff to store, but doesn't change how or what you are storing. I can't imagine that there is a way to take that (pre-formed) investiture and turn it into something more complicated than it was when you started.  I think if you wanted to do something like copy your whole mind to a coppermind you would have to completely lose all memory of yourself....

[Calderis]

5 hours ago, Kal-Eldin said:

How exactly do you plan on going about this? As far as I know compounding destroys a metalmind, and releases the stores of the metalmind. When tapping a copper mind, the memories are returned to YOUR mind, not stored. I figure that compounding copper either gives you the memory back more clearly, or lets you retain it permanently. Either way I fail to see how you use it to fill a coppermind.

The same as with any other compounding. The strength in compounding is not just that you get more of the power, it's that you can immediately store that power without having to diminish what you have. 

Compounding pewter without storing the excess would make you a relatively massive ball of muscle while you burned it, and then the metal would be gone... But store that power as it pours in, and you suddenly have a feedback loop that provides for an endless ability to fill metalminds and call up that strength when you need it. 

This is why miles was terrifying. He didn't have to be actively burning gold all the time. He had so much health stored that even when all of his visible metalminds were removed and he had no gold to burn he still survived multiple volleys of gunfire. 

Compounding copper would presumably be able to do the same. Burn a metalmind, and immediately store what you get. The question is, and has always been, what exactly do you get? 

Edit: this is also how Marsh can still be alive with what seems like a relatively small amount of atium compound. 

Edited September 27, 2018 by Calderis

[Quantus]

14 hours ago, Dunkum said:

Pretty sure Bendalloy can be used to store specific nutrients, i think it works a lot like Tin where you store one specific facet to a specific metalmind (though do we know if that is a requirement, or just how Sazed liked to do it to keep things organized?).  the difference then would be that a coppermind stores any/all memories together, not just one memory per metalmind. so even if bendalloy is specific nutrients, i think they are generally being stored in a different way than copper does.

You definitely have to store food and water separately (not entirely clear on why oxygen requires a whole other metal, call it Scadrial perception I guess). Im not sure how much of the rest of the diet would shift, though given the standard Intent mechanics I think you'd need a certain amount of nutritionist education before you'd know enough to split them in any meaningful way. 

 

14 hours ago, Dunkum said:

also, regarding the imprinting whole intellect question, remember that compounding comes up when you retrieve the attribute, not while you are storing, so all that added investiture just gives you more stuff to store, but doesn't change how or what you are storing. I can't imagine that there is a way to take that (pre-formed) investiture and turn it into something more complicated than it was when you started.  I think if you wanted to do something like copy your whole mind to a coppermind you would have to completely lose all memory of yourself....

My (wildly speculative) idea on that one was that since you were filling it with Allomantic End-Positive Investiture instead of your own, you wouldnt have to loose the memories (seemed like Preservation's investiture should be amenable to that, on a philosophic level). On top of the idea that some of these might have effects that are a little more qualitatively different, the way flairing atium tips over from shadows to a full-on Vision.  Granted that has more direct realmic explanation, and a god-metal, so it might be inapplicable.

@Calderis Out of curiosity, what's you current guess? 

 

[MountainKing]

If your compound copper, I think you would just get eight copies of the memory back, the original copy and seven new ones.

[Ashertliden]

 

20 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

If your compound copper, I think you would just get eight copies of the memory back, the original copy and seven new ones.

Can you explain your reasoning on this?

 

edit: If you did get a certain number of memories back, I think it would be 16. I have this sneaking suspicion that compounding increases the power 16 times. The only measurements we’ve gotten have been “tenfold” so sixteen times would be close enough for that, and it would fit into a the whole “law of sixteen” thing. 

Edited September 27, 2018 by Kal-Eldin

[MountainKing]

2 hours ago, Kal-Eldin said:

 

Can you explain your reasoning on this?

 

edit: If you did get a certain number of memories back, I think it would be 16. I have this sneaking suspicion that compounding increases the power 16 times. The only measurements we’ve gotten have been “tenfold” so sixteen times would be close enough for that, and it would fit into a the whole “law of sixteen” thing. 

So when you compound things, the feruchemical charge flavors the investiture gained from Harmony. So if the feruchemical charge is a memory is should cause the new investiture to become replicas of that. I said eight memories because Brandon, once in an example about how compounding works, said that you get times 8 back after compounding (the original investiture plus the new investiture, he also said not to use that number because the actual number hasn't been set on stone.)

[Ashertliden]

No, I understood the principle, I was just confused as to why you said eight copies as opposed to some other number.

[etmental]

we already know what compounding copper can do...to an extant. 

in the first mistborn, the crew mention that dox couldn’t go to any of the balls that the lord ruler would be attending. the reasoning behind this is that apparently TLR never forgot a face, even if you had briefly seen you. 

The lord ruler had the ability to remember the slightest of details. 

he would take his memories from the past week, compound them, and have everything he has ever learned or seen (even briefly) but had it available to him several times over. 

as long as TLR compounded his memories, he could remember pretty much anything to the most minute detail. i’m guess about “ten fold” as well as he would have been able to remember it otherwise.

[Quantus]

5 hours ago, etmental said:

we already know what compounding copper can do...to an extant. 

in the first mistborn, the crew mention that dox couldn’t go to any of the balls that the lord ruler would be attending. the reasoning behind this is that apparently TLR never forgot a face, even if you had briefly seen you. 

The lord ruler had the ability to remember the slightest of details. 

he would take his memories from the past week, compound them, and have everything he has ever learned or seen (even briefly) but had it available to him several times over. 

as long as TLR compounded his memories, he could remember pretty much anything to the most minute detail. i’m guess about “ten fold” as well as he would have been able to remember it otherwise.

That's reasonable, and a good catch about the Lord Ruler's rumored perfect memory.  But Id still be curious how it works at the practical level.  Does it give him multiple copies of his memories so that he can combat the nomral degradation of accessing a Coppermind?  Does it impart an indellible Super memory that never degrades (ala the Sight in the Dresden Files)? Would it give them a memory they have to access like a coppermind, but a perfectly detailed one that you can rewind and manipulate like a hologram (I Love this trope when I see it)? If he "never Forgets a Face" I lean toward the Indelible Super memory explanation, on the basis that just having mro detailed memories in the coppermind wouldnt help you access all that data passively to check a face against the memories, it would need to be a passive effect/change on him mind or memory. In fact, on that front I could see the argument that TLR could have been using a combination of Copper, Zinc, and maybe even a bit of Bronze and Tin to help with the spot check.  TLR is all kinds of Cheaty

 

 

[Ashertliden]

Spoiler

Copper compounding turns you into Stephen Leeds  

 

[Embrisk]

I have thought about this.
In my opinion, compounding metals only allows you to fuel feruchemy or allomancy by using both systems.
In this case, instead of using your own memories to store your own memories, you would be using copper as the fuel.
This would allow you to store your own memories without forgetting them.

If any other use exists for compounding copper, I do not know it. But then, I have only read the first mistborn series.

[Calderis]

@Servillius the issue with that, is that the way copper works you have to burn a piece ce of metal you've already invested in.

So compounding copper, you have to store a memory, and then burn it. That's why there's so much confusion. What happens to that memory? 

[etmental]

2 hours ago, Calderis said:

@Servillius the issue with that, is that the way copper works you have to burn a piece ce of metal you've already invested in.

So compounding copper, you have to store a memory, and then burn it. That's why there's so much confusion. What happens to that memory? 

alright so here is my theory.

technically, when you are remembering an event from the past, you are really remembering the last time you remembered it. It is a kind of weird concept but that is how memory works. 

Through the process of telephone your memories become very maluable to suggestion and such or they just degrade with time.

If TLR decides to put a week of his memories in a piece of copper and then burns it, he does not have just one memory of the week, he has several carbon copies of it. He can then go into his copper mind that he is storing the copies memories away and give himself back a recollection of the week while still leaving the rest in his coppermind. His memories never degrade. 

In fact if he wanted he could constantly be tapping his coppermind like miles did with gold, but he would only be slowly degrading one of his copies of his memories. Which he could refresh by compounding what is still in that coppermind.

There is a lot that we don’t know about copper. We have seen Sazed tap written information out of his coppermind, but we have only seen him store images. When one is tapping images or events i believe it is quite possible that they can do so while still being aware of what is going on around them. 

TLR could (theoretically) be looking at all of his memories while doing regular life and it not affect his ability to just live life. 

He probably uses zinc to aid in this. 

Maybe this is one of the reasons that he was going crazy slowly. I bet this took a toll on his mental state, making him susceptible to ruins influence and such. 

just some thoughts

[Embrisk]

@CalderisIn my opinion, copper can only be used to store memories as you are remembering them. So, you couldn't use an ability to compound copper for memories unless there were memories that you wanted to store. Otherwise, the copper couldn't be used as fuel, because you wouldn't get anything out of it. Either that, or the copper would be consumed, but nothing would happen. Most likely, you would just create a copper cloud instead of storing anything into the metal, because you aren't using the abilities of compounding.
Consuming the copper in place of sacrificing your own memories, that is all that compounding can be used for.
Using one thing as fuel in place of another.

 

What I am curious about, is the extent of copper feruchamy.
Could you, for instance, store muscle memory in copper?
One example might be piano. A long period of practice helps you more in the long run for playing piano. But your ability to play piano is always best fresh, and so, short term, three hours of practice just before a performance would help you more than three one-hour chunks spread out throughout the week before a performance.
Could a copper feruchemist store their memories of playing piano immediately after practicing sporadically, and then remember them right before a performance to give them an edge?
Also, if a feruchemist were to store every single memory of their entire existance, could they revert back to the intelligence of a baby?

Edited October 7, 2018 by Servillius

[Calderis]

6 hours ago, Servillius said:

Otherwise, the copper couldn't be used as fuel, because you wouldn't get anything out of it.

That's not the way compounding works. 

You store in a metal. You burn that metal and the investiture is shaped by the power that is stored in the metal, instead of the metal itself. 

You burn a coppermind and something happens because it's invested. What that does is unclear, or even if it happens in a useful way, but it does something. 

[Kaj]

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

You store in a metal. You burn that metal and the investiture is shaped by the power that is stored in the metal, instead of the metal itself. 

In my opinion, it should go like this:

• You store some memories in a bead of copper.
• You swallow and burn this bead.
• The Investiture floods into you.
• This Investiture is shaped by the memories inside.
• You get those memories back, amplified roughly tenfold.
• You store them away in another coppermind.

Really, the only question is what this amplification is. While I am relatively certain that it doesn't mean that the memory isn't multiplied, it is a possibility. Personally, I think it would result in a single, powerful memory. When I think of a powerful memory, I think of my most vivid memories and all the thoughts and feelings that went with it. From what I understand, a memory is a complex network of sights, smells, other sensory inputs, thoughts, and emotions. Many of these are overlooked later, but they are still there. I picture that all of these different parts of these memories are reinforced with the extra Investiture, creating a more "Perfected" memory. 

@Servillius you bring up a good point. There are different types of memory. What you say would make sense. My question would be, could a piano player play a piece, storing it as a sensory memory (a memory of the exact experience that lasts just a few seconds) as they go? There might be two possibilities from here. They could then tap it while playing the piano to play it exactly the same (to them it would be the same as it is the same memory), or they could compound it. Compounding it would make it a more powerful memory, perhaps amplifying it could make it a more permanent memory.

Edited October 7, 2018 by Kaj

[Embrisk]

@Calderis mm. I still don't know everything about compounding, but I was talking about using allomancy to fuel feruchemy. If investiture was stored in a metal that was burned, it would just make a really strong copper cloud from my understanding.

[Calderis]

46 minutes ago, Servillius said:

@Calderis mm. I still don't know everything about compounding, but I was talking about using allomancy to fuel feruchemy. If investiture was stored in a metal that was burned, it would just make a really strong copper cloud from my understanding.

No. Compounding works specifically by burning a feruchemical storage and it shaping the power that comes in.

Quote

yurisses

If Miles stored a very tiny bit of health into a gold bead and then burned it, what would happen? Would he see goldshadows for a time and then obtain Compounded health when reaching the charged part of the bead? Would the bead be evenly charged and deliver only health, no gold shadows, but at a very low rate since only little health was loaded in it? Would the bead be evenly charged and deliver only health, but at a standard rate the user would always get when compounding?

Brandon Sanderson

He'd hack the system to deliver health for a short time instead of doing what it was supposed to do, but only until the small portion of gold Invested with his Investiture ran out.

source

Burning copper invested is going to do something because of an interaction between the storage, and the incoming Investiture instead of creating a coppercloud.

You get the allomantic power, or you get the Feruchemical power compounded. You can't just burn the metal to fuel Feruchemy. 

[Embrisk]

@CalderisOh, ok. I thought that investiture was the amount of energy that something had, and compounding was the way of increasing the amount of investiture in a metal.
Like burning a steel, then putting the energy into a steel ring instead of using it straight away, giving it more investiture. Therefore, when you did burn it, the output would be stronger than you could normally get by even flaring the metal.
Or, investing feruchemical speed into a steel ring, etc, and then burning it to get the same results.

You don't have to reply. I'm pretty un-learned when it comes to the more complex side of the cosmere.

[Dunkum]

2 hours ago, Servillius said:

@CalderisOh, ok. I thought that investiture was the amount of energy that something had, and compounding was the way of increasing the amount of investiture in a metal.
Like burning a steel, then putting the energy into a steel ring instead of using it straight away, giving it more investiture. Therefore, when you did burn it, the output would be stronger than you could normally get by even flaring the metal.
Or, investing feruchemical speed into a steel ring, etc, and then burning it to get the same results.

You don't have to reply. I'm pretty un-learned when it comes to the more complex side of the cosmere.

Compounding works by exploiting the power source for allomancy to provide ferruchemical traits.  basically ferruchemy usually only allows you to get out what you put in, but if you burn a metalmind, it sort of tricks the allomancy into providing a ferruchemical trait instead of its normal allomantic one (like copper providing memory instead of creating a coppercloud).  however because the actual power for allomancy comes from outside the user (from the Preservation's shard) when you burn a metalmind you end up getting about 10x out of it as you put in.  most of the time you would then store most of this back into a new metalmind, which you can also later burn etc. the end result is thta if you can compound a metal, you have access to effectively infinite amounts of the trait you can store.

[amflare]

On 10/6/2018 at 1:25 PM, etmental said:

There is a lot that we don’t know about copper. We have seen Sazed tap written information out of his coppermind, but we have only seen him store images.

1

In the Conventical of Seran, we see him store "text.

Quote

Sazed lit the lamp with a flint from his pack. The lamp's ghostly light illuminated a stark, daunting hallway. He stepped into the Conventical, holding the lamp high, and began to fill the small copper ring on his finger, the process transforming it into a coppermind.

"Large rooms," he whispered, "without adornment." He didn't really need to say the words, but he'd found that speaking helped him form distinct memories. He could then place them into the coppermind.

Then again when looking at Qwan's text.

Quote

"I have to copy this down, Marsh," Sazed said, reaching for his pack. Taking a visual memory wouldn't work—no man could stare at a wall of so much text, then remember the words. He could, perhaps, read them into his coppermind. However, he wanted a physical record, one that perfectly preserved the structure of lines and punctuation.

So, somehow, reading (audibly or not) allows him to have the text and then pull it out en mass later.

[Calderis]

2 hours ago, amflare said:

So, somehow, reading (audibly or not) allows him to have the text and then pull it out en mass later.

It's a memory. It's either a visual image of reading the text, or it's a "recording" of it being said. 

When a keeper makes their personal set of coppermind, it happens by another keeper reciting them in their entirety to be recorded. 

It's all visual or auditory memory. 

[Quantus]

I supposed one possibility is that  (at last in the case where you let the compounding Investiture flow directly into another copper metalmind) you'd end up with a heavily Invested metalmind that had the sort of "corrupted Sectors" issue that you get if you try to change the metalurgy of a charged metalmind.  If so then I'd guess trying to receive that "corrupted" memory directly would not be pleasant. 

 

I wonder, does compounding F-Tin have the same sort of drawbacks that a-tin does with Flairing, Duralumin, etc?  In general Feruchemy is better at protecting it's user from over-use that Allomancy, but if Tin compounding had the same sort of downsides when hacked Id think it more likely that Copper would have similar compounding dangers. 

[Calderis]

5 minutes ago, Quantus said:

I wonder, does compounding F-Tin have the same sort of drawbacks that a-tin does with Flairing, Duralumin, etc?  In general Feruchemy is better at protecting it's user from over-use that Allomancy, but if Tin compounding had the same sort of downsides when hacked Id think it more likely that Copper would have similar compounding dangers. 

Compounding gives a Feruchemical trait, and Brandon has said that he has never had plans for Feruchemical savants. So I doubt it. 

Quote

Kurkistan

Is there such a thing as a Feruchemical savant?

Brandon Sanderson

I did not write Feruchemical savants into the original outline. Whether or not I will do them- it’s highly unlikely because it’s not there and Mistborn is getting trickier and trickier in that regard. But I didn’t write them in, so… that’s a “probably not”.

source

And as a curiosity, why do you think compounding would corrupt the memory?