Aluminum VS. Nicrosil

[Zan Zhro]

(spoliers for BoM)

Recently, I looked over the Feruchemical powers again and recalled the scene in BoM where the group finds the Nicrosil and Gold bracelet (I think) stored with an immense amount of Health that anyone could use because of the Investiture in the Nicrosil. It happens again in the epilogue with the coin and memory of Kelsier in the Final Empire. Now, after seeing Aluminum's Feruchemical power was Identity, I'm curious as to how it works. Do we know anything? My guess is that it may be a sort of protection against brainwashing, or in combination with Nicrosil, could literally make someone drawing both Investiture and Identity act like the Identity donor. What do you all think? Or what do we actually know?

[Weltall]

There's a difference between an unkeyed metalmind and an unsealed one. An unkeyed metalmind is one that has been filled by someone who was simultanously storing their Identity via F-Aluminum. Using the example of the gold bracelet, whoever filled it was using F-Gold to store Health in the bracelet at the same time they were storing their Identity in a separate aluminummind. The result is that the Health stored in the bracelet is not associated with the Identity of any specific person. Thus anyone who's able to use F-Gold can take that metalmind and tap the Health stored in it. However, it only works if you already have the associated feruchemical power, which is why Wayne can use it but Wax can't.

An unsealed metalmind is one that actually grants you one or more feruchemical/allomantic power. We don't know exactly how these are made yet other than it involves the use of F-Nicrosil (which stores Investiture) and something called an Excisor, but there's been lots of good discussion on the subject. Here's an example:

 

Edited December 6, 2018 by Ookla the Gralsritter