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Feruchemical Aluminum Theory


SwordNimiForPresident

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Identity that is stored in an aluminummind is either always keyed, or always unkeyed, and I can't decide which it is. My thinking is as follows.

When you store Identity, you don't have Identity, but you did have Identity when you started storing it. It's one of those "which came first" paradoxes. Help me.

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1 hour ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

When you store Identity, you don't have Identity, but you did have Identity when you started storing it. It's one of those "which came first" paradoxes. Help me.

At the start the metal mind has to be empty.

 

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

Well... What's being stored is Identity, so I'd definitely say it's keyed. 

The real question for me is if you can even tap Aluminum at all. 

Which raises the point whether the distinction is even meaningful in case of aluminium.
If you can tap it, you can do so without identity apparently. Is that limited to aluminium?
If you cannot tap it, the question whether it is keyed is moot.

And it raises a frightening point. What happens to you, if you put all your Identity into a metal mind, which is subsequently destroyed?

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1 minute ago, Oltux72 said:

If you can tap it, you can do so without identity apparently. Is that limited to aluminium?

If you can tap it, you'd need your identity to match. 

1 minute ago, Oltux72 said:

And it raises a frightening point. What happens to you, if you put all your Identity into a metal mind, which is subsequently destroyed?

Storing your Identity would not be a permanent removal... Like any other attribute, it would only be removed while you are storing, and the moment you stopped, your natural state would reassert itself. 

It's the same as storing strength. You aren't weakened until you pull the power back out. Only while storing. 

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6 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

And it raises a frightening point. What happens to you, if you put all your Identity into a metal mind, which is subsequently destroyed?

Well, as with most feruchemical traits, it’s better to view identity as a river flowing through you.  When you store the attribute, you divert the river.  But when you stop storing it, the attribute starts flowing back through you.  So the moment you stopped storing identity, you should regain your own identity 

Edited by ILuvHats
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7 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

So what are the applications for tapping Identity?

 

(The Emperor's Soul)

Spoiler

Unforge yourself? See the difference between your forged and unforged self?

Defending yourself against an allomantic takeover, if you are a hemalurgical construct?
Defense against emotional allomancy?

These are merely suggestions based on that a stronger self should exclude foreign influence. But yes, the main application seems to surpress your Identity, not to store it for usage.
It opens up room your interesting experiments though. Does an aluminium metal mind charged with your Identity still block your own emotional allomancy?

Yet on a philosophical note, not all metal minds are useful in filling and tapping. I guess nobody wants to intentionally become hard of hearing or visually impaired, so tin is useful only in tapping. Others like iron are useful mostly in fliing (unless you have allomancy). Others, like brass are dual use.
We havn't seen as yet a metal mind that is primarily useful due to being invested.

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15 hours ago, Calderis said:

If you can tap it, you'd need your identity to match. 

Storing your Identity would not be a permanent removal... Like any other attribute, it would only be removed while you are storing, and the moment you stopped, your natural state would reassert itself. 

It's the same as storing strength. You aren't weakened until you pull the power back out. Only while storing. 

Just for the sake of argument, do we know that for certain? We have at least two metals that you place individual things in whole and take them out, with Copper and Nicrosil.  Given that all it's functions seem to be about filling it "completely" to blank out the Soulbearer's Identity, and if Im not mistaken there's a WOB that implied Compounding it wouldnt be very useful, it seems possible there may not be any Increased Identity side of the equation at.  But then, as you say, the flip side is that it shouldnt be possible to permanently destroy an individual's Identity, which would be the logical danger of Nicrosil working like Copper. 

 

If I had to hazard a guess at what Double-Identity might do, I'd say it would increase Immunity to outside Investiture in a similar manner to being Invested, such you'd be harder to push with Zinc/Bronze, harder to Forge, perhaps even be harder to lash the way somebody wearing Plate, and possibly less susceptible to the Shardic manipulation that Hemalurgy opens you up to (though that last might be a wildly different mechanism that bypasses some things). 

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7 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Just for the sake of argument, do we know that for certain? We have at least two metals that you place individual things in whole and take them out, with Copper and Nicrosil.

I disagree. 

1) the WoB on Nicrosil refers specifically to medallions. I don't think that standard Nicrosil Feruchemy is going to completey remove a trait, and won't until we get a WoB saying so, or we see it in book. It completely breaks how Feruchemy functions. 

2) Brandon understands the way memory works, he uses the way humans alter memory in his stories repeatedly. Because of this, I don't think Copper actually works any differently than any other Feruchemical trait, it just appears so because of the nature of what memory is. 

There are two components to human memory. Commonly called Short term and Long term memory. The interesting thing is that they've shown that when you call up a memory, what you are doing is taking that memory out of long-term storage, where it becomes malleable and can be altered (fun fact: the more you think about something, the less accurate that memory becomes!). 

What I think copper is doing is only storing active memory. In order to store a memory you have to choose it... Which means you're pulling it out of long term memory and placing it into the metalmind... Which leaves nothing to return to long term storage. 

The key to this being an active memory access is that this would mean storing a memory, and storing what you are actively doing... Like Sazed does in the Conventional of Sarene, are the exact same thing, literally. 

So no, I don't think we've seen anything yet that does not store in the same way as Strength does. 

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8 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I disagree. 

1) the WoB on Nicrosil refers specifically to medallions. I don't think that standard Nicrosil Feruchemy is going to completey remove a trait, and won't until we get a WoB saying so, or we see it in book. It completely breaks how Feruchemy functions. 

2) Brandon understands the way memory works, he uses the way humans alter memory in his stories repeatedly. Because of this, I don't think Copper actually works any differently than any other Feruchemical trait, it just appears so because of the nature of what memory is. 

There are two components to human memory. Commonly called Short term and Long term memory. The interesting thing is that they've shown that when you call up a memory, what you are doing is taking that memory out of long-term storage, where it becomes malleable and can be altered (fun fact: the more you think about something, the less accurate that memory becomes!). 

What I think copper is doing is only storing active memory. In order to store a memory you have to choose it... Which means you're pulling it out of long term memory and placing it into the metalmind... Which leaves nothing to return to long term storage. 

The key to this being an active memory access is that this would mean storing a memory, and storing what you are actively doing... Like Sazed does in the Conventional of Sarene, are the exact same thing, literally. 

So no, I don't think we've seen anything yet that does not store in the same way as Strength does. 

I never thought of Copper working that way, but I like the sound of it.  I can run with that while we're stuck with Wait&See until Era3 arrives. 

 

What are you're thoughts on Tapping Aluminum?  You say you have doubts that it's even possible?  That too seems like a bit of a deviation from the pattern on the rest of the metals, to have Investiture that is somehow trapped permanently in the Metalmind. 

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5 minutes ago, Quantus said:

What are you're thoughts on Tapping Aluminum?  You say you have doubts that it's even possible?  That too seems like a bit of a deviation from the pattern on the rest of the metals, to have Investiture that is somehow trapped permanently in the Metalmind. 

Well, it really depends. I don't think it's a deviation... And I think the new Hemalurgy chart supports it. 

You can "store" into aluminum in that you can dump a trait into it... But it's aluminum. So I think that Investiture is just dispersed rather held. If you go to tap it... You can't actually sense anything there. 

On the knew Hemalurgy chart, you get spikes that say "steals this trait" 

But aluminum? "Removes all powers" 

Not steals. Removes. 

I don't think you can use what's placed in aluminum in Hemalurgy or Feruchemy. 

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1 minute ago, Calderis said:

Well, it really depends. I don't think it's a deviation... And I think the new Hemalurgy chart supports it. 

You can "store" into aluminum in that you can dump a trait into it... But it's aluminum. So I think that Investiture is just dispersed rather held. If you go to tap it... You can't actually sense anything there. 

On the knew Hemalurgy chart, you get spikes that say "steals this trait" 

But aluminum? "Removes all powers" 

Not steals. Removes. 

I don't think you can use what's placed in aluminum in Hemalurgy or Feruchemy. 

That's fair. The idea that the Metallic Arts can actually Invest Aluminum at all is, in my opinion, the larger and more cosmere-wide discrepancy, so if "filling" aluminum doesnt actually result in an Invested chunk of metal, that would certainly fit with the larger model of things.  And it would resolve the question Ive long had of how the metallic Arts appeared to be the only thing in all the cosmere that could place Investiture into Aluminum. 

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Just now, Quantus said:

That's fair. The idea that the Metallic Arts can actually Invest Aluminum at all is, in my opinion, the larger and more cosmere-wide discrepancy, so if "filling" aluminum doesnt actually result in an Invested chunk of metal, that would certainly fit with the larger model of things.

They definitely can channel investiture through aluminium. That much cannot be denied. You can have the Metallic Arts consistent in that regard or make it conform to more of the Cosmere, but not both.

Just now, Quantus said:

  And it would resolve the question Ive long had of how the metallic Arts appeared to be the only thing in all the cosmere that could place Investiture into Aluminum. 

Is Identity Investiture?

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14 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

They definitely can channel investiture through aluminium. That much cannot be denied. You can have the Metallic Arts consistent in that regard or make it conform to more of the Cosmere, but not both.

They can use burning Aluminum to open a channel to Preservation and get an effect, in the case of Allomancy, which is pretty close, but is not resulting in an Invested Object made of Aluminum the way Hemalurgy or Feruchemy would.

14 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Is Identity Investiture?

Anything that is being poured into a Metalmind is theoretically Investiture.  And in a much broader take, Investiture is the fundamental fabric of reality: all matter and energy (and spiritwebs, etc) are made of Investiture on some fundamental Relativistic level.  Sooo...Kinda?

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Just now, Quantus said:

They can use burning Aluminum to open a channel to Preservation and get an effect, in the case of Allomancy, which is pretty close, but is not resulting in an Invested Object made of Aluminum the way Hemalurgy or Feruchemy would.

That would make aluminium impossible to compound, which is kind of a problem.

Just now, Quantus said:

Anything that is being poured into a Metalmind is theoretically Investiture.  And in a much broader take, Investiture is the fundamental fabric of reality: all matter and energy (and spiritwebs, etc) are made of Investiture on some fundamental Relativistic level.  Sooo...Kinda?

And Fortune? If we took this to the logical conclusion then an object without inbestiture cannot have Identity. But why then can you soulcast something into aluminium?

It seems to me that these conclusions are based on an assumption on how exactly aluminium works. I doubt we have a full understanding of this. Does alumium block Investiture, full stop? Or does it stop everything with the wrong Identity?

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2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

That would make aluminium impossible to compound, which is kind of a problem.

Why is that a problem?  Compounding is a hack of two systems, there's nothing saying it needs to be complete or functional for all combinations, and as far as I know there's nothing so far to indicate it can or has been done with Aluminum specifically.

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

And Fortune? If we took this to the logical conclusion then an object without inbestiture cannot have Identity. But why then can you soulcast something into aluminium?

Nah, Identity is the cosmere/magic equivalent of personal Encryption, it's not literally the Cognitive aspect. And in the case of Soulcasting you can turn something else into Aluminum, but once it becomes aluminum it is entirely immune to soulcasting just like natural aluminum would be. 

And Fortune is extra weird in terms of Cosmere/realmic mechanics, Im even less clear on how that works than Aluminum, I fully admit.

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

It seems to me that these conclusions are based on an assumption on how exactly aluminium works. I doubt we have a full understanding of this. Does alumium block Investiture, full stop? Or does it stop everything with the wrong Identity?

I fully agree that we dont know how or why Aluminum works, but we do have clues and we do have confirmed cases of what is and isnt possible to extrapolate from.  But so far every time it's come up the answer has always been that it cannot be at all Invested, and by "Invested" I mean in the sense of charged with additional Investiture, not Invested in the way that anything that exists has to have some investiture (regardless of my previous facetious statement).  It cannot be Forged, it cannot be soulcast (you can turn something else into aluminum but cannot affect Aluminum with Soulcasting after that) and even when Brandon wanted something to be made of Aluminum and still have active magical properties (as was the case with the Shardblade practice guards) he had continuity watchers on his team that convinced him it couldnt work. 

I dont think that Identity is Investiture so much as it's a property of certain Cosmere functions that rides on their Investiture, similar to how how Connection is more of a property of Investiture-based things like the Spiritweb.  If you listen to a song on the radio, is that song Made of electricity? Copper and Wires? Air? Thought?  All of the above?

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Just now, Quantus said:

Why is that a problem?  Compounding is a hack of two systems, there's nothing saying it needs to be complete or functional for all combinations, and as far as I know there's nothing so far to indicate it can or has been done with Aluminum specifically.

Because Brandon said that compounding it is kind of pointless, but not impossible.

Just now, Quantus said:

I fully agree that we dont know how or why Aluminum works, but we do have clues and we do have confirmed cases of what is and isnt possible to extrapolate from.  But so far every time it's come up the answer has always been that it cannot be at all Invested, and by "Invested" I mean in the sense of charged with additional Investiture,

Well, that comes back to the notion that Identity cannot exist independently. If it can, why couldn't it be stored in aluminium?

Just now, Quantus said:

I dont think that Identity is Investiture so much as it's a property of certain Cosmere functions that rides on their Investiture, similar to how how Connection is more of a property of Investiture-based things like the Spiritweb.  If you listen to a song on the radio, is that song Made of electricity? Copper and Wires? Air? Thought?  All of the above?

Connection, however, can be stored. There can be almost no doubt about this. Medaillons with Connection work.
And the song can be recorded independently of the radio waves used to transmit it.

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@Oltux72 it doesn't block Investiture limitlessly, just at a level that make no difference.

Quote

ChickenBites [PENDING REVIEW]

Can you soulcast aluminum into other materials?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Aluminum would strongly resist any sort of soulcasting.

Billy Todd [PENDING REVIEW]

Would that resistance be overcome? Could be overcome?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

This is the question. Everything can be, right? Aluminum, in the cosmere, was created. And can be created. So, people ask me this, "Can? Cannot?" Like, with a powerful enough magnet in our world, what can you do? Like, is water magnetic? *stammers* But, could you make water respond to a magnet? Yes! You can make anything if you really try hard enough. It's, like, this idea, that when people are like, "Can you, yes or no?" Well... yes! Would it take the power of six Shards of Adonalsium working together? Maybe! Can you? Yes, you probably can. Like, we're talking about a fantasy universe where almost anything is possible, and the impossibilities are contradictions, it's "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" sort of questions when you get into "can you?"

Now, could you soulcast aluminum using a reasonable amount of energy that an individual could conceivably have in a normal setting and situation? No. If that's what you're looking for.

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

 

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Just now, Oltux72 said:

Because Brandon said that compounding it is kind of pointless, but not impossible.

Ah, OK that's fair.  Could mean that you can technically try it (as in be a Twinborn) but it would be pointless because you wouldnt get any specific burst of feruchemical ability?  Just spitballing here

Just now, Oltux72 said:

Well, that comes back to the notion that Identity cannot exist independently. If it can, why couldn't it be stored in aluminium?

I dont think the idea was that Identity cannot be channeled or stored by Investiture persay, so much Soulbearers can channel it into the metalminds but the charge would immediately drain out and not stick long enough to create a charged metalmind (or spike)

Just now, Oltux72 said:

Connection, however, can be stored. There can be almost no doubt about this. Medaillons with Connection work.
And the song can be recorded independently of the radio waves used to transmit it.

I dont think Im communicating this very well...  As far as I can tell, Feruchemy is about translating some aspect of the ongoing machine that is a human being into a more pure Investiture form to be stored in the metalmind container.  Sometimes that is a physical thing (as is the case when you store Hydration or Physical Weight), other times it's a Spiritweb construct that is already made of Investiture (Id put Connection, Investiture, and Identity in this category) and sometimes it's a more complex functional bit of the overall machine (like Physical Strength that adds actual Size, or mental Speed, or Senses).

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5 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Ah, OK that's fair.  Could mean that you can technically try it (as in be a Twinborn) but it would be pointless because you wouldnt get any specific burst of feruchemical ability?  Just spitballing here

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/105-17th-shard-forum-qa/#e1131

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/360-legion-release-party/#e10864

I would read that as possible, but just not useful.

5 minutes ago, Quantus said:

 other times it's a Spiritweb construct that is already made of Investiture (Id put Connection, Investiture, and Identity in this category) and sometimes it's a more complex functional bit of the overall machine (like Physical Strength that adds actual Size, or mental Speed, or Senses).

Well, we know for sure that a metal mind does not store just Investiture in bulk. Copperminds would be totally inexplicable. Why would it be unable to store something without Investiture. If you say that it must store in form of "structured" Investiture, you must be ready to say that Identity and Fortune are made out of Investiture.
 

27 minutes ago, Calderis said:

@Oltux72 it doesn't block Investiture limitlessly, just at a level that make no difference.

Right, but is there also a qualitative component. We know that invested objects resist other forms of Investiture. Do we know whether it makes a difference if you are pushing or pulling on your own metal minds or somebody else's?

(Roshar)

Spoiler

The only other example of an invested object blocking Investiture is Shard Plate. And there we see something. You can lash through your own plate, but not through somebody else's plate. Identity matters.

Now aluminium could work on a different principle. It doesn't look like the simplest explanation to me, but it is possible.
Yet I don't think it is mere coincidence that aluminium stores Identity. Aluminium and invested objects act as filters, not a barriers. Hence the experiment I want to see is a steel/aluminium twinborn wearing aluminium body armor used as a metal mind trying to push on something.

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16 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

I'd personally say all it really confirms is that there is no useful effect, and that he doesnt actually want to reveal anything specific about it, which to me includes the possibility that they arent even getting charged enough to make it possible, as @Calderis suggests.  He's been really hesitant to canonize anything at all about the remaining Compounding combinations.  But I guess only time will tell.

16 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Well, we know for sure that a metal mind does not store just Investiture in bulk. Copperminds would be totally inexplicable. Why would it be unable to store something without Investiture. If you say that it must store in form of "structured" Investiture, you must be ready to say that Identity and Fortune are made out of Investiture.

I wouldnt really call any of the feruchemical metalmind storage "bulk" Investiture, as they all have a lot of specific functional aspects to them.  They all carry Identity (they are Keyed to you unless you take steps to suppress that) as well as whatever more specific Functional/Spiritweb traits you are trying to store. Some are more specific than others, Copper is individual Memories, Tin is individual Senses, even Bendalloy requires separate metalminds for Food vs Water.  To my mind that's the "How" of Compounding in general: The Metalminds stores the trait (with Investiture being the Medium they are stored in, and the metalmind being the container that holds it in the physical realm), and a compounder then plugs it into the appropriate Allomantic Energy which then takes on those traits.

Saying Identity is "Made out of Investiture" isnt wrong persay, but it feels like an oversimplification, it's like saying Songs are made out of Air, or that computer programs are made out of silicon and copper.  I think of it in terms of radio Waveform: Investiture is the carrier energy (ie radio waves), but there's a signal in there that is critical, and that's what the Identity is.  Some feruchemical traits are more specific songs than others (Copper memories are a very complex song, whereas something like Brass is really just a single droning tone), and the Identity of the person is like the individualized Voice that the feruchemical song being sung in which is entirely recognizable as part of that song, but not functionally critical and so can be stripped away.  Put another way Identity is the Timbre of the Investiture

I have no strong argument for what Fortune is yet, and my best theory delves pretty deep into Realmic mechanics and platonic ideals, so Im not going to get into it here. 

16 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Right, but is there also a qualitative component. We know that invested objects resist other forms of Investiture. Do we know whether it makes a difference if you are pushing or pulling on your own metal minds or somebody else's?

(Roshar)

  Hide contents

The only other example of an invested object blocking Investiture is Shard Plate. And there we see something. You can lash through your own plate, but not through somebody else's plate. Identity matters.

Now aluminium could work on a different principle. It doesn't look like the simplest explanation to me, but it is possible.
Yet I don't think it is mere coincidence that aluminium stores Identity. Aluminium and invested objects act as filters, not a barriers. Hence the experiment I want to see is a steel/aluminium twinborn wearing aluminium body armor used as a metal mind trying to push on something.

For what it's worth We also have the example of Breaths where Identity is critical.  It's why only the person who Awakens an object is able to recover the Breaths, because they are keyed to the that awakener as soon as they gain those breaths in the first time.  It takes a conscious (and voluntary) act of Awakening to re-key them to a new person, which happens any time they are given away.  And there's a strong argument that it's an Identity effect that makes the Breath in Lifeless unrecoverable, because the act of Awakening a Lifeless (or maybe just doing it the new way with a single breath) causes it to take on some of the identity of the host body rather than the Awakener. 

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