Multi Charge Spikes

[SwordNimiForPresident]

This piece from the HoA epigraphs caught my attention. Bolding Mine.

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They then no longer required a fresh supply of spikes. I often wonder what effect the constant reuse of spikes had on their population. A spike can only hold so much of a Hemalurgic charge, so they could not create spikes that granted infinite strength, no matter how many people those spikes killed and drew power from. However, did the repeated reuse of spikes perhaps bring more humanity to the koloss they made?

This seems to imply that you can use the same spike on multiple people to increase its power. Does this mean that you could kill multiple Coinshots with the same spike and then gain steel Allomancy at Rashek/Elend levels or beyond?

[Weltall]

Brandon has said that it's thought that you can't steal multiple things from the same person or put different charges in the same spike (see here and here) but that leaves open the possibility that you can do something like steal the same attribute multiple times in a single spike and people simply don't know how to do it. But as Sazed says there and Brandon's said elsewhere, there's a finite amount of charge any spike can hold so even if it's possible to stack charges of some attribute to get a stronger than normal spike, you'd still have some upper limit to just how powerful that would be. Given the current state of knowledge on Scadrial, if you want to get to Rashek-levels of power with a single ability, it's probably easier to make yourself a compounder if you want super-feruchemy or give yourself F-Nicrosil if you want super-allomancy.

Oh, and multiple charges of something like physical strength in one spike would mean multiple spiritwebs grafted to the recipient. That might end up giving you Koloss-levels of warping even if you don't have multiple spikes, depending on how many charges you've stacked. I don't think it's the number of spikes that determines physical warping so much as it's how many bits of other people's spiritwebs you've spliced to your own.

Edited March 11, 2019 by Weltall

[Karger]

You would be stitching large amounts of other people's souls onto yours this will likley leave you open to all kinds of influence some of which you may not particularly like.

[SwordNimiForPresident]

6 hours ago, Weltall said:

Brandon has said that it's thought that you can't steal multiple things from the same person or put different charges in the same spike (see here and here) but that leaves open the possibility that you can do something like steal the same attribute multiple times in a single spike and people simply don't know how to do it. But as Sazed says there and Brandon's said elsewhere, there's a finite amount of charge any spike can hold so even if it's possible to stack charges of some attribute to get a stronger than normal spike, you'd still have some upper limit to just how powerful that would be. Given the current state of knowledge on Scadrial, if you want to get to Rashek-levels of power with a single ability, it's probably easier to make yourself a compounder if you want super-feruchemy or give yourself F-Nicrosil if you want super-allomancy.

Yea, I assumed that a spike wouldn't be able to hold Investiture past "mistpoint". There wouldn't really be much point to double charging a Feruchemical spike since that's more of an on/off switch. You're either a Feruchemist or you aren't. F-Nicrosil is good, especially if you need to burst your powers over "mistpoint", but passively having higher Investiture levels would still be greatly beneficial. You would be really vulnerable without your metalminds for an example, just look what happened to Rashek.

6 hours ago, Weltall said:

Oh, and multiple charges of something like physical strength in one spike would mean multiple spiritwebs grafted to the recipient. That might end up giving you Koloss-levels of warping even if you don't have multiple spikes, depending on how many charges you've stacked. I don't think it's the number of spikes that determines physical warping so much as it's how many bits of other people's spiritwebs you've spliced to your own.

I think the warping effect has to do with where the spikes are placed rather than how many soul chunks are in them, otherwise Inquisitors would be abominations that make Koloss look cute.

5 hours ago, Karger said:

You would be stitching large amounts of other people's souls onto yours this will likley leave you open to all kinds of influence some of which you may not particularly like.

Pretty much any amount of Hemalurgy leaves you open. If you're going to use it, be ready for Harmony to take the wheel (even though he probably wont), or use less than three spikes. If you're worried about Soothers or Rioters trying to take over, you could probably prevent it with A-Copper or F-Electrum.

Edit: or an aluminum foil hat.

Edited March 12, 2019 by SwordNimiForPresident

[Calderis]

1 hour ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Yea, I assumed that a spike wouldn't be able to hold Investiture past "mistpoint"

I doubt a single spike could ever hit this point. 

1 hour ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

There wouldn't really be much point to double charging a Feruchemical spike since that's more of an on/off switch.

Even this isn't quite so simple. For natural Feruchemists sure... But for Feruchemy gained by Hemalurgy there is an efficiency loss. Hemalurgy always involves loss. 

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Kurkistan

How exactly does Hemalurgic decay work for Feruchemy? Is it like a leaky tube or something, or…?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah… yeah.

Kurkistan

So they try to store 10 units of health and only 9 gets through, or…?

Brandon Sanderson

Hemalurgic decay meaning someone who has been spiked is less powerful? That Hemalurgic decay, or the Hemalurgic decay when a Hemalurgic spike is left outside of blood?

Kurkistan

Less powerful. So like the Inquisitors are less powerful Feruchemists so they had to spend longer storing: so why did they have to spend longer storing?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah they lose a little bit, it’s a leaky… You’re there, exactly. It just doesn’t quite… it’s not as efficient: it’s an efficiency thing.

Calamity Chicago signing (Feb. 22, 2016)

 

Edited March 12, 2019 by Calderis

[SwordNimiForPresident]

36 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I doubt a single spike could ever hit this point.

That's what I was trying to say. There's probably a hard cap somewhere between "mistpoint" and Rashek/Elend.

36 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Even this isn't quite so simple. For natural Feruchemists sure... But for Feruchemy gained by Hemalurgy there is an efficiency loss. Hemalurgy always involves loss.

Fair enough, though with compounding it wouldn't be much of an issue. I guess depending on how nicrosil compounding works, it wouldn't matter how Invested your Allomancy spikes were either.

edit: Again, you'd be naked without your nicrosilmind.

Edited March 12, 2019 by SwordNimiForPresident

[Weltall]

18 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I think the warping effect has to do with where the spikes are placed rather than how many soul chunks are in them, otherwise Inquisitors would be abominations that make Koloss look cute.

It's a combination of factors but it seems the important thing with the Koloss isn't where the spikes are placed but what's being grafted onto them.

Quote

Hemalurgic spikes change people physically, depending on which powers are granted, where the spike is placed, and how many spikes someone has. Inquisitors, for instance, are changed drastically from the humans they used to be. Their hearts are in different places from those of humans, and their brains rearrange to accommodate the lengths of metal jabbed through their eyes. Koloss are changed in even more drastic ways.

Given that the Koloss have less than half the spikes of the least-spiked Inquisitors and spike placement has more to do with whether the hemlurgy works on the recipient or not rather than what's ultimately transferred (because that's down to where you place it in the donor), the fact that Koloss are given multiple charges of physical strength must be what warps them so much compared to Inquisitors.

So for a hypothetical multi-charge spike, you're getting the same effect as two or more of those charges in one, which would probably start warping you much more than a single ordinary spike with the same power simply because there's more of it.

[Calderis]

I agree that a multicharge spike, if that is indeed possible, would further warp a recipient if the attribute in question is one that causes physical warping as human strength dies with Koloss. 

I disagree that it would make control easier. I believe that the method of control is achieved through breaking through the souls natural defences. The actual penetration point into the Spiritual is the issue there, in my opinion. I think that 4 spikes are necessary for a human, regardless of what they contain. 

[SwordNimiForPresident]

19 hours ago, Weltall said:

Quote

Hemalurgic spikes change people physically, depending on which powers are granted, where the spike is placed, and how many spikes someone has. Inquisitors, for instance, are changed drastically from the humans they used to be. Their hearts are in different places from those of humans, and their brains rearrange to accommodate the lengths of metal jabbed through their eyes. Koloss are changed in even more drastic ways.

 

So for a hypothetical multi-charge spike, you're getting the same effect as two or more of those charges in one, which would probably start warping you much more than a single ordinary spike with the same power simply because there's more of it.

Bolding is mine. It says nothing about how charged the spikes are, only where they are, what they give, and how many of them there are.

 

19 hours ago, Weltall said:

It's a combination of factors but it seems the important thing with the Koloss isn't where the spikes are placed but what's being grafted onto them.

Aren't they always in the side of the torso? I'd have to go back and reread, but I'm pretty sure that's where the spikes were. Again, its what, where and how many, as per Harmony.

 

Edit: Found something else in the epigraphs, bolding mine.

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Each spike, positioned very carefully, can determine how the recipient's body is changed by Hemalurgy. A spike in one place creates a monstrous, near-mindless beast. In another place, a spike will create a crafty—yet homicidal—Inquisitor.

Without the instinctive knowledge granted by taking the power at the Well of Ascension, Rashek would never have been able to use Hemalurgy. With his mind expanded, and with a little practice, he was able to intuit where to place spikes that would create the servants he wanted.

It is a little-known fact that the Inquisitors' torture chambers were actually Hemalurgic laboratories. The Lord Ruler was constantly trying to develop new breeds of servant. It is a testament to Hemalurgy's complexity that, despite a thousand years of trying, he never managed to create anything with it beyond the three kinds of creatures he developed during those few brief moments holding the power

 

Edited March 13, 2019 by SwordNimiForPresident

[SwordNimiForPresident]

Bah, sorry for double post.

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

I agree that a multicharge spike, if that is indeed possible

I had another though in regards to this. Hemalurgic spikes can be used as metalminds. This means that there is no issue with the different Investitures inhabiting the same object. Similarly, two Feruchemist can store attributes in the same piece of metal (though the attributes remain separate from each other in an Identity sense). This makes me think that it would be reasonable for two Hemalurgic charges to inhabit the same spike.

Edited March 13, 2019 by SwordNimiForPresident