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A Word on Copper Compounding...


Zinc-Tongued Raven

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Most other forms of Compounding are obvious in their effects: Iron Compounding gives much greater weight, Gold Compounding gives much greater healing, Bendalloy Compounding assures you’ll never get a bad case of the munchies ever again, etc etc. Other forms of Compounding are a bit more mysterious but nevertheless somewhat guessable: e.g. basically all of the Spiritual Feruchemy Metals (Fortune, Connection, Invesititure, Identity). However, one metal stands out from all the rest in that nobody really knows what it would do if you Compounded it: Copper.

I’ve seen people guess ‘perfect recall’ (as in, Compounding a copper memory perfectly ingrains it into your brain without it ever fading); however, I also have an alternative theory. Compounding gives you a much greater quantity of whatever you’ve stored in your metalminds, and that being the case it makes sense to me that when you burn a copper metalmind you gain duplicate versions of the memory that’s inside it.

Now, you may be wondering: What’s the point of that? What application could having multiple versions of a single memory have? Here’s where you have to remember the crippling disadvantage to copperminds: Once you store a memory in a coppermind it no longer exists in your head. You can either have it in your head or in your coppermind, but never both at once. And every time you remove it from your coppermind, the memory degrades a little more. Feruchemists developed a few tricks to get around this, of course. Remember the scene where Sazed has to write information down on a piece of paper in order to remind himself of what he had stored in his coppermind? But it’s a limited and less than ideal method.

With Copper Compounding, however, this limitation becomes null. You could burn a coppermind, duplicate the memory that’s within it, and then store one of those duplicates in another coppermind while keeping the other(s) in your head. Moreover, with the creation of copper medallions, it becomes possible to share memories with others. Depending on how many duplicates a Copper Compounder is capable of creating (it should be quite a few considering it’s repeatedly said that Compounding is supposed to enhanced Feruchemical power ‘tenfold’), you could widely spread information depending on how many unkeyed copperminds you have available, all the while keeping the information in your head as well.

It’s interesting to think about what might be possible with this skill. What is the limitation on how many memories you can duplicate? If a Copper Compounder had a coppermind like those of the old Keepers, where it contained centuries of inherited knowledge, could they duplicate those vast stores of knowledge into other copperminds?

Imagine being able to keep infinite backups of valuable memories and information. That’s my theory, basically. And with medallions, Copper Compounding also becomes effectively the Feruchemical version of the printing press, able to widely disseminate large quantities of identical, reproduced information.

Either way the main reason I like this theory is because I think it’s more in keeping with the original theme of Compounding: Instead of simply being able to store memories, you’re able to duplicate them; just like instead of only being able to store strength or speed, you’re able to enhance the power stored in the metalminds.

What do you guys think? This is my first every theory post, so I'm curious what responses I'll get.

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29 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

Congrats on your first theory post. The duplicate memories is also a popular theory, and I like the way that you succinctly put together how that would be useful. I personally agree with it myself. 

damnation, and here I naively thought my idea was at least somewhat original. Aw well

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Interesting idea. this could also be a comfortable way to make autobiography. As an obsessive book reader, like mostly everyone in this forum, that's one of the first things I'd think of.

And that's actually gives me an idea. Sazed stated that memories worded are kept best in metalmind, but in BoM we've seen a very vivid memory of scenes. How vivid would you think a memory of imagined scenes could be? And the mere idea o sharing memories, btw, gives you insight to other people's mind. If people would make the aforementioned autobiographys, it would give soothers & rioters a much needed knowedge on people, maybe even better than psychological profile. Just writing random thoughts.

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2 hours ago, Trutharchivist said:

Interesting idea. this could also be a comfortable way to make autobiography. As an obsessive book reader, like mostly everyone in this forum, that's one of the first things I'd think of.

And that's actually gives me an idea. Sazed stated that memories worded are kept best in metalmind, but in BoM we've seen a very vivid memory of scenes. How vivid would you think a memory of imagined scenes could be? And the mere idea o sharing memories, btw, gives you insight to other people's mind. If people would make the aforementioned autobiographys, it would give soothers & rioters a much needed knowedge on people, maybe even better than psychological profile. Just writing random thoughts.

Being able to tap a copy of a memory also bridges the infamous Explanatory Gap of linguistics and psychology. Scadrians can, once and for all, know if "my red" is the same color as "your red". etc.

Also, if Synesthesia is a thing on Scadrial, unsealed copperminds would be fascinating to have one of them store a memory in there.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 8/1/2020 at 4:58 PM, Halyo_Alex said:

Also, if Synesthesia is a thing on Scadrial, unsealed copperminds would be fascinating to have one of them store a memory in there.

Even if it's not (though I don't see why it wouldn't be), there's still some highly fascinating stuff in this area. What happens if a blind person taps a visual memory? Or if someone without iron/steel allomancy taps the vision of someone burning one of those metals, with regards to the blue lines?

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12 hours ago, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

Even if it's not (though I don't see why it wouldn't be), there's still some highly fascinating stuff in this area. What happens if a blind person taps a visual memory? Or if someone without iron/steel allomancy taps the vision of someone burning one of those metals, with regards to the blue lines?

I was wondering if one could stack or serialize memories in an unsealed coppermind from different people. Or even from the same person.

I'm sure the different memories can be stored in the same coppermind, what I mean is, can the ordering be specified or indexed? To form a narrative? It would make for an interesting twist if someone tapped an unsealed coppermind coin and saw some events play out spanning several hours or days, that they misinterpreted because they didn't "play them back" in the right order until noticing some detail like the sun's shadow moving in the wrong direction.

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10 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

never worry about memorizing someone's name or phone number? Dude, now I want that...

You do have that, most likely. For the same reason I stopped memorizing anybody's phone number or address since circa 1998. I have a device in my pocket at all times that does that for me.

Funny thing about short-term vs. long-term memory though - I still remember all the contact info I'd already memorized up until that point of my adult life, like those of my closest high school friends circa 1988. I can still remember the (parents') home phone numbers from back then for at least five people who I could not even tell you their email address now without pulling out my phone or logging in to a computer.

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Just now, robardin said:

You do have that, most likely. For the same reason I stopped memorizing anybody's phone number or address since circa 1998. I have a device in my pocket at all times that does that for me.

Funny thing about short-term vs. long-term memory though - I still remember all the contact info I'd already memorized up until that point of my adult life, like those of my closest high school friends circa 1988. I can still remember the (parents') home phone numbers from back then for at least five people who I could not even tell you their email address now without pulling out my phone or logging in to a computer.

Hooray for not-copperminds! :D

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1 minute ago, Raphaborn said:

This is cool. But I imagined something like Implant Memory, or Skill Chip Slot. And, best of all, not intrusive.

Ah, like that scene in The Matrix where Neo just uploads the mastery of martial arts straight into his mind?

 

The problem for tapping an unsealed coppermind for that sort of thing, to me, would be the retention of it. What if you "forgot" the memory after the tapping was done, because it wasn't really yours to begin with?

 

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1 minute ago, robardin said:

Ah, like that scene in The Matrix where Neo just uploads the mastery of martial arts straight into his mind?

The problem for tapping an unsealed coppermind for that sort of thing, to me, would be the retention of it. What if you "forgot" the memory after the tapping was done, because it wasn't really yours to begin with?

Yes, but with Copper you could memorize an entire physics book for example. I don't think it would work well with learning martial arts.

This possibility is already covered in a normal unkeyed coppermind, as we saw at the end of BoM. But if it were possible to make it a long-term memory with Compouding it would degrade very slowly.

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when you burn an ironmind the iron is destroyed. the stored weight aswell. you make the effect ~10x as strong while burning. after its used up, the weight returns to normal.

 

when you burn a coppermind the copper is destroyed. the stored memories aswell. you will remember them vividly while burning. after its used up, the memories return to normal.

 

 

if you align it like this then it seems like burning copper would grant you the ability to look through the content of the coppermind very effectively while you burn it. after the copper runs out it will be in your regular memory and therefor subject to decay. very fast decay if you burn a 'large' copper mind. burning copper is therefor a very bad idea most of the time as the limitation of the human memory will defeat the purpose.

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44 minutes ago, trav said:

when you burn a coppermind the copper is destroyed. the stored memories aswell. you will remember them vividly while burning. after its used up, the memories return to normal.

We haven't seen anyone burn a coppermind since the only people with access to both have been TLR and Marsh possibly.

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18 hours ago, Hoidolasium said:

We haven't seen anyone burn a coppermind since the only people with access to both have been TLR and Marsh possibly.

this is how the other metals work so I simply assume that it is the same copper. once the metal is burned the effect is gone. I see no reason to believe why burning F-copper should affect the users body after the metal is used up. it does not happen with the other metals.

copper stores memories. tapping copper restores memories.

burning copper should restore memories more vividly or strongly. after it is burned then your body returns to normal and a normal brain can not keep the vast memory of a coppermind without decay. it may remain fresh for a while, but will eventually fade.

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