On reverse compounding

[Winter]

I've been recently listening to shardcast again (not having a commute really made listening to anything difficult) and it reminded me about a discussion of reverse compounding.

The eventual conclusion of most of the cast was that reverse compounding doesn't really matter because nicrosil Feruchemy would be more effective at amplifying allomantic power(I believe this was within the context of discussing TLR and his powers). While this is a reasonable conclusion for a fullborn, it is not a useful conclusion for your "average" twinborn. I intend to develop a concept of the method through which a twinborn compounder could benefit from abilities where the feruchemical power is not necessarily a useful attribute.

Known Methods of improving Allomancy

Duralumin.
This is useful for mistborn but not for anyone else (assuming natural/healthy attainment of abilities only)

Nicrosil Feruchemy
Nicrosil stores the ability to burn or store in specific metals. Storing your ability when not in use and tapping it later would allow you to burn your metal as if you were a stronger Allomancer. If TLR was aware of this it could have been a contributor to his overwhelming power.

Other possible methods may include technology that affects Connection to Preservations investiture. The Ire attempts to use an unknown technology to claim the shard after the death of Leras. It is possible that technology could develop that would mimic the effects of Lerasium.



Normal compounding

Normal compounding works by fueling feruchemical power with Allomantic investiture. Burning a metalmind causes it to act like a new allomantic metal which releases a greater amount of feruchemical power that can then be stored.
Compounding solves the two primary issues with Feruchemy the personal cost and the storage rate.
The personal cost is the generally negative effect of storing an attribute, for example being weak while storing strength or tired while storing wakefulness. Since the storing primarily happens from the results of compounding there is little personal cost.
The storage rate is a problem by itself and also partially a cause of the personal cost. The rate of storage approaches the limit of 100% of the attribute for most attributes where compounding is particularly useful. If you store 100% of your health then you would die. If you store 100% speed you can't move and would likely require some messing with thermodynamics.
Compounding solves these issues by providing an external source of investiture which is limited only by the availability of the metal in question.

Issues in Allomancy

Rate of power

Other than flaring and duralumin, metal is burned at a consistent rate for a consistent amount of power per individual. For a misting, only flaring is available.

Availability of metal

Metal can be expensive and can't be reused or saved for much more than a day once swallowed. Rationing metal can be a serious problem for an Allomancer who is trapped without reserves or resources

Proposal
I propose that if compounding provides an allomantic source for feruchemical abilities, reverse compounding would provide a feruchemical source for allomantic power. A twinborn would burn a metal, iron for example, but instead of pulling on metal, would store the pulls in an ironmind to be used at a later time.

Benefits to the compounder
Rate of power
Feruchemical attributes can be tapped at whatever rate the user intends. This could be used to exceed the typical output of allomantic pushes or pulls.

Availability of metal
By storing the output of an ability inside a metalmind, the Allomancer is able to freely consume their metal knowing that if it is not used it will not be wasted. This results in less reliance on vials which can be pushed away by enemy Allomancers. (Side note, era 3, 30oz insulated aluminum tumblers for renewing metal reserves, can't wait).

Possible arguments against this proposal

Nicrosil Feruchemy
From what I understand, nicrosil stores the ability to push (please correct me if this is wrong) whereas reverse compounding would store the actual pushes. Nicrosil is also not useful for the majority of twinborn without further expansion of medallion technology.

Why would Brandon do this?
To provide opportunities for greater power to those with less useful feruchemical abilities. Additionally balance/harmony is a major theme of mistborn, to have the power flow in only one direction seems counter to that theme in my opinion.

This could create narrative problems/running out of metal or stores becomes unlikely/contrived/cliche
Yes. I trust that Brandon could come up with an elegant solution to these issues but I do not expect to necessarily see this in action. I believe it exists but not that we are likely to see it on the page.

Yeah well, you're stupid!
Totally agree with you.

Thanks for coming to me Ted talk

[Halyo_Alex]

Hey, we're in agreement! I also think that reverse compounding is the ability to store allomantic power in the metalmind of the matching metal.

I think there's one minor but key difference between us though?

4 hours ago, Winter said:

would store the pulls in an ironmind to be used at a later time

Are you implying that each ironpull would be stored... separately, or something? as opposed to having a "reservoir of ironpulling" that can be tapped and then directed at a specific piece of metal for as long as the charge remains.

That would be the only difference, but it could just be phrasing.

[Winter]

I think your phrase is better. It would store the Pullforce, if you will, to be directed at a later time.

[Halyo_Alex]

44 minutes ago, Winter said:

I think your phrase is better. It would store the Pullforce, if you will, to be directed at a later time.

Okay first, Pullforce got a giggle out of me because I'm a Zelda fan.

But okay, so we're on the same page. The ironmind would have a reserve of Ironpulling power stored inside it, and when you tap it, it gives you the metalsight lines and you can pull on metal with the power you're extracting.

[Winter]

4 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Okay first, Pullforce got a giggle out of me because I'm a Zelda fan.

But okay, so we're on the same page. The ironmind would have a reserve of Ironpulling power stored inside it, and when you tap it, it gives you the metalsight lines and you can pull on metal with the power you're extracting.

Exactly, without the need to have any currently injested iron. You could then tap a little for small objects or to move only a little or as much as you want for TLR strength pulling. 

[Halyo_Alex]

4 minutes ago, Winter said:

Exactly, without the need to have any currently injested iron. You could then tap a little for small objects or to move only a little or as much as you want for TLR strength pulling. 

Yeah, also, you don't need to burn off the excess metals so that you don't get metal poisoning. You can store it up for later, potentially DAYS later.

[Quantus]

I dont think what you describe would work.  What you describe is not reversing the Power source hack of Compounding, you're describing actually storing the external effect for later use.   Normal Nicrosil may well do that (or something similar) but I dont see how you would store an individual Push for later use (as opposed to storing the ability to Push) because all the targets involved would be long gone.

Compounding works because of the wildly different scales of power in each, so I dont see how it would work (or benefit)  from reversing the process. Compounding is described in WOB as hooking up a pedal-power device to the Mains Power.  Reversing that would give you the Allomantic effects with a wildly reduced (and more problematic) power source, but I dont think ti would be able to force metalminds to store new things.  

[Winter]

21 minutes ago, Quantus said:

 Normal Nicrosil may well do that (or something similar) but I dont see how you would store an individual Push for later use (as opposed to storing the ability to Push) because all the targets involved would be long gone.

You would not store an individual push, rather the force of that push to be directed at the time of your choosing.

Quote

Compounding works because of the wildly different scales of power in each, so I dont see how it would work (or benefit)  from reversing the process. 

The benefit is in the ability to tap feruchemical stores at exponential rates and in not needing to waste metal by burning excess away at the end of the night. 

Quote

but I dont think ti would be able to force metalminds to store new things.

Unless Brandon shows up in this thread I doubt we will find out. I appreciate the difference in opinion though, it helps to refine the thoughts.

[Trutharchivist]

As far as I understand, you're talking about storing kinetic investiture, which I'm not sure that could work even on nicrosilminds, because they store potential investiture - the ability to burn metals.

I disagree with you about this, I don't think a compouder should be able to store KI in the fitting metalmind, but I have no valid point. it just doesn't sound right to me.

[Winter]

1 hour ago, Trutharchivist said:

I disagree with you about this, I don't think a compouder should be able to store KI in the fitting metalmind, but I have no valid point. it just doesn't sound right to me.

That's fair. Like I said I don't know that we will ever see it in the books but it's been on my mind, if only because I would want iron Allomancy and iron compounding does not seem particularly useful

[theTruthshaper]

I don't think this will work. There is no reason that you would be able to store 'Pullforce' inside an iron metalmind. In my opinion, reverse compounding will work by storing stuff into the metalmind which can store that sort of stuff. This wasn't very clear so I am giving an example:

Let's say that you have A-steel and F-tin. When you burn A-steel, you get a new 'sense' which tells you where metals are, you can store this sense into a tinmind, which will allow you to tap it later and see the web of blue lines without burning steel, but you will not be able to push on the metal, all you store is the sense.

We have already seen this being done by Lord Ruler. Usually, pewter stores strength as muscles, however A-pewter increases your strength without increasing your muscles mass, Lord Ruler would store this into his pewterminds, creating a supercharged version of A-pewter, without the visible muscles that come with F-pewter.

Edited August 14, 2020 by The_Truthwatcher

[Winter]

51 minutes ago, The_Truthwatcher said:

Let's say that you have A-steel and F-tin. When you burn A-steel, you get a new 'sense' which tells you where metals are, you can store this sense into a tinmind, which will allow you to tap it later and see the web of blue lines without burning steel, but you will not be able to push on the metal, all you store is the sense

This is a potential explanation for two metals but it doesn't hold up for other metals. Where would you store copper clouds for example? Additionally we see steel sight being treated as a sense but it seems more to be visual a representation of potential investiture. The sense being used is sight to see, with the exception of Inquisitors and I'm not sure we would ever get a satisfactory explanation for how they work.

The Lord Ruler doesn't need reverse compounding. For one he was stronger than a Lerasium Mistborn, for two he likely has duralumin, for three he could compound nicrosil if he had access to it, for four he could have been a savant in every available metal at that point after being alive for 1000 years.

[theTruthshaper]

2 minutes ago, Winter said:

This is a potential explanation for two metals but it doesn't hold up for other metals. Where would you store copper clouds for example? Additionally we see steel sight being treated as a sense but it seems more to be visual a representation of potential investiture. The sense being used is sight to see, with the exception of Inquisitors and I'm not sure we would ever get a satisfactory explanation for how they work.

The Lord Ruler doesn't need reverse compounding. For one he was stronger than a Lerasium Mistborn, for two he likely has duralumin, for three he could compound nicrosil if he had access to it, for four he could have been a savant in every available metal at that point after being alive for 1000 years.

Yeah, that's the whole thing. You can't reverse compound every metal (unless maybe you could do with nicrosil). Also, I am pretty sure that we have confirmation that Lord Ruler was doing this with pewter. He was continuously very strong, which you cannot get using Duralumin. 

[Halyo_Alex]

42 minutes ago, The_Truthwatcher said:

Yeah, that's the whole thing. You can't reverse compound every metal (unless maybe you could do with nicrosil). Also, I am pretty sure that we have confirmation that Lord Ruler was doing this with pewter. He was continuously very strong, which you cannot get using Duralumin. 

But storing A-Pewter's effect inside a pewtermind is EXACTLY what we're positing for Reverse Compounding, isn't it? So why can't that extend to other metals?

[theTruthshaper]

1 minute ago, Halyo_Alex said:

But storing A-Pewter's effect inside a pewtermind is EXACTLY what we're positing for Reverse Compounding, isn't it? So why can't that extend to other metals?

You can store A-pewter inside a pewtermind because a pewtermind stores strenght. Similarly, you can store A-tim inside a tinmind. But iron stores mass, why should it also be able to store an ironpull? My hypothesis doesn't need any new mechanisms, while yours does. 

[Halyo_Alex]

Just now, The_Truthwatcher said:

You can store A-pewter inside a pewtermind because a pewtermind stores strenght. Similarly, you can store A-tim inside a tinmind. But iron stores mass, why should it also be able to store an ironpull? My hypothesis doesn't need any new mechanisms, while yours does. 

Fair. But for regular Compounding, we DO need a new mechanism. Or rather an assumption. That assumption being that when the power stored in a metalmind meets the allomantic power coming through from it being burned, that the allomantic power changes and becomes the feruchemical one. At face value there is no real need for that to take place.

So why not make it symmetrical and say that the allomantic power can be stored in the matching metal, creating an allomantic metalmind?

[StanLemon]

8 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Fair. But for regular Compounding, we DO need a new mechanism. Or rather an assumption. That assumption being that when the power stored in a metalmind meets the allomantic power coming through from it being burned, that the allomantic power changes and becomes the feruchemical one. At face value there is no real need for that to take place.

So why not make it symmetrical and say that the allomantic power can be stored in the matching metal, creating an allomantic metalmind?

My issue on it is that it doesn't have a cause for the switch. Like you said, when the Allomantic Investiture gets pulled through the metal the Feruchemical Investiture changes the shape that it comes out in. 

However Feruchemy draws from the trait itself to store into the metal, what would be the cause for it to draw an entirely different trait? With normal compounding there is the filter of Invested metal. But what you and @Winter propose there is nothing causing the conversion. 

Personally I think if reverse compounding was so simple it would have already been done in the books and at least referenced.

[Rorzikel]

I’m really of the opinion that nicrosil compounding/storing is what Brandon is referring to when he says there’s a way to use Feruchemy to enhance Allomancy.

[StanLemon]

7 hours ago, MyrmidonOfAchilles said:

I’m really of the opinion that nicrosil compounding/storing is what Brandon is referring to when he says there’s a way to use Feruchemy to enhance Allomancy.

I have an alternate theory that involves Duralumin instead of Nicrosil. The strength of Allomancy is heavily dependent on Connection to the Shard Preservation. As BoM showed, Duralumin is very flexible with what type of Connection it can stre (blank Connection anyone?). So I posit that by storing and then Compounding Connection to Preservation, Allomancy would gain a huge boost in power. And unlike the Nicrosil theory, Duralumin is a metal we know 100% TLR had access to

[Halyo_Alex]

4 hours ago, StanLemon said:

I have an alternate theory that involves Duralumin instead of Nicrosil. The strength of Allomancy is heavily dependent on Connection to the Shard Preservation. As BoM showed, Duralumin is very flexible with what type of Connection it can stre (blank Connection anyone?). So I posit that by storing and then Compounding Connection to Preservation, Allomancy would gain a huge boost in power. And unlike the Nicrosil theory, Duralumin is a metal we know 100% TLR had access to

This, I think, is what could allow a Duralumin compounder to masquerade as a Mistborn, realmatically speaking. By sustaining high Connection to Preservation, they might actually gain access to the remaining Allomantic metals. This might be how the Era 3 mistborn serial killer exists. Compounding Connection also allows the user to "build trust relationships incredibly easily". Sounds like the perfect trick for a serial killer who wants to remain subtle.

[Chinkoln]

This is an interesting theory, but storing Connection to specific things is difficult. I can’t find the WoB about it but someone asked Brandon if your date/time of birth could be stored, giving you infinite age, and Brandon said that you can’t store something like that.

[Koloss17]

So it’s really annoying that we don’t know what F-nicrosil Does. I would love for this to be doable, but storing investiture could be anything. Most likely it is innate investiture, investiture Keyed to your spiritual identity. This would work for breaths, the metallic arts, surgebinding, or anything you are born with. This is probably how unsealed metalminds work, but we’re not sure.
 

I do like the idea of seeking being a sense, though. Does that mean that a A-bronze and F-tin twinborn would be able to easily pierce copperclouds?

[Halyo_Alex]

32 minutes ago, Koloss17 said:

So it’s really annoying that we don’t know what F-nicrosil Does. I would love for this to be doable, but storing investiture could be anything. Most likely it is innate investiture, investiture Keyed to your spiritual identity. This would work for breaths, the metallic arts, surgebinding, or anything you are born with. This is probably how unsealed metalminds work, but we’re not sure.

Tell me about it. And I agree, you probably can't use a nicrosilmind as a "perfect" stormlight receptacle for example (one that won't leak).

32 minutes ago, Koloss17 said:

I do like the idea of seeking being a sense, though. Does that mean that a A-bronze and F-tin twinborn would be able to easily pierce copperclouds?

It may enhance the range you can sense pulses from, but perhaps. Would be interesting to ask Brandon on that one.

[Koloss17]

1 hour ago, Halyo_Alex said:

It may enhance the range you can sense pulses from, but perhaps. Would be interesting to ask Brandon on that one.

Ooh! I like the idea of lengthening pulse sensing range more! Then you got a super sentinel for a city! You wanna find someone like miles gold twinborn? Well I scanned the city for 30 minutes and found two feruchimical(that can’t be the right word) signals in the city.

that’s most likely what would happen, since bronze savants have an extended range. Although, a duralumin-enhanced bronze flare on brass gave specificity to the brass, so that’s another option. 

[Halyo_Alex]

3 hours ago, Koloss17 said:

Ooh! I like the idea of lengthening pulse sensing range more! Then you got a super sentinel for a city! You wanna find someone like miles gold twinborn? Well I scanned the city for 30 minutes and found two feruchimical(that can’t be the right word) signals in the city.

that’s most likely what would happen, since bronze savants have an extended range. Although, a duralumin-enhanced bronze flare on brass gave specificity to the brass, so that’s another option. 

(Feruchemical*)

Precision may also be what you get out of the feruchemical tapping of bronze sense, yes. Hmm...