Steelrunners Don't Store Physical Speed

[tobar14]

So speed is a measurement of distance over time. Take 1 regular person and 1 steel Ferring, put them against each other in a 50 meter dash. Obviously the Steelrunner will win, but why? They won because they got a faster time, not because they traveled more distance.

In that scenario the distance is 50 meters for both people. That doesn't change. The only thing that changes is the time it takes them. Steelrunners store personal time.

on the flip side, I cannot picture in my head how someone would store distance, but idk I could be convinced.

I am guessing there is someone smarter than me that can tell me why I am wrong about this

[Chasmgoat]

so, lets say a steelrunner does 1 mile in 2 minutes. their speed is 1/2 miles a minute.

They same steelrunner (without powers this time) does it 8 minutes. their speed is now 1/8 miles a minute.

When speed changes, only one (however both also works) aspect needs to change. time or distance.

Their time changes from 2 to 8 minutes. Their speed does change and so the speed changes also.

I may have misunderstood something, if so, sorry.

[Jozomby]

I think I've got another way to phrase this - let me know if I'm wrong.

Imagine that I slow down time for everything around me.  I can now walk around, interact with stuff, etc. and to everyone else it looks like I'm moving super fast.  On the opposite side, if I speed up time for everything around me, now everyone else sees me moving super slowly.  

I think this is what the OP is proposing - the idea that storing/tapping "speed" is simply changing the way time flows for you, so that you interact with the world on a quicker or slower scale.

I think one way to support this theory would be to look at mental speed.  If this really is the way feruchemical steel works, then they would also be thinking "faster" (or slower) during this time.  Since time slows/speeds up for them, everything they do (motion, thought, metabolism, etc.) would be effected.  Do we have confirmation on whether tapping physical speed also speeds up your mind?  I would assume so, since if your thinking didn't speed up you'd probably just crash into all sorts of stuff.  But the fact that mental speed is a separate attribute that can be stored (zinc) makes me uncertain.

[tobar14]

58 minutes ago, Chasmgoat said:

so, lets say a steelrunner does 1 mile in 2 minutes. their speed is 1/2 miles a minute.

They same steelrunner (without powers this time) does it 8 minutes. their speed is now 1/8 miles a minute.

When speed changes, only one (however both also works) aspect needs to change. time or distance.

Their time changes from 2 to 8 minutes. Their speed does change and so the speed changes also.

I may have misunderstood something, if so, sorry.

You get my point exactly. My question re-phrased: when they are storing/taping their power, are the storing/tapping Time or Distance or Both? Can they choose? 

[Chasmgoat]

So, I don't think they can store either time or distance. Distance is obvious, but I don't think they tap time, If they did, mental speeds would also go up. So, I think that when it says tapping speed, it refers to the ability of their muscles to react. maybe not, but I have no ideas beyond this.

[tobar14]

20 minutes ago, Chasmgoat said:

So, I don't think they can store either time or distance. Distance is obvious, but I don't think they tap time, If they did, mental speeds would also go up. So, I think that when it says tapping speed, it refers to the ability of their muscles to react. maybe not, but I have no ideas beyond this.

Yeah I guess I was just thinking how speed is measured in our universe, and seeing how that applied to Steelrunning. It lead me to these questions. I think I am leaning towards the third option.

1. Storing time for themselves only, not a bubble
2. Storing distance, which doesn't really make sense unless someone 
3. They store Distance over time which is speed (so both)
   1. Now that I think about it, when someone is storing speed, they have to be moving, right? So it does involve distance in the sense that you have to change your position in space. So when you are storing speed, you have to move and its going to take more time to do it.

I think I convinced myself out of my own theory, ha!

 

Edited December 14, 2020 by tobar14

[tobar14]

Now a new question arises. 

Do you have to be moving in order to store speed?

Do you have to be moving in order to tap speed?

[Kingsdaughter613]

2 hours ago, tobar14 said:

Yeah I guess I was just thinking how speed is measured in our universe, and seeing how that applied to Steelrunning. It lead me to these questions. I think I am leaning towards the third option.

1. Storing time for themselves only, not a bubble
2. Storing distance, which doesn't really make sense unless someone 
3. They store Distance over time which is speed (so both)
   1. Now that I think about it, when someone is storing speed, they have to be moving, right? So it does involve distance in the sense that you have to change your position in space. So when you are storing speed, you have to move and its going to take more time to do it.

I think I convinced myself out of my own theory, ha!

 

Their mental speed increases to match their physical speed. Otherwise they’d crash. But it isn’t the same thing as Zinc storing mental speed.

Edited December 14, 2020 by Kingsdaughter613

[Koloss17]

1 hour ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Their mental speed increases to match their physical speed. Otherwise they’d crash. But it isn’t the same thing as Zinc storing mental speed.

Buuut you can reverse compound it using F-zinc!

[StanLemon]

Keep in mind, the equations can be flipped as well. Time elapsed is equal to distance x speed. Remember that in the Cosmere there is a Cognitive aspect to everything and concepts like speed have tangible meanings. Brandon has answered whether or not it is a time manipulation effect and his answer is that there is a slight temporal effect but that it isn't as much as people think. It's part of the power that let's people use the speed. What steel stores...is speed.

Calderis

I recently got the opportunity to ask you a question about Feruchemical steel and if it was a temporal effect and you told me to define that better. When tapping steel, the mind of the Feruchemist is sped up and physics affects their actions normally. When storing, their mind is not slowed and the effect seems tortuously difficult to amass. Storing generally seems to be the more dangerous/difficult option in Feruchemy, so does [Feruchemical steel] alter a person's personal relationship to the flow of time, with the disconnect between the Physical and Cognitive as a drawback of storing?

Brandon Sanderson

I see what you're asking. The mind-altering effects of [Feruchemical steel] are similar to the slight strength you gain from [Feruchemical iron]--it is your Spiritual nature adapting to the new influx of an attribute that it's not really expecting, and siphoning some of that investiture to make you capable of actually using it. So there is a slight temporal effect here, but nothing as big as I think you're looking for.