Duralumin/Nicrosil and Compounding

[Duxredux]

Anyone know what happens if you are burning Duralumin while also attempting to burn a stored Feruchemical attribute? I've been wondering about this since we see Connection Medallions and I'm wondering if they're filling them in a special way, or if this isn't as complicated as I think it is. 

In order to compound you first store a Feruchemical attribute in the Metalmind, slightly burn the Metalmind, which allows you to access the Feruchemical storage as an Allomantic ability, and then burn the Feruchemical storage granting a huge amount of that storage in return. By necessity to make the compounding work, you have to actively, if minutely, burn the Metalmind. Duralumin removes all control over how little you burn, instead expending all actively burning metals in a burst of power beyond what most Allomancers can do even when flaring their metals. The entire stock, which presumably includes the Metalmind.

Maybe it isn't a problem, since A-Duralumin itself I think burns at a normal rate, but does A-Duralumin's effect apply to F-Duralumin? Do you get huge bursts of Connection and then you immediately extinguish A-Duralumin and then store or lose it? That probably wouldn't be a problem, except you have no finesse when you need to recharge (and who knows what happens when you repeatedly massively Connect yourself to... whatever). I know that Leechers can't affect Feruchemical stores normally, but I'm wondering if the "hack" that is Compounding opens Feruchemical stores to influence from Leechers, or if that would only would work when actively Compounding. At any rate, I don't think it would be viable to Compound Duralumin and another metal at the same time.

[NameIess]

7 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Anyone know what happens if you are burning Duralumin while also attempting to burn a stored Feruchemical attribute? I've been wondering about this since we see Connection Medallions and I'm wondering if they're filling them in a special way, or if this isn't as complicated as I think it is. 

In order to compound you first store a Feruchemical attribute in the Metalmind, slightly burn the Metalmind, which allows you to access the Feruchemical storage as an Allomantic ability, and then burn the Feruchemical storage granting a huge amount of that storage in return. By necessity to make the compounding work, you have to actively, if minutely, burn the Metalmind. Duralumin removes all control over how little you burn, instead expending all actively burning metals in a burst of power beyond what most Allomancers can do even when flaring their metals. The entire stock, which presumably includes the Metalmind.

Maybe it isn't a problem, since A-Duralumin itself I think burns at a normal rate, but does A-Duralumin's effect apply to F-Duralumin? Do you get huge bursts of Connection and then you immediately extinguish A-Duralumin and then store or lose it? That probably wouldn't be a problem, except you have no finesse when you need to recharge (and who knows what happens when you repeatedly massively Connect yourself to... whatever). I know that Leechers can't affect Feruchemical stores normally, but I'm wondering if the "hack" that is Compounding opens Feruchemical stores to influence from Leechers, or if that would only would work when actively Compounding. At any rate, I don't think it would be viable to Compound Duralumin and another metal at the same time.

So, here's a WoB on how compounding works (spoiled for length):

Spoiler

Lyndsey Luther

Ok, last question. It was really difficult coming up with three questions that haven’t been asked already...

Brandon Sanderson

OK... you’re not going to ask me the “what would you ask me” question?

Lyndsey Luther

Not quite...

Brandon Sanderson

OK good, because I hate that one! (laughs)

Lyndsey Luther

My question is if there’s anything that you’ve never been asked that you would like to talk about?

Brandon Sanderson

Oooooh, ok. Hm. That one is so hard! Every time people ask me something like this... What have I never been asked that people should be asking, is basically what the question is? Something that the fans have just missed... They pick up on so much, that it’s hard... I do wonder if, you know… all the magic systems [in my books] are connected and work on some basic fundamental principles, and a lot of people haven’t been asking questions about this. One thing I did get a question on today, and I’ll just talk about this one... they didn’t ask the right question, but I nudged them the right way, is understanding that tie between AonDor [the magic system from Elantris] and Allomancy [Mistborn’s magic system].

People ask about getting the power from metals and things, but that’s not actually how it works. The power’s not coming from metal. I talked a little about this before, but you are drawing power from some source, and the metal is actually just a gateway. It’s actually the molecular structure of the metal… what’s going on there, the pattern, the resonance of that metal works in the same way as an Aon does in Elantris. It filters the power. So it is just a sign of “this is what power this energy is going to be shaped into and give you.” When you understand that, Compounding [in Alloy of Law] makes much more sense.

Compounding is where you are able to kind of draw in more power than you should with Feruchemy. What’s going on there is you’re actually charging a piece of metal, and then you are burning that metal as a Feruchemical charge. What is happening is that the Feruchemical charge overwrites the Allomantic charge, and so you actually fuel Feruchemy with Allomancy, is what you are doing. Then if you just get out another piece of metal and store it in, since you’re not drawing the power from yourself, you’re cheating the system, you’re short-circuiting the system a little bit. So you can actually use the power that usually fuels Allomancy, to fuel Feruchemy, which you can then store in a metalmind, and basically build up these huge reservoirs of it. So what’s going on there is… imagine there’s like, an imprint, a wavelength, so to speak. A beat for an Allomantic thing, that when you burn a metal, it says “ok, this is what power we give.” When it’s got that charge, it changes that beat and says, “now we get this power.” And you access a set of Feruchemical power. That’s why Compounding is so powerful.

Open The Fridge Interview (Nov. 16, 2011)

So basically, when you compound, you are burning the charged metalmind. However, because of the investiture you stored in that metalmind, instead of getting the normal allomantic power from the metal, you instead get the feruchemical power. So, to answer your question, it would not be difficult to compound connection because the allomantic effect doesn't activate while you are compounding. It is replaced with the feruchemical effect.

That said, burning normal duraluminum while compounding could be dangerous:

Quote

 

Questioner

What happens if you burn duralumin while Compounding?

Brandon Sanderson

Duralumin while Compounding. So, what duralumin does is it burns out of all of your metal in one burst. So it doesn't necessarily gain you power, it makes it all happen at the same time. The same thing would happen.

Questioner

Could you turn into a baby?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, you could totally turn into a baby. That is within the power of using that, doing <health wrong>, yeah you could totally... You'd be really dangerous.

Questioner

But it wouldn't really do much?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh it would have explosive... it does things really fast. That's what it does. Yes you could achieve very powerful sudden effects through that. It'd be scary. Controlling it can be dangerous, regardless of which metal you use.

Arcanum Unbounded Seattle signing (Dec. 1, 2016)