Trusk'our he/him Posted February 18, 2022 Posted February 18, 2022 My 500th post! I found this quote and it got me thinking... Quote Questioner Does creating unsealed metalmind involve Feruchemical duralumin? Brandon Sanderson (hesitating)...Yes. I will write it all out for you eventually. I want to get at least one more book done, then you find out exactly why and how. Questioner Because I was pretty confused about the Investiture and Spiritweb... Brandon Sanderson Here is the reason I'm kind of hesitant of this, [why not you just RAFO this one right now], but it is not a RAFO, because it is like it's a secret. I want to write it out exactly how it happens, because I have it in my notes in bullet points and it's complicated, right? Cause I want some of the things in the magic system as be as complicated as for instance explaining how a computer works right now. You can do it, but you know...I want the magic to start getting that technical if that makes sense. When you say "involve", right, that's a big word. Why just don't you let me, after lost metal...if I haven't released it, you have permission to come to me and say: "Brandon, you said you would release this, you haven't yet [...]" and I will give to you the bullet point flowchart of how you build the unkeyed metalminds. Okay, okay, so Brandon didn't sound like he was saying that an Unsealed Metalmind necessarily needed Feruchemical Duralumin to work, but for the purposes of this theory there is enough evidence that I'm going to assume that it is used in their creation. If it turns out that this isn't the case when The Lost Metal comes out, you can tell me you told me so. Alrighty, so we know that the Sovereign (pretty sure everyone knows who they are by now, but I'll just refer to them as that for now) gave the Excisors to the Southern Scadriens so that they could create Unsealed Metalminds for the survival of their people. I hypothesize that the Excisors are actually just Unsealed Metalmind made from Feruchemical nicrosil, aluminum, duralumin, and likely brass. They also likely include their Allomantic counterparts to allow for compounding. I also hypothesize that creation of Unsealed Metalminds requires a few steps; a misting or ferring takes one of the Excisors and taps nicrosil, temporarily granting them the ability to store their own innate power in a Nicrosilmind. While doing this they also store their Identity in an Aluminummind to unseal their power for someone else to use. The resulting Nicrosilmind is then taken and a band of metal corresponding to the power stored (if Feruchemical in nature) is added for convenience, thus making the Southern medallions we see in The Bands of Mourning. However, if one wants to make a Medallion with more powers, I'm guessing that a little more is involved. Two or more Mistings or Ferrings each get an Excisor, tapping nicrosil, and storing their Identity in Aluminum. They then tap Feruchemical duralumin to create a Connection between themselves, possibly before the other steps or during them. They would then store their Investiture in the same Nicrosilmind, and with their being little Identity to the stored Investiture plus with the Connection between them, they act as if they were one power, one Metalmind with one owner so as to not interfere with each other. It may be possible that the reason you can only store up to three powers in the medallions (excluding the Feruchemical nicrosil, of course) is because you can only Feruchemically store at a certain rate, and so you can't completely remove all of your Identity, so the more powers you store, the more incompatible they become due to the small amount of Identity left in them. If this is the case then Hemalurgically granted powers may not become entirely obsolete, as the Identity of the spike and the person using the spike combine when storing power, so they could be used to create Unsealed Metalminds that don't have a limitation to the number of powers that can be added together. Not to mention the fact that you can just use Hemalurgy to grant yourself a number of powers, assuming of course that you're in good standing with Harmony and all that. Quote Lucadaw If someone used Hemalurgy to take someones Feruchemical abilities would they be able to use that persons personal metalminds? Most relevantly perhaps to take that person's knowledge from their copperminds? Brandon Sanderson Yes. Lucadaw If someone stored their identity in an aluminium metalmind, then had their powers and metalminds stolen via Hemalurgy, then the person who took the powers used the aluminium metalmind to draw out the first persons identity would it permanently overwrite their personality with the original persons ? ( would kind of be a long winded way of stealing someone else's body and becoming immortal ) Brandon Sanderson All Identity questions are a RAFO until I deal with it more in the books. (Sorry.) WeiryWriter (in response to the first answer) If the spike granting Feruchemy were to be reforged/split into two distinct spikes which are then implanted into two different people, could those two people "share" a metalmind (as in actually be able to tap something the other stored and vice versa?). Brandon Sanderson It's complicated, but no. There would be too much of the other person mixed in. Both could use the metalminds of the person the Feruchemy was stolen from, but when they made their own, their own Identity would "muddy" the creation. Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed this little theory of mine and will be willing to read more of my posts in the future. Can't wait for The Lost Metal to come out! 1
cometaryorbit Posted February 19, 2022 Posted February 19, 2022 That process makes sense, but "excise" means "cut out" so I figured the Excisors are hemalurgic spikes... probably granting f-Nicrosil, f-Aluminum, and maybe a-Nicrosil for compounding... which are used the same way as the Unsealed Metalminds granting those powers you suggest.
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