How to tap and burn metals you aren't even touching

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

So, many magics in the cosmere, feruchemy among them, require touch to use them. Feruchemists have to be in physical contact with their metalminds in order to store or tap. Or so we've seen. Contact is required, yes, but why does it need to be physical contact? This is the cosmere, we have three realms to work on. I think that the reason touch is required is cause it forms a basic Connection needed to access the magic. But if you could Connect in other ways, maybe touch isn't even required. I think that if you could increase your Connection to a metalmind, say through the use of tapping feruchemical duralumin, you could access that metalmind without touching it. With a weak Connection, you might have to see that metal but with a strong Connection you might be able to access it from anywhere (as long as you stored enough connection to it beforehand)

And I don't think it stops with Feruchemy either. I think you could find a way to make this work with allomancy as well, though that may be trickier since allomancy involves not just touch but the metal being inside you. If Connection isn't enough here, you might have to do some tricky stuff with aluminum and Identity as well. I'm not sure exactly how this would work, but I'm sure there's a way.

Now, why is this significant? Well there's obvious boons of having easier access to your magic, and not having to carry as much metal on your person when facing a coinshot/lurcher. But there are a few things I want to highlight

- 1) A!Aluminum. Now, I don't really see any particular advantage to being able to burn aluminum from afar. No, what I'm interested in here is Aluminum's effect. See, aluminum seems to work on a similar principal to burning metals; if you burn aluminum, all allomantically viable metals in you disappear, even ones you aren't burning. So if there's some piece of metal you want gone, maybe you could tap Connection to it, burn aluminum, and make it disappear.

- 2) Ettmetal. Ettmetal is a godmetal, which tend to have powerful effects, but sadly it's a lot like caesium so you're gonna have a bad time touching it, and don't even think about swallowing it unless you like exploding. But with this trick, you wouldn't have to.

So what do you think? Does this seem feasible? What are some other applications of this trick?

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

7 minutes ago, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

So what do you think? Does this seem feasible? What are some other applications of this trick?

I'd say that this is certainly a very 'far out' idea, but it also makes a bit of sense so I'd say it has potential.

As for applications...

A-Chromium: Making a 'Leech Bullet' would be an incredibly useful advantage in a fight. 

F-Iron: since you could reduce your own weight without having a bunch of metal on you, weighing you down.

A-Cadmium: Creating a Slow Bubble around someone else is always extremely useful in a fight.

 

 

[Quantus he/him]

Feasible I think, though I tend to think it will be different enough that it wont replicate Ettmetal from a Doyist standpoint.  If a Bondsmith can move Connections enough to make the ground soak up Stormlight as if it were part of a bonded Radiant, I think it's entire within reason for the touch-based Connection of a Metalmind (Confirmed in WOB to be similar to the weak Bond of Honorblades) to be strengthen enough to work at greater than normal distances and ranges.  Frankly Im anticipating this being what a Bondsmiths theoretical Spiritual Tension surge will do, and we'll see them able to make Squires operate at greater distances, touch Fabrials operate at range, etc.  

Within the context of the metallic arts I think it reasonable to Burn metals at touch or Distance since Leeching does this more or less, and accessing metalminds at a distance, or massive Shared metalminds.  Since we're talking about Feruchemically manipulated Connection, you'd still need that metalmind to play by the original rules I think, to Connect you to the bigger thing(s), but every scaridan starfleet officer getting a small badge that Connects them to complicated Life Support systems (combining air, food, waste, heat, etc) makes a lot of sense.  

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

7 hours ago, Quantus said:

every scaridan starfleet officer getting a small badge that Connects them to complicated Life Support systems (combining air, food, waste, heat, etc) makes a lot of sense.  

Oh that's a very cool idea

[Quantus he/him]

One thing that I suspect would be a lot harder or even impossible is to replace hemalurgy with it entirely, since hemalurgy is also providing a realmic bridge to access the spiritweb that metalminds may not always be able to replicate. 

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

15 hours ago, Quantus said:

One thing that I suspect would be a lot harder or even impossible is to replace hemalurgy with it entirely, since hemalurgy is also providing a realmic bridge to access the spiritweb that metalminds may not always be able to replicate. 

Wait, do you mean ripping pieces of someone's soul out without stabbing them or do you mean stapling stuff onto your own soul without stabbing yourself?

Because one sounds like an absolute nightmare and the other just seems convenient.

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

WAIT. I'VE GOT IT. Voodoo hemalurgy. You somehow create a Connection between a doll and a person, presumably through having them using a metalmind. And then you can perform hemalurgy on the doll but have them get the effects without having to physically have the spikes on them. This would, among other things, allow multiple people to use the same spikes at different times more easily, just by using a metalmind to connect to the doll. (Or maybe even at the same time, but that probably is significantly harder, and may weaken the effects of a spike on an individual.). You might even be able to use this method to spike stuff out of people without killing them.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Stormtide_Leviathan

[Yumiya]

2 hours ago, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

You might even be able to use this method to spike stuff out of people without killing them.

I feel like they would still go insane as you are literally ripping off pieces of their soul. 

[Mr. Misting he/him]

On 9/6/2022 at 1:01 AM, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

So what do you think? Does this seem feasible? What are some other applications of this trick?

I don't know how you would do it but is you were a twinborn who could store connection and was a leecher that might be interesting. If you could leech away metals via connection instead of touch that would be pretty cool, same with nicrosil. Imagine the shenanigans possible if you were fighting someone and could constantly take away their reserves with ease.

Other weird idea, what if you were able to get enough connection to someone and then you burned aluminum, is there a way in there to have the aluminum also affect them? Probably not but that would be extremely interesting.

[Yumiya]

15 hours ago, Mr. Misting said:

Other weird idea, what if you were able to get enough connection to someone and then you burned aluminum, is there a way in there to have the aluminum also affect them?

That might actually work. We know that Kaladin's depression was passed to Syl after Dalinar increased their connection. If emotional states, why not investiture effects?

[offer]

32 minutes ago, Yumiya said:

That might actually work. We know that Kaladin's depression was passed to Syl after Dalinar increased their connection. If emotional states, why not investiture effects?

I don`t think Dalinar increased their connection. He said he wouldn`t. I understood it as Dalinar explaining to Syl something about how Kaladin feels and that helped her remember that she had similar feelings in the past and with her increased reawakining with the stronger bond to Kaladin she felt this way again.

[Yumiya]

1 hour ago, offer said:

with the stronger bond

How are bonds different than connection?

[MacThorstenson he/him]

On 9/6/2022 at 3:41 PM, Quantus said:

One thing that I suspect would be a lot harder or even impossible is to replace hemalurgy with it entirely, since hemalurgy is also providing a realmic bridge to access the spiritweb that metalminds may not always be able to replicate. 

I would lean toward the flat out impossible side of this one, physically being in contact with blood is important in general for hemalurgy, and then iirc theres a wob about how moving blood is important for hemalurgy.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

Is this at all related to how the 9th heightening awakener has enough investiture to awaken at range with just their voice?   Is that connection manipulation?  

10th heightening can do it without their voice.  Awaken at range with just a thought.  Also potentially so invested and able to manipulate connection to a point of breaking other peoples commands with a simple thought from a room away?  

Connection is powerful.  Very.  A duralumin compounder will be a terrifying thing to see.  Who is to say TLR wasn't in part manipulating connection while soothing half a cities worth of people all at once.  

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

20 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Is this at all related to how the 9th heightening awakener has enough investiture to awaken at range with just their voice?   Is that connection manipulation?  

10th heightening can do it without their voice.  Awaken at range with just a thought.  Also potentially so invested and able to manipulate connection to a point of breaking other peoples commands with a simple thought from a room away?  

Connection is powerful.  Very.  A duralumin compounder will be a terrifying thing to see.  Who is to say TLR wasn't in part manipulating connection while soothing half a cities worth of people all at once.  

Those are all interesting points that may point toward this being possible. Cool! Thanks!