Did Sazed know about aluminum?

[Mistchemist16]

So I was reading WoA and a thought came to mind. Vin was aware that aluminum was Allomantically viable from her time in the prison cell. A year passes and we even find that she’s been working on an alloy. But it made me wonder if she told Sazed anything about it. They were in jail together and she could identify the metal later on. If so, then Feruchemical aluminum shouldn’t have been too hard to deduce. Remember, Allomantic and Feruchemical metals are the same, down to the alloy mixtures

If so, then it makes me wonder if they could’ve discovered unkeyed metalminds. Granted, this would be tricky since the effects of storing Identity wouldn’t be obvious. However, I imagine Sazed would’ve reported to the Keepers if a new metal existed. That’s a pretty big deal. Surely, one of them would take an interest and all Feruchemists get zinc for extra sleuthing. 

And once unkeyed metalminds are discovered, Vin gets a huge game breaker. She and Sazed already know about how Compounding was done. Vin could only get short bursts from the metals, but even that alone would be a massive gain. Unkeyed gold makes her basically invincible and would outclass even the duralumin-pewter trick. Unkeyed iron could give her a duralumin effect with steel pushing. Even something like a burst of unkeyed zinc or unkeyed steel might’ve been useful. And Zane couldn’t mimic any of this without a Feruchemist or stealing from Sazed. No atium? No problem. Just surprise Compound.
 

That said, I am willing to accept that the process does have some moving parts, especially in figuring out Identity. But man, even lesser Compounding could’ve been a game changer. 

[alder24]

They couldn't achieve compounding as they didn't have or know about nicrosil. Medallions work because they have nicrosilmind which stores the ability of feruchemy in them. They couldn't make it in era 1. Without nicrosil, they at best could make metalminds accessible only for every feruchemist.

After Lord Ruler's death Keepers were busy with teaching so while the prospect of discovering new feruchemical metal might be tempting, their duty was more important in their mind.

[Treamayne]

50 minutes ago, Mistchemist16 said:

So I was reading WoA and a thought came to mind. Vin was aware that aluminum was Allomantically viable from her time in the prison cell. A year passes and we even find that she’s been working on an alloy. But it made me wonder if she told Sazed anything about it. They were in jail together and she could identify the metal later on. If so, then Feruchemical aluminum shouldn’t have been too hard to deduce. Remember, Allomantic and Feruchemical metals are the same, down to the alloy mixtures

<snip>

That said, I am willing to accept that the process does have some moving parts, especially in figuring out Identity. But man, even lesser Compounding could’ve been a game changer. 

1 - We don't know when Vin figured out the Inquisitors used Aluminim. Since we know Sazed left shortly after the Epilogue conversatoin with Marsh to start "teaching," it's unlikely he learned of it before departing.

2 - Even if he did, and was experiemnting with it while on walk-about to teach, it's doubtful he would have figured out how an Unkeyed Metalmind worked After all, we know that as of:

AoL Ars Arcanum:

Spoiler

Trueself Ferrings can store their spiritual sense of identity in an aluminum metalmind. This is an art rarely spoken of outside of Terris communities, and even among them, it is not yet well understood. 

So, after 300yrs of research, the NoScad Terris still don't really understand Aluminum a/o AoL.

15 minutes ago, alder24 said:

They couldn't achieve compounding as they didn't have or know about nicrosil. Medallions work because they have nicrosilmind which stores the ability of feruchemy in them. They couldn't make it in era 1. Without nicrosil, they at best could make metalminds accessible only for every feruchemist.

After Lord Ruler's death Keepers were busy with teaching so while the prospect of discovering new feruchemical metal might be tempting, their duty was more important in their mind.

I don't think he meant Medallion Compounding, he meant Sazed making an Unkeyed Goldmind, then allowing Vin to burn it for heath.

[alder24]

10 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

I don't think he meant Medallion Compounding, he meant Sazed making an Unkeyed Goldmind, then allowing Vin to burn it for heath.

Huh, I've never thought about using unkeyed metalminds that way. For some reason I thought that compounding can only be done if you're both ferring and misting But this way it could be done. That's such an elegant solution. Why have I never thought about it?

[offer]

10 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

I don't think he meant Medallion Compounding, he meant Sazed making an Unkeyed Goldmind, then allowing Vin to burn it for heath.

But with storing identity you can make only unsealed goldminds that only other feruchamists (or gold ferrings) can access.

 

[Treamayne]

19 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Huh, I've never thought about using unkeyed metalminds that way. For some reason I thought that compounding can only be done if you're both ferring and misting But this way it could be done. That's such an elegant solution. Why have I never thought about it?

Well, it's not really compounding, since you can't store the output in a new Metalmind. But we do have this WoB:

Spoiler

Kurkistan

If you spiked out Miles' Feruchemical gold, would he be able to burn his Allomantic reserves [read: Feruchemical reserves using Allomancy] and heal it back?

Brandon Sanderson

If you spiked out his ability to heal gold and somehow left him alive?

Kurkistan

Yeah, but still having Allomancy.

Brandon Sanderson

Still has Allomancy...

Kurkistan

And he’s like in the middle of burning a goldmind.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that would still work. It'd still have a Spiritual Connection to him.

Kurkistan

So if you're a Coinshot and you get [spiked] to have Feruchemical steel, and then you lose the spike after making a store, you can still Compound that for speed?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes... Yeah, that should still work.

Kurkistan

Was Paalm doing that?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO.

17 minutes ago, offer said:

But with storing identity you can make only unsealed goldminds that only other feruchamists (or gold ferrings) can access.

Not necessarily. It creates a Metalmind that only somebody with access to Gold can utilize. As the WoB above shows, if Miles (without Feruchemy) could burn a Goldmind with his own identity because he still has access to A-Gold; then it would make sense that our current knowledge of Unkeyed Metalminds is incomplete and any A-Gold misting should be able to burn an Unkeyed F-Gold metalmind. 

 

Edited January 22, 2023 by Treamayne
SPAG

[offer]

2 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Well, it's not really compounding, since you can't store the output in a new Metalmind. But we do have this WoB:

  Hide contents

Kurkistan

If you spiked out Miles' Feruchemical gold, would he be able to burn his Allomantic reserves [read: Feruchemical reserves using Allomancy] and heal it back?

Brandon Sanderson

If you spiked out his ability to heal gold and somehow left him alive?

Kurkistan

Yeah, but still having Allomancy.

Brandon Sanderson

Still has Allomancy...

Kurkistan

And he’s like in the middle of burning a goldmind.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that would still work. It'd still have a Spiritual Connection to him.

Kurkistan

So if you're a Coinshot and you get [spiked] to have Feruchemical steel, and then you lose the spike after making a store, you can still Compound that for speed?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes... Yeah, that should still work.

Kurkistan

Was Paalm doing that?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO.

Not necessarily. It creates a Metalmind that only somebody with access to Gold can utilize. As the WoB above shows, if Miles (without Feruchemy) could burn a Goldmind with his own identity because he still has access to A-Gold; then it would make sense that our current knowledge of Unkeyed Metalminds is incomplete and any A-Gold misting should be able to burn an Unkeyed F-Gold metalmind. 

 

Ohhh.... I was not aware of this WoB. Then I agree - it probably could work.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

21 hours ago, alder24 said:

Huh, I've never thought about using unkeyed metalminds that way. For some reason I thought that compounding can only be done if you're both ferring and misting But this way it could be done. That's such an elegant solution. Why have I never thought about it?

I have had the impression that Bleeders feats of speed could easily be explained by this.  At the end of the book when she suddenly is a coin shot as well people have thought she was potentially changing spikes at the end.  I feel like she could have been a coin shot and simply burning metalminds previously made or keyed to a persons identity she may have had a spike from.  Even if she had a spike for both steel A and F she couldn't have ever compounded without turning herself over to harmony.  Doing a swap to store steel speed and then swapping back for allomamcy she would have been able to burn the speed.  

I also think the single most important part of this strat is size of the metalmind.  Metal only burns so fast.  Even flared.  If you don't have densely packed attribute into the smallest metalminds possible for that amount of attribute your alomancy won't feel like supercharged anything.   A minute of double speed in a metalmind that takes you 2 hours to burn isn't going to offer you a ton.   2 hours of double speed in a metalmind that is small enough to burn in 1 minute is going to be physically dangerous to anyone using it.  

This all plays off of the idea that burning it will give you 10x the attribute back.  

[IlstrawberrySeed]

I wonder if this would also happen if breaths storing attributes were given to metals.