Hemalurgically Stolen Forgery and Compounding Compatablity

[Trusk'our he/him]

Okay, so Compounding isn't normally possible via Hemalurgy due to Identity contamination; so long as the Identity of the Hemalurgic spike and that other power (whether it be another spike or a natural Metalborn power) aren't the same.

But what if you Forge someone into a Misting for a certain metal, Hemalurgically spike the power from them, use Forgery to turn them into a Ferring for the same kind of metal as they were a Misting for, spike that power out, and then you give them both spikes afterward. Would they be able to Compound since both spikes technically work from the same person?

Or, what if you instead give the spikes to someone else? Would they be able to Compound since the spikes share the same Identity, and even though the Hemalurgist's Identity is there to muddy things up, it does so equally to both. So would that still work?

Honestly, Forgery and Hemalurgy just go so well together.

[alder24]

21 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

But what if you Forge someone into a Misting for a certain metal, Hemalurgically spike the power from them, use Forgery to turn them into a Ferring for the same kind of metal as they were a Misting for, spike that power out, and then you give them both spikes afterward. Would they be able to Compound since both spikes technically work from the same person?

You forge them 2 times, each time they have a different identity, slightly different but that might be enough to prevent compounding. You basically have a set of 3 different identities.

I was thinking you're gonna ask if you forge a spike to contain a power with no identity, that would be doable very much, and might fix the problem (with or without additional aluminum medallion for Hemalurgist)

Spoiler

the_archduke (paraphrased)

If the Lord Ruler captured Shai and gave her 100 days to craft a soulstamp that could turn an iron Hemalurgic spike into a steel Hemalurgic spike, could she do it?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, but she would need a boost of power to do it. Affecting an Invested object is hard.

the_archduke [Alternate wording from stormfather's report] (paraphrased)

Can Shai change Hemalurgic spikes?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, but it costs a lot of power and she wouldn't be able to do it alone.

Firefight Phoenix signing (Jan. 21, 2015)

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

56 minutes ago, alder24 said:

You forge them 2 times, each time they have a different identity, slightly different but that might be enough to prevent compounding. You basically have a set of 3 different identities.

Hmmmm. I've kind of wondered what determines one's Identity.

Is it your past experiences, or is it only your sDNA?

[alder24]

46 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Hmmmm. I've kind of wondered what determines one's Identity.

Is it your past experiences, or is it only your sDNA?

Even more than that? Connections as well? Hard to say. I don't know, we know very little about it. From Coppermind about Identity:

Quote

Identity is a Spiritual attribute within the cosmere that demarcates one being from another for the purposes of Investiture.It acts as a sort of spiritual DNA, and it functions together with Connection in order to form a link to various forms of Investiture.

 

Spoiler

Questioner

In terms of discussing Identity, I know that in Emperor's Soul, they talk about Identity, and the Parshendi talk about losing their Identity, and then I was just rereading Bands of Mourning, and one of the kandra talks about how the spikes are their Identity. Are all of those things connected somehow or are they different forms of Identity?

Brandon Sanderson

They are connected, although the Parshendi losing their identity is a little more metaphorical. But yeah, the idea of these things-- Identity is an innate attribute in the cosmere that is related to your soul, your spirit, and it is one of the things that Hemalurgy can fiddle with and Feruchemy can fiddle with. It's kind of important to how the [Metallic] Arts play out, but it's important to all the magics...

Identity is involved in why you can't use another person's metalminds, right, that kind of thing. And those are all related. The Parshendi is more metaphorical. 

Questioner

I wondered because it's always capitalized, in the book.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep, and it's done intentionally. Peter always asks, "Are you sure this one is capitalized?" "Yeah."

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Phantine

So... CS question here, I'm seeing identity as essentially a 'encryption' on the metalmind - the spike has the decryption key to existing metalminds, but when you encrypt a new one you use your personal encryption key with the spike's hardware, so you still have compounding access to the metalminds even after removing the spike.

Is it possible for there to be a 'key collision' with Identity? Two people just randomly end up making compatible metalminds, because the pieces of their Identities that the magic looks like happen to be the same.

Brandon Sanderson

This would be about as likely as two unrelated people ending up with the exact same genetic sequence.

But, so far as I understand, that WOULD be possible.

Lucadaw

So identical twins could share metalminds ?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Worldbuilders AMA (Dec. 9, 2015)

 

I do like the idea in the second WoB that Identity acts like an encryption key, that sounds about right. 

[Trusk'our he/him]

13 hours ago, alder24 said:

Even more than that? Connections as well?

Yeah, with duralumin Hemalurgy taking both Identity and Connection, I think that it's very likely that your Connection influences your Identity.

Now, what kind of Connections do so would be an interesting question. Is it just ones that are tied to your birth and parentage? Otherwise, a Feruchemist storing attributes may not be able to tap them at a later date due to their new Identity no longer being recognized by the Metalminds.

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

Is it just ones that are tied to your birth and parentage?

Is that the only thing that defines you as a person? No, every single experience in your life, every person that you know and you have a contact with, every life choice, defines you. Some have greater impact, some have lower, but all of them are part of what makes you you.

I think Identity would work similar to healing Ideal - your physical body is adjusted to your spiritual ideal, filtered by your cognitive ideal. With Identity everything that makes up your spirit web changes it to some degree (some more, some less, e.g. a man/woman having a son would have a very strong connection to him, which would be reflected in their Identity which would identify them as a father/mother) but also your Identity is filtered by your self-perception, and likely how other people perceive you would also matter. 

[Tea Leaf]

Okay this may work in one methodology, but requires a few things.

Step 1: Become a Hemalurgist, this may take a while
Step 2: Become a Forger, this may take a while
Step 3: Obtain an unkeyed aluminum or duralumin metalmind
Step 4: Make yourself into misting or ferring of chosen metal using Forgery
Step 5: Safely take the Metalborn abilities in a spike
Step 6: Repeat to your heart's content
Step 7: Spike yourself

This method should allow becoming a compounder.
 

Edited April 14, 2023 by The Last Fæ

[alder24]

4 minutes ago, The Last Fæ said:

Okay this may work in one methodology, but requires a few things.

Step 1: Become a Hemalurgist, this may take a while
Step 2: Become a Forger, this may take a while
Step 3: Obtain an unkeyed aluminum or duralumin metalmind
Step 4: Make yourself into misting or ferring of chosen metal using Forgery
Step 5: Safely take the Metalborn abilities in a spike
Step 6: Repeat to your heart's content
Step 7: Spike yourself

This method should allow becoming a compounder.
 

If you can make yourself a misting/ferring by Forgery you are just 1 step away from a Twinborn, and 2 steps away from being a Fullborn. Just forge yourself, and DON'T spike yourself. Period. There is no reason to damage your own soul if you can just be a Fullborn/Twinborn in the first place. 

But you would still need to provide investiture for those abilities, it won't come from Preservation.

And you forgot about the healing. The damage done by the spike still affects your real soul under the fake one, not as much as normal, but your soul is still damaged.

Spoiler

Aneesh

If there's a Forger like Shai who plausibly had an opportunity to ingest lerasium and become Mistborn, but she passed it up, could she create a stamp that makes her temporarily a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

She would have to have access to enough Investiture to make that happen. The stamp saying, "Hey, I'm a Mistborn!" doesn't actually give her the Investiture to do that. She could rewrite her past so that she took that bead. She would not actually be able to use the power, until she got an infusion of Investiture, which could be done with a stamp in the right manner, but most of the time you're gonna have to have some external source. Basically you're gonna have to take a hit of Investiture, a large amount of it, and then use the stamp, and then it will feed on that to change you into basically any of the other magics.

Aneesh

Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

If you could get a hit of Stormlight, that'd work. The problem is, Stormlight's not easy to get off of Roshar, and it still is technically keyed. You could get it a lot more easily-- Stormlight would work fairly well, but what you really want is some pure, unkeyed Dor. That stuff, you could do all kinds of things with. But, you know, it's kinda dangerous. But that's the stuff you're gonna want, or something like unto it.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

If you Stamp yourself, to have another, overwritten spiritweb, and you get Spiked-- *laughter* What would happen?

Brandon Sanderson

We actually worked this out. *laughter*

Questioner

Well, you'd die, or very close to it, but would it revert when the Stamp reverts?

Brandon Sanderson

So what’s probably going to happen here is that you’re going to rip off the Investiture you’ve put on your soul, and your own soul will have less damage. Now, the spike is only gonna get the-- the spike, you're like "What will it do?" It will do what you've been overwritten with, but again remember, becoming an Allomancer takes so much energy, and things like-- But it is theoretically possible in the cosmere to rewrite yourself "You're an allomancer", someone spikes you to get this. The Investiture doesn't care that it was fake on you, you have managed to get that Investiture to work. Uhh, this is really tough. And really, like, you need Connection, and you need, like, the right kind of Investiture, but then it rips off and yes you have made a spike that makes you an Allomancer, even though the person was a Forger. So yes, okay? But this is the kind of stuff that is like the thought experiments for physicists in the cosmere as opposed to, y'know--

Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing (Dec. 6, 2016)

 

Now I think about it, because you have to provide investiture externally to become a forged Mistborn, if you spike that out, the person who receives the spike would also have to provide investiture by himself. So a Hemalurgist won't be supplied by Preservation if he has a forged Allomantic ability, he would have to have the Dor, or maybe, just maybe Ruin could supply him instead. But most likely he would have to provide the Dor himself.

[Trusk'our he/him]

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

Is that the only thing that defines you as a person? No, every single experience in your life, every person that you know and you have a contact with, every life choice, defines you. Some have greater impact, some have lower, but all of them are part of what makes you you.

I think Identity would work similar to healing Ideal - your physical body is adjusted to your spiritual ideal, filtered by your cognitive ideal. With Identity everything that makes up your spirit web changes it to some degree (some more, some less, e.g. a man/woman having a son would have a very strong connection to him, which would be reflected in their Identity which would identify them as a father/mother) but also your Identity is filtered by your self-perception, and likely how other people perceive you would also matter. 

Good points. I hadn't considered Identity like that before, but yeah, that makes a lot of sense; Identity is combined with Connection to record and determine your past, so when something like Forgery changes that, it effectively changes your past and therefore your present. When you heal with Investiture, you're matching your physical self to what your Spiritweb has determined is your most healthy self when filtered through your Cognitive Aspect.

Interesting things to consider.

Now what I'd like to know is what separates Identity from Connection and how they're so deeply intwined? Of course, I know we'll need to read and find out, but still...

[cometaryorbit]

 I don't think Identity can change that much over time, because Keepers can use the same copperminds for ages.

I don't think Identity includes everything we think of as identity (in the personality-sense). I think it's more what defines 'self' in the Ship of Theseus sense.

Dalinar's Identity isn't made up of "I'm a Rosharan, I'm an Alethi, I'm a lighteyes, I'm a father, I'm a husband" etc the way we'd think of identity in the colloquial/modern English sense. I think it's more like an unique identifier key that "these spiritweb bits belong to Dalinar".

The Spiritual Realm doesn't have dimensions, so things have to be defined by Identity and Connection (and made of Investiture, I think). All those things which normally change over someone's life are Connections, not Identity, I believe. (Connection handles even fundamental things like where someone is from and what their native language is. I think Identity is probably set - maybe at conception like hemalurgic potential and DNA - and doesn't change short of magical alteration.)

Edited April 18, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[Argenti he/him]

49 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

 I don't think Identity can change that much over time, because Keepers can use the same copperminds for ages.

I don't think Identity includes everything we think of as identity (in the personality-sense). I think it's more what defines 'self' in the Ship of Theseus sense.

Dalinar's Identity isn't made up of "I'm a Rosharan, I'm an Alethi, I'm a lighteyes, I'm a father, I'm a husband" etc the way we'd think of identity in the colloquial/modern English sense. I think it's more like an unique identifier key that "these spiritweb bits belong to Dalinar".

The Spiritual Realm doesn't have dimensions, so things have to be defined by Identity and Connection (and made of Investiture, I think). All those things which normally change over someone's life are Connections, not Identity, I believe. (Connection handles even fundamental things like where someone is from and what their native language is. I think Identity is probably set - maybe at conception like hemalurgic potential and DNA - and doesn't change short of magical alteration.)

This is the best explanation of identity I've heard. Ever

[Trusk'our he/him]

4 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

 I don't think Identity can change that much over time, because Keepers can use the same copperminds for ages.

I don't think Identity includes everything we think of as identity (in the personality-sense). I think it's more what defines 'self' in the Ship of Theseus sense.

Dalinar's Identity isn't made up of "I'm a Rosharan, I'm an Alethi, I'm a lighteyes, I'm a father, I'm a husband" etc the way we'd think of identity in the colloquial/modern English sense. I think it's more like an unique identifier key that "these spiritweb bits belong to Dalinar".

The Spiritual Realm doesn't have dimensions, so things have to be defined by Identity and Connection (and made of Investiture, I think). All those things which normally change over someone's life are Connections, not Identity, I believe. (Connection handles even fundamental things like where someone is from and what their native language is. I think Identity is probably set - maybe at conception like hemalurgic potential and DNA - and doesn't change short of magical alteration.)

Huh. That makes even more sense. Especially considering Copperminds; if Identity changed over time, the Keepers wouldn't be able to tap their stores of knowledge.

I wonder what some of the consequences of storing Identity might be then, aside from letting others tap your Metalminds, because Identity seems kind of important; separating your soul from everything you're Connected to feels like... a big deal.

Now I wonder if two Ferruchemists storing Identity and excessively tapping Connection to each other might do. Maybe they form a temporary hive-mind?

[alder24]

14 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

 I don't think Identity can change that much over time, because Keepers can use the same copperminds for ages.

I don't think Identity includes everything we think of as identity (in the personality-sense). I think it's more what defines 'self' in the Ship of Theseus sense.

Dalinar's Identity isn't made up of "I'm a Rosharan, I'm an Alethi, I'm a lighteyes, I'm a father, I'm a husband" etc the way we'd think of identity in the colloquial/modern English sense. I think it's more like an unique identifier key that "these spiritweb bits belong to Dalinar".

The Spiritual Realm doesn't have dimensions, so things have to be defined by Identity and Connection (and made of Investiture, I think). All those things which normally change over someone's life are Connections, not Identity, I believe. (Connection handles even fundamental things like where someone is from and what their native language is. I think Identity is probably set - maybe at conception like hemalurgic potential and DNA - and doesn't change short of magical alteration.)

Your explanation reminded me of this WoB, supporting your idea that Identity is like an unique encryption key.

Spoiler

Phantine

So... CS question here, I'm seeing identity as essentially a 'encryption' on the metalmind - the spike has the decryption key to existing metalminds, but when you encrypt a new one you use your personal encryption key with the spike's hardware, so you still have compounding access to the metalminds even after removing the spike.

Is it possible for there to be a 'key collision' with Identity? Two people just randomly end up making compatible metalminds, because the pieces of their Identities that the magic looks like happen to be the same.

Brandon Sanderson

This would be about as likely as two unrelated people ending up with the exact same genetic sequence.

But, so far as I understand, that WOULD be possible.

Lucadaw

So identical twins could share metalminds ?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

Worldbuilders AMA (Dec. 9, 2015)