What happens when an Atium Ferring draws too much!

[Aeshdan he/him]

Interesting theory question:

If a atium ferring draws more youth than he has age, what happens?

To explain it more fully: Suppose you have a 30-year old atium ferring who has enough age to become 50 years younger for a few days, and he draws it all. Logically, that would make him negative twenty years old. What in the Cosmere does that do??? Does he just vanish, since he did not exist 50 years ago? Or does he turn into his parents? Or into a zygote?

Any thoughts?

[CrazyRioter she/her]

I doubt a normal atium ferring could do that, they'd have to be a compounder. As for what would happen, I have no idea.

[Kurkistan he/him]

I subscribe to the "Vitality" model of what atium stores, where Vitality is the driving attribute behind strength, health, etc. That way, the lowest physical age a Feruchemist could go would be to the point of their "prime," when they had the most vitality - i.e. somewhere in their 20s/30s. Someone who over-drew Vitality would therefore just be a particularly "vital" 20-something for the duration.

I doubt a normal atium ferring could do that, they'd have to be a compounder. As for what would happen, I have no idea.

It could be a normal ferring. They would simply *still need a verb* several days worth of stored age into a single moment.

[Arcanist Lupus he/him]

I think that an Atium ferring could, theoretically, get down to zero age, however, by the time he or she got there, they'd be a baby, and would stop tapping their atium, because they wouldn't understand how, and would therefore revert to their real age before they got to the point of no existence. Also, it's possible that the amount of age needed to change your age isn't linear, and it would take an infinite amount of age to reduce your age to zero.

[happyman he/him]

I think that an Atium ferring could, theoretically, get down to zero age, however, by the time he or she got there, they'd be a baby, and would stop tapping their atium, because they wouldn't understand how, and would therefore revert to their real age before they got to the point of no existence. Also, it's possible that the amount of age needed to change your age isn't linear, and it would take an infinite amount of age to reduce your age to zero.

One of these two makes the most sense to me. I tend towards the idea that you can go as young as you want---as long as you are still capable of tapping age. As soon as you can't, wham, you're back where you were.

Incidentally, if the attribute being stored really was vitality, don't you think the Feruchemists would have noticed it? "Not being able to go past your prime" seems like something that would decrease it's effectiveness as a disguise-creating ability, which is something the Feruchemists did know about and presumably tested.

Edited December 10, 2011 by happyman

[Kurkistan he/him]

One of these two makes the most sense to me. I tend towards the idea that you can go as young as you want---as long as you are still capable of tapping age. As soon as you can't, wham, you're back where you were.

Incidentally, if the attribute being stored really was vitality, don't you think the Feruchemists would have noticed it? "Not being able to go past your prime" seems like something that would decrease it's effectiveness as a disguise-creating ability, which is something the Feruchemists did know about and presumably tested.

Touche. Although, it may be the case that no Feruchemist in his/her right mind would *still still need a verb* "Age" and in so doing throw away some amount of their life through diminishing returns.

Edited December 10, 2011 by Kurkistan

[Zas678 he/him]

From the B&N Q&A:

As for Marsh, he's got a whole bag of atium (taken off of the Kandra who was going to try to sell it.) So he's all right for quite a while. A small bead used right can reverse age someone back to their childhood.

So it isn't just vitality. It's actually age. Or so it seems. I'm not sure what would happen when you get that young. I guess at a certain point, you begin to lose the cognitive ability to tap the metalmind to continue to get age out of it, so if you go to far down, you should just be able to snap out of it.

But wait, the Cognitive realm doesn't seem to be changed when you're storing age. After all, TLR didn't start randomly forgetting things when he was storing age.

So maybe, if you surged hard enough, you could potentially kill yourself by making yourself way too young. But I think you would realize that you were doing something wrong and stop part way through.

[Kurkistan he/him]

From the B&N Q&A:

So it isn't just vitality. It's actually age. Or so it seems.

Curse you, Quoter Extraordinaire! I am foiled once again. I officially renounce Vitality.

[CrazyRioter she/her]

I dunno I think after a certain point your brain wouldn't be able to support the level of thought necessary to keep storing because it'd be too undeveloped.

[Deus Ex Biotica]

This is an easy one: you roll around, gaining infinite age, yet staying young at heart, just like The Lord Santa.

More seriously, whatever the answer to this question is, it's not likely to come up often, since Feruchemical storage is based on how much of a metal you have access to, and it would be hard to find enough Atium to store 20-50 years all at once, I suspect.

[Windrunner he/him]

More seriously, whatever the answer to this question is, it's not likely to come up often, since Feruchemical storage is based on how much of a metal you have access to, and it would be hard to find enough Atium to store 20-50 years all at once, I suspect.

Well the Lord Ruler didn't seem to have that much trouble keeping thousands of years of age stored in two bracers, so I think that it wouldn't take too much atium to store 20-50 years of age in. You could make the argument that the Lord Ruler wasn't actually tapping age, but compounding atium at the time. However he would have to be constantly swallowing atium beads to make this work and, to make it even more unlikely, atium burns extremely fast so he would need to be practically stuffing his face to survive.

[Aeshdan he/him]

More seriously, whatever the answer to this question is, it's not likely to come up often, since Feruchemical storage is based on how much of a metal you have access to, and it would be hard to find enough Atium to store 20-50 years all at once, I suspect.

I know, but i just figured that sometime in the history of Feruchemy, at least one person would do this for some reason. And it's more of a theoretical curiosity than a practical one.

[Aeshdan he/him]

From the B&N Q&A:

So maybe, if you surged hard enough, you could potentially kill yourself by making yourself way too young. But I think you would realize that you were doing something wrong and stop part way through.[/size][/font][/left][/color]

I know that. I'm wondering what would happen if some nutty Ferring did it anyway.

[sententiadominus he/him]

How much Atium did the Feruchemists have access to before the ascension? The Pits wouldn't have been in the same place, and they might not have had any Atium-minds at all. Also, isn't Feruchemy very instinctive? I can't quote this, but I seem to remember Sazed saying something about Feruchemy being natural to its users in a way that Allomancy isn't (due to snapping). Thus, with a combination of Atium only storing physical age and Feruchemists natural use of Feruchemy, wouldn't even a baby be ably to use Feruchemy if they got to that baby stage through Atium? (i.e. The brain doesn't seem to become senile or underdeveloped in old age or childhood thought Atium use, so why should it stop functioning for a baby?)

Just a thought.

Edited December 11, 2011 by sententiadominus

[Deus Ex Biotica]

Alright, then. Assuming that even an infant could keep on storing age, and you have an Atiummind which is big enough, and also shaped so that it doesn't fall off as you get smaller (say, a navel piercing), you could probably kill yourself. It wouldn't be as tidy as "disappearing," though: you would eventually regress to a state which cannot survive outside of the womb, and die of exposure.

It would certainly be a... dramatic form of suicide.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

[happyman he/him]

How much Atium did the Feruchemists have access to before the ascension? The Pits wouldn't have been in the same place, and they might not have had any Atium-minds at all. Also, isn't Feruchemy very instinctive? I can't quote this, but I seem to remember Sazed saying something about Feruchemy being natural to its users in a way that Allomancy isn't (due to snapping). Thus, with a combination of Atium only storing physical age and Feruchemists natural use of Feruchemy, wouldn't even a baby be ably to use Feruchemy if they got to that baby stage through Atium? (i.e. The brain doesn't seem to become senile or underdeveloped in old age or childhood thought Atium use, so why should it stop functioning for a baby?)

Just a thought.

I'm assuming that by and large, Feruchemists had very little access to Atium throughout the Final Empire. On the other hand, neither did Allomancers. However, given the long history of the Final Empire, the fact that Feruchemy doesn't actually use up the Atium, and the power that Feruchemists can use when it suits them, I'm assuming they got their hands on some and started experimenting.

[Aradel he/him]

Curse you, Quoter Extraordinaire! I am foiled once again. I officially renounce Vitality.

I maintain Vitality.

Children in general don't actually have more or less vitality than a 20 to 30 year old, they just store it differently. A child's greatest vitality is their ability to grow and adapt on their physical and cognitive states.

So you would be able to regress yourself to a child by tapping vitality, and the benefit is your increase your own ability to grow and adapt while keeping your full memory.

How young a ferring can go while tapping vitality? I think they can regress to age zero: infant; after reaching that age, the tapped power would work differently. Maybe it starts decreasing their "normal" age permanently so that they're a few years younger when they stop tapping than when they started. After they hit zero again... I haven't thought that far yet.

[Wispsy he/him]

Considering how quickly wax can remove all his weight.... Someone could instantly embryo themselves? Risky stuff!

[Deus Ex Biotica]

They could... after spending decades several years older than they really are. Age fills slowly.

And, y'know, assuming that the metalmind stayed affixed to the embryo, and that you can use "youth" to get younger than your physical prime, and so forth.

[happyman he/him]

They could... after spending decades several years older than they really are. Age fills slowly.

And, y'know, assuming that the metalmind stayed affixed to the embryo, and that you can use "youth" to get younger than your physical prime, and so forth.

Imagine that you are 25. You could spend a year one year older than you "really" are, and then turn yourself back twenty years for about a week and a half. It'd be work trying at least once, and given how little difference a year makes at that age, it wouldn't even be a real sacrifice. Heck, if you were a Feruchemical spy in a potentially dangerous situation, adding on a couple of decades while being undercover, and then slipping out by going the other direction, could be very useful. I'd be hard-pressed to say that nobody had ever tried it. I suspect they had.

[Deus Ex Biotica]

Well, you are sacrificing youth which you may want later on. You did spend a year exerting a minor but constant mental effort while you were awake to get it.

But, sure, someone probably has tried it.

[Zas678 he/him]

it would be hard to find enough Atium to store 20-50 years all at once,

Let me find a quote for you...

A small bead used right can reverse age someone back to their childhood.

And it has been tried (at least somewhat). Sazed mentions that "Feruchemy can do some very odd things, like age" in the first book. Although I'd imagine it's untried with the current deficit of Atium.

[Deus Ex Biotica]

And it has been tried (at least somewhat). Sazed mentions that "Feruchemy can do some very odd things, like age" in the first book. Although I'd imagine it's untried with the current deficit of Atium.[/left]

AKA, the current only-one-person-in-the-world-has-a-single-bead-of-Atium?

Good show with that quote - it states both the vast capacity of Atium (which also helps explain how Rashek Compounded it so effectively) and the fact that Atium can take you to your "youth," not just your physical prime.

-- Deus Ex Biotica