Tamriel Wolfsbaine Posted August 21, 2023 Posted August 21, 2023 I've been toying with the smallest amount of powerset needed to create a one-way medallion like piece of tech. I know there is a ton of speculation here but wanted to hear other thoughts on making it possible. The idea is an outfitter for survival tech mostly. Bendalloy food and drink, brass heat, cadmium breath/o2 mostly. Truly all metals could be marketed but in interest of keeping the power levels down slightly... Anyways. We see medallions with multiple metalminds to make them work and they don't seem to me to have too much limiting them in use. Meaning I don't see a set time (maybe brass and perhaps this is the way I need to go with this). If a feruchemist blanks identity and stores into a metalmind they have one that can be tapped by anyone who has that ability right? Like Waynes large gold mind from BoM. I think it is the band of nicrosil that makes a medallion usable by anyone right? If my feruchemist were to make a medallion with a nicrosil band for use by anyone would they be completely giving up that ability to use that metal? Like storing a memory erases it entirely from your mind and keeps it in the metalmind? Or would it give a specific time of use of that power for the time that I spend storing the ability to use that power? If it is timed I think a full feruchemist could easily make many medallions. If it acts more like a memory and disappears entirely I wonder if compounding nicrosil could possibly allow one to store their ability and then burn it to gain enough to move it to another metalmind and split it somehow so that they don't run out of it? Again all purely speculative. If you can compound it and are giving the ability to use that power forever then it wouldn't be quite as marketable I don't think. How could you limit supply for that while still cranking out enough medallions to keep up with demand? Why sell infinite power for a huge payday from one or two rich people if you can sell limited batteries to everyone? It might be too costly to be worth it but could you utilize a small portion of silver within the nicrosil piece (assuming the nicrosil is infinite) to eventually destroy it? (I believe I read a WoB about silver wrecking invested stuff with time). If anyone has better ideas for selling highly limited medallions I am super interested. (Rings with 1 weeks worth of food and water or whatever.)
therunner he/him Posted August 22, 2023 Posted August 22, 2023 Well, it is difficult to say because we have basically no information whatsoever about spiritual quadrant of Feruchemy. But both Connection and Identity are Involved in making of Medallion, and somehow Medallions have measure of 'self-awareness', enough that they can provide Intent so they can be tapped when sleeping. Combined with the fact that 'Excisor' is involved in the making of Medallion, I think Feruchemist/Ferring gives up at least portion of their power (weakening themselves permanently, unless with access to Compounded Gold) which is then sealed in Medallion. Medallion then forms Connection with user and sort of becomes part of their soul, kinda like lesser Spren I guess? On Compounding Nicrosil, we still don't know what that does at all, and Nicrosil Compounder is vanishingly rare, and all they could store is ability to use Nicrosil and nothing else, so they would not be able to crank out Medallions.
alder24 Posted August 22, 2023 Posted August 22, 2023 18 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said: I've been toying with the smallest amount of powerset needed to create a one-way medallion like piece of tech. I know there is a ton of speculation here but wanted to hear other thoughts on making it possible. The idea is an outfitter for survival tech mostly. Bendalloy food and drink, brass heat, cadmium breath/o2 mostly. Truly all metals could be marketed but in interest of keeping the power levels down slightly... Anyways. We see medallions with multiple metalminds to make them work and they don't seem to me to have too much limiting them in use. Meaning I don't see a set time (maybe brass and perhaps this is the way I need to go with this). Medallions seem to already be limited in the way you're talking about. Iron medallion only allows you to store weight, brass one allows you to tap it (while Firemothers and Firefathers can store in them) etc. We haven't saw a medallion being both tapped and stored. TLM ch 9: Quote Every time they tried to get more information on medallions from people in the know, they got stonewalled. Obviously these were Malwish trade secrets, which explained part of it, but interviewing Allik they were able to consistently pick out discrepancies in what he said and what they actually saw. Why weren’t there Feruchemical soldiers in the Malwish army with extremely heightened strength, mental speed, or other dangerous Feruchemical talents? Why weren’t there Allomancer medallions? The more they learned, the more certain Wax became that there was a secret there, indicating the medallions were not as effective or as versatile as the Malwish would like people to believe. Spoiler Pagerunner At the end of Bands of Mourning, they couldn't refill the heat medallions, was that the brass, or the nicrosil they were having trouble with? Brandon Sanderson Let's RAFO that. JordanCon 2018 (April 22, 2018) 18 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said: If a feruchemist blanks identity and stores into a metalmind they have one that can be tapped by anyone who has that ability right? Like Waynes large gold mind from BoM. I think it is the band of nicrosil that makes a medallion usable by anyone right? Yes and yes. But "anyone" here involves only Feruchemist. A person without power won't be able to use them, even a nicrosil blanked metalmind. It isn't a medallion yet. 18 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said: If my feruchemist were to make a medallion with a nicrosil band for use by anyone would they be completely giving up that ability to use that metal? Like storing a memory erases it entirely from your mind and keeps it in the metalmind? Or would it give a specific time of use of that power for the time that I spend storing the ability to use that power? So there is a first difference between nicrosil Ferring and nicrosil medallion. In a medallion nicrosil works like a coppermind - you tap and gain the power and it won't run out. Medallions are more limited than what Ferrings can do with their nicrosilminds, and those likely work like any other medalmind, e.g. steelmind. Spoiler Calderis Does the nicrosil portion of the medallions function identitically to how a Soulbearer Ferring would use Nicrosil? Brandon Sanderson Not exactly. The medallion is a little more restrictive, for one thing. Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 31, 2018) Spoiler Pagerunner When you tap the nicrosil portion of a medallion, will it run out over time? Or is it like a coppermind, where something discrete is taken, used, and returned? Brandon Sanderson Good question! Like a coppermind. General Signed Books 2018 (Oct. 15, 2018) Spoiler Questioner So nicrosil. Wax couldn’t use a blank gold metalmind because he’s not a gold ferring, why can he use a blank nicrosil metalmind? Brandon Sanderson So this will all come out eventually but the idea is there are certain ways to connect yourself to magic, to hack the magic and make it think you have the Spiritual DNA that you don’t actually have. And this is one of the ways. Questioner So then the people who made this medallion have this thing that a regular nicrosil Ferring couldn’t-- Brandon Sanderson Yeah, you’re picking up on it. We’ll dig deeper into it as the series progresses. Calamity Seattle signing (Feb. 17, 2016) Creating a blanked nicrosilmind isn't a way to make anyone able to use them - only Ferruchemists or nicrosil Ferrings will be able to use them. Medallions have something more than that. Both connection and identity are involved. Medallions are a bit self-aware, have an identity of their own and this is likely what allows everyone to use them. And somehow hemalurgy makes them easier to make. But we still don't know how to make them. Spoiler Raddatatta In Era 1, Sazed says the only thing you can Feruchemically store while sleeping is wakefulness, but in Era 2 they have the sky ships that require everyone to be storing weight to fly and they don't land while people sleep. Was Sazed just wrong, or is that a difference between normal Feruchemy and using the unsealed metalminds? Brandon Sanderson Unsealed metalminds, I am moving toward complete—you probably already guessed this—mechanical uses of Investiture, and this indeed is a step toward that. And so we are stepping toward having a little machine that gives you powers. That's what the world wants to try to find. And this is—this being mechanical—we'll just say that the medallions and the things that they're building have more of a life-force, more of an Identity of their own than a traditional metalmind does, even though they're unkeyed and all of this stuff. YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022) Spoiler 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. Leipzig Book Fair (March 24, 2017) Spoiler Mojonero Back before the Final Ascension, if you had a full Feruchemist and a Mistborn, both with access and knowledge of all 16 metals, could they make medallions without the use of Hemalurgy? Brandon Sanderson If they knew what to do maybe. Much easier with Hemalurgy - but it would be possible. Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021) I don't believe that during the process of making medallions, Feruchemist permanently gives up his power - Metalborn in the Malwish are very rare, and if they just lost their powers everytime they made a medallion, there wouldn't be that many medallions in use. Whatever happens, something makes the nicrosil portion of medallion work like a coppermind, not like a steelmind (which I strongly believe that's how regular nicrosilminds work). The more I think about nicrosil medallions the more I think it works like a hemalurgic spike - it short circuits the power into your soul, it acts like it holds a piece of soul, not just kinetic investiture that would run out.
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