Spiritual Feruchemy's Hacks on Hemalurgy

[Trusk'our]

I had considered using Feruchemy to enhance Hemalurgy's use before, but I figured that it wouldn't work because the augmentations provided by it were only temporarily formed by an influx of Kinetic Investiture. That would mean that spiking the attribute the Feruchemist was tapping would have no bearing on the Invested charge of the spike.

Only, I just remembered this WoB that states that such a thing is possible with a temporary change to the Spiritweb, such as with Forgery;

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https://wob.coppermind.net/events/36/#e1560

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--

I now believe this means that at least temporary spiritual Feruchemical enhancements (and not just Blanking Identity) can alter the creation of Hemalurgic spikes, as they should fall under the same parameters as Forgery. I'm not certain about the other quadrants of Feruchemy though, as they may not alter the Spiritweb enough to be spiked out (kind of like how F-Atium is only physical change and not a spiritual one).

So, what could we do by combining spiritual Feruchemy and Hemalurgy?

Aluminum: this one has been mostly explored before on the Forums, as the Blanking of Hemalurgic spikes may be able to be achieved by Blanking the Identity of a Donor during the spiking process.

I do wonder whether you could possibly tap someone else's Identity temporarily and then spike out something from them that is specifically Keyed to the new Identity. Doing so could create a spike more efficiently tethered to the bearer's Spiritweb to let them Compound, use their powers more efficiently (WoB says that a Blanked Identity Metalmind tapped by a Blanked person would be slightly more efficient than a Blanked Metalmind with a non-Blanked person, hence the reasoning that a spike could work the same), and maybe allow for the creation of Resonances with Hemalurgy. 

This may require jumping through some hoops to manage, but maybe it could work. I'd still take it with a healthy dose of skepticism as we don't know a ton about Identity yet.

Nicrosil: this is probably the biggest one there is. If you could augment your Allomancy with F-nicrosil and if you could spike that enhancement out, you could create spikes bearing tremendous power with relative ease. After all, storing, say, your A-pewter fully for a week and tapping it all in a brief moment while having it spiked out would create a Hemalurgic spike holding many, many times the standard power of a Pewterarm.

I think that it also may be possible to have a non-Invested person tap an Unsealed Nicrosilmind, then spike the temporary power out of them, eliminating the need to spike a true Allomancer or Feruchemist at all.

I'm a lot less certain about this possibility though, as the medallions that the Southern Scadriens use have been compared to the Honorblades (WoB, and WoB #2), which don't tie into the Spiritweb very effectively, which may very well prevent Hemalurgy from taking medallion-granted powers (though natural or Hemalurgic Feruchemical augmentations may still be on the table, as they are directly embedded into the Spiritweb).

Duralumin: Hemalurgic spikes take a measure of the Donor's Identity along with whatever else is spiked out, such as their Allomantic or Feruchemical powers. I think that if the donor tapped Connection to a specific entity (or object, place, time, etc.) and the proper Intent and Command was used that Connection could be taken along with the spike (or a portion of it anyway) and grafted onto the spike bearer along with the standard power.

This could potentially allow for a permanent web of Connections to be formed amongst a group of Hemalurgists by using a cental hub for all of them to Connect to, similar to how all Aetherbound are Connected to their respective Aether.

If there isn't enough Connection that can be taken with a power spike, H-duralumin could probably be used to achieve the effect.

Chromium: this one is by far the most mysterious of the Hemalurgic metals. It, apparently, can steal one's destiny, though it's the only thing on the Hemalurgy table that isn't guaranteed. I personally believe that this "destiny" is just a form of Fortune, though one that is specifically tied to an individual and what their Fortune would prompt them to do. The reason it isn't guaranteed is because the spike bearer would have their own destiny interfereing with the new one, potentially causing them to ignore their new fate.

I think that tapping Fortune with Feruchemy would therefore effect the stolen Destiny, likely making it much easier to read it and lessen the chance it gets overlooked.

Alright, that's all I can come up with now. Anyone else got some more ideas or comments/arguments to be made?

[Atlas333]

I think this idea is incredibly interesting and definitely plausible. The difficulty is finding uses for it.

I don't see identity being a particularly useful attribute to spike unless you're trying to impersonate them maybe. Still, the side effects would probably be even worse than a normal spike, so probably not worth it. 

For Nicrosil, I don't think it works that way.

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

Nicrosil: this is probably the biggest one there is. If you could augment your Allomancy with F-nicrosil and if you could spike that enhancement out, you could create spikes bearing tremendous power with relative ease. After all, storing, say, your A-pewter fully for a week and tapping it all in a brief moment while having it spiked out would create a Hemalurgic spike holding many, many times the standard power of a Pewterarm.

 

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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)

Granted, this is talking about medallions, but I still think it applies. It sounds like once you store investiture, you lose it permanently until you tap it, just like with memories. That means nicrosil alone isn't enough to increase your powers. Because of that it's difficult to see how tapping nicrosil would change anything unless we're talking about medallions or something like that. 

 

Connection could be useful if you wanted to spike out a specific connection like a connection to the land to immediately learn a new language. This is the one that I see being the easiest and most valuable to use. 

Destiny is also interesting, but I agree it's tricky to predict. Unfortunately, there isn't much to say about this one. 

Still, very interesting theory. I'm excited to see where it goes.