Trusk'our he/him Posted October 7, 2023 Posted October 7, 2023 I made a thread before that talked about using Connection to conjoin two Hemalurgic spikes before (Multi-Pieced Spikes thread), allowing them to act as one distances, though long distances would probably make the process much less efficient. However, what if you tried something else, something more portable? I bet that you could fill a large chunk of flesh, probably your own back that was surgically removed (and grown back with F-gold, Wayne style) with lots of smaller pieces of metal that were Hemalurgically charged in order to prevent the Investiture from decaying. Then you'd inject an ethyl alcohol into it to prevent the flesh from decaying and wrap the whole thing in a plastic bag to prevent leaks. Then you put in in a vest that you wear and carry around with you (yes, it's sort of macabre, but it's efficient). The Invested metals- they don't have to be spikes, as those would probably pierce the plastic and make a mess- would all be Connected to a single spike in your body, linking them together and granting all of their power to you. This strategy would be particularly useful if Feruchemical and Hemalurgic storage is more efficient with lots of smaller containers than a single big one (as the storage size goes up and down non-linearly. We don't know yet whether it is more or less efficient to have a single large storage or many smaller ones). Quote JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016) Questioner I was wondering if the size of a piece of metal determines the amount of Feruchemical charge that can be stored in it. Brandon Sanderson Yes. Questioner So how does that scale, like, in terms of the volume or mass of the metal or... Brandon Sanderson It-- So I've talked about this before, I'm trying to remember exactly what I've told people-- It does not scale as logically as you think it does. How about that? It's more like certain thresholds. You can have a-- You can store a Hemalurgic or Feruchemical charge even in very small pieces of metal, but larger pieces of metal will let you get more. Questioner So it's kind of like there are different classes of sizes? Brandon Sanderson Yeah, kind of like that.
alder24 Posted October 7, 2023 Posted October 7, 2023 1 hour ago, Trusk'our said: I made a thread before that talked about using Connection to conjoin two Hemalurgic spikes before (Multi-Pieced Spikes thread), allowing them to act as one distances, though long distances would probably make the process much less efficient. However, what if you tried something else, something more portable? I bet that you could fill a large chunk of flesh, probably your own back that was surgically removed (and grown back with F-gold, Wayne style) with lots of smaller pieces of metal that were Hemalurgically charged in order to prevent the Investiture from decaying. Then you'd inject an ethyl alcohol into it to prevent the flesh from decaying and wrap the whole thing in a plastic bag to prevent leaks. Then you put in in a vest that you wear and carry around with you (yes, it's sort of macabre, but it's efficient). The Invested metals- they don't have to be spikes, as those would probably pierce the plastic and make a mess- would all be Connected to a single spike in your body, linking them together and granting all of their power to you. This strategy would be particularly useful if Feruchemical and Hemalurgic storage is more efficient with lots of smaller containers than a single big one (as the storage size goes up and down non-linearly. We don't know yet whether it is more or less efficient to have a single large storage or many smaller ones). I don't really understand what you mean by this. A severed piece of your body isn't part of your body anymore, so whatever metalminds, or spikes are there, they are not part of your spirit web, they are not touching your body, they are not accessible to you. I also don't think you can have something like conjoined spikes - when you split a spike, the charge is simply split in two and that's it. They aren't connected and can't be connected like that. Spren are cognitive entities, spike steals a piece of a spirit web, it rips it to pieces - you don't get conjoined spikes because a soul ripped into two halves isn't a one soul anymore, isn't connected. And what would be the application of such a conjoined spike? A conjoined fabrial is used for its movement, a conjoined spike would move as well - but making it would not make you any stronger - you take a charge and you split that charge into many pieces, smaller and being the same power/attribute in all smaller pieces. You don't get stronger spikes this way. I don't think that a conjoined spike is possible to make reasonably (a Bondsmith might do something weird working like a conjoined gemstone) but even if it could be made, only the spike in your body would give you powers, for the same reason both spanreeds needs to be charged with Stormlight otherwise they won't work. And Hemalurgic spikes can be any piece of metal, not literally a spike. Spike makes it easy to pierce a body.
Trusk'our he/him Posted October 7, 2023 Author Posted October 7, 2023 Just now, alder24 said: I don't really understand what you mean by this. A severed piece of your body isn't part of your body anymore, so whatever metalminds, or spikes are there, they are not part of your spirit web, they are not touching your body, they are not accessible to you. I also don't think you can have something like conjoined spikes - when you split a spike, the charge is simply split in two and that's it. They aren't connected and can't be connected like that. Spren are cognitive entities, spike steals a piece of a spirit web, it rips it to pieces - you don't get conjoined spikes because a soul ripped into two halves isn't a one soul anymore, isn't connected. You put all but one of the spikes in a piece of your own severed flesh (technically you could just use some other meat that doesn't belong to you, I suppose) so that they don't lose their Hemalurgic charge. Inquisitors would sometimes use large cuts of meat to do this as well; Spoiler https://wob.coppermind.net/events/472/#e14902 LadyLameness The Inquisitors keep spikes in jars to stop the Hemalurgic decay. Is that clotted blood? Like, does it just work with clotted blood? Brandon Sanderson It will. So what's going here is the spikes have to - this is a weird Cosmere thing - the spikes have to think they're in a body and you gotta trick them. You don't need to use blood but that's the easiest thing that they could do to make it work. You could also leave it in a piece of meat. LadyLameness You can put the stake in the steak! Brandon Sanderson You can put a stake in a steak. But there are plenty of ways to do this without doing that. But yes, it's pretty gross. LadyLameness Not that I think they have consciousness very much, but I imagine that they're a bit stupid if they think that clotted blood is the same as a human body. Brandon Sanderson Yes. You're just tricking the stupid piece of metal that has a little bit of extra Investiture and has become slightly self-aware, and so it keeps its charge and doesn't... yeah. There are much better modern ways of doing this that have started to be used. The idea is that you use a strong Connection between spikes and the same Identity so that you can get them to remotely add to the total charge of the one spike held in your own body. Maybe you're right and this wouldn't work, but it seems to me like this should be accomplishable. 5 minutes ago, alder24 said: And Hemalurgic spikes can be any piece of metal, not literally a spike. Spike makes it easy to pierce a body. Yes, it's just weird not calling them spikes since that's what they almost always are. 6 minutes ago, alder24 said: And what would be the application of such a conjoined spike? A conjoined fabrial is used for its movement, a conjoined spike would move as well - but making it would not make you any stronger - you take a charge and you split that charge into many pieces, smaller and being the same power/attribute in all smaller pieces. You don't get stronger spikes this way. Perhaps this is the will be the case, but I still think that it would be possible to achieve with the right tools and knowledge. 7 minutes ago, alder24 said: I don't think that a conjoined spike is possible to make reasonably (a Bondsmith might do something weird working like a conjoined gemstone) but even if it could be made, only the spike in your body would give you powers, for the same reason both spanreeds needs to be charged with Stormlight otherwise they won't work. You could have the Donor for the spikes tap large amounts of F-duralumin to Connect to the previous spikes as a new one is charged, allowing them to be permanently Connected to one another. That's my current idea for the construction of such a group of interConnected spikes (not spikes, Hemalurgic metals) anyway.
alder24 Posted October 7, 2023 Posted October 7, 2023 10 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: The idea is that you use a strong Connection between spikes and the same Identity so that you can get them to remotely add to the total charge of the one spike held in your own body. Maybe you're right and this wouldn't work, but it seems to me like this should be accomplishable. The problem is that's not how conjoined fabrials work. They share movement, not powers.
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