madallions Are medallions made wrong?

[..... he/him]

So medallions work by having a piece of Nicrosil  that magically granted the ability to tap nicrosil Then it's also the ability you want stored in the nicrosil portion which you then use your ability to tap nicrosil to tap out which gives you the ability to use that power but if you can magically make it so that somehow a person by touching and knowing that that's what it does a piece of nicrosil can tap out nicrosil then couldn't they just make it so that that piece makes it so they just magically get whatever ability they were wanting in the first place that seems like it that makes a lot more sense to me the only thing I can think of that would maybe make it so it doesn't work that way is the excisors might do something weird that involves you having to store in nicrosil but somehow they made it so you can tap out nicrosil so it must be possible to avoid doing that somehow right? please correct me if I'm wrong but that's how I think it should work.

[Quantus he/him]

Haha, did you use up all the periods in your username?

If I get your question, you are wondering why Nicrosil medallions dont just grant any and all the powers?  With the disclaimer that we do not know the actual details of medallion creation yet, we do know that Nicrosil medallions store and retrieve a discrete thing like Copper, they dont work on a sliding scale like most metals.  So the implication is that to make a medallion that grants a Power would require another person to first Give Up and store that power in the medallion.  We're assuming that compounding and probably Hemalurgy play a role in whatever steps get them around that and closer to mass production, but we dont know the details yet.  

[alder24]

4 minutes ago, ..... said:

So medallions work by having a piece of Nicrosil  that magically granted the ability to tap nicrosil Then it's also the ability you want stored in the nicrosil portion which you then use your ability to tap nicrosil to tap out which gives you the ability to use that power but if you can magically make it so that somehow a person by touching and knowing that that's what it does a piece of nicrosil can tap out nicrosil then couldn't they just make it so that that piece makes it so they just magically get whatever ability they were wanting in the first place that seems like it that makes a lot more sense to me the only thing I can think of that would maybe make it so it doesn't work that way is the excisors might do something weird that involves you having to store in nicrosil but somehow they made it so you can tap out nicrosil so it must be possible to avoid doing that somehow right? please correct me if I'm wrong but that's how I think it should work.

I'm not sure If I understand you. It's really hard to read without knowing where a sentence starts or ends, without periods, commas etc. Please try using them.

Are you suggesting that medallions shouldn't have a nicrosil portion at all, and that the rest should just give you powers on their own? Like for example an F-copper medallion should have just a copper portion and nothing else, and you knowing what it does should just give you the ability to tap copperminds? Then that's not possible, copper doesn't grant you powers, it only stores memories.

In Feruchemy, nicrosil stores the ability to use invested arts, it stores part of your soul that gives you powers. You can store your Feruchemy only in Nicrosilminds and nowhere else. No other metal stores those abilities, you need to have Feruchemical powers to tap metalminds. That's why nicrosil is a necessary part of medallions, the coppermind can't store the ability to tap copperminds, this can be given to you only by nicrosil.

The weirdness of medallions is that everyone, without even being a nicrosil Ferring, can use medallions. This is because medallions are a bit self-aware, they are a little alive and have identity on their own, and they grant you the ability of nicrosil Ferring, so you can tap the nicrosilmind and get other Feruchemical abilities from it. We don't know why this works like this, and how Malwish made them, but they are basically a little machines that gives you this ability so you can use the rest of medallions.

You can't use metalminds without being a Feruchemist first, and you can't store that in any other metal than nicrosil - you need that nicrosilmind there and you need to be able to tap it in the first place as well.

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)

 

[..... he/him]

sorry about the bad punctuation I just never get how it works on my own writing. 

2 hours ago, Quantus said:

If I get your question, you are wondering why Nicrosil medallions dont just grant any and all the powers?  With the disclaimer that we do not know the actual details of medallion creation yet, we do know that Nicrosil medallions store and retrieve a discrete thing like Copper, they dont work on a sliding scale like most metals.  So the implication is that to make a medallion that grants a Power would require another person to first Give Up and store that power in the medallion.  We're assuming that compounding and probably Hemalurgy play a role in whatever steps get them around that and closer to mass production, but we dont know the details yet.  

 

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Are you suggesting that medallions shouldn't have a nicrosil portion at all, and that the rest should just give you powers on their own? Like for example an F-copper medallion should have just a copper portion and nothing else, and you knowing what it does should just give you the ability to tap copperminds? Then that's not possible, copper doesn't grant you powers, it only stores memories.

In Feruchemy, nicrosil stores the ability to use invested arts, it stores part of your soul that gives you powers. You can store your Feruchemy only in Nicrosilminds and nowhere else. No other metal stores those abilities, you need to have Feruchemical powers to tap metalminds. That's why nicrosil is a necessary part of medallions, the coppermind can't store the ability to tap copperminds, this can be given to you only by nicrosil.

The weirdness of medallions is that everyone, without even being a nicrosil Ferring, can use medallions. This is because medallions are a bit self-aware, they are a little alive and have identity on their own, and they grant you the ability of nicrosil Ferring, so you can tap the nicrosilmind and get other Feruchemical abilities from it. We don't know why this works like this, and how Malwish made them, but they are basically a little machines that gives you this ability so you can use the rest of medallions.

You can't use metalminds without being a Feruchemist first, and you can't store that in any other metal than nicrosil - you need that nicrosilmind there and you need to be able to tap it in the first place as well.

Anyway you guys clearly did not understand what I meant so I will try to explain it better. so if you touch a medallion and Know what it does then it somehow grants the ability to tap nicrosil and then you tap the desired power what Im wondering is why instead of granting f-nicrosil when you touch it it cant grant the power you wanted in the first place.

[alder24]

9 minutes ago, ..... said:

Anyway you guys clearly did not understand what I meant so I will try to explain it better. so if you touch a medallion and Know what it does then it somehow grants the ability to tap nicrosil and then you tap the desired power what Im wondering is why instead of granting f-nicrosil when you touch it it cant grant the power you wanted in the first place.

That's precisely what I thought you meant and I've explained to you why you can't do that. You need the ability to tap specific metalminds, and this is only given to you by F-nicrosil. F-nicrosil stores the ability to use metalminds, it stores all invested arts, like Allomancy or Feruchemy. If you have a heat medallion, F-brass, you need the ability to tap brassmind, and you can't store it in a brassmind, this is innate investiture stored in nicrosilminds only, thus you have to store this in a nicrosilmind first. A brassmind can't store that attribute in it, it can only hold heat, you need to have a nicrosilmind in which the ability of F-brass Ferring is stored. A medallion has to have a nicrosil part because without it, it can't grant powers, without it, it is just an unkeyed metalmind usable only to other Feruchemists that have this ability. In a medallion all Feruchemical abilities are stored in a nicrosil part, and only there. 

The "know what it does" is nothing more than Intent. You need to have the intent to use medallions, and for that you need to know what it does. You don't know what it does simply by touching it - Wax was given an F-copper medallion, the coin, by Hoid early in BoM, but only in the epilogue did he realized it's a medallion, this he know what it does, thus he could provide the Intent and tap it. That's Intent.

Quote

It was right there. The coin he’d been given by the beggar, shining in the faint starlight. Drewton must have found it in his pocket. Wax reached out, hesitated a moment, and then slipped it from the table before stepping out into the mist.
Could it be? he wondered, holding up the coin. Two different metals. One was silvery. Could that be nicrosil? The other was copper. A Feruchemical metal. Though the pattern printed on the face wasn’t the same, and the coin itself was smaller, this didn’t look all that different from one of the Southerner medallions.
As soon as he thought of it—as soon as he knew what it might do—the metalmind started working, and he found a store within him, a reserve he could tap. Wax gasped.

 

[..... he/him]

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

That's precisely what I thought you meant and I've explained to you why you can't do that. You need the ability to tap specific metalminds, and this is only given to you by F-nicrosil. F-nicrosil stores the ability to use metalminds, it stores all invested arts, like Allomancy or Feruchemy. If you have a heat medallion, F-brass, you need the ability to tap brassmind, and you can't store it in a brassmind, this is innate investiture stored in nicrosilminds only, thus you have to store this in a nicrosilmind first. A brassmind can't store that attribute in it, it can only hold heat, you need to have a nicrosilmind in which the ability of F-brass Ferring is stored. A medallion has to have a nicrosil part because without it, it can't grant powers, without it, it is just an unkeyed metalmind usable only to other Feruchemists that have this ability. In a medallion all Feruchemical abilities are stored in a nicrosil part, and only there. 

The "know what it does" is nothing more than Intent. You need to have the intent to use medallions, and for that you need to know what it does. You don't know what it does simply by touching it - Wax was given an F-copper medallion, the coin, by Hoid early in BoM, but only in the epilogue did he realized it's a medallion, this he know what it does, thus he could provide the Intent and tap it. That's Intent.

so I guess Im not doing a good job of explaining because you still don’t understand. I dont think that you could store the ability in a brassmind for exsample. now here is the idea a medallion has two parts a nicrosil part and a metalmind part for convenience. for now lets ignore the metalmind part or pretend this one dose not have one. I touch it tap nicrosil and have the ability I want, but wait I dont have the ability to tap nicrosil so somthing is happening in the nicrosil to give f-nicrosil and I think that you could change it so that the same mechanism gave you a different power 

[Treamayne]

2 hours ago, ..... said:

So, I guess that I'm not doing a good job of explaining because you still don’t understand. I don't think that you could store the ability in a brassmind, for example. Now, here is the idea that a medallion has two parts - a nicrosil part and a metalmind part for convenience. For now, let's ignore the metalmind part (or pretend this one does not have one). I touch it, tap nicrosil, and have the ability I want; but wait, I don't have the ability to tap nicrosil - so somthing is happening in the nicrosil to give f-nicrosil - and I think that you could change it so that the same mechanism can give you a different power 

I think I fixed that correctly. I also think you are not understanding because this exact question has already been answered thrice. So, please let me know if this helps:

• for convenience - this is a false assumption, the attached metalmind is required
• to give f-nicrosil - this is also a false assumption. The Unsealed Metalmind isn't granting the ability to tap Nicrosil - the Nicrosil is acting as a bridge so that the Unsealed Metalmind gives the ability to tap/store the Connected Metal's power.
• Unkeyed Metalminds are metalminds created with no identity so that anybody with the appropriate power can use the metalmind and any storage within that metalmind
• Unsealed Metalminds are a Metalmind using a Nicrosil bridge so that anybody (Metalborn or not) can use that Metalmind. Allik even says that they specifically have Unsealed metalminds that grant two abilities, sometimes three (but they have not been able to make four powers work)
  • The Nicrosil is only allowing the person using the metalmind to act as a Feruchemist, the connected metal ring(s) determine what ability(ies) are granted
  • If you had a Nicrosil Mind only, it could only act as a storage for Nicrosil - not a storage for anything-at-all (at least not with the current level of Scadrian technology and understanding)

BoM Ch 21

Spoiler

“That grants the warmth,” Allik said. “It is a grand combination—two attributes, from separate rings. Took us long to make these work, yah? The one I wear now, also grants two. Weight and Connection. I’ve seen medallions with three. Twice in my life only. Every attempt at four has failed.”

Hope that helps

[Shadeshadow227]

2 hours ago, ..... said:

so I guess Im not doing a good job of explaining because you still don’t understand. I dont think that you could store the ability in a brassmind for exsample. now here is the idea a medallion has two parts a nicrosil part and a metalmind part for convenience. for now lets ignore the metalmind part or pretend this one dose not have one. I touch it tap nicrosil and have the ability I want, but wait I dont have the ability to tap nicrosil so somthing is happening in the nicrosil to give f-nicrosil and I think that you could change it so that the same mechanism gave you a different power 

The medallions themselves are sort of "alive", for reasons that are as of yet unknown to everyone but the Malwish. The process of creating a medallion is something that hasn't been explored, but the end result is...seemingly not quite like an Awakened object, somehow.

The medallion itself can tell when someone's trying to use it. It senses the Intent related to itself, and acts according to that Intent, within the constraints of what it can do.

Honestly, I think it might be similar to how fabrials work, except using feruchemy (and potentially hemalurgy). The structure of the medallion itself is important, the metals involved encoding for specific effects: specifically Feruchemical effects, because it's built using Feruchemy and the medallion itself is a metalmind.

The Bands of Mourning are specifically an anomaly even to the Malwish, nobody knows how it was created except for the creator.

Like...yes, it's theoretically something you can replicate, but you could also theoretically turn the basement of a house into a supercollider, that doesn't mean anyone could just do that.

[alder24]

14 hours ago, ..... said:

so I guess Im not doing a good job of explaining because you still don’t understand. I dont think that you could store the ability in a brassmind for exsample. now here is the idea a medallion has two parts a nicrosil part and a metalmind part for convenience. for now lets ignore the metalmind part or pretend this one dose not have one. I touch it tap nicrosil and have the ability I want, but wait I dont have the ability to tap nicrosil so somthing is happening in the nicrosil to give f-nicrosil and I think that you could change it so that the same mechanism gave you a different power 

I do (edit: not) understand what you're saying, you don't understand what I'm trying to tell you. You need the nicrosil portion of a medallion, because that's what gives you powers to tap metalminds in the first place. You can't get rid of it and make the rest of the medallion give you powers, because the powers are STORED in the nicrosil portion of a medallion, not in other medalminds. Because the whole medallion is alive, has a bit of a life-force, is a little machine, it gives you Feruchemical powers from the nicrosil portion so you can use metalminds. The whole mechanism works by drawing the ability of Feruchemy from the nicrosilmind in a medallion, and giving it to you (kind of), and you can't store powers of Feruchemy somewhere else, this is stored only in nicrosil. Medallion doesn't work without the nicrosil portion, because that's what's giving you powers, all powers.

Edited October 19, 2023 by alder24

[Treamayne]

44 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I do understand what you're saying, you don't understand what I'm trying to tell you. You need the nicrosil portion of a medallion, because that's what gives you powers to tap metalminds in the first place. You can't get rid of it and make the rest of the medallion give you powers, because the powers are STORED in the nicrosil portion of a medallion, not in other medalminds. Because the whole medallion is alive, has a bit of a life-force, is a little machine, it gives you Feruchemical powers from the nicrosil portion so you can use metalminds. The whole mechanism works by drawing the ability of Feruchemy from the nicrosilmind in a medallion, and giving it to you (kind of), and you can't store powers of Feruchemy somewhere else, this is stored only in nicrosil. Medallion doesn't work without the nicrosil portion, because that's what's giving you powers, all powers.

They weren't trying to say that "Medallion without Nicrosil," they were trying to say "Medallion of only Nicrosil" as if you could store, for example, being a Firesoul in the nicrosil and use just any Brassmind without having brass be part of the medallion. But, from what we know so far, it does not work like that. Nicrosil stores "being a ferring" and the connected ring(s) of another metal(s) determine what type of ferring ability(ies) are available to the Unsealed Metalmind. 

[alder24]

10 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

They weren't trying to say that "Medallion without Nicrosil," they were trying to say "Medallion of only Nicrosil" as if you could store, for example, being a Firesoul in the nicrosil and use just any Brassmind without having brass be part of the medallion. But, from what we know so far, it does not work like that. Nicrosil stores "being a ferring" and the connected ring(s) of another metal(s) determine what type of ferring ability(ies) are available to the Unsealed Metalmind. 

Ok, my bad. The original question is "why not use the same mechanism that gives you F-nicrosil, to give you all other powers" - it works like that already. But all those powers are stored in nicrosil and I'm focusing on that too much on nicrosil part, thinking that the question is "if nicrosil can give you powers without being a Soulbearer, then why other metalminds can't do the same without the need for nicrosil part at all". My bad. 

People who use medallions don't tap nicrosil for powers in the first place - the medallion gives that to them if they know what it does. The medallion just grants them ALL the powers stored in the nicrosilmind when you touch it and know what it does - by knowing what it does you provide an Intent and you start to feel the other metalminds in that medallion. They just tap the attributes stored in other metalminds, or store attributes in metalminds. But the nicrosil portion already grant them abilities to use those metalminds - all of them, not just nicrosil one, but all with nicrosil.

I don't think the Nicrosil part stores "being a Ferring" as there is no such thing. It stores what kind of Ferring you are, like a Skimmer, a Firesoul and a Soulbearer - a specific kind of Ferring, not a general one because such a general one doesn't exist. There has to be a Skimmer that stored his ability in the medallion in the first place, to allow others to tap ironminds. But tbf we don't know much about how medallions work, so it's hard to say what they do precisely.

 

@..... My bad, I misunderstood you again. The answer is medallions are already doing what you're asking about. You don't tap nicrosilmind in a medallion for F-iron, the medallion gives you all powers at once, not just F-nicrosil. You only tap other metalminds, while the lifeforce of the medallion is giving you what's stored in nicrosilmind on its own. BoM ch 20:

Quote

“What do they do?” MeLaan asked.
“Make you lighter,” the masked man said.
As soon as he said it—as soon as she knew what it did—something inside of Marasi understood. She was holding metal that, somehow, she could feel. It wanted something from her, and she poured it in, filling the metal … the metalmind.
She grew lighter, rising on her seat, the force of her body pushing less on her backside. Telsin gasped, obviously experiencing a similar sensation.

Notice that Marasi realized it's an ironmind, she can store weight there, not that she can tap nicrosilmind for powers and then use ironmind. The power of F-iron was already provided to her by wearing the medallion, alongside F-nicrosil. She only store an attribute into the medallion, without tapping anything from it.

 

15 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

"Medallion of only Nicrosil" as if you could store, for example, being a Firesoul in the nicrosil and use just any Brassmind without having brass be part of the medallion. But, from what we know so far, it does not work like that.

You can use any metalmind while having a medallion: 

Spoiler

Genesis

Can someone using a medallion store Feruchemical traits in a separate metalmind (e.g. not the medallion itself)?

Can Inquisitors store Feruchemical traits in separate metalminds (excluding their spikes)?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes and yes.

General Reddit 2018 (Oct. 8, 2018)

 

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

You can use any metalmind while having a medallion

Yes, I know. His theory was that the medallion was nothing but Nicrosil but still granting whatever ability and only using metalminds that were not a part of the medallion. 

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

I don't think the Nicrosil part stores "being a Ferring" as there is no such thing. It stores what kind of Ferring you are, like a Skimmer, a Firesoul and a Soulbearer - a specific kind of Ferring, not a general one because such a general one doesn't exist. There has to be a Skimmer that stored his ability in the medallion in the first place, to allow others to tap ironminds. But tbf we don't know much about how medallions work, so it's hard to say what they do precisely.

That's my point. Everybody seems to think the same way you do - expecting that M-Nicrosil works like F-Nicrosil (which we also know almost nothing about) when we have already been told they are similar, but not the same. I'm merely pointing out that the idea that the Nicrosil in a Medallion "stores" the "Firesoul-ness" is an assumption. We don't know enough - but we do know that at the current level of tech the medallions require that the second (third, etc.) metal be present. I was postulating why that would be - and it seems to me that the most likely (Occam's razor) reason is that the M-Nicrosil is Unsealed "access to Feruchemy" and the Manifestation of that is based on Connection to the other metal(s) in the medallion. It is unlikely that you could have the Nicrosil in a double-ability Unsealed Metalmind storing both "Skimmer-ness" and "Firesoul-ness" (conflict issues - the same reason you cannot store both sight and hearing in the same Tinmind). But if the Nicrosil was "Access to Ferchemy" and the other metals in the medallion provide that manifestation - it fits the currently known facts.  

Edit Note: We still have the unknown Excisor that factors in somehow - possibly excising the Metal and Identity Connections from a Nicrosil storage to make the Unsealed Nicrosil. However, it is just-as-likely to be some kind of Medallion Hemalurgy that's "Excising" the "Skimmer-ness" from the "donor" to store in the medallion (or any other number of possible theories. . . )

Edited October 19, 2023 by Treamayne
SPAG|Note

[alder24]

3 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Yes, I know. His theory was that the medallion was nothing but Nicrosil but still granting whatever ability and only using metalminds that were not a part of the medallion. 

No, that was only an example. This is his theory, he thought that by touching the medallion it gives you the ability to tap F-nicrosil on its own, and you then tap nicrosilmind to get other abilities - so why can't you get them all at once without tapping. If I understood that correctly.

Quote

so if you touch a medallion and Know what it does then it somehow grants the ability to tap nicrosil and then you tap the desired power what Im wondering is why instead of granting f-nicrosil when you touch it it cant grant the power you wanted in the first place.

 

5 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Everybody seems to think the same way you do - expecting that M-Nicrosil works like F-Nicrosil

I don't think they work exactly the same - M-nicrosil works like F-copper, but I think F-nicrosil works like F-steel or other metalminds.

7 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

I'm merely pointing out that the idea that the Nicrosil in a Medallion "stores" the "Firesoul-ness" is an assumption.

That's true. But that makes the most sense as there is no such thing as a "general Ferring" or something like that - this is coded in sDNA and your spiritweb, and this is tied to a specific metal. There is a Full Feruchemist, but that's not what medallions are.

10 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

we do know that at the current level of tech the medallions require that the second (third, etc.) metal be present.

I just want to be sure. What's your source on that? Was it said specifically somewhere in the book or WoB? Because the quote you provided earlier isn't proving that metalminds are required. I'm not denying it.

12 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

I was postulating why that would be - and it seems to me that the most likely (Occam's razor) reason is that the M-Nicrosil is Unsealed "access to Feruchemy" and the Manifestation of that is based on Connection to the other metal(s) in the medallion.

Or other metalminds provide a specific identity necessary for a medallion to grant those powers that are stored in the nicrosilmind. 

14 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

conflict issues - the same reason you cannot store both sight and hearing in the same Tinmind

The F-copper is like a bunch of different types of memories stored in the same piece of metal, like images, texts or even indexes. And M-nicrosil works like a F-copper so there would be no such conflict.

17 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

But if the Nicrosil was "Access to Ferchemy" and the other metals in the medallion provide that manifestation - it fits the currently known facts.  

I don't think it can work like that. The realmatics of Feruchemy is that it's your soul that provides the manifestation, it tells you in which metal you can store and tap from, the metal itself only stores the attribute, it doesn't make you a Feruchemist. There is no "access to Feruchemy" or something like this. 

I think the medallion has some sort of blank connection attached to it, which snaps to a person wearing it, and through that connection it gives you the unkeyed powers stored in a nicrosilmind. Furthermore I think that the nicrosilmind works more like a Hemalurgics spike (Hemalurgy makes it easier to make medallions), as it stores whole pieces of the soul responsible for giving you powers, and hotwires them into your soul via that blanked connection. That's why M-nicrosil works like F-copper.

[..... he/him]

7 hours ago, alder24 said:

 

@..... My bad, I misunderstood you again. The answer is medallions are already doing what you're asking about. You don't tap nicrosilmind in a medallion for F-iron, the medallion gives you all powers at once, not just F-nicrosil. You only tap other metalminds, while the lifeforce of the medallion is giving you what's stored in nicrosilmind on its own. BoM ch 20:

oh ok that more sense 

19 hours ago, Treamayne said:

22 hours ago, ..... said:

So, I guess that I'm not doing a good job of explaining because you still don’t understand. I don't think that you could store the ability in a brassmind, for example. Now, here is the idea that a medallion has two parts - a nicrosil part and a metalmind part for convenience. For now, let's ignore the metalmind part (or pretend this one does not have one). I touch it, tap nicrosil, and have the ability I want; but wait, I don't have the ability to tap nicrosil - so somthing is happening in the nicrosil to give f-nicrosil - and I think that you could change it so that the same mechanism can give you a different power 

I think I fixed that correctly. 

thanks

Edited October 19, 2023 by .....