Non-Centralized Hemalurgic Webs

[Trusk'our he/him]

One of the biggest problems with Hemalurgic spikes is that they have a limited storage capacity for Investiture; the experimental Set spikes, for example, could only hold between 20-30 non-Metalborn people's worth of Investiture. Steel Inquisitor spikes could hold more as they were larger, but they are somewhat bulky and stick out of the body, making them easier to be removed by enemies and less practical in general.

I've tried to come up with another solution- what if you made a web of metal that was spread throughout your body instead of having a single spike to hold all of the Investiture?

You'd have a single spike that pierced the desired Bindpoint to hotwire the Hemalurgic web to your own soul, but you'd have a large collection of metal nodes connected by flexible wires to spread the storage of the spike's Investiture throughout your body, allowing for much greater storage space. You'd have to be careful not to pierce any other Bindpoints to prevent unnecessary damage, but I think it might prove possible.

Another possibility is that you could have a larger Hemalurgic storage that rested outside the body and used the spike imbedded in your flesh to quickly and easily be swapped out (you'd have to find a way to get them to share Investiture, but I don't think such a task is impossible). Basically, it would be like carrying around a vest or backpack that contained a large metal vessel for Hemalurgic Investiture that could be detached from your body for daily life, then reattached for combat or some other task that required lots of power.

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

the experimental Set spikes, for example, could only hold between 20-30 non-Metalborn people's worth of Investiture. Steel Inquisitor spikes could hold more as they were larger, but they are somewhat bulky and stick out of the body, making them easier to be removed by enemies and less practical in general.

I want to point out that Set's spike was described as a needle - that's a very thin spike, not a lot of metal. Inquisitor spikes were more like a railroad nail - massive, raw and bulky. That's a looot of metal compared to Set's spike. I think that a typical spike used by Set was somewhat in the middle of it, more similar to Kandra's Blessings or Koloss spikes - still bigger than a needle, but smaller than a railroad nail. If 30 people's worth of Investiture can be stored in a needle, then an Inquisitor's spike could potentially hold hundreds people's worth of investiture. With some metalworking you can make a spike that's as big as Inquisitor's spike, but doesn't stick out of your body and doesn't have a nail head that is easy to grab. Problem solved.

Still 20-30 people's worth of Investiture is quite a lot in my opinion.

2 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I've tried to come up with another solution- what if you made a web of metal that was spread throughout your body instead of having a single spike to hold all of the Investiture?

A wire can be cut. What would a cut Hemalurgic wire do to your powers granted by this spike? It would basically cut you off power. Not a good idea, if one of your points against Inquisitor's spike was "easy to remove", with which I don't agree they are easy to remove, Vin did it only when Ascending, before she worked with Elend to remove a single linchpin from a few Inquisitors, which was quickly prevented by adding a plate on top of the spike. It's much harder to remove your spike if you don't have a linchpin. But your wires are much worse than that, a single sword cut can sever the entire network.

[Trusk'our he/him]

34 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I want to point out that Set's spike was described as a needle - that's a very thin spike, not a lot of metal. Inquisitor spikes were more like a railroad nail - massive, raw and bulky. That's a looot of metal compared to Set's spike. I think that a typical spike used by Set was somewhat in the middle of it, more similar to Kandra's Blessings or Koloss spikes - still bigger than a needle, but smaller than a railroad nail. If 30 people's worth of Investiture can be stored in a needle, then an Inquisitor's spike could potentially hold hundreds people's worth of investiture. With some metalworking you can make a spike that's as big as Inquisitor's spike, but doesn't stick out of your body and doesn't have a nail head that is easy to grab. Problem solved.

yeah, I drew some diagrams of that same concept before, but the one concern I always ran into was whether it was going to severely displace the insides of the bearer. The bigger the spike, the more space it needs and the more it has to rearrange one's insides to fit, which will tax the body more.

34 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Still 20-30 people's worth of Investiture is quite a lot in my opinion.

It depends on how much Investiture is in the Allomantic and Feruchemical powers I'd say:

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/270/#e7797

Brandon Sanderson

The Sliding Scale of Allomantic Potential

Noblemen, despite what Spook says in this chapter, are not immune to the mistsickness. The rumor Spook is referencing does have merit, however. You see, since the mists are Snapping people and awakening the Allomantic potential within them, it will affect far fewer noblemen than skaa. Why? Because a lot of the noblemen have already Snapped. They were beaten as children to bring out the powers.

However, that won't stop all of them from being affected by the mistsickness, because the mistsickness is also awakening Allomantic potential that would otherwise be too subtle to be brought out. Pretend there's a sliding scale of Allomantic potential. 100% means you're an Allomancer—in this series, only two people have hit 100%—Vin and Elend. Buried within a lot of people, however, is enough of a touch of Preservation's power to hit, say, 50% on the relative scale of Allomantic power. These people, when beaten and made to pass through something traumatic, awaken to their Allomantic abilities.

There are a lot of people out there, however, with something more like 20% to 30%. These are the people the mists are Snapping—since the mists are, themselves, partially the power of Preservation, they can touch people and increase their Allomantic potential slightly and then bring it to the forefront.

This WoB makes it sound like you need a 50% on the scale to get to be an Allomancer in most cases, while most non-Allomancers are somewhere between 20-30% in their level of Investiture. If this is true, you could fit about 12.5 Allomantic or Feruchemical powers inside a single Set spike (using multiples of the same power to increase its effectiveness). This is a decent amount, but nowhere near what kinds of crazy shenanigans I was thinking of pulling off, particularly with. . .

Warbreaker spoilers:

Spoiler

Wanting to achieve Ruin's version of the Heightenings with H-nicrosil. Can't exactly become ageless with less than 30 Breaths per spike, especially if you want to achieve such an end result with as few spikes as possible.

34 minutes ago, alder24 said:

A wire can be cut. What would a cut Hemalurgic wire do to your powers granted by this spike? It would basically cut you off power. Not a good idea, if one of your points against Inquisitor's spike was "easy to remove", with which I don't agree they are easy to remove, Vin did it only when Ascending, before she worked with Elend to remove a single linchpin from a few Inquisitors, which was quickly prevented by adding a plate on top of the spike. It's much harder to remove your spike if you don't have a linchpin. But your wires are much worse than that, a single sword cut can sever the entire network.

Well, that's fair. It would be a weakness that could be exploited, but I don't think it would be particularly easy to do, especially the wires and metal nuggets were deeply implanted in the body (as they can rearrange things unlike Feruchemical implants). I suppose you could make it more like a mesh of interlocking plates underneath the skin with thicker cords connecting them (using another, more flexible substance to reinforce them) to make something more like an endoskeleton or internal armor than a true web. Or you could simply make the web spread over a smaller area with fewer wires to sever.

What about the removable external Hemalurgic storages? How do you think those would fare?

You're also probably right that it isn't that easy to pull out spikes either, but I like to come up with the most effective ways to circumvent Hemalurgy's weaknesses and flaws that I can, and this felt like a logical step forward to me.

Edited October 29, 2023 by Trusk'our

[alder24]

13 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

yeah, I drew some diagrams of that same concept before, but the one concern I always ran into was whether it was going to severely displace the insides of the bearer. The bigger the spike, the more space it needs and the more it has to rearrange one's insides to fit, which will tax the body more.

That's not really a problem when it comes to abilities. Marsh has 20 something spikes and he is fine - his appearance is a little different, but his personality is still more or less the same. Spikes always change you, they always twist and shape your body to fit new spikes. This is most known with Inquisitors - their brain is changed to go around spikes, their heart is shifted etc - but if Marsh is fine, then you will be fine too, the changes are out of necessity, rather than some unwanted mutations like with Koloss spikes.

13 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

It depends on how much Investiture is in the Allomantic and Feruchemical powers I'd say:

  Reveal hidden contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/270/#e7797

Brandon Sanderson

The Sliding Scale of Allomantic Potential

Noblemen, despite what Spook says in this chapter, are not immune to the mistsickness. The rumor Spook is referencing does have merit, however. You see, since the mists are Snapping people and awakening the Allomantic potential within them, it will affect far fewer noblemen than skaa. Why? Because a lot of the noblemen have already Snapped. They were beaten as children to bring out the powers.

However, that won't stop all of them from being affected by the mistsickness, because the mistsickness is also awakening Allomantic potential that would otherwise be too subtle to be brought out. Pretend there's a sliding scale of Allomantic potential. 100% means you're an Allomancer—in this series, only two people have hit 100%—Vin and Elend. Buried within a lot of people, however, is enough of a touch of Preservation's power to hit, say, 50% on the relative scale of Allomantic power. These people, when beaten and made to pass through something traumatic, awaken to their Allomantic abilities.

There are a lot of people out there, however, with something more like 20% to 30%. These are the people the mists are Snapping—since the mists are, themselves, partially the power of Preservation, they can touch people and increase their Allomantic potential slightly and then bring it to the forefront.

This WoB makes it sound like you need a 50% on the scale to get to be an Allomancer in most cases, while most non-Allomancers are somewhere between 20-30% in their level of Investiture. If this is true, you could fit about 12.5 Allomantic or Feruchemical powers inside a single Set spike (using multiples of the same power to increase its effectiveness). This is a decent amount, but nowhere near what kinds of crazy shenanigans I was thinking of pulling off, particularly with. . .

I would not take this WoB as literal, this is more like  something that Brandon used to make us understand better how Mistsnapping works, not a real numbers. I would be very cautious with taking this literally. We only know that everybody has a Preservation's fragment in them, that's innate investiture, and people with powers are more invested than non-Metalborns, with Mistborn/Feruchemist being the most invested. But it's hard to judge the true level of their investment. 

Plus most non-Metalborns would be below those 20% as they weren't snapped by the Mists. But again, those aren't real numbers, it sounds like he made them up as he was writing this.

13 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Well, that's fair. It would be a weakness that could be exploited, but I don't think it would be particularly easy to do, especially the wires and metal nuggets were deeply implanted in the body

That makes it better? A metal wire inside your body would drastically reduce your movement, cause internal injuries, bleedings as the metal is cutting deeper into your tissue, not to mention potential of metal poisoning and infections from such surgery. Metal wire is stiff, it won't move when you would want to twist or turn your body, it would cut you internally to pieces as a wire is less willing to change its shape than your muscles and fat are. This is a really, really bad idea. Deadly idea.

13 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I suppose you could make it more like a mesh of interlocking plates underneath the skin with thicker cords connecting them (using another, more flexible substance to reinforce them) to make something more like an endoskeleton or internal armor than a true web. Or you could simply make the web spread over a smaller area with fewer wires to sever.

You want to skin yourself alive? You really want to kill your Hemalurgist on the spot, because that's how you do this. There is a reason why you don't even put a piece of armor on your bare skin, and you want to put it under your skin? Nope. That would be a really short and painful existence.  It's easier to just have a spike and deal with it, rather than skin yourself, then have metal plates cutting you deeper and deeper with every move you make, and have no skin, as you can't attach your skin to metal plates. This is not Hemalurgy anymore, this is pure torture.