Speculation about the Scadrian Weight Device

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

This appears to be a metalmind that takes medalliontech a step by making tapping the metalmind obligatory. It's not just that you *can* tap the metalmind, you have to. Normally, tapping a metalmind requires intent, which is why when Wax had the memory coin he couldn't even tap it until he knew what it was. So this is weird!

Do we have any speculation as to how this might be done? Is it even a metalmind like I think?

I have thoughts that it might involve F!Electrum, but that's obviously highly speculative so I'm curious if anyone has other thoughts.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Stormtide_Leviathan

[Cherrys]

One thing to note with the device: while taping weight from a metalmind, your body adapts and you don't feel the weight. Doesn't seem to be the case here, since Zellions is sluggish because of the extra weight, contrary to what Wax or Sazed experience.

[alder24]

11 hours ago, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

This appears to be a metalmind that takes medalliontech a step by making tapping the metalmind obligatory. It's not just that you *can* tap the metalmind, you have to. Normally, tapping a metalmind requires intent, which is why when Wax had the memory coin he couldn't even tap it until he knew what it was. So this is weird!

Do we have any speculation as to how this might be done? Is it even a metalmind like I think?

I have thoughts that it might involve F!Electrum, but that's obviously highly speculative so I'm curious if anyone has other thoughts.

It works like Fabrials probably. This device might have enough life-force and identity (more than what current medallions have) to provide the intent itself instead of a person wearing it.

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)

 

2 hours ago, Cherrys said:

One thing to note with the device: while taping weight from a metalmind, your body adapts and you don't feel the weight. Doesn't seem to be the case here, since Zellions is sluggish because of the extra weight, contrary to what Wax or Sazed experience.

No. Tapping weight is making you slower and more sluggish. Your body is only changed to be able to unhold added weight, but it doesn't get stronger, like with F-pewter. You are heavier, your mass to strength ratio is changed, thus you are slower in consequences. You aren't stronger, F-iron makes you able to not collapse and break bones under increased weight. I'm quite sure it was shown in books but I can't find it now. The only one I've found is from WoB ch 58, but at that moment Sazed is also tapping F-pewter, making his body larger and slower too. 

Quote

He snatched the lamp out of the air, then tapped iron hard—increasing his weight manyfold—and tapped pewter to give himself massive strength.
[...]
Sazed returned his weight to normal, then jumped forward, raising his impromptu weapon again. Marsh, however, threw an arm up and Pushed. Sazed skidded back a few feet before he was able to tap the ironmind again, increasing his weight.
Marsh grunted, his Push forcing him back against the wall. It also, however, kept Sazed at bay. Sazed struggled to step forward, but the pressure of Marsh's Push—along with his own bulky, weighed-down body—made walking difficult.

 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Six

The fight in the ballroom

From the early days of the Mistborn books, I'd been planning how an Allomantic gunfight would go down. I felt it the next evolution in what has been stylistically a big part of these books.

There is a fine line to walk in a lot of these sequences. I've made something of a name for myself in the fantasy world by attempting to mix some scientific reasoning with my magic systems. At the same time, Allomancy was designed precisely with action sequences in mind. I wanted them to be powerful and cinematic—and a cinematic fight sequence is often at odds with realism. (Watch two people who really know what they're doing fight with swords sometime, then watch any fight sequence in a film. Most of the time, the film sequences stray far from what would really happen.)

So, as I said, I walk a line. Sometimes, there are things I just can't do because they violate what I've set up as the rules of the world. Other times, I design the setting and nature of the fight specifically to allow for certain types of cinematic sequences. One thing I like a lot about Wax’s abilities is the power he has to manipulate his weight. There's some realism to what he does—for example, increasing his weight doesn't make him fall more quickly, but it allows him to do some powerful things while falling. Destroying the chandeliers is an example.

At the same time, I acknowledge that the weight manipulation aspect of Feruchemy is one of its more baffling powers, scientifically. Is he changing his mass? If so, he should become more dense, which I don't actually make the case when it plays out in fights. (Otherwise, increasing his weight enough would make him impervious to bullets.) So, if it's not mass manipulation, is it gravity manipulation, like Szeth and Kaladin do? Well, again, not really—as when his weight increases, his strength and ability to uphold that weight increase as well. Beyond that, Wax can't make himself so light that he has no weight at all.

So . . . well, at this point, the ability to explain it scientifically breaks down. I do like what it does, but I have to set its boundaries and stick to them—and accept that some of what's going on is irrational. (And don't get me started on what should really be happening scientifically when Wayne speeds up time.)

Footnote: Brandon has stated that iron Feruchemy works by manipulating the Higgs field.
The Alloy of Law Annotations (March 14, 2014)

[Treamayne]

10 hours ago, alder24 said:

You aren't stronger, F-iron makes you able to not collapse and break bones under increased weight. I'm quite sure it was shown in books but I can't find it now.

Was it perhaps one of these:

Spoiler

WoA Ch 58:

Quote

Marsh immediately tried to Push Sazed away by the metal bracers on his arms. Sazed was ready, however, and he tapped his ring ironmind—drawing forth the weight he had stored within it. His body grew denser, and he felt its weight pulling him down, his fists feeling like balls of iron on the ends of lead arms.

Marsh immediately lurched away, thrown violently backward by his own Push.

HoA Ch 78:

Quote

The Fifths charged, and Sazed tapped iron from the grate beneath his bare feet. Immediately, his body grew several times heavier than normal, and he grabbed a kandra guard by the arms.

Then fell on him.

Sazed always said he wasn’t a warrior. However, the number of times he’d said that, then been forced to fight anyway, made him think he was losing that excuse. The truth was, he’d been in far more battles over the last few years than he felt he had any right to have survived.

Either way, he knew some rudimentary moves—and, with both Feruchemy and surprise to aid him, that was about all he needed. Tapping weight increased the density of his body and of his bones, keeping him from damaging himself as he collapsed on top of the soldier. Sazed felt a satisfying crack as they hit the grate, Sazed’s greatly increased weight crushing the kandra guard’s bones. They used stone True Bodies, but even that wasn’t enough.

SoS Ch 21:

Quote

Wax ran his fingers along the cracks in the stone wall. Air moved through them, he thought, catching a whiff of something more … rotten. More like the city he knew. Familiar and disgusting all at once.

He tapped his metalmind, increasing his weight, then threw his shoulder against the wall. This was tricky, as his strength hadn’t increased except in its ability to lift his own limbs and manipulate his heavier muscles. That lent him some ability, but mostly he had to try to force things just right so that he was falling into the wall as much as pushing on it.

He finally got the correct leverage, shoving through the cracked rock and causing a clatter.

 

 

[alder24]

11 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Was it perhaps one of these

I'm not sure, but the first one aligns with what I said earlier: "he felt its weight pulling him down, his fists feeling like balls of iron on the ends of lead arms."