cool ideas for large scale use of unsealed metalminds

[hoid without wit]

I was thinking about unsealed metalminds and how they could be useful and I just thought of how if there were bendalloyminds all around the city that you could tap, that would make your day a lot more efficient(if you never had to eat or drink, you just kinda touch a wire)

then I thought about what if that was a government public service?

like you could have people's entire jobs be eating all day and storing it, there could be telephone wire-like things going all around the city. 

then I began to think about other applications, like:

Spoiler

improved work efficiency, if you get tired, just tap from the bronzemind

better emergency services, ambulances and hospitals could have goldminds ready to go

you could even have goldmind stations so you could heal people before emergency services came

you could communicate quickly by storing memories in a coppermind wire and your friend could tap them from miles away(you would probably need to have it written down if you want to remember after)

better, more efficient library systems, where you could have any knowledge stored in the communal coppermind

 

Edited February 29 by hoid without wit

[Dofurion]

3 minutes ago, hoid without wit said:

better, more efficient library systems, where you could have any knowledge stored in the communal coppermind

I fear that the latter could not be, given that memories degrade when entering and leaving a Coppermind, which would make the loss of information very frequent.

[hoid without wit]

darn

[alder24]

16 minutes ago, hoid without wit said:

then I thought about what if that was a government public service?

like you could have people's entire jobs be eating all day and storing it, there could be telephone wire-like things going all around the city. 

then I began to think about other applications, like:

  Hide contents

improved work efficiency, if you get tired, just tap from the bronzemind

better emergency services, ambulances and hospitals could have goldminds ready to go

you could even have goldmind stations so you could heal people before emergency services came

you could communicate quickly by storing memories in a coppermind wire and your friend could tap them from miles away(you would probably need to have it written down if you want to remember after)

better, more efficient library systems, where you could have any knowledge stored in the communal coppermind

Why the page format?

True, that can work but I don't think it would be cheap. The medallions are expensive, paying lots of people to act as storing batteries all day long (I mean A LOT because you don't have compounding, you have to store 1:1 people will use - for every person tapping a metalmind you have to have a new person storing in it), providing infrastructure covering the entire city - all of this would be rusty expensive. Very expensive. You would have to equip the entire population in medallions. I can't see it working on a state level, but on a much smaller, something like company level it might work. I can see a private company offering services like this to boost your efficiency.

[hoid without wit]

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

Why the page format?

I was just experimenting

it didn't really work

but that's okay

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

True, that can work but I don't think it would be cheap. The medallions are expensive, paying lots of people to act as storing batteries all day long (I mean A LOT because you don't have compounding, you have to store 1:1 people will use - for every person tapping a metalmind you have to have a new person storing in it), providing infrastructure covering the entire city - all of this would be rusty expensive. Very expensive. You would have to equip the entire population in medallions. I can't see it working on a state level, but on a much smaller, something like company level it might work. I can see a private company offering services like this to boost your efficiency.

you're right-a company level makes a lot more sense

[Zinc]

I actually never thought of this application of unsealed metalminds! I think that alder24 had it right when they said that it would probably be very inefficient, but if they could somehow figure out a way to make compounding work without being twinborn, it could be a huge possibility. I feel like the most common uses for unsealed metalminds without access to compounding would be things like emergency services stuff like that. Another idea I had was for a sort of expensive sleeping pill or a way to stay up late without much consequences (presumably). I imagine that thousands of college students would be hooked on it

 

[JustQuestin2004]

2 hours ago, Zinc said:

I actually never thought of this application of unsealed metalminds! I think that alder24 had it right when they said that it would probably be very inefficient, but if they could somehow figure out a way to make compounding work without being twinborn, it could be a huge possibility.

Pretty simple solution, be born with Allomancy or use Hemalurgy to get some, then grab a Medallion of the same type of metal, then store into more swallowable metalminds since you don't need to store into the medallion itself*, then boom, you're a Compounder! I think. Though you might need the medallion to also grant F-Aluminum since Identity Contamination might get in the way maybe. 

*wob

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.

 

[therunner]

9 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Pretty simple solution, be born with Allomancy or use Hemalurgy to get some, then grab a Medallion of the same type of metal, then store into more swallowable metalminds since you don't need to store into the medallion itself*, then boom, you're a Compounder! I think. Though you might need the medallion to also grant F-Aluminum since Identity Contamination might get in the way maybe. 

*wob

  Reveal hidden contents

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.

 

With Hemalurgy that would certainly not work, as Hemalurgy can no longer allow Compounding.

With natural Allomancy, I also don't think it would work, because the Feruchemical power is not part of your spiritweb, and Medallions have their own Identity which would contaminate the process (basically the same way as it is happening in Hemalurgy).

[JustQuestin2004]

1 hour ago, therunner said:

With Hemalurgy that would certainly not work, as Hemalurgy can no longer allow Compounding.

The way I see it, the problem with Hemalurgically granted Compounding lies with Hemalurgically granted Feruchemy (where Identity matters a lot) rather than with Hemalurgcally granted Allomancy (Where it doesn't, you can Burn metals or you can't). So if a natural Ferring were Spiked with matching Allomancy then they'd be able to Compound since there shouldn't be any problems with their Metalmind's Identity. At least that's my interpretation.

Unless the Identity Contamination does have an effect on your Allomancy, so maybe it mucks up your Identity enough that you simply can't Burn your own Metalminds, since the Identity in the Metalminds and the Identity of your Allomancy are slightly different. Oof, I just shot down my own point. 

1 hour ago, therunner said:

With natural Allomancy, I also don't think it would work, because the Feruchemical power is not part of your spiritweb

I don't see why the Feruchemy needs to specifically be part of your Spiritweb for Compounding to work. The Medallion gives you the ability to make more Metalminds, then you can Burn it because either the Metalminds you create are keyed to your Identity or they're still Blanked. Any Allomancer can burn Unkeyed Metalminds of their respective metals so it should work. Unless the 'more restrictive than Soulbearers' thing gets in the way.

1 hour ago, therunner said:

and Medallions have their own Identity which would contaminate the process (basically the same way as it is happening in Hemalurgy).

Ah, good point. Though I guess we'll just have to wait until their blueprints are revealed by Brandon to make full judgement.

And then again, the Set did manage to steal a bunch of Medallions and they weren't any closer to figuring out Compounding years later.

[therunner]

2 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

The way I see it, the problem with Hemalurgically granted Compounding lies with Hemalurgically granted Feruchemy (where Identity matters a lot) rather than with Hemalurgcally granted Allomancy (Where it doesn't, you can Burn metals or you can't). So if a natural Ferring were Spiked with matching Allomancy then they'd be able to Compound since there shouldn't be any problems with their Metalmind's Identity. At least that's my interpretation.

Well, TLM Arcanum is pretty clear, Compounding does not work through Hemalurgy, period.

2 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Unless the Identity Contamination does have an effect on your Allomancy, so maybe it mucks up your Identity enough that you simply can't Burn your own Metalminds, since the Identity in the Metalminds and the Identity of your Allomancy are slightly different. Oof, I just shot down my own point.

Yep, basically that. We know that Invested powers do carry Identity, Stormlight spoilers:

Spoiler

As Radiant can use their Surges on their own Plate, but Surges of others get blocked.
This affect Honorblades as well, so someone using Honorblade could not use it through Plate, even if the Plate was their own.

This is why I think Medallions will be as unable to Compound as Hemalurgy.

2 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

I don't see why the Feruchemy needs to specifically be part of your Spiritweb for Compounding to work. The Medallion gives you the ability to make more Metalminds, then you can Burn it because either the Metalminds you create are keyed to your Identity or they're still Blanked. Any Allomancer can burn Unkeyed Metalminds of their respective metals so it should work. Unless the 'more restrictive than Soulbearers' thing gets in the way.

I don't think we have actually ever seen Allomancer burn Unkeyed Metalmind, so I don't think it would work that way.

[Returned]

I think that the broadest issues are ultimately going to be social, not practical. The problem with unsealed metalmind supply so far is related to the Excisors: they are the bottleneck in production, though not so much so that Malwish seem to be lacking them to any meaningful degree.

Power on Scadrial has not been widely shared, and those who have it tend to make use of it for their own benefit. There are a lot of good applications of unsealed metalmind technology that would make Scadrian society better in any number of ways, but I doubt that the elite few who can produce them would be so dedicated to the common good that they would make them freely available like that. Nor would there necessarily be enough people who would spend their time filling them in exchange for nothing. So I imagine a dual supply problem, both with metalminds and with the attributes they can store.

So the applications that will impact society the most will likely be discrete: you can buy a functional metalmind for the trait you want and then do your own Feruchemy with it, just like the Malwish storing their own weight to suit their own needs while on an airship. Still cool, and we'll see people doing emergency preparation (like storing a ton of nutrition in a bendalloymind) both for themselves and to sell as a commodity. But I would be surprised to see Scadrial end up with an Elantris-like public spirit.

Edited February 28 by Returned

[Duxredux]

On 2/27/2024 at 1:37 PM, hoid without wit said:

I was thinking about unsealed metalminds and how they could be useful and I just thought of how if there were bendalloyminds all around the city that you could tap, that would make your day a lot more efficient(if you never had to eat or drink, you just kinda touch a wire)

then I thought about what if that was a government public service?

like you could have people's entire jobs be eating all day and storing it, there could be telephone wire-like things going all around the city. 

then I began to think about other applications, like:

  Hide contents

improved work efficiency, if you get tired, just tap from the bronzemind

better emergency services, ambulances and hospitals could have goldminds ready to go

you could even have goldmind stations so you could heal people before emergency services came

you could communicate quickly by storing memories in a coppermind wire and your friend could tap them from miles away(you would probably need to have it written down if you want to remember after)

better, more efficient library systems, where you could have any knowledge stored in the communal coppermind

 

Nice! I had a similar idea not quite 2 years ago on this thread: Feruchemical Power Grid, back before TLM was out and before we knew that Compounding with unsealed metalminds or Hemalurgy may not be straightforward. There's a few potential complications to what you're describing, and @alder24 touched on the supply issue. The other significant issue is how you actually create and distribute Feruchemical attributes with a municipal system like this and make it functional. So far I think we've only seen a Feruchemist store attributes in distinct single units of metal. What happens if you weld an additional chunk of metal to the original metalmind - does the Feruchemical charge spread to the additional metal or not? Is there a method of metering the power draw like one would for any utility bill? IRL electrical and gas lines have a form of built-in security in that unless you are a professional with professional equipment you have a very high chance of getting yourself killed if you try to tap into them illegally because the energy source itself is just that dangerous at the scale they transfer it. This is not the default for Feruchemy as you literally walk up and grab the wire to get the benefit, so some security would be necessary which gets expensive at a city, county, or country level of distribution. There's probably some way to get past these limitations, but I don't know if we have the information to do so yet.

I will note that even if we don't see a wire distribution, there's still a question of the energy/mass compression we get in Metalminds. Is it cost effective from a supply chain transportation standpoint to pay people to eat and drink all day if it means you can ship a crate of Bendalloy cubes instead of food? The form factor doesn't matter for a chunk of metal, food shelf-life is a nonissue, and transportation conditions are far more lenient on metal than say grain. The same consideration applies to other applications - is sending a Brassmind cheaper than electricity or combustible fuel for heating or cooling? Some of this probably won't catch on because Elendel has electricity and it has to beat out the convenience we'll get in the modern day, but there's going to be a market for this somewhere on Scadrial.

I think if Brandon wanted to he could make this work he could, but there are plenty of engineering challenges that Scadrial would need to solve. I wouldn't be surprised at all if something similar is utilized for space age starships when they can design and build the entire vessel and save on mass and volume by storing food, water, and oxygen in metalminds. If they figure out unkeyed/unsealed Compounding then we might see a municipal Feruchemical power grid, but if not they probably would still see use in closed system applications like Malwish air ships or space ships.

[JustQuestin2004]

6 hours ago, therunner said:

Well, TLM Arcanum is pretty clear, Compounding does not work through Hemalurgy, period.

Marsh seems to have a different opinion.

TLM Chapter 28

Spoiler

"This is extremely dangerous. So far, I do not believe they've learned the secret to Compounding via Hemalurgy. Identity Contamination prevents it; that is our only saving grace. If they could do that... or, Lord Ruler... if they get atium, or Lerasium..."

So it's clearly not impossible, it's just that it needs some kind of trick, likely by Blanking the Identity of whoever you're Spiking or by Blanking you're own Identity.

6 hours ago, therunner said:

I don't think we have actually ever seen Allomancer burn Unkeyed Metalmind, so I don't think it would work that way.

Then we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

[Returned]

I think that there is too much focus on compounding per se. In the Cosmere we're right at the cusp of reliably known, interconvertible Investiture forms. At least some of those seem likely to be capable of accomplishing what Metallic Arts compounding does, and in a likely more straightforward way than dealing with whatever difficulties Identity Contamination imposes (or that figuring out the one solves the other).

[Trusk'our]

6 hours ago, Returned said:

I think that there is too much focus on compounding per se. In the Cosmere we're right at the cusp of reliably known, interconvertible Investiture forms. At least some of those seem likely to be capable of accomplishing what Metallic Arts compounding does, and in a likely more straightforward way than dealing with whatever difficulties Identity Contamination imposes (or that figuring out the one solves the other).

Probably, yeah.

Compounding is a game changer for early eras in Mistborn, as there is no other competing source of easily accessible Investiture.

I think Compounding will be unlocked again in the 3rd or 4th era, as by then technology and Invested powers will become wide spread enough to keep it from breaking the game. It will likely still be useful, but not super-duper busted.

I actually wonder if harnessing the Mists directly to fuel Allomancy and Feruchemy will become the default for of power in era 4. Might even make Compounding obsolete. 

Edited February 29 by Trusk'our

[therunner]

On 2/29/2024 at 1:50 AM, JustQuestin2004 said:

Marsh seems to have a different opinion.

TLM Chapter 28

  Reveal hidden contents

"This is extremely dangerous. So far, I do not believe they've learned the secret to Compounding via Hemalurgy. Identity Contamination prevents it; that is our only saving grace. If they could do that... or, Lord Ruler... if they get atium, or Lerasium..."

 

So it's clearly not impossible, it's just that it needs some kind of trick, likely by Blanking the Identity of whoever you're Spiking or by Blanking you're own Identity.

Blanking might help make it work, but straightforward hemalurgy won't work. And I personally doubt Blanking would work well enough (I will elaborate on this below).

It is also possible that Marsh does not know how difficulty it has gotten, considering he is 'grandfathered-in'.

On 2/29/2024 at 1:50 AM, JustQuestin2004 said:

Then we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

Indeed.

I will expand a bit on why I think Compounding won't be possible. Simply put, Compounding being widely available terribly distorts dynamics of Scadrial (and Cosmere), and also removes the primary limitation of Feruchemy (you have to give up attribute for a time to get it later). Brandon has talked multiple times about how limitations are what defines a system, so I don't think he would make it so that Feruchemy's is effectively nullified going forward.

Before TLM it was widely held belief that Medallions and Hemalurgy will allow easy Compounding, making Scadrial a powerhouse. I disputed that on the grounds of limitations (as above), and was proven right on Hemalurgy, as Brandon clearly made the decision to restrict Compounding going forward. Going forward, I believe the same will be the case of Medallions, as Medallion-based Compounding would do exactly what he prevented Hemalurgy from doing (and even without the ethical issue, and opening up yourself to control issue!).

Unkeyed Metalminds might allow for something, however it is notable that nothing of the sort happens in either BoM or TLM, despite the Set having some access to unkeyed Metalminds. Nor do Ghostbloods seem to be taking advantage of that, instead relying on Dor jars for large effects. So I don't think they will allow for the same effects Miles achieved.

In fact, letting unkeyed metalminds be burned would allow any Hemalurgist to get access to Compounding (the very issue Brandon was trying to solve).
It would work as follows:

• Be Allomancer
• Grant yourself corresponding F-spike
• Grant yourself F-Aluminum spike
• Ta-da, you can Compound

So letting unkeyed Metalminds be burned means any Allomancer can become Compounder with just two spikes.
Similarly, if Blanking is all that is needed to allow Compounding, than anyone can become Compounder with three spikes.

Considering Brandon's clear intent to limit it, I don't think he will backtrack that much on it.

Edited March 2 by therunner