Bloodhacking

[Trusk'our he/him]

Boodmaker + Hemalurgy = Bloodhacker. Good, bad, or great idea?

Since Feruchemical gold can repair spiritual damage done by Spiritweb theft, a Bloodmaker could act as a donor for the creation of their own Hemalurgic spikes. Basically, convert Feruchemical Investiture into Hemalurgic Investiture. 

Now, health is particularly difficult to save up, especially since it takes a lot to make a difference when quickly regenerating from injuries (Wayne needed about two weeks of heavy storing to heal from three gunshot wounds in AoL, if memory serves right), and spiritual damage is likely to be a bigger deal.

Miles would apparently need to Compound a lot of health to reliably produce Hemalurgic spikes containing F-gold, so there's that to take into account: 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/406-general-reddit-2020/#e14304

HazelCharm47

Let's say we have a hypothetical situation with Miles Hundredlives. In this scenario, he is wearing a gold metalmind filled to the brim with stored healing power. He is then spiked with a cadmium spike and loses his gold allomancy.

Now, if I recall from various WoBs, he would be able to heal using the gold metalmind and regain his gold allomancy. I could be misremembering and he cannot heal it, but I believe he would be able to since it is part of his Identity.

However, one question I have never seen the answer to is this: what happens to the ability in the spike? Is the allomantic ability still contained in the spike, leading to a duplicate? Or is the spike's ability lost? Or maybe I have this whole thing wrong and Miles could never have regained the ability in the first place.

If the ability duplicates (which I doubt), that could lead to some crazy things. Also, this applies to any Twinborn with gold Feruchemy, I just thought Miles was a good example I guess

Brandon Sanderson

I'd like to see the exact WoB's here to make sure I'm being consistent, as I don't know that I confirmed you could regain lost powers--only that you could heal from hemalurgic soul damage. Most likely, what you'd end up with is a person who has been healed and can remove the spike from their body without damage, and without needing it to hold their soul together--but who has lost the ability in the spike.

Regardless, though, what you want here (the mass production of spikes charged and even blanked) is possible with the right levels of investiture. It's an energy, like things in our world. The difficulty is finding out how to 1) get enough investiture and 2) key it to the right people and/or magic.

Hope that's a little more clear.

That said, a lot of times people just ask me if something is possible--and a lot of things are possible, but just very difficult. And with the right boost of investiture, in the right circumstances, it WOULD be possible to regrow lost (to spikes) powers. It's just highly unlikely.

I'm not sure if the questions people are asking me are ones I've qualified, or not, in these instances. Also, this is all something I'm playing with still behind the scenes as we enter the modern age of Mistborn.

HazelCharm47

As requested, here are the WoBs I believe are related. They might be obsolete, however. And I assume things will get changed a lot before Era 4, but hey, it's fun to ask anyways

WoB #1:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/331/#e9434

This one states that as long as Miles still has his Identity, he would be able to use his Feruchemical metalminds after being spiked and would be able to heal.

WoB #2:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/102/#e983

This one says that Miles would be able to heal his soul using Feruchemical healing and regain his gold Allomancy (assuming he survives the spiking). I think this is the most essential one!

WoB #3:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/76/#e6335

This one is only somewhat related - implies that the Feruchemical and Allomantic powers are spiritually part of him.

WoB #4:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/7/#e6435

Also tangentially related - damage to the soul from Hemalurgy can be healed (Although this might just be a Hoid thing). I guess the question could be expanded to include non-Feruchemical healing as a way to repair the soul after being spiked.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, I don't think any of those are specifically inaccurate. I just didn't quite understand what people were trying to get out of me. A lot of times, I don't know quite what people are trying to get out of me. I can see now they're trying to figure out.

I see now, and I appreciate you putting this all together for me so I can see what the fans are trying to figure out. So the answer is a cautious yes. The problem here is that he'd need to compound a TON of healing first--but yes, it would work. You could theoretically turn someone like Miles into an invested spike factory.

If he didn't have enough healing stored, though, he'd end up with a healed soul but a gap (like a scar on his soul) where his spiked-out abilities were. That could theoretically be healed with application of more investiture, depending on things like how he views himself, and if you could get the right type of investiture.

This definitely limits your ability to self-charge Hemalurgic spikes, but I see a few options:

1. You accept the cost and primarily use your Feruchemy only to fuel your Hemalurgy. A dedicated Bloodmaker could get at least a few spikes this way (especially since attributes are likely to be cheaper than powers), perhaps duplicating your Feruchemy to give to others, augment your own destiny via H-chromium, or perhaps cheat your way into becoming something akin to a Connector Ferring with careful H-duralumin to remove, regrow, and stack Connections.

2. You make significant upfront investments (literally) and choose to take, regenerate, and add to your own natural Feruchemy, increasing its base strength.

I believe that this would increase its efficiency (as weaker Feruchemy results in greater inefficiency), especially when tapping at higher rates, perhaps allowing you to spend less time later feeling sick to get the same results. It might even allow a positive feedback loop to further increase its efficiency for expanding its power by re-spiking yourself to further Invest the same spike.

So, say it takes a year to scrounge up enough health to regenerate your Feruchemy once and staple it back on. The second time you spike yourself you may only need to spend 8-10 months, the third 6-8, etc.

You'd eventually reach a level of maximum efficiency, but I suspect that the extra base Investment would be worthwhile. 

3. You cheese the system even more by getting extra health, perhaps via Harmonium/Pewter Allomancy (which if I understand correctly should be storable), or using other Hemalurgic spikes to grant A-pewter and maybe even A-duralumin for extra speed.

This requires even more dedicated resources, but could aid a Bloodmaker in creating more Hemalurgic spikes.

It's also worth noting that any spikes you make from your own Spiritweb will share an Identity, making their Investiture stackable and perhaps allowing for other unique shenanigans. 

Edited September 5 by Trusk'our

[alder24]

7 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Boodmaker + Hemalurgy = Bloodhacker. Good, bad, or great idea?

Since Feruchemical gold can repair spiritual damage done by Spiritweb theft, a Bloodmaker could act as a donor for the creation of their own Hemalurgic spikes. Basically, convert Feruchemical Investiture into Hemalurgic Investiture. 

Now, health is particularly difficult to save up, especially since it takes a lot to make a difference when quickly regenerating from injuries (Wayne needed about two weeks of heavy storing to heal from three gunshot wounds in AoL, if memory serves right), and spiritual damage is likely to be a bigger deal.

Miles would apparently need to Compound a lot of health to reliably produce Hemalurgic spikes containing F-gold, so there's that to take into account: 

  Reveal hidden contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/406-general-reddit-2020/#e14304

HazelCharm47

Let's say we have a hypothetical situation with Miles Hundredlives. In this scenario, he is wearing a gold metalmind filled to the brim with stored healing power. He is then spiked with a cadmium spike and loses his gold allomancy.

Now, if I recall from various WoBs, he would be able to heal using the gold metalmind and regain his gold allomancy. I could be misremembering and he cannot heal it, but I believe he would be able to since it is part of his Identity.

However, one question I have never seen the answer to is this: what happens to the ability in the spike? Is the allomantic ability still contained in the spike, leading to a duplicate? Or is the spike's ability lost? Or maybe I have this whole thing wrong and Miles could never have regained the ability in the first place.

If the ability duplicates (which I doubt), that could lead to some crazy things. Also, this applies to any Twinborn with gold Feruchemy, I just thought Miles was a good example I guess

Brandon Sanderson

I'd like to see the exact WoB's here to make sure I'm being consistent, as I don't know that I confirmed you could regain lost powers--only that you could heal from hemalurgic soul damage. Most likely, what you'd end up with is a person who has been healed and can remove the spike from their body without damage, and without needing it to hold their soul together--but who has lost the ability in the spike.

Regardless, though, what you want here (the mass production of spikes charged and even blanked) is possible with the right levels of investiture. It's an energy, like things in our world. The difficulty is finding out how to 1) get enough investiture and 2) key it to the right people and/or magic.

Hope that's a little more clear.

That said, a lot of times people just ask me if something is possible--and a lot of things are possible, but just very difficult. And with the right boost of investiture, in the right circumstances, it WOULD be possible to regrow lost (to spikes) powers. It's just highly unlikely.

I'm not sure if the questions people are asking me are ones I've qualified, or not, in these instances. Also, this is all something I'm playing with still behind the scenes as we enter the modern age of Mistborn.

HazelCharm47

As requested, here are the WoBs I believe are related. They might be obsolete, however. And I assume things will get changed a lot before Era 4, but hey, it's fun to ask anyways

WoB #1:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/331/#e9434

This one states that as long as Miles still has his Identity, he would be able to use his Feruchemical metalminds after being spiked and would be able to heal.

WoB #2:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/102/#e983

This one says that Miles would be able to heal his soul using Feruchemical healing and regain his gold Allomancy (assuming he survives the spiking). I think this is the most essential one!

WoB #3:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/76/#e6335

This one is only somewhat related - implies that the Feruchemical and Allomantic powers are spiritually part of him.

WoB #4:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/7/#e6435

Also tangentially related - damage to the soul from Hemalurgy can be healed (Although this might just be a Hoid thing). I guess the question could be expanded to include non-Feruchemical healing as a way to repair the soul after being spiked.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, I don't think any of those are specifically inaccurate. I just didn't quite understand what people were trying to get out of me. A lot of times, I don't know quite what people are trying to get out of me. I can see now they're trying to figure out.

I see now, and I appreciate you putting this all together for me so I can see what the fans are trying to figure out. So the answer is a cautious yes. The problem here is that he'd need to compound a TON of healing first--but yes, it would work. You could theoretically turn someone like Miles into an invested spike factory.

If he didn't have enough healing stored, though, he'd end up with a healed soul but a gap (like a scar on his soul) where his spiked-out abilities were. That could theoretically be healed with application of more investiture, depending on things like how he views himself, and if you could get the right type of investiture.

This definitely limits your ability to self-charge Hemalurgic spikes, but I see a few options:

1. You accept the cost and primarily use your Feruchemy only to fuel your Hemalurgy. A dedicated Bloodmaker could get at least a few spikes this way (especially since attributes are likely to be cheaper than powers), perhaps duplicating your Feruchemy to give to others, augment your own destiny via H-chromium, or perhaps cheat your way into becoming something akin to a Connector Ferring with careful H-duralumin to remove, regrow, and stack Connections.

2. You make significant upfront investments (literally) and choose to take, regenerate, and add to your own natural Feruchemy, increasing its base strength.

I believe that this would increase its efficiency (as weaker Feruchemy results in greater inefficiency), especially when tapping at higher rates, perhaps allowing you to spend less time later feeling sick to get the same results. It might even allow a positive feedback loop to further increase its efficiency for expanding its power by re-spiking yourself to further Invest the same spike.

So, say it takes a year to scrounge up enough health to regenerate your Feruchemy once and staple it back on. The second time you spike yourself you may only need to spend 8-10 months, the third 6-8, etc.

You'd eventually reach a level of maximum efficiency, but I suspect that the extra base Investment would be worthwhile. 

3. You cheese the system even more by getting extra health, perhaps via Harmonium/Pewter Allomancy (which if I understand correctly should be storable), or using other Hemalurgic spikes to grant A-pewter and maybe even A-duralumin for extra speed.

This requires even more dedicated resources, but could aid a Bloodmaker in creating more Hemalurgic spikes.

It's also worth noting that any spikes you make from your own Spiritweb will share an Identity, making their Investiture stackable and perhaps allowing for other unique shenanigans. 

You cannot use this idea to duplicate your Feruchemical powers as a Bloodmaker. Once you spike out your F-gold it's over, you can't heal, you can't tap your goldminds, you can't restore your spiritweb - unless you place that spike into yourself and use it to heal. However, this would be extremely inefficient due to the Hemalurgic decay and would require a loooot more attribute to heal after spiking. It's not practical at all as even Miles would need a ton of attribute to heal such damage, a regular Bloodmaker would need to store for months or maybe even years to generate enough health to regain their power. The efficiency issue in Feruchemy isn't as profound as in Allomancy, so you would gain basically nothing, except for a giant scar on your spirit web and wasted years. You CAN'T tap more attribute than you stored, there is a clear upper limit in Feruchemy, which you can't hack and you're already very close to it with your natural Feruchemy.

You would still need a ton of healing to regenerate stolen attributes. A Bloodmaker won't be able to do this repeatedly, you need to be a gold compounder. Why wasting years to create one spike, when you can't just find some dying person and spike them instead? 

Spoiler

Yoonseo Chang

Looking at Allomancy, you've mentioned that over time the power dilutes and each ability becomes less powerful. (for example a Tineye in Era 2 will generally be less powerful than one in Era 1) Does the same effect happen in Feruchemy as well? How would Feruchemy become less pure or diluted (other than Ferrings appearing)?

Brandon Sanderson

I have not gone as far with Feruchemy in that regard. I would say that if you're going to get a weakening of Feruchemy, which you're asking about, is the amount of stored attribute you get for lost attribute. There is decay there, you don't get a 1:1. Feruchemy generally I would say is not much weaker than it was before, a little bit but not much. This was done partially for narrative reasons. I wanted Allomancy... I wanted to back off a little on Allomancy and tell stories with it a little bit weaker. Again, mostly narrative reasons at this point. At this point on Scadrial, it's weakened about as much as it's going to because by this point people are having children that are more powerful because of the certain mixing. I'm not saying it's going up, I'm saying they have hit an equilibrium on Scadrial for the most part, at least in the Basin.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021)

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

50 minutes ago, alder24 said:

You cannot use this idea to duplicate your Feruchemical powers as a Bloodmaker. Once you spike out your F-gold it's over, you can't heal, you can't tap your goldminds, you can't restore your spiritweb - unless you place that spike into yourself and use it to heal. However, this would be extremely inefficient due to the Hemalurgic decay and would require a loooot more attribute to heal after spiking. It's not practical at all as even Miles would need a ton of attribute to heal such damage, a regular Bloodmaker would need to store for months or maybe even years to generate enough health to regain their power. 

That's true, it would take a lot of health to fully regenerate, and it very well might take years to store up enough health, at least initially. 

What about option 3, in your opinion? If you could, say, use Harmonium to transfer a Pewterarm's health over to the Bloodmaker, maybe even add in a duralumin Gnat for speed, do you think it might be more economic?

57 minutes ago, alder24 said:

The efficiency issue in Feruchemy isn't as profound as in Allomancy, so you would gain basically nothing, except for a giant scar on your spirit web and wasted years. You CAN'T tap more attribute than you stored, there is a clear upper limit in Feruchemy, which you can't hack and you're already very close to it with your natural Feruchemy.

What if you try to tap at higher percentages? Do you think that stronger Feruchemy might be able to reduce compression loss?

Feruchemy gets exponentially less efficient when you need to compress a lot of attribute at once, so increasing its efficiency by, say 80% could mean tapping at the rate Wayne needs to recover from injuries in seconds could take significantly less time, in my opinion. 

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

You would still need a ton of healing to regenerate stolen attributes. A Bloodmaker won't be able to do this repeatedly, you need to be a gold compounder. Why wasting years to create one spike, when you can't just find some dying person and spike them instead? 

That's fair. This is looking more like a 3$ idea than a 300$ idea 

What if Miles knew what he was doing with Hemalurgy and decided to do this strategy, but with his Allomancy to increase his total Investiture per unit of gold burned? Do you think that the positive feedback loop would be worth it?

His baseline of personal Investiture would increase as well, so he would be more resistant to aging and such too. Plus, since the Investiture all holds his Identity, he could use a single large spike to stack the Hemalurgic Investiture. 

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

What about option 3, in your opinion? If you could, say, use Harmonium to transfer a Pewterarm's health over to the Bloodmaker, maybe even add in a duralumin Gnat for speed, do you think it might be more economic?

Pewter doesn't give you a lot of health. In fact it gives you only a tiny boost - it took months for both Vin and Elend to recover from their deadly wounds. Even with duralumin it won't give you a crazy amount of attribute, if it gives you anything at all - do you gain health from pewter if you don't need any or is it like Stormlight and heals you only when needed? And if you already have access to A-pewter and A-duralumin via Hemalurgy, then why create new spikes this way when you're sure are ok with killing people?

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

What if you try to tap at higher percentages? Do you think that stronger Feruchemy might be able to reduce compression loss?

Not likely. You lose only because you're using it to compress attributes. It's a fixed amount of energy needed so nothing to save here.

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

What if Miles knew what he was doing with Hemalurgy and decided to do this strategy, but with his Allomancy to increase his total Investiture per unit of gold burned? Do you think that the positive feedback loop would be worth it?

If you consider the cost of gold, which he had great trouble getting, probably not. 

[Xiahida]

3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

What if Miles knew what he was doing with Hemalurgy and decided to do this strategy, but with his Allomancy to increase his total Investiture per unit of gold burned? Do you think that the positive feedback loop would be worth it?

 

Was he using Hemalurgy? I thought he was making his metalminds immune to Alomancy.

[Trusk'our he/him]

Just now, Xiahida said:

Was he using Hemalurgy? I thought he was making his metalminds immune to Alomancy.

Oh, in that case, yes, Miles was just trying to resist Steelpushing and Ironpulling. I worded that weirdly. 

What I meant to say was, what if Miles Hundred Lives knew about Hemalurgy and knew what to do with it, would it be worthwhile to spike, replicate, and expand his Allomantic power?

[+Bzhydack he/him]

I had very similar idea some time ago, it was idea of masproduction of Hemalurgic Spikes. It is somewhere here on Forum, but I have too many posts to search throu Also, Idea was before we know Hemalurgy doesnt grant Compounding anymore.

First, we need Gold Compounder. Point is, Gold Compounder can heal himself in two ways. He can heal himself with his Feruchemy, taping Metalminds, but he also can heal himself with his Allomacy, burning Metalminds with his Identity. So we can "kill" him with cadmium Spike, stealing his Allomancy, wait utill he heals himself with Feruchemy, then we can "kill" him second time, with golden Spike, steal his Feruchemy and let him heal with Allomancy. Then we can repeat process and get as many Spikes with both F-Gold and A-Gold as we want, basicly. 

Next step was to spike every other Misting/Ferring with both Spikes, making them Gold Compounders, and make Spikes with theirs Abilities, leting them heal every time. This doesnt work anymore, but maybe we can get workaround - we need Aluminium Ferring, spike him with F-Gold Spike, let him fill metalmind utill we are sure he will be able to recover from spiking him and steal his F- Aluminum. Now our Gold Compounder can make a lot of Unsealed Metalminds, so we can give them to Mistings and Ferrings together with F-Gold Spike. So Voilla, we now made End-Negative process into End-Positive one.

Edited September 6 by Bzhydack

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, Bzhydack said:

I had very similar idea some time ago, it was idea of masproduction of Hemalurgic Spikes. It is somewhere here on Forum, but I have too many posts to search throu

Lol, I get the feeling- there are so many theories I've made at this point I forgot what half of them are 

1 hour ago, Bzhydack said:

First, we need Gold Compounder. Point is, Gold Compounder can heal himself in two ways. He can heal himself with his Feruchemy, taping Metalminds, but he also can heal himself with his Allomacy, burning Metalminds with his Identity. So we can "kill" him with cadmium Spike, stealing his Allomancy, wait utill he heals himself with Feruchemy, then we can "kill" him second time, with golden Spike, steal his Feruchemy and let him heal with Allomancy. Then we can repeat process and get as many Spikes with both F-Gold and A-Gold as we want, basicly. 

Next step was to spike every other Misting/Ferring with both Spikes, making them Gold Compounders, and make Spikes with theirs Abilities, leting them heal every time. This doesnt work anymore, but maybe we can get workaround - we need Aluminium Ferring, spike him with F-Gold Spike, let him fill metalmind utill we are sure he will be able to recover from spiking him and steal his F- Aluminum. Now our Gold Compounder can make a lot of Unsealed Metalminds, so we can give them to Mistings and Ferrings together with F-Gold Spike. So Voilla, we now made End-Negative process into End-Positive one.

Seems viable to me. A Gold Compounder would be very useful for this process: spike out their Allomancy, heal it back with their Feruchemy, then add the spike to their power before repeating the process. You can even recycle their cadmium spike to hold multiple Hemalurgic charges, as there is no worry of Identity contamination. 

Since stronger Allomancy increases the amount of Investiture you get per unit of metal burned, after a few spikings you're using far less gold to manufacture powers, and it only shrinks as you further expand the Compounder's Allomancy. 

After your Compounder is 20x as efficient with their gold Compounding, then you Compound with massive efficiency to spike and heal other Metalborn. 

It's viability depends on how much health is needed to fully replace the power, but even if it's steep the feedback loop would probably compensate fairly well.

I suppose if you could add in F-Nicrosil to store your Allomancy and gain greater efficiency briefly while actively Compounding without needing to expend as many precious metals, though this is assuming nicrosil works that way and that you can bypass Identity issues. 

Identity contamination is definitely an issue if no natural gold Compounder exists, but there are plausible avenues to bypass this restriction on an Auger with a gold Feruchemy-granting spike (aluminum Feruchemy and as a last resort duralumin Hemalurgy).

Edited September 6 by Trusk'our