Permanent Nicrosil/Duralumin Enhancement

[Trusk'our he/him]

There's a fun little WoB that speaks of advanced use of Leeching (specifically as a Savant, though maybe duralumin or nicrosil augmentation could help achieve a similar result) as being capable of permanently shutting down an Invested power.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/385-orem-signing/#e12574

Wyndlerunner

You've mentioned in the past aluminum savants being able to somewhat heal their spiritweb, healing them of the cracks, sort of healing them of Allomancy. Could a chromium savant do this to other people, kind of like in the Avatar [The Last Airbender] finale where he seals bending?

Brandon Sanderson

I will say RAFO, but I will say you're theorizing along correct directions.

This makes me wonder, would duralumin or nicrosil usage potentially do the opposite? For example, maybe a sufficiently strong nicrosil flare could permanently boost a Misting's power by opening their Spiritweb up, letting more Investiture flow in like when you Snap.

Heck, if opening the Spiritweb to more Investiture is the base mechanism for these metals (which it very well couldn't), maybe you could theoretically force a non-Metalborn (Scadrian) to Snap with a powerful enough burst, though it might just make them a relatively weak Allomancer like when the Mists Snapped people artificially. 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/270-the-hero-of-ages-annotations/#e8025

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Seventy

The Reason for the Mistsickness

So, it finally comes out. I wonder at this numbers plot, as I think many readers will glaze over it and ignore it. I think others will read into it and figure out what it means very quickly, then feel that the reveal here isn't much of a revelation. Hopefully I'll get a majority in the middle who read the clues, don't know what they mean, but are happily surprised when it comes together. That's a difficult line to walk sometimes.

What is going on here is that the mists are awakening the Allomantic potential inside of people. It's very rough on a person for that to come out, and can cause death. Preservation set this all up before he gave his consciousness to imprison Ruin, so it's not a perfect system. It's like a machine left behind by its creator. The catalyst is the return of the power to the Well of Ascension. As soon as that power becomes full, it sets the mists to begin Snapping those who have the potential for Allomancy buried within them.

Many of these people won't be very strong Allomancers. Their abilities were buried too deeply to have come out without the mists' intervention. Others will have a more typical level of power; they might have Snapped earlier, had they gone through enough anguish to bring the power out.

<snip>

 

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

1 hour ago, Trusk&#x27;our said:

There's a fun little WoB that speaks of advanced use of Leeching (specifically as a Savant, though maybe duralumin or nicrosil augmentation could help achieve a similar result) as being capable of permanently shutting down an Invested power.

  Reveal hidden contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/385-orem-signing/#e12574

Wyndlerunner

You've mentioned in the past aluminum savants being able to somewhat heal their spiritweb, healing them of the cracks, sort of healing them of Allomancy. Could a chromium savant do this to other people, kind of like in the Avatar [The Last Airbender] finale where he seals bending?

Brandon Sanderson

I will say RAFO, but I will say you're theorizing along correct directions.

This makes me wonder, would duralumin or nicrosil usage potentially do the opposite? For example, maybe a sufficiently strong nicrosil flare could permanently boost a Misting's power by opening their Spiritweb up, letting more Investiture flow in like when you Snap.

Heck, if opening the Spiritweb to more Investiture is the base mechanism for these metals (which it very well couldn't), maybe you could theoretically force a non-Metalborn (Scadrian) to Snap with a powerful enough burst, though it might just make them a relatively weak Allomancer like when the Mists Snapped people artificially. 

  Hide contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/270-the-hero-of-ages-annotations/#e8025

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Seventy

The Reason for the Mistsickness

So, it finally comes out. I wonder at this numbers plot, as I think many readers will glaze over it and ignore it. I think others will read into it and figure out what it means very quickly, then feel that the reveal here isn't much of a revelation. Hopefully I'll get a majority in the middle who read the clues, don't know what they mean, but are happily surprised when it comes together. That's a difficult line to walk sometimes.

What is going on here is that the mists are awakening the Allomantic potential inside of people. It's very rough on a person for that to come out, and can cause death. Preservation set this all up before he gave his consciousness to imprison Ruin, so it's not a perfect system. It's like a machine left behind by its creator. The catalyst is the return of the power to the Well of Ascension. As soon as that power becomes full, it sets the mists to begin Snapping those who have the potential for Allomancy buried within them.

Many of these people won't be very strong Allomancers. Their abilities were buried too deeply to have come out without the mists' intervention. Others will have a more typical level of power; they might have Snapped earlier, had they gone through enough anguish to bring the power out.

<snip>

 

I believe so yeah, unequivocally. If you take a garden hose and connect it to enough booster pumps then you can absolutely force it to spray water so hard and fast that it ruptures and is permanently destroyed. I see no reason that such a mechanic wouldn't apply to people and have been trying to warn against multiple simultaneous nicrobursts targeting a single person for years...

I don't need to see it tested; I'm 100% confident that 10 nicrobursted brass allomancers focusing on targeting one person could induce permanent mental, emotional, and psychological harm on their victim, and 10 nicrobursts ultracharging one allomancer of any kind can kill them in a violent explosion resembling a very short-lived perpendicularity. You have my vote.

[therunner he/him]

20 hours ago, Trusk&#x27;our said:

This makes me wonder, would duralumin or nicrosil usage potentially do the opposite? For example, maybe a sufficiently strong nicrosil flare could permanently boost a Misting's power by opening their Spiritweb up, letting more Investiture flow in like when you Snap.

Wouldn't that just be savantism? Your spiritweb permeated by the power.

I would say it would somewhat boost their power, but there would be negative consequences as well.

Snapping is more complicated than just this I think.

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, therunner said:

Wouldn't that just be savantism? Your spiritweb permeated by the power.

I would say it would somewhat boost their power, but there would be negative consequences as well.

It could be, but I suspect while there are similarities that they would be somewhat different, at the very least because duralumin/nicrosil's Investiture is being added to the mix.

I think Savantism is more about the Spiritweb "leaking" from using a given Investiture to much, which then permeates the Spiritweb and seemingly changes it to fit its own ideal.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/217-salt-lake-city-signing/#e7267

Nicrosil

Can you compound like a, can you compund metalminds to the point where you become like a savant?

Brandon Sanderson

A savant happens because persistent use of the power has an effect on your soul, warping it. Compounding is a very different thing, so while you could draw some very powerful effects, I would not call them the same thing, even if they are imitating one another at certain points.

Greater uses of power, such as duralin/nicrosil flaring could probably push this phenomenon simultaneously though. 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/175-oathbringer-houston-signing/#e8354

Questioner

So I have a question about Savants. Could you only get there by flaring, or if you burn it for a long period of time or like duralumin--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, you can get there other ways.

That said, I hypothesize that Allomantic duralumin/nicrosil is specifically more about augmenting the Spiritweb cracks filled with the Allomancer's power, thus regulating the flow of Investiture from Preservation to the Allomancer.

So I think you're right, there would be Savantism-like consequences for doing this, though I think they would be slightly different than regular Allomantic Savantism, as would be the benefits. Probably something like regular Savantism plus an extra cost/benefit from their Allomancy suffused Spiritweb cracks getting expanded, maybe permeated with slightly more Investiture. 

Although, if it's truly just another brand of Savantism, the end result might make you more dependent on the duralumin/nicrosil flare to get the same end result from your metals, possibly making you weaker instead when not receiving such a boost.

21 hours ago, hwiles said:

I believe so yeah, unequivocally. If you take a garden hose and connect it to enough booster pumps then you can absolutely force it to spray water so hard and fast that it ruptures and is permanently destroyed. I see no reason that such a mechanic wouldn't apply to people and have been trying to warn against multiple simultaneous nicrobursts targeting a single person for years...

I don't need to see it tested; I'm 100% confident that 10 nicrobursted brass allomancers focusing on targeting one person could induce permanent mental, emotional, and psychological harm on their victim, and 10 nicrobursts ultracharging one allomancer of any kind can kill them in a violent explosion resembling a very short-lived perpendicularity. You have my vote.

Investiture does protect its practitioner, so I don't know if self destruction is necessarily going to occur from a super-flared Allomantic effect. 

As for Emotional Allomancy leaving a harsher mark, possibly, though unlikely in my opinion.

Super-flared Emotional Allomancy pushes on one's Cognitive Aspect strongly, but apparently can induced physiological responses to fight back (Though this is a pretty old WoB, so take it with a grain of salt).

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/189-rfantasy-ama-2011/#e9004

WinespringBrother

Do soothing and rioting work on a telepathic or physiological level (or both)?

Brandon Sanderson

Primarily telepathic, though the body does respond physiologically. After the Soother is gone, the emotion remains for a time, so long as it was a natural emotion. Strong soothing/riotings against a person's nature can wear off quickly, and the body react (sometimes) with a strong opposite emotion in response. A very good Soother/Rioter can inspire emotions that begin telepathic only, but then have a response in the body, so the emotion gets more cemented.

As such, it may prove more difficult to create lingering effects from supercharged Emotional Allomancy. Marasi walked just away fine from her Dor-fuled cousin's flare of shame in TLM, after all.

Edited September 10, 2024 by Trusk'our

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

32 minutes ago, Trusk&#x27;our said:

...

Investiture does protect its practitioner, so I don't know if self destruction is necessarily going to occur from a super-flared Allomantic effect. 

...

In general, I believe you're correct on this point in the large majority of cases, but we already know that there are, on a fundamental level, breaking points in allomancy. It's possible to ascend by connecting to and burning the mists hard enough, which essentially (many people would regard as the same as) kills one's body.

Some other over-the-top examples to consider:

1. Several nicrobursts powering a coinshot should be able to force said coinshot to supersonic speeds near instantaneously, resulting in near-instant death by crushing all of their organs while their limp corpse blasts off to the stratosphere. Based on the acceleration bursts Vin experiences in era1, I don't expect that this would even require the coinshot to have ingested more than a handful of standard vials of steel to achieve, so...it should be fairly easy to do by accident. If you're a coinshot and 3 nicrobursts have their hands on you, using your powers may be suicidal unless you're almost out of metal naturally already.

2. Straff Venture develops what I would consider a persistent fear of Vin after feeling her mind-erasing Soothing personally. While persistent fear of an individual person might not count as an induced phobia if said fear is "rational," if the reaction causes persistent negative consequences in one's daily life (persistent terror counts in my opinion) that is a form of lasting psychological damage. I would offer the opinion that, if scaled up further and especially if rioting was supercharged instead of soothing, brain damage and permanent behavioral changes cannot be totally off the table.

3. It's possible to flair tin so long and hard that one is effectively blind and deaf without it and so hyper-sensitive when using it that they are in constant agony from even small stimuli.

Nothing here is conclusive until it is verified formally of course, but I would opine that, since permanent widening of the cracks in one's spirit web is fundamentally a function of how much Investiture is forced through oneself and how long said pressure is maintained, that short-duration bursts of extreme magnitude should be able to push one's soul to the point of permanent deformation the same way persistent overclocking drives users to savantism.

A real world analog in case that helps this dialog:

In real-life, if you circulate water that is near to boiling through a radiant (small r) heating loop for a building (let's say a hotel) using plastic pipe, said pipes will gradually start to bend, shift, bulge, and rupture. This allows the flowrate through the pipes to begin increasing, thereby increasing the rate of heat transfer from water to pipe. Once that process is initiated, every additional microscopic crack and tiny expansion makes the system weaker and weaker, causing the process of cascade damage, widening, and deformation to accelerate, and also causing the rate of acceleration to accelerate, leading to catastrophic failure if not cooled and regulated. This is how I imagine savantism works; the magic system (metaphorically: the building system controls, sensors, and coldwater mixing valves definitely attempt to protect the building from runaway feedback loops, but they are in no way foolproof and accidents and sabotage do happen. Spook could testify to that better than anyone.

I imagine multi-bursting an allomancer would work like a "water-hammer" event in a radiant cooling building loop (Sorry, I'm not good enough at fluid dynamics to personally give a succinct explanation here but Wikipedia should still have a good page on the physics of water hammer phenomena). Essentially, when too many valves are forced open and closed too quickly, the harmonics can cause catastrophic ruptures (basically explosions) in the piping around and throughout a building. Design methods and controls exist to try to prevent such events from occurring randomly or naturally during regular use, buuuut...it's absolutely possible to force them to occur manually.

Again, it's just an unconfirmed theory, but it makes sense in my head so, hopefully it helps clarify in that respect at least.

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

In general, I believe you're correct on this point in the large majority of cases, but we already know that there are, on a fundamental level, breaking points in allomancy. It's possible to ascend by connecting to and burning the mists hard enough, which essentially (many people would regard as the same as) kills one's body.

Ascension doesn't cause actual death to the body though. If you descend via death as Leras and Ati did, your body reforms afterward anyway. Even temporary Ascension as in Rashek's case doesn't leave your body destroyed afterwards. 

As such, I would consider the evaporation of the body into Investiture to be more like a transference of states than truly destructive. 

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

Some other over-the-top examples to consider:

1. Several nicrobursts powering a coinshot should be able to force said coinshot to supersonic speeds near instantaneously, resulting in near-instant death by crushing all of their organs while their limp corpse blasts off to the stratosphere. Based on the acceleration bursts Vin experiences in era1, I don't expect that this would even require the coinshot to have ingested more than a handful of standard vials of steel to achieve, so...it should be fairly easy to do by accident. If you're a coinshot and 3 nicrobursts have their hands on you, using your powers may be suicidal unless you're almost out of metal naturally already.

Indeed, Steelpushing without pewter Allomancy or gold Feruchemy should leave one utterly devastated (and dead). That isn't caused by the Investiture though, but the environment. 

A Steelrunner is basically immune to the Gs placed on their body from moving so fast, but the environmental factor, the heat, isn't. 

Similarly, no Pewterarm bolstered by a Nicroburst would die if they stood still, though if they tried jumping they'd probably get seriously injured when they fell back down.

Or, if a Skimmer taps enough weight to break through a floor they are left unscathed- unless they impaled themselves on some wooden shrapnel in the process. 

Also, as a side note, I feel curious as to why we need several Nicrobursts in these situations? While I do feel more Nicroburst Investiture could help widen Allomantic cracks more if you're trying to get lingering aftereffects, with actual super-flaring it's the amount of metal burned that counts toward the effect. A single Nicroburst should just as easily crush a Coinshot as ten working in unison, I would think.

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

2. Straff Venture develops what I would consider a persistent fear of Vin after feeling her mind-erasing Soothing personally. While persistent fear of an individual person might not count as an induced phobia if said fear is "rational," if the reaction causes persistent negative consequences in one's daily life (persistent terror counts in my opinion) that is a form of lasting psychological damage. I would offer the opinion that, if scaled up further and especially if rioting was supercharged instead of soothing, brain damage and permanent behavioral changes cannot be totally off the table.

That's an excellent point. I had forgotten about Straff.

With that in mind, you probably can actually do some permanent effects when flaring enough Emotional Allomancy. 

I think Marasi might be the more unique example for resisting the aftershocks then, as she had already worked through shame before and come to terms with it, while Straff had no such advantage. 

I wonder, could a bad guy brainwash their followers by repeatedly blasting them with loyalty via duralumin/zinc Allomancy?

Or, maybe you could help someone with depression by occasionally blasting them with positive vibes?

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

3. It's possible to flair tin so long and hard that one is effectively blind and deaf without it and so hyper-sensitive when using it that they are in constant agony from even small stimuli.

That's true, but this is a result of the Investiture of Allomancer's own power, not the duralumin/nicrosil's Investiture. 

If forcing a Tineye's Investiture through their Spiritweb long and hard enough causes certain changes, a different Investiture should cause different effects.

There would probably be some overlap though, as the Spiritweb is still being warped by Investiture, just as any Savant would have.

So, I suppose I'm proposing that powerful duralumin/nicrosil can create a Savant with their Investiture, but that this brand of Savantism is different than what the power they're boosting would be.

Specifically, that it might let you burn your metals a faster naturally, maybe Invested your base power slightly more.

Quote

Again, it's just an unconfirmed theory, but it makes sense in my head so, hopefully it helps clarify in that respect at least.

Yeah, that helps a bit.

There's a lot we don't know for certain yet, but discussing differing viewpoints with nice folks is always fun 

Edited September 10, 2024 by Trusk'our

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

51 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

...

I wonder, could a bad guy brainwash their followers by repeatedly blasting them with loyalty via duralumin/zinc Allomancy?

Or, maybe you could help someone with depression by occasionally blasting them with positive vibes?

...

I'm reluctant to entertain the possibility, but yes, I expect that brainwashing could be performed this way in the sense that victims can be partially depatterned and repatterned via emotional abuse, reward, and manipulation cycles. This is very much distinct from mind-control and I'm not sure that blasting loyalty alone could realistically be enough. An amoral psychopath could definitely use abusive supercharged emotional allomancy to punish and incentivize specific actions and results from anyone that they have sufficient leverage over to press into criminal service. That's...super dark stuff though. Hopefully not cosmere appropriate buuuut...who knows? Sanderson is still relatively early in his career; he could take a dark turn if he chose to down the road.

Helping with depression is definitely going to be very complicated but, in general, yeah, I would expect that positive encouragement from a benevolent and transparent source could affect positive changes in targets' self-reports of mood and quality of life. I would expect that to translate into behavioral and attitude changes over time, but I'm reluctant to suggest that such a thing as depression could be "cured," this way; according to the current rules for stormlight healing, it could probably only be "treated/relieved." Still, an effective treatment regiment can be functionally as good as a cure under the proper conditions and in the correct environment (just more "expensive," from a human-economy perspective).

To your other points, yep, I mostly agree, I'm pretty sure we're basically on the same page. I just always mention multi-bursting because I expect that feat to be important for extremely advanced era4 machines, but only once scadrial is fully evolved beyond the need to engage in human-testing to understand the metaphysics of the metallic arts, by which I essentially mean: once scadrial has produced and mastered artificial general intelligence and fully parameterized all possible limits of their magic system on page (so a long long time from now which may never fully be arrived at).

Edited September 10, 2024 by hwiles