Connection Boosting and Intent

[Trusk'our he/him]

Quick thought I want to get input on, since Connection seems to be at least part of what determines how powerful of an Investiture weilder you are (Allomancer's Connection to Preservation, Surgebinder's Connection to Honor, etc), do we think tapping Connection to Endowment or Ruin would improve one's ability to innately understand its use, maybe issue stronger Commands?

For example, if a Connector Ferring were to store their Connection to Ruin over a week and then tapped it all while charging a Hemalurgic spike, would the spike steal more power? Would they be able to better intuit where to place the spike or issue a more refined Intent for taking more specific attributes?

Or, would an Awakener who stored Connection to Endowment maybe be able to tap it to increase Awakening efficiency and intuition?

Edited September 30, 2024 by Trusk'our

[therunner he/him]

I would say no, because stronger Connection does not grant greater understanding in either Allomancy or Surgebinding.

Not to mention, there is specific reason why stronger Connection helps in those two cases:

• In Allomancy, stronger Connection to Preservation/Harmony = access to more Investiture (wider 'hose')
• In Surgebinding, stronger Connection to Spren (not Honor) = spiritweb is better suffused with the power

And best I would expect better intuition, but even then, not in Hemalurgy. Reason being is that while Hemalurgy is Invested Art, Hemalurgist (as in, one who makes spikes) are not Invested. Hemalurgy relies solely on knowledge, not on any Investment on the part of practitioner.

[Duxredux he/him]

Let's see. Intuition via Connection is a bit tricky to confirm since by definition, it's the person arriving at conclusions, so it may be hard to conclusively reject the null hypothesis. We also only see a handful of artificially reinforced Connection to a Shard, so it's hard to say. Kelsier didn't seem to get an immediate and intuitive understanding of the nature of Preservation when Ascending.

I think Connection could help with Hemalurgy and Awakening, but instead of Connecting to the respective Shard I would suggest Connecting to the target of the magic.

Hemalurgy presumably will have the same complications as acupuncture in mapping the respective points to each person's proportions and physiology from small and petite, to big and fat, to long limbed. This complication is humorously used in Kung-fu Panda when Mantis tries to use acupuncture on Po. Connection probably will help you intuit those Bindpoints by using your existing knowledge and applying it to your target.

For Awakening, Vasher talks about how Breath sticks to the target. Perhaps Connection could lower the threshold of "pounding down the door" for something to be Awakened. In fact, I wonder if Connection would let you become stickier than the Awakened object or Lifeless - is Nomad's Command "Your Breath to mine" Connection based? Maybe you could more strongly imprint a Command with Connection...

If you're hoping that Connection will help people learn more about how Hemalurgy and Awakening fundamentally works, I give a possible, for the straight application I would say probable.

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

10 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Quick thought I want to get input on, since Connection seems to be at least part of what determines how powerful of an Investiture weilder you are (Allomancer's Connection to Preservation, Surgebinder's Connection to Honor, etc), do we think tapping Connection to Endowment or Ruin would improve one's ability to innately understand its use, maybe issue stronger Commands?

For example, if a Connector Ferring were to store their Connection to Ruin over a week and then tapped it all while charging a Hemalurgic spike, would the spike steal more power? Would they be able to better intuit where to place the spike or issue a more refined Intent for taking more specific attributes?

Or, would an Awakener who stored Connection to Endowment maybe be able to tap it to increase Awakening efficiency and intuition?

My interpretation of the two systems in question, Awakening and Hemalurgy, has thus far been that knowledge of them = connection to them. That is to say: Having a Breath and knowing how to surrender and recover it, or having a jagged metal object and knowing how to carve something out of someone that you wish to steal from, is the heart of the matter at hand. Now...there is presidence in the Cosmere for that equation flowing backwards, IE: Connection to a person can be increased by a bondsmith (or most worldhoppers these days honestly), allowing one to speak other people's language and be heard without confusion, so this theory is definitely not without merit.

First, I want and believe that the answer should, in general, be a flat out no. A connector ferring is connected to everything everywhere all at once to some degree and all of those infinite things are composed of infinitesimally small pieces of the 16 shard's investiture...how in the name of the god beyond are they going to increase their connection to one specific Shard in a reliable and repeatable and controlled manner? I would expect them to induce an aneurism first...

It might still be possible though...

I feel like a connector ferring who meditated next to a perpendicularity long enough while storing/tapping might be capable of some insanely dangerous and unique magic. In general though, I just don't expect that the average one could pick and choose what they were augmenting connection to in order to glean new knowledge that was also useful; I think this has to be a full bottom up environment manipulation art project in order to truly succeed.

[Quantus he/him]

14 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Quick thought I want to get input on, since Connection seems to be at least part of what determines how powerful of an Investiture weilder you are (Allomancer's Connection to Preservation, Surgebinder's Connection to Honor, etc), do we think tapping Connection to Endowment or Ruin would improve one's ability to innately understand its use, maybe issue stronger Commands?

For example, if a Connector Ferring were to store their Connection to Ruin over a week and then tapped it all while charging a Hemalurgic spike, would the spike steal more power? Would they be able to better intuit where to place the spike or issue a more refined Intent for taking more specific attributes?

Or, would an Awakener who stored Connection to Endowment maybe be able to tap it to increase Awakening efficiency and intuition?

 

The closest example we have to that sort of intuition is from the Heightening, but those are relatively unique in that it represents a massive amount of investiture in the Physical body itself, rather than a Connection to anything external. 

I dont think it'll work for Allomancy because by the latest definitions I think Allomancy is a Luhel Bond, not a generic Connection, and those have specific terms and conditions for the trades they provide.  

On a more general realmic level, per this WOB Duralumin-style Connection wont grant you knowledge of what you are Connected to.  Fortune is prime the Intuition trait so far, and WOB confirms it (and just about any spiritual realm peaking) would help with Hemalurgy, so I think that's the more likely route.  Or perhaps the Intuitive Leaps that F-Zinc provide.

 

 

Quote

 

dougpgc (paraphrased)

I asked him if a feruchemist were to visit Earth and tap Duralumin, could they do something as involved as talk local sports with someone?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No -- when you trick your spirit into thinking it's from where you're currently tapping, it's not a full transformation, like Sel-ish magic making a copy.. It doesn't just fill your head with things from the place you're visiting.

Utah Humanities Book Festival (Oct. 8, 2016)

 

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

23 hours ago, therunner said:

I would say no, because stronger Connection does not grant greater understanding in either Allomancy or Surgebinding.

Yeah, I suppose we haven't seen real evidence for that, which is a serious counterpoint. 

23 hours ago, therunner said:

In Surgebinding, stronger Connection to Spren (not Honor) = spiritweb is better suffused with the power

Specifically I was thinking of how Kaladin's Intent Connected him to Honor's Investiture more, making him a slightly stronger Surgebinder than others of his Oath. Though, that's not really the same thing.

Man, I've got to slow down and proofread my posts more often 

12 hours ago, Quantus said:

On a more general realmic level, per this WOB Duralumin-style Connection wont grant you knowledge of what you are Connected to.  Fortune is prime the Intuition trait so far, and WOB confirms it (and just about any spiritual realm peaking) would help with Hemalurgy, so I think that's the more likely route.

18 hours ago, Duxredux said:

If you're hoping that Connection will help people learn more about how Hemalurgy and Awakening fundamentally works, I give a possible, for the straight application I would say probable.

17 hours ago, hwiles said:

My interpretation of the two systems in question, Awakening and Hemalurgy, has thus far been that knowledge of them = connection to them. That is to say: Having a Breath and knowing how to surrender and recover it, or having a jagged metal object and knowing how to carve something out of someone that you wish to steal from, is the heart of the matter at hand. Now...there is presidence in the Cosmere for that equation flowing backwards, IE: Connection to a person can be increased by a bondsmith (or most worldhoppers these days honestly), allowing one to speak other people's language and be heard without confusion, so this theory is definitely not without merit.

Hmm, I had been working under the assumption for awhile that extra Connection to something meant you got a greater inherent understanding of whatever you were Connected to, but looking back I don't know if that's truly the case.

Connection can, for example, let you understand a language- but it seems to just trick your Cognitive Aspect into overwriting your understanding of language. Less knowledge, more instinct? It's weird, but I suppose you could classify it as a non-knowledge based ability. 

When gleaning knowledge from the SR you're actually reading Spiritwebs (which I believe to just be Investiture given context by Connection and Identity), so Fortune- a method of seeing into the SR- is what would probably be used to get the knowledge necessary to understand something like Hemalurgy or Awakening. 

Though, like with how Connection increases one's power of Allomancy or efficiency with Surgebinding, extra Connection may still prove useful for making a Command stick better or stuff like that.

Great input by all. Thanks! 

Edited October 1, 2024 by Trusk'our