Hemalurgic Nicrosil as Fuel

[Trusk'our he/him]

As I've been dwelling on general Investiture, I thought about how it seems to mostly be raw power just floating around waiting to be used up.

In fact, if a Surgebinder had access to Biochroma they could substitute it for Stormlight without much difficulty. 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/171-oathbringer-release-party/#e8294

Questioner

Can a Surgebinder use Breath like they can Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible and not really that hard to make work.

This makes me wonder, can other general Investiture be used similarly?

For example, let's say a Bloodmaker steals Investiture from another person with a nicrosil spike and implants it into themselves. Could they learn to draw on the spike's Investiture in place of a Goldmind (assuming they stripped it of Identity prior)?

I don't think it's quite as powerful as Compounding in most instances, but being able to vampirically fuel your Invested Arts with Hemalurgic nicrosil might be a plausible hack.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

7 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

As I've been dwelling on general Investiture, I thought about how it seems to mostly be raw power just floating around waiting to be used up.

In fact, if a Surgebinder had access to Biochroma they could substitute it for Stormlight without much difficulty. 

  Reveal hidden contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/171-oathbringer-release-party/#e8294

Questioner

Can a Surgebinder use Breath like they can Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible and not really that hard to make work.

This makes me wonder, can other general Investiture be used similarly?

For example, let's say a Bloodmaker steals Investiture from another person with a nicrosil spike and implants it into themselves. Could they learn to draw on the spike's Investiture in place of a Goldmind (assuming they stripped it of Identity prior)?

I don't think it's quite as powerful as Compounding in most instances, but being able to vampirically fuel your Invested Arts with Hemalurgic nicrosil might be a plausible hack.

I don't think this would work. I don't think Hemalurgic Nicrosil works that way, or rather that Breath isn't the best example.

Breath is a special type of Innate Investiture that is easily transferable and changes its Identity when it does so, making it easy for anyone to gain it and use it. It is a special type of Investiture in this regard. It can be used universally.

Hemalurgic Nicrosil steals a piece of a soul, a non-Breath, non-transferable (without the spike, I mean) piece. It couldn't work like that since you can't use a piece of a regular soul like you can a Breath. Drabs can't awaken with the tiny piece of their own soul, nor can an uninvested non-Nalthian use their own soul like that.

Maybe there is a way to make it work, but I think there would be easier ways to do what you want to do, like instead stealing the Hemalurgic trait that would grant you more Health to store, as WOB states that any trait that can be stored Feruchemically can also be stolen Hemalurgically.

[alder24]

11 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

As I've been dwelling on general Investiture, I thought about how it seems to mostly be raw power just floating around waiting to be used up.

In fact, if a Surgebinder had access to Biochroma they could substitute it for Stormlight without much difficulty. 

  Reveal hidden contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/171-oathbringer-release-party/#e8294

Questioner

Can a Surgebinder use Breath like they can Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible and not really that hard to make work.

This makes me wonder, can other general Investiture be used similarly?

For example, let's say a Bloodmaker steals Investiture from another person with a nicrosil spike and implants it into themselves. Could they learn to draw on the spike's Investiture in place of a Goldmind (assuming they stripped it of Identity prior)?

I don't think it's quite as powerful as Compounding in most instances, but being able to vampirically fuel your Invested Arts with Hemalurgic nicrosil might be a plausible hack.

Breaths are easy to use as a fuel because they attune to your Identity when transferred. Stolen pieces of the soul are not (which even prevents Compounding). Moreover, Breaths aren't doing anything, they are not programmed to do any specific task unless used in Awakening. Stolen pieces of the soul are. You steal stuff which does something to you and is responsible for giving you strength or abilities. The same with Feruchemy - it's tuned to a specific task. You can't fuel your healing with stored strength even if you can access both metalminds and both have the same identity. Both investitures are coded to do something else.

If you strip that coding out of investiture and align Identities, then you may be able to use it as raw fuel for everything. That's what Set was trying to achieve. They were trying to steal pieces of the soul and program them to give specific powers, which is something that can be done with raw investiture, at least according to Moonlight.

This WoB is talking about a reverse situation - trying to use raw investiture for anything requires something to tell it what to do. Invested Arts are that thing - metals in Allomancy, Aons in AonDor etc. But when you have not-raw investiture, but "used" investiture like fragments of the spirit web or Feruchemical storages, that investiture was already told what to do. You have to get rid of that first and stripping it out of its identity is not enough.

Spoiler

Questioner

If you were divesting yourself of all Identity, and then tapped a massive amount of Connection and Investiture, would you be able to instantly have access to, say, the Surges on Roshar without oaths?

Brandon Sanderson

So, you wanna get the Surges without oaths? What you're saying is you divest yourself of Identity, you highly Invest yourself... You're still going to need something that's gonna tell that Investiture what to be and how to manifest in yourself. And so if it's the right Intent then maybe, right? 'Cause you can have both Identity and Intent on Investiture and you can unkey it to one or the other or both. And so that might be... But the thing is, you're still gonna have to know... This is a step toward getting what you want, but there's still gotta be something that tells it... "You're holding a massive amount of Investiture, what do I do with this? Do I teleport you across the Cosmere to another planet? What do I do with it?" And you're gonna have to have something to give structure to that Investiture. You're missing a step.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

6 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

I don't think this would work. I don't think Hemalurgic Nicrosil works that way, or rather that Breath isn't the best example.

Breath is a special type of Innate Investiture that is easily transferable and changes its Identity when it does so, making it easy for anyone to gain it and use it. It is a special type of Investiture in this regard. It can be used universally.

Hemalurgic Nicrosil steals a piece of a soul, a non-Breath, non-transferable (without the spike, I mean) piece. It couldn't work like that since you can't use a piece of a regular soul like you can a Breath. Drabs can't awaken with the tiny piece of their own soul, nor can an uninvested non-Nalthian use their own soul like that.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Breaths are easy to use as a fuel because they attune to your Identity when transferred. Stolen pieces of the soul are not (which even prevents Compounding). Moreover, Breaths aren't doing anything, they are not programmed to do any specific task unless used in Awakening. Stolen pieces of the soul are. You steal stuff which does something to you and is responsible for giving you strength or abilities. The same with Feruchemy - it's tuned to a specific task. You can't fuel your healing with stored strength even if you can access both metalminds and both have the same identity. Both investitures are coded to do something else.

If you strip that coding out of investiture and align Identities, then you may be able to use it as raw fuel for everything. That's what Set was trying to achieve. They were trying to steal pieces of the soul and program them to give specific powers, which is something that can be done with raw investiture, at least according to Moonlight.

This WoB is talking about a reverse situation - trying to use raw investiture for anything requires something to tell it what to do. Invested Arts are that thing - metals in Allomancy, Aons in AonDor etc. But when you have not-raw investiture, but "used" investiture like fragments of the spirit web or Feruchemical storages, that investiture was already told what to do. You have to get rid of that first and stripping it out of its identity is not enough.

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

If you were divesting yourself of all Identity, and then tapped a massive amount of Connection and Investiture, would you be able to instantly have access to, say, the Surges on Roshar without oaths?

Brandon Sanderson

So, you wanna get the Surges without oaths? What you're saying is you divest yourself of Identity, you highly Invest yourself... You're still going to need something that's gonna tell that Investiture what to be and how to manifest in yourself. And so if it's the right Intent then maybe, right? 'Cause you can have both Identity and Intent on Investiture and you can unkey it to one or the other or both. And so that might be... But the thing is, you're still gonna have to know... This is a step toward getting what you want, but there's still gotta be something that tells it... "You're holding a massive amount of Investiture, what do I do with this? Do I teleport you across the Cosmere to another planet? What do I do with it?" And you're gonna have to have something to give structure to that Investiture. You're missing a step.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

 

Fair points.

6 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Maybe there is a way to make it work, but I think there would be easier ways to do what you want to do, like instead stealing the Hemalurgic trait that would grant you more Health to store, as WOB states that any trait that can be stored Feruchemically can also be stolen Hemalurgically.

I remember that WoB (I do doubt some attributes though, one's like memories, calories, and warmth that don't seem to come from the Spiritweb could be stealable).

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/137-general-signed-books-2015/#e7247

PhantomMonstrosity

Could you steal any trait Hemalurgically that can be stored Feruchemically?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you could steal any trait that can be stored.

I think it would be a bit wonky though, as Hemalurgic traits are more stable than Feruchemical ones, so if they used the right Intent a Hemalurgist might be able to grant permanent boosts to attributes instead of temporary ones (there's still the self-destructive nature of Hemalurgy to contend with, especially in attributes, though that's always going to be an issue).

I wonder, since there's a strong cognitive element to Hemalurgy, would a Feruchemist be able to more accurately target such Feruchemical attributes in a donor? The Feruchemist knows how that attribute feels- they've stored and tapped it before. They know it on a very intimate level.

Maybe a Steelrunner could more predictably steal physical speed with H-iron and make a speedy Koloss instead of a buff one, or a Bloodmaker create a Deadpool-wanabe Koloss. 

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

19 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

As I've been dwelling on general Investiture, I thought about how it seems to mostly be raw power just floating around waiting to be used up.

In fact, if a Surgebinder had access to Biochroma they could substitute it for Stormlight without much difficulty. 

  Reveal hidden contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/171-oathbringer-release-party/#e8294

Questioner

Can a Surgebinder use Breath like they can Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible and not really that hard to make work.

This makes me wonder, can other general Investiture be used similarly?

For example, let's say a Bloodmaker steals Investiture from another person with a nicrosil spike and implants it into themselves. Could they learn to draw on the spike's Investiture in place of a Goldmind (assuming they stripped it of Identity prior)?

I don't think it's quite as powerful as Compounding in most instances, but being able to vampirically fuel your Invested Arts with Hemalurgic nicrosil might be a plausible hack.

This type of technique would, I think run into a very tangled web of Keying and Intent problems, but in general is possible. I don't suspect that Hemalurgy is going to be a particularly useful facilitator though, at least not directly...

This type of hacking is usually going to require very targeted synergy creation in order to function as intended; harvest an entire soul for a single one-time burst of any power is not just wasteful, it'd make even an Inquisitor cringe!

In most cases, no, I don't expect plugging unkeyed (or self-keyed) investiture (even once when figures out how to get it) from one Shard's system into another's is going to be "learnable," not in any way resembling the traditional sense of the word anyhow. It's going to require naturally available compatibility that makes intuitive sense (IE: Breath and Stormlight), or a specifically developed technique arrived at via devoted personal experimentation with manipulating multiple systems simultaneously (which implies that one is not simply being taught, they are being actively fueled with resources by sponsors, followers, or benefactors by my perspective; sorry if those semantics are difficult to parse, but I think the distinction is technically important. Some people consider that a form of "teaching" and some people do not).

Let's focus on Scadrian magics per your example.

Hemalurgic spikes contain finite amounts of specifically coded Investiture and burning them is...radically controversial by my understanding. It requires murdering a person and then also permanently damaging the user's soul in ways that are probably never going to be explained outright or demonstrated on page; for gaming purposes, I would suggest simply having a spirited debate with your game master and being flexible to the idea that they may simply say: "no, you'll die or your mind will be erased if you do that because it violates the spirit of the game and Shards have decision making authority when they choose to," if you wanna play with that mechanic."

That said...unkeyed Investiture of Harmony can be used to fuel any of the Metallic arts (I believe that there actually even are very old WoB's from around 2010-2014 implying but never confirming that an artifical hemalurgic spike could be created with pure unkeyed Investiture and/or Divine Intervention from Ruin-and-Preservation or Harmony but you'll need to fact check me there to be sure cause even if I'm right and I was able to re-find them it'd still be very debatable).

So, for the question of hacking scadrian magic, the ultimate question is: how does one acquire access to unlimited (or vast amounts) of unkeyed Harmony Investiture?

Well...burning Harmonium seems to do just that; the problem is, that's lethal and borderline nuclear to do. So then, the question becomes: how does one covert Harmonium into into a digestible and storable form like Breath, or otherwise harness energy from the material in a way that allows it to fuel a specific form of Investiure?

Well...that's sort of what Southern mechanical allomancy has been doing for 10 years, just on a limited and controlled scale. I could imagine a scadrian equivalent to a nuclear Fission Reactor power plant eventually being developed that took bricks of Harmonium and essentially converted them into pure magical electricity for the purpose of supplying an arbitrary network of devices and constructs throughout a city, country, or society. Doing it inside one's own body though? That might simply never work without simply being chosen and granted access to drawing upon the power of the mists directly. Who knows though? If Harmony really does transition to Discord, the properties of Harmonium could (maybe...) change to allow it to be harnessed directly.

Hopefully some part of that helps, it was certainly fun to muse over. =)

[Isilel]

10 hours ago, Lewis Nethur said:

old WoB's from around 2010-2014 implying but never confirming that an artifical hemalurgic spike could be created with pure unkeyed Investiture

Moonlight/Shai speculates about the possibility of artificial spikes on page in TLM, after they found the hemalurgy lab.