Harmonium and Investiture

[Trusk'our he/him]

In BoM we see that there is a way to use Harmonium to pick up on and mimic other manifestations of Investiture, as the Malwish airships must use this method. 

Additionally, there's a WoB stating that this is not limited to Allomancy, but could theoretically be extended to other Invested Arts:

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/498-youtube-spoiler-stream-4/#e15665

gk-sudo

Could primer cubes be used to store powers besides the Scadrial ones, such as Surgebinding?

Brandon Sanderson

This is theoretically possible. So much fun to have in the space age, that I'm not gonna let you have yet. You have one more Mistborn book, one more Stormlight book, three more Mistborn books, and then five more Stormlight books before I'm gonna let you have that fun. Keep theorizing.

So, what about Godmetal effects?

For example, if Marsh Compounded (or maybe just tapped) youth with the correct Harmonium Fabrial in hand, could he use the Harmonium to replicate and fuel that ability instead of relying solely on his extremely finite supply of Atium?

Or, if a person burned a small amount of Lerasium, could the Harmonium replicate the effects and with enough essentially give you more Allomancy?

I suppose one weird side affect is that if an inanimate object were to burn Lerasium, it might target the device instead, permanently granting it more Connection and Investiture. Maybe Awaken it?

I also wonder how Harmonium would respond to Shardblades, as they do possess an Invested pulse when summoned (which I'm assuming, perhaps falsely, Harmonium uses to determine what to mimic Investiture) though only briefly. 

What about Awakened Commands? Would using Harmonium in tandem with Breaths make the process cheaper?

Or, what of charging Hemalurgic spikes? Maybe with Harmonium Fabrial attached to a spike while charging it you can metabolize the metal and superchge the spike, adding to its raw power.

[Quantus he/him]

42 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

In BoM we see that there is a way to use Harmonium to pick up on and mimic other manifestations of Investiture, as the Malwish airships must use this method. 

Additionally, there's a WoB stating that this is not limited to Allomancy, but could theoretically be extended to other Invested Arts:

  Hide contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/498-youtube-spoiler-stream-4/#e15665

gk-sudo

Could primer cubes be used to store powers besides the Scadrial ones, such as Surgebinding?

Brandon Sanderson

This is theoretically possible. So much fun to have in the space age, that I'm not gonna let you have yet. You have one more Mistborn book, one more Stormlight book, three more Mistborn books, and then five more Stormlight books before I'm gonna let you have that fun. Keep theorizing.

So, what about Godmetal effects?

For example, if Marsh Compounded (or maybe just tapped) youth with the correct Harmonium Fabrial in hand, could he use the Harmonium to replicate and fuel that ability instead of relying solely on his extremely finite supply of Atium?

Or, if a person burned a small amount of Lerasium, could the Harmonium replicate the effects and with enough essentially give you more Allomancy?

I suppose one weird side affect is that if an inanimate object were to burn Lerasium, it might target the device instead, permanently granting it more Connection and Investiture. Maybe Awaken it?

I also wonder how Harmonium would respond to Shardblades, as they do possess an Invested pulse when summoned (which I'm assuming, perhaps falsely, Harmonium uses to determine what to mimic Investiture) though only briefly. 

What about Awakened Commands? Would using Harmonium in tandem with Breaths make the process cheaper?

Or, what of charging Hemalurgic spikes? Maybe with Harmonium Fabrial attached to a spike while charging it you can metabolize the metal and superchge the spike, adding to its raw power.

Generally speaking, yes, it seems to tune itself to (kintetic?) Investiture and then burn it's Investiture substance to continue to emit that same tuned investiture.  It also does change the behavior of the initiating power, specifically in terms of the nature of it's target/area of effect, some nuance to play with there. You might be able to make a Zone of Youth, an area that actively dea-ages anyone that walks into it (presumably varying the rate of use of the Harmonium).

Side Note, since Breaths seem to do similar things natively with adopting the target's Indenty (or it's own new one with Lifeless) I strongly suspect you could do many similar things with the right Commands, perhaps refill pre-tuned Metalminds, mimic some of ettmetal's Functionality (subject to Investiture SBU quantities, etc), and generally do a lot of diverse things with Investiture & Matter when Commanded and provided a template effect Tuning from some other source.  

 

[therunner he/him]

I think that is likely, with the caveat it would be area of effect.

Now that I think about it, it is not surprising that Harmonium has this effect. It seems that different expressions of kinetic Investiture have different Tones/Rhythms (what Bronze detects), and Harmonium quite likely literally harmonizes itself with it. Wonder what would happen if multiple Invested Arts were used at once near Harmonium.

If the above hypothesis is correct, than Discordium might produce effects that cancel out nearby Invested Arts.

[Sythrin]

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

Generally speaking, yes, it seems to tune itself to (kintetic?) Investiture and then burn it's Investiture substance to continue to emit that same tuned investiture.  It also does change the behavior of the initiating power, specifically in terms of the nature of it's target/area of effect, some nuance to play with there. You might be able to make a Zone of Youth, an area that actively dea-ages anyone that walks into it (presumably varying the rate of use of the Harmonium).

The interesting thing is, that the way primer cubes act, change a bit between the 3rd and 4th book.
In BoM they function like a selfburning motor. You give them a power and than they burn themselfs to sustain that power. But in tLM when Marasi uses it, they act more like batteries. She infuses her power and than it is released exactly proximitely to the ammount she put in.

[Grubfriend He/Him]

1 hour ago, Sythrin said:

In BoM they function like a selfburning motor. You give them a power and than they burn themselfs to sustain that power. But in tLM when Marasi uses it, they act more like batteries. She infuses her power and than it is released exactly proximitely to the ammount she put in.

Maybe the cubes have small pieces of Harmonium, and use drains them, and somehow they can be opened and recharged.

[Trusk'our he/him]

3 hours ago, Quantus said:

It also does change the behavior of the initiating power, specifically in terms of the nature of it's target/area of effect, some nuance to play with there. You might be able to make a Zone of Youth, an area that actively dea-ages anyone that walks into it (presumably varying the rate of use of the Harmonium).

True, Harmonium generally uses a field effect. 

I do think there must be some way to create a Harmonium Fabrial to selectively target though, like by utilizing Connection. That would make certain powers way more convenient, like Emotional Allomancy or Pewter.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

Now that I think about it, it is not surprising that Harmonium has this effect. It seems that different expressions of kinetic Investiture have different Tones/Rhythms (what Bronze detects), and Harmonium quite likely literally harmonizes itself with it.

I agree with this idea.

It does make me think that "quieter" manifestations like Lightweaving or Feruchemical attributes (unless Compounding) will be harder to mimic, but probably any Investiture with a detectable pulse is fair game.

And since things like just summoning Shardblades or transferring Breath make them kinetic, I think options like filling Hemalurgic spikes with extra power or boosting Lerasium Allomancy is plausible. 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/120-warsaw-signing/#e7413

Rasarr

Could a Seeker detect a Shardbearer? For example, could Vin detect Adolin's Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

That detects Kinetic Investiture, Investiture that's being used actively, so in the summoning process, you'd probably get a blip on that, but not just looking at someone and seeing it.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/80-shadows-of-self-london-uk-signing/#e5282

Questioner

With spikes, would you be able to actually transfer Breaths, when they get to the other planets?

Brandon Sanderson

So spikes rip off pieces of the soul and so Breaths are not going to be part of the soul. You could maybe get a divine Breath but I haven't really decided on regular Breaths, they're kind of stuck there in the Physical Realm which is not a thing that spikes are dealing with. Divine Breath, potentially, because that's something that's actually melding onto your soul. But, you know, when you're using the Breaths they reach through to the Spiritual Realm so, maybe if you got it while the Breaths were kinetic, right, while you're using them, then you might be able to rip them off. I'm not a hundred percent certain on that one.

Bystander

There's still things to decide upon.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah there's still things, like I have to kind of see. My instinct says no right now. But, you know, how they interact is not something that I have-- Yeah.

 

3 hours ago, therunner said:

Wonder what would happen if multiple Invested Arts were used at once near Harmonium.

My guess is that the Harmonium would most likely glitch out and not pick up anything due to multiple patterns interfering, just like with medallions or Hemalurgic Identity contamination. 

Perhaps if they both came from the same person you could mix them a bit, get something slightly new, like how Surgebinders can manifest their Surges differently because of their combinations. 

2 hours ago, Sythrin said:

The interesting thing is, that the way primer cubes act, change a bit between the 3rd and 4th book.
In BoM they function like a selfburning motor. You give them a power and than they burn themselfs to sustain that power. But in tLM when Marasi uses it, they act more like batteries. She infuses her power and than it is released exactly proximitely to the ammount she put in.

Indeed, which shows a strong chance of Harmonium devices being far more flexible than previously assumed.

There's a thread discussing this topic further, if you'd like to check it out.