What are the extents of surviving extreme conditions with Feruchemy?

[AltonicKeys he/him]

Had a silly idea, please bear with my slew of questions.

Say you had a huge/infinite amount of brass to store warmth in. Could you sit in a fire, or oven, and continuously store warmth to never get cooked? Can you survive molten lava, or a sun? Also, would that brass melt away if it were outside of your body, and can you still use it? Or could you store with molten brass, while being in the brass?
What about the Dor? I'm probably misinterpreting it, but can you use a ton of nicrosil to keep storing the investiture? Or would it also be brass?
Also also, if you were moving at insane speeds, can you store your speed in steel to slow down? Or does steel only affect how fast your muscles can move?

Ignoring the amount of metal needed, is this a problem of how fast you can store? Or is it some other problem?

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, AltonicKeys said:

1. Say you had a huge/infinite amount of brass to store warmth in. Could you sit in a fire, or oven, and continuously store warmth to never get cooked?
2. Can you survive molten lava, or a sun?
3. Also, would that brass melt away if it were outside of your body, and can you still use it? Or could you store with molten brass, while being in the brass?
4. What about the Dor? I'm probably misinterpreting it, but can you use a ton of nicrosil to keep storing the investiture? Or would it also be brass?
5. Also also, if you were moving at insane speeds, can you store your speed in steel to slow down? Or does steel only affect how fast your muscles can move?
6. Ignoring the amount of metal needed, is this a problem of how fast you can store? Or is it some other problem?

Any referenced WoBs will be together at the end.

1. This is a fan debate - there are some who think you could (I am not one of them - the available WoB implies that you are storing or tapping core body heat which is very different from dermal and subdermal damage created by environmental heat - as anybody who has suffered hyporthermia and/or heat stroke |in their various degrees of severity| can attest). So, based on confirmed data, you could definitely "cool off" in a hot environment by storing body heat - but you would be limited to storing as your core temperature warms from the environment - not "storing the burninG fire on my left third metacarpal" specific storing (at least based on current confirmed data - but also not explicitely ruled out). 
2. Unlikely, see above
3. Possibly, assuming you could survive contact with molten brass - WoB confirms that melting (or otherwise changin state) will not destroy the storage of a metalmind until/unless you change it (such as alloy or contamination).
4. The Dor is not Plasma (in the energy sense) - it is dense investiture that is best described as a state similar to energy's Plasma state. It is a distinct difference because, not only can Energy/Matter/Investiture change ebtween each other - but Investiture itself can exist in states similar to most energy and matter states (Stormlight as Energy in a photon state when stored, and as a Gaseous Matter state when breathed in and used kinetically, and as a Solid Godmetal Matter state as a shardblade (but an intermediary gaseous state while being summoned), and as a liquid matter state while filling the Well, etc.)
5. This is also a fan debate (discussed here and other threads), but based on known information it would appear that F-Steel is about fast twitch fibers and how quickly muscles can expand or contract. 
6. Depends on the situation. For example, there are traits that you cannot store too deeply without risking death (e.g. speed - store too much and your heart just stops beating) while others are limited by how much of a trait is available or how quickly it can be stored. 

 

Spoiler

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Thoughtful Spurts

If tapping heat means your own body gets hotter, does it also mean you become immune to hot temperatures so long as you're tapping it, or should you fill heat and grow colder for that to happen?

Brandon Sanderson

As everything in Feruchemy, you become immune to the effects of the ability only. Like weight doesn't crush you, but at the same time doesn't have a net gain in strength. Growing colder, however, would be more helpful in this regard.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012)

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Questioner

If Feruchemists can store warmth, and you can Compound if you have the dual... Could they harm themselves by drawing too much warmth?

Brandon Sanderson

Could they draw it out of their body and therefore kill themselves by freezing themselves?

Questioner

Either way. Either that, or burn and Compound too much...

Brandon Sanderson

This is harder to do that you think it [is], because built into Feruchemy is the natural body's resistance to the things you're doing, but it is possible.

Calamity Austin signing (Feb. 25, 2016)

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ntdfbladez (paraphrased)

If a metalmind is melted down and changes shape, does it still retain its power?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, only by mixing it with other metals would the power be completely lost. Also if any pieces of the metalmind are lost, then some of the power will be lost (as it would be in the missing pieces).

Rithmatist Houston signing (May 20, 2013)

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Questioner

If you take a coppermind that has stores and you take a zincmind that has stores and you melt them together to form brass, what happens?

Brandon Sanderson

It's mostly going to destroy your ability to recover any of it, unfortunately. 

Questioner

Are you going to be able to store any more?

Brandon Sanderson

You're probably going to end up, if it was already full, with it being full but you not being able to access it. So it would not be very handy to do. Not be very useful for you.

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

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Blaze1616

The Dor: Is it gaseous Investiture or is it something else completely?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh that's a great question. People have not been asking enough about the Dor.

Blaze1616

And if it is gaseous—or not gaseous—is it plasma?

Brandon Sanderson

*Long pause*

You got it. *said definitively*

It's super sup-- not plasm-- yeah, it's super-dense to the point that's it's liquefied and dense-- does that make sense? So it's plasma, basically. It's its own weird thing, so yeah. What you can write is that it's its own weird thing that's kind of plasma-like.

Shadows of Self Lansing signing (Oct. 13, 2015)

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Questioner

Can you describe what Shadesmar looks like on either Nalthis or Sel.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. On Sel? Looks like a big old storm that will destroy you. More than a storm, it's like a big pressurized-- it's like plasma, almost. It is really dangerous. Really dangerous. That 'cause the Dor is hanging out there.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

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MoriWillow

The terms kinetic and static Investiture were introduced in Rhythm of War, but not defined or explained.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

MoriWillow

What are kinetic and static Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question. So I've been talking about this for a while, so some of the arcanists out there know. Kinetic is a thing I'm defining that the Investiture is being actively expressed and used, and so it has certain effects. For instance, you're gonna see sand get charged by kinetic Investiture but not necessarily by static Investiture. Static Investiture being Investiture that is stuck in a sphere. If you just walk by with that sphere, particularly if it's in a bag or something, the white sand's not going to see anything. But if you are actively using it to do something, if you have created or are maintaining something, if you are flying or you are using one of the Surges, then we call that kinetic. And kinetic Investiture is going to show up much more easily to someone who can replicate the abilities of a Seeker, who can hear pulses. These are the things the spren notice when someone is using their powers. This is white sand. There are just many things in the cosmere that respond to Investiture being used in some way, and when it is not being used it is harder to hear, locate, or reference.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

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Pagerunner

When you tap the nicrosil portion of a medallion, will it run out over time? Or is it like a coppermind, where something discrete is taken, used, and returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question! Like a coppermind.

General Signed Books 2018 (Oct. 15, 2018)

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Thoughtful Spurts

If there's really no upper limit to Feruchemy for practical reasons* , why didn't Sazed just fill steel at ridiculous levels for a few minutes in [Well of Ascension], and then go back to running instead of leaving his steelminds there? Say, being some 100,000 times slower than he would normally be for about a minute. Meaning that a Feruchemist should be able to fill a given metalmind in very short periods of time if you fill at a high enough rate.

*(yes, you have the limit of how much you can store in a given metalmind and for how many metalminds you can carry on your person, but those are probably too high to really be taken into account in more "normal" circumstances)

Brandon Sanderson

The low end is bounded. You can pull out tons--but in filling, you can only go so far. I didn't ever explicitly talk about this in the series, but the implications are there. Not all have the same bounds, but in your example, the body just can't slow beyond a certain point. Think of it this way--you can only fill a weight metalmind with as much weight as you have to give. So you can become very, very light--but you only add to a time for doubling your weight. You can't make yourself 100,000 times slower and gain 100,000 times multiplication. You can give up all of your normal speed, and so when you tap that speed out you are at 200% for an equal period. (And that's a theoretical maximum; realistically, you can only go to down around 75% slower or the like.)

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012)

 

Hope that helps

[Duxredux he/him]

Let's see... The somewhat cheater answer is that F-Gold allowed Miles to survive setting off dynamite in his hand, so anything below that threshold of energy is confirmed surviveable - at least with F-Gold. Where it starts getting complicated is in the details for if you don't have access to supernatural regeneration, or if you only have access to a single Feruchemical ability as a Ferring. Take sitting in a fire or in molten lava for example. Heat isn't the only health risk there, they may be sitting in an oxygen reduced environment breathing in ash, soot, and any toxic gases that that are a product of the heat source. A Cadmiummind would probably also be necessary. Sure the pre-Catecendre Scadrians were adapted to ash, but I'm not sure if they are now.

Surviving on the sun is right out - not just because of the oxygen deprivation, but because the atmospheric pressure at the photosphere is about 10 orders of magnitude above the earth's atmosphere at the surface level. Local gravity would be about 28 times higher than the Earth - depending on where you say that you are "standing" since there isn't really a surface to the sun. No breathable atmosphere, nothing to stand on, getting constantly crushed, and probably no realistic way to generate significant motion, and even if they just let your Metalminds max out or die, you're still stuck.

There will be other complications with extreme environments. Low temperatures for example have greatly reduced relative humidity as the air can't hold the water molecules in suspension. I think this would accelerate dehydration, but I don't know by how much. In a location like the arctic they could melt snow pretty readily, but in desert locations it can get very cold and dry at night.

Take the moon or another environment without atmospheric pressure. On the moon without an artificial atmosphere, liquids in the body will boil without the external pressure to keep the body intact. Beyond that, without an atmosphere the temperature becomes very difficult to regulate. You get high extremes as in direct sunlight the surface of the Moon can get to 127 C, in the shade it rapidly drops to -173 C. Even with full body heating/cooling by Brassmind, the temperature will be localized, not generalized. Even with a Cadmiummind and Brassmind, Feruchemy is specific enough that it probably isn't a replacement for a spacesuit for an EVA.

TSM spoiler:

Spoiler

But Dux, didn't Nomad do just fine in a vacuum? Yup, he did, in part by generating bubble of pressure with vestiges of his abilities as a Radiant. He gave himself an artificial atmosphere. He also holds enough Investiture for reinforcement and healing.

Extreme condition on the surface of Earth? They'd probably do well with most things.

 

The thing is if you dump enough Investiture into a person, it has a tendency to help them survive, something to do with (TSM quote)

Spoiler

"The nature of a highly Invested body, and the ways the Spiritual template and Cognitive perception could maintain a body's status in the face of extreme conditions"

So, I'm not quite sure where the lines really are. Feruchemy has more control than Allomancy, with one of the cited examples that A-Tin grants full and generalized sensory enhancement whereas Feruchemy allows the user to break down the senses into components. Using only a Brassmind to survive someone pouring lava on one side and liquid nitrogen on the other may be a stretch. 

Edited November 20, 2024 by Duxredux
completed thought.

[alder24]

15 hours ago, AltonicKeys said:

Say you had a huge/infinite amount of brass to store warmth in. Could you sit in a fire, or oven, and continuously store warmth to never get cooked?

I would say yes. No problem with that if you have huge amount of brass.

Spoiler

Thoughtful Spurts

If tapping heat means your own body gets hotter, does it also mean you become immune to hot temperatures so long as you're tapping it, or should you fill heat and grow colder for that to happen?

Brandon Sanderson

As everything in Feruchemy, you become immune to the effects of the ability only. Like weight doesn't crush you, but at the same time doesn't have a net gain in strength. Growing colder, however, would be more helpful in this regard.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012)

 

15 hours ago, AltonicKeys said:

Can you survive molten lava

Very dangerous yes, but only with lots of brass of course. The problem is that you would need to store a huge amount of heat that is being dumped into you by lava as you're touching it, so much that you would be basically draining heat out of lava and it would solidify, trapping you in it. And you have to keep your Brassminds away from lava as brass melts in 930 degrees C, while lava can reach up to 1200 degrees C - they could melt.  Risky but possible with a huge amount of brass.

15 hours ago, AltonicKeys said:

or a sun?

Nope. Just nope. No atmosphere, no pressure, no oxygen, deadly radiation, crushing gravity, 6000 degrees C in its photosphere - you would be dead just from vacuum exposure long before you even get to the Sun and Brassminds would simply vaporize if you were to get too close to the Sun.

However, throwing reason out of the window, a Fullborn with access to infinite investiture could hypothetically become a literal star if he were to tap infinite weight and heat in the presence of mass (or create mass from investiture directly) and he would remain conscious if he was also tapping infinite healing through all of this. So purely hypothetically speaking, there are ways for someone to survive on the Sun, but just being brass Ferring isn't enough.

Spoiler

Questioner

If a Full Twinborn (regardless of natural or holding the Bands of Mourning) had access to unlimited Investiture, could they become the sun by infinitely increasing their gravity and heat?

Brotherwise Games

Infinite Investiture, you’re theorizing?

Questioner

Dalinar’s next to him.

Brandon Sanderson

Dalinar’s not gonna be able to provide enough. But in a thought experiment, sort of outside bounds of time and space… you are providing infinite Investiture, you are providing an infinite amount of healing, and you are having them create heat and weight? The problem is, you’re gonna need a whole lot of mass to turn into the sun. I mean, there is a way you can do this, but you’re gonna have to provide… Either the Investiture’s gonna have to become mass, or you’re gonna have to have them do it in the proximity of a whole bunch of mass to have to start causing that sort of fusion reaction where the different layers collapsing in toward the center, dense layers, that sort of thing. In the realm of complete hypothesis, then yes. But, of course, you an do that here with infinite energy and infinite mass, if you needed to, using mechanical means.

I guess the weird part of that question is: the person could retain consciousness through infinite healing, and that is the weird part and that is possible. Yeah.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022)

 

15 hours ago, AltonicKeys said:

Also, would that brass melt away if it were outside of your body, and can you still use it? Or could you store with molten brass, while being in the brass?

It is possible to use molten metal as metalminds, but it would have an effect on the investiture stored inside. But don't try this at home. It could still hurt you or even kill you because you have to get very close to something that's nearly 1000 degrees C hot without anything to store excess heat into, not to mention that if you want to take a bath in molten brass, it would solidify (just like lava) and you would drown in a solid piece of metal. That's not a pleasant way to die.

Spoiler

Nethseäar

Can you burn or Feruchemically fill molten metal? Assuming, you know, that was something you wanted to do.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you should be able to but that would be very nasty.

Nethseäar

Would it affect the Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it would affect the Investiture.

Shadows of Self release party (Oct. 5, 2015)

 

15 hours ago, AltonicKeys said:

What about the Dor? I'm probably misinterpreting it, but can you use a ton of nicrosil to keep storing the investiture? Or would it also be brass?

The Dor is pure investiture, just like the Mists or Shardpools are. You can use the Dor to directly fuel your Allomancy or Feruchemy without the need to store attributes or burn metals at all. Feruchemical nicrosil seems to be storing only Innate investiture, the one that's a part of your soul responsible for giving you powers. So you can most likely only store things like Allomancy, Feruchemy or Surgebinding in a Nicrosilmind, not raw investiture like the Dor or Stormlight. 

You probably would be able to use the Dor and store it in a Brassmind as warmth if you can use the Dor to gain warmth directly from it. 

Spoiler

kingbirdy (paraphrased)

Could Feruchemical nicrosil be used to store other Invested abilities, such as a Returned Breath or the abilities of the Knights Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, that's possible.

DragonCon 2016 (Sept. 4, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

As far as the Lord Ruler goes, how did he use the Twinborn thing? Feruchemy and Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

What he had to figure out how to do is: Allomancy is powered by Spiritual power directly from the Shard of Adonalsium. Whereas Feruchemy is powered by your own Investiture and effort being transferred into the thing. What he needed to do was figure out a way to power Feruchemy with Allomantic power, right? You could have done the same thing by fueling it with the Dor, or with Stormlight, or another external. But he only had access to three magics. So what he had to do was figure out that.

So what he's doing is, he's basically taking metals, (since he's a Feruchemist and an allomancers), and he is burning metals that he has Invested himself, but then using... basically, switching it so he gets a burst of Allomantic power that is charged with a Feruchemical attribute. So it's powering Feruchemy with Allomancy by burning the metal that he himself has Invested.

Questioner

So he was essentially putting stuff into the metal?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, priming the pump. He puts it in with Feruchemy. Then he burns it with Allomancy. But that fuels Feruchemy with Allomancy, which allows him to draw on the powers of the Shards, rather than himself. So it's not really a perpetual motion machine, because he's drawing the power from someone else. But it's external, which allows him to break the rules of Feruchemy.

The big question I have is: that works in the book, because you can dig into the technicalities of the book. But that's not gonna work in the movie, right? That explanation right there, that's so many levels over the heads of the audience. So I have to figure out a way to not break the cosmere magic, but make it simpler to understand in the movie. Which is the big headache in writing the screenplay. That's probably the biggest challenge in the screenplay is to figure out how to make that all work.

LTUE 2020 (Feb. 15, 2020)

 

15 hours ago, AltonicKeys said:

Also also, if you were moving at insane speeds, can you store your speed in steel to slow down? Or does steel only affect how fast your muscles can move?

It's only the physical speed of your body movements and muscles, not things like this.

Spoiler

Brainless

So if you jumped off a high place and you were a steel Feruchemist, could you store the speed of you falling?

Brandon Sanderson

No, because-- I'm going to say you need to be moving under your own-- because otherwise it's all relative, right? If you're falling, it's no different than if you're traveling on the planet or things like that.

Glamdring804

So it's related more to muscle contractions.

Brandon Sanderson

*hesitantly* Yes, kind of. Feruchemy bends all sorts of weird things, ever since I started doing the weight one. So, yes.

Brainless

The thing about Feruchemy is it feels like you could be like a savant short of it, but it would be much more minor than something like a savant for-- It would be more things like what you could get for exercise and stuff like that.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Yeah, that's possible.

MisCon 2018 (May 26, 2018)

 

15 hours ago, AltonicKeys said:

Ignoring the amount of metal needed, is this a problem of how fast you can store? Or is it some other problem?

There are lower limits for your day to day use, some can go pretty low like you can store so much weight that you would become basically weightless. You can get hurt if you store or tap too much, but generally Feruchemy gives you some increased resistance to the power so you won't crush yourself by tapping tons of mass and things like that. But if you stand in a fire when you don't really have to worry about heat available to store.

Spoiler

Questioner

So if someone is storing weight-- Feruchemy-- Can you store enough that you can actually float like a balloon?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, your clothing and stuff will still have weight.

Questioner

If you were, like, completely naked and just *unintelligible* your hand up a wall, you will?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. You will-- You could float, yeah. That's-- I mean, you could get your weight so low that it's basically like being in microgravity, which is...q

Questioner

Like 99%? Like a vacuum balloon?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Calamity release party (Feb. 16, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

If Feruchemists can store warmth, and you can Compound if you have the dual... Could they harm themselves by drawing too much warmth?

Brandon Sanderson

Could they draw it out of their body and therefore kill themselves by freezing themselves?

Questioner

Either way. Either that, or burn and Compound too much...

Brandon Sanderson

This is harder to do that you think it [is], because built into Feruchemy is the natural body's resistance to the things you're doing, but it is possible.

Calamity Austin signing (Feb. 25, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Questioner (paraphrased)

My friend wants to know how fast steel Compounders could possibly go, can they run up walls or over water like the Flash?

Blightsong (paraphrased)

*jokingly* Can they run through time?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Steelrunners can resist a lot things due to the power, like they can withstand the Gs they are out through, but they can't ignore wind resistance and friction. They will burn up if they start running too quickly.

OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)