I Think I Figured Out Unsealed Metalminds

[DustWarden]

We know that unsealed Metalminds are a form of "hacking" invested arts on Scadrial to allow anyone the use of the stored ability. Invested arts on Scadrial are known to require three things in order to work.
1. Investiture - Your soul must be invested
2. Identity - a Metalmind is keyed to the one that makes it
3. Connection - The shards of Scadrial infused the planet, so you must be connected to it to use the power

So to "hack" the magic system there, you must work around these three things
Start with an example of a known unsealed Metalmind - a heat medallion. A medallion with rings of Brass and Nicrosil.
Give it to an aluminum Ferring who stores Identity in their personal Metalmind
Give them a Brass spike made from a Ferring with Feruchemical Brass ability
fill medallion's brass ring with heat
Give them a Bendalloy spike made from a Ferring with Feruchemical Nicrosil ability
Fill medallion's Nicrosil ring with Investiture

You now have a Metalmind with stored heat, and stored investiture, with no identity. And yet this is still not enough to make an unsealed Metalmind, because we know we need an Excisor AND we know Duralumin is involved somehow. Connection must be the key to making unsealed Metalminds. Feruchemical Duralumin stores connection, so could storing connection before making the above unkeyed Metalmind make it unsealed? Is an Excisor a Bendalloy spike granting Feruchemical Duralumin? That way the maker of the Metalmind could "excise" their connection to the planet before making it?
We know connection to others grants the ability to speak language, connection to the land allows Elantrians to use their magic on other planets (i.e. Tress of the Emerald Sea), and in Sunlit Man Nomad needed a connection to the planet before he could share in its unique investiture. I would almost think that storing connection would make more sense, except we know that Kelsier's Coppermind coin given to Wax was distinctly only two metals. Nicrosil and Copper. So Duralumin couldn't be stored in it. By storing investiture but removing connection you get a Metalmind that anyone can use.

[scientificmotif]

 Well... it's like... In order to use Feruchemy, you need to tap nicrosil, but in order to tap nicrosil, you have to have Feruchemy. That's why just a metalmind with no Identity, a nicrosilmind, and another metalmind doesn't work. So the Excisor must somehow work around that.

I don't feel like storing Connection would change that, with our current knowledge of Feruchemy. Connection to Scadrial shouldn't be involved; Feruchemy seems to work on any planet like Allomancy. Besides, even if Feruchemy required Connection, wouldn't a metalmind that has no Connection to Scadrial (and therefore the whole magic system) immediately stop working?

So I don't think your idea would work. If anything, I think the Connection involved should involve Connecting to the user of the metalmind.

[Trusk'our he/him]

On 12/3/2024 at 7:24 PM, DustWarden said:

So to "hack" the magic system there, you must work around these three things
Start with an example of a known unsealed Metalmind - a heat medallion. A medallion with rings of Brass and Nicrosil.
Give it to an aluminum Ferring who stores Identity in their personal Metalmind
Give them a Brass spike made from a Ferring with Feruchemical Brass ability
fill medallion's brass ring with heat
Give them a Bendalloy spike made from a Ferring with Feruchemical Nicrosil ability
Fill medallion's Nicrosil ring with Investiture

This seems like a plausible method to create an Unsealed Metalmind. 

We know that using Hemalurgy can make crafting Unsealed Metalminds easier. It seems this isn't strictly necessary though, even if only Mistings and Ferrings are available.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/256-oathbringer-london-signing/#e8659

Yata

If you have 32 Misting and Ferring, every kind possible, without using Hemalurgy, you can craft a medallion? Without the aftermath of the--

Brandon Sanderson

So could you craft a medallion... without-- oh. That should be possible, but this is one of the things where I have to dig out the notes and double-check myself. But this should be possible.

There's also been debate on whether a Trueself Ferring could store the Identity of a spike they bear, as it isn't truly a part of them, but a somewhat separate Spiritweb fragment (discussed here).

So you may have to blank the spike's Identity first, maybe by having the Trueself store Identity, take their power in a spike and give it to a Soulbearer. The Soulbearer stores Identity while their power is spiked, leaving you with an Identity-free pair of Hemalurgic spikes containing the powers of a Trueself and a Soulbearer. 

You should be able to then give the spikes to any other Metalborn to craft an Unkeyed Nicrosilmind.

It's unknown whether this is all that's necessary to create an Unsealed Metalmind, especially since Feruchemical duralumin is supposed to be involved somehow, but I think it's at least a very good starting point.

My personal theory for the method used by the Southern Scadrians to create Unsealed Metalminds involves Unsealed Metalminds themselves. I strongly suspect the Excisors are specially designed Unsealed Metalminds containing the powers of Feruchemical nicrosil, aluminum, possibly duralumin, and probably Allomantic Nicrosil for Compounding. An Excisor would be given to a Metalborn for them to store their Identity and Investiture, maybe tap Connection between them and their Investiture simultaneously to create a bond between the possessor of the medallion and its power. The nicrosil is then probably Compounded to make lots of it.

Feruchemical nicrosil, aluminum, duralumin, and Unsealed Metalminds in general are mostly unknowns right now, so please take all my rambling with a pinch of Copper. 

In any case, welcome to the Shard, it was a pleasure to read your idea!