Identity, nicrosil and duralumin.

[DoctaDajman]

So TLM leads me to believe that compounding with hemalurgic spikes is something of the past. Because of identity contamination and the fact that those abilities didn't belong to the person.  

My question is this... shouldn't all of the duralumin uses via allomancy we saw in TLM have been nicrosil by the same logic?  

If there is identity corruption there and that power isn't actually you... wouldn't you need to boost the abilities of another spiritweb instead of your own?  

If we can make the argument that duralumin is fine because your spiritweb can recognize it as a part of you then why would you not be able to compound if you were natural born with one of the powers and got a spike for the opposite art of the same metal?  

While in the shower I was trying to think of a nicrosil compounder using nicrosil to nicroburst themselves and immediately thought about this identity crisis with hemalurgy that is blocking people from compounding. If it's because it isn't your ability... can you treat that foreign spiritweb using allomancy within yourself as contact with another allomancer to cause a nicroburst?  

 

Edited May 1, 2025 by DoctaDajman

[Trusk'our he/him]

6 hours ago, DoctaDajman said:

So TLM leads me to believe that compounding with hemalurgic spikes is something of the past. Because of identity contamination and the fact that those abilities didn't belong to the person.  

My question is this... shouldn't all of the duralumin uses via allomancy we saw in TLM have been nicrosil by the same logic?  

If there is identity corruption there and that power isn't actually you... wouldn't you need to boost the abilities of another spiritweb instead of your own?  

If we can make the argument that duralumin is fine because your spiritweb can recognize it as a part of you then why would you not be able to compound if you were natural born with one of the powers and got a spike for the opposite art of the same metal?  

While in the shower I was trying to think of a nicrosil compounder using nicrosil to nicroburst themselves and immediately thought about this identity crisis with hemalurgy that is blocking people from compounding. If it's because it isn't your ability... can you treat that foreign spiritweb using allomancy within yourself as contact with another allomancer to cause a nicroburst?  

I would agree that duralumin Allomancy must be less picky about what's who's in the Spiritweb, since both Dumad and Wax make use of the same spike to uber-Steelpush.

Maybe Compounding is the odd one out as it's an actual hack trying to cross the wires of two separate systems rather than the natural state of either. 

[LewsTherinTelescope]

Does duralumin affect your spiritweb, or does it affect the metals?

[Treamayne]

A-Duralumin is defined as "boost all metals currently burning" which is why a Misting is a Duralumin Gnat because they cannot have a second metal to burn.
Shown in WoA Ch 8 when Vin first burns it while burning Bronze, Pewter, and Tin.

Spoiler

So, thinking herself incredibly clever, Vin burned the fourteenth metal.

A massive explosion sounded in her ears. Vin gasped, dropping to her knees in shock. Everything grew bright around her, as if some crack of energy had illuminated the entire street. And she felt cold; frigidly, stunningly cold.

She moaned, trying to make sense of the sound. It…it wasn’t an explosion, but many explosions. A rhythmic thudding, like a drum pounding just beside her. Her
heartbeat. And the breeze, loud as a howling wind. The scratchings of a dog searching for food. Someone snoring in their sleep. It was as if her hearing had been magnified a hundred times.

And then…nothing. Vin fell backward against the cobblestones, the sudden rush of light, coldness, and sound evaporating. A form moved in the shadows nearby, but she couldn’t make it out—she couldn’t see in the darkness anymore. Her tin was…

Gone, she realized, coming to. My entire store of tin has been burned away. I was…burning it, when I turned on the duralumin.

I burned them both at once. That’s the secret. The duralumin had burned away all her tin in a single, massive burst. It had made her senses amazingly acute for a very short time, but had stolen away her entire reserve. And, looking, she could see that her bronze and her pewter—the other metals she’d been burning at the time—were gone as well. The onrush of sensory information had been so vast that she hadn’t noticed the effects of the other two.

Hope that helps

[Rorzikel]

I think Identity contamination affecting compounding is more about an added barrier of difficulty. It's already a hack of two systems that relies on the metalmind you burn matching your identity and your misting ability corresponding to the same metal (plus apparently requiring practice of some kind). With hemalurgy you're just adding more variables and reducing what made the hack plausible in the first place.

If I spike Jeff the Gold Ferring and Julia the Gold Misting, then I can store some health that is keyed to a mixture of Jeff and myself. Then I can try to burn it with an allomantic power that has some of Julia's Identity still. That's inherently less cohesive than a twinborn like Miles with a single Identity and both necessary powers.

We know with hemalurgy that sometimes you can tap the stores of the person you killed, but if you split the spike that you and another person could not share metalminds (though both of you could tap from the original). This shows that even with a partial match that powers can conflict. I imagine this is even more so for hacks that aren't built into the system.

wob:

Spoiler

Lucadaw

If someone used Hemalurgy to take someones Feruchemical abilities would they be able to use that persons personal metalminds? Most relevantly perhaps to take that person's knowledge from their copperminds?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Lucadaw

If someone stored their identity in an aluminium metalmind, then had their powers and metalminds stolen via Hemalurgy, then the person who took the powers used the aluminium metalmind to draw out the first persons identity would it permanently overwrite their personality with the original persons ? ( would kind of be a long winded way of stealing someone else's body and becoming immortal )

Brandon Sanderson

All Identity questions are a RAFO until I deal with it more in the books. (Sorry.)

WeiryWriter (in response to the first answer)

If the spike granting Feruchemy were to be reforged/split into two distinct spikes which are then implanted into two different people, could those two people "share" a metalmind (as in actually be able to tap something the other stored and vice versa?).

Brandon Sanderson

It's complicated, but no.

There would be too much of the other person mixed in. Both could use the metalminds of the person the Feruchemy was stolen from, but when they made their own, their own Identity would "muddy" the creation.

Worldbuilders AMA (Dec. 7, 2015)