Famous Connectors

[Trusk'our he/him]

So, simple scenario here. Let's say a Connector Ferring in Era 3 gets defamed on television, which is broadcast across both the Northern and Southern hemispheres of Scadrial. Everyone who sees them- millions, possibly billions- hate them. Forming a Connection via their thoughts and emotions.

The Ferring is terrified, and naturally tries to use their Feruchemy to hide by siphoning off those Connections. Could they just dump it into a huge Duraluminmind?

Furthermore, if they can access such quantities of Connection, would the transition of it directly into Investiture (i.e. storing or tapping it) turn them into a Savant or otherwise warp them? I imagine dealing with such huge amounts would be like blasting your Spiritweb with a duralumin burst, but one that can be sustained as long as the Connections persist and you have a valid Duraluminmind.

I suppose the boring answer would just be that their very finite Feruchemical Investiture simply cannot realistically affect that much Connection at once, but I do wonder what could be done there.

Edited October 17, 2025 by Trusk'our

[Returned he/him]

Does it work that way, by intensity rather than polarity? The Ars Arcanum (as best I recall) suggests that having more Connection improves positive feelings and trust, increasing both people's awareness of you and trust in you. That implies that negative sentiment, like hatred, would be counteracted by tapping Connection and enhanced by storing it. But that seems like a limitation of the skill of Connectors we've seen so far, without any direct examples of Feruchemists using it, and I doubt it's so flat and straightforward.

Can we extrapolate from other power sets, maybe Shai as the Beggar or Dalinar/Ishar?

[Trusk'our he/him]

5 hours ago, Returned said:

Does it work that way, by intensity rather than polarity? The Ars Arcanum (as best I recall) suggests that having more Connection improves positive feelings and trust, increasing both people's awareness of you and trust in you. That implies that negative sentiment, like hatred, would be counteracted by tapping Connection and enhanced by storing it. But that seems like a limitation of the skill of Connectors we've seen so far, without any direct examples of Feruchemists using it, and I doubt it's so flat and straightforward.

Fair point, though I believe we've seen other examples of Connections being formed by thoughts and feelings, which lines up with your reasoning that this is mostly a skill issue regarding Connectors (and that they should get gud).

WaT spoilers:

Spoiler

Navani is able to make a Connection between her and a similacrum of an ancient woman in the SR by conciously observing similarities between them. Dalinar is able to get to one of the Visions only because the Stormfather thinks about it, making a valid Connection for Dalinar to hitch a ride on. Radiant Spren are able to persist in the PR without Nahel bonds seemingly because so many people think about them at the time that they form many tiny Connections to said Spren.

Spoiler

WaT epighraphs, 127

127

"I know that to this day, people are confused by how at the end, spren began arriving in the East without the need for bonds. Notum, now among the most famous of honorspren, is an example. The answer is simple, however. As the lands began to think of them, and remember them, they needed less the bond of a single person to give them purchase in the Physical Realm. For the thoughts of an entire people bolstered them."

 

 

5 hours ago, Returned said:

Can we extrapolate from other power sets, maybe Shai as the Beggar or Dalinar/Ishar?

I mean, yeah, as long as it's in a spoiler box since this is the Mistborn forum.

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

I think (WaT)

Spoiler

The evil Blackthorn Spren at the end of WaT is proof that negative emotions form connections.

Also, tapping an investituremind wouldn’t create anti-investiture, as a similar example. Generally, the more you think about someone, the greater the connections is from you to them, no matter the positivity of thoughts.
 

I’ve always seen connection as the strangest Feruchemical power. Feruchemy is supposed to take from your own body, or a5least to store things that are yours. But connections, by definition, are two-ended, and generally don’t belong to one person more than another. They’re the only Feruchemical power that can directly effect others, rather than affecting a phicical trait of the user that then affects others. For example, if Honor somehow filled a Duraluminmind with the connection he used to sustain the Heralds, they’d just… dissolve. Instantly, anywhere in the universe. There is no other type of Feruchemy that can do that.

I think that yes, that could theoretically work, but that’s millions of connections, each of which must be constantly stored in a metalmind to be suppressed. If a strong connector ferrying can meaningfully use 1/5 of their filling power to meaningfully suppress a connection, that’s 5 people at a time. Out of millions.

But I don’t think feruchemists can become savants. A savant is someone who’s so invested, it permanently warps their spiritweb. But at no point does a feruchemist invest. The only thing conducting investiture is the metal, so you could theoretically preform Feruchemy while invested with the opposite of Preservation’s Light (anti-Stilllight?) and be perfectly fine. For more info on how this (probably) works: 

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

42 minutes ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

I think that yes, that could theoretically work, but that’s millions of connections, each of which must be constantly stored in a metalmind to be suppressed. If a strong connector ferrying can meaningfully use 1/5 of their filling power to meaningfully suppress a connection, that’s 5 people at a time. Out of millions.

While I agree that there's probably some limit on how much a Feruchemist can store when they have access to a large pool of attribute to pull from, I somewhat doubt it would be that weak.

Compounding gets much of its benefit from storing the extra attributes into a Metalmind, which can then be drawn from at whatever pace the Feruchemist wants. That should be significantly higher than what a human normally possesses for Feruchemcial storage, though we haven't heard of this being an issue before.

Another way to look at the Connector problem would be to take a Brute with a great deal of innate strength. A genetically gifted Koloss-blooded gym nut with the muscle power of ten people (okay, probably a stretch, but let's just say they have that much strength) should have the ability to store much of that in their Pewtermind. Connections, I believe, would be the same, where a larger pool to store from is generally just a better deal, albeit with some decay attached when trying to store truly huge amounts (that last part is conjecture on my part).

Admittedly, we haven't seen enough of this sort of thing on screen for me to make anything more than hunches, so disregard this if you want.

54 minutes ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

But I don’t think feruchemists can become savants. A savant is someone who’s so invested, it permanently warps their spiritweb.

Feruchemists can become Savants. It seems to typically require a net positive system because storing up enough Investiture to sustain the effects of Feruchemy long enough or intense enough to become a Savant is really, really hard.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/402-starsight-release-party/#e13393

Questioner

There are Allomantic savants, are there Feruchemical savants?

Brandon Sanderson

Much harder to do. My feeling on Feruchemical savants was because it was your own power in the first place, you can't steep in it so much in the way. But, if you can get someone else's power or if you are fueling your Feruchemy another way, you would become one. So, the Lord Ruler is a good example.

Questioner

Was Miles a...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Miles would be the same sort of thing.

Questioner

Is that why he didn't die as quickly in the execution?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

So yeah. Normally no but if you can Compound you become... basically that is how I am explaining part of the Compounding abilities. 

I don't believe that's strictly the right definition for Savantism. A Savant is someone who is warped by the Investiture they use, but it seems to be more because you're using it so extensively that it reshapes and suffuses your Spiritweb structure in an unnatural way- which I think would Invest you a some more, but not as its primary function.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/36-arcanum-unbounded-chicago-signing/#e1557

Questioner

So Allomantic Savants. So I was curious-- That system-- When that happens, is it purely physiological, or is there something else happening in terms of--

Brandon Sanderson

Uhh, it's physiological in a cosmere sense, but that can involve your Cognitive and Spiritual aspects.

Questioner

I guess the question there is, are there other similar processes to savantism with other--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah you've seen it. So, Soulcasters.

Argent

Where their skin turns--

Brandon Sanderson

Where they're slowly being-- their spirit is slowly being merged and infused with Investiture that is having Physical ramifications. It's the same thing.

Being more Invested is a more general term that can just mean their baseline power is stronger, like where Elend's Lerasium-gifted Allomancy is stronger than Vin's.

1 hour ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

But at no point does a feruchemist invest. The only thing conducting investiture is the metal, so you could theoretically preform Feruchemy while invested with the opposite of Preservation’s Light (anti-Stilllight?) and be perfectly fine. For more info on how this (probably) works: 

A Feruchemist becomes Invested every time they tap their Metalminds, as it is a form of Investiture being pulled into them to produce an effect.

Stormlight spoilers:

Spoiler

If a Feruchemist had Anti-Light of the correct Tone injected into them while tapping a Metalmind, I suspect they'd die. Horribly.