Impact of the recent Q&A on scadrial

[Voidus]

So I've been reading through Brandons answers on the Q&A and some interesting things have come up which I think all deserve some discussion.

1. From one of my questions, Brandon has said that it would be possible for a copper ferring to store memories at a different strength, alone this is not particularly useful but combined with...

2. Compounding copper would do 'some things' this was in response to a question about the usefulness of some types of compounding, I doubt Brandon would have answered in this way if it would just duplicate memories or some other relatively useless variant of copper compounding. Combined with 1. I believe this is pretty strong evidence in favour of increasing the durability of the memory (You would recall a compounded memory forever with no memory degradation.) Now combine this with Hemalurgy and you have some seriously awesome stuff going on for Scadrial, store memory in coppermind, compound, store the memory again at the same strength as the initial memory, leaving you with a coppermind full of the memory as well as perfect recall without it. Hemalurgically spike for feruchemical and allomantic copper (Preferably on deathbed or in non-lethal manner) new compounder compounds the memories, gains perfect recall of them as well and repeats. Now everyone on scadrial is a walking encyclopaedia. I propose that this is Scadrials version of the internet (Sorry for taking so long on this one.)

3. Scadrials magic is the easiest to use on other worlds, pressumably because the others all need things that only exist on their home planet (Breaths are only given to Nalthians, Stormlight only exists on Roshar, Elantrians get weaker the further from Elantris they are)

4. Two feruchemical charges can exist in one piece of metal and they don't interfere with eachother.

5. Confirmation that objects are either all-in or all-out of a time bubble, however it also seemed to indicate that objects inside other objects are considered part of that object :S from the train example he seemed to say that people in a tran which passes through a time-bubble would not be affected. Not sure what to make of that.

6. Hemalurgy could possibly be used to take ownership of a shardblade without physical contact.

7. Sazed seems to be doing something with Ruins power to keep it in balance with Preservations (Weaker due to Scadralians having more Preservation than Ruin) Please let this be more Atium...

8. Confirmation (Finally) that Hemalurgy can steal other magic systems if you know enough about bindpoints.

Hemalurgy crosses magic systems. You could steal things from people on other worlds, if you knew the right places for the spikes.

9. Sazed still has a body but it is 'blended in', and it still possesses his original powers.

10. Hoid retrieved something from the WoA (Can't remember if we already had WoB on this)

Ok, that's all I found that seemed mistborn-related so let's see if we can work something out from all this (Besides the fact that Catquisitors are going to rule the catmere)

[RenegadeShroom]

Aluminium is confirmed to have effects on metals that aren't zinc/brass and iron/steel, but not god metals or their alloys. I'm guessing that it would be the other four external metals; cadmium, bendalloy, nicrosil and chromium. Seems like it'd be especially useful against a leecher. And there's potentially more types of kandra blessings.

[Voidus]

And the bodies of Ati and Leras might have been useful to have around apparently, I must have skipped right past that one, that seems really interesting.

[RenegadeShroom]

I don't think that'll have much of an impact on Scadrial, unless Sazed goes back and finds them at some point, seeing as if Sazed didn't do anything with them, their corpses will still be lying there. And discussed it in the chat earlier, I believe that Shivertongue and Windrunner came to the conclusion that they'd be useful for their Spiritual aspects/Spiritwebs, and/or Cognitive and Physical differences. (Someone please correct me if I got that wrong? :3)

Oh! I also saw him say that there are metals that any Allomancer can burn when asked if god metal alloys would be useless without any Mistborn around.

Edited September 27, 2012 by InsurrectionistFungus

[Voidus]

I saw that too, I was wondering if he was just being sneaky and referring to Lerasium and its alloys which anyone can burn. Perhaps Sazedium would be the same, not sure.

On Ati and Leras I would assume that as they're dead their spiritweb is somewhat redundant, you can't spike an ability out of a dead person (So far as we know)

Oh! I almost forgot, you are immune to the heat you produce while tapping Brass, but not immune to other sources of heat apparently, however storing heat was implied to be a good defence against a fire.

Edited September 27, 2012 by Voidus

[Kurkistan]

Ok, that's all I found that seemed mistborn-related so let's see if we can work something out from all this (Besides the fact that Catquisitors are going to rule the catmere)

The Catsmere, actually, and they will have to vie for dominance with Mistborn Llamas--though obviously the Catquisitors will win, what with their combination of Allomancy and Feruchemy (and all other useful combat magics) and natural fighting ability.

On a slightly less serious note, we do have non-tongue-in-cheek confirmation that Hemalurgy can give cats intelligence, as well as what amounts to confirmation that animals can receive Hemalurgic abilities.

Edited September 27, 2012 by Kurkistan

[Voidus]

We did have confirmation that Hemalurgy could be used on animals before, not sure if that means both as a recipient and donator or just a recipient, but going from the Blessings I'd say its both. I think that stapling pieces of a human soul onto animals should make them more intelligent so its good to have WoB on that too. That Q and A was a gold-mine of cosmere information, so excited to begin the baseless speculation!

[Riddlesinthedark]

I saw that too, I was wondering if he was just being sneaky and referring to Lerasium and its alloys which anyone can burn. Perhaps Sazedium would be the same, not sure.

On Ati and Leras I would assume that as they're dead their spiritweb is somewhat redundant, you can't spike an ability out of a dead person (So far as we know)

Oh! I almost forgot, you are immune to the heat you produce while tapping Brass, but not immune to other sources of heat apparently, however storing heat was implied to be a good defence against a fire.

Unless they weren't human anymore/ever/etc.

[Voidus]

I'm fairly convinced that the original Shardholders used to be human at least, now they would be slivers I suppose but I don't know that that would let you spike them once they're dead.

[Lance Alvein]

I believe that one of the things discussed as far as the bodies was that Ati/Leras created the Scadrians with pieces of Preservation and Ruin in them, but their own bodies would be unique in that they didn't have pieces of Preservation/Ruin when they were created (maybe they were created with pieces of Adonalsium instead?)

[Voidus]

Good point, it could just be for study purposes, it would be interesting to see the differences caused by Shardic creation vs. non-Shardic.

[Observer]

"7. Sazed seems to be doing something with Ruins power to keep it in balance with Preservations (Weaker due to Scadralians having more Preservation than Ruin) Please let this be more Atium..."

I always assumed he was creating a stream of Atium to keep Marsh alive, which has the dual purpose of chucking the excess Ruin in him.

[Voidus]

We've been told in interviews that Marsh had a limited amount and that without help he would eventually run out, this could be changed since it's not canon yet but from what we know it isn't going to Marsh, I don't think that would be enough either to restore the balance, I was thinking more the other type of Mists which now exist.

[Emeralis00]

Burning atium also sends it back to Ruin, so if it is atium, it would have to not be burned.

[Voidus]

Doesn't burning Atium almost certainly not send it back to Ruin? (Elend and his Seers kind of screwed up if that's the case) I think it just re accumulates at the pits.

[RenegadeShroom]

Burning atium also sends it back to Ruin, so if it is atium, it would have to not be burned.

I don't think that burning atium doesn't send it back to Ruin, otherwise having all those Seers at the end of HoA would have only helped Ruin and made him more powerful, and made it easier for him to defeat Vin, I'm certain of it. Somehow, after it's burned, the atium regenerates at the Pits. Ruin has to directly metabolise the atium to get the power back.

. . . Which means that if Sazed has been supplying Marsh with atium for ~300 years, then all that atium that Marsh is burning just returns to the pits, which Sazed could choose to leave there. Granted, that could be only a small fraction of the Ruin he's investing into Scadrial, but it is something to offset Ruin.

Edited September 27, 2012 by InsurrectionistFungus

[Voidus]

He could just periodically power someone's Hemalurgy to offset it, or actually power allomancy too since both Shards can power both.

[Millennium]

1. From one of my questions, Brandon has said that it would be possible for a copper ferring to store memories at a different strength, alone this is not particularly useful but combined with...

2. Compounding copper would do 'some things' this was in response to a question about the usefulness of some types of compounding, I doubt Brandon would have answered in this way if it would just duplicate memories or some other relatively useless variant of copper compounding. Combined with 1. I believe this is pretty strong evidence in favour of increasing the durability of the memory (You would recall a compounded memory forever with no memory degradation.) Now combine this with Hemalurgy and you have some seriously awesome stuff going on for Scadrial, store memory in coppermind, compound, store the memory again at the same strength as the initial memory, leaving you with a coppermind full of the memory as well as perfect recall without it. Hemalurgically spike for feruchemical and allomantic copper (Preferably on deathbed or in non-lethal manner) new compounder compounds the memories, gains perfect recall of them as well and repeats. Now everyone on scadrial is a walking encyclopaedia. I propose that this is Scadrials version of the internet (Sorry for taking so long on this one.)

One problem I can see with this is that it requires two spikes. Can Hemalurgy steal again from a spiritweb that has already been damaged by being stolen from in the past, or would it just tear an already-injured spiritweb apart? If the latter is the case, then you've got a case of diminishing returns: it takes two people to grant the abilities to one person.

However, there's another problem: population growth. Theoretically you could use spikes from one generation, taken from fresh corpses, to spike the next generation; that would sidestep the diminishing returns problem once you've got a good supply. But that only accounts for a fixed number of spikes. If the population grows, how do you make spikes for them?

[dyring]

5. Confirmation that objects are either all-in or all-out of a time bubble, however it also seemed to indicate that objects inside other objects are considered part of that object :S from the train example he seemed to say that people in a tran which passes through a time-bubble would not be affected. Not sure what to make of that.

This would have large implications on spacetravel for the last trilogy, but propably mostly negative?

For example you would then not be able to have a bubble inside the ship making time go slower for those inside(primitive cryosleep) unless you make it isolated somehow.

You couldent put a bubble on the engine to speed it up, making it give much more thrust then it normally would, again, unless there was some way to make it hang free, and so on.

Edited September 27, 2012 by dyring

[Voidus]

One problem I can see with this is that it requires two spikes. Can Hemalurgy steal again from a spiritweb that has already been damaged by being stolen from in the past, or would it just tear an already-injured spiritweb apart?

We don't know of any donors who have lived through being Hemalurgically stabbed so not sure, but you wouldn't need the spikes to be from the same person. The diminishing returns is gotten over because you could reuse the spikes, that's the whole point 2 spikes could theoretically give the entire population the memories, of course due to Hemalurgic decay the compounding would be less and less useful but I suppose the very first recipient could just create a number of copperminds and others would only need access to these through the spike.

[Kurkistan]

We also need to have some serious discussion about time bubbles. His response to my question about them was quite a bit different from how we've been treating them up until now, especially the train.

I feel that I (as a self appointed Mr. Time Bubbles) should start a new thread and theorize and all of that, but my head is really deep into the MEC right now, and I fear that I would either be sidetracked by Realmatic permutations or wouldn't be bold enough in my theorizing because of my biases and/or fear of disproving myself.

EDIT: Actually, I'll just throw up a really basic thread right now and start soliciting others to chime in.

Edited September 27, 2012 by Kurkistan

[Voidus]

Yeah that thing about the train has hugely messed with my perception of time-bubbles. If I get a good enough theory going on it I'll make a dedicated thread for it but atm I'm still processing it.

[Millennium]

We don't know of any donors who have lived through being Hemalurgically stabbed so not sure, but you wouldn't need the spikes to be from the same person. The diminishing returns is gotten over because you could reuse the spikes, that's the whole point 2 spikes could theoretically give the entire population the memories, of course due to Hemalurgic decay the compounding would be less and less useful but I suppose the very first recipient could just create a number of copperminds and others would only need access to these through the spike.

The problem is that if you can only make one spike per person, then you can only make a number of spike sets equal to, at most, half of the "source" population. That works out if your "recipient" population is only half of that size, but that won't be the case unless Scadrial is in the middle of a population crisis. As the population grows, you'll also need more spike sets to accommodate that growth.

[Voidus]

But that's why I referred to being able to store a memory at different strengths, the compounder could retain the information perfectly without the need of copperminds and so wouldn't need the spikes, which could be passed on to someone else. 1 set of spikes could grant the entire population complete recall.

[Odium's_Shard]

Shout out to 6. and 8. for being directly from me (about the magic systems and bindpoints) and from me through Kurkistan (about stealing Shardblades Hemalurgically)!

Excellent questions, guys! Hope to see discussion expanded as a result. Especially about what I will dub Hypo-External Hemalurgic Practice (HEMP, for short) to describe Hemalurgy in other systems!