Shardblades and Hemalurgic Decay

**Kurkistan** · October 4, 2012

A good point about the awakened object functioning even after the color has stopped being drained, but Breaths are already providing a seemingly endless supply of energy inside the user. Vivenna, for example, gains resistance to illness and aging, and she can detect other people, because of the breaths she holds. This is actually rather similar to hemalurgy: koloss, for example, don't need calories to function, and their strength is permanently increased. As long as the actual effect of awakening in the imbuing of breaths, then the fact that color isn't constantly drained is to be expected.

Regardless, we know that in many magic systems, something is consumed in the use of magic (metals, stormlight, colors, and usually aons). We know that aons and metals act as gateways. This isn't a definite trend (its only two out of four), but if there is a pattern, then colors are likely gateways.

I'm totally fine with Breaths providing infinite energy: they're Spiritual constructs, that's kind of what they do.

I suppose I'm misunderstanding what you can even mean by "gateway," though, if the gateway "the color" can be long gone while the magic keeps working indefinitely.

There seem to be two ways a shard can fuel magic, but these are different things. Allomancy, for example, channels the energy of creation. So, it seems to be tapping into Preservation's power, but in a passive, non-conscious sort of way. We might say that it is fueled by Preservation, but Preservation isn't fueling it. In contrast, Preservation can actively fuel allomancy as well (see Elend and Vin). In the first instance, one has to use metals as gateways to let that power out. In the second instance, the metals don't seem to be needed at all (Elend was out). Presumably in this manner, Preservation is opening the gateway between the individual and the power itself. Since the power still has to enter the physical realm and it still has to be directed, it seems likely that Preservation is opening the gateways itself. If Preservation and Ruin can directly fuel feruchemy, then it is likely that they are taking advantage of the established processes.

Preservation and Ruin could mess with Feruchemy by tweaking the Spiritual aspects of metalminds or with the energy as it's in transit from the metalmind's reserve to the Spiritual aspect of its user. We know that it's possible, since Ruin messed with Copperminds. We also know that Ruin messed with them either while they were not being used or at the moment of their use, meaning that, in a gateway model, Ruin can't just utilize/open gateways, he has to be able to subtly alter gateways and/or add and erase gateways in metalminds.

First, it should be noted that our understanding of feruchemy is incorrect. Metalminds seem to be seen as batteries: you charge it with energy, then take that energy back, but it is the exact "same" energy. However, if that were the case, then neither Preservation nor Ruin could "fuel" it because the power is never coming from creation. We know that they both can fuel it, so the energy must come from the power of creation.

Your argument was that Ruin and Preservation could only fuel Feruchemy if they were the same power, fundamentally: the power of creation; that like nourishes like, and thus all is water, essentially. All is water, though!

All Investiture is essentially the power of creation. Shards just have a storming ton of it at their disposal, and utilize it for their own ends. Hemalurgy can steal everything, so everything Hemalurgy can steal must be fundamentally the same. The Investiture that Feruchemists put into their metalminds is their own, then, generated by their own bodies and souls and minds. But that Investiture is still fundamentally similar to the power of all shards, so the shards can fuel it if they want to. Problems of efficiency and nature of power transfer for different shards (Ruin not liking to fuel Allomancy) can be chalked up to intent or maybe some unknown factor. But all shards can fuel all magic systems.

There is a fundamental problem with that theory. Namely, it should result in an end-negative system. To illustrate: a feruchemist stores 10 points of weight, they push that weight forward in time (possibly indefinitely!), and then remove 10 points of weight. Where is the energy for that push through time coming from? And, since there isn't a set expiration date, where does the extra energy come to keep pushing the attribute forward through time? If the power of creation isn't involved, the energy would have to come from the user. But we know that 10 points in is 10 points out. We could suppose that the power of creation is what is allowing the power to be pushed forward, but then, neither Ruin nor Preservation would really be able to actively fuel it: they could provide more energy to push attributes through time, but if a feruchemist didn't store it, then they couldn't provide it. Indeed, given that there aren't any known limitations on how long a feruchemical charge can be stored, the active intervention of Preservation or Ruin at this point would be entirely useless.

I think now you're taking this a bit literally . If you read my and Satsuoni's followups on what exactly time-shuttling entails, you'll see that the way that the attribute is not necessarily being "pushed" at all times. It gets slotted into a functionally non-temporal void and then pulled out later. No need for a continuous energy stream to keep it going, and the universe doesn't break if it's left in that void forever. The reason we conceive of it as "time shuttled" is because of the necessity of retaining the unique strengths/characteristics of each moment of storage, as opposed to just throwing it all into a bucket and calling it a well.

As for the energy required to push/pull the attributes out in the first place, I think we can safely rub that away as a rounding error, assuming that 1:1 pushes/pulls take some very small amount of energy, say 0.00000001% of a 10% storage or tap. Either that or the shards provide a bit of a boost, but not enough to really be called "end positive," especially since Feruchemists wouldn't really directly benefit from that extra energy beyond it enabling them to store/tap their own attributes.

EDIT: I'm more inclined towards the second option, on reflection. Recall that it's the presence of Shards that enables magic, so taking a smidgen of outside power to allow the transference of your own power is fine by me.

Regarding the theoryland quote, the energy loss seems to be entirely an effect of tapping, not storing. Storage seems to happen under the following equation: E*1T=S. E is the effective amount of energy being stored, T is the period of time it is being stored for, S is the total storage, and 1 is the compounding factor (it could be represented by X here, but in storing, X=1, so I've simplified it). In contrast, tapping seems to function (ideally) like this: E=S/XT. E is still effective power, S is still the total storage, T is still time, and X is the compounding variable (here, it can be 1, but it can also be anything else). You can only store at the rate of X=1 (thus, one time unit per time unit), but you can tap at different rates. The smaller X, the greater E, and the reverse. However, since there is that rate of loss when compounding, we know that this isn't the exact equation. Since there isn't a loss when not compounding, we also know that when X=1, there is no loss. Hence why storing (which always functions at X=1) has no loss associated with it. The actual tapping equation is probably something like E=S/(T(X-Q)) where Q = the square root of X or some such. Which is to say, how much you store at a time would never ever ever ever ever (that's four ever's ) influence the rate of loss, because the compounding factor isn't a variable in storage, but is in tapping.

Yes, I agree, tapping is where the loss comes in and not storing. Good.

Perhaps I'm not reading your equations closely enough, but you don't seem to account for why Brandon would say that "You get 1 for 1 back...For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour." That's a general answer for all possible levels of storage, all of them getting 1:1. Please tell me how that can be modeled without knowing how much of an attribute was stored at a time when it was originally put in the metalmind.

As for the Ars Arcanum in AoL calling Feruchemy a "time-shuttling" process, I think you're taking the comment far too literally:
<missing quote>

The "metal acts as a medium" seems to indicate that this is a simile. A robot might behave "as" a man, but we understand that a robot isn't a man. Likewise, the metal might act as a time shuttling process, but we should understand that it isn't a time shuttling process. Likewise, the metal is like a medium by which, but we should know that it isn't actually a medium by which.

Okay, "acts as a place to store the attributes between use." Time shuttling is an abstraction, one that I'm fine with because of how useful it is in discussing how exactly attributes are stored and tapped, namely with efficiency of tapping being a function of how large your quanta of storage are.

But don't we know from Vin and Sazed's experiment that an allomancer could still use the metal as normal? Alas, I don't have my book with me right now, but I thought she could. If so, then a feruchemical charge shouldn't inherently alter an allomantic one. It might overlay, but the allomantic makeup would still be preserved and accessible.

Yes, she could burn it as normal. That's very good, actually. I'd forgotten. In that case, it has to be the Spiritual make up of the metalmind which the Allomantic energy reacts to. As I said, I vastly prefer that, and it seems that now (oh so sadly ) we don't have a choice. Thanks.

It isn't nearly as complex as you make it out to be. Your brain does it rather nicely without you paying any attention at all, and your entire lifetime of memories can fit in about 3 lb of mostly-watery goo. The metalminds that Sazed is said to wear sound far more impressive than that, but also can contain far less. Further, we know that Sazed used his metalminds to store books (well, his memory of the words he had recited to him: it doesn't appear that these memories put every aspect of the experience back into him mind). Warbreaker is around 1 gb, by itself. I bet there are three difference devices within twenty feet of you that could easily handle that requirement, all of which could easily be carted around with you. To further and further emphasize the point, a single cell in your body contains roughly 1.5 gigabytes of information in its copy of your DNA. This information is copied entirely automatically: no oversight required. Easy, breezy, beautifully simple.

Well said and good point. Still, though, I am somewhat worried about exactly how much information we're really allowed to put in these gateways, considering that now we have individual gateways:

1) Acting as gateways to Feruchemical power

2) Keyed to specific individuals

3) Not interfering with Allomantic power

4) Storing large amounts of fairly complex, specific memory

It's not impossible, but does look a bit daunting to be just a gateway that's "burned" onto a metal (if I understand your theory correctly).

That's a bit of a non-sequitur. But I think you are again making things appear more complex than they are. We know that allomancy is fueled by the power of creation. We know that the power of creation can fuel feruchemy. Thus, because they are alike, we can theorize on shared principles. Are shardblades fueled at all? And if so, by what? We don't know enough about them to comment intelligibly.

That's why I had the "---" above it. It signifies separation.

I think it's fair to say that all Investiture is a form of the power of creation. Shards are composed of it and it kind of makes the world go 'round, by my understanding. Hemalurgy can steal everything under multiple suns. Allomancers can't push/pull shardblades effectively because they're Invested. Brandon uses this same terminology of "investiture" for every Cosmere world and magic system. I'm going to say that they're the all operating on the same principles.

As for burning "invested" objects in general, I suspect one would also have odd things happen if one awoke invested objects. In either case, one is mixing different forms of power. It is as simple as that. Mix eggs with salt and pepper, and you get a tasty breakfast. Mix eggs with brownie mix, and you get a delicious dessert. I'm not seeing what is supposed to be complex about this.

You're right. We're not sure of what would happen. But the reason why all those ingredients interact is because they're all tangible, ultimately. If Feruchemy and Feruchemy alone is "imprinted on the molecular structure of the metal," and Allomancy is reacting to those imprinted gateways, then Allomancy really shouldn't mind at all if Nightblood, who is invested purely on a level above the Physical, is the one being burned.

There wouldn't be any gateways in Nightblood's metal for the power to be diverted through, no power to access. The two would be operating on fundamentally different planes of existence, and so could not meaningfully interact. Therefore, the power of Allomancy has to react to Spiritual ques, strengthening the possibility of Feruchemy operating on that level as well.

Edited October 4, 2012 by Kurkistan

Thought · October 4, 2012

I'm totally fine with Breaths providing infinite energy: they're Spiritual constructs, that's kind of what they do.

I suppose I'm misunderstanding what you can even mean by "gateway," though, if the gateway "the color" can be long gone while the magic keeps working indefinitely.

Oh that's simple, I got the term from Sanderson. I even think it's been quoted or referenced here a few times... Actually, yes, and from you:

Apparently the physical molecular structure of a metal is what allows Allomancy...

In allomancy, the metal is a gateway, it works the same way as an aon (although, I suspect that allomancy isn't powered by the Dor, since that's been implied to be Sel specific). As for why a magical effect can keep going, I think that might be answered by a basic principle of physics: an object in motion tends to stay in motion (and note how Sanderson said that blood-in-motion is important to hemalurgy). When Vin used duralumin to catapult herself away from Luthadel, her steel reserves were burned up in an instant, but she kept going. The gateway is what allows the power to cross over, and what gives that power shape. But, once it sets things in motion, normal laws apply. So, in awakening, possibly (but this is just pure speculation) the colors release energy that sets breaths in motion, binding them to a construct. Probably this actually works in tandem with the user's mind (the colors let the power flood in, the user's mind shapes that power) to form a complete structure. Since the powers already been brought over and put to work, it will continue in that direction, such as Vin did, until acted upon by external forces (say, by the object becoming so damaged that it needs more breath, at which point, probably, one more color is drained).

Preservation and Ruin could mess with Feruchemy by tweaking the Spiritual aspects of metalminds or with the energy as it's in transit from the metalmind's reserve to the Spiritual aspect of its user.

Both of which would already be part of the normal system I proposed, neither of which would be natural based on shuttling the attribute (indeed, by being out of time, the attributes should be immune from Ruin's power). Since we know that Preservation can influence gateways in allomancy, it makes sense that both could influence gateways in feruchemy. We know that Ruin can't affect the spiritual aspect of people directly (unless they are damaged): influencing the spiritual aspect of what is stored in an undamaged coppermind is an ability we don't see elsewhere.

I think now you're taking this a bit literally . If you read my and Satsuoni's followups on what exactly time-shuttling entails, you'll see that the way that the attribute is not necessarily being "pushed" at all times.

I thought I had added a note about that. Sorry, I must have cut in in my attempt to make that response shorter (yes, I was successful in making it shorter: I tend to be even more ridiculously verbose). Pushing an attribute out of time is even worse. Allow me to give an example. Go outside, try to push a little kid on a bike down a street. Yay, you are pushing that kid through the third dimension. Now, go outside, try to push that kid out of the third dimension entirely. Good luck.

Removing something from time might be possible, but it should require quite a bit more power than just pushing it through time. So your "solution" only ups the power requirement. Look at allomancy: the end-positive power of burning cadium or bendalloy allows you to push or pull time just a little. Allomancy is the power that can allow a feruchemist to live forever, to instantly heal almost all wounds, etc. And it can't even push things far enough into the future to get to next Thursday, let alone outside of time itself. For being an end-neutral system, feruchemy is wasting a lot of power.

Perhaps I'm not reading your equations closely enough, but you don't seem to account for why Brandon would say that "You get 1 for 1 back...For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour." That's a general answer for all possible levels of storage, all of them getting 1:1. Please tell me how that can be modeled without knowing how much of an attribute was stored at a time when it was originally put in the metalmind.

I am not sure I understanding your question: could you rephrase it? It sort of sounds like you are asking how we can solve for E without knowing any variables.

Okay, "acts as a place to store the attributes between use." Time shuttling is an abstraction...

Exactly. The thing is, the exact same abstraction could be used to describe the battery theory, the bucket theory, or the gateway theory. Saying that Ars Arcanum supports shuttle theory because it uses that phrase as a simile isn't very persuasive. I am not saying that the theory is wrong (not here, at least), just that the evidence used is wrong.

It's not impossible, but does look a bit daunting to be just a gateway that's "burned" onto a metal (if I understand your theory correctly).

Not really sure about the specific mechanics of establishing a gateway. Perhaps normally iron has a left-wise resonance, and creating a feruchemical gateway gives it a spasitudinal resonance. That doesn't take away or diminish the left-wise resonance, but both resonances are there are the same time. And if they could be accessed together, you'd get something different than each being accessed individually. But as I said, I'm not sure of the nitty gritty of it.

That's why I had the "---" above it. It signifies separation.

Oh, I meant a non-sequitor in general. Shardblades hadn't been talked about in roughly two pages. It was kind of random that it got brought up again. Its interesting how a topic about shardblades could discuss them so little.

I think it's fair to say that all Investiture is a form of the power of creation. Shards are composed of it and it kind of makes the world go 'round, by my understanding. Hemalurgy can steal everything under multiple suns. Allomancers can't push/pull shardblades effectively because they're Invested. Brandon uses this same terminology of "investiture" for every Cosmere world and magic system. I'm going to say that they're the all operating on the same principles.

It's all investiture, but I was talking about magic in specific. The interesting compounding effects of a twinborn come from fueling feruchemy with allomancy, right? Magic system interacting with a magic system. Now, how would one fuel the one ring with allomancy? What would that even mean? The problem here is that principles governing how magic systems might interact with each other can't apply to things that aren't magic systems, even if they are still invested. When people speculate about what might happen if an allomancer burned nightblood, they are closer to talking about what might happen if an allomancer burned an atium/lerasium alloy, rather than discussing something analogous to how feruchemy can be fueled by allomancy.

Allomancy would treat burning a metalmind differently than burning nightblood because they are fundamentally different things (you noted this, so maybe we are talking about the same thing and not realizing the other is agreeing?). Magic system v magical object. The danger might be simply in removing the physical "body" of the investiture without leaving any place for that power to go. Assuming that nightblood was originally made from iron, and assuming it still had the same molecular structure, an allomancer could probably use it to pull on metals. And then explode from all the wild breaths that are bound to an object that no longer exists and which are still under the command to destroy evil. Burning their home probably counts as evil. And I don't think you can sheath free floating breaths, either. The consequences might be entirely in removing the housing for a crapton of power. However, if a mistborn/awakener stored 100 breaths in an iron ingot, they might be able to burn that to then awaken a sword like nightblood (which requires 1000 breaths, if I recall correctly). No real evidence for that, just guessing at how a possible magic/magic (rather than magic/not-magic) interaction would work.

The fact that Vin is able to burn Sazed's metalbind without a problem, I think, firmly underscores the likelihood that the attribute is not stored in the metalmind itself (though I don't think anyone war arguing that. Just saying). Metalmind are fundamentally different things than nightblood or (probably) shardblades.

As a side note, it is interesting that allomancers seem to not have a problem pushing on metalminds, as long as they aren't piercing someone's body. That implies that metalminds have no investiture (or just low amounts). Oddly enough, same with atium. It seems like that should be heavily invested. I suspect that means I don't properly understand investiture (but then, who does?).

EDIT: I'm more inclined towards the second option, on reflection. Recall that it's the presence of Shards that enables magic, so taking a smidgen of outside power to allow the transference of your own power is fine by me.

I suggested the same, but that is problematic. To sum up again, if the power to move an attribute around is coming from a shard, then it seems likely that when a shard fuels the magic system, the power is going to the same place. In allomancy, normally power comes passively from Preservation, but Preservation can also shove it down Elend's throat, as it were. In this case, Preservation fueling feruchemy would mean that it just shoves attributes around. Unless there are attributes there in the first place, there would be no real difference. We already know that a Feruchemist can't tap energy stored by someone else, so neither could Preservation just fill up metalminds for the Feruchemist to tap. Any mistborn can burn iron: that power is easy to provide. Preservation really needs to be involved in the normal process of fueling to get around the identity lock and to actually make a difference.

**Kurkistan** · October 5, 2012

Oh that's simple, I got the term from Sanderson. I even think it's been quoted or referenced here a few times... Actually, yes, and from you:

<missing quote>

In allomancy, the metal is a gateway, it works the same way as an aon (although, I suspect that allomancy isn't powered by the Dor, since that's been implied to be Sel specific). As for why a magical effect can keep going, I think that might be answered by a basic principle of physics: an object in motion tends to stay in motion (and note how Sanderson said that blood-in-motion is important to hemalurgy). When Vin used duralumin to catapult herself away from Luthadel, her steel reserves were burned up in an instant, but she kept going. The gateway is what allows the power to cross over, and what gives that power shape. But, once it sets things in motion, normal laws apply. So, in awakening, possibly (but this is just pure speculation) the colors release energy that sets breaths in motion, binding them to a construct. Probably this actually works in tandem with the user's mind (the colors let the power flood in, the user's mind shapes that power) to form a complete structure. Since the powers already been brought over and put to work, it will continue in that direction, such as Vin did, until acted upon by external forces (say, by the object becoming so damaged that it needs more breath, at which point, probably, one more color is drained).

I'm aware of where you got the term, thank you. I was referring to your use of it, since a long-destroyed splotch of color isn't up to being a gateway for continuous power, by my understanding of the term.

There's a difference between objects staying in motion and a continuous supply of new power. Awakened objects can continually do things for quite awhile, implying some kind of continuous energy stream, no? We have no case of an object with no magical power simply continuing to be magical: Vin went flying to the ground as soon as the physical momentum that resulted from her Push was exhausted.

I'm fine with Breath providing that continuous energy, and even with colors allowing the Breath to transfer in the first place, but not with color acting as a "gateway" for that continuous energy to come through. Color can move Breath around all it wants, but something else has to take over and supply the energy once the color is gone, so that color cannot be the true gateway for Awakening.

Both of which would already be part of the normal system I proposed, neither of which would be natural based on shuttling the attribute (indeed, by being out of time, the attributes should be immune from Ruin's power). Since we know that Preservation can influence gateways in allomancy, it makes sense that both could influence gateways in feruchemy. We know that Ruin can't affect the spiritual aspect of people directly (unless they are damaged): influencing the spiritual aspect of what is stored in an undamaged coppermind is an ability we don't see elsewhere.

Harmony man, you keep misinterpreting that "out of time" business. It's an abstraction. The attribute is stored somewhere for awhile, presumably experiencing the passage of time as well as attributes are able to have experience, but simply does not decay and is available for retrieval.

Ruin can access copperminds somehow. That is a fact. I also think its fair to say that even an "undamaged coppermind" is probably a bit less resilient than a living, breathing, Preservation-endowed, sentient person, even one who's vulnerable. It's an object's Spiritual strength as compared to a person's. The object will probably lose in that comparison. There's also the possibility that Ruin works in the transition phase, when the energy is flowing between aspects, when it would be even more vulnerable.

I thought I had added a note about that. Sorry, I must have cut in in my attempt to make that response shorter (yes, I was successful in making it shorter: I tend to be even more ridiculously verbose). Pushing an attribute out of time is even worse. Allow me to give an example. Go outside, try to push a little kid on a bike down a street. Yay, you are pushing that kid through the third dimension. Now, go outside, try to push that kid out of the third dimension entirely. Good luck.
Removing something from time might be possible, but it should require quite a bit more power than just pushing it through time. So your "solution" only ups the power requirement. Look at allomancy: the end-positive power of burning cadium or bendalloy allows you to push or pull time just a little. Allomancy is the power that can allow a feruchemist to live forever, to instantly heal almost all wounds, etc. And it can't even push things far enough into the future to get to next Thursday, let alone outside of time itself. For being an end-neutral system, feruchemy is wasting a lot of power.

Throw that kid in a stasis pod for a year. Then open the pod. Yay. Time shuttling is storage with a level of abstraction to--once again--account for the retention of exact rates of storage for exact intervals of time, which your system still massively fails to account for.

I am not sure I understanding your question: could you rephrase it? It sort of sounds like you are asking how we can solve for E without knowing any variables.

The problem is that you lack any variables to even represent the discrete intervals of storage. "Energy" is just a big blob, when it should be a set of tuples:

Ex:

S[n] = <Energy(n),Time(n)>

S[n+1] = <Energy(n+1), Time(n+1)>

So:

S[0] = <50kg, 1 hr>

s[1] = <20kg, 4 hr>

...

---

You need to account for the different sizes of these quanta in order to accurately model Feruchemy, and your equations don't.

---

EDIT: You could save some space/conceptualization by adding together the times for tupples that store the same energy, so <10kg, 1hr> and <10kg, 3hr> becomes <10kg,4hr>.

There is a potential problem with how exactly all of this is accessed, specifically in what order. I would guess that it's accessed from most->least efficient relatively automatically.

We already know that there's an impressive ability for a Feruchemist to consciously pick out memories from a Coppermind without necessarily searching through all of them (I don't think we ever saw Sazed dumping his entire Coppermind, finding a memory, then putting everything else back in)--in real time no less--so some robust search mechanism must be chilling out in the backend, perhaps even just some unconscious part of the Feruchemist's Spiritual aspect.

Exactly. The thing is, the exact same abstraction could be used to describe the battery theory, the bucket theory, or the gateway theory. Saying that Ars Arcanum supports shuttle theory because it uses that phrase as a simile isn't very persuasive. I am not saying that the theory is wrong (not here, at least), just that the evidence used is wrong.

Yes, but saying "they send attributes forward in time" is a much quicker, more accurate way to describe this system of variable quanta because it still is, in essence what is happening. Everything else that I've been outlining--metalminds as storage units in the Spiritual realm, etc.--has been a mere mechanism to enable this end result.

As far as the end-user is concerned, all that is happening is that he's sending attributes forward in time and then collecting on them later. That's called good software design: get all the nitty-gritty out of the way and let people fight with magic.

To reiterate, the end user can quite accurately say that his is shuttling attributes forward through time by using his metalminds as media, blissfully unaware of the complexities underlying it. He can say this because that's essentially how the system works at the end of the day, and really is a fair description of its behavior and end results.

Allomancy has been described as "burning metals to get power," but no one seriously suggests that the metals are the source of that power. But, when you have to describe it in a few sentences that still describe the basics of the system and allow a working knowledge of its effects, you still end up saying essentially "they burn metals to get magic powers" without getting into the mechanistic details of it.

On this note of simplicity, of hiding the unnecessary details of the process, I would hazard that saying "act as a medium" is less question-provoking then "acts as a place to store the attributes between use," given that the author was previously talking about time-shuttling without even a hint of storage. I agree that it's not definite proof, but I don't think you can just dismiss it out of hand.

Not really sure about the specific mechanics of establishing a gateway. Perhaps normally iron has a left-wise resonance, and creating a feruchemical gateway gives it a spasitudinal resonance. That doesn't take away or diminish the left-wise resonance, but both resonances are there are the same time. And if they could be accessed together, you'd get something different than each being accessed individually. But as I said, I'm not sure of the nitty gritty of it.

Fair enough. Moving on.

Oh, I meant a non-sequitor in general. Shardblades hadn't been talked about in roughly two pages. It was kind of random that it got brought up again. Its interesting how a topic about shardblades could discuss them so little.

I was talking about a different aspect of Shardblades, namely their Allomantic volatility. Sorry for any confusion.

It's all investiture, but I was talking about magic in specific. The interesting compounding effects of a twinborn come from fueling feruchemy with allomancy, right? Magic system interacting with a magic system. Now, how would one fuel the one ring with allomancy? What would that even mean? The problem here is that principles governing how magic systems might interact with each other can't apply to things that aren't magic systems, even if they are still invested. When people speculate about what might happen if an allomancer burned nightblood, they are closer to talking about what might happen if an allomancer burned an atium/lerasium alloy, rather than discussing something analogous to how feruchemy can be fueled by allomancy.
Allomancy would treat burning a metalmind differently than burning nightblood because they are fundamentally different things (you noted this, so maybe we are talking about the same thing and not realizing the other is agreeing?). Magic system v magical object. The danger might be simply in removing the physical "body" of the investiture without leaving any place for that power to go. Assuming that nightblood was originally made from iron, and assuming it still had the same molecular structure, an allomancer could probably use it to pull on metals. And then explode from all the wild breaths that are bound to an object that no longer exists and which are still under the command to destroy evil. Burning their home probably counts as evil. And I don't think you can sheath free floating breaths, either. The consequences might be entirely in removing the housing for a crapton of power. However, if a mistborn/awakener stored 100 breaths in an iron ingot, they might be able to burn that to then awaken a sword like nightblood (which requires 1000 breaths, if I recall correctly). No real evidence for that, just guessing at how a possible magic/magic (rather than magic/not-magic) interaction would work.

The fact that Vin is able to burn Sazed's metalbind without a problem, I think, firmly underscores the likelihood that the attribute is not stored in the metalmind itself (though I don't think anyone war arguing that. Just saying). Metalmind are fundamentally different things than nightblood or (probably) shardblades.

As a side note, it is interesting that allomancers seem to not have a problem pushing on metalminds, as long as they aren't piercing someone's body. That implies that metalminds have no investiture (or just low amounts). Oddly enough, same with atium. It seems like that should be heavily invested. I suspect that means I don't properly understand investiture (but then, who does?).

Ok, I see your point. I suppose it was just a misunderstanding.

I would hazard that atium and metalminds are just very lightly invested, but still invested. Marsh pushing on Szeth's shardblade would be hard, not impossible, and those things are so powerful that they're essentially middle fingers to nature.

I suggested the same, but that is problematic. To sum up again, if the power to move an attribute around is coming from a shard, then it seems likely that when a shard fuels the magic system, the power is going to the same place. In allomancy, normally power comes passively from Preservation, but Preservation can also shove it down Elend's throat, as it were. In this case, Preservation fueling feruchemy would mean that it just shoves attributes around. Unless there are attributes there in the first place, there would be no real difference. We already know that a Feruchemist can't tap energy stored by someone else, so neither could Preservation just fill up metalminds for the Feruchemist to tap. Any mistborn can burn iron: that power is easy to provide. Preservation really needs to be involved in the normal process of fueling to get around the identity lock and to actually make a difference.

The normal process would be like this, I imagine:

Feruchemist: "Hey, non-guided power of the Shards, do you mind putting this letter full of money on that shelf over there? I can't reach."

Non-guided power: "Sure thing bud." *moves power of attribute to metalmind*

F: "Thanks pally!"

NGP: "No problem bro. Remember though, I didn't put any money in the envelope!"

F: "Ha ha ha! Why would I expect you to do that? It's my money that I'm saving up, I just needed a bit of help to keep it safe."

NGP: "Right you are!"

---

F: "Hey NGP, I need to get 10,000 envelopes at the same time!"

NGP: "That's a bit steep man. You're gonna have to help me out a bit!"

F: "Oh man, now I have to spend some of my money to hire workers to help me get the rest of my money out from storage!"

NGP: "You should have planned ahead better, or had fewer, but larger envelopes."

F: "<sarcasm>Thanks for that advice bro. Really helpful.</s>

NGP:

We know from the RPG that Feruchemists can transfer Investiture between their own metalminds. More importantly, they can use their own Investiture to disable other Feruchemist's metalminds by dumping in excess, wrong-keyed investiture and overwriting the other Feruchemist's attributes. So even normal Feruchemists have some access to other people's metalminds. I imagine that Preservation/Ruin could be a bit more gentle about it and put in accessible energy, and I wouldn't be surprised if Feruchemists can willingly transfer right-keyed Investiture between themselves somehow.

EDIT: I also wouldn't be surprised if, failing a non-wipey way to add Investiture to metalminds directly, Ruin/Preservation were simply capable of hijacking the input stream whenever the Feruchemist tapped and throwing in more power, like conscious compounding.

We also know that the powers are fundamentally the same, since Investiture can directly fuel other Feruchemical attributes and TLR was planning on Nicrosiling the Well of Ascension.

Edited October 5, 2012 by Kurkistan

Odium's_Shard · October 5, 2012

Thanks for coming to my rescue back there Kurkistan! I'm afraid I haven't the time to read this war you're having with Thought, but with support from your 'shuttling' theory, I will be back to reignite my 'spirit locker' point, with the metalmind as the Spiritual object.

One point I would like to make before leaving, apologies if it has already been mentioned, but the 'limbo-space' you feel that the attributes are placed in for withdrawal, could effectively be the Spiritual Realm, and the metalmind's locker within that, because we have no idea how the passage of time works in the Spiritual or Cionitive Realm. For all we know, the Spiritual Realm being a Realm of just power might mean it has no need for time until it is entwined with the Physical Realm. We know from Shallan that time isn't what it seems when in the Cognitive Realm.

**Kurkistan** · October 5, 2012

Thanks for coming to my rescue back there Kurkistan! I'm afraid I haven't the time to read this war you're having with Thought, but with support from your 'shuttling' theory, I will be back to reignite my 'spirit locker' point, with the metalmind as the Spiritual object.

One point I would like to make before leaving, apologies if it has already been mentioned, but the 'limbo-space' you feel that the attributes are placed in for withdrawal, could effectively be the Spiritual Realm, and the metalmind's locker within that, because we have no idea how the passage of time works in the Spiritual or Cionitive Realm. For all we know, the Spiritual Realm being a Realm of just power might mean it has no need for time until it is entwined with the Physical Realm. We know from Shallan that time isn't what it seems when in the Cognitive Realm.

No problem. Us insane theorizers have to stick together! I don't think "war" is quite the right word for this discussion, though.

*Enters Gristled WWII Vet mode*

This is no war, son. This is a convivial discussion over tea and crumpets compared to real war.

*Exit GWWIIV mode*

Actually, this is quite pleasant. Thought and I are actually kind of listening to each other and developing our arguments along the way, rather than just standing our ground and trying to see who blinks first. It's more so a spirited debate than a war.

That's a good point on possible timelessness in the Spiritual realm.

Thought · October 5, 2012

I'm aware of where you got the term, thank you.

Ah, sorry. Since I was using it in the same way that Sanderson was using it, only switching out the nouns, I had thought that your confusion with me was a confusion with the quote. Anywho, moving on.

There's a difference between objects staying in motion and a continuous supply of new power.

You are assuming a continuous supply of new power where a continuous supply of new power has yet to be proven necessary. This is a reasonable assumption, but one that Sanderson's books have already muddled.

To illustrate: do you remember Monk CrazyPants' story about his mother? How an aon was used on her, it went wrong, and then she was turned into an incomplete Elantrin? We know that aons act as gateways because Sanderson directly said so. As an aon drawn and activated in the air, it should have disappeared afterwards. Incomplete elantrins don't need to eat. Somehow, they are still getting the energy to survive. We might suppose that for normal incomplete Elantrins, a trickle of power is still getting through Elantris to sustain them. But for this woman, Elantris was still working at full power. Clearly, it wasn't fueling her. Unfortunately,the aon that transformed this woman, and thus the gateway it represents, disappeared, as many aons are want to do. How was she sustained?

Either some things are able to support themselves without an obvious influx of power, or some things are able to continue to draw power through a gateway even after that gateway seems to have disappeared. While color might not actually be the gateway for awakening, your objections just don't jive with the rest of the cosmere. This isn't to say that color actually IS the gateway for Awakening, just that such a supposition would fit with what we already know.

However, reading the Ars Arcanum for AoL again, I noticed that the conversation of gateways was specifically in reference to end-positive systems. It might be that end-neutral and end-negative systems don't use gateways at all (or, if so, in fundamentally different manners). If so, then we could nicely identify AonDor as end-positive. And given the similarities between Awakening and Feruchemy, I think we'd have a good argument for saying that Awakening is end-neutral (and thus not subject to the gates required for everything else). This is just a possible different interpretation, though.

Awakened objects can continually do things for quite awhile, implying some kind of continuous energy stream, no? We have no case of an object with no magical power simply continuing to be magical...

No. See above. But for specifics, we do not know the means of powering shardblades, Returned, Lifeless, or even Nightblood. It is reasonable to suspect that they are being powered, but there is no evidence of it. Without knowing how those things are powered, and how that power is getting to them, we can't really speculate. As far as we know, each of those is an object with no magical power source that simply continues to be magical.

Harmony man, you keep misinterpreting that "out of time" business. It's an abstraction. The attribute is stored somewhere for awhile, presumably experiencing the passage of time as well as attributes are able to have experience, but simply does not decay and is available for retrieval.

First, +1 for that AoL curse.

Also, I think I see where you are coming from, Kurk. Sorry for getting hung up on "time": all your talk about time made me think that you were talking about time-y time, not non-time-y time. I realize now that this is not the time to talk about time. We don't have the time. It is just making things far too wibbly wobbely, timey wimey.

Anywho, it sounds like what you are actually suggesting would better fit the battery analogy: store energy into the repository now, get it back later, with the different rates of storage producing different size batteries (say, storing 80% for an hour now gives you a D Cell to use later, while 20% now gives you a AAA cell). Or perhaps a piggy bank analogy, in which attributes are saved for a rainy day. Or the bucket analogy. Or really anything that doesn't involve time. At all. Because, as you noted, you're not actually talking about time.

Even as an abstraction, time just doesn't work well for what you claim that you are describing. It's like trying to describe a refrigerator by saying that it shuttles food to the future. As far as an abstraction goes, that is one way of looking it. But it's an odd, misleading, and unclear sort of way.

Or perhaps you see some benefit to your time-but-not-really-time shuttle theory that I'm overlooking?

Ruin can access copperminds somehow. That is a fact... There's also the possibility that Ruin works in the transition phase, when the energy is flowing between aspects, when it would be even more vulnerable.

It's a fact not in debate. However, when he adjusts the information, that's where the disagreement is. It seems like everyone's good with the possibility that it happens in transit. Which, in general, just makes a lot more sense than affecting it in something that he can't see.

You need to account for the different sizes of these quanta in order to accurately model Feruchemy, and your equations don't.

It looks like you are again trying to make things too complex. The umph behind your "descrete intervals of time" seems to be "what happens if a Feruchemist store 50 points of strength of an hour one day, 100 points for an hour the next, then draws them both at once for thirty minutes." If so, then my equations and Math Itself already takes that into account. For example, what do you do if you want to find the total volume of two differnet cones? Why, you just add the two specific instances of the volume equation together. You don't complain that the normal equation doesn't account for the differences between quanta. That would just be crazypants. Likewise with this.

Steve the Feruchemist stores 50 points of strength for one hour. S=50*1(60), S=3000

Steve then also stores 100 points of strenght for 2 hours. S=100*1(120), S=12000

Now, Steve the Feruchemist wants to tap his entire reserves for half an hour. What is his effective strenght?

E=(S1/X1*T1)+(S2/X2*T2)

I already defined that X is the compounding factor, but it was simple enough to figure out that I didn't feel like I had to define it further. Perhaps that is what tripped you up? We can find X through the following equation: X=Tt/Ts. Ts is the time period of storage, while Tt is the time period of tapping. So, X1=30/60, or 0.5 (double compounding), and X2=30/120, or 0.25 (quadrupling). Thus:

E=(3000/(0.5*60)+(12000/0.25*120)

E=(3000/30)+(12000/30)

E=100+400

E=500

To be fair, that is still missing Q (the rate of loss Sanderson mentioned). But to reiterate, since I don't know anything about how to find Q, or even where it should be accounted for, I had left it out. I guess, technically, the real answer is something like:

E=500-Q1-Q2

Now, I don't doubt that someone better than me could probably make that equation tighter, but that's the gist of it.

Yes, but saying "they send attributes forward in time" is a much quicker, more accurate way to describe this system...

Let's compare:

"Feruchemy is like storing power in a battery, but with the different storage rates giving you a battery of different voltage."

"Feruchemy is like a bucket, put water in it now and use it later."

"Feruchemy is like shuttling an attribute forward in time, except feruchemy doesn't actually move it forward through time. And the shuttle is a spirit locker. So, the energy you store is like smelly gymn socks or something. I dunno, its an abstraction!"

"My momma always said that Feruchemy is like a box of chocolates, you can only get out what's been put in, and if you eat too many at once, you'll probably throw up a little."

"Feruchemy is like spending energy to make a gate, and then opening that gate to get energy back."

The normal process would be like this, I imagine:

Makes sense enough. And, indeed, it makes more sense than time that isn't time. Wait, I'm getting hung up on time again, aren't I?

We know from the RPG...

We also know that the RPG isn't canon.

We also know that the powers are fundamentally the same, since Investiture can directly fuel other Feruchemical attributes and TLR was planning on Nicrosiling the Well of Ascension.

Really? I wasn't aware of that. Sounds awesome.

Edited October 5, 2012 by Thought

**Kurkistan** · October 5, 2012

You are assuming a continuous supply of new power where a continuous supply of new power has yet to be proven necessary. This is a reasonable assumption, but one that Sanderson's books have already muddled.
To illustrate: do you remember Monk CrazyPants' story about his mother? How an aon was used on her, it went wrong, and then she was turned into an incomplete Elantrin? We know that aons act as gateways because Sanderson directly said so. As an aon drawn and activated in the air, it should have disappeared afterwards. Incomplete elantrins don't need to eat. Somehow, they are still getting the energy to survive. We might suppose that for normal incomplete Elantrins, a trickle of power is still getting through Elantris to sustain them. But for this woman, Elantris was still working at full power. Clearly, it wasn't fueling her. Unfortunately,the aon that transformed this woman, and thus the gateway it represents, disappeared, as many aons are want to do. How was she sustained?

Either some things are able to support themselves without an obvious influx of power, or some things are able to continue to draw power through a gateway even after that gateway seems to have disappeared. While color might not actually be the gateway for awakening, your objections just don't jive with the rest of the cosmere. This isn't to say that color actually IS the gateway for Awakening, just that such a supposition would fit with what we already know.

Interesting question. It was his wife, by the way. Forgive me if I'm off on anything here, since I haven't read Elantris in forever.

She might have actually been taken by the Shaod at a very very unlucky time, in the middle of the healing process, which disrupted the transformation the same way that the chasm disrupted normal transformations, but somehow left it permanently broken. I don't recall if she was genetically capable of becoming an Elantrian, though.

Remember that both normal Elantrians and Heod Elantrians are sustained by an outside power source: the Dor as channeled by Elantris and the surrounding countryside. All other Aons are also channeled through Elantris et al. from the Dor. I don't think it's too big a stretch to suggest that Dilaf's wife somehow got hooked up imperfectly to that power stream. The initial, impermanent Aon simply functioned as a mechanism to tweak her Spiritual aspect to tune it in to the Aon of Elantris et al., much like the Spiritual aspects of normal Elantrians are presumably tweaked. It went away, but the changes it made remained (like how a soulcast goblet stays as blood) and those changes drew upon the Dor.

Really, I'm coming to doubt even your supposition that gateways being destroyed in the process of their use is normal. An Aon drawn in the air goes away because it's in the air. An Aon drawn on a solid surface just keeps on working, even to the point of that Aon being an entire country city. The only example we actually have of gateways being destroyed is of Allomancy, which may well be either abnormal or at the very least a subset of broader "gateway" magic systems.

However, reading the Ars Arcanum for AoL again, I noticed that the conversation of gateways was specifically in reference to end-positive systems. It might be that end-neutral and end-negative systems don't use gateways at all (or, if so, in fundamentally different manners). If so, then we could nicely identify AonDor as end-positive. And given the similarities between Awakening and Feruchemy, I think we'd have a good argument for saying that Awakening is end-neutral (and thus not subject to the gates required for everything else). This is just a possible different interpretation, though.

That's an interesting thought on end-positive systems. That may be the case, but remember that the Ars Arcanum author also described Sel's magic and Allomancy as "form based Investiture." That suggests that the two categories are not one and the same. He could otherwise have said, "like all end-positive systems I have seen, Allomancy and the magic of Sel are form-based investitures." So it might be safer to just claim that gateway => end-positive instead of gateway <=> end-positive.

No. See above. But for specifics, we do not know the means of powering shardblades, Returned, Lifeless, or even Nightblood. It is reasonable to suspect that they are being powered, but there is no evidence of it. Without knowing how those things are powered, and how that power is getting to them, we can't really speculate. As far as we know, each of those is an object with no magical power source that simply continues to be magical.

I'll give what I think the power sources are.

Shardblades: The Spiritual realm (where all energy comes from) where they're stored between uses. In the past, I and others have suggested that Shardblades are Physical manifestations of Spiritual power.

Returned: The Breaths they consume. I presume that Breaths are comprised of a large amount of Investiture, and moreover have the ability to generate a smaller amount of Investiture on a regular basis. so if Breath have 100 units of energy and produce a 10% interest, then Returned eat 15% a day (ish. I don't feel like math today).

Nightblood: Doesn't need additional Breath unless he's drawn and in smoking-god mode (when he uses much more power), presumably sustained on a day-to-day basis by the thousand or so Breaths that went into him initially.

I suppose we have a fundamental schism of worldviews here, then. I simply cannot conceive of an object continously doing work, producing energy, without some kind of energy coming into it.

First, +1 for that AoL curse.
Also, I think I see where you are coming from, Kurk. Sorry for getting hung up on "time": all your talk about time made me think that you were talking about time-y time, not non-time-y time. I realize now that this is not the time to talk about time. We don't have the time. It is just making things far too wibbly wobbely, timey wimey.

Thank you. I do try. Are you, by any chance, a follower of the Good Doctor, who died to save us from our aliens (and regenerated, and died, and regenerated...)?

Anywho, it sounds like what you are actually suggesting would better fit the battery analogy: store energy into the repository now, get it back later, with the different rates of storage producing different size batteries (say, storing 80% for an hour now gives you a D Cell to use later, while 20% now gives you a AAA cell). Or perhaps a piggy bank analogy, in which attributes are saved for a rainy day. Or the bucket analogy. Or really anything that doesn't involve time. At all. Because, as you noted, you're not actually talking about time.
Even as an abstraction, time just doesn't work well for what you claim that you are describing. It's like trying to describe a refrigerator by saying that it shuttles food to the future. As far as an abstraction goes, that is one way of looking it. But it's an odd, misleading, and unclear sort of way.

Or perhaps you see some benefit to your time-but-not-really-time shuttle theory that I'm overlooking?

Store energy in a D cell, then store more energy in a AAA. Either you can tape them together and treat them as one battery whenever you calculate my available energy or you can treat them as fundamentally separate quanta of energy.

I don't particularly appreciate the sarcasm.

It's a fact not in debate. However, when he adjusts the information, that's where the disagreement is. It seems like everyone's good with the possibility that it happens in transit. Which, in general, just makes a lot more sense than affecting it in something that he can't see.

Fair enough. It doesn't really provide solid evidence for either side. Got a bit overeager, I suppose.

EDIT: Actually, hold on a minute. You just said that changing things in transit is okay. So it really doesn't matter how the power is normally accessed, since the Shards just mess with it, once again, while it's in transit. So a fair portion of the basis of your theory (the "like nourishes like," and Preservation can fuel Feruchemy, so...) goes away.

It looks like you are again trying to make things too complex. The umph behind your "descrete intervals of time" seems to be "what happens if a Feruchemist store 50 points of strength of an hour one day, 100 points for an hour the next, then draws them both at once for thirty minutes." If so, then my equations and Math Itself already takes that into account. For example, what do you do if you want to find the total volume of two differnet cones? Why, you just add the two specific instances of the volume equation together. You don't complain that the normal equation doesn't account for the differences between quanta. That would just be crazypants. Likewise with this.
Steve the Feruchemist stores 50 points of strength for one hour. S=50*1(60), S=3000

Steve then also stores 100 points of strenght for 2 hours. S=100*1(120), S=12000

Now, Steve the Feruchemist wants to tap his entire reserves for half an hour. What is his effective strenght?

E=(S1/X1*T1)+(S2/X2*T2)

I already defined that X is the compounding factor, but it was simple enough to figure out that I didn't feel like I had to define it further. Perhaps that is what tripped you up? We can find X through the following equation: X=Tt/Ts. Ts is the time period of storage, while Tt is the time period of tapping. So, X1=30/60, or 0.5 (double compounding), and X2=30/120, or 0.25 (quadrupling). Thus:

E=(3000/(0.5*60)+(12000/0.25*120)

E=(3000/30)+(12000/30)

E=100+400

E=500

To be fair, that is still missing Q (the rate of loss Sanderson mentioned). But to reiterate, since I don't know anything about how to find Q, or even where it should be accounted for, I had left it out. I guess, technically, the real answer is something like:

E=500-Q1-Q2

Now, I don't doubt that someone better than me could probably make that equation tighter, but that's the gist of it.

No, the "umph" behind the discrete intervals is "what happens if a Feruchemist store 100% strength (and manages not to die) for an hour one day, uses it all , then stores 50% strength for two hours the next?"

The Feruchemist's metalmind is storing the exact same amount of energy on both days. The only difference is the rate at which that energy was stored:

The first day, he can be at 200% strength for exactly 1 hour.

The second day, he can be at 200% strength for less than 1 hour.

EDIT: I must emphasize that the total amount of energy that they can access is fundamentally the same at 1:1 tapping.

If the Feruchemist is trying to push a heavy block across a flat plane for two hours, he will do exactly as well on both days if he draws at 1:1 on day two.

Let's say the Feruchemist can manage 10 feet in one hour at 100% strength (it's a very heavy block).

On day one, he will spend an hour at 200% strength pushing the block 20 ft/hr, and then an hour at 100% strength pushing the block 10 ft/hr, for a total of 30ft.

On day two, he will spend two hours pushing the block 15 ft/hr, for a total of 30 ft.

Both days end with the Feruchemist pushing the block the same distance, ultimately retrieving the same amount of energy from the metalmind. But only if the Feruchemist is tapping at full efficiency.

---

This all follows directly from a quote from Brandon Sanderson. It's not one of those third-level theories with 20 suppositions. It's a direct implication with no other alternative in a well-ordered system.

If you want to get into addition, it's more like adding together two volumes into a bucket, but with both of them having to go through their own funnel to get to the bucket. V1 has a funnel which is so small that fully half of its water is wasted by flowing over the edge (and missing the bucket). V2 has a bigger funnel, so less of its volume is wasted. The end result depends upon the initial volumes, the amount they can efficiently pour at one time, and flow rates.

Once again, this is simply how it works. Read the quote. If you still disagree after reading and thinking about the quote, then please tell me in explicit detail why my interpretation of the quote--at the very least as regards to variable storage rates mattering when you tap--is wrong.

TL;DR: The equation is fundamentally wrong, so I don't think any "tighter" version of it would be much more useful.

Let's compare:
"Feruchemy is like storing power in a battery, but with the different storage rates giving you a battery of different voltage."

"Feruchemy is like a bucket, put water in it now and use it later."

"Feruchemy is like shuttling an attribute forward in time, except feruchemy doesn't actually move it forward through time. And the shuttle is a spirit locker. So, the energy you store is like smelly gymn socks or something. I dunno, its an abstraction!"

"My momma always said that Feruchemy is like a box of chocolates, you can only get out what's been put in, and if you eat too many at once, you'll probably throw up a little."

"Feruchemy is like spending energy to make a gate, and then opening that gate to get energy back."

I first proposed my modification to the "spirit locker" theory simply as a mechanism for modeling the effects of Feruchemy. I have yet to really see you address the actually theory in this post, not counting your unremitting sarcasm, and still think that it's standing up rather well overall, but I'm not married to it.

What I'm really fighting for here is the fact that variable storage rates are remembered, and affect the tapping of Feruchemical attributes. I'll defend both, but you haven't really addressed the most important one (the one that directly clashes with your theory) very much as of yet.

I also find it odd that most of your "criticisms" focus around my proposed mechanism not dealing with "time" enough, despite the fact that your mechanism considers time even less, so far as I can see. The Ars Arcanum author, who has been very knowledgeable and accurate up to this point, described Feruchemy as time shuttling. I'm trying to take that into account by coming up with a system to model such an effect, while you just seem to ignore it all together.

EDIT 2: Also, Odiums_Shard just proposed a novel little tweak to my theory. Time passes differently in the Cognitive realm, no? Then is it outrageous to suggest a fundamentally different passage of time in the Spiritual realm as well? If that were the case, then these attributes would actually be quite literally pushed out of time, into another time stream which may even be stopped relative to the Physical realm.

Makes sense enough. And, indeed, it makes more sense than time that isn't time. Wait, I'm getting hung up on time again, aren't I?

Translation: "You're right, that could quite reasonably work as a conceptual model and also accounts for all of the effects we see from Feruchemy--as my theory, indeed, fails to. Well said."

We also know that the RPG isn't canon.

I'll just throw that block of text back in and wait for a proper response, if you don't mind.

We know from the RPG that Feruchemists can transfer Investiture between their own metalminds. More importantly, they can use their own Investiture to disable other Feruchemist's metalminds by dumping in excess, wrong-keyed investiture and overwriting the other Feruchemist's attributes. So even normal Feruchemists have some access to other people's metalminds. I imagine that Preservation/Ruin could be a bit more gentle about it and put in accessible energy, and I wouldn't be surprised if Feruchemists can willingly transfer right-keyed Investiture between themselves somehow.

I also wouldn't be surprised if, failing a non-wipey way to add Investiture to metalminds directly, Ruin/Preservation were simply capable of hijacking the input stream whenever the Feruchemist tapped and throwing in more power, like conscious compounding.

Really? I wasn't aware of that. Sounds awesome.

Yeah, the RPG had some nice goodies in it. There's a thread on most of the interesting stuff. It's not 100% canonical (for instance, the RPG says that time bubbles are additive, not multiplicative like Brandon said) but most changes were for gameplay purposes, and their discussion of Feruchemical nicrosil was fundamentally about transforming Investiture.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Kurkistan

Thought · October 7, 2012

Really, I'm coming to doubt even your supposition that gateways being destroyed in the process of their use is normal. An Aon drawn in the air goes away because it's in the air.

It appears that you are proposing that the aon is still present, and could be "reconstructed," as it were, if the air molecules could be properly realigned. Is that correct? And that any aon previously created in that manner, such as the one Raoden used to travel to Teod, is still present? If so, then why don't aons fade until they've been activated? We see this in general, but the most explicit example is when Raoden drew several "fireball" aons in the air in preparation to attack the battle-ninja-monks, then paused for a notable amount of time before activating them. And for the travel aon, since it had an immediate effect, what would it be doing after that effect was complete?

Regarding Dilaf's wife (good catch there, by the way: as you might be able to tell, it's been a while since I read them, too), alas, I don't recall if we were told her race either. I assumed she was Fjordellian, given that Dilaf seemed fairly fanatical even back before her death (if I am recalling correctly, he had already become a Dakhor monk by then), but I don't recall for sure. But since he also was a spy in Arelon, if he had a Fjordellian wife, that might have been suspicious. Dunno, unfortunately.

That may be the case, but remember that the Ars Arcanum author also described Sel's magic and Allomancy as "form based Investiture."

Good point. He also identified "end-positive" and the sort as his own terminology, so it might not be literal descriptors of fact.

Returned: The Breaths they consume. I presume that Breaths are comprised of a large amount of Investiture, and moreover have the ability to generate a smaller amount of Investiture on a regular basis. so if Breath have 100 units of energy and produce a 10% interest, then Returned eat 15% a day (ish. I don't feel like math today).

Probably not. A Returned needs a new breath every week (well, by the end of the 8th day), regardless of physical activity or calorie intake. That is, a starving Returned who ran a marathon every day would still need a Breath every 8 days while a well fed, sedentary Returned would also need a Breath every 8 days. I suppose one could argue that the calorie difference between the two isn't significant over a short span of time, but the years that the Returned gods live should have compounded this sufficiently to change a day here or there. The priests, and certainly Vasher, should be aware of a change if there was ever one. As such, the daily calorie expenditures of the Returned seem to not come from the breaths they consume.

While a breath might generate some spirit power interest, like you suggested, that can't explain the calorie differences. We know that a single breath isn't sufficient to make it so that someone doesn't have to eat, people people on Nathalis seem to still need food. Even Viv, with her hundreds of breaths, still seems to have needed to eat.

Anywho, your suppositions are generally good, my main objection is just that we don't really have enough evidence to know how these things are working. I find it no more difficult to say that a Shardblade is able to somehow sustain itself, even though no one is continuously magicking it it, than it is to say that colors acts a gateways but that awoken objects are able to sustain themselves well after the fact. Not that there aren't problems, certainly, just that the problems this suggestion creates are of the same kind that are already present. It adds a likely explanation for why color is "burned" without causing totally new problems. But it was just a random supposition in the first place.

Thank you. I do try. Are you, by any chance, a follower of the Good Doctor, who died to save us from our aliens (and regenerated, and died, and regenerated...)?

Indeed, and it sounds like you may be a fellow JaWHOva's Witness. Do you go around sharing the good word of the Doctor, our Time Lord and Savior, who descended from heaven in a humble wooden box, lived and taught among us, died to save humanity, and then regenerated again! ... and again... and again...?

Store energy in a D cell, then store more energy in a AAA. Either you can tape them together and treat them as one battery whenever you calculate my available energy or you can treat them as fundamentally separate quanta of energy.

Or connect them in series to increase voltage while maintaining same capacity, or connect them in parallel to increase capacity but maintain voltage.

Side note, I didn't actually use sarcasm there, so I'm not sure how to respond to that comment. There is a bit of frustration there, though, so perhaps that is what you were sensing? Since the time description you were using clearly mislead people (I wasn't the only one, you'll note), your continued defense and use of it is strange to me. But anywho, I am sorry for any offense caused.

EDIT: Actually, hold on a minute. You just said that changing things in transit is okay. So it really doesn't matter how the power is normally accessed, since the Shards just mess with it, once again, while it's in transit. So a fair portion of the basis of your theory (the "like nourishes like," and Preservation can fuel Feruchemy, so...) goes away.

I think we have different definitions of "in transit." By that, I thought we were talking about, say, a memory being taken from a coppermind and put into a head, or vice versa. It sounds like perhaps maybe you were thinking "transit" means the memory as it sits "in the coppermind," "in transit" between storing an using?

What I'm really fighting for here is the fact that variable storage rates are remembered, and affect the tapping of Feruchemical attributes.

We're in agreement on that, and my equations account for it. From the Sanderson quote you linked to, it feels like you are complaining that my equations don't account for the rate of loss from compounding. However, they do: that's Q. Since I don't know how to actually formulate it, I can't solve for it. As such, I've been leaving it out of the actual proofs reminding people of it at the end. I can even express some of the elements that Q should encompass (only function for compounding factors of 0<X<1, only removing a small amount of energy but one with what appears to be an exponential increase, etc), I am just not sure how to model that mathematically.

But since I've been wrong every time before as to what you are getting at, I am probably wrong on what I think you are getting at here, too.

If you still disagree after reading and thinking about the quote, then please tell me in explicit detail why my interpretation of the quote--at the very least as regards to variable storage rates mattering when you tap--is wrong.

See, the frustrating thing is that as far as I am understanding what you are saying, your interpretation is right AND my equations account for what you are claiming is missing. Thus, your continued disagreement is rather confusing.

I first proposed my modification to the "spirit locker" theory simply as a mechanism for modeling the effects of Feruchemy. I have yet to really see you address the actually theory in this post, not counting your unremitting sarcasm, and still think that its standing up rather well overall, but I'm not married to it.

Sarcasm's already been addressed (there is none, though perhaps you didn't find the Forrest Gump line, which worked far better than I had thought it would, funny), so moving on.

I did address the theory (see? this is the sort of thing that causes frustration: issues been addressed, but apparently in a way that you aren't recognizing as I am meaning it). To reiterate: we know that a shard can fuel Feruchemy. The most logical place for a shard to inject power into the process is at the point where the power of creation is already involved. The reason for this is because the only other option would be for a shard to inject some energy at a point where the power of creation is not already involved. That's makes the entire matter more complex, and, indeed, if the process is changed so radically, is it even the same process (that is, same magic system). Your locker theory only allows for the power of creation to be in involved in transportation. An injection of extra power there would not produce a notable difference in outcome, because it is only fueling the transportation of goods, not creating more goods to be transported.

Yours st is a fine theory, except that the outcome would be entirely ineffective. Since we haven't seen a Shard power Feruchemy, that might actually be how it would happen. But since a shard powering Allomancy was impressive, and Sanderson likes impressive things, I am looking for more than the same old, same old.

I also find it odd that most of your "criticisms" focus around my proposed mechanism not dealing with "time" enough, despite the fact that your mechanism considers time even less, so far as I can see. The Ars Arcanum author, who has been very knowledgeable and accurate up to this point, described Feruchemy as time shuttling. I'm trying to take that into account by coming up with a system to model such an effect, while you just seem to ignore it all together.

The rub here is that you are treating the Ars Author's simile as proof for your theory, when the simile can legitimately apply about just as well to every other theory that's been suggested (yes, even mine, which doesn't ignore time). My criticisms are mostly on that your use of the simile is misleading and opaque.

Translation: "You're right, that could quite reasonably work as a conceptual model and also accounts for all of the effects we see from Feruchemy--as my theory, indeed, fails to. Well said."

Wow, remind me to never have you translate anything, ever. That was horrible.

Anywho, a better translation would have been "That description is clear enough to provide an accurate description of what you are trying to communicate, whereas I found your previous description lacking in that fine attribute."

Your description is still wrong, of course, for the reasons noted above. Or to take a page from your book, it might go something like this:

Guided Power: *shows up*

Feruchemist: Hey, who are you?

GP: Oh, I replaced NGP. Don't worry, I'm here to help you, unlike that shmuck. I bet he charged you if you wanted to get too many envelopes all at once, didn't he? Well, I want to help you get rich. In fact, I'm going to give you 50,000,000 of your envelopes, right now, to make you richer than you've ever been before.

Feruchemist: But... I only have 10 envelopes in storage.

GP: Oh... *hands feruchemist the 10 envelopes*

Feruchemist: ...

GP: ...

Feruchemist: ...

GP: So... are you richer than you've ever been before?

Feruchemist: No. Actually, since I put this money in these envelopes in the first place, I would say that I am exactly as rich as I've been before. No more, no less.

GP: Jeeze, lame.

Feruchemist: Well, if it is that important to you, I guess you could give me some money.

GP: No can dosville, baby. I'm just a courier, and that is most certainly not in my job description. If I were to just give you money, why, then this would be an entirely different employment situation, and then I'd want a different title. And maybe a fez, fezzes are cool. Also, a plate of jammy dodgers. Maybe a squat team ready to mobilize on my command.

Using your skit formula, my suggestion is basically like this:

Feruchemist: Hey mister non-guided-power of a shard, can you keep this ten dollar bill safe for me? I'll need it back, eventually.

NGP: Sure thing! *pockets the money*

Feruchemist: And this twenty?

NGP: Of course. *pockets that money, too*

Feruchemist: Wait, I need those thirty bucks back, sorry.

NGP: Well, I guess. here you go *gives Feruchemist 6 fivers*

Feruchemist: Hey, this isn't my money!

NGP: So? You got the same value, does it really matter if those are the exact bills you gave me?

Feruchemist: Why, I never thought of it like that. Your ideas intrigue me and i would like to subscribe to your newsletter

***

Feruchemist: Nerts, I need $100,000 right now. Give me my money.

NGP: What, right now? That's a large rush order. I'll have to charge you a service fee.

Feruchemist: K, fine, whatever, I just need it, now now now now now.

NGP: *Hands him several stacks of crisp, freshly minted c-notes*

Feruchemist: Ooo, fancy. I can see the watermark.

***

GP: Hey, we fired that NGP guy, he was a jerk. I'm here to help you, now. Would you like $100?

Feruchemist: Would I! But... wait, I only deposited $50.

GP: Don't worry, I take care of my peeps. Consider the extra $50 on me.

Feruchemist: Since I normally get money from someone in your position, this extra money fits in perfectly with the established processes and, while unusual, it not breaking the system. I am lawful neutral and am thus well pleased by this turn of events.

I'll just throw that block of text back in and wait for a proper response, if you don't mind.

Actually, I do kind of mind.

In your link, Crafty Games explicitly says the RPG is not canon (but that they would like to be) and that they don't have any say in what is canon. Them then saying that you should view it as second-order canon (so, apocrypha, basically) is likewise non-canonical. Personally, I would rather not work with such stuff. It is like taking a really cool and well informed theory from the forums and treating it like canon.

But, to try to be a good sport, the RPG's supposition doesn't make sense: if a feruchemist can overwrite someone else's charge, couldn't they then do that to their own metalmind? Sazed accidentally dumping "Religions of the Far East" into his metalmind might eliminate "Vespers and Vestal Virgins" from that metalmind by accident. We know that a metalmind can be filled, but there's been no indication that this is a risky thing where attributes might start getting lost. Also, it seems like Sanderson would have noted this when he has talked in the past about different feruchemists being able to store attributes in the same mind (but then, he's also sneaksy and likes to tease us with info, so maybe not).

However, keep in mind that I am not saying that Preservation/Ruin couldn't, under any circumstances, just add power directly to a metalmind. Rather, as Preservation and Ruin are bound, to a degree, by their own intent, both would be reasonably bound to the "natural" processes of their shard. Ruin would normally ruin things in a ruinous way, for example, rather than ruining things in an odious manner. Vin could go against Preservation's intent, so I'd expect a new shard holder would probably be better at breaking these processes as well.

**Kurkistan** · October 7, 2012

<MONDO SNIP>

We're in agreement on that, and my equations account for it. From the Sanderson quote you linked to, it feels like you are complaining that my equations don't account for the rate of loss from compounding. However, they do: that's Q. Since I don't know how to actually formulate it, I can't solve for it. As such, I've been leaving it out of the actual proofs reminding people of it at the end. I can even express some of the elements that Q should encompass (only function for compounding factors of 0<X<1, only removing a small amount of energy but one with what appears to be an exponential increase, etc), I am just not sure how to model that mathematically.

But since I've been wrong every time before as to what you are getting at, I am probably wrong on what I think you are getting at here, too.

See, the frustrating thing is that as far as I am understanding what you are saying, your interpretation is right AND my equations account for what you are claiming is missing. Thus, your continued disagreement is rather confusing.

<SECOND MONDO SNIP>

Okay, I'm tired and also a bit frustrated. I'll deal with the rest at my leisure.

Perhaps I lost my head in all the scary numbers. So please explain it to me with words and possibly brightly colored pictures:

How, exactly, can you account for variable values of X and Q for different quanta of energy without also, in some way, recording the rate at which that energy was stored?

If, 20 years later, you want to draw on that strength you stored oh so long ago, how can you do the calculation--how can you generate the appropriate X and the appropriate Q--if your unit of storage does not fundamentally recall the rate at which it was stored, and so has no way of informing on what compression factor is necessary?

P.S. I know it's violating my focus, but quick note on the RPG's canonicity:

If you followed the "quote trail" back far enough, you'd see that the only part that Crafty actually just said "we hope he likes it" about is the actual House of Ashes collection of short stores and its characters.

When I say "otherwise assumed to be true," and Crafty backs me on it, that indicates a smidgen more reliability than just some impressive theory. It's worth taking into account, at the very least.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Kurkistan

Thought · October 7, 2012

The rate at which energy is stored is recorded. Specifically, it is recorded in the storage equation. If you don't have the storage equation handy, you can work backwards from the tapping equation, but only if you can fill in some of its variables. If you have no hard numbers to work with, then there's nothing to be done with any equation.

So, yeah, perhaps we should call this a wash? It seems clear that there's some fundamental miscommunication going on. Either I'm not understanding your questions, you're not understanding my answers, or both. Sorry.

Edit: Ah, I think I might see what you mean. Apparently sleep deprivation might be good for some things

I was thinking that a feruchemist inherently knows the compounding rate. Sazed knows when he is doubling his strength, for example: I was mistaking that for the rate. If Sazed's normal strength is 100, and it became 200, I was thinking that meant that X would equal 0.5. But, of course, it might from him having stored 100% of his strength for the same period, or 50% for slightly more than twice that period. Or 25% for even more, etc. So yeah, I was trying to figure out the wrong variables. Sorry. Let me think on it and get back to you.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Thought

**Kurkistan** · October 7, 2012

The rate at which energy is stored is recorded. Specifically, it is recorded in the storage equation. If you don't have the storage equation handy, you can work backwards from the tapping equation, but only if you can fill in some of its variables. If you have no hard numbers to work with, then there's nothing to be done with any equation.

So, yeah, perhaps we should call this a wash? It seems clear that there's some fundamental miscommunication going on. Either I'm not understanding your questions, you're not understanding my answers, or both. Sorry.

Edit: Ah, I think I might see what you mean. Apparently sleep deprivation might be good for some things

I was thinking that a feruchemist inherently knows the compounding rate. Sazed knows when he is doubling his strength, for example: I was mistaking that for the rate. If Sazed's normal strength is 100, and it became 200, I was thinking that meant that X would equal 0.5. But, of course, it might from him having stored 100% of his strength for the same period, or 50% for slightly more than twice that period. Or 25% for even more, etc. So yeah, I was trying to figure out the wrong variables. Sorry. Let me think on it and get back to you.

Glad we're on the right page (hopefully).

A follow-up on the RPG's canonical status:

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=618#30

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=428#81

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=622#164

Edited October 7, 2012 by Kurkistan

Cheese Ninja · October 8, 2012

Just to be clear, there's no loss if the rate they are tapping does not exceed the rate that they stored at, is there? So, let's say they stored an attribute at 40% for an hour, leaving themself 60% to function with. If they later tapped at any rate between 1-40%, there's no loss, whether it's 20% for 2 hours or 40% for 1 hour, but if they tapped at +40%, there would be. I actually never paid attention to the Q&A bit where that was established before.

An interesting side effect would be that the most efficent Filling is the one done at the greatest rate, and the least useful storing is the one done at the lowest rate. Since none of the Feruchemists we've seen have thought about which bit of stored attribute they're using, Feruchemy is probably set up so that they always use the lowest rate storage first (the least useful bit). This makes Compounding even more efficient than I realized, since they're the only ones who would ever be able to store at rates above 100%, and when they later need to tap that attribute at extremely high rates, they're generating the least amount of loss.

**Kurkistan** · October 11, 2012

And now I have leisure. To WAR!

It appears that you are proposing that the aon is still present, and could be "reconstructed," as it were, if the air molecules could be properly realigned. Is that correct? And that any aon previously created in that manner, such as the one Raoden used to travel to Teod, is still present? If so, then why don't aons fade until they've been activated? We see this in general, but the most explicit example is when Raoden drew several "fireball" aons in the air in preparation to attack the battle-ninja-monks, then paused for a notable amount of time before activating them. And for the travel aon, since it had an immediate effect, what would it be doing after that effect was complete?

Not exactly that the Aons are still present in the air molecules, but that some special force is required to keep them in place during their use, since there is no solid foundation for the Aon. Once the Aon is used, the force that kept it in place goes away and entropy takes over, destroying the Aon's form. Aons carved in stone, however, would not require a constant stream of energy to retain their form, since the now-natural shape of the stone does not require any special support to endure.

So Raoden's Fire-Aons remain in place because they haven't been completed and activated yet, but would presumably dissipate within a reasonable time frame if just left hanging in the air. His Travel-Aon would simply dissipate after use.

I think it's also possible that Aons are just being dissipated and/or joining the power that was used to create them into the power of the "spell" they call. So an "air-drawn" healing Aon pours a bit of extra power into the healing as it ceases to exist as a separate entity, while a "stone-drawn" light Aon doesn't need energy to maintain its form and so remains after use.

I'm not sure of these theory by any means, but I am trying to show that the Aons needn't necessarily be "destroyed" by their use.

Regarding Dilaf's wife (good catch there, by the way: as you might be able to tell, it's been a while since I read them, too), alas, I don't recall if we were told her race either. I assumed she was Fjordellian, given that Dilaf seemed fairly fanatical even back before her death (if I am recalling correctly, he had already become a Dakhor monk by then), but I don't recall for sure. But since he also was a spy in Arelon, if he had a Fjordellian wife, that might have been suspicious. Dunno, unfortunately.

Yeah, that's a bit irritating. I think Dilaf became slightly more fanatical after the whole "those false gods tortured my wife in the most horrible way possible, forcing me to kill her" incident, though.

Probably not. A Returned needs a new breath every week (well, by the end of the 8th day), regardless of physical activity or calorie intake. That is, a starving Returned who ran a marathon every day would still need a Breath every 8 days while a well fed, sedentary Returned would also need a Breath every 8 days. I suppose one could argue that the calorie difference between the two isn't significant over a short span of time, but the years that the Returned gods live should have compounded this sufficiently to change a day here or there. The priests, and certainly Vasher, should be aware of a change if there was ever one. As such, the daily calorie expenditures of the Returned seem to not come from the breaths they consume.
While a breath might generate some spirit power interest, like you suggested, that can't explain the calorie differences. We know that a single breath isn't sufficient to make it so that someone doesn't have to eat, people people on Nathalis seem to still need food. Even Viv, with her hundreds of breaths, still seems to have needed to eat.

Good point on Returned. I'm just developing my thoughts on them, so I'll admit they need refinement. Here's a try:

First of all, for all we know there is a slight difference in the frequency of Breaths needed for highly active Returned, averaging out at "once a week" as a rule. Alternatively, Returned get a constant stream of energy from their eaten Breaths--far, far more energy than they actually need to survive (allowing body-transformations and whatnot)--and most of that energy is wasted--still expended, but wasted--by them not using it.

On another note, I've realized that the Breath can't properly be eaten gradually through the course of a week. If that were the case, then a Divine Breath should last a lot longer than just a week on its own. It has to be a complete, momentary, destructive process.

That, in turn, leads to a rather natural answer to the "why does Vivienne need to eat?" question. I would now suggest that when Breaths are "eaten," they are in fact fundamentally destroyed and their whole energy tacked onto the Spiritual aspect of their eater directly. Normal Breaths held by Awakeners are therefore held somewhat loosely and only benefit their holder with a small amount of their total energy in a small amount of ways. "Eaten" Breaths, though, could be a horse of a different color, fueling everything from strength to metabolism and residing in a fundamentally different "place" than a Breath which is simply being held.

Anywho, your suppositions are generally good, my main objection is just that we don't really have enough evidence to know how these things are working. I find it no more difficult to say that a Shardblade is able to somehow sustain itself, even though no one is continuously magicking it it, than it is to say that colors acts a gateways but that awoken objects are able to sustain themselves well after the fact. Not that there aren't problems, certainly, just that the problems this suggestion creates are of the same kind that are already present. It adds a likely explanation for why color is "burned" without causing totally new problems. But it was just a random supposition in the first place.

All I really want out of this is for magical effects to be fueled somehow. Shardblades might have a self-replenishing power source for all we know, but they still need to have some power source. The power source of Awakened objects is Breath, it seems, while my understanding of a "gateway" is that the gateway allows the power source through from some fundamentally different place while the gateway exists and then stops letting power through when it doesn't exist. Breaths don't reside "elsewhere," though: they're in one guys body and then they're somewhere else. No delivery from a Shard or the Spiritual realm necessary.

Actually, when you talk about color as a gateway, do you just mean a gateway from Person A -> Object B, allowing the Breath to flow? Because that (while I still think its wrong, btw ) makes much more sense than how I've understood you thus far.

Indeed, and it sounds like you may be a fellow JaWHOva's Witness. Do you go around sharing the good word of the Doctor, our Time Lord and Savior, who descended from heaven in a humble wooden box, lived and taught among us, died to save humanity, and then regenerated again! ... and again... and again...?

Of course!

Side note, I didn't actually use sarcasm there, so I'm not sure how to respond to that comment. There is a bit of frustration there, though, so perhaps that is what you were sensing? Since the time description you were using clearly mislead people (I wasn't the only one, you'll note), your continued defense and use of it is strange to me. But anywho, I am sorry for any offense caused.

Sorry, I was reading you as more so caustic than playful. My fault, really. I shouldn't have assumed that. I apologize for my overreaction.

I think we have different definitions of "in transit." By that, I thought we were talking about, say, a memory being taken from a coppermind and put into a head, or vice versa. It sounds like perhaps maybe you were thinking "transit" means the memory as it sits "in the coppermind," "in transit" between storing an using?

No, first one. I think you're right and I was wrong about Ruin tampering with stuff in copperminds, especially since there's a Brandon quote floating around about Ruin liking to mess with stuff at the moment of transition.

So "in transit," when I say it, means when the energy is being transferred from wherever it's stored into the Feruchemist.

I did address the theory (see? this is the sort of thing that causes frustration: issues been addressed, but apparently in a way that you aren't recognizing as I am meaning it). To reiterate: we know that a shard can fuel Feruchemy. The most logical place for a shard to inject power into the process is at the point where the power of creation is already involved. The reason for this is because the only other option would be for a shard to inject some energy at a point where the power of creation is not already involved. That's makes the entire matter more complex, and, indeed, if the process is changed so radically, is it even the same process (that is, same magic system). Your locker theory only allows for the power of creation to be in involved in transportation. An injection of extra power there would not produce a notable difference in outcome, because it is only fueling the transportation of goods, not creating more goods to be transported.
Yours st is a fine theory, except that the outcome would be entirely ineffective. Since we haven't seen a Shard power Feruchemy, that might actually be how it would happen. But since a shard powering Allomancy was impressive, and Sanderson likes impressive things, I am looking for more than the same old, same old.

First of all, I think we still have a disagreement on what "power of creation" means. My understanding is that all Investiture is fundamentally the power of creation, so the power that Shards have is fundamentally the same as--and compatible with--the power of Feruchemists. This is backed up by the RPG's treatment of Investiture (see a few posts above for some more sources on the RPG's reliability).

I don't have a problem with Shards throwing in a bit more power while an attribute is in transit. To continue the skit model, the "guided power of the Shard" walks up besides the unguided power and then slips a few C-notes into the envelope.

The rub here is that you are treating the Ars Author's simile as proof for your theory, when the simile can legitimately apply about just as well to every other theory that's been suggested (yes, even mine, which doesn't ignore time). My criticisms are mostly on that your use of the simile is misleading and opaque.

Ah, I see. Fair enough. Although I haven't talked about it much, the idea of "compressing points in time actually provides a very intuitive explanation for the cost of "surging"-- which was actually the reason I stopped being annoyed by that energy loss back in the day. Here's a rather excellent explanation from Goradel's Nephew:

I also agree with the efficiency thing. Seems reasonable that if you were a "stronger" Feruchemist, you'd get less of the diminishing returns effect. You're more efficient scuttling your power through time, so to speak.

By the time I got halfway through the topic, I had a good response ready. You just stole it.

"Diminishing Returns" Makes all kinds of sense when you take the AoL Ars Arcanum into Account. (Alliteration!) When a feruchemist spends some time storing strength, he's using his own feruchemical power to push that strength into a kind of temporal limbo, outside of time. Later, the feruchemist can again use his feruchemical ability to reach back and draw the strength from past, connecting the two points in time with feruchemy.

Paraphrase: When a Feruchemist taps a metalmind, the Feruchemist pulls energy through time, connecting his present self to a past self who is pushing that same energy forward through time.

Compounding (which we're going to have to find a new term for) refers to pulling back that reserve faster than it was stored, and puts a strain on his own feruchemical power. He's reaching to draw strength back from himself through time, connecting to Two Separate Periods of Time, forcing his feruchemical ability to work harder, and losing some energy to compensate.

Paraphrase: When a Feruchemist compounds his power, he pulls on energy from two separate times, connecting to two past selves instead of one.

Wow, remind me to never have you translate anything, ever. That was horrible.
Anywho, a better translation would have been "That description is clear enough to provide an accurate description of what you are trying to communicate, whereas I found your previous description lacking in that fine attribute."

Your description is still wrong, of course, for the reasons noted above. Or to take a page from your book, it might go something like this:

Guided Power: *shows up*

Feruchemist: Hey, who are you?

GP: Oh, I replaced NGP. Don't worry, I'm here to help you, unlike that shmuck. I bet he charged you if you wanted to get too many envelopes all at once, didn't he? Well, I want to help you get rich. In fact, I'm going to give you 50,000,000 of your envelopes, right now, to make you richer than you've ever been before.

Feruchemist: But... I only have 10 envelopes in storage.

GP: Oh... *hands feruchemist the 10 envelopes*

Feruchemist: ...

GP: ...

Feruchemist: ...

GP: So... are you richer than you've ever been before?

Feruchemist: No. Actually, since I put this money in these envelopes in the first place, I would say that I am exactly as rich as I've been before. No more, no less.

GP: Jeeze, lame.

Feruchemist: Well, if it is that important to you, I guess you could give me some money.

GP: No can dosville, baby. I'm just a courier, and that is most certainly not in my job description. If I were to just give you money, why, then this would be an entirely different employment situation, and then I'd want a different title. And maybe a fez, fezzes are cool. Also, a plate of jammy dodgers. Maybe a squat team ready to mobilize on my command.

As I said above, it would be more like *hands the Feruchemists 50,000,010 envelopes and winks significantly* or *hands the Feruchemists 10 suspiciously full envelopes.* It could be that Shards needn't be limited to just courier work, its just the only thing that doesn't cost them their own power.

Fez's are quite cool, I agree. Almost as cool as bow-ties.

Using your skit formula, my suggestion is basically like this:
Feruchemist: Hey mister non-guided-power of a shard, can you keep this ten dollar bill safe for me? I'll need it back, eventually.

NGP: Sure thing! *pockets the money*

Feruchemist: And this twenty?

NGP: Of course. *pockets that money, too*

Feruchemist: Wait, I need those thirty bucks back, sorry.

NGP: Well, I guess. here you go *gives Feruchemist 6 fivers*

Feruchemist: Hey, this isn't my money!

NGP: So? You got the same value, does it really matter if those are the exact bills you gave me?

Feruchemist: Why, I never thought of it like that. Your ideas intrigue me and i would like to subscribe to your newsletter

And then we get into the problem of needing the power to be individualized for discrete periods of time, which I know that your mulling over. If the Shard's power are just banks that take in and put out money without regard for the denominations or where it came from, then the 1:1 system can't work. If Shards do perfectly remember increments/rates of storage, then they might as well just be envelopes on shelves.

Feruchemist: Nerts, I need $100,000 right now. Give me my money.
NGP: What, right now? That's a large rush order. I'll have to charge you a service fee.

Feruchemist: K, fine, whatever, I just need it, now now now now now.

NGP: *Hands him several stacks of crisp, freshly minted c-notes*

Feruchemist: Ooo, fancy. I can see the watermark.

***

GP: Hey, we fired that NGP guy, he was a jerk. I'm here to help you, now. Would you like $100?

Feruchemist: Would I! But... wait, I only deposited $50.

GP: Don't worry, I take care of my peeps. Consider the extra $50 on me.

Feruchemist: Since I normally get money from someone in your position, this extra money fits in perfectly with the established processes and, while unusual, it not breaking the system. I am lawful neutral and am thus well pleased by this turn of events.

Ruin doesn't normally alter words as they are written, but it isn't outside the scope of his powers. Recall also that magic systems only "cost" to fuel when that system is somehow not natural to the Shard, such as Preservation not losing power from normal Allomancy because its like water over a turbine. Ruin isn't involved in Allomancy at all, normally, but could fuel it if he wanted to. So the Shards could quite possibly have abnormal access to Feruchemical power if they were willing to bear the cost.

Actually, I do kind of mind.
In your link, Crafty Games explicitly says the RPG is not canon (but that they would like to be) and that they don't have any say in what is canon. Them then saying that you should view it as second-order canon (so, apocrypha, basically) is likewise non-canonical. Personally, I would rather not work with such stuff. It is like taking a really cool and well informed theory from the forums and treating it like canon.

See my other comments on canonicity.

But, to try to be a good sport, the RPG's supposition doesn't make sense: if a feruchemist can overwrite someone else's charge, couldn't they then do that to their own metalmind? Sazed accidentally dumping "Religions of the Far East" into his metalmind might eliminate "Vespers and Vestal Virgins" from that metalmind by accident. We know that a metalmind can be filled, but there's been no indication that this is a risky thing where attributes might start getting lost. Also, it seems like Sanderson would have noted this when he has talked in the past about different feruchemists being able to store attributes in the same mind (but then, he's also sneaksy and likes to tease us with info, so maybe not).
However, keep in mind that I am not saying that Preservation/Ruin couldn't, under any circumstances, just add power directly to a metalmind. Rather, as Preservation and Ruin are bound, to a degree, by their own intent, both would be reasonably bound to the "natural" processes of their shard. Ruin would normally ruin things in a ruinous way, for example, rather than ruining things in an odious manner. Vin could go against Preservation's intent, so I'd expect a new shard holder would probably be better at breaking these processes as well.

It could be that raw Investiture just isn't as nice as other attributes. Memory A might slot in next to Memory B as polite as you please in a coppermind, but Investiture is only naturally store-able in Nicrosil: It might just run rampant in other metals. I wouldn't be surprised if the only exception to the "Investiture wipe" rule is with other Feruchemist's nicrosilminds.

-----

Just a general note on Feruchemical power: since we have a separate discussion going on for that, I didn't reply to some stuff pertaining to it.

Just to be clear, there's no loss if the rate they are tapping does not exceed the rate that they stored at, is there? So, let's say they stored an attribute at 40% for an hour, leaving themself 60% to function with. If they later tapped at any rate between 1-40%, there's no loss, whether it's 20% for 2 hours or 40% for 1 hour, but if they tapped at +40%, there would be. I actually never paid attention to the Q&A bit where that was established before.

An interesting side effect would be that the most efficent Filling is the one done at the greatest rate, and the least useful storing is the one done at the lowest rate. Since none of the Feruchemists we've seen have thought about which bit of stored attribute they're using, Feruchemy is probably set up so that they always use the lowest rate storage first (the least useful bit). This makes Compounding even more efficient than I realized, since they're the only ones who would ever be able to store at rates above 100%, and when they later need to tap that attribute at extremely high rates, they're generating the least amount of loss.

You've got it about right (by my understanding, at least), and that is a very interesting consequence. Compounders probably just don't give a flying leap about how efficiently they access their nigh-infinite level of storage, but it could conceivably become important, especially when considering Atium-compounding or other rare (read: god) metals and their alloys.

Edited October 12, 2012 by Kurkistan

Thought · October 16, 2012

And now I have leisure. To WAR!

I totally envision you as Christopher Lee saying that.

I'm not sure of these theory by any means, but I am trying to show that the Aons needn't necessarily be "destroyed" by their use.

I'm not in disagreement regarding your suppositions, but I'm not sure I buy the distinction you are making. That is, it sounds like we are talking about essentially the same thing.

Actually, when you talk about color as a gateway, do you just mean a gateway from Person A -> Object B, allowing the Breath to flow? Because that (while I still think its wrong, btw ) makes much more sense than how I've understood you thus far.

Depends on which post of mine we're talking about

I did suggest that the color only allowed the breath to transfer at one point, but generally speaking, I've been arguing for the possibility that in some way, some how, color's involved in producing power.

I don't have a problem with Shards throwing in a bit more power while an attribute is in transit. To continue the skit model, the "guided power of the Shard" walks up besides the unguided power and then slips a few C-notes into the envelope.

That can work nicely. My proposal is mostly just that if a shard takes an active role, that role will be where it was already taking a passive role. If a shard was passively giving out a five-spot, then it might actively give out a C-note. But if it was passively transporting 3 boxes, then it would actively transport 10 boxes.

To try to use a different analogy to illustrate this: lets say we are boiling water with MAGIC. Under my proposal, passively, a shard adds energy to the fire that causes the water to boil and produce steam. We'd expect, then, that an active shard would add more energy to the fire, to produce more heat, to make the water boil more vigorously, to produce more steam. Under your proposal, as I understand it, it sounds like passively a shard would do the same, but actively it would decrease the atmospheric pressure, so that water can boil at a lower temperature, so that more steam can be produced. It's something that we could imagine a shard doing, but if that is how it works, that is unexpected and without precedent.

I suppose my main objection to your supposition is that it requires that the shard do something "new." And I find new things to be frightening and scary

And then we get into the problem of needing the power to be individualized for discrete periods of time, which I know that your mulling over.

Actually I think I figured it out a while ago, just was too lazy to post. Basically Effective Energy Output equals the stored attribute over the result of the tap time over the store time, with the result of store time over tap time multiplied by 0.08 being subtracted from the result, assuming that 0<(Tt/Ts)<1 . Or:

E=(Ss/[Tt/Ts]) - 0.08(Ts/Tt)

If you are wondering, that 0.08 is the closest to the rate of loss that I was able to figure out from Sanderson's off the cuff values.

I ran that equation through a few randomly made up examples and it seems to work this time.

If the Shard's power are just banks that take in and put out money without regard for the denominations or where it came from, then the 1:1 system can't work. If Shards do perfectly remember increments/rates of storage, then they might as well just be envelopes on shelves.

See, it doesn't matter in that example because, presumable, the feruchemist got money out at an acceptable rate that didn't incur a service charge.

But if it really bothers you, the skit example would still work if the feruchemist deposited a ratty old Ten and received a brand spanking new Ten in its place. Both from the same mint. Same "value," "denomination," and same origin, just a different bill. Or, in non-analogy speak, different "energy."

Ruin doesn't normally alter words as they are written, but it isn't outside the scope of his powers.

Again, I am not saying that fueling magic in your model is impossible for a shard, just that it breaks the expected norm. Its that breaking from what is normal and expect that I am objecting to the most.

Also, to note, Ruin altering words doesn't seem to be part of a standard magic system, and so there is no procedural norm for write-o-mancy that Ruin could break.

**Kurkistan** · October 17, 2012

I totally envision you as Christopher Lee saying that.

And so I am truly honored.

I'm not in disagreement regarding your suppositions, but I'm not sure I buy the distinction you are making. That is, it sounds like we are talking about essentially the same thing.

Considering the ridiculous amount of misunderstandings we've had on both sides (sorry about that), I wouldn't be surprised if we've been in complete agreement this whole time.

So, if we do agree, then you'll agree that the impermanence of Aons drawn in the air is primarily a result of the impermanence of that medium, not of the Aons themselves defaulting to "burn after reading?"

TES Spoiler. Do no click on this at all if you haven't read it. It's worth reading the book without spoilers, even if the following spoiler isn't that spoiler-y.

We see that Soulseals in forgery don't burn out at all when they are used on inanimate objects. The only time when we see decay is when they interact with living people (and I bet it would also hold for animals as well), namely with Bloodsealing and Soul-Forgery. Since the AoL Ars Arcanum simply says "Sel," and, moreover, Forging is more form-based than Awakening is neutral, I would say that this is pretty strong evidence against a default "burn after reading" setting for gateways.

Depends on which post of mine we're talking about
I did suggest that the color only allowed the breath to transfer at one point, but generally speaking, I've been arguing for the possibility that in some way, some how, color's involved in producing power.

Okay, then we still disagree. Color goes bye-bye after the first second or so, while power is continuous. Good to nail down what we each mean, even if you're still wrong.

That can work nicely. My proposal is mostly just that if a shard takes an active role, that role will be where it was already taking a passive role. If a shard was passively giving out a five-spot, then it might actively give out a C-note. But if it was passively transporting 3 boxes, then it would actively transport 10 boxes.
To try to use a different analogy to illustrate this: lets say we are boiling water with MAGIC. Under my proposal, passively, a shard adds energy to the fire that causes the water to boil and produce steam. We'd expect, then, that an active shard would add more energy to the fire, to produce more heat, to make the water boil more vigorously, to produce more steam. Under your proposal, as I understand it, it sounds like passively a shard would do the same, but actively it would decrease the atmospheric pressure, so that water can boil at a lower temperature, so that more steam can be produced. It's something that we could imagine a shard doing, but if that is how it works, that is unexpected and without precedent.

Okay, I'm fine with direct-fueling being an "active" role here. I think you're still a bit off on my (incredibly clear and detailed) scheme, though. If a Shard is directly fueling Feruchemy, or any power, really, then they aren't doing anything weaksauce like just making the process more efficient. They're throwing their own power on top of the magic-user's (at considerable cost).

So the Shard would transport 3 boxes with extra power in them, or 30 boxes that came out of nowhere as far as the Feruchemist was concerned. The boiler-mancer's fire would grow more hot as the Shard added unnatural amounts of power without the proper "payment" coming from the magic user. In any scenario, the Shard puts itself out there to add more raw power from its own essence.

Really, to be more accurate in the skit, the Guided Power of the Shard could show up at the Feruchemist's doorstep out of the blue and shove a million dollars in his face without the Feruchemist ever even asking for his own envelopes back. The Shard has the Feruchemist's address and has the power to give, so it could throw some extra energy into his Spiritual aspect easily enough.

Alternatively (since we're not sure how fueling Feruchemy would work) the Shard could drop off his bags of money at the metalmind instead, and leave it for access later.

I suppose my main objection to your supposition is that it requires that the shard do something "new." And I find new things to be frightening and scary

But the new is so shiny and potentially world-ending! How can you resist!?

Recall that Shards directly fueling magic is an unnatural and costly process. While I don't think my mechanism is particularly "new," I don't think novelty would be that unusual in such extreme circumstances.

EDIT: Actually, we may be able to work together on this one. Allomancy is harder for Ruin to directly fuel than it is for Preservation, right? So the degree to which the mechanism is novel to the Shard might very well have some impact there.

Actually I think I figured it out a while ago, just was too lazy to post. Basically Effective Energy Output equals the stored attribute over the result of the tap time over the store time, with the result of store time over tap time multiplied by 0.08 being subtracted from the result, assuming that 0<(Tt/Ts)<1 . Or:
E=(Ss/[Tt/Ts]) - 0.08(Ts/Tt)

If you are wondering, that 0.08 is the closest to the rate of loss that I was able to figure out from Sanderson's off the cuff values.

I ran that equation through a few randomly made up examples and it seems to work this time.

Well done. So we agree, then, that we need to somehow remember the interval during which the attribute was stored, in order to make your equation work?

See, it doesn't matter in that example because, presumable, the feruchemist got money out at an acceptable rate that didn't incur a service charge.
But if it really bothers you, the skit example would still work if the feruchemist deposited a ratty old Ten and received a brand spanking new Ten in its place. Both from the same mint. Same "value," "denomination," and same origin, just a different bill. Or, in non-analogy speak, different "energy."

It could work with functionally identical, but technically different power, but the problem is that I don't really see the need for such contrivance, especially since we also need to contrive an additional structure which stores intervals of storage (for your equation) as well as raw power.

It seems much more elegant and natural to simply have the original power stored and then retrieved (barring exceptional circumstances) at a later date, unchanged. Then we don't need to explain where all the extra information (including the specifics of Memory et al., spirit-key, etc. as well as the interval of storage) is stored.

At this point, what is the advantage of your gateway system over "time scuttling" via pushing aspects into a (possibly) atemporal Spiritual garage?

Again, I am not saying that fueling magic in your model is impossible for a shard, just that it breaks the expected norm. Its that breaking from what is normal and expect that I am objecting to the most.
Also, to note, Ruin altering words doesn't seem to be part of a standard magic system, and so there is no procedural norm for write-o-mancy that Ruin could break.

As I said, I don't think it really breaks the norm that much, and even if it did, that might be quite expected for something which is an exceptional action for the Shards.

As you said, "write-o-mancy" doesn't fall under Hemalurgy's purview, and yet Ruin can utilize it if he must. New doesn't mean impossible or even improbable.

Side Note: Speaking of write-o-mancy, I would be surprised if altering the physical world was not also uniquely costly to Shards: otherwise Ruin could get all Ruinous without meaningfully diverting any of his power from the balance with Preservation.

Edited October 17, 2012 by Kurkistan

Thought · October 17, 2012

So, if we do agree, then you'll agree that the impermanence of Aons drawn in the air is primarily a result of the impermanence of that medium, not of the Aons themselves defaulting to "burn after reading?"

More along the lines of your suggestion that, after activation, there is no longer a sustaining force being applied to the aons.

Alas, having not yet read TES, I haven't read the rest of your comment and thus must avoid responding to those.

For now.

Dun dun DUUUUUNNNNN!

Okay, then we still disagree. Color goes bye-bye after the first second or so, while power is continuous. Good to nail down what we each mean, even if you're still wrong.

Actually, I think we agree, but that you are taking a general statement for a specific statement. That is, I am merely claiming that power is involved with color: this might be the power that sustains an object, but it also might be the power that allows for the transfer of breaths around (the power to move investiture, while the investiture itself sustains an object). The latter seems to be what you suggested. My proposition just isn't in general that specific. Its sort of like I am saying that mixing is involved in maxing a cake, but avoiding a statement as to how much mixing is involved, and during what steps.

But let's try a different approach: what is your explanation for why colors disappear? We know that without color, Awakening doesn't work, so it must be important. What function is it serving?

It could work with functionally identical, but technically different power, but the problem is that I don't really see the need for such contrivance, especially since we also need to contrive an additional structure which stores intervals of storage (for your equation) as well as raw power.

Not at all. The original proposition, in case you forgot it, was that a feruchemist, by storing an attribute, wrote a gateway onto the metal. If that is accepted, then no additional structure is needed to store intervals of storage: all that information would be inherently coded into the original process. While this does suppose something new (coding gateways), it also eliminates the unnatural aspect of your (and most) models (Shards directly fueling feruchemy in a non-standard way). But, at this point I think we both understand this, and are now reduced to simply disagreeing with the other person's reasoning.

To note, the equations are largely separate from this. They are mathematical representations of feruchemical power that should stand up to any model, not just mine. A bit of mathematical fun.

It seems much more elegant and natural to simply have the original power stored and then retrieved (barring exceptional circumstances) at a later date, unchanged. Then we don't need to explain where all the extra information (including the specifics of Memory et al., spirit-key, etc. as well as the interval of storage) is stored.

I agree that what you describe would be more elegant and natural. However, since it does not account for all the known variables, I must reject it.

Both of our models include a greater degree of complexity than what you described above. Mine places that greater degree of complexity at the moment of storage, in order to simplify and include shardic interactions with the system. Simply put, mine makes the entire system predictable. We know every moving part (even if those parts are more complex than is ideal).

In contrast, your system keeps storage simpler but places that greater degree of complexity on shardic interactions. Or, more exactly, it doesn't define that interaction, and therefore your system is not predictable. We know that, somehow, a shard can power feruchemy, but we don't know how or where in the process that occurs. You suppose that it can interact anywhere it darn well pleases. In your system, to use the steam-o-mancy example, a shard could help a magic user produce more steam by increasing the heat, decreasing the atmospheric temperature, adding salt to the water, or indeed even change the temperature at which water boils. You system doesn't account for where a shard will interact, and so that factor remains a mystery. Given that Sanderson has tried to make very scientific magic systems, this vagueness seems to be antithetical.

That is the advantage of gateways over spirit lockers: gateways pin down where a shard would interact (and it also provides a conceptual framework which can be applied to other magic systems, whereas yours is feruchemically specific).

That said, it seems you don't view this lack in your system to be significant, where as I view it as quite significant indeed (in turn, I don't view the complexity of the stored attribute in my system to be significant, whereas you view it to be very significant indeed).

Random question: what would it look like for a shard, under any model, to fuel the copper aspect of feruchemy? Would a feruchemist just be able to "tap" a memory without removing it from the metalmind, essentially? Or would new memories appear there? Or something else?

Edited October 17, 2012 by Thought

**Kurkistan** · October 17, 2012

More along the lines of your suggestion that, after activation, there is no longer a sustaining force being applied to the aons.

Alas, having not yet read TES, I haven't read the rest of your comment and thus must avoid responding to those.

For now.

Dun dun DUUUUUNNNNN!

Okay, I can definitely buy that.

Actually, I think we agree, but that you are taking a general statement for a specific statement. That is, I am merely claiming that power is involved with color: this might be the power that sustains an object, but it also might be the power that allows for the transfer of breaths around (the power to move investiture, while the investiture itself sustains an object). The latter seems to be what you suggested. My proposition just isn't in general that specific. Its sort of like I am saying that mixing is involved in maxing a cake, but avoiding a statement as to how much mixing is involved, and during what steps.
But let's try a different approach: what is your explanation for why colors disappear? We know that without color, Awakening doesn't work, so it must be important. What function is it serving?

As long as the color doesn't provide the sustaining power, I think I'd be fine with most systems.

Under my model (with the model as a whole described by certain parties as "very close" ), color is used to power the transfer of the Command (which I posit is in the form of a partial Cognitive aspect as of right now) to the Awakened object.

Not at all. The original proposition, in case you forgot it, was that a feruchemist, by storing an attribute, wrote a gateway onto the metal. If that is accepted, then no additional structure is needed to store intervals of storage: all that information would be inherently coded into the original process. While this does suppose something new (coding gateways), it also eliminates the unnatural aspect of your (and most) models (Shards directly fueling feruchemy in a non-standard way). But, at this point I think we both understand this, and are now reduced to simply disagreeing with the other person's reasoning.
To note, the equations are largely separate from this. They are mathematical representations of feruchemical power that should stand up to any model, not just mine. A bit of mathematical fun.

Could we back up a bit and have you explain how gateways account for initial intervals of storage? So how gateways code in 3 hours of 10% as opposed to 1 hour of 30%? This actually flows all the way back to my point about "full" metalminds. So it seems that your gateways will have to have variable size as well as everything else in order for metalminds of equal power to be using equal space, unless you want "power equal" metalminds to possibly be of unequal sizes.

Assuming that "full" metalminds hold the same amount of power regardless of how quickly they were filled in your system:

But then we must ask why pulling 10% from 3 small gateways at the same time for an hour should actually be more expensive than pulling 30% from 1 large gateway. Now that you've acknowledge that initial intervals of storage matter during the "surging" calculation of energy loss, what is it within your model that necessitates or even implies that energy loss? As far as the Shard giving you all of the power is concerned, its being asked for 30% for one hour. That 30% can go through 3 gateways or 100, but the amount of "space" available to move the energy through should be the same.

I cannot see how energy loss from surging energy X/s as compared to tapping that same energy X/s at a 1:1 rate is a natural consequence of your system. Since moving the energy from discrete units of storage into the Feruchemist is where the Shard's energy comes in in my system, it is natural that moving more discrete units costs more energy. In your system, the Shard just delivers however much energy the gates "width" calls for. The only place where I could see some natural wastage was if the Shard tried to push too much energy through too small a gate, but that still would result in "full" metalminds of unequal power levels.

All of the above does assume that you want two full Pewter earings to always have the same fundamental amount of power. If you agree with that, then please explain where the waste from surging is necessitated in your system. If you don't agree, I'm still interested to know for sure where the waste from surging comes from in your system.

Side note: Could you take a glance at my quote of Goradel in my previous previous post, which I think I edited in after you had already quoted everything and we're working on it offline? I still find it quite persuasive in its intuitiveness.

As I said, I don't find the method of Shardic powering I suggest to be that novel, and even if it was then that would fit nicely with unnatural actions costing extra energy (see my EDIT to my previous post).

I agree that what you describe would be more elegant and natural. However, since it does not account for all the known variables, I must reject it.
Both of our models include a greater degree of complexity than what you described above. Mine places that greater degree of complexity at the moment of storage, in order to simplify and include shardic interactions with the system. Simply put, mine makes the entire system predictable. We know every moving part (even if those parts are more complex than is ideal).

In contrast, your system keeps storage simpler but places that greater degree of complexity on shardic interactions. Or, more exactly, it doesn't define that interaction, and therefore your system is not predictable. We know that, somehow, a shard can power feruchemy, but we don't know how or where in the process that occurs. You suppose that it can interact anywhere it darn well pleases. In your system, to use the steam-o-mancy example, a shard could help a magic user produce more steam by increasing the heat, decreasing the atmospheric temperature, adding salt to the water, or indeed even change the temperature at which water boils. You system doesn't account for where a shard will interact, and so that factor remains a mystery. Given that Sanderson has tried to make very scientific magic systems, this vagueness seems to be antithetical.

What variables doesn't my theory account for? I know you think I'm fuzzy on how the Shards could fuel Feruchemy (though I disagree for the following reasons), but anything besides that?

Actually, for steam-o-mancy, I said that the Shard would be primarily restricted to pouring in raw power and making the water/fire hotter. You're the one who suggested changing the physical world as the mechanism for "powering" steam-o-mancy, and I corrected you on that.

On a completely unrelated note, I don't think a Shard shouldn't be able to do any of those things. As I said at the end of my previous post, Shards can affect the Physical world, but we know it isn't a free action because otherwise Ruin could get all Ruinous without meaningfully diverting any of his power from the balance with Preservation. If a Shard was feeling wasteful that day, it could use its power to lower air pressure. But it would be like using a battery to power a fan to blow away the air to increase the ability of a battery-powered stove to boil the water. It's a lot more efficient to just hook up the battery to the stove.

That is the advantage of gateways over spirit lockers: gateways pin down where a shard would interact (and it also provides a conceptual framework which can be applied to other magic systems, whereas yours is feruchemically specific).
That said, it seems you don't view this lack in your system to be significant, where as I view it as quite significant indeed (in turn, I don't view the complexity of the stored attribute in my system to be significant, whereas you view it to be very significant indeed).

In order to avoid getting stuck in the mutually uncomprehending incomprehension loop again, please tell me again where the Shards interact when directly fueling in your system. Do they just throw energy at the magic-user? Do they create and/or over-utilize gateways?

I view the nature (of which complexity is a component) of how the attribute is stored to be important because that's what we have a lot of data on, while we've never seen a Shard directly fuel Feruchemy. While how Shards fuel Feruchemy and other magic systems is important, I care less about its specific mechanism because we know that, no matter what system you use, the basic stuff of magic, Investiture, is always universally compatible, so the Shards can find some way in just about any model. I personally think my tentative mechanism would work fine, but don't have much investment in it because it's a fringe issue which could conceivably be resolved in a number of ways independent of any model.

As far as storage goes: As of right now, I don't see that your gateway theory actually adequately explains how and why surging has a cost. Your equation, as you said, works for any system, but why does your system have that cost in the first place?

Random question: what would it look like for a shard, under any model, to fuel the copper aspect of feruchemy? Would a feruchemist just be able to "tap" a memory without removing it from the metalmind, essentially? Or would new memories appear there? Or something else?

I'm on the "makes memories ridiculously strong, but doesn't add any fundamentally new information" bandwagon. So you can remember the specific shape of that symbol better and the memory will, functionally, never fade, but you won't "remember" something that you never saw, like what was behind a drawn curtain. Alternatively, it could just lock the memory in place at the fidelity you had at the moment of compounding. So the symbol is just as fuzy as you remembered it last time, but it will never fade.

Edited October 17, 2012 by Kurkistan

Thought · October 18, 2012

Please forgive me if I skip much of the quote/response format. I had a bit of inspiration that might help me explain my supposition far more clearly than I have previously been able to, and at the same time gets at most of your questions/objections.

I've said that storing an attribute creates a gateway. However, for what I am trying to get at, it is just as valid to say that the stored attribute IS the gateway, in the exact same manner that pewter or aon rao are gateways for their respective magic systems. Storing an hour of strength is almost exactly like putting a bead of atium in your pocket, and tapping that hour of strength is like burning that bead of atium, and compounding that hour of strength is like flaring that atium.

How does it account for the initial rate of storage? Same principle as in allomancy: purity. Storing 10% of strength for an hour produces a less "pure" attribute to burn than storing 80% of strength. We know that a really pure piece of metal, for an allomancer, produces a better effect. But it stands to reason that flaring an impure piece of metal will also be less powerful than flaring a piece of pure metal. Indeed, flaring a lot of impure pewter might even produce a smaller effect than normally burning a little pure pewter.

Why would there be compounding inefficiency? For the same reason as in allomancy. Flare your steel, and while you can push harder, you can't push for as long, and it is implied that the two are not directly correlated (flaring your steel so you can push twice as hard exhausts your metals at more than twice the speed). What is the exact, nitty gritty cause of this inefficiency? Dunno, but whatever it is, I'd propose that it is the same basic principle as in allomancy (and any other system where we see an inefficiency).

Where does a shard step in, exactly, under my system? Exactly the same place as in allomancy (which is less specific than I'd like to be, admittedly). It is a little vague as to if Vin shoved power into Elend, or just opened gateways for him to use, or what. But what she did for allomancy, my theory suggests would be a direct cognate for how it is done in feruchemy.

This would indeed indicate (but not necessitate) that a metalmind filled with an impure amount of an attribute would effectively have less power than the same sized metalmind filled with a purer amount of that attribute, because the impurity of time would be taking up more "space" in one as opposed to the other. It would depend on if time takes up space or not.

But then we must ask why pulling 10% from 3 small gateways at the same time for an hour should actually be more expensive than pulling 30% from 1 large gateway.

This is a total aside (I think the real answer to your question is contained above), but why must we ask that? From what Sanderson said, storing 10% of strength for 2 hours and then compounding it to a gain of 20% for 1 hour (well, actually probably closer to 50 minutes if his off the cuff figures were accurate) would be less effective than storing 20% for 1 hour and tapping it at the same. But, does that necessitate that storing 10% for one hour on two separate occasions and then tapping both reserves at once also equals inefficiency.

In case that isn't clear, in the first example, 2 hours are being compressed into 1 hour, while in the second, 2 hours are not compressed but are occurring simultaneously. Perhaps that is just splitting hairs, but I am not sure if these are the same thing...

Sorry, just pondering aloud (well, a-written? a-readened? Something like that).

Side note: Could you take a glance at my quote of Goradel in my previous previous post, which I think I edited in after you had already quoted everything and we're working on it offline? I still find it quite persuasive in its intuitiveness.

I've taken a look at it, but I seriously doubt my response will be worth your effort.

Unfortunately, I'm not really sure what point you were trying to make with Goradel's post. This might be simply because I'm fairly vague on Goradel's own point: it's intuitive, yes, but also seems to apply to any system. If we say that a metalmind is like a repository of buckets of water, for example, Goradel's intuition seems like it could apply there: the energy loss is the result of trying to manipulate two buckets at once with the same strength and dexterity as one (one should expect spillage). So... sorry I don't have anything better to say?

What variables doesn't my theory account for? I know you think I'm fuzzy on how the Shards could fuel Feruchemy (though I disagree for the following reasons), but anything besides that?

Not so much how a shard could fuel it, but where in the process that would occur. Imagine magic is like a Rube Goldberg machine. A causes B causes C caused D causes E causes F causes G, etc. First, it doesn't seem like your system necessitates that either A, B, etc, or G is the Shard, and even if it did, it doesn't seem like it pins down if the Shard actually is A, B, etc.

Actually, for steam-o-mancy, I said that the Shard would be primarily restricted to pouring in raw power and making the water/fire hotter. You're the one who suggested changing the physical world as the mechanism for "powering" steam-o-mancy, and I corrected you on that.

True enough, but I discounted your correction because it seemed to stem more from what is reasonably expected, rather than from your own system. To put it another way, what about your system necessitates that the heating point is where a shard would apply its power?

I view the nature (of which complexity is a component) of how the attribute is stored to be important because that's what we have a lot of data on, while we've never seen a Shard directly fuel Feruchemy. While how Shards fuel Feruchemy and other magic systems is important, I care less about its specific mechanism because we know that, no matter what system you use, the basic stuff of magic, Investiture, is always universally compatible, so the Shards can find some way in just about any model. I personally think my tentative mechanism would work fine, but don't have much investment in it because it's a fringe issue which could conceivably be resolved in a number of ways independent of any model.

I care more about the specific mechanism because that is what, if we can pin it down, gives us knowledge that we can then apply to other magic systems. How an attribute is stored, to me, is a side issue: a matter of trying to figure out how a specific instance conforms to a universal constant (not to say I have found the universal constant, but I do think my supposition is trying to get at that, whereas yours isn't motivated in the same way). This also means that, I think, my supposition is far more falsifiable than yours. We are unlikely to find out too much more about the exact processes of Feruchemy, especially in the short run, but we are far more likely to find out about other magic systems. If we find out that those systems don't conform to my supposition, then the entire grounds of that supposition vanishes. In contrast, I can't imagine what we could learn about Surgebinding, for example, that would really impact your system. And in reverse, I can't imagine what from your system we can apply to Surgebinding.

**Kurkistan** · October 18, 2012

Please forgive me if I skip much of the quote/response format. I had a bit of inspiration that might help me explain my supposition far more clearly than I have previously been able to, and at the same time gets at most of your questions/objections.

I've said that storing an attribute creates a gateway. However, for what I am trying to get at, it is just as valid to say that the stored attribute IS the gateway, in the exact same manner that pewter or aon rao are gateways for their respective magic systems. Storing an hour of strength is almost exactly like putting a bead of atium in your pocket, and tapping that hour of strength is like burning that bead of atium, and compounding that hour of strength is like flaring that atium.

How does it account for the initial rate of storage? Same principle as in allomancy: purity. Storing 10% of strength for an hour produces a less "pure" attribute to burn than storing 80% of strength. We know that a really pure piece of metal, for an allomancer, produces a better effect. But it stands to reason that flaring an impure piece of metal will also be less powerful than flaring a piece of pure metal. Indeed, flaring a lot of impure pewter might even produce a smaller effect than normally burning a little pure pewter.

Why would there be compounding inefficiency? For the same reason as in allomancy. Flare your steel, and while you can push harder, you can't push for as long, and it is implied that the two are not directly correlated (flaring your steel so you can push twice as hard exhausts your metals at more than twice the speed). What is the exact, nitty gritty cause of this inefficiency? Dunno, but whatever it is, I'd propose that it is the same basic principle as in allomancy (and any other system where we see an inefficiency).

Where does a shard step in, exactly, under my system? Exactly the same place as in allomancy (which is less specific than I'd like to be, admittedly). It is a little vague as to if Vin shoved power into Elend, or just opened gateways for him to use, or what. But what she did for allomancy, my theory suggests would be a direct cognate for how it is done in feruchemy.

This would indeed indicate (but not necessitate) that a metalmind filled with an impure amount of an attribute would effectively have less power than the same sized metalmind filled with a purer amount of that attribute, because the impurity of time would be taking up more "space" in one as opposed to the other. It would depend on if time takes up space or not.

Thank you for that restating, and that formulation might actually be a fairly accurate model for how Feruchemy functions if not for "word of god," but, as it is, you are simply going down the wrong path.

If we go back to the original Brandon quote, he says that "you'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself." It isn't a matter of efficiency of access, despite the jargon we've been using, but instead that you actually have to actively spend energy in order to "compound" Feruchemical attributes. So presenting weak storage as "impure" simply won't work.

This is a total aside (I think the real answer to your question is contained above), but why must we ask that? From what Sanderson said, storing 10% of strength for 2 hours and then compounding it to a gain of 20% for 1 hour (well, actually probably closer to 50 minutes if his off the cuff figures were accurate) would be less effective than storing 20% for 1 hour and tapping it at the same. But, does that necessitate that storing 10% for one hour on two separate occasions and then tapping both reserves at once also equals inefficiency.
In case that isn't clear, in the first example, 2 hours are being compressed into 1 hour, while in the second, 2 hours are not compressed but are occurring simultaneously. Perhaps that is just splitting hairs, but I am not sure if these are the same thing...

Sorry, just pondering aloud (well, a-written? a-readened? Something like that).

I agree, you did answer above. To the aside!

Your objection is very odd. If what you say is true, then storing an attribute at 10% for an hour, stopping for 1 second, then storing it at 10% for another hour will allow you to tap at 20% with zero inefficiency for an entire hour. The whole "occurring simultaneously" thing is part of why I brought the Goradel quote in.

If you have two lumps of 10% storage of size X and you add them together, then you ought to get one lump of 10% storage of size 2X. Anything else is exceptionally open to exploitation, and really doesn't have any reason to be used as a model. If your proposition is true, then there is really no functional difference between storing 10% for two hours and storing 20% for one hour, which is what we've been trying to avoid this whole time.

While I highly doubt that either Brandon or Feruchmists in the series would have failed to mention this incredibly important fact, we also have that Wax shouldn't have drained his metalminds when crushing the building, in your world. He'd been storing 25% of his weight at all waking times for a large part of his life--at least several months without real tapping while he was back in Elendel. Each time he slept, those "storage sections" should have been stored separately in your model, and could then be used in parallel with no additional cost. So a few month's worth of 25% storage. I imagine that you could crush a building at "1:1," time wise, if you used all of those segments in parallel. Just to put this in perspective, Wax could have weighed 1800Kg for a whole day with zero inefficiency (given a base weight of 80Kg, 90 days of storage).

I've taken a look at it, but I seriously doubt my response will be worth your effort.
Unfortunately, I'm not really sure what point you were trying to make with Goradel's post. This might be simply because I'm fairly vague on Goradel's own point: it's intuitive, yes, but also seems to apply to any system. If we say that a metalmind is like a repository of buckets of water, for example, Goradel's intuition seems like it could apply there: the energy loss is the result of trying to manipulate two buckets at once with the same strength and dexterity as one (one should expect spillage). So... sorry I don't have anything better to say?

It includes a sensible application of "time scuttling" that ties in perfectly with what Brandon has said on the subject, namely using some of the power to compound the rest of it. Also, I really like that quote.

Not so much how a shard could fuel it, but where in the process that would occur. Imagine magic is like a Rube Goldberg machine. A causes B causes C caused D causes E causes F causes G, etc. First, it doesn't seem like your system necessitates that either A, B, etc, or G is the Shard, and even if it did, it doesn't seem like it pins down if the Shard actually is A, B, etc.

Normal Feruchemy:

A: Feruchemist mentally tries to store in metalmind

B: Feruchemist utilizes the unguided power of the Shards to move his attributes into the metalmind.

C: Feruchemist mentally tries to tap his metalmind

D: Feruchemist utilizes the unguided power of the Shards to move his attribute out of the metalmind and into his body/mind/soul, using some of the attribute's power on top of that of the Shard's if surging.

Shard (Directly) Fueling Feruchemy:

Option 1: Shard places additional power in a Feruchemist's metalmind.

Option 2: Shard places additional power in the Feruchemis himself.

Option 3: Shard injects additional power into a normal tap from the Feruchemist.

Option 4 ...

You yourself don't have a particularly clear idea of where the Shard comes in to fuel Allomancy.

True enough, but I discounted your correction because it seemed to stem more from what is reasonably expected, rather than from your own system. To put it another way, what about your system necessitates that the heating point is where a shard would apply its power?

Oh, absolutely nowhere within my own system.

This is a separate point that simply follows from the intuition (and a bit evidence that I've discussed) that a raw application of power into an existing magic system is cheaper for the Shard than a more nuanced and/or direct use.

I care more about the specific mechanism because that is what, if we can pin it down, gives us knowledge that we can then apply to other magic systems. How an attribute is stored, to me, is a side issue: a matter of trying to figure out how a specific instance conforms to a universal constant (not to say I have found the universal constant, but I do think my supposition is trying to get at that, whereas yours isn't motivated in the same way). This also means that, I think, my supposition is far more falsifiable than yours. We are unlikely to find out too much more about the exact processes of Feruchemy, especially in the short run, but we are far more likely to find out about other magic systems. If we find out that those systems don't conform to my supposition, then the entire grounds of that supposition vanishes. In contrast, I can't imagine what we could learn about Surgebinding, for example, that would really impact your system. And in reverse, I can't imagine what from your system we can apply to Surgebinding.

A noble enough goal, but unrelated to the purpose of our discussion. I can give you a theory that Allomancy won't work unless you have all of your fingers and toes, which is patently absurd (your theory isn't patently absurd, but I'm trying for contrast), but it is certainly very falsifiable. That doesn't give the theory one ounce more merit in discussion, though.

I appreciate efforts to figure out the broader cosmology (I'd better appreciate that kind of thing), but I think you've simply hit wrong here. I don't think that Gateways are the way to go, and trying to staple them onto Feruchemy is harmful.

I'll take a quick shot at Surgebinding, if you don't mind:

*ahem*

"Given that Thought has hailed me as a god and that we all now agree that it is a logical necessity that Feruchemical attributes are stored in the Spiritual aspects of metalminds, I hereby suggest that Stormlight is primarily stored in the Spiritual aspects of surgebinders and gemstones, rather than in their Physical aspects. The longevity of this storage may well have to do with the form of these objects, but we already know that power "stored" in tangible objects can actually stored in the Spiritual realm--and stormlight is essentially raw magical power, which we also know comes directly from the Spiritual realm--so it follows that the majority of stormlight's existence is Spiritual as well, with the light itself most likely being a "bleeding" effect.

This, in turn, suggests that crushing a stormlight-bearing gemstone might very well result in the stormlight released thereof appearing "spontaneously" from the location at which the gemstone was last complete, since the composite object which once housed the stormlight was fundamentally destroyed and the stormlight has no affinity to its atomic components."

Edited October 18, 2012 by Kurkistan

name_here · October 18, 2012

I don't have the time to read through these posts at present, but Aons can't actually be deactivated by destroying their physical forms when they're carved into stone or similar. Only Elantrians can shut them down. That would probably be why the Elantris Aon Rao reactivated despite major collapses in the city.

**Kurkistan** · October 18, 2012

I don't have the time to read through these posts at present, but Aons can't actually be deactivated by destroying their physical forms when they're carved into stone or similar. Only Elantrians can shut them down. That would probably be why the Elantris Aon Rao reactivated despite major collapses in the city.

That's good to know. It indicates that Aons as we know them are entirely comprised of energy, with physical forms simply serving as a shortcut for Elantrians. Presumably "light" Aons on stones and whatnot simply have some additional "stay on" lines that keep them on rather than the fact of being carved making them more permanent, then.

Thought · October 18, 2012

I don't have the time to read through these posts at present, but Aons can't actually be deactivated by destroying their physical forms when they're carved into stone or similar. Only Elantrians can shut them down. That would probably be why the Elantris Aon Rao reactivated despite major collapses in the city.

An excellent point. That does seem to indicate that it should be possible to draw a permanent aon in the air, or a non-permanent one on stone.

Also, I don't blame you for not having the time to read everything. There's been too much said, at this point.

So presenting weak storage as "impure" simply won't work.

That's good, because that isn't what I said at all.

Remember, this is all analogy-speak. I had said that if one stored an attribute at a low level over a long period of time, that would produce an "impure" feruchemical equivalent to an allomantic metal. The impurity relates to how much power one can get out at a time. Storing Strongbadium at 50% for two hours would be more impure than storing Strongbadium at 100% for one hour. While you have more of the first sample, it's weaker when you burn it. So, if you are burning the first sample, but want the bonus attribute to be 100% rather than 50%, you'd have to flare it. How did Sanderson describe flaring in the books? As a conscious action that required effort. Or, in other words, an allomancer flaring metals has to spend energy to flare it, and then spend that energy produced from flaring itself. That sounds suspiciously like the Sanderson quote about compounding.

Of course, as I noted, this is all an analogy, but it seems to be one that's producing fewer confusions, at least.

...we also have that Wax shouldn't have drained his metalminds when crushing the building, in your world...

Wax probably weighs around 150lb, so that would be 37lb that he's storing. Some quick research indicates that a small building (a two story residential house) would weigh around 300,000 lb. That would mean he'd need around 22 years of storing weight to equal that. I don't recall exactly how long he was out in the Roughs, but I got the impression that it was around 10 or so years. There's still the matter of him tapping his weight, too. He does it with such skill and frequency in the few days of the book that we should except that he was doing it rather frequently in the past, too. And since he usually taps at a far far larger rate than he stores, even assuming he kept 3/4 of that is generous. So all in all, he'd be around 15 years short of what you're proposing.

But as noted, that was a random musing.

You yourself don't have a particularly clear idea of where the Shard comes in to fuel Allomancy.

Actually, it is rather clear, just not perfectly so. To use the Rube Goldberg example, we know that the Shard is involved at step D, we just don't know if it is exactly where D starts, or where D ends. Our information is specific, but it could be more specific.

A noble enough goal, but unrelated to the purpose of our discussion.

Wait, what IS the purpose of our discussion then? I was thinking that the goal was rather interpersonal at this point, given that the original topic of the thread seems to have been exhausted and that we're largely just trying to communicate to each other our theories now. So establishing the goals for our systems seems entirely related to the discussion.

I'll take a quick shot at Surgebinding, if you don't mind:

Meh, you started out with a seriously flawed premise (I was hailing you as gog, as in god and magog, not god!). But then you went on to attempt to apply a principle that, even if correct, is currently only known to be a unique phenomenon to other instances. It's like trying to apply principles you've deduced from apples to oranges.

Though, to note, since stormlight has a far more physical manifestation than attributes in a metalmind, your comparison is also flawed in that way. A feruchemist doesn't leak their spiritual energy, yes? So, different behaviors indicates that the two things are likewise different.

**Kurkistan** · October 18, 2012

That's good, because that isn't what I said at all.
Remember, this is all analogy-speak. I had said that if one stored an attribute at a low level over a long period of time, that would produce an "impure" feruchemical equivalent to an allomantic metal. The impurity relates to how much power one can get out at a time. Storing Strongbadium at 50% for two hours would be more impure than storing Strongbadium at 100% for one hour. While you have more of the first sample, it's weaker when you burn it. So, if you are burning the first sample, but want the bonus attribute to be 100% rather than 50%, you'd have to flare it. How did Sanderson describe flaring in the books? As a conscious action that required effort. Or, in other words, an allomancer flaring metals has to spend energy to flare it, and then spend that energy produced from flaring itself. That sounds suspiciously like the Sanderson quote about compounding.

Of course, as I noted, this is all an analogy, but it seems to be one that's producing fewer confusions, at least.

An interesting thought which does make a certain amount of sense.

I still don't necessarily buy it, though. My interpretation of Allomantic efficiency is like an engine: you can pour on more gas, but you just get diminishing returns after a certain point. You may like this post, actually. It has a nice efficiency curve and I find his arguments persuasive.

The thing is, if your theory is the case, then there should really be no upper limit to flaring. The biggest weakness of Allomancy versus Feruchemy has been said since book 1 to be Allomancy's upper limit. If you have an hour's worth of metal and flare it so that you only have 10 minutes worth, then why can't you just flare it a bit more for 5 minutes worth? Why the absolute limit?

When Vin Duraluminum-bashed that Thug in the face at the assassination attempt, we were explicitly told that she should have lost that head-butting match (without duraluminum, at least). Ham said that, if both Vin and the Thug flared Pewter, then they should have evened out and it would be like neither were burning pewter when they're heads hit. Even it is was inefficient, you'd think that one or the other would be expected to flare that little bit more to win the match, coming down in the end to whoever had more pewter in their stomach. Then Ham wouldn't have been surpised at all, he'd have just said "I guess Vin had more pewter" and call it a day.

So there is a limit on Allomancy while their shouldn't be if you're right about how flaring works. If the mechanisms for Allomancy and Feruchemy are really so similar, then why is only Allomancy restricted by this upper bound?

Even if you can provide a sensible reason for the upper-bound, we still have the question of why it should take energy to "compound" Allomancy or Feruchemy under your system.

As of now, I hold that the limit for Allomancy is at the level of the metal being burned: that Allomancers can only burn so much (just because) and that they burn the metal inefficiently when flaring. The energy cost of Allomancy is borne entirely by the Shard at all levels, and the Shard certainly isn't running out of energy, so why should the delivery of that energy to the Allomancer be particularly expensive in high quantities?

If Feruchemists use up energy to "compound" attributes because they are pulling together discrete units of time. The energy cost lies entirely in the transfer itself, so it makes sense that high rates of transfer cost more energy: if you transfer more "time units" than 1:1, then it costs more power.

If, though, Feruchemy works virtually the same as Allomancy, then why is the energy cost still riding in the transfer itself?

EDIT: Oops. Lost my brain there for a second. I was distracted then came back and forgot I'd forgotten where I was going. Sorry.

Okay, quickly before I have to go:

If Feruchemy and Allomancy work in nearly identical fashions, then why can an Allomancer only burn so much pewter while a Feruchemist can Hulk-out on every drop of power they have at the same time?

Wax probably weighs around 150lb, so that would be 37lb that he's storing. Some quick research indicates that a small building (a two story residential house) would weigh around 300,000 lb. That would mean he'd need around 22 years of storing weight to equal that. I don't recall exactly how long he was out in the Roughs, but I got the impression that it was around 10 or so years. There's still the matter of him tapping his weight, too. He does it with such skill and frequency in the few days of the book that we should except that he was doing it rather frequently in the past, too. And since he usually taps at a far far larger rate than he stores, even assuming he kept 3/4 of that is generous. So all in all, he'd be around 15 years short of what you're proposing.
But as noted, that was a random musing.

I did the math with him at 80kg (176 lbs), and it's nice and round, so I'll stick with it. If tapping is as efficient as your musing suggests, then almost nothing Wax ever did could truly offset his stored weight, so I'll stick with 90 days of storage too, although I could probably more accurately say 20 years and still be safe.

You don't need to drop another building on a building in order to destroy it:

As I said, 90 days would give Wax a perfectly efficient mass of 1800Kg. A well-built modern house has a floor which can take ~18Kg per square foot before breaking. The shack-house that Wax destroys is described as rickety from the get-go. Recall that Wax is Pushing on metal, too, so all the force is going into literally the fastening and nails that keep the building intact in the first place.

18*99 = 1782, so basic 90-day weight can put destruction-level force on 99 square feet of the top of the building if the force is equally distributed (which it won't be), which will cause it to collapse on the rest of the building and pull everything down with it. Especially given the decayed state of the building in the book, I think a "1:1" tap would actually do it. If not, though, I'll easily let you double or quadruple the tapping, putting 4 parallel seconds into 1, with still very little energy lost and a lot more to spare.

Actually, it is rather clear, just not perfectly so. To use the Rube Goldberg example, we know that the Shard is involved at step D, we just don't know if it is exactly where D starts, or where D ends. Our information is specific, but it could be more specific.

Fair enough. I still hold that my specifications are at least as specific as yours, though.

Wait, what IS the purpose of our discussion then? I was thinking that the goal was rather interpersonal at this point, given that the original topic of the thread seems to have been exhausted and that we're largely just trying to communicate to each other our theories now. So establishing the goals for our systems seems entirely related to the discussion.

Oh, the goals are certainly related to the discussion, and thank you for trying to clarify them: such clarity lets us better understand where we're coming from and what we're trying to achieve, and so makes communication easier. Ultimately, though, the goals oughtn't to come into the final evaluation of whether or not a theory is plausible as it is presented. We're discussing the mechanisms of Feruchemy (among other things), so the only ultimately important metric by which to judge the validity of our models is how they model Feruchemy.

Meh, you started out with a seriously flawed premise (I was hailing you as gog, as in god and magog, not god!). But then you went on to attempt to apply a principle that, even if correct, is currently only known to be a unique phenomenon to other instances. It's like trying to apply principles you've deduced from apples to oranges.
Though, to note, since stormlight has a far more physical manifestation than attributes in a metalmind, your comparison is also flawed in that way. A feruchemist doesn't leak their spiritual energy, yes? So, different behaviors indicates that the two things are likewise different.

But see, I can discuss it! Yah!

First of all, I can deduce that oranges are edible by studying apples and seeing that they have the same relative abundance in grocery stores as oranges, as well as the same basic origin as the fruit of a flowering tree. I can also deduce a high sugar content, once again from the fruit-thing and my in-depth study of the common apple.

I can't say that apples are better than oranges due to their dissimilarity, sure, but I can come to a lot of reasonable conclusions about an orange by studying how it relates to an apple.

Oh yes, they're quite different. Stormlight, for one, is universally accessible to anyone who gets their hands on it while it is imbued in gemstones, while Feruchemical metalminds are much more "locked down." That could suggest that the ease with which Investiture can be "stolen" relates to how well a vessel stores it.

Alternatively, it could be that while "leaking" is indeed a fundamental difference between Feruchemical attributes and Stormlight, as is to be expected with different magic systems, they are still both fundamentally stored in Spiritual aspects due to the aforementioned me-praising.

Edited October 18, 2012 by Kurkistan

Thought · October 18, 2012

My interpretation of Allomantic efficiency is like an engine...

Ah, but since this is an analogy, how allomancy actually works isn't as important as how it analogically works. I'm not trying to say that Feruchemy is Allomancy just with a different type of "fuel." Though, the comparisons between the two seem to be useful for trying to get my point across.

So there is a limit on Allomancy while their shouldn't be if you're right about how flaring works. If the mechanisms for Allomancy and Feruchemy are really so similar, then why is only Allomancy restricted by this upper bound?

Because "similar" is different than "exactly the same"? Both humans and mice are mammals, and as far as similarities go, we're actually quite close. We use mice as subjects for experiments that reveal new information about human reproduction. The oddity there, though, is that adult female humans have periods while adult female mice do not. So so similar, yet still different.

If I were to postulate an in-world explanation, I would suspect that feruchemy does indeed have an upper limit. Sanderson's off the cuff figures for compounding, for example, indicates that there is around a 16% loss for simply doubling an attribute, while there is roughly a 24% loss for trippling. This means that compounding has an upper limit of roughly 12.5 times the original. For anything above that, the rate of energy loss is equal to the rate of energy gain (or exceeds, actually, but I am assuming that excessive compounding doesn't start returning negatives). I suspect that in reality, the rate of loss isn't so drastic, but as long as there is that rate of loss, and as long as it is related to the degree of compounding, there is an upper limit. It is just a far more generous upper limit than in Allomancy.

You don't need to drop another building on a building in order to destroy it

Quite true, but didn't AoL say, from Wax's perspective, that he had made himself the same weight as a building?

We're discussing the mechanisms of Feruchemy (among other things), so the only ultimately important metric by which to judge the validity of our models is how they model Feruchemy.

Except that Feruchemy is a particular instance of a larger phenomenon. What you are suggesting is like trying to talk about a book without talking about literature, or talking about Rome without talking about history.

But see, I can discuss it! Yah!

True. I should have specified "discussing it well"

Edited October 18, 2012 by Thought

Asperity · October 18, 2012

You guys seriously gotta publish a "Cosmere Theories for Dummies" someday.

Shardblades and Hemalurgic Decay

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