Removing Hemalurgical charge?

[Guest]

Is there a known way to remove a Hemalurgic charge from a metal?

 

I know the strength of the charge decays over time, but assuming it uses some type of half-life decay, that means it will never fully discharge (at least not on a human-useful timeline), and splitting a Hemalurgic metal splits the charge, leaving you with 2 charged spikes (or, if you were to grind it down, thousands of very weak "spikes")

 

The reason I'm wondering is because if the charge never fully dissipates, then over hundreds of years virtually every piece of metal on Scadrial could become tainted/charged with Hemalurgy. (For example, armies equipped with full-auto guns, firing copper-jacket bullets {copper spikes}, which are then recovered, melted down, and then recycled, spreading the Hemalurgic "taint")

[WeiryWriter he/him]

The only thing I can think of would be if the metal were alloyed in some way.  We know that metalminds loose their charge if alloyed so I think it would follow that the same would apply to a Hemalurgic spike.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

We do? Where did this come from?

 

Here ya go.

[Moogle]

The MAG suggests that you can use a nicrosilmind to 'wipe' another Feruchemist's metalmind:

 

TAPPING 10 OR MORE CHARGES OF NICROSIL
A Feruchemist tapping huge amounts of investiture can actually funnel his
ability into a metalmind belonging to another Feruchemist, essentially overwriting
the abilities originally stored therein with raw investiture. For every 10 charges
of investiture you tap, you may reduce the number of charges in any metalmind
you’re touching by 5. These charges are forever lost.
Take care! This destructive ability is rarely met with pleasure, and may result
in a Physique vs. Physique action if the metalmind’s owner is awake and nearby.

 

This is one of those areas of the MAG that I feel has little to no grounding in reality, but it's an interesting application if true. I imagine the same thing would apply if you tried to use it on a Hemalurgic spike.

[Guest]

The Koloss were continuously re-spiking, and Sazed's Epigraphs hinted that the effects were compounding instead of over-writing

[skaa he/him]

The Koloss were continuously re-spiking, and Sazed's Epigraphs hinted that the effects were compounding instead of over-writing

Not sure what your point is. It is the alloying of metals that erases the charges, not reuse. The Koloss don't melt their spikes down, do they? I know they just reuse the spikes as is.

That reminds me. I wonder what happens if you melt two charged metal pieces of the same composition together (e.g. two iron spikes). Is that enough to erase the charges? Or do you have to melt different types of metals together (e.g. an iron spike and a copper spike) as is implied by the term "alloy"?

Edited May 1, 2015 by skaa

[Guest]

Sorry, I was unclear. That last post was in response to the Feruchemical overwriting theory being transposed onto Hemalurgy.

Based on what I've seen posted, I would agree that alloying would indeed destroy any residual hemalurgic charge

[skaa he/him]

Sorry, I was unclear. That last post was in response to the Feruchemical overwriting theory being transposed onto Hemalurgy.

Oh, I see. No need to apologize; I hadn't been fully awake when I read your post earlier.

It might be that Feruchemical nicrosil is just special that way, though like Moogle I also do not fully trust the MAG's interpretation of Feruchemy. I guess it might also be possible to Invest so much of a charge that other charges get "pushed off" somehow.

Edited May 1, 2015 by skaa

[Moogle]

The Koloss were continuously re-spiking, and Sazed's Epigraphs hinted that the effects were compounding instead of over-writing

 

I think you're misinterpreting what I meant. I meant a Feruchemist could possibly fling a bunch of Investiture at a Hemalurgic spike and wipe it clean. I didn't mean you could continuously spike people. Sorry for the confusion.

 

It might be that Feruchemical nicrosil is just special that way, though like Moogle I also do not fully trust the MAG's interpretation of Feruchemy. I guess it might also be possible to Invest so much of a charge that other charges get "pushed off" somehow.

 

I think that your explanation would make sense, if it's how it works. I was mostly against the idea based on the fact that you're tapping a metalmind - how can you shove it in another person's non-nicrosil metalmind?

 

I think the answer comes to us through Stormlight - apparently you can just directly infuse your Stormlight into gems by willing it. In a similar way, someone who's tapped a bunch of Investiture from a nicrosilmind could possibly just will it into a piece of metal, and then the influx of power pushes out the previous charges in it. I now am slightly more trusting in the MAG's rules on nicrosil now that I have a valid explanation.

 

Speculation, not based on anything confirmed (generic/specialized Investiture are theoretical): Or, perhaps, you need a specific threshold of specialized Investiture before it can influence generic Investiture. For example, if you burned a metalmind you only charged for a microsecond, perhaps you couldn't Compound it. In a similar way, just filling a metalmind to the brim with Investiture might mean that you can no longer tap and get at the stored trait, because there's just too much generic Investiture in it otherwise. The stored trait is still there, but not accessible.