Feruchemical puzzles

[Dysphoric Kitten she/her]

I love mistborn, and having read all of them at least thrice, I began having some questions that bug me whenever the metals they revolve around even pop in my head. 

 

So, here we go:

 

1. Lerasium makes Mistborn. Could Atium make Feruchemists? (a thread by Windborne Sword, paraphrased)

 

2. I hate Nicrosil. You store INVESTITURE*? It just seems so ambiguously useless.

(*investiture=magical power/ability (like the AonDor/breath and the ability to infuse, burn or store attributes)) 

 

3. I wanna see a Lerasium ferring and a Malatuim one. They are SO STORMING CRYPTIC!

 

4. Copper's cool. I mean, yeah. It is quite cool. But what in the name of Cusicesh do you get from compounding it?

 

5. When your metalmind is full and you continue charging it, does nothing happen, or does the attribute just go to waste?

 

 

 

These probably should go in the Q&As, but I want your thoughts first.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Tal Spektor

[Wherethewindgoes]

1. Lerasium makes Mistborn. Could Atium make Feruchemists? (a thread by Windborne Sword, paraphrased)

 

I mean...we already know what Atium does Allomantically. Lerasium is of Preservation, so it gives someone Allomancy (which BS has mentioned is actually only a "side effect" of the metal, and someone who knew what they were doing could do something else). Feruchemy isn't of Ruin, so I don't think atium would give you Feruchemy. If you are talking about an alloy, I doubt it, because alloys of lerasium and another metal make you a misting of that metal, and alloys of atium produce different mental and temporal effects. Maybe two god metals together would be a different story--Lerasium makes a connection to Preservation, atium presumably to Ruin, so a 50/50 alloy might create a balance, giving you Feruchemy. 

 

2. I hate Nicrosil. You store INVESTITURE*? It just seems so ambiguously useless.

 

I imagine there's going to be something more to this in future books, or else Brandon wouldn't have put it in the magic system. Maybe they could not have magic for a time, and then later have super-charged magic or something? Although I'm not sure how you manage to access the metalmind if you've literally stored your Feruchemy in it.

 

If you were a nicrosil compounder, though, I imagine you could increase your Feruchemical or Allomantic strength by a ton.

 

3. I wanna see a Lerasium ferring and a Malatuim one. They are SO STORMING CRYPTIC!

 

 

I'm not sure there ever will be one, since there doesn't seem to be any lerasium left on Roshar. And if there was, I doubt it would be used in Feruchemy (once you store something in a metal, it changes the metal so you can't burn it anymore. I imagine this doesn't hold if you take out all of the storage, but what if it's something you don't want to take out?)

 

4. Copper's cool. I mean, yeah. It is quite cool. But what in the name of Cusicesh do you get from compounding it?

 

Maybe multiple memories of the same thing? Or more vivid memories? Or memories of things you never saw?

Edited July 29, 2013 by Wherethewindgoes

[king of nowhere]

1) no, cause feruchemy is not of ruin. It has been speculated that an alloy of atium and lerasium would turn people into full feruchemists and alloys of atium, lerasium and a base metal into the ferrings of the relative metals, but as far as i know it is pure speculation

 

2) not sure on that. I think that it would be useless for feruchemy, since feruchemy is not stronger or weaker in a person, it only depends on how much you tap. But it would work for allomancy. for example, you could lose the ability to steelpush for a while, and then have stronger pushes.

 

3) it's unlikely we'll ever see mistings or ferrings of god-metal alloys. they are just too unpractical. especially if you consider there are several dozensgod metal alloys, and not aenough of those metals to experiment.

 

4) I suppose you get multiple memories. Sazed had 2 copperminds, one for use and one to pass to the next keeper. to do that, he had to learn stuff twice. with copper compounding, he'd had to learn stuff only once, and he could fill 2 copperminds and still remember the stuff.

[Windrunner he/him]

There's actually been hints that there are varying strengths of Feruchemists. It took longer for Inquisitors to store health than most Feruchemists because they were weaker, due to Hemalurgic decay.

[king of nowhere]

There's actually been hints that there are varying strengths of Feruchemists. It took longer for Inquisitors to store health than most Feruchemists because they were weaker, due to Hemalurgic decay.

seems strange. As far as i understand, you put X in the metalmid, you get X out of it. You don't get less than X depending on your power. I assumed the weakness of the inquisitors was due to hemalurgy not being the real thing. Also, with so many spikes, inquisitors were a hemalurgic constructs, something different from the mere sum of the powers they were invested. they had specific skills - like being steel savants, which wasn't granted by any particular spike. Or like aging slower than normal humans.

 

In all the series, no one ever mentioned some feruchemists being more powerful than others. no one ever mentioned beng capable to tap only that much feruchemical power. No one mentioned being able to store more or less based on some feruchemical power. You can store as much as you can without becoming ill. You can tap as much as you want as long as you have charges. What you put in the charge, you get back. I would not believe there are different levels of powers of feruchemists without more concrete evidence.

[Windrunner he/him]

That's fair man, you don't have to agree with me. Here's the quote, in case you wanted to see it.

Spikes made from other metals steal Feruchemical abilities. For example, all of the original Inquisitors were given a pewter spike, which—after first being pounded through the body of a Feruchemist—gave the Inquisitor the ability to store up healing power. (Though they couldn't do so as quickly as a real Feruchemist, as per the law of Hemalurgic decay.) This, obviously, is where the Inquisitors got their infamous ability to recover from wounds quickly, and was also why they needed to rest so much

I always kind of just believed that Inquisitors couldn't store as much as a regular Feruchemist, or some power would be lost. I might ask Brandon about it, but I'm not terribly excited about the question.

[Shardlet he/him]

I can see a couple of ways that hemalurgic feruchemy could be less effective than genetic feruchemy.  While you still would get out what you put in, it may be more difficult to put in.  Think of the difference between using a 1/2" diameter hose to fill or drain a tub of water versus using a 5/8" diameter hose.  Also, a hemalurgic feruchemist may not be able to store the same quantity of an attribute in a given metalmind as a genetic feruchemist could in the same metalmind.

[Dysphoric Kitten she/her]

Added fifth question.

 

I just read something claiming Nicro can convert another feruchemist's minds into investiture, which bugs me like hell, since it breaks the whole taken-from-self idea. Thoughts (including some on the fifth question) are welcome.

[Windborne Sword he/him]

What I was speculating about in my thread wasn't just about becoming a Feruchemist through taking in Atium and Lerasium. I was speculating about what it would do for people who aren't Mistborn already. For example what would eating a bead of Atium have done to someone like Elend(prior to the end of WoA)? But if you want to discuss that it should probably be done in my thread.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Windborne Sword

[Shardlet he/him]

Interesting thought Windborne, but since anybody burning lerasium (not an alloy) would become a mistborn (whether misting, mundane, or feruchemist), and mistborn and atium mistings burn atium, I suspect that burning atium would not to anything outside of what we know.  That is not to say that there may be some other means of doing something special with atium.  Its god-metal status may be accounted for in it's universality for hemalurgy.  Thus, I would posit that a lerasium spike would not be hemallurgically viable or at least would not share atium's universality (it could only be used to spike one attribute from feruchemy or one from allomancy).

 

In other words, lerasium is universal in allomancy, in that it grants the ability to burn any allomantically viable metal.  This is because allomancy is sourced from Preservation and lerasium is a pice of the body of Preservation.  In comparison, atium is universal in hemalurgy, in that it can be used to take any attribute hemalurgically.  This is because hemalurgy is sourced from Ruin and atium is a portion of the body of Ruin.

[Wherethewindgoes]

1) no, cause feruchemy is not of ruin. It has been speculated that an alloy of atium and lerasium would turn people into full feruchemists and alloys of atium, lerasium and a base metal into the ferrings of the relative metals, but as far as i know it is pure speculation

 

I believe atium isn't necessary in the alloy; according to the Coppermind it's just alloys of Lerasium and another metal make one a misting in that metal (there isn't a source for that part of the article, though, so it might just be speculation), which means an atium-lerasium alloy would just make Seers.

 

4) I suppose you get multiple memories. Sazed had 2 copperminds, one for use and one to pass to the next keeper. to do that, he had to learn stuff twice. with copper compounding, he'd had to learn stuff only once, and he could fill 2 copperminds and still remember the stuff.

 

Are you sure he had two copies of each memory? I was under the impression that the Keepers read everything from their own metalmind to the new Keepers (still leaving the memories in their own metalmind as well), not physically gave the metalmind to new Keepers.

 

I just read something claiming Nicro can convert another feruchemist's minds into investiture, which bugs me like hell, since it breaks the whole taken-from-self idea. Thoughts (including some on the fifth question) are welcome.

 

Where did you read this? 

Edited July 31, 2013 by Wherethewindgoes

[Shardlet he/him]

I believe atium isn't necessary in the alloy; according to the Coppermind it's just alloys of Lerasium and another metal make one a misting in that metal (there isn't a source for that part of the article, though, so it might just be speculation), which means an atium-lerasium alloy would just make Seers.

Quote

4) I suppose you get multiple memories. Sazed had 2 copperminds, one for use and one to pass to the next keeper. to do that, he had to learn stuff twice. with copper compounding, he'd had to learn stuff only once, and he could fill 2 copperminds and still remember the stuff.

 

Are you sure he had two copies of each memory? I was under the impression that the Keepers read everything from their own metalmind to the new Keepers (still leaving the memories in their own metalmind as well), not physically gave the metalmind to new Keepers.

 

For the first part, it could be possible that an alloy with a minor amount of atium would produce an atium misting while a 50/50 alloy would produce a feruchemist.  For my part, though, I think that it would be unlikely for one to become a feruchemist by burning anything.

 

For the second part, a keeper could not use the coppermind of another keeper.  Sazed spoke rather plainly about this in TFE with Vin.  A feruchemist cannot access the feruchemical stores of another feruchemist.

[king of nowhere]

Sazed mentions a few times having a second set of copperminds hidden somewhere. his regular copperminds are for everyday use, but every time he tap the memory into his mind to access it, it starts to fade, so his ordinary coppermind are a bit fudgy. He even mentions, in one chapter from well of ascension, that he will have to rememorize some data that is fadding ebcause he accessed it too many times.

 

So he has a second set of copperminds, stored somewhere safe, to never be used except to pass the memories to the next feruchemist, where sazed will tap the clear memories from those copperminds and redcite them to the new keeper. That's what I was intending with "passing it". I used that expression because it was shorter, and I thought there was no need to clarify as we all knew the details involved.

 

EDIT: by the way, with the god metals alloys, there's quite a bit of speculation. We know you can alloy lerasium with every allomantic metal to make mistings of that metal, in addition to a unique allomantic effect. It was also speculated that you could alloy lerasium and base metals in a different way to turn people into mistings of the lerasium allloy. And a different composition to turn people into mistings of this second lerasium alloy. And so on, the alloys could be infinite. Sanderson said somewhere (no idea where to look for it) that the number of god metal alloys is not infinite, but he seemed to imply there were more than the known 32 alloys (16 for learsium, 16 for atium).

In that light, it is quite likely that you can make alloys of lerasium with another metal in different composition to have different effects. So, the idea that the lerasium-atium alloy 1 will turn you into a seer, and the lerasium-atium alloy 2 will turn you into a feruchemist, is still on the table. the idea that there is a lerasium-atium alloy 3 that will turn you into a misting of atium-lerasium alloy 1 is less likely, but still possible.

There's been a lot of speculation, little certainties.

The only sure thing is that those alloys will hardly be important to the story, as god metals are incredibly rare.

Edited July 31, 2013 by king of nowhere

[Morderkaine he/him]

I belive this is the quote you're loolinf for king. It comes from an interview the 17th Shard admins did with Brandon a few years ago in the site's infancy. transcript link

 

17th Shard: Are there a limited amount of atium and lerasium alloys for each metal?

Brandon: Hmm, yes…I suppose there would be but there are…

17th Shard: More than sixteen?

Brandon: Yeah, way more than sixteen.

17th Shard: Oh wow. Okay. That's fascinating. More than sixteen and less than infinite.

Brandon: Yes.

[Moogle]

What if you made a metal mind out of the alloy and tried to store stuff in it? I think that Atium and Lerasium alloyed would produce the metal required to become a Feruchemist, because Feruchemy is end-neutral, but I wouldn't know how to become a Feruchemist with that metal. Not burning it, obviously, because that's Allomancy. Not making a spike, because that's Helmuargy. Does anyone have a WoB on this? Somebody get him to answer that infernal question: How did Feruchemy start?

 

Feruchemy originally came from Preservation, but we know nothing else:

Q. For Feruchemy, can you only inherit that? Or is there another way to get it?

A. You could obviously get it through a Hemalurgic spike.

Q. Yeah, but that’s kind of a different thing.

A. It is hereditary, but it came from somewhere. [...] Which is a RAFO, but it’s not a big RAFO. There’s not something you missed in the books, or anything like that. It originally came from Preservation long ago. And there are other ways to get it, but you have not missed any major plot points regarding that. Good question.

(source)