Steel Compound

[Shadowspren]

So someone who can compound steel, and thus, move even quicker than a normal ferring. 

Atium in allomancy gives a person the ability to see right into the future, and allows the mind to comprehend what it's seeing.

But would the same thing happen for a person compounding steel? or would they try and run or move and stumble over themselves?

 

Also, would someone moving that fast have the same effect as Bendalloy from the perspective of the twinborn?

[natc]

Why does everyone assume compounders are stronger somehow?

It's not a matter of power. Any ferring can reach compounder levels with enough attribute stored up to expend. It's just not practical because you can't feasibly store that much using only your own body.

Mental speed is a separate attribute, steel only makes you move faster. And does not protect from air resistance, so good luck going that fast :/

[Moogle]

Mental speed is a separate attribute, steel only makes you move faster. And does not protect from air resistance, so good luck going that fast :/

 

It might actually protect you from air resistance - the other Feruchemical metals all seem to have defense-mechanisms to protect you from their effects. Sazed when tapping a ton of weight doesn't actually get crushed by his own body (the force he exerts on the ground doesn't break his feet). I imagine Ferrings who tap heat won't boil themselves alive.

 

Maybe speed just prevents your arm from being ripped off if you move it too, fast, though. Air resistance might be too external. Seems like a question for Brandon.

[Kurkistan]

Air resistance is indeed still a concern.

[Left]

It might actually protect you from air resistance - the other Feruchemical metals all seem to have defense-mechanisms to protect you from their effects. Sazed when tapping a ton of weight doesn't actually get crushed by his own body (the force he exerts on the ground doesn't break his feet). I imagine Ferrings who tap heat won't boil themselves alive.

Maybe speed just prevents your arm from being ripped off if you move it too, fast, though. Air resistance might be too external. Seems like a question for Brandon.

I definitely remember a WoB saying that there were limits imposed on maximum speed by air resistance and friction, and another one that when tapping steel it gives a boost to your brain to help it process quickly enough. They're fairly old ones if I'm remembering correctly though, so it's possible he's changed it.

[Kaymyth]

I definitely remember a WoB saying that there were limits imposed on maximum speed by air resistance and friction, and another one that when tapping steel it gives a boost to your brain to help it process quickly enough. They're fairly old ones if I'm remembering correctly though, so it's possible he's changed it.

 

I doubt he has.  The power wouldn't be all that useful if the Steelrunner couldn't process the information quickly enough to keep from squashing themselves.

[natc]

They'd at least be able to control the muscles I guess.

Being able to see quickly seems like something that should fall in mental speed though. The power would suck that way, but duralumin mistings are even more useless so . . .

Besides, feruchemical powers were not meant to exist in isolation, it was the allomantic genes that gave rise to ferrings. For a full feruchemist they always had mental speed to go with their physical.

[Oudeis]

The power would be incredibly useful. There's an entire range above what humans are physically capable of doing before you run into the problem of squashing yourself through poor reaction time, and all manner of smaller actions like pulling a lever rapidly back and forth that you can do without having to react to anything.

 

And who says ever power has to be useful? Iron has uses, but no part of iron allomancy prevents you from pulling a knife into your own heart. And aluminum is of almost no utility at all. Duralumin mistings require hemalurgy to have the least utility.

 

I do believe you'll be given a certain capacity to handle the actions you take while fast, but I do not believe this will be absolute. A more-or-less even path, your body will adapt to small changes in grade faster than it might, but if your foot lands on a rock that you think is stable but isn't, your body won't automagically adapt. If you're in a low-light situation where you'd have to go slower than a walk to pick your way carefully anyway, I see no reason to assume you'll be able to do so any faster just because you're tapping steel. If someone fires eight bullets at you in rapid succession, you'll have the physical speed to pick up a hubcap and block them all... but I see nothing to suggest you'd be able to see and mentally intercept them, just from tapping steel.

[Kaymyth]

I think there's a balance to be struck; the difference between the effects that steel and zinc have on the mind are fiddly.  But I think it'd make sense for it to boost you enough to have a better reaction speed, but not necessarily be able to think about and plan what you're doing.  This means that being a Steelrunner or Steel Compounder would probably involve a lot of training; muscle memory and reflexive response would be key.

 

Example:  Bullets coming at you.

 

Steel enhancement:  react quickly enough to dodge out of the way.

Steel & zinc enhancement:  react quickly enough to grab a hubcap and block them.

 

The first is enough of an instinctive response that you don't have to think about it too hard.  The second requires more complicated thought and planning, and unless you've rehearsed this sort of thing to where it's second nature, you wouldn't be able to react quickly enough without the zinc boost as well.

[Oudeis]

Bullets specifically are tricky... as Wax points out, by the time you've heard the gunshot, if you're not already jumping out of the way, it's too late. I feel like the speed you've have to move to get out of the way of a bullet after you've heard the sound of it being fired but before the bullet hits you would fry you from air compression. But, I get the idea. Dodging "something dodgeable" as opposed to taking an actual that clearly requires specific thoughts and planning. I do agree that steel feruchemy will enhance your own mind a lot to compensate, if it's something that your body could account for without thinking anyway. I just see a lot of people acting like it makes you The Flash, able to take in information and fully process it as fast as your body is moving, even outside of relation to your own speed.

[Kaymyth]

Bullets specifically are tricky... as Wax points out, by the time you've heard the gunshot, if you're not already jumping out of the way, it's too late. I feel like the speed you've have to move to get out of the way of a bullet after you've heard the sound of it being fired but before the bullet hits you would fry you from air compression. But, I get the idea. Dodging "something dodgeable" as opposed to taking an actual that clearly requires specific thoughts and planning. I do agree that steel feruchemy will enhance your own mind a lot to compensate, if it's something that your body could account for without thinking anyway. I just see a lot of people acting like it makes you The Flash, able to take in information and fully process it as fast as your body is moving, even outside of relation to your own speed.

 

Yeah, it's not going to be quite that simple.  I'd actually posit that it may actually be easier for a Compounder than an ordinary Feruchemist to bullet-dodge thanks to their Allomancy, but it's still going to be tricky business.  We know that Allomancers "see" blue lines linking them to metals, but as far as we know, this is just their brain's way of communicating to them what they're processing.*  It's a potential extra sense that might help.

 

On a slightly different tack, if you're in a fight and you KNOW you're about to/are in the process of being shot at, being a moving target makes you a lot harder to hit.  I can easily see a cocky Steelrunner claiming magic bullet-dodging abilities when in reality they're not so much dodging as just plain bouncing around too fast to get a bead on.

 

This thread, by the way, is getting my brain thinking in good ways.  This is good stuff to ponder while writing steel Compounder fight scenes.  I would like to avoid writing the stupid.

 

 

 

*Come to think of it, that may explain some of the discrepancies between different POV descriptions of how steel and iron lines work; everyone sees the blue lines because people tell them to expect the blue lines, but they may see them as thick or thin, or dark or translucent, dependent on individual brain variance.