Epic Shard plate/blade creation theory

[Miyabi he/him]

o I have had some time recently to start reading again and do a lot of theorizing.  Now I have come up with a theory which may or may not explain the creation of Shardplate and Shardblades.

 

Let me go over a few points here first:

 

• These shards are a product of Investiture and are invested items
• Investiture towards an object can come from a number of sources, including, Feruchemy, Hemalurgy, and Awakening
• Feruchemists can store Investiture into Nicrosil
• Through Compounding a Misting could do something with with Nicrosil and it's stored Investiture, provided they created the Nicrosil Metalmind
• Vasher created Nightblood, an invested weapon made of steel, through Investiture.
• Hoid, for some reason, needed/has a bead of Lerasium and is himself a Feruchemist

 

Now, my theory is somewhat vague and has a few different potential outlets, due to the lack of knowledge we have about this process.

 

Now, one possibility here is that through adding Investuture to a Metalmind, that object may become Invested.

 

Perhaps to increase this process a Twinborn or greater could burn Invested Metals to Compound the effect.

 

Where Nicrosil is an External Pushing Metal, perhaps that is the effect of Compound Burning Nicrosil, is the ability to Invest in an item, providing into said item some form of Investiture.

 

This could explain why Hoid wants/needs the beed of Lerasium he took, because he needs it to create more shards within Roshar.

 

Or perhaps, through one of these forms of Investiture Shardplate could become what it once was.

[GreyPilgrim he/him]

An interesting idea, but I think you have a few misunderstandings at the base of it.

We don't really know anything about Feruchemical nicrosil. All we know is that Soulbearer Ferrings can store investiture with it. You seem to assume that they can store any investiture, but remember that Feruchemy takes the stored trait from the Feruchemist. Thus, as I see it, a Soulbearer can only store their own Investiture. In order for Hoid to invest a Shardblade/plate with something stored in nicrosil is for it to come from him. If he is trying to create/strengthen Shardblades then he would need to be invested by what ever Shard/s invested the blades, which I do not believe he is, and even if he were I am not sure it would work.

It would not because you cannot grant someone else a trait from your metal mind, which is what you are saying would occur if you Compounded nicrosil. Compounding releases the stored Feruchemical trait in a large burst. As I see it, Compounding nicrosil would release the stored investiture to the Compounder in a large burst, either able to be used in large amounts for a short amount of time or permanently strengthened. You would not be able to put that investiture into a Shardplate/blade.

Edited September 9, 2013 by GreyPilgrim

[Miyabi he/him]

When compounding you can create a larger amount of something.  So let's say Feruchemist has a value of 'a' inherent Investiture.  They then store that within Metalmind 1.  They then burn said Investiture whilst storing it into Metalmind 2.  The amount of Investiture now in Metalmind 2 is 'a' + the amount of Investiture created by the burning of the compounded Metal, so someone who is at least twinborn in Nicrosil would be able to create an infinite amount of Investiture as long as they have access to Nicrosil.

 

My theory is proposing that Investiture is simply Investiture at this point and that there aren't different types, just different methods. 

[Kadrok she/her]

From what the MAG says, the investiture stored in a Nicrosilmind is "blank" and needs to be shaped in order to be useful. Mechanically speaking this means tapping it alongside something else (like Pewter) to tell the power what to do. This is comparable, I suppose, to the way compounding works... you burn a metal allomantically and that provides access to the power of creation in a specific way. If the metal is Feruchemically charged it rewrites the "instruction", "telling" a different power to come.

 

So, two things:

a) there are different forms of the energy that let you do different things because the systems of investiture are "the power of creation in mortal form", that is a simplified version of the power shards use. I suspect that not even shards use the same undifferentiated power since there seems to be different things you can do with a shards power i.e. Preservation's power couldn't be used to kill Kwaan like Rashek wanted it to, but I imagine Ruin's could.

 

b ) someone who could compound Nicrosil could make a tonne of "blank" investiture, but if the MAG is anything to go by they'd need an equal or greater chunk of "flavoured" investiture for it to be useful... Nicrosil enhances, it doesn't replace.

 

I should probably elaborate. Creating Nicrosil-charges Feruchemically seems to make it undifferentiated... you make it from other stored traits (mostly weight and heat if you're clever) or some other source of power you have access to (you could drain the mists if you could draw on them like Vin can, or store a Nicroburst) and convert it to an undifferentiated power source stored in a Nicrosilmind. When tapping it, as I mentioned, you need to tap it with something else to make it work. The only exception to this is... you can channel the blank power in large amounts into someone else's metalmind, destroying their stored charges.

 

As it happens I have some Brandon quotes to back up my claims that I stole from some of Phantom's posts (useful fellow that). I'll put them in a spoiler box because they're chunky.

 

Thoughts?

 

BRANDON
“People ask about getting the power from metals and things, but that’s not actually how it works. The power’s not coming from metal. I talked a little about this before, but you are drawing power from some source, and the metal is actually just a gateway. It’s actually the molecular structure of the metal… what’s going on there, the pattern, the resonance of that metal works in the same way as an Aon does in Elantris. It filters the power. So it is just a sign of “this is what power this energy is going to be shaped into and give you.” When you understand that, compounding [in Alloy of Law] makes much more sense.
Compounding is where you are able to kind of draw in more power than you should with feruchemy. What’s going on there is you’re actually charging a piece of metal, and then you are burning that metal as a feruchemical charge. What is happening is that the feruchemical charge overwrites the allomantic charge, and so you actually fuel feruchemy with allomancy, is what you are doing. Then if you just get out another piece of metal and store it in, since you’re not drawing the power from yourself, you’re cheating the system, you’re short-circuiting the system a little bit. So you can actually use the power that usually fuels allomancy, to fuel feruchemy, which you can then store in a metalmind, and basically build up these huge reservoirs of it. So what’s going on there is… imagine there’s like, an imprint, a wavelength, so to speak. A beat for an allomantic thing, that when you burn a metal, it says “ok, this is what power we give.” When it’s got that charge, it changes that beat and says, “now we get this power.” And you access a set of feruchemical power. That’s why compounding is so powerful.”
“I can explain this better in person because I know things that the characters in the book don’t. So, they haven’t worked a lot of this out. All the magic systems in my work are linked because the books all take place in the same universe. In Elantris, magic works by drawing symbols in the air. What actually happens is that when they draw a symbol, energy passes through it from another place (which is my get-out for the laws of thermodynamics) and the effect of that energy is moderated by the symbol. In one case it may become light, in another it may become fire. In Mistborn, the metals have a similar effect. The magic is not coming from the metal (even if some characters think it is). It is being drawn from the same place and moderated by the metal.
In the case of Feruchemy, no energy is being drawn from this other place. So, you spend a week sick and store up the ability to heal. It’s a balanced system, basically obeying the laws of thermodynamics. So, while it’s not real, it’s still rational.
 In compounding, when you have the power of both Allomancy and Feruchemy, you draw power from the other place through the metal and it recognizes the power that is already stored—"Oh, this is healing, I know how to do that”—and so you get the power of Feruchemy but boosted by energy from the other place. This is how the Lord Ruler achieved immortality.”
 

Brandon Sanderson (17 October 2008)
The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.
Condensed 'essence' of these godly powers can act as super-fuel for Allomancy, Feruchemy, or really any of the powers. The form of that super fuel is important. In liquid form it's most potent, in gas form it's able to fuel Allomancy as if working as a metal. In physical form it is rigid and does one specific thing. In the case of atium, it allows sight into the future. In the case of concentrated Preservation, it gives one a permanent connection to the mists and the powers of creation. (I.e., it makes them an Allomancer.)
So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak—though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists, however, she'd doing just that—using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself—to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips 'troughs' through her body. It's like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive

If you desperately want the mechanics of the MAG, I might put them up too.

 

Edited September 10, 2013 by Kadrok

[Satsuoni he/him]

When compounding you can create a larger amount of something.  So let's say Feruchemist has a value of 'a' inherent Investiture.  They then store that within Metalmind 1.  They then burn said Investiture whilst storing it into Metalmind 2.  The amount of Investiture now in Metalmind 2 is 'a' + the amount of Investiture created by the burning of the compounded Metal, so someone who is at least twinborn in Nicrosil would be able to create an infinite amount of Investiture as long as they have access to Nicrosil.

 

My theory is proposing that Investiture is simply Investiture at this point and that there aren't different types, just different methods. 

Not really infinite - you drain power form the Shard when compounding, the same as when you burn metals - except the power returns to the shard when it is used up, while, presumably, the stored Investiture does not (until it is used). Still, you would probably need a chunk of Nicrosil the size of the planet to store the whole shard (if not bigger), and the Shard could probably drain your metalminds anyway...

Regardless, while tapping, you are the one who gain Investiture - not a random object. Maybe if you somehow boost your Nicrosil burn by Investiture tap? Or tap enough so that it leaks?

@Kadrok - MAG is, well, unreliable in this respect due to game balance. I mean, the ferrings Soulbearers have to discover that they are ferrings, and that means that they can store *something* while not having access to any other metal art (presumably, their own souls), and then tap it to some effect (at least erasing other metalminds?). That is not, IIRC, reflected in game mechanics. With the added errors about the Duralumin (and, presumably, Nicrosil) burn (instant duration thereof) I would not trust their effect description overmuch.

[Kadrok she/her]

@Kadrok - MAG is, well, unreliable in this respect due to game balance. I mean, the ferrings Soulbearers have to discover that they are ferrings, and that means that they can store *something* while not having access to any other metal art (presumably, their own souls), and then tap it to some effect (at least erasing other metalminds?). That is not, IIRC, reflected in game mechanics. With the added errors about the Duralumin (and, presumably, Nicrosil) burn (instant duration thereof) I would not trust their effect description overmuch.

 

Ferrings feel an affinity to their metal, which is how they discover they are Ferrings (Currently searching for the WoB on this... it's out there somewhere). So I would say that's how they discover it. As for storing, they can pay a Nicroburst to give them a burst and then store that (though whether this can be done without any Allomantic ability... is debatable). They could also drain other sitting sources of investiture, for example it is possible to siphon off energy from the Well of Ascension, so if they found a body of power similar to that they also could. But who says it has to be useful being a Soulbearer Ferring? Afterall, I'm sure the Duralumin Misting doesn't exactly feel useful.

 

That said, I'm convinced that a Twinborn with Nicrosil as their Ferring metal could store the investiture flow from their Allomancy, burning their metal but gaining no or limited benefit in order to fill their Nicrosilmind. I suspect they could also tap to fuel their burning, keeping their metal running longer.

Edited September 11, 2013 by Kadrok

[Satsuoni he/him]

Ferrings feel an affinity to their metal, which is how they discover they are Ferrings (Currently searching for the WoB on this... it's out there somewhere). So I would say that's how they discover it. As for storing, they can pay a Nicroburst to give them a burst and then store that (though whether this can be done without any Allomantic ability... is debatable). They could also drain other sitting sources of investiture, for example it is possible to siphon off energy from the Well of Ascension, so if they found a body of power similar to that they also could. But who says it has to be useful being a Soulbearer Ferring? Afterall, I'm sure the Duralumin Misting doesn't exactly feel useful.

Yes, I remember that. He never elaborated what that affinity is or feels like, though. Also, Gnats still have the ability to perform basic allomantic function - burning their respective metals, and Aluminium ones even have the corresponding effect - their metal stores disappear. Sure, it is useless, but what use is Aluminium to a mistborn? Hence, Soulbearers should be able to store/ tap, and all humans on Scadrial have native Investiture (which can be named Soul) - why shouldn't they be able to store it? Would Nicroburst even work on a non-Allomancer? We don't know the exact nature of the Duralumin/Nicro effect, after all. By your logic, Duralumin/fNicro would be able to fill his own reserves (better than normal Alloburn) - which is, admittedly, possible.

[Shardlet he/him]

to my understanding, both duralumin and nicrosil cause an allomancers metal(s) which is be being burned to be supuer burned and consumed.  Since a feruchemist does not burn a metal, it seems that allomantic nicrosil and duralumin wouldn't affect that.

[Miyabi he/him]

The need to create a 'burst' through Duralumin would be unnecessary. Simply burning the currently Invested Nicrosil, would create more Investure than was stored initially, which could then be burned again to create more Investiture.

I feel as if the creation of, as you put it "large amounts of blank Investiture," is necessary. Then, once you have it you could determine a purpose. Much in the way a Breath is a 'blank' Investiture until it is given color and command.

The end result isn't the Investiture which is stored in the Metalmind, but rather the effect of using that massive amount of Investiture to affect something through burning it Allomantically.

[Shardlet he/him]

They would have to be a nicrosil twinborn, but yeah.

[Miyabi he/him]

Well if you include the fact that has been brought up about this Investiture being 'blank' the person would have to be Nicrosil Twinborn as well as have at least one more way to affect the Investiture.

[Shardlet he/him]

Well, I was basing that off of your statement following others' comments talking about a soulbearer (who is not an allomancer) being nicrobursted or a soulbearer ulso using duralumin.

Edited September 11, 2013 by Shardlet

[Miyabi he/him]

Oh I see what you're saying. I misunderstood the first time I read it.