Possible way to compound allomancy

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

Could you guys shelve the whole journalistic accuracy/Marasi didn't know debate? At this point I can't see it as a valid argument for either side. I'm actually rather interested in the original question, but everyone seems to have forgotten about it.

 

My two cents on that count are as follows.

Seeing that Feruchemy is basically completely internal, I think it highly unlikely that external allomancy could be stored in a metalmind. It just wouldn't fit the logic of the system to me.

 

I'm going to completely contradict myself now and suggest a possible way to achieve this.

Classical compounding works by overriding the Allomantic effect of a metal with the Feruchemic effect.

Reverse compounding (according to dijini's theory) would require one to affect a piece of metal so it could store the Allomantic effect.

First you swallow a large(non-charged) piece of metal. You start burning the metal very slowly and right after that you make it into a metalmind (and then stop burning it). This might create enough "cognitive confusion" so that the attribute stored in the metalmind is the Allomantic one, instead of the Feruchemic. Then your only problem would be that you have a large piece of metal in your bowels that somehow has to ... pass. 

 

Well, certainly the largest and most immediate problem, since the question remains of whether you could re-charge the modified metalmind once it is out of your body.

 

The difficulty with theorizing about this is that compounding has several qualities/steps/layers, each of which could be the basis of the Feruchemy/Allomancy reversal (the change of Feruchemical compounding to Allomantic compounding), affecting the requirements and effects depending on where you place the switch.

Edited October 13, 2015 by EagleOfTheForestPath

[Oudeis he/him]

Food is applied to you from external sources, yet you can store that in a bendalloymind. How is allomancy any different? Steel itself isn't pushing on metal. Steel changes something within you, so you have the trait "I push on metal now". This trait is what is stored.

[Voidus]

Could you guys shelve the whole journalistic accuracy/Marasi didn't know debate? At this point I can't see it as a valid argument for either side. I'm actually rather interested in the original question, but everyone seems to have forgotten about it.

 

My two cents on that count are as follows.

Seeing that Feruchemy is basically completely internal, I think it highly unlikely that external allomancy could be stored in a metalmind. It just wouldn't fit the logic of the system to me.

 

I'm going to completely contradict myself now and suggest a possible way to achieve this.

Classical compounding works by overriding the Allomantic effect of a metal with the Feruchemic effect.

Reverse compounding (according to dijini's theory) would require one to affect a piece of metal so it could store the Allomantic effect.

First you swallow a large(non-charged) piece of metal. You start burning the metal very slowly and right after that you make it into a metalmind (and then stop burning it). This might create enough "cognitive confusion" so that the attribute stored in the metalmind is the Allomantic one, instead of the Feruchemic. Then your only problem would be that you have a large piece of metal in your bowels that somehow has to ... pass. 

 

Well, certainly the largest and most immediate problem, since the question remains of whether you could re-charge the modified metalmind once it is out of your body.

 

The difficulty with theorizing about this is that compounding has several qualities/steps/layers, each of which could be the basis of the Feruchemy/Allomancy reversal (the change of Feruchemical compounding to Allomantic compounding), affecting the requirements and effects depending on where you place the switch.

I'm not sure but I think we already did

Yeah as Oudeis says, even though the Allomancy itself affects external things the power itself is internal so could still be stored.

I doubt that something like that could work since that's just switching from one to the other you'd need to somehow charge the metal itself with allomantic power so it recognizes that instead of the usual feruchemic trait. Potentially you might be able to do it with Hemalurgy I guess but that's all I could think of.

But again the easiest idea of how it would work is through the use of Nicrosil, storing the Investiture itself in a Nicrosilmind and then using it later on to power your allomancy.

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

Food is applied to you from external sources, yet you can store that in a bendalloymind. How is allomancy any different? Steel itself isn't pushing on metal. Steel changes something within you, so you have the trait "I push on metal now". This trait is what is stored.

 

Yes, but you have to eat it first, you can't just touch a potato and store it in a metalmind. Anyway, what is stored is nutrition, not food, you could theoretically charge a bendalloymind without eating, but you'd lose weight and suffer from malnutrition instead, probably unpleasant.

 

@Voidus, I also don't think my suggestion would work, because I don't believe the basic premise of storing Allomantic powers inside metalminds is the correct interpretation of Allomantic compounding. However, I allow for the possibility that I'm wrong on that count, and therefore suggest a possible way I can see to trick the metalmind into storing the Allomantic effect over the Feruchemic one. Since the only way (I know of) that an Allomancer interacts with his focus metals is burning them, the actual piece of metal that is being burned should be the one that is turned into a metalmind, not easy considering the metal is destroyed when you burn it.

 

I agree that the effects of your interpretation of compounding can be achieved through a nicrosilmind (the use of which is also still open for debate, but whatever), but without the interplay of both the Allomantic and Feruchemic versions of the same metal, I don't know if you could even call it compounding anymore.

[dijini1]

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/1729-a-late-breaking-report/

This is a word of brandon that I found that I think I base most of my theory on.

 

It says right near the bottom that allomantic pewter can be stored in a metalmind. I'm going to assume that the metalmind in question is a pewtermind. It also mentions that it's easier to compound(probably ferucompounding).

 

On a somewhat related note, in order to store allomancy, you might have to hack the system a bit, or do something very uninstinctive in order to do it(which would be a bit difficult since allomancy has repeatedly been mentioned to be an instinctive thing). It should be somewhat easy to hack the system, because if you can hack into any magic system in the cosmere, it should be easier to hack into the magic system of the system you use everyday, and the magic system, along with being the easiest to hack into, is relatively straight forward.

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

Allo-pewter increases your strength (among other things), feru-pewter stores strength. If your strength is higher to begin with (because of allo-pewter) it would be easier to fill your pewtermind. But if you have access to both allo- and feru-pewter, you can just fill a pewtermind, burn that and start (yes) ferucompounding for near-infinite strength. A different WoB states that you can also store the health boost from allo-pewter in a gold-mind,  but I don't think anyone would call that reverse compounding. 

[dijini1]

 

 

A different WoB states that you can also store the health boost from allo-pewter in a gold-mind,  but I don't think anyone would call that reverse compounding.

Can you give me the source?

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

It's indirect, but Moogle's references tend to be accurate.

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/46120-soft-compounding/?p=336485

[Shardbearer he/him]

Here's why I don't think allocompounding would simply work like ferocompounding in reverse.

 

Lets use gold/gold as an example.

 

Gold has two attributes that your soul knows how to access (leaving hemalurgy out for this discussion). You can burn gold to access gold shadows. This is an attribute that always exists in gold, and the amount is not variable. In order to get more of this ability, you need to have more gold.

 

The other attribute is Health. Gold can have zero health stored in it, or it can have a very large amount, or anything in between. So you store a bunch of Health in gold, and because your soul knows how to access it, you can do so via allomancy. You see a second attribute that you can burn.

 

But you can't store more of the allomantic ability in the metal. That's static. So you can't really access that attribute through feruchemy.

 

Anyway, I don't know how much sense that makes. I can see a hole in it already. What if you ingest a large amount of gold, and your feruchemy does see a large reserve of that ability, dependent on how much gold you have ingested? Maybe, but you can't store it anywhere, can you? You can't burn it, and as you're burning it move it somewhere else for storage.

 

So without the ability to store it, you can't compound it.

 

Maybe the hackery needed to compound allomancy is hemalurgy. Because spikes can store a variable amount of a trait (as evidenced by the decay). So you have a spike capable of holding Allomantic gold, and as you're burning you use feruchemy to store it in the spike....

 

Colors, this is more confusing than I thought.

[natc]

But the spikes don't hold "generating gold shadows" as a power they hold "gold allomancy", as in the spiritweb fragment encoded with the ability . . .

[Moogle]

Can you give me the source?

 

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/1729-a-late-breaking-report/

 

There's a better WoB somewhere... this one just mentions Allomantic pewter in a pewtermind.

[18th Shard he/him]

It wasn't as big a deal when I brought it up a while ago. Hmm.

 

Well, to quote myself (wow, that sounds very cocky)- spoilered for length :

 

I worked off of 5 basic conjectures. I will explain them more fully and their implications later, but here they are:

1. Each Metallic Art has specific benefits and disadvantages to using it.

2. Compounding doesn’t change the output of the magic, only the form in which it comes.

3. Compounding gains Both the disadvantages and the benefits of the transit magic system.

4. Compounding is done by beginning one magic system, then, before completing it, beginning a second system, then utilizing the Investiture.

5. Both magic systems must be able to be used by the initiator and the utilizer of the power (who are the same person until you add Hemalurgy in to it).

First: Each Metallic Art has specific benefits and disadvantages to using it. This is kind of obvious, but is important later on, so I thought I’d point out the specific qualities that distinguish them.

    Allomancy - Benefits: Allomancy is end-positive. You gain power in the process.

              - Disadvantages: Allomancy consumes the metal uses.

    Feruchemy - Benefits: Feruchemy allows you to store an attribute until you need it. You can also tap it at a much higher rate than you stored it.

              - Disadvantages: You can only tap as much as you store.

    Hemalurgy - Benefits: Hemalurgy can steal attributes, or in other words, grant something to you that you didn’t have originally.

             - Disadvantages: Being end-negative, Hemalurgy has a lot of these. You have to spike someone; you have to stab yourself; you lose power due to Hemalurgic decay; you have to know the bind points or its useless.

 

Second: Compounding does not change the power output, only the form. In other words, if you begin with Feruchemy, you will end with Feruchemical power, though it might be in a different form (Allomantic, Hemalurgic). This is basically saying, “If you store Speed and burn  your metalmind, you’re still going to be getting Speed out of it, not Steelpushing. However, it will be released in a burst of power, as you are working with Allomancy.”

 

Third: Compounding gains Both the disadvantages and the benefits of the transit magic system. Transit here refers to the second one you do, the one you are compounding with. This explains why you would Compound. Allomantically powering Feruchemy (the kind in Alloy of Law) gains the benefit of Allomancy (a boost in power) and its disadvantage (the metalmind is consumed in the process). The reverse, Feruchemically powering Allomancy, would come out in Allomantic powers, but you would be able to store it and then tap it much faster than normal, so you would be able to boost your Allomancy without duralumin.

 

Fourth: Compounding is done by beginning one magic system, then, before completing it, beginning a second system, then utilizing the Investiture. So, in Alloy of Law compounding, they begin Feruchemy, storing an attribute, but before “completing” it by tapping the power, they begin Allomancy by burning the metalmind, then utilize the power automatically because it is Allomancy. Feruchemically powering Allomancy would be begun by Allomantically burning a metal, and then storing the power in a metalmind. They could then tap it to utilize the stored coppercloud or whatever.

Fifth and Finally: Both magic systems must be able to be used by the initiator and the utilizer of the power (who are the same person until you add Hemalurgy in to it). So the Compounders in Alloy of Law must be both a misting and a ferring in their metal. The same is true for Feruchemically powering Allomancy.

...

2. Feruchemically powering Allomancy -> Burn metal, somehow store power in a metalmind, tap to use.

    - You can tap without the need to burn a metal. You can also tap it at an increased rate, so you don’t need duralumin.

    - However, you do have to burn all this metal sometime. You don’t get free power.

    - Must be Twinborn for the same metal

 

I personally believe it is fully possible. As Oudeios said, think of the percentage of Allomancers - say a high number like 10%. Then Feruchemists: lower, so 7.5%. I think both of those are high, but they will still serve. Then, of those Metalborn, .75% should be Twinborn, roughly. And of those Twinborn, 0.047% would be Compounders. Duralumin, Aluminum, Gold and sort of Electrum seem useless to most people. Thus, 0.035% of all the population would even be able to usefully Compound. Then add in economic requirements for buying metal, mortality rates, and whatever quirks (I think the above proposed swallowing/burning as you store to be a great idea) to narrow down this percentage even more. Even at .035%, you have maybe a hundred thousand Compounders at any one time, minus the percentage of people in the village. With environmental factors, I think it rare for a Compounder to even be able to do so even with that knowledge, and without it, the percentage of people who would, for instance, swallow their metal, burn it, and try to store this power is ridiculous.

[Voidus]

It wasn't as big a deal when I brought it up a while ago. Hmm.

 

Well, to quote myself (wow, that sounds very cocky)- spoilered for length :

I personally believe it is fully possible. As Oudeios said, think of the percentage of Allomancers - say a high number like 10%. Then Feruchemists: lower, so 7.5%. I think both of those are high, but they will still serve. Then, of those Metalborn, .75% should be Twinborn, roughly. And of those Twinborn, 0.047% would be Compounders. Duralumin, Aluminum, Gold and sort of Electrum seem useless to most people. Thus, 0.035% of all the population would even be able to usefully Compound. Then add in economic requirements for buying metal, mortality rates, and whatever quirks (I think the above proposed swallowing/burning as you store to be a great idea) to narrow down this percentage even more. Even at .035%, you have maybe a hundred thousand Compounders at any one time, minus the percentage of people in the village. With environmental factors, I think it rare for a Compounder to even be able to do so even with that knowledge, and without it, the percentage of people who would, for instance, swallow their metal, burn it, and try to store this power is ridiculous.

Those numbers seem pretty insanely high tbh, I was thinking less than a hundred compounders not several thousand. But metalborn discovering their traits seems pretty common, I imagine most parents expose their kids to a cocktail of allomantic metals to see if they can burn any pretty early on. Discovering your feruchemical power is even easier since you just need to touch the metal.

[18th Shard he/him]

I believe that is with Elendel having 5 million people in it. And I forgot to move the decimal for the percentage point, so 1750 Compounders. Apologies. Environmental factors actually referred to being able to buy metals (bendalloy is noted for being expensive), Compounders dying, and narrowing those to the crazies who would test it out to figure out compounding on accident, or even on purpose.

[Voidus]

I believe that is with Elendel having 5 million people in it. And I forgot to move the decimal for the percentage point, so 1750 Compounders. Apologies. Environmental factors actually referred to being able to buy metals (bendalloy is noted for being expensive), Compounders dying, and narrowing those to the crazies who would test it out to figure out compounding on accident, or even on purpose.

It's expensive but you only need a tiny amount, Wayne figured out that he can use Bendalloy and Gold so I doubt it's that big of an issue.

For the other issues I don't see much problem, it seems to be at least semi-accessible knowledge so any twinborn who was researching their abilities (Which I would guess most do) would learn that it was a possibility.

[Moogle]

For the other issues I don't see much problem, it seems to be at least semi-accessible knowledge so any twinborn who was researching their abilities (Which I would guess most do) would learn that it was a possibility.

 

Why would Marasi, the university-trained Allomancer who has researched all the powers, not be able to find out about Compounding but some random Twinborn who isn't even likely to have that going for them be able to?

 

Keeping in mind that it takes a year of practice to even be able to Compound normally, I can't imagine anyone has learned to Reverse Compound if it's possible. (Which, for the record, I find massively unlikely, but based on certain models of magic I'm willing to grant make perfect logical sense.)

[Voidus]

Why would Marasi, the university-trained Allomancer who has researched all the powers, not be able to find out about Compounding but some random Twinborn who isn't even likely to have that going for them be able to?

 

Keeping in mind that it takes a year of practice to even be able to Compound normally, I can't imagine anyone has learned to Reverse Compound if it's possible. (Which, for the record, I find massively unlikely, but based on certain models of magic I'm willing to grant make perfect logical sense.)

To be honest I think it's a pretty big break in character, used largely as an exposition device. I know that that's not really an answer but it just completely breaks her character for me. After all, why would Wax be able to know about it and the connections to TLR if a university researcher who has access to far more research can't?

My other point would be that she's not an allomantic researcher, she's training to be a solicitor so it's not exactly in the right field of study, I still don't think it's a good enough justification but yeah.

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

Whether Marasi should/could/would have know about compounding or not is irrelevant IMO, since at that point in the story the reader needed to get an explanation about Twinborn compounding, and Brandon had the choice of having Wax tell Marasi, or writing in an entire new character, just for that one scene. I will admit it is a character inconsistency, but considering the alternatives...

 

@Voidus, Wax is the one who has seen Miles in action in person, and for all we know, Wax also went to college. (Unless this is contradicted by SoS: due to bookcase constraints I have to wait a year for the UK paperback edition to come out  )

[Voidus]

Whether Marasi should/could/would have know about compounding or not is irrelevant IMO, since at that point in the story the reader needed to get an explanation about Twinborn compounding, and Brandon had the choice of having Wax tell Marasi, or writing in an entire new character, just for that one scene. I will admit it is a character inconsistency, but considering the alternatives...

 

@Voidus, Wax is the one who has seen Miles in action in person, and for all we know, Wax also went to college. (Unless this is contradicted by SoS: due to bookcase constraints I have to wait a year for the UK paperback edition to come out  )

Yeah that's basically my point of view too.

True he knows Miles but there's no particular reason Miles would have explained exactly how his power worked yet Wax still knows exactly how it works, knows the name for it (Which suggests it's publicly known by enough people to get a name) and at least knows the legend that TLR used it. But yes I suppose he could have gone to college, I don't remember anything specifically confirming or denying that one way or another.

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

Setting aside for the moment who should know what about compounding and why.

 

All I've been able to find (and confirm via WoB) on so-called reverse compounding can be summarized in this one line on coppermind.net:

 

 

While, typically, Compounding refers to Allomancy enhancing Feruchemy, there is most likely a way for Feruchemy to enhance Allomantic abilities as well.

 

This quote does not imply that enhancing Allomancy through Feruchemy happens like TLR- and Miles-style compounding in reverse, where they combine the different effects of the same metal. (It does not remove it as a possibility either, though)

I have come to think that this is an unlikely way for reverse compounding to work. (not a fan of the term BTW, it's misleading)

 

Voidus' advocacy (among others) of using Feruchemic nicrosil to enhance Allomancy has a lot more merit IMO.

Though the systematic RAFOing of anything to do with the metal, and investiture in general, makes it hard to theorize with any basis.

Since that's not the subject of this thread, I'll summarise.

The way I see it, Nicrosilminds could either store Kinetic Invesiture or Inert (possibly "innate") Investiture,(recent terms from WoB, and I love it!) so the actual power generated by burning a metal (before it becomes an effect) or the part of the Spiritweb that allows you to burn said metal (the intensity of that part, energy, whichever synonym you prefer).

Any way you look at it, tapping should result in having extra power available to use for Allomancy.

(The first option probably has a less spectacular output, but it could be used as a battery in case you somehow don't have access to Preservation's power.)

 

I'd like to propose another alternative:

We know that Connector ferrings can store spiritual connection in their Duraluminminds, and that they can somehow use that to change their attachment to a world to help them use magics.

This suggest to me that if a Connector becomes skilled enough with his Duralumin, he could be able to select a specific spiritual connection into which he can channel the connection he taps. (i.e. If I have a lot of general connection stored up, and I'm in a room with Voidus and Moogle, could I tap my Duraluminmind to only increase my connection to Voidus, but leave my connection to Moogle unaffected?)

 

And, knowing that Allomancy's "power level" is dependent on a person's connection to Preservation, couldn't I then use my previously stored general spiritual connection to increase my connection to Preservation and thereby how powerful an Allomancer I am?

If so, this increased connection to Preservation could potentially even turn a Misting* into a full Mistborn for a while. (* Or even a non-allomancer, but I imagine the amount of connection required would be prohibitively high.)

[Moogle]

This suggest to me that if a Connector becomes skilled enough with his Duralumin, he could be able to select a specific spiritual connection into which he can channel the connection he taps. (i.e. If I have a lot of general connection stored up, and I'm in a room with Voidus and Moogle, could I tap my Duraluminmind to only increase my connection to Voidus, but leave my connection to Moogle unaffected?)

 

We have a WoB relating to this:

PhantomMonstrosity

Can a pewter Feruchemist go all fiddler crab? Store a bunch of strength from one arm, tap it into the other?

Brandon Sanderson

So far, any Feruchemist we've seen has been required to enhance their entire body or make their entire body weaker.

(source)

 

It's not a "no", but I do not think this is possible. It's an interesting possibility, though - Feruchemy is one of the most precise magics we've seen, it may work. And I rather like the idea of increasing your connection to Preservation, allowing you to draw more power through the link. We have a WoB talking about how burning lerasium rewrites your Spiritweb and increases your connection to Preservation...

 

(Though this begs the question of why it hasn't been brought up in the novels yet, I'm sure there are plenty of neat tricks not yet brought up.)

 

 

Edit:

 

I have thought about it more, and consider me now sold on the idea of Feruchemical duralumin being very likely to work (say, ~30% likely?). TLR likely did not have access to much nicrosil, but he would have had access to plenty of duralumin.

 

I am now of the opinion that Feruchemical nicrosil does not store Kinetic Investiture like you get from burning metals, but does store Inert/Innate Investiture like Breaths/spark of Preservation/probably Stormlight.

 

With that said, I suspect Feruchemical nicrosil could be used to gain a "mist-like" effect like what happens with Vin, which would let them power Allomancy/Feruchemy through it. But given there are next to no Mistborn/Ferrings or Misting/Feruchemists, I do not think this will come up in the novels until the trilogy involving Hoid.

 

Based on that, I think if TLR was Reverse Compounding his Soothing with Feruchemical nicrosil, he should have had nigh-immunity to Vin pulling out his metalminds (more Investiture = more resistance), whereas Feruchemical duralumin would not afford him higher resistance.

 

Feruchemical duralumin would also might explain why his Soothing in particular was more powerful: he had a stronger connection formed between him and every target, which might let him more efficiently use power on them. Even if it doesn't enhance Allomantic power, it might enhance Soothing in a nice synergistic way. Of course, there are no signs people with strong connections are able to Soothe them more effectively; we might have had this remarked on with Breeze were it the case.

Edited October 28, 2015 by Moogle

[ViceVersus]

Hi all.

New to the site but I was intrigued by the topic as I was dabbling with a short story inside the cosmere... If I may?

 

Two TWIN Twinborns... One a compound iron Tai Chi /Bujinkan Taijutsu "Lurcher? Jonny Locke  ... and his twin sister compound steel  ninpo "steelrunner"? Arra Flynt. 

 

both were trained in a monastery dedicated to the art of mastering the secrets of Allomantic Burning. From youth they mastered the familiarity with the process and can create a frequency of burning (think sound wave or pulse, like flexing ones muscle and releasing). 

 

By pulse-pulling or pulse-pushing they can create momentum, which combined with deliberate movement in space can effectively  manipulate the trajectory of affected projectile/weapon/Kusari  (hehehe). Pulls of an anchor weapon from Locke (given his masterful control of weight distribution between himself and his ironminds which also can be pulsed) are augmented further by mastery of position given from the martial arts of Bujinkan Taijutsu / Tai Chi and can be used to redirect said anchor's path significantly. 

 

First - Jonny (compound iron twinborn)

Jonny enters the room leaving a lead shot in the doorway. Once in the center, he can heavy yank on the lead shot, shifting out of its way, while he pulls on it from a different position from the center, but less forcefully so he doesn't destroy it's initial momentum.  Given enough practice he could pull a weapon into incredibly tight arcs around his body via center-mass spatial shifting and direct it almost anywhere. 

 

Taijutsu itself combined with weight-pulsing becomes incredibly strong alternating between weightless quick movements (think rising from laying prone with reduced weight) to rooted strikes and throws (tightly grab ones opponent leaving arms limp, root and twist hips and you could throw one rather far, rather hard {or spike them into the ground. uggh.})

 

Moves / Weapons:  Parabola Toss / Weighted Snatch • Mario Stomp • Lead-shot Alley-Oop Weight-pulsed Flight • Shrapnel Smart Dust Grenades • Serrated Anchor-Spikes • Bladed Palms of Fujin "Sleeve-attached Flying Flat-Daggers"  

 

Compounding means never undergoing downtime for Feruchemical recharging, so the powers are, if managed correctly, always available with no real side effects. Pulsing means half the consumption of just holding your foot on the gas pedal, burning all your fuel. 

 

Imagine over time, Jonny becomes a savant... Flare-Pulsing. Ewwwwwww.

 

If you got this far, Thanks!

V

[Shadeshadow227]

I see multiple arguments that don't make sense here. Tinminds and Bendalloyminds store multiple things, so why can't steelminds store steelpushes?! Um...because Tinminds store senses, one for each sense, and Bendalloyminds store nutrition, from solid food, and hydration from liquids. Notice the connection? Tin stores senses, and the powers of Allomantic Tin and Feruchemical Tin...well, you could store the enhanced senses, because both involve senses. BUT BENDALLOY?! Bendalloy has temporal allomantic effects, but stores a Hybrid attribute, known as the second Physical quadrant. NO RELATION BETWEEN EFFECTS. And Reverse–Compounding would, most likely, involve Nicrosil. since Nicrosilminds store Investiture, as in, the MAGIC POWERING EVERY MAGIC SYSTEM BRANDON CREATES.

[dvoraen]

Now that I've finally found this thread via search, imagine my surprise that my thoughts on Compounding Allomancy hadn't been uttered.  (I'm really hoping I'm not wrong about that, because I had a hard time finding a thread discussing this topic in detail, so I likely missed posts on the subject that could very well have said all this already. >_>)

 

Basically, I think all this focus on metalminds as the vector for Compounding an Allomantic effect are slightly off target, and that the process is very simple, yet not entirely intuitive in its way.  Before I get into why, however, I'm going to start at the beginning and be a little pedantic:

 

Compounding Feruchemy

- The Twinborn* stores into their metalmind the appropriate attribute.  For the purposes of this post, let's just go with Steel, therefore speed is what was stored.

- Allomantically burning the metalmind catalyzes the reaction ten-fold, in that the Invested metal produces a significantly greater effect when directly used as the fuel, much as normal Allomantic metals are the catalyst for beginning the Investiture in question.  For our Twinborn, that's a considerably higher rate of speed that's possible.

- The abridged version: the Feruchemist generates the desired effect (speed) and creates a reserve of it in the Allomancy-viable metal.  Allomancy then burns the metal and in-so-doing catalyzes this reserve, which increases its strength.

 

The key point is that the source ability is from using Feruchemy in a normal fashion, and it's released with the other discipline in a 'normal' fashion (burning the metal).  It's my current belief that the process to Compound an Allomantic ability is almost directly vice-versa.

 

Compounding Allomancy

- The Twinborn burns steel, generating the blue lines and Push effect.

- Feruchemy 'taps' this power generated by the Allomancy as if it were an Invested metalmind.  The burning of steel provides the power; the tapping of that power provided by burning the metal is what provides the Compounding effect.

 

Why do I think this works?  When a metal is Invested as a metalmind, it doesn't change the fact that it's still the same metal.  The difference is that the Feruchemy gave it an Invested property that "only" Feruchemy typically uses.  Instead of tapping that reserve via Feruchemy, the metal is instead burned via Allomancy, and in so doing causes a reaction that boosts the power output significantly.   Instead of getting the normal effect from burning the metal, the stored Feruchemical attribute is the effect (it "overrides" the metal's normal burning effect).

 

On the other hand, Allomancy burns a metal and provides access to the relevant power.  While the metal lasts and/or isn't fully metabolized, it's still a reserve that the Allomancer can access; it's very clear that an Allomancer has a reserve of power available, despite the fact it's "just metal" within him or her.  My point is that once the Allomancer accesses that reserve, I believe Feruchemy can tap that Allomantically-generated reserve to provide the Compounding effect.  Why?  My response is: 'Why not?'  It taps the reserves inside a metalmind just fine; Feruchemy doesn't consume the metal, only the Invested property within.  This is the same thing, except that it's the burning of an Allomantic metal is creating the reserve to be tapped right then and there, rather than Feruchemically creating one over time.  It's also a finite process, much like Compounding a metalmind is, and I think it's even more limited since this process would likely require frequent consumption of metal to sustain.

 

So on to the other point: why hasn't anyone figured this out yet?  Because everyone assumes a metalmind has to be directly Invested metal.  They "have to be told" that it works, or else it doesn't (leaving it at that because of BoM spoilers).  They're focusing on the fact that you "have to have a metalmind" containing an attribute to Feruchemically tap its contents.  They're not looking at the fact that Feruchemy isn't so much tapping the metalmind so much as only what's contained within it.  The difference is that Allomancy is creating the "metalmind reserve" for Feruchemy to tap; the mixture of powers then makes Nice Things Happen.  In other words, I don't think anyone's ventured outside the metal box yet, insofar as discovering Allomantic Compounding goes.

 

 

* Using same-metal Twinborn just for simplicity's sake.  We're also ignoring Hemalurgy for obvious reasons.

Edited April 10, 2016 by dvoraen

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

The problem with your theory, dvoraen, is that when an allomancer burns a metal, the power for the effect that produces wasn't contained in the metal. The power (or fuel, if you prefer) comes directly from Preservation, with the type of metal only determining which effect is produced.

 

As I understand your theory, the twinborn is supposed to feruchemically tap uncharged metal he or she swallowed. But the metals an allomancer uses were never invested to begin with, so there would be nothing to tap. The reserves you speak of aren't actual investiture, they're a sense the allomancer gets of how much time a certain amount of metal will allow them to access the power of Preservation. It's purely a representation, not the actual thing.

 

Also, "Why not?" is not an argument anyone should be willing to accept. Just because one can't disprove something, doesn't grant it any legitimacy. I recommend you take a look at this.