Identical twins

[Full Metal Rithmatist]

Im not sure why hed RAFO this unless it was actually going to be relevant. Seems fairly innocuous to me.

Edited December 9, 2015 by Full Metal Rithmatist

[Stormgate he/him]

But what does it mean?...

[Oversleep]

Well, if Brandon only RAFO'd those questions about relevant and important things, we would know what is and what isn't important. I guess he needs to RAFO also those he doesn't feel like answering and which at the same time may be relevant to the plot, no matter how insignificantly.
So I say it's not that we will get some Ferring twins or something like that - the answer could reveal some details he didn't want to release yet.

[Stormgate he/him]

He's very RAFO-heavy when it comes to using other people's metalminds, and to other identity-related questions.

[Moogle]

Brandon regularly RAFOs innocuous things.

 

Identical twin don't have the same sDNA though, via previous WoB, but I suppose they may have a similar enough identity for metalminds to be shared. I could go either way on this one.

[Voidus]

It could also be that he just doesn't want to canonize an answer either way yet.

[DSC01 he/him]

You know what would be awesome? If there were identical twin ferrings who had different metals and discovered that they could actually use each other's metalminds and access what the other had stored. Or if they were twinborn and had opposite allomantic/feruchemical powers. So, the one could burn the other's metalminds and get a huge burst of the attribute the other had stored. Besides it being interesting, there could be a neat character dynamic, where they're always grousing at each other for having to store attributes for the other to use (especially if one is a Bloodmaker and has to go around feeling sick a bunch, just so their Augur sibling can burn it as needed and get huge healing bursts).

[skaa he/him]

Identical twin don't have the same sDNA though, via previous WoB,

 

Mind if you share a link to that, Moogle? My WoB-searching power is failing me for some reason.

 

I believe that identical twin Ferrings can't access each other's metalminds. For one thing, they won't even necessarily have the same power, because while Scadrian powers are hereditary, Brandon said the specific powers themselves are not:

 

The power manifests differently in different people; specific powers are not hereditary.

(@Moogle, was this the WoB you were referring to? It does seem to imply that identical twins won't necessarily have the same sDNA.)

 

Suppose Bob and Charlie are identical twin Ferrings. Bob is a Brute, while Charlie is a Connector. Charlie obviously can't access Bob's pewter metalminds because he doesn't have the correct sDNA for Feruchemical Pewter. If the Identity of Ferring twins is different enough to manifest different powers, I think it's likely they'd still be different enough even if they were born with the same power.

 

Twinborn twins with opposite powers (e.g. one is Gold-Bendalloy while the other is Bendalloy-Gold) would be super awesome if they could access each other's metalminds. I just don't see it as a possibility.

Edited December 10, 2015 by skaa

[Moogle]

Mind if you share a link to that, Moogle? My WoB-searching power is failing me for some reason.

 

Here you go:

If two people are identical twins, and one is a Mistborn, will the second be Mistborn? No. They could have different Spiritual DNA.

(source)

 

There's another WoB I was thinking of, but this one says it outright. I mean, it's not particularly earth-shattering because if twins aren't going to be the same Misting type then logically they're going to have different sDNA.

 

I was more speaking in a general "if twins both ended up with the same power, could they access each other's metalminds?" question... and I think the answer could be yes. If they ended up with different powers, I don't think they'd be able to.

 

If Hemalurgy, which only rips off a portion of your Spiritweb (and thus Identity), can be enough to access the previous owner's metalminds, then I think it could make sense for twins (who are likely to share a lot of the same sDNA since it's at least partially inherited) might be able to as well.

 

But of course, Identity is not the same as sDNA, as we have that one Forgery WoB noting a Feruchemist might lose access to their metalminds if Forged. I only just thought of the Forgery WoB... thinking more on it, consider me 90% certain that twins can't access each other's metalminds, even if they share the same power. Twins are fundamentally different people with different histories, so their Spiritwebs will not be the same.

Edited December 10, 2015 by Moogle

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

Twinborn twins with opposite powers (e.g. one is Gold-Bendalloy while the other is Bendalloy-Gold) would be super awesome if they could access each other's metalminds. I just don't see it as a possibility.

 

So you'd have one really healthy twin and on really fat twin... not so awesome for one of the two.

[Yata he/him]

To me, as far as I can understand of the Metalmind's key and Identity. Twins have a likely chance to be "metalmind-compatible"

[skaa he/him]

So you'd have one really healthy twin and on really fat twin... not so awesome for one of the two.

 

Theoretically if you could tap a metalmind you should also be able to store in it. So assuming twins can indeed access each other's metalminds (which, again, I don't think is the case) the Augur-Subsumer could just store Compounded Health in plenty of goldminds that he could then share with his Slider-Bloodmaker twin, who in turn could share Compounded Calories with his brother.

 

Even if twins who can tap each other's metalminds somehow can't store in those same metalminds, that would still be mutually awesome for certain opposite-powered twins: e.g. Zinc-Pewter/Pewter-Zinc (though the Thug-Sparker would have to spend more time dull-witted to make extra metalminds for his brother).

Edited December 10, 2015 by skaa

[DSC01 he/him]

I think that there should be a little wiggle room on the differing sDNA. It's not quite the same as one twin is Mistborn and the other isn't. In a sense, it is: one twin can store attribute X, and the other cannot. However, once you've got Investiture stored somewhere, and someone tries to pull it out, if their sDNA is really close, they might be able to access it, if imperfectly. 

 

Or, more likely (in my mind), if your twin is, say, a Bloodmaker, and you're an Augur, you might be able to burn his his metalmind for a big health burst. You're already hacking the system by Compounding, so a little more fudging of things might not be a big deal.

[Moogle]

I think that there should be a little wiggle room on the differing sDNA. It's not quite the same as one twin is Mistborn and the other isn't. In a sense, it is: one twin can store attribute X, and the other cannot. However, once you've got Investiture stored somewhere, and someone tries to pull it out, if their sDNA is really close, they might be able to access it, if imperfectly.

 

If this were true, then a Feruchemist who has been Forged should still be able to access his metalminds. However, a Forged Feruchemist cannot.

[Yata he/him]

Moogle is right

 

After a night of thinking about (I have problem to sleep   ) I suppose that two twin that live together may have a good chance of gain "shared metalmind".

 

We know that the Identity is the Key to access metalmind, but we know also that the Metalmind isn't too rigorous about the "owner". If the MetalMind was too rigorous, a Feruchemist may lose the ability to use his own metalmind after a traumatic event or a long time (because I suppose that Identity change a bit during your live). For example Sazed during the Mistborn Trilogy pass through deep Psycological changes and it's unlikely that his Identity remains constant.

 

With this explaination (that can be false) : The Twin will have at the born a lot of "Shared Spiritual Connection" . The Birthplace, the parents, ecc... Of course growing the twins may became "Spiritually" very different. But I suppose that if they remain together and live the same experience there is a good chance that they remain quite "Spiritually-simillar".

Edited December 12, 2015 by Yata

[Oversleep]

I suppose there is an issue with how the person views himself, because self-regard (self-view? self-awareness? Help me!) influences Cognitive Aspect and then Cognitive Aspect also shapes Spiritual (I am not sure about that).

The other twin would have to be convinced or even brainwashed to think he is his brother.

...Hm, has anybody asked Brandon about cloning people? If we get a perfect clone and then upload the mind of the original in him... (I know, I'm talking Fourth Scadrial Era here with that sci-fi)

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

..., because self-regard (self-view? self-awareness? Help me!)...

 

I think you're looking for 'self-image'.

Edited December 11, 2015 by EagleOfTheForestPath

[Moogle]

We know that the Identity is the Key to access metalmind, but we know also that the Metalmind isn't too rigid about the "owner". If the MetalMind was too rigid, a Feruchemist may lose the access to his own metalmind after a traumatic event or a long time (because I suppose that Identity change a bit during your live). For example Sazed during the Mistborn Trilogy pass through deep Psycological change and it's unlikely that his Identity remains constant.

 

I'm not too comfortable with this. Does your identity change at all if you go through a traumatic event? I don't know if we can say that for sure either way. Your name doesn't change just because you almost die, nor does your past change. Your soul can be scarred/broken (as required for Snapping), but I don't think that would cause you to lose access to your metalminds.

 

I wonder if in some sense a "snapshot" is taken of your soul when you store in a metalmind, taken from the time you were born to your current life. And then when you later tap a metalmind, it only looks at that section of your soul, so if for some reason you became an entirely different person/got spiked/became a Radiant or whatever, the metalmind doesn't think you're any different because it only looks at a small part of your soul.

 

But that seems quite contrived... I may as well link to my "Identity repels Identity" theory for how metalminds work and why Feruchemical aluminum might allow you to access someone else's metalminds. (Speaking of, I need to rewrite that since I think like 80% of it is wrong.)

 

With this explaination (that can be false) : The Twin will have at the born a lot of Spiritual Connection shared. The Birthplace, the parents, ecc... Of course growing the twins may became "Spiritually" very different. But I suppose that if they remain together and live the same exparience there is a good chance that they remain quite "Spiritually-simillar".

 

I agree with this idea. I think this would be hard to do, but this seems likely to be theoretically possible.

[DSC01 he/him]

I still think that my idea about twins with opposite allomantic and feruchemical powers could work. The reciprocal relationship of their powers could be a part of their spiritual identity.

[Melriken]

I still think that my idea about twins with opposite allomantic and feruchemical powers could work. The reciprocal relationship of their powers could be a part of their spiritual identity.

Those sound like very interesting characters.... Which two metals would be most interesting? Gold/pewter? Iron/Steel would be funny... One character could fly and reduce weight and move SUPER FAST when burning his twin's metal mind. The other could pull on metal, store speed and weigh a TON when burning his twin's metal mind. The first one there gets a much better deal.

[Oversleep]

Those sound like very interesting characters.... Which two metals would be most interesting? Gold/pewter? Iron/Steel would be funny... One character could fly and reduce weight and move SUPER FAST when burning his twin's metal mind. The other could pull on metal, store speed and weigh a TON when burning his twin's metal mind. The first one there gets a much better deal.

We should try those metals of double feruchemical usefulness. Iron is useful both while tapping and storing, while steel or zinc are useless when storing.

[skaa he/him]

Alright, I've thought more about it, and I believe Harmony is capable of creating "Compound Twins" (a term I just invented for two Twinborn with opposite powers) who are also Feruchemically Identical (i.e. they can share metalminds). These Feruchemically Identical Compound Twins (FICT) would be within the realm of his Shardic powers, I believe. But for identical twins who are also Feruchemically Identical without Harmony's special intervention, I think the chances of that happening is extremely small. See this WOB:

Phantine

...

Is it possible for there to be a 'key collision' with Identity? Two people just randomly end up making compatible metalminds, because the pieces of their Identities that the magic looks for happen to be the same.

mistborn

This would be about as likely as two unrelated people ending up with the exact same genetic sequence.

But, so far as I understand, that WOULD be possible.

If Feruchemy uses some Realmatic equivalent of a crypographic hash function to identify people, then even if identical twins have a higher chance of having similar Identities, that won't mean they'd have a higher chance of being Feruchemically Identical. This is because the probability of key collisions does not necessarily increase with similarity of the inputs. For example "skaa" in MD5 is "c87de6f3c2804593be217bb90dda1bdb", while "skab" in MD5 is "61de917aba4f6b53a37a2bb76d2915ff". Those two words are almost identical, but the generated keys look totally different.

So I'm thinking only a freakish coincidence, an intentional intervention by Harmony, or perhaps some heretofore unknown application of Hemalurgy could create identical twins who are also Feruchemically Identical.

Furthermore, I no longer think such FICTs can store anything in each other's metalminds. I just don't see how they could store something that their Spiritweb doesn't know how to store. But I believe they should be able to burn each other's metalminds for Compounding, because their Spiritweb knows how to burn the metal and their Identity is accepted by the metalmind.

---

With all that being said, let me talk about one interesting possibility regarding FICTs. Suppose a FICT has access to Nicrosil (i.e. one is a Soulbearer and the other is a Nicroburst). The Soulbearer half of the FICT should be able to store Compounded power in his own nicrosilminds, which he could then share with the Nicroburst.

For example, given a Steel-Nicrosil FICT, the Nicroburst-Steelrunner could hand over a small steelmind to the Coinshot-Soulbearer for Compounding. The Soulbearer Compounds Speed and stores that in a bunch of nicrosilminds. The Nicroburst could then burn one of the Soulbearer's nicrosilminds to fill more steelminds without the need to become slow.

So basically you have two people who are practically both Steel Compounders, even if only one of them can burn Steel. But that's not the end of it. The Nicroburst can also boost the Coinshot's Steelpushes. Heck, I'm not even going to discuss the possibility of boosting Steelpushes with Nicrosil Feruchemy, which is speculative anyway, or the even more speculative idea of storing Steelpushes in a nicrosilmind so that the Nicroburst half of the FICT can also Steelpush. All I will say is that this duo would take the Steel-based Metallic Arts to a whole new level.

Now imagine a Pewter-Nicrosil FICT.

Edited December 12, 2015 by skaa

[DSC01 he/him]

I was thinking gold and chromium, maybe. Both are extremely useful feruchemical powers that are very inconvenient to store and are not all that useful, allomantically (well, chromium is, if you're fighting other allomancers).

[skaa he/him]

DSC01, on 12 Dec 2015 - 10:39 PM, said:

I was thinking gold and chromium, maybe. Both are extremely useful feruchemical powers that are very inconvenient to store and are not all that useful, allomantically (well, chromium is, if you're fighting other allomancers).

Yes, Gold-Nicrosil and Chromium-Nicrosil FICTs would be pretty cool, but I chose Steel and Pewter as examples because they have very useful Allomantic properties that also benefit from a Nicroburst. Gold Allomancy isn't very useful, and I don't see how boosting a Leecher would do any good.

Edit: Wait... boosting a Leecher would let him destroy an enemy's Hemalurgic spikes almost instantly (assuming the Leecher has enough chromium). Yeah, that'd be pretty handy.

Edited December 12, 2015 by skaa

[DSC01 he/him]

No, see, I'm thinking that it would work like regular compounding. So the Leecher gets a huge burst of luck, and the Augur gets a big healing burst. The feruchemical abilities are both very useful, so the twins would have to spend almost all their downtime storing, since they would each want full metalminds of their own to use, as well as bits for the other to burn. Basically, you'd get one guy who's always unlucky and another who's always sick, and they'd be grumpy with each other all the time, since the train who'd benefit most from the given attribute would be the one who didn't have to store it.