Using up Investiture

[Thunder_93]

Hey everyone,

 

I have a topic about the Bands of Mourning themselves...

So, the Lord Ruler (or whoever created them - that doesn't matter right now) charged them with Investiture, so you'd become basically a fullborn.

 So, first question: The Bands were made of multiple layers of different metals (mentioned in the book). For each "normal" feruchemical metal one (like steel, iron, and whatever), and the most important one, Nicrosil. With the stored Investiture, you get the abilities.

First, do there need to be 2 Nicrosil-Minds, one for Ferochemy, one for Allomancy (I think one is all you need...)?

Second, ist basically how exactly this stored Investiture works. For myself, I first thought, once you held them, you'd keep the abilities, even if you put them away. I thought, "consuming" the Investiture kinda changes your status to a Fullborn, and this wouldn't change back (obviously I was wrong ).

But the Investiture was used up. But why? A Mistborn or Feruchemist doesn't use up Investiture to use the abilities, and if they do, they'd have kinda Infinite of it, which doesn't make sense. 

So how exactly was it being used up? Wax didn't "burn" it instead of metal, he required the metals. And he had other Metalminds where the other abilities were stored.

How exactly does a Mistborn and Feruchemist use Investiture then? here my thoughts about it...

 

For Feruchemist: They only require a little. They store Investiture in form of abilities, and use it in the same form again. They lose a little at taking it out, maybe that's the Investiture to use Feruchemical abilities

Then for Mistborn: First option: They have infinite Investiture, and burning the metal only releases it (very unlikely). Second option: The Investiture is stored in metal (I doubt that as well, as a Feruchemist would "doublecharge" every metal then. We know thats impossible). Third option: By burning metal, they get Investiture directly from somewhere else (maybe Harmony? - The metal burning is only to show who gets the power). This option seems weird to myself, but makes the most sense to me...

 

So, any exact idea why the Investiture was used up?

 

And now that i know that it works like that: If it works just as normal Feruchemy, you should be able to use all Investiture up in a veeeeeeeryyyyy long time, and be a "weak" Mistborn/Feruchemist. Or you could use all up in a super blast, and you'd even be way more powerful then the Lord Ruler himself.

Your metalpushings would be way more powerful then anything ever seen.

 

 

Any thoughts about all that? I'm sure i missed some points. But I'd be happy if I'd understand how the Investiture gets used up

[Uilos]

Metalminds don't work on an infinite loop, you store away what can be used for later. Need some extra strength for a few minutes? Spend a day or two weak. Hope you're good for that cold this week, because you never know when you might have to mend a bullet hole shut. 

Metalminds are not indefinite, and you often have to store longer than when you can use it. The Bands of Mourning used Nicrosil to give Fullborn powers, but they were stored powers, both Feruchemical and Allomantic. They are finite and will fade eventually. The Bands of Morning are less of an engine and more of a WMD, in that they are good for one real burst of destruction and then they are done.

 

So far Hemalurgy is the only known way to grant someone permanent Fullborn powers. And Lerasium is the only way to make someone a Mistborn without janking their souls.

[Thunder_93]

Yeah, I know how normaly Metalminds and being Mistborn works. I just thought with Investiture it might be different (which, when I think now about it, is stupid).

 

I just still wonder how exactly the Investiture is used up. Over time you spend "Fullborn"? Or when you actually use the power?

And in the end, you still get Infinite Investiture with those, you can compound.

 

But what about using all Investiture up at once, to get a super burst of Allomancy? You'd be way more powerful then everything ever seen. I think this should be possible...

[Szeth]

Couple things

 

1) metal minds do have a limit iirc, very small minds can't hold as much juice (information, strength, weight, etc) though the practical limits of filling most decently sized metalminds make this relatively insignificant.  (You're not going to spend years sick to store years of health).  Compounders like Miles are really the only people who could theoretically push this limit.

 

2) Nicrosil seems to act as a conduit or buffer that allows access to non-innate abilities.  However i think Brandon is nudging us away from the concept of investiture as a binary invested/not-invested and more towards a sliding continuum of barely invested (sentience) and really freakishly invested (shard holders).

 

Sanderson has also made it clear that investiture *can* change a persons soul/body permanently.  I'd be curious if a Nicrosil savant might be able to use abilities and metal minds without the nicrosil 'interface'

[Uilos]

Couple things

 

1) metal minds do have a limit iirc, very small minds can't hold as much juice (information, strength, weight, etc) though the practical limits of filling most decently sized metalminds make this relatively insignificant.  (You're not going to spend years sick to store years of health).  Compounders like Miles are really the only people who could theoretically push this limit.

 

2) Nicrosil seems to act as a conduit or buffer that allows access to non-innate abilities.  However i think Brandon is nudging us away from the concept of investiture as a binary invested/not-invested and more towards a sliding continuum of barely invested (sentience) and really freakishly invested (shard holders).

 

Sanderson has also made it clear that investiture *can* change a persons soul/body permanently.  I'd be curious if a Nicrosil savant might be able to use abilities and metal minds without the nicrosil 'interface'

That last part made me think of a  Savant. Someone who used the Bands long enough and slow enough for their body to warp and adjust. Wax and Marasi barely had the bands for an hour and were burning hot and fast, not long enough to develop a dependancy. If someone gained the Bands and tapped them slowly, and over a period of time, I could see it rewriting their Spiritweb ala Hemalurgy without the need for death and violence to fuel it.

[Stormgate]

There are two kinds of Feruchemical attributes. There are nondepletable attributes, like weight, speed, breath, determination, etc. Then there are depletable attributes, like memories or energy or identity. Investiture is likely one of the latter. The Bands were not running low on the Mettalic abilities themselves, but on the attributes it granted. Everyone seems to think that Investiture is nondepletable, but there is a finite amount of Investiture. You can increase your personal Investiture by Compounding Nicrosil, but that draws on the Shards themselves, something that pure Feruchemy never does.

[natc]

But clearly all feruchemy uses your own investiture, yet you are physically capable of storing weight for, say, a year nonstop excluding sleep (compound wakefulness I guess?). Where does that come from? Clearly innate investiture has some way of returning to the baseline.

[Observer]

It's coming from you. The energy the planet exerts on you is being stored away in a metalmind instead of expending itself pulling you downward (or something like that weight is a tricky attribute.) The Sovereign essentially filled the Bands with "Fullborn-ness", enough to, for example, run at a steady burn for a whole day. During that time, he had no powers, or weaker powers. In exchange, he could tap the stored power and boost his strength for a period of time. If Wax or Marasi had wanted to, they probably could have used up all of the Band's power at once to make themselves absurdly powerful. Or they can infinitely compound "Fullborn-ness" to refill the Bands. The Investure is coming either from things in the Physical Realm (Storing a physical attribute like speed or weight) or someplace else. In the case of all allomancy and compounding, you're taking Investure from the Shard powering the magic. Nothing really created or destroyed, just converting things to and from Investure. 

[rabidhexley]

 

 

There are two kinds of Feruchemical attributes. There are nondepletable attributes, like weight, speed, breath, determination, etc. Then there are depletable attributes, like memories or energy or identity. Investiture is likely one of the latter. The Bands were not running low on the Mettalic abilities themselves, but on the attributes it granted. Everyone seems to think that Investiture is nondepletable, but there is a finite amount of Investiture. You can increase your personal Investiture by Compounding Nicrosil, but that draws on the Shards themselves, something that pure Feruchemy never does. 

 

If that was the case the person who drew the investiture out the bands would become a permanent fullborn, which we know isn't the case. Because it isn't an on/off scenario.

 

All the evidence seems to point that storing investiture acts like storing weight or speed because it seems to have time-limit, which things like memories and identity don't have. And a requirement that one keeps drawing from the nicrsosil to maintain the powers, which things like memories and identity don't have.

 

The evidence says that nicrosil doesn't store the ability to BE a fullborn, but that it simply stores the powers of a fullborn for a given time. If things were as you say one would only have to hold the Bands long enough to suck out the investiture, and would then have the powers permanently.

 

But from the way things worked in the book it theoretically looks like if a skimmer stores a day's worth of their ability into nicrosil, another person drawing from it doesn't actually become a skimmer (which is something inherent to that person's genes/spiritweb). They just have a day's worth of a skimmer's abilities.