[BoM Spoilers] Allomantic metalminds?

[Mr Steez]

After finishing Bands of Mourning, I was confused as to the abilities granted by the bands. It makes sense to me that feruchemically charged metalminds with stored investiture would allow an individual to access and use the power in that metalmind because metalminds are how feruchemy is naturally used. I don't recall any explanation as to how allomantic ability could be stored in a metalmind.

 

Once the allomantic ability is stored, why is it that the ability is accessed via tapping a metalmind instead of burning a metal?

 

Also, this is my first post. Hello everyone!

Edited February 18, 2016 by Mr Steez

[tobar14 he/him]

You may want to check out some of the topics on the BoM board

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/forum/77-bands-of-mourning-spoiler-board/

 

I don't entirely understand it either, but there has been a lot of discussion about it.

 

Also, welcome! 

[amulligan99]

Nicrosil can store both feruchemical abilities and allomantic abilaties so when it's tapped it gives the user whatever powers are stored in it even allomancy.

[natc]

If you store allomancy you weaken or lose your allomantic power. Tapping it let's you increase your power (or gain them, in the case of unkeyed investiture like the Bands).

You wouldn't need to burn anything until you're actually using the powers in the first place. The act of tapping stored abilities from nicrosil increases your strength in those abilities. You still have to find a way to actually use them.

The important component of the Bands was only the nicrosilmind part of the spearhead. The rest of the metals are redundancies for convenience and charged to the brim so you can at least use 16 of your powers on the spot (and to make it look like aluminum at first glance to coinshots), but are not vital to its functions. Burnable metal supply naturally cannot be built into a worn or held object and thus had to be procured externally. Notice how Marasi swipes a vial of metal from a random Set member before having any allomancy to use.

Edited February 18, 2016 by natc

[Mr Steez]

I totally forgot that Marasi downed the vial before using Allomancy, did she also give one to Wax? That makes much better sense. So the Nicroslmind gives Marasi the invested ability to use all 16 metals, but the Allomantic power still comes from the ingested metals.

[baby he/him]

So what I gathered from that was, you only become the Lord Ruler with the bands on. If you take them off, you'd lose all powers, right?

[Mr Steez]

So what I gathered from that was, you only become the Lord Ruler with the bands on. If you take them off, you'd lose all powers, right?

 

Well "The" Lord Ruler was a fullborn naturally, but for anyone else using the bands you are right. Without the nicrosilmind (and other filled metals) contained in the bands, you'd be pretty useless.

[Dunkum he/him]

Well "The" Lord Ruler was a fullborn naturally, but for anyone else using the bands you are right. Without the nicrosilmind (and other filled metals) contained in the bands, you'd be pretty useless.

for that matter, once the nicrosilmind runs out, you would lose all the powers you didnt start out with.  And in this era it would be difficult to impossible to actually recharge that, since there are no full mistborn or full ferruchemists left

[natc]

Of course, you can use the Bands to recharge the Bands before they run out by compounding nicrosil. Perhaps even charge a second set. Who knows.

[Dunkum he/him]

Of course, you can use the Bands to recharge the Bands before they run out by compounding nicrosil. Perhaps even charge a second set. Who knows.

I'm not 100% sure about that.  can you store into a metalmind while tapping a different metalmind of the same attribute?  I guess you might be able to.  can't think of any particular reason why you wouldn't, but I can't think of any particular reason why you would have to be able to either.  but for recharging the bands, that is what you would need to do: store the allomantic and ferruchemical investiture abilities that you don't normally have into a metalmind while tapping them from the bands.

[Voidus]

I'm not 100% sure about that.  can you store into a metalmind while tapping a different metalmind of the same attribute?  I guess you might be able to.  can't think of any particular reason why you wouldn't, but I can't think of any particular reason why you would have to be able to either.  but for recharging the bands, that is what you would need to do: store the allomantic and ferruchemical investiture abilities that you don't normally have into a metalmind while tapping them from the bands.

When you compound you're essentially tapping and storing at the same time so it should work.

[Dunkum he/him]

When you compound you're essentially tapping and storing at the same time so it should work.

true, but one is coming through allomancy while the other is through ferruchemy.  I'm not saying it definitely can't work, but it isn't too much of a stretch to assume that you could only have one ferruchemy channel open per attribute, for instance.

[Voidus]

It's not concrete but I'd say it's pretty compelling until we get evidence to the contrary.

[Jazzy Kandra she/her]

When you compound you're essentially tapping and storing at the same time so it should work.

 

Wax suggests this is possible to Marasi, in fact:

"The Bands are drained, mostly, but we could probably recharge them by compounding." (Bands of Mourning, kindle, 384)

So compounding should work...probably.

Edited February 23, 2016 by Kandra-in-disguise

[Voidus]

 

Wax suggests this is possible to Marasi, in fact:

"The Bands are drained, mostly, but we could probably recharge them by compounding." (Bands of Mourning, kindle, 384)

So compounding should work...probably.

Which is another point, it might be borderline sacrilegious to the southerners but you could just burn the bands themselves and store what you get in multiple metalminds.

[natc]

Well if you can't store while tapping, then TLR's age while compounding would be rather unstable . . .

If atiummind burn puts him at an older age than his preferred self, then he might just die. If younger, he would've embryo-ified himself early on.

Edited February 24, 2016 by natc

[Voidus]

Well if you can't store while tapping, then TLR's age while compounding would be rather unstable . . .

If atiummind burn puts him at an older age than his preferred self, then he might just die. If younger, he would've embryo-ified himself early on.

Well you could argue that compounded traits don't strictly count as tapping.

[Dunkum he/him]

Well you could argue that compounded traits don't strictly count as tapping.

exactly.  the more I think about it, the more I assume that this would all be fine, and I'm overthinking this, but there's just enough there that I felt like I needed to throw it out there.  If I'm wrong, then fine, doesn't worry me, but I don't like making assumptions or guesses unless I have a lot of evidence to back it up.