LiquidBlue Posted February 18, 2016 Posted February 18, 2016 So it seems pretty clear now that at least one way that Feruchemical nicrosil works is very similar to storing other attributes such as strength or senses. I.e. weakness now for strength latter. Other then just having that attribute available in greater abundance latter, it is possible to quickly dump the charge for even greater super-powered attributes. Any full feruchemist, who knows about nicrosil, should be able to go through periods of being a "weak" in order to have the option of being a "strong" or super-powerful feruchemist latter. The means that if the idea of a feruchemist being weaker or stronger than another makes sense, any full feruchemist, regardless of feruchemical power, should be able to use a nicrosilmind to temporarily obtain any level of feruchemical strength. We have already seen the characters with different levels of allomantic power, and I am curious to find out what a powerful feruchemist looks like.
Nashan’Elin he/him Posted February 19, 2016 Posted February 19, 2016 Do we know if Feruchemical strength is even a thing? I thought the only reason there were "strong" Allomancers was due to the amount of Preservation's power they could access. Feruchemy seems like it doesn't have power levels, rather, someone can store a certain level of an attribute, say, 50% of their sight, and tap it later to get 200% sight for the same time, or 400% for half as long.
natc Posted February 19, 2016 Posted February 19, 2016 Well feruchemical strength must do something, or nicrosil would basically be a pointless metal. Even allomantic aluminum does something. Counterproductive, but it still does something. Besides, once you start storing your abilities something must weaken or it won't make sense.
Voidus Posted February 19, 2016 Posted February 19, 2016 Well feruchemical strength must do something, or nicrosil would basically be a pointless metal. Even allomantic aluminum does something. Counterproductive, but it still does something. Besides, once you start storing your abilities something must weaken or it won't make sense. Could just be an all or nothing store, and Nicrosil is far from pointless even if feruchemy doesn't have strength.
Dunkum he/him Posted February 23, 2016 Posted February 23, 2016 Well, bear in mind that there is a cost to ferruchemical compounding. as described by Sazed in the original trilogy, you could be at 50% strength for an hour, then tap it for 150% (not 200% - you are adding to or subtracting from your strength, not multiplying or dividing) for an hour, or 200% for about half an hour, etc, but as you tap more and more of it at once, the duration decreases in a non-linear way, so maybe you could be at 300% strength for about 14 minutes instead of the normal 15, and 500% strength for 6 minutes instead of 7.5. not sure what the exact ratio is for that, but you get my point. so given that, maybe ferruchemical strength could be something like efficiency in tapping the metalmind? so it would reduce (or increase while filling the nicrosilmind) the penalty for drawing on a lot of an attribute at once.
Gagylpus he/him Posted February 23, 2016 Posted February 23, 2016 I think greater feruchemical strength could mean 1) greater maximum store and tap rates 2) reduced penalty for drawing lots of an attribute at once, as Dunkum says, and 3) ability to store more of an attribute in any given amount of metal, ability to pack more of the attribute in, so to speak. So a feruchemist could use nicrosil to increase their feruchemical strength vastly and then store huge amounts of an attribute in a very small metalmind (investing it so much in the process that it looks like aluminium to an allomancer burning iron or steel). Similarly I think allomantic strength means 1) greater maximum burn rate and 2) possibly getting more power out of the metal burned (in HoA we see Elend described as having powerful alomancy but he isn't described as going through metals faster than Vin). A twinborn with feruchemical nicrosil should be able to strengthen their allomantic power, giving us the long sought after method of empowering alomancy with feruchemy.
Voidus Posted February 23, 2016 Posted February 23, 2016 I think greater feruchemical strength could mean 1) greater maximum store and tap rates 2) reduced penalty for drawing lots of an attribute at once, as Dunkum says, and 3) ability to store more of an attribute in any given amount of metal, ability to pack more of the attribute in, so to speak. So a feruchemist could use nicrosil to increase their feruchemical strength vastly and then store huge amounts of an attribute in a very small metalmind (investing it so much in the process that it looks like aluminium to an allomancer burning iron or steel). Similarly I think allomantic strength means 1) greater maximum burn rate and 2) possibly getting more power out of the metal burned (in HoA we see Elend described as having powerful alomancy but he isn't described as going through metals faster than Vin). A twinborn with feruchemical nicrosil should be able to strengthen their allomantic power, giving us the long sought after method of empowering alomancy with feruchemy. 1. doesn't really work because of cases where people were able to store 100%% (Or very nearly 100%) of something at a time, so either almost all feruchemists are already as strong as possible or strength doesn't effect store rate. There was a discussion a while ago about whether allomantic strength affects burn rate or if it increases the power without burning through more metals. I'm not entirely sure but I think it was that it affects burn rate.
Dunkum he/him Posted February 23, 2016 Posted February 23, 2016 I was always of the opinion that allomantic strength was generally more of a greater investiture per gram of metal thing (though It could also affect burn rate) but I don't think we ever got a 100% confirmation on that. agree with you that ferruchemical strength is not likely to fit with the store/tap rate idea. it had occurred to me yesterday when I was making my post, but I just didn't see how that could work for pretty much exactly the reason you give. as to being able to pack more investiture into a given amount of metal...maybe. we know that investiture interferes with other investiture, so a "stronger" ferruchemist might just be someone who is better able to overcome that interference, and thus pack more investiture into a given mass (I assume mass, not volume or something else, is the limiting factor here).
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