(BOM Spoilers) Brass minds

[Red Ferring he/him]

This may be old news to everyone but I haven't seen it as a topic so I figured I'd throw it out there.

 

We learned from Allik that there are persons in Southern Scadrial society called FireMothers and FireFathers who store body heat in brassminds for the rest of society to use and survive the cold. This next thought is what immediately came to mind when I read "FireMothers and FireFathers".

 

These men and women are literally standing in raging fires and just storing all the heat that would otherwise burn their bodies to a crisp.

 

The reason I think they're literally in the fires is because that would be the fastest way to store a ton of heat for an entire nation. Granted, they could just be really close to the fire but it would be way cooler to have them in the fire and be unharmed. I think the reasoning is sound that they can do this since Marsh probably only survived the terrible circumstances of the Catacendre outside of a cave because he could withstand the terrible heat by storing in a brass mind. And if the heat from the sun can reach your body and be immediately stored to prevent your own demise, then I think it makes sense the same can be done with standing in a fire and immediately storing that heat. Plus, how different is it than Sazed storing in a brassmind on a hot day? The heat from the sun reaching his skin and he's storing it away for later. The Marsh example is more of my reasoning why it'd work in such an extreme condition.

 

Anyone else think this?

Edited March 7, 2016 by Red Ferring

[Pagerunner he/him]

Good thought, but I disagree because of conservation of energy. In the epilogue, the people of Southern Scadrial were freezing to death, and they had run out of things to burn to keep warm. They needed a supernatural source of heat to keep from freezing to death, so my thoughts turned to Brass Compounding. (There has been some discussion about the SoScads possibly living underground and storing geothermal energy in the medallions, which is in line with what you're saying. But I wasn't a fan of that theory, either, since it doesn't explain why they were freezing to death on the surface in the first place.)

 

Then again, just because the Sovereign compounded heat to save the SoScads in the first place doesn't mean that it's the same mechanism currently used to fill the medallions. Their society could have recovered enough that they only need the medallions when they go outside, and it's just their way of storing heat for later (because their coat technology has been drastically crippled over the course of a thousand years on a too-hot planet).

 

However, if the medallions are also granting F.Nicrosil (as Wax speculates and Allik confirms), that part of the medallion also needs to be refilled, which cannot be done by standing in a fire. If you want 100 people to use weight medallions for a week (to operate an airship, perhaps), you need one person to store constantly for almost two years; not terribly practical. Unless you have compounding, of course.

 

So, yeah, I disagree with your theory not because I don't think Brass Feruchemy can store enough heat that quickly, but because I don't think the heat was there in the first place. Wayne discussed it when he was wounded (I think it was in SoS, but I'm not sure); if he spent time storing health while sick or injured, he would get worse, and then when he tapped it he would just get back to where he started. It's not possible to get ahead using Feruchemy, and the inhabitants of Southern Scadrial needed a way to get ahead of the cold.

 

EDIT: Also, that would either be the best job or the worst job. All you need to do is sit around in the fire all day. But you couldn't bring anything to do or read, because it would be burned up. Maybe a high-temperature chessboard?

Edited March 7, 2016 by Pagerunner

[Observer]

It's unlikely that's how they started it, because obviously by that point they were all out of things to burn and in no shape to go looking for more. But nowadays in modern South Scadrial I'm not sure what would stop them from doing something like this to quickly fill up a Brassmind. I do agree that by now they clearly do have a way to stay warm inside in some way, it's crazy to think they haven't invented some kind of electrical heating system by this point, so they're probably fine indoors or in town. It's how the Firegiving people can even store heat to begin with, otherwise they'd freeze to death.

 

I lost my handle on that thought. Point is, it sounds plausible.

[DeadFencer]

I don't know if nicrosilminds require that much effort to refill either. It seemed Allik had enough to give to the rest of the Southern Scadrialians after they were recovered from the Set. If the medallions took a ton of storing to activate, they'd be rarer.

[Red Ferring he/him]

Yeah it definitely wasn't the way it all started. We don't have that much info on what the sovereign taught them or advised them to do. (I haven't read SH and it might have info there. Don't spoil anything!)

 

Compounding definitely would make more sense for the replenishing heat and to make enough of all the attributes for everyone, especially nicrosil. That could be all what the FireMothers/Fathers are doing and just called "Fire..." symbolically because they're producing the heat for everyone, like a fire would.

 

But who knows, since compounding does consume some brass, they may stand in a fire to avoid consuming anything. And since Allomancers seem to be much more rare in SoScad, a Misting for each power might be harder to come by and so they need other means to quickly fill attributes, especially heat. Because we really don't know how much Investiture from a Nicromind needs to be tapped to grant Feruchemy. It could be very little and so they don't need a compounder for it.

[Stormgate he/him]

I think they started with spikes, then eventually figured out how to make medallions. Or the abilities were hereditary, and we're going to see what's the weird thing that happens with hereditary Hemalurgy.

[Yata he/him]

I thought that Firefathers or Firemothers are Brass Misting or Brass Ferring among the Southern (they are very rare but there is someone I suppose)... If you give to them a medallion with the complementary power, they may compound all the Heat you want and puts them avaliable for the whole comunity.

 

It's probably a life dedicated to this only task, but it's a critical task and I suppose this would be see as an Honor 

[DocHoliday he/him]

My issue with the theory is this; fire is a chemical reaction and not necessarily a fundamental force like Thermal energy.

It makes sense to store to be able to wick away excess heat from the body, caused via the sun.

I'm not so sure that the fire might not cause you harm, regardless of the fact that you're storing the heat released from the reaction.

Then again, my grasp of physics is poor, feel free to poke holes.