Basic Compounding questions

[Oversleep]

So I recently realized that two things I believed about Compounding are not necessarily true:

1. Metalmind is burned all at once, resulting in huge burst of power (probably coming from all that talk about bursts of power)
2. What's released is Feruchemical power

I am not sure about #2. I mean, now I'm thinking it results in release of the attribute, making the body heavier/faster/whatever and then that unusual state of heightened attribute is stored as Feruchemical power. Is there even any difference?

Can somebody explain #2 to me and/or prove #1 false?

[Landis963 he/him]

Depending on the size of the piece of metal used as a metalmind, it need not be burned "all at once," and even then, I assumed that the rate of burning was identical to the original Allomantic metal.  The attributes stored in the metalmind in question are then converted into, essentially, another Allomantic power.  To use goldminds as an example: burning Gold has the power of "see past versions of yourself", while burning a goldmind with your health in it has the power of "tap health."  Then other necessary parameters (e.g. "how much?") are set to "Yes," which results in the ridiculous healing factor you saw with Miles Hundredlives.  Essentially, Compounding is using the Investiture of Feruchemy to make another set of Allomantic metals.  Finally, the health that you are "tapping" when you burn a goldmind is not your health, per se.  It is Investiture from Preservation that, because you are burning one of your goldminds, mimics your health in all the respects that your soul cares about.  

[Yata he/him]

But when you compound you don't "burn all at one" You still burn at the rate your allomancy allows you to burn.

As allomancer you have a fixed amount of "Preservation's power" you may use per second. When you compound this limit still exist...You use the same channel after all, just the Preservation-Stream is filtred by something different than a standard metal.

This mean that while both TLR and Miles may compound Gold and obtain the same Health from the same amount of charged Gold. TLR may burn a Goldmind faster than Miles (Savantism may change the limit, I know but TLR is in another Tier at all... It's the reason I choose him for the example).

An example in book:
TLR can't live forever because with Atium Compound because He would reach the point where he can't generate Youth fast enogh. Of course He as the hard and absolute limit of the whole Atium in the world and his recharge time. But he would fail to stay alive before this point. He would be uncapable of burning fast enough great amount of Atiummind to keep his growing need of Youth.... He will probably reach the point where the only choose left will be to "re-discover Duralluminium" to speed up those process or die.

Edited July 22, 2016 by Yata

[Ari he/him]

8 hours ago, Oversleep said:

So I recently realized that two things I believed about Compounding are not necessarily true:

1. Metalmind is burned all at once, resulting in huge burst of power (probably coming from all that talk about bursts of power)
2. What's released is Feruchemical power

I am not sure about #2. I mean, now I'm thinking it results in release of the attribute, making the body heavier/faster/whatever and then that unusual state of heightened attribute is stored as Feruchemical power. Is there even any difference?

Can somebody explain #2 to me and/or prove #1 false?

Yata and Landis have adequately covered point #1, so yeah, it doesn't burn all at once unless your metalmind is tiny or you're being touched by an active Nicroburst. I'll stick to detailing what's going on with #2. There are two aspects to what happens when a compounder burns a metalmind.

Firstly, you swallow a fully charged metalmind, and your Allomancy, recognising a metal you have the spiritual capability to burn, shows up a reserve that feels like the appropriate metal. If it's not your metalmind, what Vin experiences when she asks to burn one of Sazed's metalminds happens. If it is, you have access to a new allomantic reserve.

When you normally burn a metal, the metal acts like the key to a floodgate, and whichever of the sixteen (plus) keys you turned, that's the type of power you get out from Preservation. Atium is a bit of a special case that relates to what's going on with compounding, as you're burning a piece of Ruin's power to access Allomancy, so in that case the metal actually unlocks a power flow from the solid Ruin you've ingested, rather than from Preservation.

But when you burn a metalmind, your Allomancy is overwritten with a feruchemical charge, so you end up accessing the feruchemical ability in using the metal to do Allomancy, but utilising both the stored feruchemical charge and Preservation's allomantic power flow to fuel it. Which is why you get more health out of burning a full gold metalmind than you do from tapping it- because you're getting the feruchemical charge multiplied through by the power released by the allomantic burn rate. And you can then store this compounded attribute back into a new metalmind, effectively giving you as much of a feruchemical attribute as you want so long as you have access to small, swallowable metalminds. (although you are limited by the rate you can ingest and burn the power, so there are limits to the rate you can get the attribute at, which is why Atium compounding only makes you ridiculously long-lived as opposed to immortal)

[Oversleep]

On 22.07.2016 at 11:46 AM, Ari said:

Yata and Landis have adequately covered point #1, so yeah, it doesn't burn all at once unless your metalmind is tiny or you're being touched by an active Nicroburst.

On 22.07.2016 at 5:33 AM, Landis963 said:

Depending on the size of the piece of metal used as a metalmind, it need not be burned "all at once," and even then, I assumed that the rate of burning was identical to the original Allomantic metal.

On 22.07.2016 at 7:39 AM, Yata said:

But when you compound you don't "burn all at one" You still burn at the rate your allomancy allows you to burn.

I found the WoB that made me confused:

Quote

ANDREW THE GREAT

What would happen if a person were to burn a metal that was Feruchemically charged using Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The metal used in Allomancy is like a key or a doorway to the power that Allomancy actually uses. The metal acts as a filter, much as the Aons in Elantris do, to determine what the power actually does. However, if the metal is Feruchemically charged, then it will basically become a super-burst of Feruchemical power with no Allomantic effect. The Feruchemical charge acts as a filter as well as the metal, and changes what the power does. in this case, say you were burning steel, you would just be massively speedy for a second, and wouldn't actually have the ability to push on anything Allomantically. Hope that answered the question. I get the concept, so if you need me to explain it differently, let me know and i'll try. Oh, the other thing I forgot is that this concept only works if it's a metal that you charged yourself. If it's a metal someone else charged, it would just work like regular Allomancy, and the Feruchemical charge would just cease to exist.
source (emphasis mine)

 

[asterion137 he/him]

8 hours ago, Oversleep said:

in this case, say you were burning steel, you would just be massively speedy for a second,

Most of the compounders we observe using their powers are actually just using their stored up speed/health/etc. rather than using the direct results of the compounding. They compound to gain that big burst of feruchemy and store it in another, larger, metalmind. Since we've never seen the perspective of someone compounding while they actually do it, I don't think we can determine whether the feruchemical attribute is released at a normal allomantic rate or in a huge burst. Hopefully a viewpoint character will compound in The Lost Metal.

[Spoolofwhool]

Metalminds actually burn at a slower rate than a regular piece of metal due to the investiture in them. WoB The speed burst is probably from the fact that you're getting an amplified charge at an allomantic rate. So if you have a steelmind which contains 1 hour of 50% speed which burns in 30 minutes, then every moment you're getting 1000% additional speed. Numbers are probably incorrect, but you get the idea. I'm assuming the charge is spread evenly through the metalmind, which may not be correct.

[Ari he/him]

49 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Metalminds actually burn at a slower rate than a regular piece of metal due to the investiture in them. WoB The speed burst is probably from the fact that you're getting an amplified charge at an allomantic rate. So if you have a steelmind which contains 1 hour of 50% speed which burns in 30 minutes, then every moment you're getting 1000% additional speed. Numbers are probably incorrect, but you get the idea. I'm assuming the charge is spread evenly through the metalmind, which may not be correct.

That WoB relates to leeching Metalminds away, not to compounders burning metalminds, so I'm not exactly sure it would apply to modifying the allomantic burn rate, however you've definitely got the rest of the principles right there. There's certainly an argument that metalminds could burn a little slower than uninvested metals based on that, but absent any evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude that the allomantic burn rate would be a base rate that metalminds burn. (That may not necessarily be true, as for instance Connection may burn slower than allomantic duralumin, not being an Enhancement power)

Edited September 4, 2016 by Ari

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, Ari said:

That WoB relates to leeching Metalminds away, not to compounders burning metalminds, so I'm not exactly sure it would apply to modifying the allomantic burn rate, however you've definitely got the rest of the principles right there. There's certainly an argument that metalminds could burn a little slower than uninvested metals based on that, but absent any evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude that the allomantic burn rate would be a base rate that metalminds burn. (That may not necessarily be true, as for instance Connection may burn slower than allomantic duralumin, not being an Enhancement power)

True, I got a bit caught up with the fact that he's uisng the term burn there. Would be a good question to ask I think. There are also a couple of WoBs which seem to state that investiture interferes with burning though. WoB WoB

Edited September 4, 2016 by Spoolofwhool

[Oversleep]

We know that tin burns the slowest (for example Spook eats a handful and says it will last for a day). So if it was a grounded up tinmind, could a Tin Twinborn Compound for a whole day?

[marsoupial they/them]

On 7/21/2016 at 9:23 PM, Oversleep said:

So I recently realized that two things I believed about Compounding are not necessarily true:

1. Metalmind is burned all at once, resulting in huge burst of power (probably coming from all that talk about bursts of power)
2. What's released is Feruchemical power

I am not sure about #2. I mean, now I'm thinking it results in release of the attribute, making the body heavier/faster/whatever and then that unusual state of heightened attribute is stored as Feruchemical power. Is there even any difference?

Can somebody explain #2 to me and/or prove #1 false?

I always thought it meant using the metal in you as a metalmind, and being able to burn your Feruchemical stores, but also since Allomantic metal is packed-full of Investiture, being able to tap the metals inside you. 

I could be wrong, I often am. 

[Samaldin he/him]

7 hours ago, bleeder said:

I always thought it meant using the metal in you as a metalmind, and being able to burn your Feruchemical stores, but also since Allomantic metal is packed-full of Investiture, being able to tap the metals inside you. 

I could be wrong, I often am. 

"Allomantic metal" (basicly that´s just norml metal) isn´t invested, it only dictates what form the Investiture will take^^

[marsoupial they/them]

56 minutes ago, Samaldin said:

"Allomantic metal" (basicly that´s just norml metal) isn´t invested, it only dictates what form the Investiture will take^^

Ah

Thanks!