Nicrosil and the storage of Investiture

[SoulWeaver]

I recently finished reading Bands of Mourning for the second time, and I'm still confused about one concept: how do the "Southern Peoples'" medallions work? I understand the Nicrosil is necessary for the medallions to function and that it stores investiture, but what about it allows it to be tapped by anyone? This is different from the metalminds created without identity that the Set uses. But how? Any explanations?

[BeskarKomrk he/him]

The Southern medallions are created without identity somehow. We don't know exactly how they are made, but they are metalminds that anyone can use. The Set doesn't use metalminds, they have hemalurgic spikes granting them abilities. 

[Spoolofwhool]

The southern medallions are all unkeyed, meaning that the feruchemist had no identity when creating them. In addition, the nicrosil sections are all unsealed somehow, meaning that they have been changed so that anyone, not just a Soulbearer ferring, can tap them. We don't know how, but it has been hinted that it is an additional process.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Spoolofwhool

[Eki]

1 hour ago, BeskarKomrk said:

The Southern medallions are created without identity somehow. We don't know exactly how they are made, but they are metalminds that anyone can use. The Set doesn't use metalminds, they have hemalurgic spikes granting them abilities. 

They mean things like the gold metalmind one of the Set members had, that Wayne used in BoM. It's tappable by any Gold Ferring. But the Nicrosilminds in Medallions are different, because they are tappable by anyone, regardless of them being Nicrosil Ferrings or not.

[SoulWeaver]

Ok, so Investiture metalminds are unkeyed to a specific Spiritweb, regardless of who created it? Or do the Southern peoples have a way of unkeying their metalminds that we don't know about yet?

Edited December 12, 2016 by SoulWeaver

[SoulWeaver]

On 12/10/2016 at 6:59 AM, BeskarKomrk said:

The Southern medallions are created without identity somehow. We don't know exactly how they are made, but they are metalminds that anyone can use. The Set doesn't use metalminds, they have hemalurgic spikes granting them abilities. 

Yes and no, they used hemalurgic spikes to gain access to metalminds. They did create the gold metalmind Wayne uses.

[Weltall]

Unkeyed metalminds are ones that anyone able to use the appropriate Feruchemical power can access. Wayne can use the goldmind Wax looted because he's a Bloodmaker, Wax can't because he isn't a Bloodmaker. We know how those are created; someone with Feruchemical Aluminum (a Trueself) and at least one other metal can store their Identity in an Aluminummind, then while they're in a 'zero Identity' state they store the trait associated with their other metal. The resulting metalmind has no associated Identity, which is how the metalmind 'knows' who's allowed to access its power, but you still need the underlying power in order to use it, or it's just a piece of metal.

How one creates metalminds that anyone can access (and/or grant Allomancy, like the Bands do) we don't know exactly, aside from that it requires the Feruchemical properties of nicrosil. This is what the Southerners medallions are, metalminds incorporating nicrosil and other metals which not only serve as metalminds for one or more attributes but which also grant anyone the ability to use those Feruchemical abilities if they don't already possess them.

[Spoolofwhool]

3 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

Ok, so Investiture metalminds are unkeyed to a specific Spiritweb, regardless of who created it? Or do the Southern peoples have a way of unkeying their metalminds that we don't know about yet?

Correct. They have an unknown process which essentially automatically grants the holder a limited nicrosil feruchemy ability. In addition, based on how the Southern with Wax described the process, however that process works, interference is caused if someone tries to wear more than one medallion, indicating that the limited power each gives is likely keyed to that specific medallion.

Edited December 13, 2016 by Spoolofwhool

[+robardin he/him]

On 12/12/2016 at 7:15 PM, Spoolofwhool said:

Correct. They have an unknown process which essentially automatically grants the holder a limited nicrosil feruchemy ability. In addition, based on how the Southern with Wax described the process, however that process works, interference is caused if someone tries to wear more than one medallion, indicating that the limited power each gives is likely keyed to that specific medallion.

Also that a two-attribute medallion (like the Weight and Connection medallions they used to talk and to take off in the escape pod) is less common than the single attribute ones (the heat medallions); that they cannot create medallions with more than three attributes, as that would take a full Feruchemist (which evidently they don't have); and that the standard way they create the two- and three-attribute medallions is to pass them between Ferrings.

So what they have, exact mechanism as yet unkown, is:

1. A way to add both Feruchemical nicrosil (Investiture) and aluminum (Identity) ability to a Ferring of a diferent metal (e.g., a Firesoul who can store/tap brass)
2. This Firesoul Ferring (as an example) now takes some aluminum, and a medallion with both brass and nicrosil in it
3. Fill the aluminummind with Identity at the same time as filling the brassmind - that causes the attribute stored in the brassmind to lose its Identity tag that ordinarily would make it only usable by him/herself (can now be used by any Firesoul Ferring). I guess the metalmind-bound Identity can only go down one pipe, so to speak.
4. Now fill the nicrosil part of the medallion with the Investiture representing your Firesoul ability (to tap/store in the brassmind), still filling the aluminummind to make it Identity-less
5. Now done with the medallion, tap your Identity back from the aluminummind

If you want to create a medallion with 2 properties, Allik describes them passing it along to another Ferring, who repeats this. The different attributes get added "with separate rings".

What's interesting is that this is limited to "2, maybe 3" things in a single medallion, because they "interfere with each other", unless "you had all the powers, rather than adding yours to the medallion, then passing it to another" - that's the only way that Allik supposed you could break that limit. Which is exactly what the Bands of Mourning are supposed to be, 32 bands of nicrosil along with 16 bands of pre-filled metalminds*. (Too bad if you'd wanted that steelmind to SHED weight, I suppose!)

The curious thing is that "interference" is also the reason Wax's initial (obvious) idea to just "strap 32 medallions to your body, and have all the abilities" doesn't work. Which Allik said was a limitation due to interference not in creating, but in USING the medallions. Why would wearing multiple medallions not work, but using the Bands does, if the nicrosil stores are truly Identity-less either way?

 

*I actually suspect the Bands don't grant "all 16 Allomantic and all 16 Feruchemical powers", that that's an exaggeration, it just grants a whole lot of them. No basis for this though.

Edited December 16, 2016 by robardin

[Shadeshadow227]

On 12/10/2016 at 8:01 AM, Spoolofwhool said:

In addition, the nicrosil sections are all unsealed somehow, meaning that they have been changed so that anyone, not just a Soulbearer ferring, can tap them. We don't know how, but it has been hinted that it is an additional process.

I personally think that it has something to do with Connection. The metalminds have an identity aspect which codes who can use them, but I believe that they also have a connection to users of the specific power, such as Bloodmakers with Gold, in general. Storing this connection, using Duralumin, while storing an attribute allows anyone to use the metalmind in question, although it is still locked off by the previously mentioned identity aspect until that is removed via Aluminum.  There may be holes in this hypothesis, and we won't know until later WoBs or later books reveal what exactly the process Southerners use to unseal metalminds is.

Just my two clips on the matter of metalmnds.

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, robardin said:

Also that a two-attribute medallion (like the Weight and Connection medallions they used to talk and to take off in the escape pod) is less common than the single attribute ones (the heat medallions); that they cannot create medallions with more than three attributes, as that would take a full Feruchemist (which evidently they don't have); and that the standard way they create the two- and three-attribute medallions is to pass them between Ferrings.

They have 3-power medallions. The 4-power hasn't been obtained. 

1 hour ago, robardin said:

What's interesting is that this is limited to "2, maybe 3" things in a single medallion, because they "interfere with each other", unless "you had all the powers, rather than adding yours to the medallion, then passing it to another" - that's the only way that Allik supposed you could break that limit. Which is exactly what the Bands of Mourning are supposed to be, 32 bands of nicrosil along with 16 bands of pre-filled metalminds*. (Too bad if you'd wanted that steelmind to SHED weight, I suppose!)

I was under the impression that it was just a single band of nicrosil which contained all 32 powers. I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to store different varieties of the same attribute in a single metalmind considering multiple feruchemists can store in the same metalmind.

1 hour ago, robardin said:

The curious thing is that "interference" is also the reason Wax's initial (obvious) idea to just "strap 32 medallions to your body, and have all the abilities" doesn't work. Which Allik said was a limitation due to interference not in creating, but in USING the medallions. Why would wearing multiple medallions not work, but using the Bands does, if the nicrosil stores are truly Identity-less either way?

Each medallion is subjected to a process which gives someone without nicrosil feruchemy to tap the nicrosilmind to grant the powers over the other section. My guess is that limited power which each medallion grants is keyed to each medallion, and wearing multiple medallions interfere with each other, because the conflicted limited powers they're each trying to give.

49 minutes ago, Shadeshadow227 said:

I personally think that it has something to do with Connection. The metalminds have an identity aspect which codes who can use them, but I believe that they also have a connection to users of the specific power, such as Bloodmakers with Gold, in general. Storing this connection, using Duralumin, while storing an attribute allows anyone to use the metalmind in question, although it is still locked off by the previously mentioned identity aspect until that is removed via Aluminum.  There may be holes in this hypothesis, and we won't know until later WoBs or later books reveal what exactly the process Southerners use to unseal metalminds is.

That's a possibility, but I feel it's a bit more than that because it's actually giving a limited power to someone.

[+robardin he/him]

14 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

I was under the impression that it was just a single band of nicrosil which contained all 32 powers. I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to store different varieties of the same attribute in a single metalmind considering multiple feruchemists can store in the same metalmind.

Doesn't Saze say at one point that a Feruchemist couldn't store multiple senses in the same tinmind, like sight and hearing? Even though the Feruchemical metal/ability was the same, he had to have separate tinminds for them. I thought it would be kind of like that.

You are right in that he does say that two Feruchemists can share different "sections" of the same metalmind (each sensing, but not being able to access, the attributes stored by the other). But that just makes it even more curious that they can't make a pass-around version of the Bands beyond the count of three attributes. Nor explain why one cannot use 32 one-attribute medallions (each with their own separate band of nicrosil) created by 32 different people creating Identity-less nicrosilminds to (temporarily) become a Lord Ruler equivalent, but using a single artifact (the Bands) created by a single person would work.

Allik seems to understand the distinction, but I don't. I mean, I get the inverse statements, that "32 separate nicrosil medallions are easy to create, but impossible to use; but a BoM Grand Unified Nicrosil object is easy to use, but impossible to create except by a LR equivalent". Just not the basis for it. It's not based in Identity, so what?

I like @Shadeshadow227's idea that there is some kind of residual Connection in these metalminds, even after they've had the Identity factored out of them, but I think this is meant to be one of the mysteries we're left with after reading Bands of Mourning.

Unless I'm missing something and there IS a coherent explanation to be found in the information we've already been presented with.

[Spoolofwhool]

3 hours ago, robardin said:

Doesn't Saze say at one point that a Feruchemist couldn't store multiple senses in the same tinmind, like sight and hearing? Even though the Feruchemical metal/ability was the same, he had to have separate tinminds for them. I thought it would be kind of like that.

I get that logic, I just think it's weird in general, which is why I prefer to think that it can all be stored in one.

3 hours ago, robardin said:

You are right in that he does say that two Feruchemists can share different "sections" of the same metalmind (each sensing, but not being able to access, the attributes stored by the other). But that just makes it even more curious that they can't make a pass-around version of the Bands beyond the count of three attributes. Nor explain why one cannot use 32 one-attribute medallions (each with their own separate band of nicrosil) created by 32 different people creating Identity-less nicrosilminds to (temporarily) become a Lord Ruler equivalent, but using a single artifact (the Bands) created by a single person would work.

I offered an explanation why 32 separate medallions wouldn't work earlier. Interference between each medallions ability to grant the holder a limited nicrosil feruchemy ability which allows them to tap the required powers from the nicrosilmind of the medallion. I imagine that point, the ability to unseal a metalmind so that people without the powers can tap from it, are the cause of the limitation. They're somehow unable to unseal it for more than 3 varieties of nicrosil feruchemy, more than three powers as attributes. 

[+robardin he/him]

Hmm. I just remembered another unexplained limit of three that I didn't remember being mentioned before Bands of Mourning: when Suit mentions that their experimenting with Hemalurgy showed that they could give themselves a maximum of three spikes without being subject to Harmony's direct will. (For example, Suit made himself a Bloodmaker, Coinshot, and a Leecher.) Coincidence?

 And since Harmony, like Ruin, can speak directly to a  Hemalurgically spiked human (Pathian earrings), it stands to reason he's able to talk to the self-enhanced members of the Set. If they're talking back, who knows.

[Spoolofwhool]

9 hours ago, FiveLate said:

Wait....where did this come from?  

Is there a WoB on this or did I miss something Importantant in BOM?

What are you referring to? The Bands of Mourning gave the user access to all 32 powers of the metallic arts along with extremely filled metalminds for the feruchemical powers to use. Whether it was 32 separate pieces of nicrosil or 1 single piece is still up in the air.

[+robardin he/him]

9 hours ago, FiveLate said:

Wait....where did this come from?  

Is there a WoB on this or did I miss something Importantant in BOM?

The only description of what the Bands look like is when Marasi realizes the empty pair of bracers were a decoy, and that it was the spearhead Wayne removed from the statue:

Quote

...it was made of different interwoven metals, wavy, like the folds forged into the blade of a sword. He couldn’t Push on it, not because it was aluminum. But because it was a metalmind, stored with more power than any they’d ever seen.

The way I'd imagined it working to store Investiture for Allomantic or Feruchemical ability was that a given nicrosilmind could only store one attribute at a time (similar to  how tinminds aren't able to hold stores of different senses in the same metalmind), so I pictured the bands as thin and wavy, with LOTS of lines. Also why I thought perhaps it wasn't 32 bands but "only" 12-16 or so.

If it doesn't work that way, then  I'm confused about why Allik's people can't make medallions of arbitrary collections of powers, versus how the BoM was constructuted, versus why using multiple medallions at the same time don't work but the Bands allow for simultaneous tapping of multiple powers.

[+robardin he/him]

Actually there's another description of the Bands, when Wax wakes up from his Walk With Harmony:

Quote

His body reknit even as he launched himself to his feet by Pushing on tiny traces of metal in the ground beneath him. He landed and looked down at his left hand. The one that had been dangling, broken, before his face as he died.

Clutched in it was an oversized spearhead crafted from sixteen different metals melded together.

Since the Bands also have pre-loaded Feruchemical metalminds, the nicrosilminds to grant the ability to tap them - and to grant Elend level strength Allomancy - must be overloaded in the same material. So, time for me to mentally adjust.

Which Allik said was hard to do beyond 3 attributes, when passed between different people, but one person with all the powers could pull it off. So... How does that work?

[Yata he/him]

I think the best description we have to try to figure if more powers may be stored in a single piece of Nicrosil, come directly from the main medallions used by Allik's crew (with 2 powers).

When our characters examinate one of this medallion. They may without too much effort identify the tree sections they are made. One of Nicrosil to get the powers and a couple of different metals to an easy application of feruchemy gained through Nicrosil. This seriusly point to "more powers in a single Nicrosilmind".

Another point is, if the powers were actually in different NicrosilMinds and you may access multiple (but limitated) number of them at the same time.

It is really a stupid thing to bundle them together, it's better to made many single power medallions and put them in combos in your being.

Edited December 17, 2016 by Yata

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, robardin said:

If it doesn't work that way, then  I'm confused about why Allik's people can't make medallions of arbitrary collections of powers, versus how the BoM was constructuted, versus why using multiple medallions at the same time don't work but the Bands allow for simultaneous tapping of multiple powers.

I have proposed a theory on why multiple times in response to your questioning about it. Is there anything in my theory that you find blatantly incorrect or are you just ignoring it?

[+robardin he/him]

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

I have proposed a theory on why multiple times in response to your questioning about it. Is there anything in my theory that you find blatantly incorrect or are you just ignoring it?

No, neither. It's a reasonable one but something feels off about it to me, I'll have to think about it when I have more time to encapsulate why. I think it's meant to be a little mysterious to us at the moment.

Sorry, not ignoring you

[Almira]

How are the medallions charged when there are so few allomantic users in the south? The cubes needed an allomantic to charge it. Do the medallions work without being charged?

 Can a Feruchemist make the cubes work too? 

[Jondesu he/him]

7 hours ago, Almira said:

How are the medallions charged when there are so few allomantic users in the south? The cubes needed an allomantic to charge it. Do the medallions work without being charged?

 Can a Feruchemist make the cubes work too? 

The medallions are Feruchemical metalminds, rather than Allomantic metals (no one has to ingest metals to use them).  Allik references the Firemothers and Firefathers (IIRC), who I expect are Bronze Brass Ferrings (either naturally or via Hemalurgy, or possibly even just by passing a master medallion of some type to each one).  I would guess they spend most of their time filling the bronze brass portions of the medallions that grant heat, and in return are fed and sheltered and probably paid homage by the southerners.

I believe we see a cube use a Feruchemical power, but that part I'm not sure on.  I know the Ettmetal devices powering the ships do, though, since they store weight (Feruchemical Iron, I believe it is).

Edited December 18, 2016 by Jondesu

[Yata he/him]

6 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

The medallions are Feruchemical metalminds, rather than Allomantic metals (no one has to ingest metals to use them).  Allik references the Firemothers and Firefathers (IIRC), who I expect are Bronze Ferrings (either naturally or via Hemalurgy, or possibly even just by passing a master medallion of some type to each one).  I would guess they spend most of their time filling the bronze portions of the medallions that grant heat, and in return are fed and sheltered and probably paid homage by the southerners.

I believe we see a cube use a Feruchemical power, but that part I'm not sure on.  I know the Ettmetal devices powering the ships do, though, since they store weight (Feruchemical Iron, I believe it is).

I think the FireParents are people equipped with the Ability to compound Heat for the whole comunity. Without the compounding I think it's impossible to generate enough Heat...much more from people with an extra Heat need in the first place.

How they manage to have Heat compounder may be a good question, but a single Brass Misting and an F-Brass Spike may be probably enough to generate enough Heat for a comunity.

Of course another possiblity is the Harmonium usage, but I think it would be less cheap as way and there is no need of a specific role as Firefather/Firemother.

[Jondesu he/him]

5 minutes ago, Yata said:

I think the FireParents are people equipped with the Ability to compound Heat for the whole comunity. Without the compounding I think it's impossible to generate enough Heat...much more from people with an extra Heat need in the first place.

How they manage to have Heat compounder may be a good question, but a single Brass Misting and an F-Brass Spike may be probably enough to generate enough Heat for a comunity.

Of course another possiblity is the Harmonium usage, but I think it would be less cheap as way and there is no need of a specific role as Firefather/Firemother.

True, compounding seems likely, so that makes spikes or some other method probably necessary (a master metalmind set up by Kelsier might do the trick, though).

[Yata he/him]

9 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

True, compounding seems likely, so that makes spikes or some other method probably necessary (a master metalmind set up by Kelsier might do the trick, though).

Well they said they have really rare 4 powers Medallion. F-Brass, A-Brass, F-Alluminium, F-Nicrosil (I am unsure if the F-Nicrosil is actually part of the count of every medallion) is everything they need for unlimited unkeyed Heat.

We have also to notice F-Allumin isn't needed in the same Medallion. The Heat may be generate by a compounder and another guy with F-Heat and F-Identity may remove the "Identity interference"