Harmonium technology ideas

[Oversleep]

So, we know that ettmetal/harmonium can be used to replicate Allomantic abilities (engines using Steelpushing to move turbines, primer cube/grenade Wax and co charged with Allomantic steel, Allomantic cadmium and Allomantic bendalloy). While all those abilities are external Allomantic and we don't know how would internal work (for example, how would tin work with allomantic grenade?), perhaps they could be used also with feruchemy.

Thus, we could make machines which could use Allomancy and Feruchemy (and perhaps Hemalurgy) since sentient machines would have a soul. Now, let's leave all the "hey, Metallic Arts golems/Terminators etc" and focus on other uses.

How could we use the fact that machines could use Allomancy and Feruchemy?

My first idea is computers using Feruchemical copper to store data. I think it could be faster than traditional methods.

What else we could do with such technology?

Edited February 7, 2017 by Oversleep

[Itchy Savant he/him]

A Nicrosil for faster computers. 

I believe Sanderson has said that era 3''s main is a nicroburst code monkey and that's all I can think about. Her essential over clocking (but also burning out) a computer for extra power when needed.

 

Hospital wards with F Gold to aid people's healing. Might also help either spreading dosease/infection habing entire wards made of ettmetal chaged with the F Gold

Edited February 7, 2017 by Itchy Savant
More ideas

[Oversleep]

8 minutes ago, Itchy Savant said:

A Nicrosil for faster computers. 

I believe Sanderson has said that era 3''s main is a nicroburst code monkey and that's all I can think about. Her essential over clocking (but also burning out) a computer for extra power when needed.

I don't see how would that work? First off, the computer would have to run on Metallic Arts. I don't see how would that work; my model only replaces the data storage, not everything.

My main theory are sentient ships Compounding steel.

We could also use Feruchemical cadmium for storage or even, as Marasi has implemented it, an actual temporal grenade. It would work marveously, especially since it's not harmful by itself; perfect for capturing people, especially in highly populated areas.

[Erandeni he/him]

Well, I would said F-brass for heating systems and F-cadmium for diving suits.

[Itchy Savant he/him]

@Oversleep I have nothing to base this off of but I havehave aways felt hemalurgy is going to play apart in the tech as well as harmonium.

On that note I feel a lot of the metalic arts (especially the more recent ones unknown of during the TLR's time) are very misunderstood and have a myriad of effects. Such as Nicrosil  being used to overclock a PC. Why couldn't scadrians develop a computer that used pushing/pulling intervals instead of the 0's and 1s of binary code? I am not expert in computers but I am fairly positive we will see computers advance to be operated only with technology metalic arts. That being said I have no proof or knowledge so take it as you will

 

I like the idea of a sentient machines compounding steel for space travel, and that is perhaps how I view hemalurgy playing a role, providing the base "spirit" for a machine to allow the sentience. 

 

Time grenade are a cool non lethal crowd control weapon, I really dig that.

 

I can also see the emotional arts used in conjucture with the cubes as both riot control (or creation if that is your goal) as well as in a dystopian future set up (kind of like what TLR did with the stations, just minus the constant man power)

Cadmium could also be used for speed traps? Set up on popular strips of roadway, and only set to trigger when a car races by past what ever limit was set, freeze them in time until an officer can come give you a ticket

Edited February 7, 2017 by Itchy Savant

[Oversleep]

Wow, Allomantic grenades have a lot of uses. I assume internal metals just give everyone around them the effect.

Iron Grenade: Pulls everything metallic to it, including people having metal on them. Caution advised as those people could be hurt by bits of metal flying into them

Steel Grenade:

• Pushes everything metallic out, so basically a regular grenade but without any lethal shrapnels.
• Lethal version is filled with shrapnels, so it's basically a silent regular grenade.

Tin Grenade: everyone in range experiences a sudden sensory boost. Combine with flashbang and you have everyone drooling on the floor. Mostly crowd control.

Zinc/Brass Grenade: affects emotions of everyone in range. If used with enough Allomantic power, you could replicate the emotional void Vin used with duraluminum enhanced Soothing or you could Riot everyone into submission.

Gold Grenade: potentially traumatizing and gold is kinda expensive.

Cadmium Grenade: explained above

Aluminum/Chromium Grenade: to deal with potential Allomancers in the crowd

[Itchy Savant he/him]

Pewter "grenades" set up around construction sites and jobs requiring physical labour would possibly have huge implications for the workforce. Same goes with mental speed (F zinc? ) in areas whee scholars and engineers areally doing their thing.

 

Could ettmetal somehow be used to project nicrosil ferechemy like the medallions but on a larger scale?

[Oversleep]

Just now, Itchy Savant said:

Pewter "grenades" set up around construction sites and jobs requiring physical labour would possibly have huge implications for the workforce. Same goes with mental speed (F zinc? ) in areas whee scholars and engineers areally doing their thing.

It's easier and cheaper done with medallions.

[Itchy Savant he/him]

I started that post forgetting about the medallions and ended remembering them lmao

 

Medallions are probably a lot harder to make, especially if they require hemalurgy to produce, which brings in the whole morality of hemalurgy. I feel the grenades are an easier more moral method.

[Oversleep]

Just now, Itchy Savant said:

Medallions are probably a lot harder to make, especially if they require hemalurgy to produce, which brings in the whole morality of hemalurgy. I feel the grenades are an easier more moral method.

With Survivor's Spearhead there is no need for Hemalurgy anymore.

Also, grenades run on harmonium, so I guess it's not just laying around. There would be enough of it since they're using it as fuel but probably not that common to use it just anywhere.

[kenod]

2 hours ago, Itchy Savant said:

I like the idea of a sentient machines compounding steel for space travel, and that is perhaps how I view hemalurgy playing a role, providing the base "spirit" for a machine to allow the sentience.

This could do some interesting stuff, if the base spirit is that of the donor. I get the image of people who are physically impaired or are dying having themselves spiked and then implanted in a ship, a bit like the brain ships in anne mccaffrey's The Ship Who series. On the other hand, if the soul/mind itself doesn't get transferred, but perhaps just the personality or even sentience, you could get things like the Minds in the Culture books. Both could create some really interesting social dilemmas, like human rights, or even the spiking of people to transfer the spirit itself, a bit like the discussion on spiking dying metal born.

[Itchy Savant he/him]

But the spear head has limited use, is it not? Or can it just be freely charged? The end of BoM seems to lean towards limited use. And yeah I was figuring that we were looking towards era 3 and I was under the assumption that ettmetak would be more common.

 

And @kenod that is exactly what I am envisioning. If ettmetal can use feruchemy as well as allomancy it should theoretically be usable with hemalurgy. Hemalurgy at its base is transferring prices of souls. I like to imagine it would require multiple spikes for something as large as a space going ship, which leads to even more interesting debates about what it is to be about live abound have a soul. Would the ship be a mash up? Completely separate parts stiched up or would they merge into one unique soul?

[Oversleep]

Just for clarification: when I meant sapient ships, I thought more of AI, not actual souls being transfered into it.

I'm not sure how could you spike an entire human - every spike can only steal a part of the soul.

Anyway, back on the topic: I'd really like to see magic/cyberpunk Scadrial. I'm afraid Fourth Era would be just space travel and cross-overs with the rest of cosmere. But I'd want to see some cybermagicpunk.

[kenod]

13 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

I'm not sure how could you spike an entire human - every spike can only steal a part of the soul.

Atium spikes perhaps? I also think that if you want to give something a personality through Hemalurgy Identity would be a good one to use. Otherwise, you could perhaps use the technique used by a certain person to attach his cognitive shadow to a living human. You could probably use some advanced computer AI programming to give it a complicated enough cognitive and spiritual part, which you then modify through magic till it starts to resemble the cognitive aspect and spirit web of a human or other sentient creature. I'm guessing that the best thing for this would be an electronic brain using artificial neural networking, as it bears the closest resemblance to an actual human brain, making the switch more natural.

/WildSpeculation

[Itchy Savant he/him]

I too and crossing my fingers for cyberpunk magic, and I think he is going to building up to something similar to TFE, but more dystopian. 

And on the souls in ships, I was thinking exactly what @kenod said.

[kenod]

6 minutes ago, Itchy Savant said:

I too and crossing my fingers for cyberpunk magic, and I think he is going to building up to something similar to TFE, but more dystopian. 

And on the souls in ships, I was thinking exactly what @kenod said.

Something more dystopian than TFE? I'm getting the feeling that it would be hard to create something worse than TFE, although you can perhaps create something on the same level, but from a different direction. Also, for some reason I now want to see a story focused on advanced Hemalurgy, as I have the feeling that most of the things we've seen so far are fairly primitive. The most advanced constructs we've seen are the Kandra, and even in their case the Hemalurgy is only part of whats happening. You could do some really interesting things. Right now the most limiting factor is that if you go deeper in your research you will probably bring down Harmony's wrath.

[Itchy Savant he/him]

For all the Evil TLR did he defintly could have been way worse. But that I'd a topic for another day and I agree, I feel hemalurgy is going to be a huge factor moving forward in the cosmere

[Fluffy he/him]

What do you guys think of an Nicrosil-Ettmetalgrenade Assassin ? He could "poison" everyone at a party with impure allomantic metals and then throw an Nicrosil-imbued ettmetalgrenade in the crowd, effectivly killing every allomancer because the burning of impure metals leads to sickness or death. (Source: i think kelsir said this to vin in Book 1).

[Fluffy he/him]

Also interesting for the modern era or overall for the time after the usage of nicrosil(xmetal)metalminds was invented/found is the economy.

1. An NicrosilBendalloy Metalmind Industry, effecticly solve the beautystandard of our time and additionally making food thousand times more effective if you can burn Bendalloy.

2. A Lifetime Industry using AtiumNicrosil Metalminds. The Atiumgeods which were destroyed by Kelsir should work again (300 years passed) so only the rarity of atium is a problem. This Industry would also fit into the hardcore capitalistic world of misborn (in both eras money reigns) because the poor one's could be paid for storing their lifetime in a Metalmind which would be bought by someone rich, making the rich one's basicly immortal. 

I find that thought pretty scary, and someone in this thread said, that he coulnd't imagine a world more dystopian than the first empire, but i would say, that this makes this timeline FREAKING SCARY.

[Weltall]

21 hours ago, Itchy Savant said:

@kenodBut the spear head has limited use, is it not? Or can it just be freely charged?

Wax thinks that it could be recharged with compounding. Since it gives you the ability to use all metals for both Allomancy and Feruchemy it shoudn't be too hard to do as long as you have a sufficient supply of the metals. Step 1: Hold the Bands and thus gain access to the powers. Step 2: Store any Feruchemical trait in a separate metalmind. Step 3: Burn that metalmind and consequently get more power out than you put in. Step 4: Store that resulting burst of Feruchemical power in the Bands. Step 5: Repeat

[Itchy Savant he/him]

Ah makes sense, did he mention that in book? I don't remember that part

 

[Weltall]

Yeah, I don't remember the exact quote but it comes up at the very end.

[Shadeshadow227]

...I think an Allomantic Computer would genuinely be plausible. Copper Feruchemy for storage, Allomantic Iron and Steel to be used instead of the 1's and 0's of binary (Maybe there'd be a part which uses sliding sections, with a Harmonium core, which could use retracted sliders for 0's and extended ones for 1's, with the arrangement read in a similar fashion to binary code.), Allomantic Nicrosil to overclock it, Zinc Feruchemy for faster processing...etc.

Also, I want to see Allomantic Propulsion Systems. Because I am imagining it like the Omnidirectional Movement Gear from Attack On Titan. And because it'd be really cool.

[Oversleep]

16 minutes ago, Shadeshadow227 said:

Allomantic Iron and Steel to be used instead of the 1's and 0's of binary (Maybe there'd be a part which uses sliding sections, with a Harmonium core, which could use retracted sliders for 0's and extended ones for 1's, with the arrangement read in a similar fashion to binary code.)

Nope. And a second nope cause I study IT. But for the third nope I'd have to get someone more knowledgeable than me to explain. It boils down to the fact it would take way too much space and be way too slow.
Also, we're already using Feruchemical copper for those things, how would Pushes and Pulls even fit into all this?

I wonder how tapping zinc would work for people who are partially cyborgs? (so part of their brains is cybernetical or maybe they have neuroimplants)

How would tapping pewter work for somebody whose body is not organic?

21 minutes ago, Shadeshadow227 said:

Also, I want to see Allomantic Propulsion Systems. Because I am imagining it like the Omnidirectional Movement Gear from Attack On Titan. And because it'd be really cool.

How would that be different from usual Steelpushing/Ironpulling? (I am not familiar with AoT - I know they use this thing to get around and that's all)

[Itchy Savant he/him]

I definitely think there is going to be more to allomantic computers than just copper minds though, I guess zinc is a possibility to act like a processor?