Creating the Southern Scadrians' Medallions

[Argent he/him]

TL;DR: I hypothesize that the Southern Scadrians' medallions introduced in The Bands of Mourning avoid of the problem if their users being unable to tap the medallions' nicrosilmind by (temporarily) granting their users the ability to tap nicrosil, similarly to how the primer cubes can "replay" Allomantic powers.

---

So, I've been chatting with @Spoolofwhool and a couple of other guys in Discord - about Cosmere things, but most often about the nature of necrosil as an Allomantic and Feruchemical metal. We did a lot of going around in circles and went on a lot of tangents, but one thing that came out of  a few hours worth of chat is that I now have an idea about how Allik's medallions can be created. But first, let's talk about why they don't make sense.

Here's how the medallions are described in The Bands of Mourning:

Quote

“Investiture,” Waxillium said. “This inner ring is nicrosil. You tap it, and it grants you Investiture—turning you into a temporary Feruchemist who has the ability to fill a metalmind with weight.” He held up the medallion. “The iron on this is for convenience, right? You can fill it, but so long as you’re tapping the Investiture, you could touch any source of iron and turn it into a metalmind.”
“You know much about this, Mysterious One,” Allik said. “You are wise and—”
“I learn quickly,” Waxillium said, glancing at Marasi. She nodded for him to continue. This was fascinating … but the Metallic Arts was not one of her areas of expertise. Waxillium had a passion for it though. “What’s this other ring built into the medallion?”
“That grants the warmth,” Allik said. “It is a grand combination—two attributes, from separate rings. Took us long to make these work, yah? The one I wear now, also grants two. Weight and Connection. I’ve seen medallions with three. Twice in my life only. Every attempt at four has failed.”

So we have an unkeyed nicrosilmind filled with the powers of an iron Ferring. Already there are several powers in play - nicrosil Feruchemy, aluminum Feruchemy, and iron Feruchemy. Reading the entire passage, there is also copper Feruchemy, but I think that the mechanics involved in creating a medallion with one power are different from the mechanics involved in adding a second or third, so we'll ignore that for now.

So how do three (or more) Ferrings (whether they are natural or Hemalurgic - we'll get to that later) create a medallion that allows anyone to fill/tap Feruchemical iron? Let me list a few requirements before we try to assemble them together in a hypothesis:

• If a necrosil Ferrings (a Soulbearer) simply fills their nicrosilmind, this metalmind is only available to them (it is keyed to their Identity)
• Aluminum Ferrings (Trueselves) can fill an aluminummind with their Identity, allowing them - if they had access to other Feruchemical powers - to create unkeyed metalminds of those powers.
• Given an unkeyed metalmind, only a person who can tap the given power should be able to tap it. For example, the unkeyed goldmind Wayne got in The Bands of Mourning was useless to Wax, as Wax cannot fill/tap gold.

So we seem to have a lot of the ingredients we need for those medallions. If a Soulbearer got their hands on an a piece of aluminum and the power to fill/tap it, they could create an unkeyed nicrosilmind by dumping their Identity while filling the nicrosilmind. From here, they can hand the proto-medallion to an iron Ferring, who will then be able to drop their Identity in an aluminummind (assuming they too could do what a Trueself does), fill themselves with the ability to fill/tap investiture, and then fill a nicrosilmind with their own ability to use Feruchemical iron. Voala, a medallion! 

There are some variations to these steps, but all of them boil down to creating an unkeyed nicrosilmind. For example, you can start with the Soulbearer, have them create a (keyed) nicrosilmind, give that to a Trueself, have them drop their Identity - which VenDell speculates is possible:

Quote

“So if a person could store their Identity,” Marasi said, “as Waxillium does with his weight…”
“They’d be without it for a time,” VenDell said. “A blank slate, so to speak.”
“So they could use anyone’s metalmind?” Marasi asked.
“Possibly,” VenDell said.

From here, it's the same. We have a person with both the nicrosil and aluminum Feruchemical powers, so they can create that proto-medallion that is the unkeyed nicrosilmind. 

There is a problem with all of this, however, and I've been intentionally ignoring it. The problem is that even if you could create a medallion (and obviously they can be created), regardless of the mechanics behind it, how is Marasi (or almost anyone) able to tap the nicrosilmind in it in the first place? Once she gains the ability to use Feruchemical nicrosil, everything else is fine - she can fill herself with the investiture stored in the medallion's nicrosilmind, which in turn grants her the power to use iron Feruchemy. But that first step, the ability to tap nicrosil, that seems problematic... 

Fortunately, there is hope in this WoB:

Quote

QUESTION
So nicrosil. Wax couldn’t use a blank gold metalmind because he’s not a gold ferring, why can he use a blank nicrosil metalmind?
BRANDON SANDERSON
So this will all come out eventually but the idea is there are certain ways to connect yourself to the magic, to hack the magic and make it think you have the Spiritual DNA that you don’t actually have. And this is one of the ways.
QUESTION
And the people who made this medallion have this thing that a regular nicrosil Ferring couldn’t--
BRANDON SANDERSON
Yeah, you’re picking up on it. We’ll dig deeper into it as the series progresses.

So, not much new in this WoB - we already knew you could hack yourself and gain access to powers you are not supposed to have. But the medallions don't appear to be spiking anyone who puts them on, so it's pretty safe to assume that it is not the way they grant their bearer the ability to tap nicrosil. But I include it here because it is directly relevant to the medallions we are investigating. 

With this in mind, if we accept that what the medallions are doing is similar to Hemalurgy in the sense that they graft a special bit to their bearers' Spiritweb, one that allows them to use Feruchemical nicrosil (akin to being spiked with the same ability), then we need to turn our efforts to figuring how an item could grant Feruchemical powers without much stabbing. Fortunately, we've almost seen one! The primer cubes seem to be doing almost exactly what we need them to do - they get charged with a specific power (admittedly it's an Allomantic power, but it's not unreasonable to assume that they can work with a Feruchemical one as well), and then they "pulse" that power around them.

Now, Allomantic powers work differently from Feruchemical ones - it's a net-positive system, after all. For Allomancy, the primer cube seems to work by "memorizing" the power being used nearby, and then replaying it a little later - either by "pretending" to be a metal being burned (letting the power of Preservation in), or by using its own power source to replicate the effects of the original power; not important which one. It's possible that the cubes work similarly for Feruchemy, but because of the much lower energy investiture requirements of Feruchemy, the effects would last much longer. In other words, I suspect that the medallions really contain an additional bit of metal in them, a little bit of harmonium, that "records" a nicrosil Ferring tapping their metalmind; maybe even the Ferring who created each individual medallion (to avoid Identity shenanigans), and then continuously grant that power to whoever is touching the medallion. Once that's taken care of, whoever is wearing the medallion can finally tap the nicrosilmind in the medallion and grant themselves whatever additional power the medallion is supposed to give (e.g. the Feruchemical ability to store/tap weight). 

So that's it. I think the secret to the medallions is harmonium. It, similarly to how it functions in the primer cubes, grants whoever is holding the medallion the ability to tap nicrosil by "replaying" a pre-programmed nicrosil tap - which they do, filling themselves with whatever ability was stored in that nicrosilmind. 

I am, of course, aware that what I am doing is making the existing evidence kind of fit an idea I had, but I also think a lot of the pieces fit nicely. Harmonium is a large unknown quantity, of course, but what I am assuming about it is similar enough to what we have already seen it do so I think that's safe enough. I am also aware that there are some problems with the theory (which I won't mention), and I am looking forward to getting those hammered out sometime prior to the release of Oathbringer, so I can chat with Brandon about it all

I know I also hinted at we'll look into the Ferrings involved in the creation of the medallions might be created via Hemalurgy instead - but the theory is already longer than I intended it, so we'll leave that for another day. Maybe when we discuss what the Excisors are, as they sound vaguely Hemalurgic in nature, and are required for the creation of the medallions.

Edited February 19, 2017 by Argent

[Pagerunner he/him]

A lot of review in this post (which is good; discussion has been all over the place over the past year), but if I correctly understand what is novel in this proposal, you're saying:

• The medallions all need harmonium to function.
• Harmonium, which holds an 'imprint' of Metallic Arts when used in primer cubes, needs to hold a permanent imprint of Nicrosil Feruchemy in the medallions.
• Touching the harmonium allows anyone to 'trigger' the imprint, letting them tap nicrosil and use abilities stored in the medallion.

Do I understand that correctly? It seems to me that adding a middleman in the form of harmonium muddles who it is that's actually doing the feruchemy. With the primer cubes, the cube is performing the Allomancy. If the harmonium is performing the Feruchemy, then how is it granting abilities to someone else using an internal magic? If it's transferring the particular ability to tap Feruchemical Nicrosil, a reverse resonance of a sort, then it sounds a lot like regular Nicrosil Feruchemy, storing a particular ability and letting someone use it later.

Here's the Realmatic question that guides my understanding of this missing medallion link. How do you gain a magical ability in the cosmere? In every single instance, you need a piece of Investiture grafted to your soul. Investiture isn't just energy, but Spiritual substance that suffuses a magic user's Spiritweb. (Cracks in the soul, and all that.)

For every other Feruchemical ability, there are two 'flavors' of Investiture involved. There is the piece of Investiture latched on to the user's soul, that allows them to be a Feruchemist. And then, there is whatever attribute is being stored, which is converted from something (matter, energy, cognition) into Investiture, which is stored in a metalmind. The conversion of Investiture back into an attribute requires the proper Feruchemical ability. (Tangent to support this interpretation: compounding works by drawing Investiture directly from Preservation and converting it to the desired attribute.)

However, when you're storing in Nicrosil, you're storing Investiture already. There's no conversion required. And that's why I think anyone can tap it; because the sDNA for tapping is being stored directly as such, the sDNA for tapping, because sDNA is comprised of Investiture. When you come into contact with most metalminds, you might touch the Investiture stored within (Vin could feel Sazed's reserves when she swallowed one of his metalminds), but your body has no way of utilizing that Investiture in that form. But, anything stored in a nicrosilmind is already in the form required for the soul to use.

Now, if you still want to fit harmonium in there, it's possible. Harmonium is a piece of Investiture, and that might be what latches onto the soul, granting F.Nicrosil every time, which then lets people tap whatever's in the nicrosilmind. I wouldn't think harmonium would be necessary in that case, though.

tl;dr, I don't think the medalions grant F.Nicrosil, to allow someone to tap the mind to grant feruchemical iron. I think the only thing holding anyone back from tapping any nicrosilmind is the Identity block, since Investiture stored in a nicrosilmind is already in a form compatible of interfacing with a person's spiritweb.

[Spoolofwhool]

2 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

However, when you're storing in Nicrosil, you're storing Investiture already. There's no conversion required. And that's why I think anyone can tap it; because the sDNA for tapping is being stored directly as such, the sDNA for tapping, because sDNA is comprised of Investiture. When you come into contact with most metalminds, you might touch the Investiture stored within (Vin could feel Sazed's reserves when she swallowed one of his metalminds), but your body has no way of utilizing that Investiture in that form. But, anything stored in a nicrosilmind is already in the form required for the soul to use.

Possibly. My opinion though is that even though it's storing investiture, it's still encoding it into a different type of investiture, the feruchemical charge, which is what is going into the metalmind. Therefore a regular person wouldn't be able to tap it, as they would still need the sDNA component which would allow them to decode the feruchemical charge. 

The example of Vin doesn't really work I don't think, because my impression was not that she was feeling the feruchemical charge in the metalmind, but instead was just feeling the fact that there was a metal she could burn for allomancy. However, because of the identity issue, she couldn't actually burn it. 

6 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

Do I understand that correctly? It seems to me that adding a middleman in the form of harmonium muddles who it is that's actually doing the feruchemy. With the primer cubes, the cube is performing the Allomancy. If the harmonium is performing the Feruchemy, then how is it granting abilities to someone else using an internal magic? If it's transferring the particular ability to tap Feruchemical Nicrosil, a reverse resonance of a sort, then it sounds a lot like regular Nicrosil Feruchemy, storing a particular ability and letting someone use it later.

The theory is that the ettmetal copies the action of tapping a nicrosilmind charge granting the power of feruchemical nicrosil, then when the medallion is touched, it triggers that action, consuming a bit of itself for the necessary investiture, then projects the decoded power into the holder. After that, they are able to tap a nicrosilmind in the medallion for further nicrosil tapping power, along with the other powers. The ettmetal is not storing an attribute, it's storing the action of tapping the charge, just like how it can store the action of releasing the investiture that comes from burning a metal during allomancy.

[Yata he/him]

I am working to the Unsealing trick too. I had to say that Harmonium as Unsealing's trigger isn't a solution I lke. But honestly I failed to every ideas that come to my mind:

- Nicrosil is auto-unsealed because the Investiture isn't converted into other kind of things: We have a Wob quite aganist and much more, this would mean that other kind of Attributes are auto-unsealed

- Faulty Nicrosil to allow the charge to leak out: No Wob points to a Charge leaking if the metal is a bad metal...and the Bands will not have yet their powers after all that time.

Returning to Harmonium as trigger, It's not a Sanderson's habit to explain something in detail (Medallion's structure) only to have an "hidden spot" with weird function.

Wax himself took time to check the medallions...He didn't find some strange metals and if we work on the assumption that the Harmonium need to touch you, it's weird.

PS: Thanks to point me to the Discord server. I didn't know of its existence

[Argent he/him]

Right. Spool addressed the gist of it, but I'll offer my response as well - partly because your question was to me, but more importantly because sometimes different phrasing is key to understanding one's idea.

17 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

A lot of review in this post (which is good; discussion has been all over the place over the past year)

Yeah. I am always uncomfortable when theories - hypotheses, really - offhandedly refer to WoBs and interpret information as if it is hard facts. I don't post a great many theories primarily because I feel it's a lot of effort to gather all the necessary information and present it in a good enough way. Which is not to say that this particular theory meets my internal criteria, but I was excited enough about the harmonium powering the medallions (in a way), that I wanted to just share it.

17 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

The medallions all need harmonium to function.

Yes.

17 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

Harmonium, which holds an 'imprint' of Metallic Arts when used in primer cubes, needs to hold a permanent imprint of Nicrosil Feruchemy in the medallions.

Mostly yes. I need to be cautious here because even if you have a system - harmonium or not - that can replicate the effects of Allomancy and Feruchemy, those two magic systems work very differently on a Realmatic level. So even TBoM describe how harmonium interacts with Allomancy exactly correct, we might not be able to extrapolate the details of its interaction with Feruchemy from that. The core of my theory hinges on my interpretation being close enough to the Allomantic interaction to be plausible, but different enough as well.

17 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

Touching the harmonium allows anyone to 'trigger' the imprint, letting them tap nicrosil and use abilities stored in the medallion.

Technically I don't require touch to the harmonium itself (as the primer cubes don't require touch either, not on the receiving end at least). I imagine it sealed inside the medallion, but that's a minor detail.

17 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

If the harmonium is performing the Feruchemy, then how is it granting abilities to someone else using an internal magic? If it's transferring the particular ability to tap Feruchemical Nicrosil, a reverse resonance of a sort, then it sounds a lot like regular Nicrosil Feruchemy, storing a particular ability and letting someone use it later.

In my interpretation harmonium is storing the effect of the power, it's recording it. A replay of a recorded Steelpush would very similar to the original Steelpush used for the recording - only it would happen from the "point of view" of the primer cube, so its directional vectors would be different. But a recorded nicrosil tap - or any Feruchemical tap - wouldn't be able to work that way, it would require the primer cube to tap the power itself, filling itself with heat, or Connection, or investiture. So I posit that the differences lie in 

1. The lifetime of the recording. Allomantic recordings get replayed seconds after the recording. This is likely to have something to do with the power requirements of Allomancy. Feruchemical recordings, however, might last a much longer time - years, probably - because unless a metalmind is being actively tapped or filled, it experiences no change in investiture. 
2. The nature of what is being recorded. Recorded Allomantic powers reproduce the original effect in the different area. Recorded Feruchemical powers... well, if you actually record a Feruchemical power, you are just granting someone Feruchemy, that's what the power is. So I believe the primer cubes record the act of tapping or filling a metalmind. When you touch a medallion you are not getting the ability to tap necrosil, you are getting the tap itself. The medallion taps necrosil for you. It's a subtle difference, I know, but a clear one in my head. It's like... it's a little bit like the difference between how a Surgebinder can control their Surges (via a long-lasting ability that they get from their spren) versus how a wielder of an Honorblade can (via the Honorblade itself). Does this make sense?

So yeah, it does sound like regular nicrosil Feruchemy - because it mimics its effects. But someone caught in the effect of a primer cube's speed bubble doesn't gain the power to create speed bubbles themselves, they get just the effect.

17 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

Here's the Realmatic question that guides my understanding of this missing medallion link. How do you gain a magical ability in the cosmere? In every single instance, you need a piece of Investiture grafted to your soul. Investiture isn't just energy, but Spiritual substance that suffuses a magic user's Spiritweb. (Cracks in the soul, and all that.)

This is 100% in line with what I am saying. I am making the claim that the medallions literally graft the ability to tap nicrosil onto their bearer's soul for as long as they hold the medallion.

17 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

For every other Feruchemical ability, there are two 'flavors' of Investiture involved. There is the piece of Investiture latched on to the user's soul, that allows them to be a Feruchemist. And then, there is whatever attribute is being stored, which is converted from something (matter, energy, cognition) into Investiture, which is stored in a metalmind.

We agree on this. 

17 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

The conversion of Investiture back into an attribute requires the proper Feruchemical ability.

I think this is where our opinions start to diverge. I agree with what you are saying here, but it sounds like you also think the conversion in the other direction can be performed by anyone (we are ignoring Identity here, assume everything is unkeyed). So turning weight into investiture requires Feruchemical ability, but turning investiture into weight does not? 

17 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

However, when you're storing in Nicrosil, you're storing Investiture already.

True.

17 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

There's no conversion required.

Maybe true. Spool touched on the idea of encoded investiture, or flavors of investiture, and I think it's a possible way for the Cosmere to work. 

17 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

And that's why I think anyone can tap it; because the sDNA for tapping is being stored directly as such, the sDNA for tapping, because sDNA is comprised of Investiture.

And this, of course, is the core of your rebuttal, and it hinges on whether getting something out of a metalmind requires  a matching Feruchemical power. If it does, as I believe, then I don't think your idea would work - even if the nicrosilmind already holds the ability to use nicrosil in the form of investiture, you still need to have the ability to tap that metalmind, to withdraww that investiture. Which is the exact problem I am trying to solve with the harmonium. 

If, on the other hand, anyone can withdraw power from an unkeyed metalmind, because said power is already in the form of investiture, then you would only need the matching Feruchemical power if you wanted to turn that "raw" investiture into something specific, such as weight. Which you say is a non-problem for nicrosil because with nicrosilminds there is no need for that additional conversion. 

The thing is, the reason I disagree with you, is because we know (?) that nicrosilminds store ability, not actual charge. If you are a Fullborn, to use the common term for a full Feruchemist who is also a Mistborn, if you are one then when you simultaneously fill an ironmind and a nicrosilmind, you are not filling weight (or the investiture representation of weight) into the necrosilmind, you are filling it with your ability to use iron Feruchemy. The thing you are putting in is already in the right Spiritual shape to grant someone that ability, they don't need to convert it to anything else. If your interpretation is correct, then you would need just some nicrosil, the ability to use nicrosil, and one (or more) other Feruchemical abilities. And to take the power out, to graft it onto your own soul, you would still need to reach into the necrosilmind and move that investiture (which, sure, is in the right shape) into your Spiritweb - which is an act I strongly believe requires (nicrosil) Feruchemy in the first place.

I realize now that this last paragraph may have been going in circles a little bit, so let me offer you a different piece of counterevidence. Let's look at Wayne's brand new goldmind again. Wax can, with his Allomantic senses, detect that the item holds a charge, but can't do anything with that investiture. He can't draw it in where it would be useless to him (as he cannot turn it back into healing power). He can't tap the metalmind in any sense of the word, and he already knows how a metalmind available to him would feel like. Furthermore, to touch on something I left out of the theory as it wasn't too relevant, people seem to need to be aware that they might be able to tap into a metalmind in order to become aware of its power (see Marasi holding a medallion and only becoming aware of it magically once Allik tells us what it does). Wax, in the scene where he tries the goldmind, doesn't feel any of that, though he suspects that he may be holding a universal goldmind, having seen lady what's her face use it. 

So, in conclusion, writing posts at 2-3 AM is bad for me, as they turn into walls of text. 

Edited February 19, 2017 by Argent

[feldi]

So, there is harmonium in the coin hoid gave wax? And what will be the problem with having 16 diffrent nedalions? The harmoniun distrubs itself? And if so the a soulbearer will be able to use 16 different medalions without harmonium? And for last, if harmoniun genarate an area of effect then how can you turn it off and on?

[Spoolofwhool]

6 minutes ago, feldi said:

So, there is harmonium in the coin hoid gave wax? And what will be the problem with having 16 diffrent nedalions? The harmoniun distrubs itself? And if so the a soulbearer will be able to use 16 different medalions without harmonium? And for last, if harmoniun genarate an area of effect then how can you turn it off and on?

The primer cubes demonstrate that there is so level mechanical control which can be achieved over how ettmetal reacts with powers as you needed to flick the switch before it mimicked powers. 

[Pagerunner he/him]

On ‎2‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 3:53 AM, Argent said:

I think this is where our opinions start to diverge. I agree with what you are saying here, but it sounds like you also think the conversion in the other direction can be performed by anyone (we are ignoring Identity here, assume everything is unkeyed). So turning weight into investiture requires Feruchemical ability, but turning investiture into weight does not? 

And this, of course, is the core of your rebuttal, and it hinges on whether getting something out of a metalmind requires  a matching Feruchemical power. If it does, as I believe, then I don't think your idea would work - even if the nicrosilmind already holds the ability to use nicrosil in the form of investiture, you still need to have the ability to tap that metalmind, to withdraww that investiture. Which is the exact problem I am trying to solve with the harmonium. 

If, on the other hand, anyone can withdraw power from an unkeyed metalmind, because said power is already in the form of investiture, then you would only need the matching Feruchemical power if you wanted to turn that "raw" investiture into something specific, such as weight. Which you say is a non-problem for nicrosil because with nicrosilminds there is no need for that additional conversion. 

The thing is, the reason I disagree with you, is because we know (?) that nicrosilminds store ability, not actual charge.

For the first point, I'm actually saying the complete opposite: a Feruchemical ability is required both to convert an attribute to Investiture, and convert Investiture into an attribute. As Investiture, it is naturally unusable by anyone, even if they can come into contact with it (like Vin with Sazed's metalminds, or Wax with the unkeyed goldmind ).

Nicrosil is the key exception; since abilities stored in it are already in the form of Investiture, there is no conversion. As I've thought more on the subject, I've realized something: I don't think the Investiture is coming out of a nicrosilmind when it is used in medallions. I don't think it's truly 'tapping' Nicrosil. I think that, as they touch the medallion in the Physical Realm, the Investiture contacts their spiritweb in the Spiritual Realm. It's not permanently attached to them, like in Hemalurgy, but as long as it is temporarily affixed the Investiture will still perform its function of allowing them to use the ability granted by the particular kind of Investiture. That's the 'hack' for letting you use sDNA for an ability you don't have; you literally store that sDNA in a Feruchemical Flash Drive (great band name, by the way), which can be run from the flash drive as long as it's plugged in to your computer.

I've been waffling on some of the specifics of Nicrosil Feruchemy (whether it's copper-like storage, or if you put a time-dependent level of ability in). I personally suspected it was a copper-like effect at first, but I was thrown for a loop in how someone would be able to use Nicrosil Feruchemy to store Nicrosil Feruchemy.

Can you clarify what you mean by Ability vs Charge?

[Spoolofwhool]

7 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

Nicrosil is the key exception; since abilities stored in it are already in the form of Investiture, there is no conversion. As I've thought more on the subject, I've realized something: I don't think the Investiture is coming out of a nicrosilmind when it is used in medallions. I don't think it's truly 'tapping' Nicrosil. I think that, as they touch the medallion in the Physical Realm, the Investiture contacts their spiritweb in the Spiritual Realm. It's not permanently attached to them, like in Hemalurgy, but as long as it is temporarily affixed the Investiture will still perform its function of allowing them to use the ability granted by the particular kind of Investiture. That's the 'hack' for letting you use sDNA for an ability you don't have; you literally store that sDNA in a Feruchemical Flash Drive (great band name, by the way), which can be run from the flash drive as long as it's plugged in to your computer.

So from this, you think the only special process the southerners have that regular soulbearer ferrings don't have is the ability to create the unkeyed metalminds by combining it with aluminum allomancy?

[Pagerunner he/him]

6 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

So from this, you think the only special process the southerners have that regular soulbearer ferrings don't have is the ability to create the unkeyed metalminds by combining it with aluminum allomancy?

Bingo.

[Argent he/him]

21 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

Can you clarify what you mean by Ability vs Charge?

Take copper. Memories stored in copper are a charge. The ability to retrieve (or put) those memories is an ability.

24 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

Nicrosil is the key exception; since abilities stored in it are already in the form of Investiture, there is no conversion

I was specifically trying to avoid making nicrosil an exception. 

[Pagerunner he/him]

1 hour ago, Argent said:

Take copper. Memories stored in copper are a charge. The ability to retrieve (or put) those memories is an ability.

Okay... why is this relevant? (Not being snarky here. I'm just a little confused what that has to do with my proposal, which doesn't involve any 'charges.') I think it actually supports my interpretation, since you can store abilities directly as abilities, and not need to convert them into a charge.

1 hour ago, Argent said:

I was specifically trying to avoid making nicrosil an exception. 

Okay, I can see how that assumption would lead to harmonium replicating a very similar functionality to F.Nicrosil, but useable by anyone.

I think I figured out why this idea isn't sitting right with me. I've assumed that primer cubes function by resonating with the bronze pulses created by a nearby metalborn, which is why they don't need direct contact with that metalborn. Humans, however, don't resonate with bronze pulses. I know we can still make the case that harmonium mimics the soul-infusing Investiture of whatever it was last exposed to, but without direct contact, I don't think it can latch onto someone's spiritweb. So, that would mean you'd need them to touch harmonium, and exposed harmonium would cause problems when you start to sweat, etc.

That being said, it's my understanding. I haven't codified it, but that's really the seat of why I disagree. I can present an thoroughly developed alternative, which is all well and good, but if I were to speak against this theory itself, I'd say that interactions with bronze pulses have always been passive, where this proposed mechanism appears to be an active use of them.

 

[8bitBob]

On 2/18/2017 at 5:57 PM, Argent said:

It's possible that the cubes work similarly for Feruchemy, but because of the much lower energy investiture requirements of Feruchemy, the effects would last much longer. In other words, I suspect that the medallions really contain an additional bit of metal in them, a little bit of harmonium, that "records" a nicrosil Ferring tapping their metalmind; maybe even the Ferring who created each individual medallion (to avoid Identity shenanigans), and then continuously grant that power to whoever is touching the medallion. Once that's taken care of, whoever is wearing the medallion can finally tap the nicrosilmind in the medallion and grant themselves whatever additional power the medallion is supposed to give (e.g. the Feruchemical ability to store/tap weight). 

So that's it. I think the secret to the medallions is harmonium. It, similarly to how it functions in the primer cubes, grants whoever is holding the medallion the ability to tap nicrosil by "replaying" a pre-programmed nicrosil tap - which they do, filling themselves with whatever ability was stored in that nicrosilmind. 

I mean, I can see this theoretically being possible, but it's fairly different from how we see Harmonium being used allomatically. All we see Harmonium do is imitate allomancy as if it was a person performing an action without a constant source of metals (and making Leeching not require touch, but I digress.) The feruchemical equivalent would be a piece of Harmonium that made itself heavier without needing a ironmind, or something.

Now, while I admit this could theoretically be possible, we don't really get any indication of this being the case in the story. Allik is very forthright when it comes to explaining how medallions are created, even volunteering information at times like when he says that Excisors are required (I cannot describe how much it bothers me that Wax did not feel the need to ask about this) so it would be strange to see Allik explain exactly how Harmonium works, exactly how medallions work and then somehow withhold this key aspect as some form of subterfuge not foreshadowed in the writing at all. It would just be odd storystelling.

As for Nicrosil being the only exception, that is not true. After all, how can anybody burn Lerasium? "Oh, but that's because it's a god metal and is basically concentrated Investiture, of course anyone can use it." Based on the Ars Arcanum, storing Investiture could be considered similar to concentrated Investiture, and it has been said that metals work as a key because they resonate with the magic, or some such thing. What's to say this resonance isn't interacting with the spirit web, or any other reason you could come up with easily?

VenDell actually directly invites this comparison:

Quote

“In the ancient days, the Last Emperor discovered a metal that transformed him into a Mistborn. A metal anyone could burn, it is said. This whispers of a hidden possibility, something lesser, but still incredible. What if one could somehow manipulate Identity and Investiture to create a set of bracers which imparted Feruchemical or Allomantic ability upon the person wearing them? One could make any person a Mistborn, or a Feruchemist, or both at once.”

Yes, this is theorizing. Yes, they are most certainly talking about granting abilities. But what if this is also hinting at the nature of nicrosil? The real reason I find the need of a hitherto unknown "seal" preventing the use of nicrosilminds is because it just flies directly against so much narrative structure. We have pages of people theorizing, testing and explaining new concepts and seemingly being correct every time, only for there to be this one aspect everyone missed that is in no way hinted at in the text. I mean, yeah, it could turn out that Allik was secretly trained in counter espionage and did this to subtly protect southerner interests, but why? The Basin already has medallions and you can guarantee they'll crack one open eventually just in case, in which case they'd find the Harmonium.

So yeah, that's the extent of my argument. Theoretically possible, but why?

 

As for the creation of medallions itself, mentioned here:

On 2/18/2017 at 5:57 PM, Argent said:

So how do three (or more) Ferrings (whether they are natural or Hemalurgic - we'll get to that later) create a medallion that allows anyone to fill/tap Feruchemical iron? Let me list a few requirements before we try to assemble them together in a hypothesis:

• If a necrosil Ferrings (a Soulbearer) simply fills their nicrosilmind, this metalmind is only available to them (it is keyed to their Identity)
• Aluminum Ferrings (Trueselves) can fill an aluminummind with their Identity, allowing them - if they had access to other Feruchemical powers - to create unkeyed metalminds of those powers.
• Given an unkeyed metalmind, only a person who can tap the given power should be able to tap it. For example, the unkeyed goldmind Wayne got in The Bands of Mourning was useless to Wax, as Wax cannot fill/tap gold.

So we seem to have a lot of the ingredients we need for those medallions. If a Soulbearer got their hands on an a piece of aluminum and the power to fill/tap it, they could create an unkeyed nicrosilmind by dumping their Identity while filling the nicrosilmind. From here, they can hand the proto-medallion to an iron Ferring, who will then be able to drop their Identity in an aluminummind (assuming they too could do what a Trueself does), fill themselves with the ability to fill/tap investiture, and then fill a nicrosilmind with their own ability to use Feruchemical iron. Voala, a medallion! 

There are some variations to these steps, but all of them boil down to creating an unkeyed nicrosilmind. For example, you can start with the Soulbearer, have them create a (keyed) nicrosilmind, give that to a Trueself, have them drop their Identity - which VenDell speculates is possible:

From here, it's the same. We have a person with both the nicrosil and aluminum Feruchemical powers, so they can create that proto-medallion that is the unkeyed nicrosilmind. 

I basically argued the same process in this thread, and I've been wondering why it wouldn't work since. For one, Allik says that Excisors are required, and I think it's pretty clear that these are hemalurgical spikes. For one, it's important to remember that Kelsiar taught them all of this and he 100% A Okay with hemalurgy. For two, here's a definition to chew over:

ex·cise

ikˈsīz/

verb

verb: excise; 3rd person present: excises; past tense: excised; past participle: excised; gerund or present participle: excising

1. cut out surgically.

   "the precision with which surgeons can excise brain tumors"

   synonyms:

   cut out/off/away, take out, extract, remove;  technicalresect "the tumors were excised"

I don't think it's a stretch to link this, Excisors and hemalurgy. Amusingly, excise can also refer to a tax on certain goods, which could be considered a nod to the end-negative nature of hemalurgy.

Okay, so let's just pretend Excisors are definitely spikes for now and ask ourselves, why would they be required? Sure, you could just argue that they have no metalborn for those abilities and excisors are required for that medallion, but I have an alternate explanation.

From WoB, we know that when storing in nicrosil, you store each ability individually, not "mistborn-ness". I think it's also safe to assume that medallions do not alter your sDNA, and are simply a part of tricking the magic. My theory is that a nicrosil ferring is not simply storing "the ability to access metalminds" but rather "the ability to access nicrosilminds" because that is all their sDNA knows how to do. This would ensure that hemalurgy is still required, because even if a trueself then tapped this mind, it wouldn't help them store Identity investiture.

Basically, I'm saying Excisors are hemalurgical spikes, the most common being nicrosil ferring powers, which are spiked into metalborn to change their sDNA and allow them to store other types of abilities. Medallions would then be created by using Identity medallions during the crafting process.

Edited February 20, 2017 by 8bitBob

[Spoolofwhool]

17 minutes ago, 8bitBob said:

I mean, I can see this theoretically being possible, but it's fairly different from how we see Harmonium being used allomatically. All we see Harmonium do is imitate allomancy as if it was a person performing an action without a constant source of metals (and making Leeching not require touch, but I digress.) The feruchemical equivalent would be a piece of Harmonium that made itself heavier without needing a ironmind, or something.

It leeched Wax when it touched him. The proposed feruchemical equivalent is creating investiture which then forms into an attribute in mimicry to a feruchemist tapping a metalmind and forcing that attribute into the holder. 

18 minutes ago, 8bitBob said:

Okay, so let's just pretend Excisors are definitely spikes for now and ask ourselves, why would they be required? Sure, you could just argue that they have no metalborn for those abilities and excisors are required for that medallion, but I have an alternate explanation.

The Excisors probably aren't just vanilla hemalurgic spikes. Wax refers to them as a device and Allik makes no move to correct him. Furthermore, contextually they do seem more like devices then just a some spikes that have been traded between hosts a bunch. 

20 minutes ago, 8bitBob said:

Now, while I admit this could theoretically be possible, we don't really get any indication of this being the case in the story. Allik is very forthright when it comes to explaining how medallions are created, even volunteering information at times like when he says that Excisors are required (I cannot describe how much it bothers me that Wax did not feel the need to ask about this) so it would be strange to see Allik explain exactly how Harmonium works, exactly how medallions work and then somehow withhold this key aspect as some form of subterfuge not foreshadowed in the writing at all. It would just be odd storystelling.

This is fair. Although, it could be argued that Allik clearly isn't involved in the medallion creation process and doesn't have detailed knowledge of the process. He also doesn't know exactly how the medallions work, the sum of his knowledge seems to be that you need to be aware and that the power to tap/store is pushed into you. 

25 minutes ago, 8bitBob said:

Yes, this is theorizing. Yes, they are most certainly talking about granting abilities. But what if this is also hinting at the nature of nicrosil? The real reason I find the need of a hitherto unknown "seal" preventing the use of nicrosilminds is because it just flies directly against so much narrative structure. We have pages of people theorizing, testing and explaining new concepts and seemingly being correct every time, only for there to be this one aspect everyone missed that is in no way hinted at in the text.

You're trying to say that they're hinting at the fact that nicrosil is a metal that anyone can tap? That seems slightly random to be honest. The manifestations of investiture don't create exception like that, with the exception of Lerasium and Atium, except those are also god metals directly formed of the investiture which create their respective magics. Nicrosil, on the other hand, is not. Also, I don't see how tapping a nicrosilmind requires the f-nicrosil power flies in the face of everything when we've been told a number of times that you need feruchemical powers to tap metalminds. If you could detail this point a bit further.

[8bitBob]

6 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

It leeched Wax when it touched him. The proposed feruchemical equivalent is creating investiture which then forms into an attribute in mimicry to a feruchemist tapping a metalmind and forcing that attribute into the holder. 

Quote

Something bounced down the hallway and came to a rest on the floor beside Wax, just outside the doorway in which he crouched. A small metal cube. He jumped back, fearing an explosive, but nothing happened. What had that been?

And then he realized with a deep, bone-chilling horror that he was no longer burning metal. There was nothing inside of him to burn.

His steel reserves had—somehow—vanished.

From reading the scene, it seems to imply that the device never touched him. Awkwardly worded if that's not the case. This is ultimately unimportant in my argument, but would shut down the idea that the harmonium could be hidden inside.

8 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

The Excisors probably aren't just vanilla hemalurgic spikes. Wax refers to them as a device and Allik makes no move to correct him. Furthermore, contextually they do seem more like devices then just a some spikes that have been traded between hosts a bunch.

de·vice

dəˈvīs/

noun

 

1. 1.

   a thing made or adapted for a particular purpose, especially a piece of mechanical or electronic equipment.

While device has come to mean machines in our modern times, the original meaning was simply something for a particular purpose, which spikes fit the definition of easily. It's important to remember that they're speaking through magic mumbo jumbo, so device could have translated to any definition of "object with purpose."

12 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

You're trying to say that they're hinting at the fact that nicrosil is a metal that anyone can tap? That seems slightly random to be honest. The manifestations of investiture don't create exception like that, with the exception of Lerasium and Atium, except those are also god metals directly formed of the investiture which create their respective magics.

I'm saying that there is a concrete example of someone using a metalborn power without having the sDNA required to do so, and it is heavily related to Investiture. I'm saying that it is not a stretch to theorize a link between the two after having them so directly compared in story by characters shown to be 100% correct in everything else they said. I'm saying that it makes total sense from from a narrative perspective and the exact reason why it works could be handwaved in later based on in universe mumbo jumbo.

12 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Also, I don't see how tapping a nicrosilmind requires the f-nicrosil power flies in the face of everything when we've been told a number of times that you need feruchemical powers to tap metalminds. If you could detail this point a bit further.

I should probably break up that paragraph, as I now realise it is unclear and poorly structured. I was saying that the idea that there is some unknown additional step flies against the structure of how information is being presented to us in story. Throughout the story, we are shown plenty of new metalborn based powers. This is through plenty of scenes of people sitting around theorizing, or explaining, or testing, and they are shown to be 100% correct in the end. When Brandon wanted to explain these things, he just had a character do it with very little ambiguity. Even when incomplete infomation is being shown the reader, there's usually some in universe indication that there's some aspect that we're not getting. You just need to look at the Ars Arcanum definition for this entire quadrant of feruchemical abilities for examples of this.

My argument is that to then have a single tiny aspect of medallion creation being withheld with no indication or foreshadowing flies against every way we have been presented information in the book so far, and while it is totally possible for this to still be the case, it would serve no narrative purpose from what I can tell other than delaying our understanding of medallions for another book. 

[Spoolofwhool]

11 minutes ago, 8bitBob said:

From reading the scene, it seems to imply that the device never touched him. Awkwardly worded if that's not the case. This is ultimately unimportant in my argument, but would shut down the idea that the harmonium could be hidden inside.

Ettmetal was inside though. My point was poor though since we already know that ettmetal can mimic allomancy without direct contact so it doesn't seem impossible that it can project it at a distance, which is clearly is doing with the steel as well.

11 minutes ago, 8bitBob said:

While device has come to mean machines in our modern times, the original meaning was simply something for a particular purpose, which spikes fit the definition of easily. It's important to remember that they're speaking through magic mumbo jumbo, so device could have translated to any definition of "object with purpose."

Fair point. 

12 minutes ago, 8bitBob said:

I'm saying that there is a concrete example of someone using a metalborn power without having the sDNA required to do so, and it is heavily related to Investiture. I'm saying that it is not a stretch to theorize a link between the two after having them so directly compared in story by characters shown to be 100% correct in everything else they said. I'm saying that it makes total sense from from a narrative perspective and the exact reason why it works could be handwaved in later based on in universe mumbo jumbo.

This is completely not how Brandon operates with regards to this though. He would have a concrete reason why it would work, not some random "that's cause it is" reason. Therefore, even if there is a narrative reason, and the exception which you're providing is still poor as it has other reasons for working the way it does, I don't see sacrificing logical mechanics for the sake of narrative plot. Also, all of what VenDell has said isn't baseless theory, he has been experimenting on the subject. So they're being 100% correct off of tested knowledge. 

I disagree with the last part as well, and overall your assessment that there is no narrative reason for there to be an additional step. Furthermore, we do know that there is something we aren't aware of, as something is causing the medallions to interfere when multiple are worn, and there is a difficulty in adding too many powers to a medallion when moving it between people. So there are obvious details being hidden from us, no reason why others aren't either. Furthermore, narratively, hiding details about the spiritual powers is something Brandon has explained his reasoning for many times; he doesn't want to give away the details of the later books as well, and wants to leave us to speculate further.

[8bitBob]

1 minute ago, Spoolofwhool said:

I disagree with the last part as well, and overall your assessment that there is no narrative reason for there to be an additional step. Furthermore, we do know that there is something we aren't aware of, as something is causing the medallions to interfere when multiple are worn, and there is a difficulty in adding too many powers to a medallion when moving it between people. So there are obvious details being hidden from us, no reason why others aren't either. Furthermore, narratively, hiding details about the spiritual powers is something Brandon has explained his reasoning for many times; he doesn't want to give away the details of the later books as well, and wants to leave us to speculate further.

Yes, Brandon does this, as I said. When he does this, there is usually an indication that there is something we're missing because the purpose is to foreshadow and fuel speculation. The example I provided was the Ars Arcanum. All of your examples show this too. While I can totally picture Brandon saving a portion of this for later books, I cannot picture him simply explaining 99% of a thing and withholding the last bit with zero indication as some sort of Gotcha for another book.

The entire basis of these theories aren't based on something the books have said we're missing, but on something a portion of the readers assume we must be missing, which is not the same thing at all.

[Spoolofwhool]

1 minute ago, 8bitBob said:

Yes, Brandon does this, as I said. When he does this, there is usually an indication that there is something we're missing because the purpose is to foreshadow and fuel speculation. The example I provided was the Ars Arcanum. All of your examples show this too. While I can totally picture Brandon saving a portion of this for later books, I cannot picture him simply explaining 99% of a thing and withholding the last bit with zero indication as some sort of Gotcha for another book.

The entire basis of these theories aren't based on something the books have said we're missing, but on something a portion of the readers assume we must be missing, which is not the same thing at all.

I see what you mean. However, at the same time, it's not the first time he's done that. I'd say that the inquisitors operated on a similar principle. In any case though, the books have  stated that there is probably something missing from the main character, and therefore our, knowledge. As you quoted from the book earlier, VenDell says, "somehow manipulate identity and investiture," which seems to be an admittance that not everything is known. There is an acknowledgment that some process is needed, which has not been determined yet by the kandra and the Terris.

 

[8bitBob]

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

I'd say that the inquisitors operated on a similar principle.

Sorry, to what are you referring to here? Been a while since I read the original trilogy.

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

As you quoted from the book earlier, VenDell says, "somehow manipulate identity and investiture," which seems to be an admittance that not everything is known. There is an acknowledgment that some process is needed, which has not been determined yet by the kandra and the Terris.

I'm tempted to shrug and call this a hand wavy way of saying, "No, we haven't figured it out yet," but this could also refer to many things. One of the reasons I think you simply cannot make medallions in the way way I described is because somebody should have tried it. I mean, I'm not smarter than a planet of people combined. This could just be a reference to how they tried processes like that. Just an example.

 

I've gotta head out soon and might not be able to respond for a couple days, so I'm just going to succinctly restate my argument. I realise that you've got the jist of it, but it's kind of spread across a few posts and could be hard for others to follow.

 

My argument is that withholding the final piece of medallion creation in a book that exhaustively explains medallion creation, while giving no indication that this would be an issue does not make sense from a story telling perspective. If this was an issue, but Brandon didn't want to talk about it, why wasn't there a scene where Wax asks Allik about this and he just shrugs, explaining he's not really an expert. Or some foreshadowing from the southerners in the epilogue about how, thank God, they still shouldn't be able to make medallions, or any of the infinite amount of ways that, as a writer, you can indicate to the readers that this will come up in the future in some way while hand waving away readers' concerns. Brandon does this exact thing by having Wax ask about multiple medallions.

edit:

To tie a neat bow on it:

Why is the assumption that, because we don't understand how something works, it cannot work?

Edited February 20, 2017 by 8bitBob

[BlackYeti he/him]

I really like this theory. It very nicely explains the thing that has been troubling me about the medallions since I first read BoM, and I would be very happy to see it borne out. That said I would like to ask for a clarification on one part of it.

On 2/19/2017 at 1:57 AM, Argent said:

So that's it. I think the secret to the medallions is harmonium. It, similarly to how it functions in the primer cubes, grants whoever is holding the medallion the ability to tap nicrosil by "replaying" a pre-programmed nicrosil tap - which they do, filling themselves with whatever ability was stored in that nicrosilmind. 

So if we take, as an example, one of the Feruchemical copper medallions: this would work by having the harmonium grant the ability to tap the nicrosilmind which in turn makes the user into an Archivist temporarily, and thus able to tap the memories encoded into the coppermind. Why couldn't you let the harmonium instead grant the ability to tap the coppermind directly and thus remove the need for the nicrosil?

Is it because the harmonium is only allowing the user to tap the metalminds, but not store in them? Thus if a non-Arcivist wanted to record their memories in one, they would be unable to do so without nicrosil. And more importantly, by the same logic, a non-Trueself would be likewise unable to store their Identity in an aluminiummind, so an Arcanist would not be able to create an unkeyed coppermind without nicrosil involved.

Do I understand your logic correctly here?

If so, are you proposing that tapping and storing are treated as different abilities by harmonium, and it can either be used to tap a metalmind, or to store in one? Or are you saying that tapping the metalmind is the real power here, and storing in it is simply a means of "charging it up", and thus outside of what harmonium can replicate?

[Argent he/him]

15 hours ago, BlackYeti said:

If so, are you proposing that tapping and storing are treated as different abilities by harmonium, and it can either be used to tap a metalmind, or to store in one?

Something like that, yeah.