filling metalminds

[Thrand_Antharo]

I've seen a several people talking as if there is a hard limit on how full a metal mind can be, but I don't fully agree. When reading the books I thought of filling a metalmind as like filling a bike tire. The more air is in the tire the harder it is to pump in more, but the only real limit is when the tire bursts. If the tire tube was infinitely strong and you had infinite force to pump with then you could go until the air was effectively a solid.

[Calderis he/him]

I'm trying to find the thread, but this came up very recently and there were two conflicting views which were the two you've mentioned. I don't know the terms to search, but the WoBs presented that kind of killed the thread implied a hard limit. I'll keep looking and link the thread when I can find it. 

[Spoolofwhool]

We have no confirmation on either model being the correct. Personally I ascribe to the model than an object does have an absolute limit to the amount of investiture which can be infused into it, and through some degree of confirmation bias, I believe my signing question supports that. 

Quote

Q: What does it mean for an object to be considered “Invested”?

B: That is a matter of some discussion among scientists. Usually it means to most of them, like a...Let me see if I can explain this. So, all things are built from Investiture, right? When they’re using “Invested”, they’re talking about kind of like saturating a solution, in that, yes it’s being built out of this material, but now there’s more it in. It’s a little bit like supersaturation, but not quite.

Q: It’s kind of like more Investiture in the Spirit Web or the Cognitive…

B: Yeah, more than just the creation of it. There’s lingering Investiture that could be drawn out, or stuffed in.

Q: But there are limits, right?

B: There are limits. We kind of run into that kind of thing with Feruchemy a little bit. But yes.

[Source] 33:08

Brandon's description of it by saturation makes me think of the physical limits of solutions to holding dissolved substances and the like. 

[Calderis he/him]

@Spoolofwhool I still can't find the thread I was talking about, but that was one of the three used to effectively end the discussion. 

 

[The One Who Connects he/him]

1 hour ago, Thrand_Antharo said:

When reading the books I thought of filling a Metalmind as like filling a bike tire. The more air is in the tire the harder it is to pump in more, but the only real limit is when the tire bursts.

Here's the original person who thought about it the same way(who I forgot when I brought it up in the thread you mentioned Calderis)

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I was under the assumption that Metalminds worked in a way where a Feruchemist could store as much as they wanted in a Metalmind, simply increasing the concentration of the Feruchemical charges, and it simply become more difficult to store the smaller the size of the Metalmind and the larger the concentration of charge in the Metalmind.

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1 hour ago, Calderis said:

I'm trying to find the thread, but this came up very recently and there were two conflicting views which were the two you've mentioned.

And here's the thread you were talking about Calderis:

[+Extesian he/him]

This one @Calderis

 

The three I put were these

Quote

These three WoBs also indicate there is a limit. And if a full one can block a shardblade I'd be surprised if out can be Pushed. None of it's decisive though. 

  Quote

Q: Could a filled (fully feruchemical charge) metalmind block a Shardblade (or at least, resist a bit)?
 
A: Yes, it could. Excellent question.

  Quote

Q: What would happen if a Feruchemist fills, for example, a tin metalmind then mixes it to make a pewter metalmind? Does the stored attribute change? Is the Investiture gone when you melt the metal? What if he just makes it into a tin metalmind again?
 
A: If you make it impure, you'll keep the investiture, but won't be able to get it out. If you make it back into the same thing, you'll be fine, and can access it normally. If you try to fill it, after changing the composition to make another viable metal, it will act a little like a computer hard drive with corrupted sectors. Some of it will work for the new investiture, but you won't be able to fill it nearly as full. (Depending on how full it was before you melted it down.)
This holds for basic uses of the metallurgic arts. Once you start playing with some of the more advanced parts of the magic, you can achieve different results, which are currently RAFO.
 
Q: So you could, for example, use electrolysis to dissolve a metalmind in water, then reverse the reaction later to get the Investiture? Or, better question, if you store investiture in one allotrope of iron, can you retrieve it if you change to a different allotrope?
 
A: I see no reason why these wouldn't work.

  Quote

HEROWANNABE

How about a metalmind? A feruchemy metalmind that is "full."

BRANDON SANDERSON

That is going to be middle of the realm. Generally easier than, for instance, a shardblade, which is going to be very hard.

Spool's is probably the best I've seen. 

Edit - ha, ninja'd by The One Who Ninja's!

Edited June 28, 2017 by Extesian

[Calderis he/him]

3 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

And here's the thread you were talking about Calderis

Thanks. I remembered you were active in the thread and actually used your content feed to try to find it. Totally passed that thread. 

11 minutes ago, Extesian said:

This one @Calderis

When it was a neatly compiled WoB collection that ended the thread, I should have known it was you. 

[The One Who Connects he/him]

Just now, Calderis said:

actually used your content feed to try to find it. Totally passed that thread. 

Accurate description of how I find my old posts too. I'm surprised you missed it actually, since "Metalminds as 'full'" was visible in the post preview.(unless you're on mobile, in which case I don't know how much it shows you)

14 minutes ago, Extesian said:

Edit - ha, ninja'd by The One Who Ninja's!

This is a new one

To both of you, I'm the one who brought it up in the other thread, so I may as well find it first. And I guess because I knew what to look for.

[Weltall]

Brandon implies that there is a hard limit to how much investiture you can stuff into any given vessel. He was asked if something like a Shardblade or Nightblood could be used as a hemalurgic spike and replied (paraphrased) that something like that was theoretically possible but for something in that league, it could be argued that they were already 'full' and couldn't be Invested further and mentioned the existence of a limit.

Now, this was specifically in the context of hemalurgy and using already-Invested objects as spikes but the general principle that an object can only hold so much Investiture would apply to metalminds as well.

[Pattern he/him]

Those WoBs above clearly show that there is a maximum of Investiture that can be hold by an object. The "metallurgy WoB" comparing a realloyed (is that a word?) metalmind with a hard drive with bad sectors also shows that this maximum is somewhat proportional to the mass or number of atoms/molecules available for a specific kind of Investiture.

The normal Feruchemist should have no problems with this maximum though, since storing without compounding is a slow process.

[18th Shard he/him]

I've always imagined them filling up like capacitors - there is a hard limit, but it does get harder and harder to fill them as you put more in.

[ErikModi]

Well, Sazed does comment near the end of the first book that the pewter ring he swallowed can't hold much of a Feruchemical charge.  The RPG (not 100% canon, I know) also applies hard limits to how many charges a metalmind can store based on its size.  I think Sazed also comments of the rings he was charging near the end of the second book that they couldn't hold much, but he wanted them for backups to his other metalminds (since they'd be embroiled in battle soon, and he wanted access to all the power he could get).  So I'd say yes, there is a hard limit to how much Feruchemical charge can be stored in a given metalmind.  Allomancy works on a similar principal, the more of a metal you've swallowed, the longer you can burn it before you run out.