Gencon Hemalurgy WoB (Random realmatic discussion)

[Oversleep]

17 hours ago, Yata said:

(if we could create a not Insanelly Invested Tanavastium it would be compatible too for me, it's the amount of Investiture in a Shardblade who prevent it from be used in the metallic arts, its composition will be fine).

17 hours ago, Yata said:

The gods' pure essence (godmetals) is naturally affine to magic and it become compatible with appropriate magic (metal magic). To me Trell didn't Invested on Scadrial, He/She/It simply crafted some Trellium and send it to Scadrial.

17 hours ago, Yata said:

So as Trell didn't invested on Scadrial, there is nobody that could be able to burn or store/tap Trellium (this could be different with a Mistborn or Full Feruchemist but there aren't). So is the Trellium magically useless on Scadrial ? Luckly no, because we have the Hemalurgy that doesn't need a specific S-Web to work and therefore it could be used with the Trellium perfectly.

I have bunch of WoBs that together make me think this is wrong.

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Question

If another Shard came to Scadrial, would that be enough to create a godmetal?

Brandon Sanderson

If another shard just came to visit, probably not.

Question

If they brought a spren or-

Brandon Sanderson

If they came and completely Invested the world, then things might start happening. But there's some special circumstances, remember. Ruin and Preservation created that planet. Specifically. And so there's some goofy things that happened because of that. For instance Roshar was not made by Honor, Cultivation, or Odium. That's one of the big differences about what's going on there.

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Shadowsaber223 ()

If Odium were lured to Scadrial, would his physical body turn into a burnable metal? If so, could Harmony create an Odium-metal legion of Mistings to consume and burn it? Would that weaken him sufficiently enough to be killed or destroyed?

Brandon Sanderson

The difficulty here is, again, one of Identity. People born on Scadrial have an Identity tied to it and its magic. Odium would have to do certain things to make them able to use a magic he fuels. He has done these things on Roshar, so it's not impossible for him to manage it on Scadrial.

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Czanos (17 October 2008)

Does every metal have a Feruchemical and Hemalurgic property? If not, are there metals which have Feruchemical or Hemalurgic properties which do not have Allomantic ones?

Brandon Sanderson (17 October 2008)

Every metal has a Feruchemical, an Allomantic, and a Hemalurgic property. The godly metals each also do something else.

source

I think that's about it.

5 hours ago, Yata said:

First of all, as I said before, it is theorically possible to have a metal in the Metallic Arts that nobody could burn (for example imagine the Atium before Rashek's Ascension. Nobody could burn it but it was already a metal compatible with the Metalic Arts

?
IIRC atium Mistings are naturally occuring (save for the mistfallen which were switched with cadmium/bendalloy Mistings).

[AbsentKeeper he/him]

3 hours ago, Oversleep said:

IIRC atium Mistings are naturally occuring (save for the mistfallen which were switched with cadmium/bendalloy Mistings).

You are correct. This WoB seems to suggest that there were plenty of Atium mistings in the Final Empire.

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SPORKIFY (18 OCTOBER 2008)

How did Inquisitors find Atium mistings?

BRANDON SANDERSON (20 OCTOBER 2008)

They spike the drinks at one of the nobility's balls with trace amounts of Atium, then cause a bit disturbance. (Often, the Inquisitors themselves arriving will do it) and burn bronze and watch for brief pulses. The body will burn metals instinctively if it can, which has been shown quite often in the series. This is also how they get a lot of their secret information about who is a Misting and who isn't. It's not a perfect method, since you have to watch for Copperclouds messing things up, but it is effective once in a while.

Any time an obligator who is not a Misting joins the Ministry, he is unknowingly given a larger chunk of atium and then forced into a series of rituals that will drain him physically and get the body to react and burn the metal. This was how Yomen was discovered.

I also just like this one, because it gives so much more information than most.

[Yata he/him]

@Oversleep I already read all the WoB you proposed and I considerated this in my point.

The problem with foreign godmetal from the WoB is the absence of ties with the godmetal's source (the shard) in the Magic User's spirit web. This is the reason I said that I think a Magic System without Spirit-Web restriction will be fine with and the one with a Spirit-Web requirement will be without possible users.

About the Atium misting, I know...But Seers are an artificial Misting creating through Preservation's manipulation, you can't really take them as "the regular flow".

If I don't remember wrong (i have to write this fastly and then go out), Calderis posted a WoB about the Shardblades as possible Spikes if they were not already "full" of Investiture.

 

But here I think we are starting to mix many topic in a single one, so probably it's better to ignore my point and maybe I will start a new topic somewhere else.

PS: Oversleep I will be out of home all the day, but you may contact me from Discord if the discussion need some answer of mine

[AbsentKeeper he/him]

On 8/26/2017 at 2:07 AM, Yata said:

If I don't remember wrong (i have to write this fastly and then go out), Calderis posted a WoB about the Shardblades as possible Spikes if they were not already "full" of Investiture.

 

But here I think we are starting to mix many topic in a single one, so probably it's better to ignore my point and maybe I will start a new topic somewhere else.

I posted that one, we started talking about nicrosil instead though.

This thread has been going all over the place, I wouldn't worry about it. I half think Calderis should rename this thread "Deep Realmatic Crazy Speculation" 

Edit: You actually did....

Edit again:

This is the WoB in question:

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HEROWANNABE () Can an infused Hemalurgy spike be affected by Allomancy—steel pushes and iron pulls? Or does the charge interfere with the Allomancy much like a persons body would?

BRANDON SANDERSON Anything infused (regardless of the world or magic that infused it) is resistant to magic. So you'd have a lot of trouble pushing or pulling on a spike, unless you had access to a boost of some sort to overcome the resistance.

THEOFFICETROLL So, Nightblade would be resistant to steelpushing? Good to know ;-)

HEROWANNABE My friend and I asked him something like this at a book signing, but for some reason it never seemed to make it onto 17th Shard. We asked if a shardblade or Nightblood could be used as a hemalurgic spike (i.e.: two different investitures of magic). Brandon said that yes, in theory you could do that, but objects have a limit to how much investiture they can hold, and that it could be argued that things like Nightblood and Shardblades are already "full"

 

 

Emphasis mine.

This is actually one of the things that started to lead me toward the idea that Hemalurgy had a different focus in the first place. I only wish that it was verbatim, rather than secondhand.

Edited August 28, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[The One Who Connects he/him]

This was an interesting read. And now I'm gonna make a few of you unhappy/confused/etc... while also responding to 5 pages of discussion(and to think I didn't like writing essays in English Class...)

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Lets talk about the Focus on Sel(that was consciously dismissed back on page 1): Forms. It is a shape that directs the incoming power, telling the raw investiture what it manifests as.   AonDor: Aon Ehe - Fire, Aha - Air, Ashe - Light, etc...  Dakhor: The Bone Shapes determine what power can be accessed.^[5]  Same follows for Forgery and ChayShan.

The important thing to take from this has nothing to do with Sel, and everything to do with Scadrial. While Scadrial's focus is Metal, it is also Forms. The molecular structures of the metals determines what metal you have, so to quote what I just said about Sel: the molecular structure is the "shape that directs the incoming power, telling the raw investiture what it manifests as." Pewter: physical strength   Cadmium: slowed time
The same holds for Feruchemy, but it's also in reverse. You convert Investiture into strength when drawing from a Pewtermind because the power leaves the Metalmind in a certain "shape" that Investiture recognizes as Strength. When you store, it's the reverse: converting Strength into Investiture bearing that "shape" in order to get through the molecular "gateway" of a Pewtermind.

On 8/24/2017 at 2:52 PM, Cowmanthethird said:

That's why it confuses me that one type of focus (one metal) is the method for stealing so many different kinds of investiture, but not all of them. If metal is the focus, each metal should be able to steal only one thing, or everything.

Read my diagram, then come back to me with your thoughts.

Hemalurgy is a little more.. difficult to explain in this way, given the "same metal, multiple powers" thing, but I'll try my best. Consider that the powers themselves have a "shape" to them. Brandon has said that the Metallic Arts Tables are in-world constructs, but Brandon has also said that Metals steal from specific Quadrants. This leads me to believe the tables are accurate in their groupings.
The molecular "gateway" for Hemalurgy could be wider than the actual power "shapes." Fair warning, this explanation is gonna feature a bootleg drawing to point at.

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Take a Steel Spike for example. The gateway lets in A-Steel, A-Iron, A-Tin, and A-Pewter, meaning that these powers must be shaped similarly enough to all fit, but shaped differently enough that the receiving Spiritweb can tell the difference between them. Let's use the Letter "T" as my base-shape for Allomantic Physical Powers:

Steel Spike gateway shape: T
A-Steel:  ^<T     A-Iron: T^>     A-Pewter: 'T    A-Tin: T'

The Shapes are all different, but with a bigger opening (the bold, larger text size T), they can all fit in the Spike.

For Pewter Spikes, there's gonna be 8 powers since there are two Physical Quadrants in Feruchemy. Imagine the shape as the letter H (the first quadrant has an ^ or down arrow above/below one of the four "corners," and the second quadrant has an ' or , in the same positions instead, since all of those would fit within a wider, taller H)
(above the edges:  ^H   H^   'H   H'     (below the edges:  _^H    H_^    ,H    H, 

Make sense?

To continue, I cannot make the Forms connection to Nalthis or Roshar as of yet. Commands are.. tricky business, and the 9th & 10th Heightenings don't help. Height 9 gives you the ability to awaken anything within the sound of your voice, making one think that perhaps it's the waveforms of your voice, in the same vein that the Alethi Women's Script is those waveforms on paper.

However.. the 10th Heightening is mental command, taking the voice out of the equation entirely. While the Command is the Focus, the big deal is actually the Mental Visualization you have, getting imprinted into the breath so the awakened object knows what to do. Without that mental picture, your command is merely words, as Vivienna learns with the rope.

And Roshar... let's not. Bonds are even more nebulous than Commands, Spren could work on the same level as molecular patterns in Metals, but only in the CR. And the other contenders are bad.

Makes me wonder if the similarity between Sel and Scadrial is special circumstances regarding how Scadrial came to be rather than an underlying principle.

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On 8/21/2017 at 8:56 PM, Cowmanthethird said:

Fabrials are a different story. The modern ones use Spren, but require no bond of any sort unless you count 'bonding' the Spren to the gemstone (which I do not, because Brandon has said that bonds require intent and the Spren seems to have no say,

Oh no? From Pagerunner's List, entry 585

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Q: How tall would the average Chasmfiend be, and how much would they weigh? On a scale from ant to Godzilla.

A: So, they're big. Not godzilla big, but larger than elephant big. On average, they're going to loom over you at about twenty feet high, which is deceptive to their size, as they're longer than tall. And some do get even bigger. Weight, though, is a tricky matter with Greatshells on Roshar. The symbiosis with Spren is how they get around crushing themselves. (Even on a lower gravity planet like Roshar.)

Q: Symbiosis is a two way relationship. The Chasmfiends get a huge benefit, the ability to not immediately die. So what do the Spren get out of it?

A: Yes, the symbiosis is a two-way relationship. You'll find out more in future books, but suffice it to say, the Spren DO get something out of the deal. (At least, when it happens naturally.)

Q: Are you saying that a Chasmfiend and whatever Spren it binds with can be forced to bond?

A: Not in relation to Chasmfiends. Go read up on Fabrials.

Q: Fabrials are exactly why I asked this question, I thought there might be a way to, I don't know, shove a Spren inside a living Greatshell Gemheart or something

A:  No, that's not what I was implying.

Brandon certainly seems to be implying that Spren in Fabrial Gems isn't much different from Spren being in Chasmfiend Gemhearts, aside from one of them happening naturally. Do you consider the symbiosis between Spren and Greatshells as a "bond?"

On 8/22/2017 at 8:49 AM, Calderis said:

The intent and metal used at the time of theft decides the power. The bind point decides nothing.

Say you use a steel spike to steal pewter Allomancy. You place it into the correct bind point to grant the power to insure proper integration into the spiritweb. 

Placing that spike into the bind point for tin Allomancy doesn't change what the spike does, it just makes the spike do nothing (positive). 

The bind points are only needed because the powers need to be placed into the proper place to be used. The determination of what a spike does is purely a function of the metal and intent.

I disagree, almost completely(which surprises me more than it probably should..) From my perspective: Intent and Metal alone is insufficient.

You have the Intent to create a Spike, and a Spike of a specific Metal, but you've got a 1 in 4 on getting the right power from a Mistborn. If you need to have the Intent to take a specific power, then what purpose do the Bind Points actually serve? If everything is decided before putting the spike into its recipient, then the extra "decision" that Bind Points are feels... extra.

Additionally, consider that the Steel Inquisitorius was experimenting with Atium Spikes. They didn't know what powers it stole, so they can't really have a preset Intent the first time they tried it. If you need the Intent to take a specific Power in order for the Spiking to work, then those experiments could not have succeeded in the first place. If they knew you needed the specific Intent to take a specific power, then I feel like the experimentation might not have started due to expenses(unless you can reuse a failed spike, which seems reasonable. The risk of death via failed spike could be an issue, but "experimenting with Hemalurgy" implies that you don't care about the risks)

I guess a sum up my thoughts statement would be that I have always been of the mind that a Steel Spike steals the "Allomantic Physical Powers" Segment of the Spiritweb as a whole. ie: it steals all 4 powers at once if you have them. That way, knowing where to place the Spike to get a specific power becomes more literal. I(and Djarskublar) placed this question in the Ultimate List to rectify the issue once and for all:

On 4/20/2017 at 9:30 AM, The One Who Connects said:

Oh wait. You're saying it like A-Powers are in a separate area of the Spiritweb from F-Powers, and taking one A-Power from a Mistborn would break the A-Powers area too much to spike out another one? I.. could see that.

Have we asked if a Mistborn would still have their other powers if they got one spiked out and lived? Because that answer could become central to this discussion. Even ask the question twice, to clarify if there's any difference between using an Atium spike and a Non-Atium Spike.

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On 8/22/2017 at 5:30 PM, Cowmanthethird said:

I'm really sorry if this comes off as rude, because I really don't ever want to see discussion on the Shard devolve to insults, but I have come very close to downvoting several of your recent posts.

You should understand that several of us have discussed topics long enough/enough times to feel a bit frustrated when things make sense to us and not the other party. Providing the same evidence over and over starts to bleed together, and we assume people know things that they don't/assume we've explained something that we really haven't. We get a little.. blunt, from time to time. It's always frustration, never meant to be confrontational (except for that one thread, but we don't talk about that anymore). Just understand that most of the "big names" on here became big for being right/knowing what we're talking about, and that leads to overconfidence which rears its head from time to time. From my experience, what you consider confrontational is fairly mild, and in Oversleep's case, it's his normal level of discussion and disagreement, because directness is a virtue(or somesuch). Basically, if you are seeing it as being confrontational/as an attack/anything beyond polite discussion.., then you are doing it wrong. This goes for the both of you, and anyone else on these forums.

On 8/22/2017 at 6:04 PM, Cowmanthethird said:

Edit: Oh, and the Honorblades, which actively avoid the usually required bond?

This one is pretty easy. Despite coming first, Honorblades are actually a hack for Surgebinding. Hacks allow people to bypass all manner of restrictions(identity, connection, viable spiritweb power(Medallions), etc..) so why not this restriction too? Beyond that, we know that Honorblades have some type of bond with the Heralds, since their very presence is tied to the Herald being alive. Additionally, Szeth was able to summon and dismiss his Honorblade, implying some form of Bond to it in the same vein as conventional Shardblades.

Regarding the Fabrials of Old, I will echo Calderis in saying that we don't know enough about them. Keep in mind that they may be the Honorblades of Fabrial-Tech, a hack that came before the system proper. Additionally, we know that Soulcasting KR like Jasnah are limited by the type of gem while Kaladin isn't. The gem specificity has been another big deal: With Spren, Jasnah. Without Spren, Soulcaster Fabrial. The gem type limit exists for both of them, and throws another wrench into the proceedings(I don't even think I was on these forums back when the "gem - Fabrial focus" theory was a thing..)

On 8/22/2017 at 8:46 PM, Cowmanthethird said:

On 8/22/2017 at 8:14 PM, Calderis said:

That's the one that has the Nalthis thing and I had already found it and kept searching because I know there's one somewhere about the focus being a product of the planet. 

I might still write up the theory out of boredom one day though, unless Calderis digs up that Rusting WoB that could shoot it down with just the words "The focus depends on the planet, not the Shard"

You aren't finding it. We know, we've tried. You even participated in one of those threads Calderis. And per Confused:

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“Focuses”

You raise definitional questions: What is “canon” and what is a “focus”?

Canon” to me means one of two things. Either Brandon tells us a word is “canonized,” or he uses the word in a book.

Brandon uses many non-canonized words in conversation to describe Cosmere phenomena. For years, he adopted fans’ use of the term “Shardpool.” He only told us recently that the “canonical” term is “perpendicularity.” In conversations, he uses the words “intent, “role” and “personality” to describe the phenomenon I call Mandates based on HoA text. I’m not convinced any of these words is “canon.”

If someone knew where it was, we would have said so. It's one of the primary reasons I never actually responded to his post that I just quoted.

On 8/22/2017 at 8:46 PM, Cowmanthethird said:

I could continue to argue, since, according to my theory, Hemalurgy isn't a metallic art.

Au Contraire Monsieur:

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Czanos (17 October 2008)

Preservation can fuel Allomancy, (Minus Atium.) but can Ruin fuel Hemalurgy? (Or Atium?) And could Sazed fuel all three Metallic Arts?

Brandon Sanderson (17 October 2008)

Both gods could, if they wanted, fuel all of the metallic arts. Preservation is stronger at fueling Allomancy, Ruin stronger at fueling Allomancy or Feruchemy when it has been given via a spike. Both are balanced when it comes to Feruchemy. But this rarely comes up in the books, as it required expending power in a way that the gods were hesitant to do.

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Czanos (17 October 2008)

Does every metal have a Feruchemical and Hemalurgic property? If not, are there metals which have Feruchemical or Hemalurgic properties which do not have Allomantic ones?

Brandon Sanderson (17 October 2008)

Every metal has a Feruchemical, an Allomantic, and a Hemalurgic property. The godly metals each also do something else. There are several interesting Feruchemical powers yet to be discovered and revealed in the next series. Feruchemy is less widely understood because there were so few practitioners in the modern era, and a lot of the time they were too afraid of capture to really study and use their powers.

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Chaos (17 October 2008)

Would the Three Metallic Arts operate in other worlds, or are they direct results of Ruin and Preservation and thus only operate in Scadrial?

Brandon Sanderson (20 October 2008)

To use Feruchemy or Allomancy in almost every case, one must have the right spiritual and genetic codes, imprinted upon people during the creation of Scadrial by Ati and Leras. To use Hemalurgy, one must first have someone with these right spiritual and genetic codes, then take the power from them. Other people on other worlds are not going to simply discover the Three Metallic Arts by accident.

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On 8/23/2017 at 7:11 PM, Cowmanthethird said:

We also have the strange WoBs that suggest that Nightblood, or a Shardblade, theoretically could be used as a Hemalurgic spike, but they are already 'full'. Ill dig those up if you like, I think you've already seen those though.

Nothing of any real note in that entry. Nightblood is mundane Steel as far as I'm aware, so using it as a spike isn't any different than a normal Steel Spike. It does give you an idea of just how much power can be stored in a Metalmind of that size, which is a scary thought. Shardblades are technically God-Metals, so they follow their own set of rules with regards to interacting with Magic Systems. At the very least, they fall in the gray area of "It's a God Metal, so we don't know."

On 8/23/2017 at 7:11 PM, Cowmanthethird said:

Trellium does things for kandra that not even Atium can

new abilities of trellium in Hemalurgy are just caused by placing a god metal, which can steal any attribute, into the new bindpoint(s).

Remember that hiding from Harmony is an inherent property of Trellium, rather than a stolen power the spike grants. Additionally, understand that we don't know if the "steal any power" is unique to Atium or not. Atium = steal any attribute. Atium = God Metal. As far as I'm aware, we don't know yet whether (God metal = steal any attribute) or if (God Metal =/= steal any)

On 8/23/2017 at 7:11 PM, Cowmanthethird said:

What are your thoughts on Trell forming a whole new metallic art, if indeed metal is the only focus on Scadrial? Perhaps this was what Brandon was referring to as special circumstance: Trell can't form a whole new system like Odium did on Roshar, because he's constrained by what Ruin and Preservation did when they created the planet, so instead, he only gets to make a god metal, which he can pass out and fuel directly with his power.

Have the other related WoB on the subject:

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Shadowsaber223 ()

If Odium were lured to Scadrial, would his physical body turn into a burnable metal? If so, could Harmony create an Odium-metal legion of Mistings to consume and burn it? Would that weaken him sufficiently enough to be killed or destroyed?

Brandon Sanderson

The difficulty here is, again, one of Identity. People born on Scadrial have an Identity tied to it and its magic. Odium would have to do certain things to make them able to use a magic he fuels. He has done these things on Roshar, so it's not impossible for him to manage it on Scadrial.

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On 8/23/2017 at 7:11 PM, Cowmanthethird said:

Unless all metals naturally have the ability to hold investiture, independent of any Shard, in which case it wouldn't need a connection at all, in either case.

No connection needed. Metal from any planet works, including Soulcast metals. Metal is metal is metal.

On 8/23/2017 at 7:11 PM, Cowmanthethird said:

depending on which bindpoint in the heart you put it through.

To me, it just doesn't make sense that a single 'type' of focus could produce so many different effects, when in every other magic system, each type of focus only produces one.

I don't know where the "steal powers from the heart" came from anyway, the Coppermind states that the spike is stuck through a bind point in order to charge it. Also, you appear to be forgetting that death is not always necessary for Hemalurgic Spiking. Taken together, I think you can spike someone through something other than the heart to steal powers.

For the second part, where do you draw the line for a "single type of focus" in a magic system? Because I'd like to mention that magic on Sel is all one system, with a singular Focus. Precedent for vast variety of powers exists.

On 8/24/2017 at 1:48 PM, Cowmanthethird said:

Edit: I just reread this and wanted to clarify because it sounds like I'm confusing aluminum and Nicrosil, but I'm not. I think aluminum stores your cognitive identity, the part that identifies you as the Feruchemist that made the Metalmind, and Nicrosil stores your spiritual identity, the part that identifies you as a Feruchemist. Thus why the medallions need both, plus the proper Metalmind.

How about I confuse you on purpose, while also educating you on the devilry that is the Spiritual Realm and connection(lowercase)

It's not a required read, but there's an understanding to be gained by considering things from the SR looking out, rather than the other way around.

On 8/24/2017 at 3:22 PM, Oversleep said:

Listeners merge with the spren (notice lack of any bond whatsoever, as they fuse into one being)

Tying this to the Chasmfiend WoB near the top of my post, would this not be a Symbiotic Bond with the Spren?

On 8/25/2017 at 1:54 PM, Cowmanthethird said:

There were spren and Parshendi on Roshar before Honor and Cultivation showed up there, so presumably there was also an invested storm, even if all stormlight comes from the Stormfather now, he's still just holding investiture and dumping it out through a natural process (a storm) so I don't see how that is outside the normal rules.

Just to add, humans existed before the Shards arrived too. As did Stormlight in Gemstones(although that WoB might have specified pre-Heralds..)

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Gotta say, this post is a fair bit shorter than I expected it to be. Have fun

Edited September 3, 2017 by The One Who Connects

[Oversleep]

12 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

You should understand that several of us have discussed topics long enough/enough times to feel a bit frustrated when things make sense to us and not the other party. Providing the same evidence over and over starts to bleed together, and we assume people know things that they don't/assume we've explained something that we really haven't. We get a little.. blunt, from time to time. It's always frustration, never meant to be confrontational (except for that one thread, but we don't talk about that anymore). Just understand that most of the "big names" on here became big for being right/knowing what we're talking about, and that leads to overconfidence which rears its head from time to time.

This.

13 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

From my experience, what you consider confrontational is fairly mild, and in Oversleep's case, it's his normal level of discussion and disagreement, because directness is a virtue(or somesuch). Basically, if you are seeing it as being confrontational/as an attack/anything beyond polite discussion.., then you are doing it wrong. This goes for the both of you, and anyone else on these forums.

Yeah, I think I'm a bit more... blunt?... than people here usually are. (I once furiously argued with someone for pages just because someone was saying "racism" when they should have used "discrimination". I'm like that. I once got severely downvoted for not sugarcoating.)

However I did not realise people actually realised that about me. Anyway, if I was rude, it would be fairly noticeable. When I'm rude, I really am.

[The One Who Connects he/him]

1 minute ago, Oversleep said:

Yeah, I think I'm a bit more... blunt?... than people here usually are. (I once furiously argued with someone for pages just because someone was saying "racism" when they should have used "discrimination". I'm like that. I once got severely downvoted for not sugarcoating.)

Blunt was the more polite term, even if Pedant appears to be more accurate now. And yes, I believe that I am using that word correctly: a person who is excessively concerned with minor details and rules or with displaying academic learning.

3 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

However I did not realize people actually realized that about me

I realized it quite quickly when I was on the other side of the argument with you. In case it's slipped your mind, the discussion was about the canonocity of the MAG and Hemalurgic Gold Spikes.

[Calderis he/him]

38 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

You have the Intent to create a Spike, and a Spike of a specific Metal, but you've got a 1 in 4 on getting the right power from a Mistborn. If you need to have the Intent to take a specific power, then what purpose do the Bind Points actually serve? If everything is decided before putting the spike into its recipient, then the extra "decision" that Bind Points are feels... extra.

It does have to pass through a corresponding bind point to steal the correct section. For that point, sure it matters. If you passed it through the same bind point your going to place it in, then yes, it would matter. But the inquisitors seemed to prefer to use the heart. 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1108#30

Quote

KYTHIS

Unknown question.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Hemalurgy-when you spike, you place the spike in a place that determines which charge the spike gets. Q: Through the heart seems to pick up universally. A: It depends on where in the heart. It's like acupuncture. This is designed from acupuncture and you get very specific on which nerves you're hitting and things like that Q: So the spike will never pick up more than one power. A: Not the way they know how to do it.

He doesn't dispute that the heart can steal anything, just that even within the heart the spike placement matters. I think it was primarily used because then your literally only experimenting with intent 

The sheer number of bind points means that if there isn't a near universal spot, needing all three variables, inquisitors could have experimented for the entirety of TFE and discovered almost nothing. 

[The One Who Connects he/him]

Just now, Calderis said:

inquisitors could have experimented for the entirety of TFE and discovered almost nothing. 

If you recall, this is exactly what happened.

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Without the instinctive knowledge granted by taking the power at the Well of Ascension, Rashek would never have been able to use Hemalurgy. With his mind expanded, and with a little practice, he was able to intuit where to place spikes that would create the servants he wanted.

It is a little-known fact that the Inquisitors' torture chambers were actually Hemalurgic laboratories. The Lord Ruler was constantly trying to develop new breeds of servant. It is a testament to Hemalurgy's complexity that, despite a thousand years of trying, he never managed to create anything with it beyond the three kinds of creatures he developed during those few brief moments holding the power.

---

3 minutes ago, Calderis said:

But the inquisitors seemed to prefer to use the heart.

Ah, so this probably is where the "have to steal from the heart" idea originated from. Thank you for this.

As for the actual point of your post, that makes a good bit of sense. I just felt like if you already have to have the right type of metal and the right mindset of what power you need to steal, then adding 2 more layers: where to spike out a power, and where to spike in that power(while having the two not necessarily be the same spot) just felt like complexity for the sake of complexity. And having a universal stealing point (the heart) added to that feeling, as those multiple points to take the various powers are pointless if you can just bypass them all in the same way.

I'm a fan of things having a definable purpose, and Brandon doesn't seem the type to add complexity for complexities sake. So if an explanation of one of Brandon's systems gives me that feeling, then I think that explanation has something wrong with it. Just so you understand where I was coming from.

[Calderis he/him]

56 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I'm a fan of things having a definable purpose, and Brandon doesn't seem the type to add complexity for complexities sake. So if an explanation of one of Brandon's systems gives me that feeling, then I think that explanation has something wrong with it. Just so you understand where I was coming from.

I agree. And I don't think any of what I said conflicts with that. 

The placement of a spike matters. But it only matters because bind points exist. Let's assume for the sake of the point here, that the heart is a near universal bind point that for the obvious reasons of Hemalurgy being tied to the circulatory system in humans is one of the few places you can't spike into and survive... 

Looks at the bind points that we know of for placement of just allomantic and feruchemical traits. Add in that hemalurgy can steal anything, including inate non-magical traits. "bind points" are a name given to a place that it is viable to place a spike after experimentation, but the spiritweb touches the whole of the body. You could take a spike filled with human strength and place it just about anywhere and get it to do something, but for it to do something that you actually want you need it to integrate into the spiritweb in the correct place. That's a bind point. 

Needing to know the metal, and having the intent aren't enough in themselves. You also have to know the spiritweb of the species you are spiking intimately. When I said the "bind point determines nothing" I can see how easily that could be misunderstood, because bind points are important. To gain a power, the spike must be placed correctly or it won't integrate into the spiritweb properly and the spike is useless. For an inate human trait I think it would be more than useless, it would be outright harmful. 

You could take a spike, fill it with something, and try over and over for years to find a viable place to place a spike to create some kind of hemalurgic construct and considering the number of spikes needed for Koloss, let alone inquisitors, the numbers jump up exponentially. 

What I meant is that stealing the trait is determined by the metal and the intent. You don't get all of the powers that metal could steal and it changes based upon the bind point its placed in. You have to steal something specific, and then place the spike correctly or else it's useless. 

I think if you need to have the proper metal, intent, and discover the bindpoint just to steal something in the first place, it would be damnation near impossible to achieve anything with hemalurgy. Ever. 

Does that make sense? 

Edited September 3, 2017 by Calderis

[AbsentKeeper he/him]

@The One Who Connects I'm just going to tag you here, so I don't have to quote the whole post 17 times.

Quote

Lets talk about the Focus on Sel(that was consciously dismissed back on page 1): Forms. It is a shape that directs the incoming power, telling the raw investiture what it manifests as.   AonDor: Aon Ehe - Fire, Aha - Air, Ashe - Light, etc...  Dakhor: The Bone Shapes determine what power can be accessed.^[5]  Same follows for Forgery and ChayShan.

The important thing to take from this has nothing to do with Sel, and everything to do with Scadrial. While Scadrial's focus is Metal, it is also Forms. The molecular structures of the metals determines what metal you have, so to quote what I just said about Sel: the molecular structure is the "shape that directs the incoming power, telling the raw investiture what it manifests as." Pewter: physical strength   Cadmium: slowed time
The same holds for Feruchemy, but it's also in reverse. You convert Investiture into strength when drawing from a Pewtermind because the power leaves the Metalmind in a certain "shape" that Investiture recognizes as Strength. When you store, it's the reverse: converting Strength into Investiture bearing that "shape" in order to get through the molecular "gateway" of a Pewtermind.

I agree with everything you said here, I was only dismissing Sel as evidence that there can only be one possible focus per planet, since it's Shards are splintered and mingled.

Quote

Hemalurgy is a little more.. difficult to explain in this way, given the "same metal, multiple powers" thing, but I'll try my best. Consider that the powers themselves have a "shape" to them. Brandon has said that the Metallic Arts Tables are in-world constructs, but Brandon has also said that Metals steal from specific Quadrants. This leads me to believe the tables are accurate in their groupings.
The molecular "gateway" for Hemalurgy could be wider than the actual power "shapes." Fair warning, this explanation is gonna feature a bootleg drawing to point at.

This is probably the best explanation I've heard for this yet, but it still doesn't explain why pewter spikes are compatible with eight types of Investiture, while the others are only four each (as far as we know.) I know that you can say that it's because they're both physical quadrants, but its still twice the capacity of anything else we've seen. That still bothers me, but I might not be satified on that point until we get a canon answer.

Quote

You should understand that several of us have discussed topics long enough/enough times to feel a bit frustrated when things make sense to us and not the other party. Providing the same evidence over and over starts to bleed together, and we assume people know things that they don't/assume we've explained something that we really haven't.

I understand how this type of thing could be frustrating, but do I think that there are a couple things that are generally accepted by the community that probably have Brandon snickering behind his hand.

As for the 'focus' issue in particular, I'm sure its been beaten into the ground, but if we still don't know, then we still don't know. Like I said before, people had a ton of good reasons to think the Sun orbited the Earth for a really really long time. 

3 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

How about I confuse you on purpose, while also educating you on the devilry that is the Spiritual Realm and connection(lowercase)

It's not a required read, but there's an understanding to be gained by considering things from the SR looking out, rather than the other way around.

I did read this, and I don't see how it goes against anything I think. The bit that you quoted was a very short version, admittedly. We talked about this a good bit in the next couple pages though (see talking about storing stuff from the spiritweb)

Quote

For the second part, where do you draw the line for a "single type of focus" in a magic system? Because I'd like to mention that magic on Sel is allone system, with a singular Focus. Precedent for vast variety of powers exists.

As for this point (I know I pulled it out of order, forgive me), I think you just misunderstood what I meant by 'type', probably my fault, I couldn't think of another word.

What I meant in my head is whatever the next classification down from a system's focus is.

Like, if Allomancy's focus is metals, steel is one 'type' of that focus. Likewise, if Forms are the focus for The Dor, then Aon Rao is one 'type' of that focus.

The original argument (which I stated a few times that I'm very skeptical of now) being that Hemalurgy uses bindpoints as its focus, with the metals acting as modifiers do for Aons, determining which power is stolen (I think Calderis summed up my thoughts on the heart bindpoint thing pretty well) or what effect the particular investiture has on your spiritweb when you're spiked. For example, as Calderis said:

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

You could take a spike filled with human strength and place it just about anywhere and get it to do something, but for it to do something that you actually want you need it to integrate into the spiritweb in the correct place. That's a bind point. 

You could fill a spike with human strength and do hundreds of different things with it, or you could fill that spike with one of three (seven?) other things and do nearly anything with it. Bindpoints however (not for certain, just as far as we've seen) have a one to one correlation with the Hemalurgic effect. Kandra spikes, for instance, are placed in the shoulders no matter what metal they are, or what bonus they give, because the 'blessing' is a modifier, with the real effect being sapience.

Finally, on the point of Hemalurgy not being a metallic art: Like I said, it wouldn't be completely inconceivable for Brandon to refer to it that way because that's the in world knowlege, but I already agreed that I don't think he'd be that sneaky.

Thanks for finally joining in . I was kinda surprised when you didn't show up earlier in this thread. Let me know if I missed any points, I tried to leave out the ones that other people got to while I was typing.

Edited September 3, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Calderis he/him]

17 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

You could fill a spike with human strength and do hundreds of different things with it, or you could fill that spike with one of three (seven?) other things and do nearly anything with it. Bindpoints however (not for certain, just as far as we've seen) have a one to one correlation with the Hemalurgic effect. Kandra spikes, for instance, are placed in the shoulders no matter what metal they are, or what bonus they give, because the 'blessing' is a modifier, with the real effect being sapience

OK, you totally lost me here. The focus of a magic system is the part that makes the effect happen. I don't understand how you can agree with me that a spike placed outside of a proper bindpoint could have an unintended negative effect, and still think the bind point is the focus. 

[AbsentKeeper he/him]

52 minutes ago, Calderis said:

OK, you totally lost me here. The focus of a magic system is the part that makes the effect happen. I don't understand how you can agree with me that a spike placed outside of a proper bindpoint could have an unintended negative effect, and still think the bind point is the focus. 

Because it's causing a different effect? We don't really have any proof either way for whether creating different Hemalurgic constructs depends on the bindpoints, or just the metal and number of spikes (comparing the things in BoM versus Koloss since they both started out human, as opposed to Kandra)

However, I don't think that Hemalurgy was ever intended to benefit anyone (as you've said before) so all of those "unintended negative effects" would just be different things that Hemalurgy does to warp the spiritweb. It's just that no one would want to use most of them, unless they've figured out some way to gain an 'unintended' positive effect from it.

Edit: that second 'unintended' meaning unintended by Ruin, not the user.

Edit again: On the topic of reusing spikes, we know that its possible because the Koloss reuse theirs all the way up to the Wax and Wayne era, possibly making them 'more human' over time, per the AoL annotations (I think, it might have been the HoA annotations, I'll look for it tomorrow if anyone wants.)

Edited September 3, 2017 by Cowmanthethird
All the reasons

[Calderis he/him]

@Cowmanthethird the focus should be, in my opinion, the part of the system that is the unchanging factor. So I guess we don't disagree on the way bind points work... I just don't think bind points fit.

In Allomancy the metal determines the power, but with steel, you choose what you push on, and when and how hard. 

With Feruchemy, steel determines the power, but you choose if your storing or tapping and at what rate. 

With Hemalurgy, the steel houses the appropriate trait, and you choose where to place it. 

I think that's really what it comes down to for me. The focus determines the type/shape/etc of investiture. If the piece involved is an application of how it's used, I don't think it's the focus. 

[AbsentKeeper he/him]

2 minutes ago, Calderis said:

@Cowmanthethird the focus should be, in my opinion, the part of the system that is the unchanging factor. So I guess we don't disagree on the way bind points work... I just don't think bind points fit.

In Allomancy the metal determines the power, but with steel, you choose what you push on, and when and how hard. 

With Feruchemy, steel determines the power, but you choose if your storing or tapping and at what rate. 

With Hemalurgy, the steel houses the appropriate trait, and you choose where to place it. 

I completely understand what you're saying, and I even agree that you're probably right. I just think that bindpoints as the focus also possibly fits with the information that we currently have.

You could just have easily said:

"In Allomancy the metal determines the power, but with steel, you choose what you push on, and when and how hard. 

With Feruchemy, steel determines the power, but you choose if your storing or tapping and at what rate. 

With Hemalurgy, the bindpoint determines the effect, but you chose how to modify that point."

Quote

I think that's really what it comes down to for me. The focus determines the type/shape/etc of investiture. If the piece involved is an application of how it's used, I don't think it's the focus.

As far as the focus determining the type of investiture, I've already talked about why I don't think Hemalurgy fits that very well as we understand it (although I do like The One Who Connects' explanation for this better than any other so far) and I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this point until we get more info.

As for the focus being an application of how its used, isn't that exactly how Awakening works? The focus of Awakening is Commands, so each command should be its own 'type' (Sub-focus?) with a specific application.

[Yata he/him]

On 24/8/2017 at 8:48 PM, Cowmanthethird said:

Edit: I just reread this and wanted to clarify because it sounds like I'm confusing aluminum and nicrosil, but I'm not. I think aluminum stores your cognitive identity, the part that identifies you as the Feruchemist that made the metalmind, and nicrosil stores your spiritual identity, the part that identifies you as a Feruchemist. Thus why the medallions need both, plus the proper metalmind.

The Spiritual Identity (actually the only "Identity" knowed in the Cosmere as Term) is like a waveform or maybe it's better to call it a tag present in all the Spirit Web. The Investiture intereferes with other Investiture if the Identies doesn't match.

 

You may notice this simply as the kind of Attribute the "Identity" is.

It's a Spiritual Attributes and you may notice this from:

- The Feruchemy Table

- The Ars Arcanum who explicity states it as "spiritual sense of identity"

- From WoBs that explain what the Identity actually is

- the fact that if someone crafts a Spike from someone and doesn't let the Spike to decay too much the Spike's reciver could pass from the Spike's Victim regard the Investiture's interactions (for example he could use the other other's metalmind if he has the power or he could retrive Breaths stored by the other).

Niscosil Feruchemy instead Store the Innate Investiture in your Soul (the proper Spirit-Web's parts) and also this is expliciy stated by Wobs and the Nicrosil's effect (notice we don't know if the Niscrosil is limited to this, but "at least" it allows to store Innate Investiture)

EDIT: I wrote the post in a messy way, I fixed a bit

Edited September 3, 2017 by Yata

[AbsentKeeper he/him]

1 minute ago, Yata said:

Indeed this is false, you may notice this simply as the kind of Attribute the "Identity" is. It's a Spiritual Attributes and you may notice this both from The Feruchemy Table, from the Ars Arcanum who explicity states it as "spiritual sense of identity", from WoBs that explain what the Identity actually is and the fact that if someone craft a Spike from someone and doesn't let the Spike to decay too much the Spike's reciver could pass from the Spike's Victim regard the Investiture's interactions (for example he could use the other other's metalmind if he has the power or he could retrive Breaths stored by the other)

The Spiritual Identity (actually the only "Identity" knowed in the Cosmere as Term) is like a waveform or maybe it's better to call it a tag present in all the Spirit Web. The Investiture intereferes with other Investiture if the Identies doesn't match.

Oversleep actually already pointed this out. It was just a case of me using the wrong words again. I was using Realmatic terms when I really meant the normal everyday definitions of them.

By 'cognitive identity', for example, I meant 'the part of your spiritweb that holds things like language'. The stuff that people would consider part of your identity in real life.

Just another reason I need to proofread more of this stuff before I post. We talked about this when everyone went on the nicrosil tangent though 

[Yata he/him]

13 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

By 'cognitive identity', for example, I meant 'the part of your spiritweb that holds things like language'. The stuff that people would consider part of your identity in real life.

Yeah I understood that but it was wrong the concept that your "Cognitive Identity" is stored in Alluminium or it's responsable for accessing Metalmind or something like that.

By the way I think we have not a proper term for that (except for "Mind" maybe) so in theory it's possible (but unlikely for the confusion) that Brandon would call that "cognitive identity"

[AbsentKeeper he/him]

7 hours ago, Yata said:

Yeah I understood that but it was wrong the concept that your "Cognitive Identity" is stored in Alluminium or it's responsable for accessing Metalmind or something like that.

By the way I think we have not a proper term for that (except for "Mind" maybe) so in theory it's possible (but unlikely for the confusion) that Brandon would call that "cognitive identity"

I'll have to disagree with you here. From what we know so far, Identity is definitely the thing that determines whether you can access a metalmind or not (if you already have that ability). If you don't think a Feurchemist needs to store his Identity to create unkeyed metalminds, how do you think its done?

On the second point, you're right, just 'mind' probably would have been a better word. I hope for everyone's sake that Brandon doesn't ever decide to use terms as confusing as mine 

[Calderis he/him]

14 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

I'll have to disagree with you here. From what we know so far, Identity is definitely the thing that determines whether you can access a metalmind or not (if you already have that ability). If you don't think a Feurchemist needs to store his Identity to create unkeyed metalminds, how do you think its done?

You misunderstood. He didn't say that "Identity" isn't responsible for accessing metalminds, just that it's not a Cognitive trait. Look again at what he said in the post prior to the one you quoted. 

9 hours ago, Yata said:

The Spiritual Identity (actually the only "Identity" knowed in the Cosmere as Term) is like a waveform or maybe it's better to call it a tag present in all the Spirit Web. The Investiture intereferes with other Investiture if the Identies doesn't match.

He was just disputing the Cognitive part of it. 

[AbsentKeeper he/him]

31 minutes ago, Calderis said:

You misunderstood. He didn't say that "Identity" isn't responsible for accessing metalminds, just that it's not a Cognitive trait. Look again at what he said in the post prior to the one you quoted. 

He was just disputing the Cognitive part of it. 

If that is indeed what he meant, then most of my last post is pointless. However, before that, I had already clarified that the word 'cognitive' was just a slip on my part, and that I meant the real life usage (dealing with the mind and memory), not in refrence to the Realmatic Realm.

With that understanding, I still dont understand what @Yata was trying to say.

Edit: if its just more semantics problems, you can just ignore this. We've already established that I have a tendency to cause all kinds of confusion by picking the wrong word, all because I like to sound eloquent. 

Edited September 3, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Yata he/him]

Yeah probably it's better to forget the whole semantic issue because this topic is already too confused and wild in the arguments and I am sorry if I replied in a messy way.

My post was simply to define that both YOUR "Cognitive Identity" and "Spiritual Identity" (with the definition you had for those terms) are not the "Identity" in the Realmatic Theory (and therefore neither the trait you store/tap from an Alluminiumind). The rest was just to show you the reason and the in-book proof of the Identity's Nature.

But you said that Oversleep already clarified this (probably I missed some posts when I recoveded this thread) so my post was probably pointless.

[AbsentKeeper he/him]

5 hours ago, Yata said:

Yeah probably it's better to forget the whole semantic issue because this topic is already too confused and wild in the arguments and I am sorry if I replied in a messy way.

My post was simply to define that both YOUR "Cognitive Identity" and "Spiritual Identity" (with the definition you had for those terms) are not the "Identity" in the Realmatic Theory (and therefore neither the trait you store/tap from an Alluminiumind). The rest was just to show you the reason and the in-book proof of the Identity's Nature.

But you said that Oversleep already clarified this (probably I missed some posts when I recoveded this thread) so my post was probably pointless.

I actually looked back, and I thought it had been addressed it more than it actually had been, it was barely mentioned. I agree with what you're saying here, I was just trying to express how I think (capital) Identity works and not doing a very good job. The problem with the words is that I think (lowercase) identity has a much broader use than the very specific way that it applies to realmatics. Same with 'cognitive'

Edit: for reference, I subscribe to @The One Who Connects ideas about identity for the most part, which he so kindly linked just above.

Edited September 3, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Fezzik]

Q: Is the programming-esque nature of the Dor a product of the power being in the Cognitive Realm or is it for some other reason?

A: A mixture of the Vessels' personalities, the fact that the power's in the Cognitive Realm, and the nature of Sel's focus. 

The focus is of sel, not the vessels

[AbsentKeeper he/him]

2 hours ago, john203 said:

Q: Is the programming-esque nature of the Dor a product of the power being in the Cognitive Realm or is it for some other reason?

A: A mixture of the Vessels' personalities, the fact that the power's in the Cognitive Realm, and the nature of Sel's focus. 

The focus is of sel, not the vessels

This WoB is helpful, but far from definitive since its paraphrased, and the wording isn't completely clear in the first place. Just because Sel only has one focus, that doesn't mean that a different world couldn't have more than one, seeing as Sel also only has one magic system.

(I feel the need to state again that I'm arguing this theory for scholarship related reasons, not because I actually believe it. However, I am very skeptical of the fact that every world only has one focus, if only because most everyone accepts it but Brandon seems to not want to confirm it outright.)

Slightly unrelated comments:

1) Does anyone think that they have insight into what consitutes a 'different system' to Brandon? We know from WoBs that Sel's magics are all considered one system but Roshar's and Scadrial's are not, which is strange to me, as Sel's systems seem to be just as varied in effects as Scadrial's.

2)On the topic of foci, do we have any idea why the different ones are what they are? Metal is the easy one to explain away, since Ruin and Preservation created the planet with lots of metals, but why commands for Nalthis, for example? Almost every human being across the cosmere gives commands to other people or animals, so why are the ones given on Nathis special? Just something Adonalsium did way back when?

Edit: Not even on Nathis, just by people from there.

Edited September 4, 2017 by Cowmanthethird
Clarification