Gencon Hemalurgy WoB (Random realmatic discussion)

[Oversleep]

28 minutes ago, Extesian said:

But I'm wondering if we're being too presumptive that we understand focus properly

Quote

Question

What is the definition of a focus (in The Way of Kings' Ars Arcanum)?

Brandon Sanderson

Foci, though linked to the magic system, are more like artifacts of the philosophy surrounding the magic system. A focus is a philosophical concept, rather than a hardfast rule related to the magic system. A man-made, artificial way of explaining the magic system. Like the periodic table.

It's Argent's WoB and he said (when asked "body focus or magic focus?"), I quote:

Quote

It comes from the AA...

So whatever Khriss means by it

And Khriss in WoK only used focus as in Body Focus.

So that one is not about "magic focus" we talk about.

Edited August 23, 2017 by Oversleep

[AbsentKeeper]

1 hour ago, Oversleep said:

It's Argent's WoB and he said (when asked "body focus or magic focus?"), I quote:

And Khriss in WoK only used focus as in Body Focus.

So that one is not about "magic focus" we talk about.

Ahhh, that makes so much more sense.

I was lost but I was like "If its a WoB, I can't argue with it."

Completely forgot about the Rosharan body focuses.

Edited August 23, 2017 by Cowmanthethird
Capitalization

[Calderis]

First off, I edited the thread title to reflect the nature of how the discussion her has changed. 

Now to the discussion. @Cowmanthethird, I have a couple of things to add. First a question based on the following WoB.

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1160#72

Quote

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.

The focus of the Metallic Arts is by all evidence so far Metal. For another shards Godmetal to have a use in any of the three systems they would need to have invested into Scadrial to create the connection needed, otherwise, like answers have implied towards Shardblades and Nightblood, the metal would (most likely) be inert. 

In the instance of Trellium (whatever its real name may be) for it to have been used for the spikes we've seen, it should also have an allomantic and feruchemical effect, and this means that some other Shard has invested into Scadrial in secret. 

If metal is not the focus of Hemalurgy, why would metal that has never previously existed in the system suddenly gain that ability? Why wouldn't there suddenly be new Bind points associated with that Shard? Why are there bind points for every magic system, if a known focus for Feruchemy and Allomancy requires investiture in Scadrial for the produced metals of a Shard to have a correlating effect? 

And that leads into my other point. Not a question. 

Bind points as the focus for hemalurgy seems off to me because "bind points" is a hemalurgic term for spike placement, but those points aren't a product of Hemalurgy. They are conflux point between the spiritweb and the body that coincide with attributes as they are expressed physically. That's why hemalurgy can be used Cosmere wide. If the bind points were a product of Hemalurgy itself, you'd need a connection to Scadrial in order to have them, but they are a part of the cosmere which allows hemalurgy to take things non-native to its system.

Think of it this way. The metals are able to house a category of traits, as with Feruchemy. So if you understand what the Metal is capable of, and you understand the spiritweb as it applies to whatever world you are in, you can steal what is needed, and place it correctly on yourself. Not because of the "bind points" themselves, but because you are able to figure out what metal is needed to house the proper shaped construct of investiture (because that's exactly what I stolen, a portion of the spirit that happens to contain the instructions for the body to access magic) and where to place it in your own body in order for your spirit to be tricked into believing that that sDNA belongs there.

The spiritweb is made of Investiture. The Metal involved in hemalurgy takes that investiture and snips of a piece which is then contained in the metal. That is in many ways the extent and purpose of what hemalurgy does. It takes. It decays it Ruin's. It attempts to then have that power leak away and weaken and in doing so that power attempts to reach outside of the spike. So when it is then placed in a naturally existing conflux point on a person that coincides with the portion of spirit that was stolen, the investiture attempting to leak out is pressed against the correct spiritual matrix to function. 

I'm my mind, the nature of Hemalurgy was never meant to give ability to anyone. Just to take. The spiritual aspect of people made for a happy accident that Ruin was more than happy to take advantage of, especially after building the hole into things that are spiked.

I'm attempting to get across my personal thoughts on how this stuff works, and there's another piece that I can't find words for, so I'll stop for now and if the conversation leads to an opportunity to spit it out more easily, I'll get to it then. 

[AbsentKeeper]

Edit: Warning, enormous wall of text incoming. Like "make the Star Wars crawl jealous" enormous.

You've got a lot of good points here, and I know that I'll miss stuff if I try to answer it all in one go, so I'll try to break it down in manageable chunks.

(Also keep in mind that I've been convinced, and I'm mostly just arguing this now on the off chance it turns up something significant.)

10 hours ago, Calderis said:

 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1160#72

The focus of the Metallic Arts is by all evidence so far Metal. For another shards Godmetal to have a use in any of the three systems they would need to have invested into Scadrial to create the connection needed, otherwise, like answers have implied towards Shardblades and Nightblood, the metal would (most likely) be inert. 

I honestly didn't really think about this aspect. I can see this interpretation for why other invested metal objects, besides the usual metals, are not burnable, but I always just assumed that Shardblade/plate and Nightblood were filled with thier own keyed Investiture, which would be more like burning Fuerchemists stores without the ablilty to use Feruchemy. Do we have any more information on this point, or has all of what we've gotten been too vauge?

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.

On the topic of god metals... I don't really know what to think about them. I definitely think that they should be considered separately from the structure of the systems normally. They're strange in a number of ways; they provide the power themselves rather than acting as a key (or Atium does at least), their abilities seem to have no rhyme or reason compared to the (very few) other god metals we know, and they also seem to ignore the normal limitations of thier parent system, in that Lerasium rewrites the spiritweb, avoiding the need for proper genetics, and an Atium spike can steal any attribute, avoiding the need for different kinds of spikes. Harmonium and trellium, I don't think we really understand at all yet, except that Harmonium allows magic use by an inanimate objects, and Trellium does things for kandra that not even Atium can.

Personally, I think the God metals might be allowed to hack the system a bit, because of the way they're fueled directly by a Shard, rather than acting as a key.

10 hours ago, Calderis said:

In the instance of Trellium (whatever its real name may be) for it to have been used for the spikes we've seen, it should also have an allomantic and feruchemical effect, and this means that some other Shard has invested into Scadrial in secret. 

Sidebar:

That WoB definitely does suggests that 'Trell' is actually on Scadrial, and heavily invested, and this is news to me!

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.

10 hours ago, Calderis said:

If metal is not the focus of Hemalurgy, why would metal that has never previously existed in the system suddenly gain that ability?

Why wouldn't there suddenly be new Bind points associated with that Shard?

On the first point, this is one of the main problems I was trying to reconcile before I posted this theory, and I came up with a few ideas, none that were very strong though. Perhaps it has something to do with Wyndle's statement about condensed shardic power being connected to metal. Perhaps it has something to do with what I said above about god metals breaking the rules and just being very poorly understood at the moment. Like I said, nothing solid here.

The second point is easier, thankfully, because that last one makes my brain hurt. As I see it, It could be that there are new bindpoints associated with Trell. This actually fixes a lot of problems with trellium, because it can be explained that the new abilities of trellium in Hemalurgy are just caused by placing a god metal, which can steal any attribute, into the new bindpoint(s).

10 hours ago, Calderis said:

Why are there bind points for every magic system, if a known focus for Feruchemy and Allomancy requires investiture in Scadrial for the produced metals of a Shard to have a correlating effect? 

I might have to ask you to clarify this bit, I don't know if I'm reading this right.

If you're asking why there are appropriate bindpoints for placing investiture forms that aren't native to Scadrial, then I don't understand why that is a problem for this theory.

Brandon has said a few times that cross system powers could involve some sort of hack, I hypothesize that part of the need for this hack comes from the fact that off-world things don't fit perfectly with hemalurgy, its just easier than most magic systems because of the amount of options for placing the spike where it's relatively close to fitting the spiritweb, and then warping it the rest of the way there.

10 hours ago, Calderis said:

 Bind points as the focus for hemalurgy seems off to me because "bind points" is a hemalurgic term for spike placement, but those points aren't a product of Hemalurgy. They are conflux point between the spiritweb and the body that coincide with attributes as they are expressed physically. That's why hemalurgy can be used Cosmere wide. If the bind points were a product of Hemalurgy itself, you'd need a connection to Scadrial in order to have them, but they are a part of the cosmere which allows hemalurgy to take things non-native to its system.

I see what you're saying here, but I don't think that the bindpoints have to be a product of Hemalurgy to be the focus. Surely iron, copper, and gold all existed elsewhere in the cosmere before Presevervation and Ruin created Scadrial, but they weren't able to be used for Allomancy or Feruchemy before then. The bindpoints should be the same, in that they exist all across the cosmere, but weren't able to be manipulated until Ruin's Investiture created a way to rip chunks out of them.

With the metals as the focus, shouldn't there still be the same problem of the metal needing a connection to Ruin, in order to be useful for stealing? 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.

(Notice I don't say Ruin created Hemalurgy, as I think its likely that Shards don't control a lot of the specifics, but rather they arise naturally out of the intent and general plan the Shard has. That's a whole 'nother topic though)

10 hours ago, Calderis said:

 Think of it this way. The metals are able to house a category of traits, as with Feruchemy. So if you understand what the Metal is capable of, and you understand the spiritweb as it applies to whatever world you are in, you can steal what is needed, and place it correctly on yourself. Not because of the "bind points" themselves, but because you are able to figure out what metal is needed to house the proper shaped construct of investiture (because that's exactly what I stolen, a portion of the spirit that happens to contain the instructions for the body to access magic) and where to place it in your own body in order for your spirit to be tricked into believing that that sDNA belongs there.

The spiritweb is made of Investiture. The Metal involved in hemalurgy takes that investiture and snips of a piece which is then contained in the metal. That is in many ways the extent and purpose of what hemalurgy does. It takes. It decays it Ruin's. It attempts to then have that power leak away and weaken and in doing so that power attempts to reach outside of the spike. So when it is then placed in a naturally existing conflux point on a person that coincides with the portion of spirit that was stolen, the investiture attempting to leak out is pressed against the correct spiritual matrix to function.

I agree with almost all of this, as the actual mechanics of how it works are mostly the same either way. The main problem that I have with the current model of Hemalurgy is as follows, however.

One spike can steal four different powers (or maybe eight, if you go back to the F.gold problem) 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.

10 hours ago, Calderis said:

I'm my mind, the nature of Hemalurgy was never meant to give ability to anyone. Just to take. The spiritual aspect of people made for a happy accident that Ruin was more than happy to take advantage of, especially after building the hole into things that are spiked.

I would agree that Hemalurgy was never intended to allow the transfer of powers, but I don't know if I would say that its only purpose was to take investiture from things. Why take it, if it's just going to return to its Shard slowly through decay? I think it's fairly likely that the original intent was to Ruin the souls of the people on both ends of the transfer, by creating Hemalurgic constructs, such as the Kolos, to further spread destruction.

That last bit is really only speculation, but I've thought that for a while (independent of this theory), and it seems plausible to me.

10 hours ago, Calderis said:

I'm attempting to get across my personal thoughts on how this stuff works, and there's another piece that I can't find words for, so I'll stop for now and if the conversation leads to an opportunity to spit it out more easily, I'll get to it then. 

You hit my feelings on the head here. Even though I'm almost certain my theory is wrong at this point, I still feel like there's something nebulous there that I can't quite explain.

We need more storming information!

*Breathes deeply*

... I'm done? That was it? Whew that took a long time to type out 

Edited August 24, 2017 by Cowmanthethird
Edited for clarification, spelling, Capitalization, and other nonsense

[Calderis]

16 hours ago, 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.

That's exactly my thought. The system on Scadrial is established now, so Trell can inject itself into the system and create new a new metal, and therefore new effects in each of the three systems, but is limited to that in the same way that the Shards on Roshar are limited in making things to bond with (splinters like the Honorblades, or spren). 

16 hours ago, Cowmanthethird said:

The second point is easier, thankfully, because that last one makes my brain hurt. As I see it, It could be that there are new bindpoints associated with Trell. This actually fixes a lot of problems with trellium, because it can be explained that the new abilities of trellium in Hemalurgy are just caused by placing a god metal, which can steal any attribute, into the new bindpoint(s).

The idea of new bind points really bothers me, because it seems like it would have to involve changing the physical and/or spiritual form of literally every sentient creature in the Cosmere. 

Also, if bind points are the focus, why are there bind points which correlate to systems with no investment in Scadrial? 

16 hours ago, Cowmanthethird said:

One spike can steal four different powers (or maybe eight, if you go back to the F.gold problem) 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.

And as Oversleep pointed out earlier, this is not an issue at all. Tin can hold any sense. People don't think of it, but I'm sure you could store your sense of proprioception. 

Nicrosil can store literally any form of investiture, be it Allomancy, Feruchemy, etc. If you have nicrosil feruchemy and any other abilities you can store them. That's far more variance than any spike. 

 

[AbsentKeeper]

2 hours ago, Calderis said:

The idea of new bind points really bothers me, because it seems like it would have to involve changing the physical and/or spiritual form of literally every sentient creature in the Cosmere. 

Also, if bind points are the focus, why are there bind points which correlate to systems with no investment in Scadrial? 

I think this is mostly a semantic problem. The 'new' bindpoints don't have to be newly created when Trell arrived, they already existed, they just weren't useful for magic.

Look at it this way, if the base metals already existed elsewhere before Preservation created Allomancy, then it can't be that every atom of metal in the cosmere was changed at that moment. To me, it makes more sense that it was Preservations Investiture that changed shape so that the already existing structure of metals would act as a gateway. The god metals are more confusing though, because they didn't exist anywhere in the cosmere before thier parent Shards created them.

As for bind points for other investitures, as I said earlier, I hypothesize that there aren't specific bind points for off world systems, but rather that the nature of Hemalurgy (warping the spiritweb) allows you to put a charged spike somewhere 'close enough' that the power manages to get through.

For example, the power of a shielding Aviar could potentially be placed in the bindpoint for copper Allomancy, and the investiture in the spike damages the spiritweb enough for the power to get through. Similarly, an Elantrian's functional immortality could be 'close enough' to the investiture used by Atium Feruchemy,  and the telekinetic abilies of Sand Mastery could be similar to steel pushing. Perhaps the more the web needs to be warped, the more decay there is, or the more spikes are needed.

2 hours ago, Calderis said:

And as Oversleep pointed out earlier, this is not an issue at all. Tin can hold any sense. People don't think of it, but I'm sure you could store your sense of proprioception. 

Nicrosil can store literally any form of investiture, be it Allomancy, Feruchemy, etc. If you have nicrosil feruchemy and any other abilities you can store them. That's far more variance than any spike. 

 

I may have to concede on this point if I can't think of a better way to express my thoughts. The way I see it though, the 5 different senses aren't 5 separately keyed sources of investiture, they're only split up like that because that's the human perception of them. I don't think its possible to have a tin ferring who can only store eyesight, for instance, because they are all one power. Pewter and tin, however, are very differently keyed investitures, as shown by the fact that a misting can only ever naturally burn one type of metal. If the investiture sources were as similar as one 'type' of tinmind is to another, I would expect to see misting and ferrings each being able to access a whole quadrent of abilities.

Nicrosil, I see as a completely different thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but nicrosil doesn't actually store Investiture, it stores whatever ability to use investiture that is in your spiritweb. You still need metals to burn, or a metalmind to tap in order to actually make use of whatever you're tapping from a nicrosilmind, so it seems likely to me that what nicrosil actually stores is 'spiritual identity'. E.g. You store the part of your SDNA that makes you a feruchemist, not the actual investiture accessed by the powers.

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.

Edited August 24, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Calderis]

13 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

I think this is mostly a semantic problem. The 'new' bindpoints don't have to be newly created when Trell arrived, they already existed, they just weren't useful for magic.

Look at it this way, if the base metals already existed elsewhere before Preservation created Allomancy, then it can't be that every atom of metal in the cosmere was changed at that moment. To me, it makes more sense that it was Preservations Investiture that changed shape so that the already existing structure of metals would act as a gateway. The god metals are more confusing though, because they didn't exist anywhere in the cosmere before thier parent Shards created them.

I don't think this one is semantics. I think it's the difference between the formation of a entirely new system, and adding to one that's there. 

Preservation didn't change the metals, the magic system incorporated naturally occurring resources according to it's focus. When the Metallic Arts were initially forming they were built to fit into something that natural fits into the world, and since those resources occur Cosmere wide, any of them are usable if you have the correct sDNA to utilize them. 

Trell on the other hand is introducing itself into an already existing system and can therefore only add to it, i.e Trellium. 

18 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

Nicrosil, I see as a completely different thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but nicrosil doesn't actually store Investiture, it stores whatever ability to use investiture that is in your spiritweb. You still need metals to burn, or a metalmind to tap in order to actually make use of whatever you're tapping from a nicrosilmind, so it seems likely to me that what nicrosil actually stores is 'spiritual identity'. You store the part of your SDNA that makes you a feruchemist, not the actual investiture accessed by the powers.

It is the ability to use investiture as you say, but if they are all that similar, what differentiates them? Why are there mistings and not just Mistborn? Why are there bind points to begin with? 

The variance in the attributes is far more complex, in my opinion, then the differences your willing to accept in tin Feruchemy. 

[AbsentKeeper]

41 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I don't think this one is semantics. I think it's the difference between the formation of a entirely new system, and adding to one that's there. 

I don't get what you're saying here? I'm not proposing that Trell created a whole new system after the fact, only that (if there are 2 focuses on Scadrial, both metal and bindpoints) that he should have gotten to add to both of them when he invested, not just one. 'Adding' to the system of bindpoints wouldn't require creating new ones, only shaping his investiture so that it fits a bindpoint that didn't do anything specific before.

 

41 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Preservation didn't change the metals, the magic system incorporated naturally occurring resources according to it's focus. When the Metallic Arts were initially forming they were built to fit into something that natural fits into the world, and since those resources occur Cosmere wide, any of them are usable if you have the correct sDNA to utilize them. 

Trell on the other hand is introducing itself into an already existing system and can therefore only add to it, i.e Trellium. 

This is exactly what I'm saying about Preservation. It should be the same for Hemalurgy and Bindpoints, with the caveat that Hemalurgy already doesn't require specific SDNA, so it can be used by anyone.

Again, I agree with this statement about Trell, with the caveat that, if there are two systems on the planet he invested, he should be able to add to both focuses. 

41 minutes ago, Calderis said:

It is the ability to use investiture as you say, but if they are all that similar, what differentiates them? Why are there mistings and not just Mistborn? Why are there bind points to begin with? 

Im not saying they're all the same, I'm saying the opposite. Thats 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. It works with bindpoints, because all of the points we've seen used for stealing are in the heart, so the argument can be made that the heart is where all of the SDNA relating to magic use is stored, and the metal acts as a modifiers for what to pull out.

As I understand it, mistings are the natural state of magic users on Scadrial, and the only reason there are Mistborn is because of Preservations direct influce, in the form of Lerasium. All Mistborn have had thier SDNA (or an ancestors) rewritten by Lerasium to contain all of the separate parts for each Allomantic power together.

As for why there are bindpoints, I don't know that we can explain that any more than "why are there metals?" They just seem to be a natural occurrence in the Cosmere due to the interactions of the three realms.

41 minutes ago, Calderis said:

The variance in the attributes is far more complex, in my opinion, then the differences your willing to accept in tin Feruchemy. 

I don't quite understand this part? Are you saying that the variety of things stolen by hemalurgy is greater than the variety of the senses? Or that the difference between the senses is greater than I think? Or something about the variety of things storable by Feruchemy as a whole ?

Edited August 24, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, Cowmanthethird said:

(if there are 2 focuses on Scadrial, both metal and bindpoints)

My biggest problem still remains this. I don't believe multiple foci can arise from one shardworld. 

[Toaster Retribution]

If we are discussing focus (which we apparently are) I just want to jump in and give my view of Roshars focus. I think that the most logical thing is that it is centered around bonds, not spren. Partly because of thematic reasons. Bonds, honor, oaths are all things that Brandon are delving into in Stormlight, and that makes me feel like it makes sense if bonds are the focus. There are also a lot of bonds in the story. Furthermore, we can look at Syl and Kaladin, and Syls death in WoR because of Kaladins oathbreaking. If the spren had been the focus, Syl should be more in control, and be able to stay by Kaladins side and give him Surgebinding no matter what oaths he breaks. But Syl isn´t in control. The bond is, and if it breaks, she dies, and Kaladin loses his powers.

It also looks like the magic and ecology of Roshar are dependent on the symbiosis between spren and other lifeforms. Symbiosis is the important word here. The spren receives things from the bonds too, in the case with the KR, it is becoming sentient, retaining memory and understanding the world around them in a better way. The humans get powers. If the bond breaks, the spren dies, and the human loses the powers. The fact that the spren get something as well points to the bond being the important thing, the focus.

Furthermore, if spren were the focus, I feel as if they wouldn´t need the bond. They would just be able to gift Surgebinding to everyone they came across. Pattern could give Illumination to Jasnah, Syl could give Gravitation to Adolin, and so on, and Kaladin and Shallan would still have their powers. The spren can only grant powers when they have the bond. That should imply that they aren´t really in charge, but the bonds are. 

By the way, @Calderis, why do you say foci all the time?

Edited August 24, 2017 by Toaster Retribution

[Calderis]

7 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

The humans get powers. If the bond breaks, the spren dies, and the human loses the powers. The fact that the spren get something as well points to the bond being the important thing, the focus.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

I've been trying to put this into feeling into words for so long and the thoughts just wouldn't form. You summed up my feelings so much more succinctly than I've ever been able to. 

[AbsentKeeper]

14 minutes ago, Calderis said:

My biggest problem still remains this. I don't believe multiple foci can arise from one shardworld. 

I know, I know, its still a long shot for me too, but it is the big caveat that makes a lot of these things not conflict with either system of looking at it.

I feel like I have to pretend that there can be, for this theory to have any credence at all.

If you do accept that one assumption, a lot of things start to line up just as well as they do in the old system, just not much better 

14 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

If we are discussing focus (which we apparently are) I just want to jump in and give my view of Roshars focus. I think that the most logical thing is that it is centered around bonds, not spren. 

I totally agree with you here, and I know that Calderis does too.

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the discrepancies I pointed out in Roshars magics in an earlier post (I'll quote a bit of it in a second)

Quote

Surgebinding obviously has both spren and bonds, but 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,) and the ancient types, such as soulcasters, don't use spren at all, nor do they seem to require bonds, only infused gems. The Old Magic 'binds' you to a boon and curse, and its made by a spren, I guess, but both of those are a stretch in my book.

Edit: Calderis already gave some fairly good possibilities about these on page 1, but more thoughts are always better. I think we decided that we don't have enough info yet.

 

Edited August 24, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Calderis]

15 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

By the way, @Calderis, why do you say foci all the time?

It's the plural form of focus. 

[AbsentKeeper]

9 minutes ago, Calderis said:

It's the plural form of focus. 

I believe it's one of those weird ones, where either 'foci' or 'focuses' are both technically correct.

Edit: Apparently its actually the difference between the noun form (the foci of Scadrial are...) and the verb form (the focuses were on politics and magic)

The things you learn with a quick Google.

Edited August 24, 2017 by Cowmanthethird
Made my second example right...

[Oversleep]

1 hour ago, Cowmanthethird said:

Nicrosil, I see as a completely different thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but nicrosil doesn't actually store Investiture, it stores whatever ability to use investiture that is in your spiritweb

58 minutes ago, Calderis said:

It is the ability to use investiture as you say

No, nicrosil stores Innate Investiture. The various "abilities to use manifestations of Investiture" are hardwritten in the soul, and soul is made of Investiture. Just like Hemalurgy steals Innate Investiture. It's the same thing. Theoretically - I think - you could store and tap much more than just abilities.

1 hour ago, Cowmanthethird said:

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.

Aluminum is Spiritual Feruchemical metal. Identity is Spiritual attribute. Nicrosil stores parts of your Spiritweb.

17 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Furthermore, if spren were the focus, I feel as if they wouldn´t need the bond. They would just be able to gift Surgebinding to everyone they came across. Pattern could give Illumination to Jasnah, Syl could give Gravitation to Adolin, and so on, and Kaladin and Shallan would still have their powers. The spren can only grant powers when they have the bond. That should imply that they aren´t really in charge, but the bonds are. 

... what?
Why? This train of thought is very strange to me. Allomancers need to have proper spiritual genes and Feruchemists too; having metal does nothing by itself.

Surgebinders bond spren. Listeners merge with the spren (notice lack of any bond whatsoever, as they fuse into one being). Why the fact that spren are focus would make them suddenly able to grant powers to anyone?

[Calderis]

@Toaster Retribution The point people always bring up about spren being the focus is Fabrials. "there's no bond there" and I disagree. That's looking at bonds too narrowly. 

With a Nahel bond there is symbiosis, there is mutual gain as you said. Captive spren are still subject to a bond. It's why they are captive. It's the root of the word bondage, and why we say someone is bound. 

I firmly believe that bonds are the focus because different types of bonds express themselves differently. With symbiosis benefiting both. Captivity benefitting the captor, and as with the Voidspren a parasitic bond taking complete.

Yes the Parshendi take a new form, and gain in power, but the lose themselves. The voidspren take control (or an unmade through the Spren itself). The type of bond changes the way the power is used.

Edit: @Oversleep 

Quote

Surgebinders bond spren. Listeners merge with the spren (notice lack of any bond whatsoever, as they fuse into one being). Why the fact that spren are focus would make them suddenly able to grant powers to anyone?

There's not an emotional bond, but as they are more inherently Cognitive creatures and take the Spren into themselves, I think the Spren is bound in exactly the same way as a Fabrial. 

Edited August 24, 2017 by Calderis

[AbsentKeeper]

12 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

No, nicrosil stores Innate Investiture. The various "abilities to use manifestations of Investiture" are hardwritten in the soul, and soul is made of Investiture. Just like Hemalurgy steals Innate Investiture. It's the same thing. Theoretically - I think - you could store and tap much more than just abilities.

Aluminum is Spiritual Feruchemical metal. Identity is Spiritual attribute. Nicrosil stores parts of your Spiritweb.

 If nicrosil stores any investiture, and the only reason it can store part of your spiritweb is because it's Investiture (rather than storing part of the spiritweb being its only ability, like I propose), then why do you also need a filled metalmind in order to use the power? Why can't both that Investiture and the coded spiritweb bit both be in the nicrosilmind? Why, also, does Allomancy gained via tapping nicrosil still require metals to pull investiture from Preservation?

The second part is pretty much exactly what I believe, I just think that storing part of your spiritweb is all that nicrosil does. Otherwise, every other power is essentially useless.

Edited August 24, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Oversleep]

4 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

 If nicrosil stores any investiture, and the only reason it can store part of your spiritweb is because its investiture (rather than storing part of the spiritweb being its only ability, like I propose), then why do you also need a filled metalmind in order to access the power? Why cant both that investiture and the coded spiritweb bit both be in the nicrosilmind? Why, also, does Allomancy gained via tapping nicrosil still require metals to pull investiture from Preservation?

Because of the difference between Innate Investiture and Kinetic Investiture. And no, nicrosil does not store any Investiture, only the Innate kind. Only the kind that's in your soul.

Even without another metalmind you're a Feruchemist for the time being. You don't need another metalmind for anything (apart from the fact it's handy); you can store just fine and you'll be able to tap what you stored too.

Even without a metal to burn you're an Allomancer for the time being. But Allomancers need metals to burn and so do you.

16 minutes ago, Calderis said:

There's not an emotional bond, but as they are more inherently Cognitive creatures and take the Spren into themselves, I think the Spren is bound in exactly the same way as a Fabrial. 

I see it differently. Just like any metal can be used in any of the Three Metallic Arts, any spren can work within any of the Rosharan magics (I can dig up a WoB if you want).

In Scadrial's case, some people metabolize the metal, some store things in it by touch and some stab people with it to transfer parts of soul.
In Roshar's case, some people bond the spren, some merge with them, and... <third system unknown, error>.

[AbsentKeeper]

16 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

Because of the difference between Innate Investiture and Kinetic Investiture. And no, nicrosil does not store any Investiture, only the Innate kind. Only the kind that's in your soul.

Even without another metalmind you're a Feruchemist for the time being. You don't need another metalmind for anything (apart from the fact it's handy); you can store just fine and you'll be able to tap what you stored too.

Even without a metal to burn you're an Allomancer for the time being. But Allomancers need metals to burn and so do you.

I guess I'm not really understanding what you're saying here. As far as I understand, your spiritweb is the only innate Investiture. The Investiture that comes from tapping a metalmind, or burning a metal are not 'in your soul' so you cannot store them in nicrosil, only the coded bits of spiritweb.

I guess I want to know what else you think is hardcoded this way, other than the SDNA for various magic systems?

Edit: A little bit of clarification, I thought that innate Investiture would be something you're born with, like the tiny bit of spiritweb that codes you for magic use, and that it wouldn't include any power actually drawn from somewhere, in the process of using magic.

Edited August 24, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Calderis]

12 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

Because of the difference between Innate Investiture and Kinetic Investiture. And no, nicrosil does not store any Investiture, only the Innate kind. Only the kind that's in your soul.

Even without another metalmind you're a Feruchemist for the time being. You don't need another metalmind for anything (apart from the fact it's handy); you can store just fine and you'll be able to tap what you stored too.

Even without a metal to burn you're an Allomancer for the time being. But Allomancers need metals to burn and so do you.

I see it differently. Just like any metal can be used in any of the Three Metallic Arts, any spren can work within any of the Rosharan magics (I can dig up a WoB if you want).

In Scadrial's case, some people metabolize the metal, some store things in it by touch and some stab people with it to transfer parts of soul.
In Roshar's case, some people bond the spren, some merge with them, and... <third system unknown, error>.

OK. Then why would a Seon bond produce an effect? Why is it theorized that Nightblood will grant something to Szeth? Yes these are splinters, but (unless there's something we don't know with Nightblood, which is possible) they have no Rosharan investment on the part of their Shards or their creation. If the focus is spren, wouldn't a Shard have to have invested in Roshar and be connected to it in the same way as God entails on Scadrial? 

With the bond as the focus, a natural part of the workings of Roshar I think that any bond involving investiture will express itself magically. 

That's why I don't believe that ancient soulcasters don't utilize spren. I think their creator's were able to partially mimic the Honorblades and you create a bond with the item itself. You just need to feed investiture in via gems to use it.

Edit: @Cowmanthethird the innate investiture interpretation (which I agree with, I just haven't discussed this enough to understand well) means you should be able to store anything written into your soul. What all that constitutes... I don't know, but as Oversleep mentioned, this is the same thing hemalurgy actually steals, so you should be able to store damnation near anything... 

Edited August 24, 2017 by Calderis

[AbsentKeeper]

19 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Edit: @Cowmanthethird the innate investiture interpretation (which I agree with, I just haven't discussed this enough to understand well) means you should be able to store anything written into your soul. What all that constitutes... I don't know, but as Oversleep mentioned, this is the same thing hemalurgy actually steals, so you should be able to store damnation near anything... 

I agree with this interpretation, but I do have serious questions about what is actually coded into the soul.

If we can use what Hemalurgy can steal as a benchmark, then that means the only things nicrosil can store (other than 'ability to use ____ magic') are the human attributes that make Kandra and Koloss...

I don't know if it would be a good idea to store or tap very much of any of those, but it theoretically should be possible.

*Half joking*

Thoughts on nicrosil ferrings tapping thier human strength to temporarily become akin to less warped Koloss?

Absolutely terrifying.

Edited August 24, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Toaster Retribution]

@Oversleep The part of my reasoning that you pointed out is the part that I myself felt was the weakest. I wasn't sure if that would hold up to scrutiny. If I get to try again, I guess I would say that spren are dependent on a bond to be able to gift powers to people/greatshells/whatever. They can't do it on their own, and they can only bond one person. This gave me a new idea however: if we can continue using the example of allomancy, we will see that the abilities to burn metals are required to be in your DNA/spiritweb. Otherwise, swallowing metals will not do you anything. In my line of reasoning, spren are the DNA, at least when it comes to KR bonds. You need to be able to attract a spren, in order to form the bond. The spren comes first and the bond is second, and activates the powers. In the same vein, the DNA is first in Allomancy, and the metals come after, and activate it. 

@Calderis I agree with all the things you said about Listeners and fabrials. 

@Cowmanthethird Theorizing about Cosmere magic is something I am fairly bad at, at least normally. I try to learn stuff and become better, but I dont know how much help I can give you on the soulcasting and Old Magic. My immediate thoughts are that the soulcasters without spren might suffer from something similar to Shardblades (being dead). That feels unlikely though. Is it possoble that the soulcasters bond directly with the humans? I think I read that suggestion somewhere (might have been Calderis, or you, or someone else). 

When it comes to the Old Magic: it's wierd and mysterious, and to quote Khriss "something else enitrely." I take that to mean that it doesn't necessarily need to be bound by the same rules, or have the same focus as the other magics on Roshar.

Anyway, I feel kind of honored that you think that I might have stuff to add. I hope that what I wrote is of some help. I shall consider these issues some more.

[Oversleep]

3 minutes ago, Cowmanthethird said:

I agree with this interpretation, but I do have serious questions about what is actually coded into the soul.

If we can use what Hemalurgy can steal as a benchmark, then that means the only things nicrosil can store (other than 'ability to use ____ magic') are the human attributes that make Kandra and Koloss...

I don't know if it would be a good idea to store or tap too much of any of those, but it theoretically should be possible.

*Half joking*

Thoughts on nicrosil ferrings tapping thier human strength to temporarily become akin to less warped Koloss?

Absolutely terrifying.

That's my line of thinking.

[AbsentKeeper]

7 hours ago, Toaster Retribution said:

 When it comes to the Old Magic: it's wierd and mysterious, and to quote Khriss "something else enitrely." I take that to mean that it doesn't necessarily need to be bound by the same rules, or have the same focus as the other magics on Roshar.

Emphasis mine.

This is primarily the interpretation of Kriss's comments, and what we know about the old magic (and foci in general) that is interesting to me for the purposes of my theory (That the foci of Hemalurgy are bindpoints.) Many people are convinced (for good reasons) that there is only one focus per planet though, thus the heart of the argument 

As Calderis pointed out though, we really don't know enough about the old magic to say.

I do think its possible that soulcasters bond directly with the user, as you and Calderis said.

7 hours ago, Oversleep said:

That's my line of thinking.

I can agree that its possible to store the human attributes that Hemalurgy can steal, because they are (presumably) the parts of the spiritweb that are infused with the innate Investiture that makes us function as sentient beings.

I still say that it would probably be incredibly dangerous to even attempt though, and I don't know if it will ever be used in practice.

For example, if you stored only a small percentage of your human strength, its possible that your heart wouldn't be strong enough to beat, or you might store too much human intelligence and memory and forget how to breathe.

This might be a problem that we run into as nicrosil ferrings become more common, they might discover that they can do things that don't have the magical protections of storing strength in a pewtermind, for instance.

Edit: Note that the above is based on the idea that when you store strength to the utmost of your ability in a normal pewtermind, your innate human strength is still there, and is what's keeping you from dying of heart failure/collapsing under your own weight/ect. I could be totally off with this assumption, but that's how it works in my head.

Edit: I'm honestly a little lost on how we got to this topic. Did something about nicrosil go against my theory or are we just talking about all kinds of crazy stuff now? If so, I have an Excisor theory and a god command theory that have got to go somewhere 

Edited August 25, 2017 by Cowmanthethird

[Yata]

I think we are mixing together some indipendent aspects.

First of all, the Old Magic is not a Magic System so try to make it fit with the Magic Systems' rules we know is probably a good way to screw all, then about the VoidBinding (the famous third Roshar's Magic System) we didn't see it yet (unless it is showed into OB's material, but I didn't read it) and therefore the Listeners' Forms of Power are not Voidbinding (again try to fit others phenomens with the Magic Systems' rules could be useless).

Now I agree with the Bond as Roshar's Focus and I said this for more than a year, but I think on Roshar we could have some problem because as far as we know, some of the "magic expressions" we saw, could be caused by Braize's magics and therefore maybe we are trying to put all under the same set while there are two differents sets living togeher.

Of course (and my previous posts made this quite explicit) I strongly believe as an unique focus for a determinate Shardworld and honestly for now nothing seems to point in other direction. But I have to disagree with Calderis here. I don't think the Shard's injection is a thing and much more I don't think it's the cause of what we saw with the Trellium.

First a general point and then I will going into the specific case:

The Magic Systems arose from Shardic Interactions with the Planets they invested into.

For me this manifest as the Shards' Intent/Mandate dictate how you could access the magic and the planet (who "forces" the Focus) dictate how the Investiture is shaped by mortal users. So a specific planet would have a specific (and unique) focus. If another Shard arrives on a planet with already Shards and magics in it. He would (over time) develop new magics and maybe change a bit under special circumstances the one already present in it (for example, if Endowment travels to Scadrial and Invest into it....maybe over time a new Metallic Art with an Initiation related to Endowment will be born and maybe some other with Endowment in combination of Ruin or Preservation or both).

Other Shards' Investiture could work under a Shardworld's magic if they are compatible. This is the reason any Splinter (Seon, Skaze, Nightblood and possibly Divine Breath,ecc...)  could work with Roshar's Magic.

Indeed this is to me the reason of Trellium working into the Metallic Arts, Trell isn't Invested into Scadrial (no more than Ruin would be Invested of Roshar if some Atium was trasported there) but his Godmetal will automatically be a recipient for the Metallic Arts (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).

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.

Now the tricky part, while with Roshar and Symbiontic Magic this could work perfectly fine at 100%, it's different with Scadrial's magic as it is mostly coded into their S-Web. 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.

EDIT I forgot to mention something, probably it's implicit but for sake of clarity:

The Trellium (and every other godmetal) will be perfectly work into Hemalurgy as a Spike everywhere in the Cosmere not only on Scadrial or because Trell send some of his godmetal there.

To say if Odium creates some Raysium on Braize (I use Odium because he can't move from there), that Raysium is fine for a Spike on Braize.

This is a bit different from Roshar's case where Brandon explicity tell us that Symbiotic magic is boosted there (probably for the weaker boundary between the Realms)

PS: I wrote this whole post just after waking up, probably I will return later to fix some unavoidable grammar horror 

Edited August 25, 2017 by Yata