Potential way to create effectife infinite Investure using Feruchemy (Copper/Nicrosil/Zinc)

[Edgedancer]

Now to preface this, let me name potential problems with this.

1) I have no clue how exaclty storing Investure works. For this to work you have to be able to use it to relocate the investure from one metalmind to the other. If any of you know whether or not this is how Nicrosil operates feel free to enlighten me.

2) For this to work complex memories have to be "worth" more Investure than simpler ones.

3) A Feruchemist/his metalminds would most likely not be capable of dealing with this much investure at once.

 

On to the theory. If you can relocate Investure from your coppermind into the nicrosil mind you could take an unimportant memory, for example that there is a piece of paper on the table, store it and then relocate it. Afterwards you would notice the piece of paper on the table and repete the proces as often as you want to fill you nicrosilmind. (Say this creates Investure at a rate of 1 Investureunit (I) per second (s),)

 

The next step would be to replace the piece of paper with something more detailed, lets say a painting, which hopefully creates more investure. (~100 I/s)

Tapping Zinc would allow you to memorize the picture faster, speding up the copper/nicrsil combi. Depending on the proportion of used up zinc to the win from copper there might be a net gain. (100 I/s*2-50I/s= 150I/s)

 

More Investure leads to more Zinc, which in turn leads to faster copper-gain, which leads to more Investure and so on.

 

Addmidetly, even if all needed assumptions are in facte true, we would still need a field-test to prove this but this was on my mind so I thought I might as well share it.

[Moogle]

The Investiture comes from you, so ultimately I am very confident that there's an upper limit to the amount you can store at any given point. This is a good thought on how to reach that limit, though - I suspect that memories are comparatively little Investiture compared to mental speed, though, so there's not likely to be a net gain.

[Robot Aztec]

use WATER gluglgulgugluglguluglugluglug

[bartbug]

Yeah. This is great and all, but there are easier ways to do something like this. You could use water, which I like, or you could use air or even heat. Jump into a furnace and start storing both, and then you get instant profit. (Plus, you could use the investiture to fHeal yourself, just in case you burn a little bit.)

[Edgedancer]

Yeah. This is great and all, but there are easier ways to do something like this. You could use water, which I like, or you could use air or even heat. Jump into a furnace and start storing both, and then you get instant profit. (Plus, you could use the investiture to fHeal yourself, just in case you burn a little bit.)

The reason I chose memories is the potential way to speed up the process by using Zinc. As I said before, depending on proportions from used Zinc to gained copper one might be able to increase the gain per second into infinity. Also unimportant memories can be stored in every situation without any negative consequences. On the other hand Breath may be neccessary in a chase, you won´t always have limitless water handy and jumping into a furnace ought to friging hurt.

But yes there are other attributes usable to acumulate investure and I have a lot of ifs.

Edited February 19, 2014 by Edgedancer

[Kadrok]

I'm required to begin this post with the phrase: "If the MAG is anything to go by..." to indicate that this is based on how Nicrosil works in the MAG.

 

I've outlined this a bajillion times (not a jab at you), so I'ma just quote myself here...

 

 

Basically you convert something else (Weight, Heat, whatever) into what I like to call "blank" investiture stored in the Nicrosilmind. Then when tapping something else, you can also tap the blank investiture to supplement the other thing you're tapping... you can use like half the strength or healing or whatever by filling in the gap with blank investiture.

 

From what the MAG suggests, you definitely need some of the "flavoured" charges to tell the "blank" ones what to do (in the MAG this manifests as being only able to add as much investiture charges as you've added strength or whatever, meaning there still must be at least 50% real charges).

EDIT: I explain this better somewhere else, so I'm going to keep searching my posts...

 

From what the MAG says, the investiture stored in a Nicrosilmind is "blank" and needs to be shaped in order to be useful. Mechanically speaking this means tapping it alongside something else (like Pewter) to tell the power what to do. This is comparable, I suppose, to the way compounding works... you burn a metal allomantically and that provides access to the power of creation in a specific way. If the metal is Feruchemically charged it rewrites the "instruction", "telling" a different power to come.

 

So, two things:

a) there are different forms of the energy that let you do different things because the systems of investiture are "the power of creation in mortal form", that is a simplified version of the power shards use. I suspect that not even shards use the same undifferentiated power since there seems to be different things you can do with a shards power i.e. Preservation's power couldn't be used to kill Kwaan like Rashek wanted it to, but I imagine Ruin's could.

 

b ) someone who could compound Nicrosil could make a tonne of "blank" investiture, but if the MAG is anything to go by they'd need an equal or greater chunk of "flavoured" investiture for it to be useful... Nicrosil enhances, it doesn't replace.

 

I should probably elaborate. Creating Nicrosil-charges Feruchemically seems to make it undifferentiated... you make it from other stored traits (mostly weight and heat if you're clever) or some other source of power you have access to (you could drain the mists if you could draw on them like Vin can, or store a Nicroburst) and convert it to an undifferentiated power source stored in a Nicrosilmind. When tapping it, as I mentioned, you need to tap it with something else to make it work. The only exception to this is... you can channel the blank power in large amounts into someone else's metalmind, destroying their stored charges.

 

As it happens I have some Brandon quotes to back up my claims that I stole from some of Phantom's posts (useful fellow that). I'll put them in a spoiler box because they're chunky.

 

Thoughts?

 

BRANDON
“People ask about getting the power from metals and things, but that’s not actually how it works. The power’s not coming from metal. I talked a little about this before, but you are drawing power from some source, and the metal is actually just a gateway. It’s actually the molecular structure of the metal… what’s going on there, the pattern, the resonance of that metal works in the same way as an Aon does in Elantris. It filters the power. So it is just a sign of “this is what power this energy is going to be shaped into and give you.” When you understand that, compounding [in Alloy of Law] makes much more sense.
Compounding is where you are able to kind of draw in more power than you should with feruchemy. What’s going on there is you’re actually charging a piece of metal, and then you are burning that metal as a feruchemical charge. What is happening is that the feruchemical charge overwrites the allomantic charge, and so you actually fuel feruchemy with allomancy, is what you are doing. Then if you just get out another piece of metal and store it in, since you’re not drawing the power from yourself, you’re cheating the system, you’re short-circuiting the system a little bit. So you can actually use the power that usually fuels allomancy, to fuel feruchemy, which you can then store in a metalmind, and basically build up these huge reservoirs of it. So what’s going on there is… imagine there’s like, an imprint, a wavelength, so to speak. A beat for an allomantic thing, that when you burn a metal, it says “ok, this is what power we give.” When it’s got that charge, it changes that beat and says, “now we get this power.” And you access a set of feruchemical power. That’s why compounding is so powerful.”
“I can explain this better in person because I know things that the characters in the book don’t. So, they haven’t worked a lot of this out. All the magic systems in my work are linked because the books all take place in the same universe. In Elantris, magic works by drawing symbols in the air. What actually happens is that when they draw a symbol, energy passes through it from another place (which is my get-out for the laws of thermodynamics) and the effect of that energy is moderated by the symbol. In one case it may become light, in another it may become fire. In Mistborn, the metals have a similar effect. The magic is not coming from the metal (even if some characters think it is). It is being drawn from the same place and moderated by the metal.
In the case of Feruchemy, no energy is being drawn from this other place. So, you spend a week sick and store up the ability to heal. It’s a balanced system, basically obeying the laws of thermodynamics. So, while it’s not real, it’s still rational.
 In compounding, when you have the power of both Allomancy and Feruchemy, you draw power from the other place through the metal and it recognizes the power that is already stored—"Oh, this is healing, I know how to do that”—and so you get the power of Feruchemy but boosted by energy from the other place. This is how the Lord Ruler achieved immortality.”
 

Brandon Sanderson (17 October 2008)
The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.
Condensed 'essence' of these godly powers can act as super-fuel for Allomancy, Feruchemy, or really any of the powers. The form of that super fuel is important. In liquid form it's most potent, in gas form it's able to fuel Allomancy as if working as a metal. In physical form it is rigid and does one specific thing. In the case of atium, it allows sight into the future. In the case of concentrated Preservation, it gives one a permanent connection to the mists and the powers of creation. (I.e., it makes them an Allomancer.)
So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak—though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists, however, she'd doing just that—using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself—to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips 'troughs' through her body. It's like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive

If you desperately want the mechanics of the MAG, I might put them up too.

 

EDIT 2: Don't mind me, I'm just going to use this post as storage for my posts on Feruchemical nicrosil, so I don't have to go looking for them again...

 

I'm personally of the view that a Soulbearer with Allomantic powers could use the Investiture to power his burning, though I must disappointingly acknowledge that this probably won't allow them to use Allomancy without using metals at all (like I want it to) as the Nicrosil investiture needs to be shaped (at least, this is how it works in Feruchemy... you tap investiture with something else to pretty much tell the Nicrosil investiture what to do). With regards to mixing Nicrosil Feruchemy with Allomancy, it sounds like, rather than a cool mana-battery, you simply get a way to make the burn last longer... though I eagerly await the Alloy of Law supplement and its Allomancy-Feruchemy mixing rules to confirm or deny this.

I should note with regard to this one that this process bears similarities to how the investiture flow works in Allomancy and Aon Dor. In Aon Dor shape of the symbols instructs the system the form which the power is to take. Likewise, in Allomancy it is the metal's molecular structure tells the "power of creation" what form the power is to take. You burn Gold, you're telling the system to give you the power to connect with other possible selves. Compounding works the same way, except that the Feruchemical charge in the metal subverts the molecular structure, telling the "power of creation" to give you healing (in the case of Gold). This is why Brandon describes compounding as using Allomancy to fuel Feruchemy.

 

Using Nicrosil Feruchemy seems to work in a similar way, the power needs to be told what to do, but I would suggest that this is because Nicrosil Investiture has the opposite problem to Investiture from the "power of creation". Nicrosil Investiture needs to be told what to do because in itself it is blank; the process by which it is made involves taking some trait and stripping it of its shape, leaving it shapeless. Investiture from the "power of creation" needs to be shaped (or more accurately directed) because it is shapefull... it could literally do nearly anything, which is fine for something with infinite capabilities, but too much to handle for mortal entities as Brandon notes.

 

As a side note, if it is difficult to understand why the power needs to be limited as far as it is used by mortals, I have an analogy for you (skip this if you understand). Suppose one was to design an X-Box game with game play based solely around the superpower telekinesis... one couldn't possibly squeezing into the limited X-Box controller every possible use or application for telekinesis, there wouldn't be enough buttons (this could be mitigated with buttons that allow you to change the function of other buttons, but this introduces complications, and can only be done so much before the interface becomes an incomprehensible mess). Now compare this to making the same game on a PC. Again there are limits, but far less than for the X-Box. Finally, compare the two to actually having telekinesis, and the "interface" of controlling it directly with your mind (alternatively substitute a game controller using a very advanced neural interface).

 

In this analogy, I would suggest that wielding the "power of creation" for a mortal is like playing the game on the X-Box. They can do a variety of interesting things, but there are gaps in the power (eg I can move objects with my mind but only if they are made of metal, and only towards or away from me).

 

For someone with every single system it is like playing the game on PC. So much more complexity of power, but still a couple of limits (eg With the three lashings, Allomantic steel, Allomantic iron and Feruchemical iron I can move things around in a variety of ways... I very nearly have telekinesis!)

 

The neural interface is of course the experience of shardholders, (they can move the planet around freely)*

 

*On the basis that Rashek was unable to use the well's power to kill, you  could argue that Shards more properly belong in the PC category, but with a very advanced PC. I would suggest that this limit was part of the well's experience, and taking the shard as Vin did presents no limit on the power (as she used it to kill Ati). This is checked, however by the power's influence taking hold over time, so the "neural interface" is perhaps most accurately a "fresh" Shard, someone with all the power and very little Intent.

 

 

EDIT 3: This last one is long, takes multiple posts, and is less refined than my later one, so I'm just putting the link here: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3441-on-the-feruchemy-of-nicrosil/?p=55469

 

EDIT 4: I think that's it, so I'm going to stop looking. Sorry for taking this thread off track a little.

Edited February 20, 2014 by Kadrok

[Moogle]

It's worth noting that the MAG says there should be 50% real Feruchemical charges, but this is not in line with how Compounding works (which works very similarly to Feruchemical nicrosil). Any amount of ferucharge in Allomantic metal allows you to Compound, so far as we know, so I suspect that the 50% limitation is just there to balance Feruchemists in the game. Hard to say.