No more than three

[DeadFencer]

So in Bands of Mourning Allik says that universal metalminds don't let the user have more than three powers. My question is, would one of thsoe three always have to be allomantic? It seems like the limit is three because people can't have more than three hemalurgic spikes. Two of those spikes would need to be more feruchemical aluminum and feruchemical nicrosil in order to create a universal metalmind. That leaves one slot for unique powers, and whatever abilities the storer naturally has. Of course the storer could at most have one allomantic and one feruchemical ability if they were a twinborn. So if a metalmind grants three powers, does one of the three have to be allomantic?

[Podman]

1 hour ago, DeadFencer said:

So in Bands of Mourning Allik says that universal metalminds don't let the user have more than three powers. My question is, would one of thsoe three always have to be allomantic? It seems like the limit is three because people can't have more than three hemalurgic spikes. Two of those spikes would need to be more feruchemical aluminum and feruchemical nicrosil in order to create a universal metalmind. That leaves one slot for unique powers, and whatever abilities the storer naturally has. Of course the storer could at most have one allomantic and one feruchemical ability if they were a twinborn. So if a metalmind grants three powers, does one of the three have to be allomantic?

There are two main things that you're a bit confused on. First is you're assumption that three is the hemalurgic limit. That is just when Harmony can take control of you. If he approves, you're good. That isn't really relevant though, because you're second misunderstanding is that a single person has to store all the attributes. I don't have the quote, but Allik says that the creators of the medallions pass it to others with different powers. For some reason they can't figure out how to pass it around to get more than three or four powers. Hope that helps answer your question!

[Szmit]

11 hours ago, podman36 said:

There are two main things that you're a bit confused on. First is you're assumption that three is the hemalurgic limit. That is just when Harmony can take control of you. If he approves, you're good. That isn't really relevant though, because you're second misunderstanding is that a single person has to store all the attributes. I don't have the quote, but Allik says that the creators of the medallions pass it to others with different powers. For some reason they can't figure out how to pass it around to get more than three or four powers. Hope that helps answer your question!

Afaik the problem is that with every added power they start to get harder and harder to properrly store without "breaking" the metalmind. The more talented metalborns the more powers can be stored. Kind of like with athletism.

[Weltall]

Yeah, it's nothing to do with requiring a mix of powers and everything to do with some technical limitation that the Southerners do not (currently) know how to overcome that prevents them from combining too many powers in the same medallion. Allik mentions that they've tried and just haven't gotten it to work yet, but we know it's possible because the Bands of Mourning are essentially a super-medallion that grants thirty-two powers. The 'three power' thing as mentioned is simply the maximum number of hemalurgic spikes a human can have without opening themselves up to Harmony taking control.

[Kingsdaughter613]

The BoM seems to bypass the issue by coming from one person. The regular medallions are made by several people.

[The One Who Connects]

Quote

Yata [PENDING REVIEW]
If you have 32 Misting and Ferring, every kind possible, without using Hemalurgy, you can craft a medallion? Without the aftermath of the--

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
So could you craft a medallion... without-- oh. That should be possible, but this is one of the things where I have to dig out the notes and double-check myself. But this should be possible.

Source.

[+hwiles]

On 1/28/2018 at 0:23 AM, podman36 said:

There are two main things that you're a bit confused on. First is you're assumption that three is the hemalurgic limit. That is just when Harmony can take control of you. If he approves, you're good......

I believe the only time the "3-spikes and Harmony gains noticeable influence over you" thing is referenced is by Suit, and the context in which it is discussed is very much personal to Suit and/or his associates.  My understanding is that the door is very much still open for some people to be able to handle having more spikes while staying free of control, while other people could be controlled with fewer.  It's also left unsaid whether Harmony could push harder and mind-control someone with fewer than 3 spikes if he really had to; in most circumstances, this would probably go against his Intent, but it's never said he couldn't do it...it's just indicated that he hasn't been caught doing it.

[Podman]

4 minutes ago, hwiles said:

I believe the only time the "3-spikes and Harmony gains noticeable influence over you" thing is referenced is by Suit, and the context in which it is discussed is very much personal to Suit and/or his associates.  My understanding is that the door is very much still open for some people to be able to handle having more spikes while staying free of control, while other people could be controlled with fewer.  It's also left unsaid whether Harmony could push harder and mind-control someone with fewer than 3 spikes if he really had to; in most circumstances, this would probably go against his Intent, but it's never said he couldn't do it...it's just indicated that he hasn't been caught doing it.

I suppose you could be right. If what you're saying is true, we don't really know the the spike limit is before influence. We just don't have enough evidence.

[Calderis]

@hwiles I disagree. I find it telling that Koloss, which are at their base people, use four spikes to make.

I think it has to do with the spiritweb itself. Any spikes, and a Shard can influence you, or speak with you. We see this with the old and maximum decayed tiny ear spike, which allows Sazed to speak with Wax. 

At four spikes though, I think at that point the hole is opened wide enough that anyone powerful enough can assert direct control by hijacking the spiritual aspect of the altered human. 

Prior to that threshold, the spiritweb itself will resist. 

[Weltall]

Another thing to bear in mind is that all kandra have the same threshold before Harmony can control them (which just happens to be the same as the number they need to remain fully sapient and sane) and all koloss are controllable with their four. Assuming that baseline humans are an exception and that different people can have higher thresholds requires an assumption with no existing foundation. Actually, the evidence we have goes in the opposite direction; Ruin was able to influence people with particular forms of insanity even without spikes (Zane spiked himself, for example) so if anything, it should be easier to control a human with a cracked soul with fewer spikes.

Even though he's speaking in the first person when he says he's limited to three powers, there's no reason to think that Edwarn only meant that that applied to himself; he also uses the plural in reference to what the Set has learned about hemalurgy and the most natural reading is that he was speaking generally and only using himself as an example.

[+hwiles]

I agree that we don't have enough information to say some people could definitely maintain full control with 4 or more spikes. But, bear in mind that Marsh, for a brief moment, defied the direct and focused control of a Shard while bearing 20 fully charged spikes.

Suit can handle 3, mistwraiths can handle 1, and we've never seen a koloss with less than 4. That's what we know. We can speculate and theorize beyond this, which i strongly advocate, but my original intent was to clarify that the 3 spike limit isn't a hard-fact. It's a good theory with strong implications, but...this is Sanderson we're talking about here...he's pretty wily.