Melting infused metals

[Ashertliden]

So I've been looking for WOB's on these and I can't find any so here goes.

1.) What would hypothetically happen if you melted down a breath-infused piece of metal and alloyed it together with a melted down metalmind or hemalurgic spike?

2.) What would happen if you alloyed Atium and Lerasium? Would it form Harmonium?

 

Edited September 24, 2018 by Kal-Eldin

[RShara she/her]

1. I suspect this would be the same as melting and alloying a Feruchemical metalmind. It'd get mixed up and you wouldn't really be able to access it.

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Neagor

What would happen if a Feruchemist fills, for example, a tin metalmind then mixes it to make a pewter metalmind? Does the stored attribute change? Is the Investiture gone when you melt the metal? What if he just makes it into a tin metalmind again?

Brandon Sanderson

If you make it impure, you'll keep the investiture, but won't be able to get it out. If you make it back into the same thing, you'll be fine, and can access it normally. If you try to fill it, after changing the composition to make another viable metal, it will act a little like a computer hard drive with corrupted sectors. Some of it will work for the new investiture, but you won't be able to fill it nearly as full. (Depending on how full it was before you melted down.)

This holds for basic uses of the metallurgic arts. Once you start playing with some of the more advanced parts of the magic, you can achieve different results, which are currently RAFO.

eSPiaLx

Similarly, if you were to soulcast a metal would it have similar effects of corrupting the investiture and making it inaccessible? Like if you turned a steel metalmind into pewter.

Brandon Sanderson

I've stayed away from soulcasting and forging in these types of discussions, as I feel my answers will dig too deeply and prompt more questions that, eventually, will lead to lots of RAFO type questions. I don't really want to go there--but I will say this. Changing invested objects with other magics is hard, and often requires such a force of investiture yourself, that it becomes very power-inefficient. Just like we can technically turn lead into gold right now--by spending way more money than the gold is worth.

BipedSnowman

So you could, for example, use electrolysis to dissolve a metalmind in water, then reverse the reaction later to get the investiture?

OR, better question, if you store investiture in one allotrope of iron, can your retrieve it off you change to a different allotrope?

Brandon Sanderson

I see no reason why these wouldn't work.

dce42

So would forging with the blood of a radiant(kaladin, dalinar,etc) work on a shard blade from a fallen radiant to say change who they had bonded, or how the bond was broken (to say death instead of giving up on the oath)?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

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2. This has been RAFO'd, but the prevailing idea is that it would create an atium Misting. Harmonium is an element, not an alloy.

 

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Ironeyes

So harmonium, we have a working theory that the reason it's so volatile is because some of the subatomic particles are associated with Ruin and some of them are [of?] Preservation. Is that true?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's basically what's going on is that it's creating a very unstable metal. Now, it is in the nature of the Cosmere not a compound but an element. But, you could call it a subatomic particle sure. It's very volatile because it is in nature spiritually in contrast with itself. And so though it is a single element rather than a compound, the spiritual nature is not happy as it is, and you can set up in the physical realm, through reactivity things that would just rip it apart and really your energy is not, your energy in that is actually pulling from the Spiritual realm, and so that's why it can be so much more explosive than even the chemistry would account for.

Ironeyes

So it's not that the subatomic particles are invested, it's that they have a spiritual identity which causes them to...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Ironeyes

So then it's not creating an oxide because after the spiritual energy goes away from the explosion[unintelligible] metal, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Right, and...

Ironeyes

So you can't find harmonium oxide in the water afterwards.

Brandon Sanderson

Right right right right. Because it's not, it's, yeah.  But you might be able to find something else, which is really relevant to the cosmere. And to Scadrial.

Ironeyes

So the core elements, the core particles, having extra repulsion causes them to have a nuclear potential.

Brandon Sanderson

I would not call it nuclear because it's not the same exact thing. But there is a cosmere equivalent, to... I mean, you could do nuclear power just the same in the cosmere, but since we have a third kind of state of matter, right, matter, energy, Investiture, you have a third axis that you know, you can release energy from matter, you can release investiture from matter, and things like that. So it's similar, but following its own rules that I have a little more... that are controlled by me, right. But are built on this idea. So once you add [unintelligible for a few syllables] that matter can now exist in this third state, you get all sorts of weird things, which one of the things that happens is, you can get an energy release in sort of the same way. A reaction, I'm not going to call it a nuclear reaction, but of the same vein.

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[Ashertliden]

1 hour ago, RShara said:

If you make it impure, you'll keep the investiture, but won't be able to get it out. If you make it back into the same thing, you'll be fine, and can access it normally. If you try to fill it, after changing the composition to make another viable metal, it will act a little like a computer hard drive with corrupted sectors. Some of it will work for the new investiture, but you won't be able to fill it nearly as full. (Depending on how full it was before you melted down.)

Yes, but in this case we aren't making it impure, we're simply adding metal of the same type that has been infused with breath.

[RShara she/her]

15 minutes ago, Kal-Eldin said:

Yes, but in this case we aren't making it impure, we're simply adding metal of the same type that has been infused with breath.

I think it would act as another metal, though. Because you're diluting the bits that have that particular bit and type of investiture. You should still be able to access it but it'd be harder, because you have to make sure you're touching the right part of the metal and all that. And investiture interferes with investiture, so I think it would take more effort to get the bits that you want out of it.

[Calderis he/him]

Breath shouldn't become a part of the metal in the same way as feruchemical investiture in the first place. 

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Questioner (paraphrased)

What would happen if Allomancer was also an Awakener and Awakened metal he'd burn?”

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

If he did that, he’d get allomantic power and also get back the Breaths used in Awakening the metal.

Footnote: supposedly it was around half an hour into the signing line; has not been found on the record although we may have started it after it was asked already
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Edited September 25, 2018 by Calderis

[Yata he/him]

I don't think the Breath would be unreachable regardless of it becoming part of the metal.

The reason for feruchemical charge to become unreachable if you alloy it is into the bind between the kind of feruchemical charge and the metal in which it could be stored/tapped.

Breath are not restricted to the structure of the material it hosts them. So I think the Breath would be recoverable without issue if alloyed or mixed with other stuffs