Medallion Compounding

[The Grumpy Elantrian he/him]

I have been thinking about the medallions lately, and the scene between Vin and Sazed where she tried to burn one of his metalminds crossed my mind. 

Is it possible for an allomancer to use a medallion to compound that particular metal even though they themselves aren't feruchemists?

Kinda tagging onto that, could a twinborn compound an unkeyed metalmind made by another feruchemist?

Is this as obviously yes as I assume or is there something I'm missing?

[I think I am here. he/him]

Yes. That medallion gives you that power for a temporary amount of time, and in that time, and in that one you’d be able to compound.

So, yes for both.

(Also, it’s Unsealed metalminds you’d be referring to, unkeyed metalminds can only be used by someone who has the same Feruchemical power, while anyone can use an unsealed metalmind.

[Calderis he/him]

No need to even be Twinborn. 

Vin was able to sense Sazed's storage, but couldn't access it. That was because it was keyed to him by Identity. 

Strip that identity away, like the powers stored in an unkeyed metalmind (not even a medallion, just stripped of Identity, like the goldmind Wayne used) and suddenly that power has nothing in the way.

Edit: to be clear, as I think I am Here made me realize about my post, this would only allow burning, so much of the utility of compounding would be lost. 

You'd get all of the power at once, with nowhere to put it. 

Edited October 4, 2018 by Calderis

[+robardin he/him]

8 hours ago, Calderis said:

Strip that identity away, like the powers stored in an unkeyed metalmind (not even a medallion, just stripped of Identity, like the goldmind Wayne used) and suddenly that power has nothing in the way.

... You'd get all of the power at once, with nowhere to put it. 

The other interesting aspect of using an identity-free metalmind is that one has to know, or suspect, that that's what it is first. When Wayne was first handed Kelesina's goldmind he didn't detect the health stored in it until Wax told him so, who had Steelsight to tip him off.

So that put the kibosh on an idea I had once to spike an Allomancer's metal vial with bits of an unkeyed metalmind, giving an unexpected and unshuntable burst of the Feruchemical attribute. A Tineye would be easy to stun with sensory overload; a Lurcher Pulling himself towards something heavier might suddenly find that something coming towards him instead, as his weight increased dramatically; and so on.

It's not clear if an Allomancer could feel and "burn around" any accessible metalminds mixed with ordinary metal in his stomach. So maybe it'd still be a gag to spike a vial and shout out the information later.

Edited October 4, 2018 by robardin

[Tglassy]

I'm seeing Era 3 as being a time when people can literally buy Metalborn Powers.  Like, they have arm straps that can hold a number of Medallions, and they buy them and switch them out as needed.  All they would need is access to a full Feruchemist for Feruchemical powers, or access to the Bands of Mourning for everything.  Allomantic powers could be obtained by creating an unkeyed Nicrosil/Aluminum Medallion, allowing one to store their own Investiture/Identity in another Medallion.  It would be a great source of cash for any Metalborn, be they Misting, Ferring or otherwise.  

Like, I'm a normal person but my wife likes to keep the house too hot.  So I save up a bunch of money and buy a Medallion that grants Brass Feruchemy, so now I can regulate my body temperature.  Underwater workers can be requisitioned a Cadmium Medallion instead of needing Scuba gear.  Swat Teams can be granted Pewter/Tin as well as Steel or any other power, resources permitting.  

I'd assume the Medallions have to be recharged by their respective Ferings/Mistings, as they work by draining one of Identity, then pouring one's Investiture into a Nicrosil ring, which is then unkeyed allows anyone to tap it, thus granting that Investiture to anyone who taps it, but wouldn't that investiture slowly drain?  They should be able to tap it faster, strengthening their power for a short time, but it would eventually wear out and they'd need a new source of Investiture.  

That said, if they DID find a Mistborn and gave him a medallion , they could create a single Nicrosil Medallion that held the Investiture of a full Mistborn.  One Medallion  That would be hella expensive, I think.  

So, every Metalborn would want a Nicrosil/Aluminum Medallion, allowing them to store their own Investiture for sale.  I can see it now.  Metal born Dealers.  "Hold on guys, I can't got soaring with you tonight.  My Steel is low.  I gotta see my Steel Pusher tomorrow for a recharge."  Aluminum and Nicrosil Ferings become the economy's most important producers.  

Since storing Investiture should store every power you have, a Twinborn could make a mint, and a Compounder would be super wealthy, as they could make one Medallion with two powers.  Yes, there are Medallions that can have up to 3, but this would be one ring in the Medallion giving two powers.  Cheaper to make, as it only takes one Donor.  

And then of course the implications of taking this off world.  Giving an Unkeye Nicrosil medallion to a Surgebinder, thus granting someone the ability to use Stormlight.  This could give Hemalurgy a run for its money in the Power Transfer department.  It would also completely change modern society.  

 

 

Of course, it is all dependent on a few people spending most of their time filing their investiture into these medallions.  That would literally be their job.  But they have to use an Investiture Medallion to be able to drain their Identity into Aluminum, and then have another one (or a ring in the same one) to drain their Investiture into another Medallion, which means a Aluminum Ferings and Nicrosil Ferings literally are the linchpin of society.  Even the Bands of Mourning only has so much investiture in it.  Eventually, that Investiture goes by by, and that spearhead is just a chunk of different metals all stuck together, as we don't have a Fullborn to fill it again.

That begs for Hemlurgy.  Kill a Nicrosil Fering and an Aluminum Fering with Spikes, give them to someone else, when they die, give them to the next person, etc.  Yeah, some power is lost, but it never is completely lost.  Even if you only have a little, it would just have diminishing returns up to a certain point.  That would keep society going, at least.   Yikes.  Maybe it wouldn't be all that good to be an Aluminum or Nicrosil Fering. 

Edited October 5, 2018 by Tglassy

[Calderis he/him]

As I brought up in a different thread recently, if you ignore the Bands, we never see the nicrosil on a medallion tapped. I don't think it drains, because I don't think it functions Feruchemically.

I think that the Bands are a medallion that only actually only grant on power. F-nicrosil. The rest is just stored. 

[Tglassy]

If that's the case, and merely touching the Investiture in the Nicrosil medallion is enough to be able to use the power and the investiture itself is not drained, then the price of medallions goes up, and Ferings and Mistings, while still important to make the medallions, do not get a steady inflow of cash if they had to constantly recharge their abilities.  Nicrosil Ferings sell to Mistings and Ferings, which allows them to be in business selling their own powers.  

Still, I like the thought of being able to switch powers in and out, without having to kill people.  It eliminates the whole "What power would you choose" thing that I get so wrapped up in (Allomantic pewter/Feruchemical gold twin born is what I'd settled on).  This makes it so anyone can compound, as well.  Get yourself a Steel/Steel medallion, and you're flying through the city, running at breakneck speeds, superhero style.  A Gold/Gold Medallion would probably cost a freaking fortune.  Well, all compounding would, but I'd imagine Gold/Gold would be top dog, or at least close.

[Calderis he/him]

Will always choose steel for sheer OPness. You can move fast enough to fire multiple shots from different locations in a room so close together they sound like a single shot, and you're a Coinshot to boot. 

Gold is great if you get hit. Steel, if you see it coming, you don't get hit. 

Either way the only real way to take you out is surprise assassination when you aren't tapping.

Edited October 6, 2018 by Calderis

[The Grumpy Elantrian he/him]

6 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Will always choose steel for sheer OPness. You can move fast enough to fire multiple shots from different locations in a room so close together they sound like a single shot, and you're a Coinshot to boot. 

Gold is great if you get hit. Steel, if you see it coming, you don't get hit. 

Either way the only real way to take you out is surprise assassination when you aren't tapping.

I had always percieved an A-Atium F-Steel twinborn as well nigh unbeatable. The ability to see what everyone is about to do and the mental speed to cope with it all, added to the almost bullet time effect of steel and the speed to react to anything they throw at you. You can't win against someone like that. 

[Calderis he/him]

2 minutes ago, Mistborn Radiant said:

I had always percieved an A-Atium F-Steel twinborn as well nigh unbeatable. The ability to see what everyone is about to do and the mental speed to cope with it all, added to the almost bullet time effect of steel and the speed to react to anything they throw at you. You can't win against someone like that. 

Unless the person your dealing with also has F-steel, the atium isn't even needed.

F-steel also beats atium in my estimation. You can move faster than they can physically react, so they see your shadow come in, move to correct, you see them start to react and your shadow splits, repeat. 

Atium vs F-steel just informs the atium user of their impending death. 

Add in that with a compounder you're also a Coinshot who can fire at your enemies from what seems like multiple positions at the same time and a steel compounder is a storming army to themselves. 

[The Grumpy Elantrian he/him]

12 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Unless the person your dealing with also has F-steel, the atium isn't even needed.

F-steel also beats atium in my estimation. You can move faster than they can physically react, so they see your shadow come in, move to correct, you see them start to react and your shadow splits, repeat. 

Atium vs F-steel just informs the atium user of their impending death. 

Add in that with a compounder you're also a Coinshot who can fire at your enemies from what seems like multiple positions at the same time and a steel compounder is a storming army to themselves. 

Yeah, fair point. This only makes me realise what a killing machine a fullborn would be. They would be compounders in every metal and literally get the best out of any and all combos. No, they wouldn't be quite as powerful as TLR but there would be little that is mortal in the cosmere to stop them.

[Tglassy]

Having an in finite amount of every Feruchemical ability due to compounding everything would be pretty ama-za-zing.  Don't need to eat, breath, or sleep; infinite strength, healing, speed and infinitely heightened senses; can become as heavy as a planet, perfect memory, survive in every temperature environment, think a thousand times faster than anyone around you, are always lucky, determined enough to do anything you put your mind to.  That's not even including the Allomancy.  And because of the compounding, you never have to deal with the downsides of storing your attributes except for the first time.  

A full Feruchemical compounder could literally survive the vacuum of space.  A full Feruchemical compounder that is bonded with either an Honor Spren, a High Spren, or has one of the related honor blades could literally travel between planets without a ship.  It...might take a while, and might take a crap ton of resources in Stormlight and metals, but it is still possible.  

Edited October 6, 2018 by Tglassy

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 10/4/2018 at 5:18 AM, Calderis said:

You'd get all of the power at once, with nowhere to put it.

If you were burning gold, cadmium, bendalloy or atium, that is managable. Possibly also copper. We have no firm indication what copper compounding does.

[HSuperLee]

On 10/6/2018 at 2:29 PM, Tglassy said:

Having an in finite amount of every Feruchemical ability due to compounding everything would be pretty ama-za-zing.  Don't need to eat, breath, or sleep; infinite strength, healing, speed and infinitely heightened senses; can become as heavy as a planet, perfect memory, survive in every temperature environment, think a thousand times faster than anyone around you, are always lucky, determined enough to do anything you put your mind to.  That's not even including the Allomancy.  And because of the compounding, you never have to deal with the downsides of storing your attributes except for the first time.  

A full Feruchemical compounder could literally survive the vacuum of space.  A full Feruchemical compounder that is bonded with either an Honor Spren, a High Spren, or has one of the related honor blades could literally travel between planets without a ship.  It...might take a while, and might take a crap ton of resources in Stormlight and metals, but it is still possible.  

And we once again arrive at my, "Scandrians will become the Cosmere equivalent to Kryptonians" theory. Eventually, they'll figure out a way to make more fullborn medallions, and from there they spread out to space and become legends. Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part because I'm a massive comic nerd, but I think it's going to happen.

 

Also, as for a fullborn in space. I don't know if this would work due to the way iron conserves momentum, but could they store weight, push off a piece of metal, tap weight, pull that piece of metal back, and actually have moved forward? Because if so they'd also have a reliable method for moving in weightless environments.

Edit: I should clarify, I know they wouldn't decelerate in space after an initial push, but I'm specifically thinking about wether or not they could build up speed or change direction without needing multiple pieces of metal.

Edited October 8, 2018 by HSuperLee

[DocHoliday he/him]

On 10/8/2018 at 6:43 AM, HSuperLee said:

And we once again arrive at my, "Scandrians will become the Cosmere equivalent to Kryptonians" theory. Eventually, they'll figure out a way to make more fullborn medallions, and from there they spread out to space and become legends. Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part because I'm a massive comic nerd, but I think it's going to happen.

 

Also, as for a fullborn in space. I don't know if this would work due to the way iron conserves momentum, but could they store weight, push off a piece of metal, tap weight, pull that piece of metal back, and actually have moved forward? Because if so they'd also have a reliable method for moving in weightless environments.

Edit: I should clarify, I know they wouldn't decelerate in space after an initial push, but I'm specifically thinking about wether or not they could build up speed or change direction without needing multiple pieces of metal.

That's a good idea, but Feruchemical iron doesn't deal with matter density. I know it makes sense to think of it that way, but it actually warps the spiritual connection to the planet your on. In a weighless environment, ie space, I have major doubts as to wether or not Feruchemical iron will function the same or at all.

[HSuperLee]

1 minute ago, DocHoliday said:

That's a good idea, but Feruchemical iron doesn't deal with matter density. I know it makes sense to think of it that way, but it actually warps the spiritual connection to the planet your on. In a weighless environment, ie space, I have major doubts as to wether or not Feruchemical iron will function the same or at all.

I'm surprised it took this long for someone to call me out. But yeah, that's a possibility. Also I did the math a few weeks ago, and it wouldn't have worked anyway. The fullborn would just be pushing and pulling themselves back to the same place they started.

[Calderis he/him]

58 minutes ago, DocHoliday said:

That's a good idea, but Feruchemical iron doesn't deal with matter density. I know it makes sense to think of it that way, but it actually warps the spiritual connection to the planet your on. In a weighless environment, ie space, I have major doubts as to wether or not Feruchemical iron will function the same or at all.

It's magic. It does store mass without altering density. 

Quote

Seonid

I noticed that you-- Was that a retcon on the way iron Feruchemy works?

Brandon Sanderson

What do you mean?

Seonid

There's a researcher who talks to Wax, asking him about whether he's changing his mass of whether he's changing whether the planet perceives him-- affecting his gravity.

Brandon Sanderson

Right. It's more a re-- Defining something I didn't pin down strongly enough. I wouldn't call it a retcon because it's something that nobody really did until Wax, really, in the series. The only one really capable of doing that in the original trilogy would have been the Lord Ruler, maybe some of the Inquisitors, but we don't have viewpoints from them. So I wouldn't call it a retcon I would just say it’s something that didn't come up in the first series that now I have to make sure is clear.

Seonid

So is it Higgs field stuff going on?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Mmhmm.

Seonid

My idea was right.

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm.

source

The whole speed alteration in flight when tapping or storing, due to conservation of momentum, shows it has to be mass that's being effected. 

Edited October 27, 2018 by Calderis