Reverse Compounding Theory

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

Okay, so... First post. Yay.

I won't waste your time with that though, cause I want to see if anyone agrees with me on this.

So hopefully you know what Compounding is; when someone has the same metal in Allomancy and Feruchemy. They can Allomantically burn a charged metalmind to get "tenfold" the amount of power back out of it, using the End-positive nature of Allomancy to generate that extra Feruchemical aspect.

So here's my theory on Reverse Compounding, where one would use Feruchemy to increase the amount of power you get out of burning a metal.

STEP ONE: Be a Nicrosil Compounder. This can be done using Hemalurgy spikes, if needed.
STEP TWO: Spike yourself with another allomantic metal. Preferably not Aluminum.
STEP THREE: Charge the everloving heck out of your Nicrosilmind with your spiked Allomantic metal.
STEP FOUR: COMPOUND THAT NICROSILMIND TO HECK.
STEP FIVE: BURN THE HECK OUT OF THE CORRESPONDING METAL.
STEP SIX: PROFIT.

And that's the most basic form of Reverse Compounding!

And yes... Reverse Compounding Duralumin with another metal alongside it would be even more insane. But we can discuss those scenarios together.

P.S. A Fullborn/Full Compounder can do this with no spikes needed. So that's fun.

[Karger he/him]

Why not just become a duralumin savant?

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

2 hours ago, Karger said:

Why not just become a duralumin savant?

That could achieve something similar, but remember that burning a metalmind gives you 10 times the power you put into it. and you can store a LOT of "the ability to burn ___ metal allomantically" inside a Nicrosilmind already, enough to (if tapped all at once) give you a considerable amount of extra power WITHOUT duralumin. Compounding that Nicrosilmind would give you 10 times THAT amount of power, using the End-positive nature of Allomancy to give you even more Allomantic power than you stored up.

The difference is that Duralumin basically forcibly burns all other metals in a flash... and you can Reverse Compound Duralumin and your metal of choice to amp things up even further, too. In addition, this would theoretically work to Double Compound, where you improve your allomantic power for a metal you can also compound normally (which includes Nicrosil!) and then compound a metalmind with that super-boosted allomancy.

I am totally open to having someone explain anything I missed or misinterpreted, that's why I made this thread. And I am glad you asked, because I got to think about this more. You might be on to something if the nuances of the Metallic Arts are as you hypothesize, but the fact that Reverse Compounding works on allomantic Duralumin makes me think it would just be an extra level of power you could impart to your allomancy.

[+Keeper Exile]

I did some research after finding this thread, and I don't know if this would work. The only problem is that it is not confirmed (as far as I know) that you can use nicrosil's allomantic power on yourself (doing so would basically be burning duralmumin). Therefore, this would only work if nicrosil could be used by touching another allomancer or yourself, which is not possible.

This is a really great idea, and if I am wrong on the application of nicrosil, then this should work and it would be super awesome!

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

2 hours ago, Keeper Exile said:

I did some research after finding this thread, and I don't know if this would work. The only problem is that it is not confirmed (as far as I know) that you can use nicrosil's allomantic power on yourself (doing so would basically be burning duralmumin). Therefore, this would only work if nicrosil could be used by touching another allomancer or yourself, which is not possible.

This is a really great idea, and if I am wrong on the application of nicrosil, then this should work and it would be super awesome!

I see where you're coming from here, but the key thing is that you're not using allomantic nicrosil on your own metals. You're compounding feruchemical nicrosil to multiply the amount of "ability to burn ___" metal you stored in your Nicrosilmind. The allomantic nicrosil of your own ability is used to compound the Nicrosilmind(s).

[Bands of Mourning spoiler]

Spoiler

We know that's pretty much how Nicrosil Feruchemy works because of when Waxilium gets the Bands and his Steelpushing is suddenly able to easily overpower the natural Investiture interference of human bodies and Push on hemalurgic spikes.

So in theory, Reverse Compounding would do that, but 10 times more powerful due to how Compounding Nicrosil would work. It would behave similarly to Duralumin, but instead of basically super-flaring your burned metals, Reverse Compounding would send your ability to allomantically burn (a) metal(s) through the roof, which would then let you burn it at a normal rate with a much stronger effect (much like how era 2 mistings' metal powers are much weaker than era 1 mistings/mistborn, it would elevate that power level back up and perhaps even beyond era 1 mistborn levels of power... for a few seconds, until the Nicrosilmind was fully burned.)

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

I'm not sure how this is "reverse" compounding, as it is simply nicrosil compounding. What you are suggesting is widely speculated to be how nicrosil compounding works. We probably wont wont get confirmation until book four of era two, or in era three.

7 hours ago, Karger said:

Why not just become a duralumin savant?

A-duralumin doesn't hold a candle to F-nicrosil. A-duralumin wipes out your metals and doesn't let you control how much power you use. F-nicrosil lets you fine tune your power usage, as well as giving you much higher efficiency with your metals. F-nicrosil also has great potential to be combined with non Scadrian magics.

[Calderis he/him]

A Nicrosil compounder in a world of medallions is far more than just a "reverse compounder" (technically, in my opinion, reverse compounding is just tapping Nicrosil to strengthen you allomancy anyway). 

A Nicrosil compounder is a Fullborn in the making. 

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

16 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I'm not sure how this is "reverse" compounding, as it is simply nicrosil compounding. What you are suggesting is widely speculated to be how nicrosil compounding works.

The name stems from the fact that it's a process of using Feruchemy to enhance Allomancy (and normal Compounding is using Allomancy to enhance Feruchemy.)
And, fair enough, I wouldn't expect this to be totally new news, but I found this a personal breakthrough because of that one WoB that mentioned there was "a way to use Feruchemy to enhance Allomancy" like with Compounding. As well, I haven't seen this process documented anywhere on the Coppermind or anywhere else I've checked.

Just now, Calderis said:

A Nicrosil compounder in a world of medallions is far more than just a "reverse compounder" (technically, in my opinion, reverse compounding is just tapping Nicrosil to strengthen you allomancy anyway). 

A Nicrosil compounder is a Fullborn in the making. 

This is also true! I have my own little hypothesis that the Nicroburst protagonist of Era 3 might end up with an F-Nicrosil Medallion (or an F-Nicrosil spike, unsure about that tho). If so, we could see some really crazy stuff go down in some of those books. A man can dream, right?

[Karger he/him]

This brings up another point.  In a world of medallions isn't everyone a compounder?

[RShara she/her]

45 minutes ago, Karger said:

This brings up another point.  In a world of medallions isn't everyone a compounder?

Well the person would have to be a Misting, since we haven't seen any Allomantic medallions. But potentially, Compounding could become much more common, yes.

[Snipexe he/him]

7 hours ago, RShara said:

Well the person would have to be a Misting, since we haven't seen any Allomantic medallions. But potentially, Compounding could become much more common, yes.

Aren’t the Bands of Mourning Allomantic medallions, or are they different? 

[RShara she/her]

4 hours ago, Snipexe said:

Aren’t the Bands of Mourning Allomantic medallions, or are they different? 

You're right, the Bands did have A-steel, didn't they? Then why don't we see any regular medallions with Allomancy? Very strange.

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

1 hour ago, RShara said:

You're right, the Bands did have A-steel, didn't they? Then why don't we see any regular medallions with Allomancy? Very strange.

The Bands should have had A-everything, they are a nicrosil metalmind made by a Mistborn with Hemalurgic F-nicrosil. Wax used A-iron to tether the airship. I don't have the book in front of me to determine if they used any of the other metals or not, but they should have been able to.

I suspect that we don't see any other Allomantic medallions because Allomancers are likely rare in southern Scadrial. They are only as common as they are in the north because of Rashek injecting the investiture into the population via the Lerasium beads.

Edited April 29, 2019 by SwordNimiForPresident