Shardcast: The Hemalurgy Table! (Part 1)

I hope all listeners enjoy the new WTCC jingle, it was a labor of love. 

If you dont like it, blame chaos for the memes. 

Great podcast!

A couple thoughts about Hemalurgic Chromium and the stealing of Destiny, completely in the realm of pure speculation.

Destiny implies inevitable future events that are outside of the control of the individual experiencing these inevitable future events, and further more is classically ascribed to beings that are powerful and able to manipulate said destiny. What if the quality of destiny that chromium can spike out is part of an indvidual's spirt web that Shards use to push a specific individual to take a certain future action?

As you guys mentioned, the prophecies in Mistborn seemed to imply that Preservation was able to manipulate Elendi's, Vin's and Sazed's destinies. This could be happening in a couple different ways, this could be a particular push on a specific indiviual's destiny, to ensure that a specific crucial action is taken at a specific time, or it could be that  a pre-destined sequence of events is set up, and this predestined track starts to pull individuals with compatible destinies towards it. The latter would imply that the Shard in question would be creating a destiny construct, and that this construct would pull and shape the individuals caught up in this pre-destined track towards the pre-defined end of the sequence of events.

This could potentially have consequences for Era 3 mistborn, where Trell and Harmony are both trying to shape the course of events along a pre-destined course using their future sight and pushing on Individual's destinies in order to achieve their future aims. What if the agents of Trell, using knowledge from Trell's future sight, were able to find out who certain key actors are who will be instrumental to Harmony's long term plan, and spike out their Destiny? Maybe this is the reason that era 3 is about a serial killer, maybe this is a long term structured attack on Harmony's future plans by the faceless immortals. Also, if an agent wants to be completely free from a Shards ability to meddle with their volition, they could self-spike out their destiny, assuming they have a means of healing after this operation.

As to Atium needing to be refined, I think it's just the case that with feudal level technology the process of extracting the Atium from the geodes introduced chemical impurities into the Atium end product. When the veins of pure Atium are condensing within geode they are probably forming within some other material matrix and the Era 1 Scadrians probably lacked the mining technology to separate these veins of pure Atium from the substrate they were embedded in. So even though the Atium itself would be chemically pure, it would still need to be refined to separate it from the extraneous matter that was harvested along with the Atium.

Lerasium gives all powers in Allomacy.

Lerasium steals all abilities in Hemalurgy.

Perhaps it stores all powers in Feruchemy? One Lerasium metalmind to replace them all?

1 minute ago, thegatorgirl00 said:

Perhaps it stores all powers in Feruchemy? One Lerasium metalmind to replace them all?

Ooh, I really like that. It would fit.

I wonder if you could store a number of attributes in a single metalmind, or simply any one attribute in one metalmind. Probably the latter.

I loved the new WTCC melody.

Nicrosil - Steals/Stores Investiture

Some thoughts here. 

Investiture is the base definition of magic in the Cosmere. It is like the quarks that make up the protons and neutrons of the magic systems. Investiture, in and of itself, is not determined by the end result. Investiture is not Breath or Stormlight, but instead Breath and Stormlight are made of Investiture. It is the parts out of which the magic systems are fueled. At least to a degree. I imagine Brandon would give some Spiritual Realm explanation, but this was my interpretation. 

This lends itself to the idea that storing or stealing investiture through the use of Nicrosil stores the parts by which the magic is made, or even more simply the magic itself. If an Awakener of, say, the 5th heightening were spiked properly by Nicrosil, they would lose their stored Breaths, and the Breaths themselves would now be stored in the metal mind, or stolen by the Hemalurgist and stored in them by their spike. The same would probably be true of a Knight Radiant holding Stormlight or a Metalborn burning metals.

It would be a subject of debate if the metals in their body not being burned, and therefore the investiture not being accessed, would be stolen as well. I would hazard a guess that they would not. 

Alternatively, the investiture might be broken down to a pure state, not formed into something like Breath or Stormlight. It would be a pool of pure Investiture that could serve as a battery for a machine that runs on magic. While I am not sure how likely this is, it would mean that Nicrosil Hemalurgy is like draining a battery, and Nicrosil Feruchemy is like charging a battery. 

Application

Spike Gun: A firearm or other projectile weapon that shoots Nicrosil spikes. If they landed in the right location on in invested person, they would sap their investiture completely, giving an opening or killing them outright. Possibly used by an assassin who specializes in hunting Invested peoples. Mixed with aluminium this could not only drain someone of their power supply, but also cut off their ability to use magic entirely. It would seem like a natural progression of the magic of the Cosmere, and I could see a group like the Ghostbloods wanting this technology. 

Magic Machines: A machine that runs off of batteries powered by pure investiture. Could be used to run many different machines and possibly even recharge fabrials. This would depend on if they needed specific forms of Investiture or just the substance in general. A machine with a copper core to store information with a line of the metal that allows anyone to access the metal mind (I cant remember) could make for an interesting computer network. Or constructs that have near infinite knowledge and are powered by Investiture Batteries. 

I'm not sure how likely it all is, but these explanations seem to be the simplest, and as Occam's Razor would lead us to conclude, the answer that requires the least mental hoops is most like the correct one. 

Just some thoughts.

How would one even learn in-world what Hemalurgic effect Lerasium has? As far as I know there was never enough Lerasium in circulation to even make a single proper spike. So this knowledge would probably have to come from a Sliver (of Ruin? Not sure what kind of knowledge a Sliver has access to) or one of the Shards themselves.

Thoughts:

First of all, I feel your pain Evgeni. I too have a non-Anglicized name, and I too have problems with people reading it. I will even pronounce it for someone multiple times and still have them mess it up. I have multiple classes where, even late in the school year, I don't say "here" during attendance, but instead just say "actually, it's pronounced ___." And this is for non substitute teachers.

Anyway, relevant thoughts:

• Copper says "Steals mental fortitude, memory, and intelligence". The comma between memory and intelligence, at least for me, removes any doubt about the fact that they are three distinct properties being listed. (Go Oxford Comma!)
• I agree with what @hoiditthroughthegrapevine said earlier about impurities from the geodes possibly needing refinement.
• I think that the fact that lerasium is the only one that says "abilities" and not "powers" means that they are actually distinct. Maybe the "abilities" are the ones that go into the blessings (e.g. strength senses, mental fortitude, emotional fortitude, etc.). This also contrasts nicely with atium, which steals powers, but not abilities, and deepens the kandra/inquisitor dichotomy. The most useful spike for an inquisitor is atium, which it can use to steal any allomantic power, "ruining" that alomancy and giving itself more strength. The best spike for a kandra, however, would be lerasium, because it would allow it to "preserve" the entire suite of the donor's human abilities, and then use it to create a kandra that would have all four blessings and only one or two spikes.
• The conversation about different hemalurgic abilities for godmetals made me wonder if maybe Raysium (AKA Odi-yum-yum) steals cognitive shadows, which would (a) allow it to kill spren, and (b) explain how Vyre's knife works.

On the topic of Chromium stealing Destiny:  I can't help but wonder if Destiny works in a similar way to how Ta'veren work in WoT.  It kind of fits with what you guys were saying about some people having a higher "Destiny Quotient" (Lol) and would kind of fit with the sort of inspiration Brandon might have had for the ability.  And being able to "Steal Destiny" might be like spiking Rand or Mat to gain their kind of powers, and gain the ability to sort of twist fate around you like they did.  

Just spitballing, but it could also mean that if you somehow steal enough people's destiny, you could artifically turn yourself into a kind of Ta'veren.  Or would that just try to pull you in a bunch of different directions at once?

Interesting to think about.

For Chromium stealing destiny, I'm picturing a simpler experiment.  Skaa 1 has an incurable disease and is going to die within 1 year.  They spike skaa 1 with Chromium and plant the spike in skaa 2.  Skaa 2 then develops this disease and dies 1 year later.  Thoughts?  (Assume that skaa 2 didn't contract the disease from bacteria on the spike)

Blessings

I'm not sold on the idea that Hemalurgy works the same way on humans and kandra.  This is based on the following thoughts;

• There is something different about the creation of Blessings that that has hindered the creation of different types (besides those currently known).
• Blessings are not directly interchangeable without some (though seemingly minor) interference.
• In humans, Hemalurgic spikes degrade the mind leading to insanity, whereas in kandra, Blessings grant sapience. 
• As well as this, I think the Blessing of Awareness and a tin Hemalurgic spike would not produce the same results. The way that I've interpreted this table is that a tin spike would steal all senses, however, which sense the recipient gains is dependent on which bind point the spike is placed in. The Blessing of Awareness, however, grants an overall increase to senses, similar to Allomantic tin. I see Hemalurgic tin as working the same way as Feruchemical tin - enhancement occurs to each sense separately.

Atium 

I also had a thought on what 'must be refined' might be referring to in the table, but it hinges on several... contentious assumptions. 

• Assumption 1: the table was created after the Catacendre/Sazed becoming Harmony
• Assumption 2: atium is the lost metal 

Brandon has said in the past that atium no longer exists and that it also does not regenerate because because Ati no longer exists. However, I could see it being that atium no longer regenerates in the form it once took (aka its pure form found in the geodes), and instead is generated as some sort of compound. This compound could be distilled, however, to give atium, hence why it needs to be refined before it can be used in Hemalurgy. To me, this would also satisfy Brandon's insistence that atium no longer exists, because this compound would not be considered atium. I don't necessarily think that this compound though is harmonium (it could be, but I'm not saying that it is). 

(I know very little about geology and probably used those terms wrong... ah sorry). 

The table says a nicrosil spike steal investiture.  So could a Returned be spiked with nicrosil and steal his "godhood" as they put it in Warbreaker?  So it would steal that god's "naturally occurring biochromatic investiture" to be then placed into another person.