Kurkistan

A corpse pumped full of alcohol is serving as a scaffold on which Breath acts, moving the muscles around with magical power. The corpse isn't moving "on its own," it is instead moving as a result of the Breath imbued within it. The alcohol is there as a preserving agent, I believe. The brain is a devilishly complex construct with a ludicrously delicate balance of chemicals and electrical signals keeping everything running properly. Deprive the brain of oxygen for 10 minutes and that thing is gone. Leave a corpse lying around for an hour and the brain will have rotted to uselessness. We already know that everything has both a Cognitive and Spiritual aspect on top of the Physical, and that people chill about as relatively full entities in the Cognitive and Spiritual Realms after death. I would hazard that those other two realms are what come into play with Awakening, rather than requiring that a partially rotted brain full of alcohol (which would most definitely inhibit anything resembling the normal chemical and electrical processes of the brain) be reawakened as the only agent of intelligence in a Lifeless. I can at least tell you that very very little of the "soul" as defined as Identity, memory or the like is stored in a Breath. Trust me. I've put some thought into this. Also a Brandon quote: EDIT: Another one with a bit more clarity:

Well my fake name has a rather silly story behind it. Long ago and far away, the necessity of faking an Italian accent was forced upon me. I failed miserably, as was my wont, and so rather claimed that I had instead used a perfect Kurkstanian accent, from the grand land of Kurkistan. At a later date, I found it necessary to register on a forum, and so I used the first thing to pop to mind. I kept the name because I like to have a persistent online identity and/or I lack imagination.

Ah yes, Jeckyl and Hyde. I may or may not have posted some thoughts on the mentality of Duraluminum Ferings myself. It is quite an interesting question.

The "adverse effects" that Feruchemy protects you from are more so the ones that would require secondary powers so as not to have stupid side-effects--the effects that can never really be seen as beneficial in any circumstance mostly--like not burning yourself while tapping Brass and not having you body disintegrate with large uses of Steel or Iron. Recall that Duraluminum stores "Connection," not "other people like me." It's quite naturally a two way street. Feeling increased empathy for others could be quite a benefit, I would think, connecting with and understanding others more easily than usual. Someone who has to do something unpleasant to another, on the other hand, might very well prefer to reduce their empathy with that person. If my brilliant arguments don't convince you, then I'll have to be so rude as to cite facts and say that the RPG makes it quite explicit that Connection goes two ways.

The question is what "brain" means here. Clod's retention of "Arsteelness" almost certainly comes from something related to Cognitive aspects (or perhaps even Spiritual): a corpse pumped full of alcohol isn't going to have a very active brain no matter what you do.

Another thought is that Skimmers can probably fly like birds (if they can get the movements down) or easily slot into otherwise light flying machines and provide muscle power. Wingsuits are interesting. I'm no expert, but I'll give it a try. At increased mass, you'd gain less altitude from the same lift (which is a function of wing area and speed, not momentum), but you'd also loss momentum more slowly. A net loss over time, though, because you'll still lose speed fairly quickly and won't gain much altitude at all. It could be useful for "bullying" through inclement weather, perhaps. At decreased mass, you'd get more altitude per unit of distance moved, but you'd also lose speed more quickly. Nice for thermals or the sort, though. In the end, you will need those thermals in order to "fly" without adding any energy to the system. The problem is that there's no real way to transfer your momentum while your up in the air without Allomancy, and the transfer of the crazy-cheap momentum that Skimmers have is the main source of their awesome.

Actually, Awakened bone is not "lifeless," it's just Awakened. EDIT: Tell a lie! They can be Awakened, it just doesn't "stick." My own pet theory is that some considerable amount of the Cognitive aspect of a Lifeless is retained (allowing complex commands). I doubt that the simple existence of a "brain" would be enough, since a dead, partially rotted brain full of alcohol is a dead, partially rotted brain full of alcohol and won't be of much use for anything but establishing a crude form for the Breath to latch onto. TES Spoilers

Ah, my fault. I misread your tone (again). I think the "what ever" (that you failed to delete, I guess?) in the middle of your second sentence threw me off a bit. To reiterate, don't worry Kythis, even though it's devastatingly complicated AS EASY AS BREATHING, it starts to make sense after a few days MOMENTS of study. Except be sure to watch out for the spikes OBEY THE ADMINS, OUR BENEVOLENT LORDS AND FRIENDS.

As I think a lot of our back and forth proves. That was a lot of talk to try to get across what ever fundamentally simple systems. That was in response to Kythis asking about Cosmere stuff in general. Obviously our nitty-gritty is complicated, but you can slap down some basic effects of magic systems and crude divisions between the Realms pretty easily. Specifically, I misread Kythis and thought he was asking about Realmatics for some reason, which was more so the "fundamentally simple system" I was referring to. We both agree that the Spiritual realm is what allows people to access power, that the Physical structure of metals is important in Allomancy, etc. How exactly stuff is laid out in those realms is what we've been discussing. P.S. Also, we generally try to avoid scaring the pancakes out of new members.

Bump. Got any TES thoughts, Windrunner?

Yes, it appears to only affect the present. It tells the item that history went a certain way, but the rest of the universe doesn't have to follow along. If that weren't the case, then--besides time paradoxes--no one really ought to remember a Forged item ever being different, since they would never have seen it otherwise in an altered timeline. Welcome to the forums, btw!

Yes, that is annoying. My little point on Feruchemical Health belongs in the Mistborn boards, surely, but I'm keeping it out in order to avoid spoiling people into, at the very least, knowing the importance of the Cognitive Realm in TES. Ugh. Have fun figuring it all out! One point that's worth keeping in mind is the sheer number of lurkers we have (hi lurkers!). Someone might pick up Elantris, toddle on over here to try and clear up something, and then be whammied by TES stuff barely a month after release. Side Note: How long until TES is fair game in Cosmere Theories?

That makes sense, then. Oops. I found the link for the Shaod. So Elantrians existed before Elantris, then. EDIT: And most likely had a unique access to AonDor, as well. That's very odd. OR, Devotion stepped in to create Elantrians who are particularly skilled at AonDor and/or can do it easily, but AonDor is still fundamentally doable by non-Elantrians in a world without Elantris (or maybe even with Elantris, but nobody tries). I might agree with it just being individual sDNA, but then we have everyone and their dog being capable of Forging, despite the races of the empire (forget the name) appearing to be extremely distinct from the MaiPon, to the point of "otherising" them so much that the Jindo and MaiPon are seen as the same.

*Puts on salesman hat* Yes, spoiling worked fine, but it wasn't optimal. Thread titles were cagey, to say the least, and people were always risking inadvertent spoilers whenever they'd only read the main trilogy. If you'd prefer, you could conceptualize it as setting aside a separate section for pure Elantris posts, but done in reverse so that people aren't spoiled on the way there. So this sub-board becomes the "people who've read both" board while the Elantris section is for people to paddle about in the shallow end . No, just a sub-board like TES is right now. Sorry if we used real terminology in an inappropriate and/or confusing manner. I'm beginning to feel a bit persecuted about the six-months thing at this point. It's your guys' number!

So let's talk about region-locking of magic on Sel and why Shai can get away with Forging outside of her native region. Background: We know that access the the Dor is "very regionally influenced." We know that Aonics are the only ones taken by the Shaod, but we also know that that is regional more so than any racial restriction, since the Aonics themselves migrated to Elantris. As an aside, I would hazard that the Shaod itself is a consequence of Elantris the city (which was there before the Aonics): Elantris both powers Elantrians and causes them to be taken by the Shaod in the first place. And now I go into crazyland. Crazyland: I hereby propose that the drawing of any "regional" symbol in a magic system is first and foremost a way to get around "region locking" for accessing the Dor. Therefore, Shai draws MaiPon as a "setting mark" on her soulstamp as way to bypass the normal restriction that the Dor can only be accessed for Forgery while in MaiPon. This indicates that Forgery can theoretically be done within Maipon without any need for a setting mark. I would then suggest that all of the "region locked" magic system on Sel work this same way: they function perfectly fine within their home regions, but require the incorporation of some representation of that home region if they are to be used outside of it. Like using a proxy-server to watch Doctor Who without living in Britain. So Dahkor monks have some representation of Fjorden engraved in their skin and ChayShan incorporates the region of Jindo into its movements. Why Elantris (hopefully) Doesn't Totally Disprove This: Things are complicated because Elantrians, essentially, have gamed the system to the maximum extent possible. My theory would simply be pure speculation without some non-Elantrian Selian magic system to study in detail, which TES has given us. I suggest that the original builders of Elantris, be it Devotion or some now-gone people, built Elantris as a way to channel all of the "Dor access" of the entirety to Arelon into one location, and so strengthen that access. In a pre-Elantris Arelon, then, the drawing of Aons would be much more like Forging, and could be done by anyone, although perhaps not out of thin air. Elantris, then, channels all of the power-access of Arelon into a concentrated source and, moreover, chooses only a few individuals to be able to wield that power, further concentrating it. Another leap I'll make is that Elantris also intentionally limits the "reach" of AonDor as a further means of concentrating its power. So Aons no longer represent Arelon, as far as the magic system is concerned, but instead represent Elantris itself, which in turn represents Arelon. Therefor, the reason why Elantrians are become weaker when they go farther away from Elantris is because they are no longer just accessing an entire land (as normal Selian magic systems do), they instead are forced to go through a single conduit which may or may not have restrictions on sending its power far abroad. If Elantris did not exist, then anyone could use AonDor anywhere, just with much-reduced effects. The weaksauce healing that Raoden did while under the Reod might actually be something like the default power level of AonDor (though perhaps weakend by the city siphoning and squandering a large amount of its power). Raoden's complicated, specific Aons worked okay, but a complete Elantris allows the crude, simple stuff to have so much power that they work as well. Without Elantris, then, anyone would be able to use AonDor within Arelon without any need to draw the country itself, and anyone outside of Arelon would be able to use AonDor as long as they incorporated Arelon (Aon Aon) into their Aons. Alternatively, it could just be a "distance=>less power" thing, but I think not, given the Dahkor's strength. So, my first not-obvious theory from the new book. Have fun being mean to it. EDIT: Nevermind! So the truth is, apparently, exactly the opposite of what I say here. Assuming "interesting" means "yes," drawing Arelon as the base for a Forgery would allow it to work in Elantris, while keeping MaiPon as the base would make it stop working. Power-loss is all about distance from the source-country. Source.

Thanks. BTW, I added a "less than 6 months" choice to the poll, although I doubt it'll have much impact at this point.

Fair enough. Six months is just the general rule, though.

Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions. It's a fundamentally simple system, really. You just need to think of it the right way.

I totally agree that Cognitive aspects also affect time bubblage. This is just another effect.

*MISTBORN SPOILERS AHOY* So there have been some discussions as to why Sazed can't un-eunuch himself with Health. We know that severe bodily trauma isn't world-ending because Miles grows back from chomping on a stick of dynamite and Wayne grows back his fingers at least once. So what is "health?" Is it the state of health that the person is in when they store? Then why is Miles getting older and what does Compounding do? I think that TES has given us an answer. The application of Feruchemical Health is dependent upon the Cognitive aspect of the Feruchemist (or, more accurately, his body's Cognitive aspect). So Sazed's body see's itself as lacking in certain reproductive areas, Wayne sees himself as having a whole hand (as opposed to the normal course of healing just resulting in a quick creation of new skin over the stumps), and Miles sees himself as not chunky salsa. Miles gets older, then, because his Cognitive aspect adapts to age and sees it as the new normal regardless of how much Health his body has coursing through it. Health, rather than being a "state of health" or anything so complicated, is essentially just raw power whose use is dictated by the Cognitive aspect. That way, Compounding can just pour on a little extra power rather than having to interact oddly with any other aspects of what makes up "Health." I'm not going to give much analysis here because I think it's self-evident after reading TES. I'm sure other people have proposed something similar, but now we know that this is almost certainly how Health works.

I suppose my problem is that, as far as I can tell, you simply don't see a difference between how Feruchemy works and how Allomancy works, besides the different attributes and, I suppose, upper limits. Is there any difference besides those in your model, at this point? That makes a certain amount of sense, actually. Hurrumph. I guess we're down to just glaring at each other and guarding our models like dragon gold then, since I don't see any factually attack-able flaws left in either (unless you still have a beef with mine, that is). I don't have the book, so can't check, but I suppose he either overdid it or miscalculated his own weight, then . The key in the end is that Feruchemy would just be vastly more efficient than it is if "parallel tapping" were allowed. I don't have any solid solid evidence that that isn't the case, but I think it's about as likely as my 10-digit theory of Allomancy. More specifically, I'm trying to talk about a couple of books (the Mistborn books) with a few references to other works while you're trying to talk about the Cosmere as a whole. That would work with the right universal theory, but not really in any other circumstance. It's like you're trying to talk about the Roman Empire while I talk about Rome: If you get everything about the entire empire exactly right, then you'll be able to describe Rome as well as anyone can, but I'm focusing on getting the details of that one city exactly right first. I would prefer to start with a firm foundation and then build out (how the Empire was influenced by the state of Rome, etc.) while you want to work in from the outside. Good sir! You wound me! EDIT: That will be a truly monumental achievement, akin to the Atlas (20 awesome points if you get the reference without looking it up) in scope. I'm trying to do something a bit more comprehensive with this thread, though I think I'll have to revise some things after TES. Still mulling that over right now.

An interesting thought which does make a certain amount of sense. I still don't necessarily buy it, though. My interpretation of Allomantic efficiency is like an engine: you can pour on more gas, but you just get diminishing returns after a certain point. You may like this post, actually. It has a nice efficiency curve and I find his arguments persuasive. The thing is, if your theory is the case, then there should really be no upper limit to flaring. The biggest weakness of Allomancy versus Feruchemy has been said since book 1 to be Allomancy's upper limit. If you have an hour's worth of metal and flare it so that you only have 10 minutes worth, then why can't you just flare it a bit more for 5 minutes worth? Why the absolute limit? When Vin Duraluminum-bashed that Thug in the face at the assassination attempt, we were explicitly told that she should have lost that head-butting match (without duraluminum, at least). Ham said that, if both Vin and the Thug flared Pewter, then they should have evened out and it would be like neither were burning pewter when they're heads hit. Even it is was inefficient, you'd think that one or the other would be expected to flare that little bit more to win the match, coming down in the end to whoever had more pewter in their stomach. Then Ham wouldn't have been surpised at all, he'd have just said "I guess Vin had more pewter" and call it a day. So there is a limit on Allomancy while their shouldn't be if you're right about how flaring works. If the mechanisms for Allomancy and Feruchemy are really so similar, then why is only Allomancy restricted by this upper bound? Even if you can provide a sensible reason for the upper-bound, we still have the question of why it should take energy to "compound" Allomancy or Feruchemy under your system. As of now, I hold that the limit for Allomancy is at the level of the metal being burned: that Allomancers can only burn so much (just because) and that they burn the metal inefficiently when flaring. The energy cost of Allomancy is borne entirely by the Shard at all levels, and the Shard certainly isn't running out of energy, so why should the delivery of that energy to the Allomancer be particularly expensive in high quantities? If Feruchemists use up energy to "compound" attributes because they are pulling together discrete units of time. The energy cost lies entirely in the transfer itself, so it makes sense that high rates of transfer cost more energy: if you transfer more "time units" than 1:1, then it costs more power. If, though, Feruchemy works virtually the same as Allomancy, then why is the energy cost still riding in the transfer itself? EDIT: Oops. Lost my brain there for a second. I was distracted then came back and forgot I'd forgotten where I was going. Sorry. Okay, quickly before I have to go: If Feruchemy and Allomancy work in nearly identical fashions, then why can an Allomancer only burn so much pewter while a Feruchemist can Hulk-out on every drop of power they have at the same time? I did the math with him at 80kg (176 lbs), and it's nice and round, so I'll stick with it. If tapping is as efficient as your musing suggests, then almost nothing Wax ever did could truly offset his stored weight, so I'll stick with 90 days of storage too, although I could probably more accurately say 20 years and still be safe. You don't need to drop another building on a building in order to destroy it: As I said, 90 days would give Wax a perfectly efficient mass of 1800Kg. A well-built modern house has a floor which can take ~18Kg per square foot before breaking. The shack-house that Wax destroys is described as rickety from the get-go. Recall that Wax is Pushing on metal, too, so all the force is going into literally the fastening and nails that keep the building intact in the first place. 18*99 = 1782, so basic 90-day weight can put destruction-level force on 99 square feet of the top of the building if the force is equally distributed (which it won't be), which will cause it to collapse on the rest of the building and pull everything down with it. Especially given the decayed state of the building in the book, I think a "1:1" tap would actually do it. If not, though, I'll easily let you double or quadruple the tapping, putting 4 parallel seconds into 1, with still very little energy lost and a lot more to spare. Fair enough. I still hold that my specifications are at least as specific as yours, though. Oh, the goals are certainly related to the discussion, and thank you for trying to clarify them: such clarity lets us better understand where we're coming from and what we're trying to achieve, and so makes communication easier. Ultimately, though, the goals oughtn't to come into the final evaluation of whether or not a theory is plausible as it is presented. We're discussing the mechanisms of Feruchemy (among other things), so the only ultimately important metric by which to judge the validity of our models is how they model Feruchemy. But see, I can discuss it! Yah! First of all, I can deduce that oranges are edible by studying apples and seeing that they have the same relative abundance in grocery stores as oranges, as well as the same basic origin as the fruit of a flowering tree. I can also deduce a high sugar content, once again from the fruit-thing and my in-depth study of the common apple. I can't say that apples are better than oranges due to their dissimilarity, sure, but I can come to a lot of reasonable conclusions about an orange by studying how it relates to an apple. Oh yes, they're quite different. Stormlight, for one, is universally accessible to anyone who gets their hands on it while it is imbued in gemstones, while Feruchemical metalminds are much more "locked down." That could suggest that the ease with which Investiture can be "stolen" relates to how well a vessel stores it. Alternatively, it could be that while "leaking" is indeed a fundamental difference between Feruchemical attributes and Stormlight, as is to be expected with different magic systems, they are still both fundamentally stored in Spiritual aspects due to the aforementioned me-praising.

That's good to know. It indicates that Aons as we know them are entirely comprised of energy, with physical forms simply serving as a shortcut for Elantrians. Presumably "light" Aons on stones and whatnot simply have some additional "stay on" lines that keep them on rather than the fact of being carved making them more permanent, then.

Thank you for that restating, and that formulation might actually be a fairly accurate model for how Feruchemy functions if not for "word of god," but, as it is, you are simply going down the wrong path. If we go back to the original Brandon quote, he says that "you'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself." It isn't a matter of efficiency of access, despite the jargon we've been using, but instead that you actually have to actively spend energy in order to "compound" Feruchemical attributes. So presenting weak storage as "impure" simply won't work. I agree, you did answer above. To the aside! Your objection is very odd. If what you say is true, then storing an attribute at 10% for an hour, stopping for 1 second, then storing it at 10% for another hour will allow you to tap at 20% with zero inefficiency for an entire hour. The whole "occurring simultaneously" thing is part of why I brought the Goradel quote in. If you have two lumps of 10% storage of size X and you add them together, then you ought to get one lump of 10% storage of size 2X. Anything else is exceptionally open to exploitation, and really doesn't have any reason to be used as a model. If your proposition is true, then there is really no functional difference between storing 10% for two hours and storing 20% for one hour, which is what we've been trying to avoid this whole time. While I highly doubt that either Brandon or Feruchmists in the series would have failed to mention this incredibly important fact, we also have that Wax shouldn't have drained his metalminds when crushing the building, in your world. He'd been storing 25% of his weight at all waking times for a large part of his life--at least several months without real tapping while he was back in Elendel. Each time he slept, those "storage sections" should have been stored separately in your model, and could then be used in parallel with no additional cost. So a few month's worth of 25% storage. I imagine that you could crush a building at "1:1," time wise, if you used all of those segments in parallel. Just to put this in perspective, Wax could have weighed 1800Kg for a whole day with zero inefficiency (given a base weight of 80Kg, 90 days of storage). It includes a sensible application of "time scuttling" that ties in perfectly with what Brandon has said on the subject, namely using some of the power to compound the rest of it. Also, I really like that quote. Normal Feruchemy: A: Feruchemist mentally tries to store in metalmind B: Feruchemist utilizes the unguided power of the Shards to move his attributes into the metalmind. C: Feruchemist mentally tries to tap his metalmind D: Feruchemist utilizes the unguided power of the Shards to move his attribute out of the metalmind and into his body/mind/soul, using some of the attribute's power on top of that of the Shard's if surging. Shard (Directly) Fueling Feruchemy: Option 1: Shard places additional power in a Feruchemist's metalmind. Option 2: Shard places additional power in the Feruchemis himself. Option 3: Shard injects additional power into a normal tap from the Feruchemist. Option 4 ... You yourself don't have a particularly clear idea of where the Shard comes in to fuel Allomancy. Oh, absolutely nowhere within my own system. This is a separate point that simply follows from the intuition (and a bit evidence that I've discussed) that a raw application of power into an existing magic system is cheaper for the Shard than a more nuanced and/or direct use. A noble enough goal, but unrelated to the purpose of our discussion. I can give you a theory that Allomancy won't work unless you have all of your fingers and toes, which is patently absurd (your theory isn't patently absurd, but I'm trying for contrast), but it is certainly very falsifiable. That doesn't give the theory one ounce more merit in discussion, though. I appreciate efforts to figure out the broader cosmology (I'd better appreciate that kind of thing), but I think you've simply hit wrong here. I don't think that Gateways are the way to go, and trying to staple them onto Feruchemy is harmful. I'll take a quick shot at Surgebinding, if you don't mind: *ahem* "Given that Thought has hailed me as a god and that we all now agree that it is a logical necessity that Feruchemical attributes are stored in the Spiritual aspects of metalminds, I hereby suggest that Stormlight is primarily stored in the Spiritual aspects of surgebinders and gemstones, rather than in their Physical aspects. The longevity of this storage may well have to do with the form of these objects, but we already know that power "stored" in tangible objects can actually stored in the Spiritual realm--and stormlight is essentially raw magical power, which we also know comes directly from the Spiritual realm--so it follows that the majority of stormlight's existence is Spiritual as well, with the light itself most likely being a "bleeding" effect. This, in turn, suggests that crushing a stormlight-bearing gemstone might very well result in the stormlight released thereof appearing "spontaneously" from the location at which the gemstone was last complete, since the composite object which once housed the stormlight was fundamentally destroyed and the stormlight has no affinity to its atomic components."

Okay, I can definitely buy that. As long as the color doesn't provide the sustaining power, I think I'd be fine with most systems. Under my model (with the model as a whole described by certain parties as "very close" ), color is used to power the transfer of the Command (which I posit is in the form of a partial Cognitive aspect as of right now) to the Awakened object. Could we back up a bit and have you explain how gateways account for initial intervals of storage? So how gateways code in 3 hours of 10% as opposed to 1 hour of 30%? This actually flows all the way back to my point about "full" metalminds. So it seems that your gateways will have to have variable size as well as everything else in order for metalminds of equal power to be using equal space, unless you want "power equal" metalminds to possibly be of unequal sizes. Assuming that "full" metalminds hold the same amount of power regardless of how quickly they were filled in your system: But then we must ask why pulling 10% from 3 small gateways at the same time for an hour should actually be more expensive than pulling 30% from 1 large gateway. Now that you've acknowledge that initial intervals of storage matter during the "surging" calculation of energy loss, what is it within your model that necessitates or even implies that energy loss? As far as the Shard giving you all of the power is concerned, its being asked for 30% for one hour. That 30% can go through 3 gateways or 100, but the amount of "space" available to move the energy through should be the same. I cannot see how energy loss from surging energy X/s as compared to tapping that same energy X/s at a 1:1 rate is a natural consequence of your system. Since moving the energy from discrete units of storage into the Feruchemist is where the Shard's energy comes in in my system, it is natural that moving more discrete units costs more energy. In your system, the Shard just delivers however much energy the gates "width" calls for. The only place where I could see some natural wastage was if the Shard tried to push too much energy through too small a gate, but that still would result in "full" metalminds of unequal power levels. All of the above does assume that you want two full Pewter earings to always have the same fundamental amount of power. If you agree with that, then please explain where the waste from surging is necessitated in your system. If you don't agree, I'm still interested to know for sure where the waste from surging comes from in your system. Side note: Could you take a glance at my quote of Goradel in my previous previous post, which I think I edited in after you had already quoted everything and we're working on it offline? I still find it quite persuasive in its intuitiveness. As I said, I don't find the method of Shardic powering I suggest to be that novel, and even if it was then that would fit nicely with unnatural actions costing extra energy (see my EDIT to my previous post). What variables doesn't my theory account for? I know you think I'm fuzzy on how the Shards could fuel Feruchemy (though I disagree for the following reasons), but anything besides that? Actually, for steam-o-mancy, I said that the Shard would be primarily restricted to pouring in raw power and making the water/fire hotter. You're the one who suggested changing the physical world as the mechanism for "powering" steam-o-mancy, and I corrected you on that. On a completely unrelated note, I don't think a Shard shouldn't be able to do any of those things. As I said at the end of my previous post, Shards can affect the Physical world, but we know it isn't a free action because otherwise Ruin could get all Ruinous without meaningfully diverting any of his power from the balance with Preservation. If a Shard was feeling wasteful that day, it could use its power to lower air pressure. But it would be like using a battery to power a fan to blow away the air to increase the ability of a battery-powered stove to boil the water. It's a lot more efficient to just hook up the battery to the stove. In order to avoid getting stuck in the mutually uncomprehending incomprehension loop again, please tell me again where the Shards interact when directly fueling in your system. Do they just throw energy at the magic-user? Do they create and/or over-utilize gateways? I view the nature (of which complexity is a component) of how the attribute is stored to be important because that's what we have a lot of data on, while we've never seen a Shard directly fuel Feruchemy. While how Shards fuel Feruchemy and other magic systems is important, I care less about its specific mechanism because we know that, no matter what system you use, the basic stuff of magic, Investiture, is always universally compatible, so the Shards can find some way in just about any model. I personally think my tentative mechanism would work fine, but don't have much investment in it because it's a fringe issue which could conceivably be resolved in a number of ways independent of any model. As far as storage goes: As of right now, I don't see that your gateway theory actually adequately explains how and why surging has a cost. Your equation, as you said, works for any system, but why does your system have that cost in the first place? I'm on the "makes memories ridiculously strong, but doesn't add any fundamentally new information" bandwagon. So you can remember the specific shape of that symbol better and the memory will, functionally, never fade, but you won't "remember" something that you never saw, like what was behind a drawn curtain. Alternatively, it could just lock the memory in place at the fidelity you had at the moment of compounding. So the symbol is just as fuzy as you remembered it last time, but it will never fade.