Kurkistan

I'm no expert, but I don't think such a partition should be at all expensive in terms of server load or memory. EDIT: Thanks for the support, also.

That's kind of what I was getting at. A dedicated spoiler board for each new book that is easy to merge back into the main section and hides thread titles (in one way or another) from the rest of the world.

Or some forum-magic might be useful to hide those thread titles...

And so I am truly honored. Considering the ridiculous amount of misunderstandings we've had on both sides (sorry about that), I wouldn't be surprised if we've been in complete agreement this whole time. So, if we do agree, then you'll agree that the impermanence of Aons drawn in the air is primarily a result of the impermanence of that medium, not of the Aons themselves defaulting to "burn after reading?" TES Spoiler. Do no click on this at all if you haven't read it. It's worth reading the book without spoilers, even if the following spoiler isn't that spoiler-y. Okay, then we still disagree. Color goes bye-bye after the first second or so, while power is continuous. Good to nail down what we each mean, even if you're still wrong. Okay, I'm fine with direct-fueling being an "active" role here. I think you're still a bit off on my (incredibly clear and detailed) scheme, though. If a Shard is directly fueling Feruchemy, or any power, really, then they aren't doing anything weaksauce like just making the process more efficient. They're throwing their own power on top of the magic-user's (at considerable cost). So the Shard would transport 3 boxes with extra power in them, or 30 boxes that came out of nowhere as far as the Feruchemist was concerned. The boiler-mancer's fire would grow more hot as the Shard added unnatural amounts of power without the proper "payment" coming from the magic user. In any scenario, the Shard puts itself out there to add more raw power from its own essence. Really, to be more accurate in the skit, the Guided Power of the Shard could show up at the Feruchemist's doorstep out of the blue and shove a million dollars in his face without the Feruchemist ever even asking for his own envelopes back. The Shard has the Feruchemist's address and has the power to give, so it could throw some extra energy into his Spiritual aspect easily enough. Alternatively (since we're not sure how fueling Feruchemy would work) the Shard could drop off his bags of money at the metalmind instead, and leave it for access later. But the new is so shiny and potentially world-ending! How can you resist!? Recall that Shards directly fueling magic is an unnatural and costly process. While I don't think my mechanism is particularly "new," I don't think novelty would be that unusual in such extreme circumstances. EDIT: Actually, we may be able to work together on this one. Allomancy is harder for Ruin to directly fuel than it is for Preservation, right? So the degree to which the mechanism is novel to the Shard might very well have some impact there. Well done. So we agree, then, that we need to somehow remember the interval during which the attribute was stored, in order to make your equation work? It could work with functionally identical, but technically different power, but the problem is that I don't really see the need for such contrivance, especially since we also need to contrive an additional structure which stores intervals of storage (for your equation) as well as raw power. It seems much more elegant and natural to simply have the original power stored and then retrieved (barring exceptional circumstances) at a later date, unchanged. Then we don't need to explain where all the extra information (including the specifics of Memory et al., spirit-key, etc. as well as the interval of storage) is stored. At this point, what is the advantage of your gateway system over "time scuttling" via pushing aspects into a (possibly) atemporal Spiritual garage? As I said, I don't think it really breaks the norm that much, and even if it did, that might be quite expected for something which is an exceptional action for the Shards. As you said, "write-o-mancy" doesn't fall under Hemalurgy's purview, and yet Ruin can utilize it if he must. New doesn't mean impossible or even improbable. Side Note: Speaking of write-o-mancy, I would be surprised if altering the physical world was not also uniquely costly to Shards: otherwise Ruin could get all Ruinous without meaningfully diverting any of his power from the balance with Preservation.

Hey guys, It's occurred to me that it might be a good idea to retain this child-board until the entire 6-month "embargo period"--during which we normally spoil posts concerning new books--is over. Having "mixed types" of threads all on the same board is just begging for trouble, really. Even thread titles can be spoiler-y, creating the chance of spoiling someone in a quarter-second glance as well as leading to exceptionally vague titles in an effort to avoid such an occurence ("Theory about Harmony," anyone?). "Mixing types" also leads to a surplus of "SPOILERS" embedded in other threads as well as a real risk of people spoiling TES on the main Elantris boards by accident, which could shut down even Elantris-centric discussion for awhile out of fear. I would suggest that such a spoiler-sub-board arrangement actually be used for all new releases in the foreseeable future as well. It just makes everything cleaner, and we can merge the threads back in at the end of the embargo with no harm done. EDIT: Actually, ironically enough, this would probably be better off on the main Elantris boards than here. Would someone with Harmony-like powers mind moving it?

I saw no indication whatsoever that the Gyorn was working with the Glory Faction. His inclusion seems more of an easter egg than anything else. P.S. Welcome to the forums, btw!

Just an immediate reaction is that its quite excellent. Superbly paced (I agree with the criticisms about Legion) and lean. I was satisfied when I finished it (not that I didn't want more) instead of feeling like I'd just barely begun. Although I intentionally tried not to "over Cosmere" it, and so haven't thought many of the impacts of its Realmatics through, Murphy necessitates that I anticipate further thought resulting in terrible things happening to my pet Realmatic theory: but I'll try to forgive TES that flaw.

No, Allomancy is basically on board with conservation of momentum. As far as pushing on a steel wall goes, it does rebound the force back on you in the real world. Newton's Third Law and all. It just isn't that much force and you usually lean into it or otherwise shift your balance.

And now I have leisure. To WAR! Not exactly that the Aons are still present in the air molecules, but that some special force is required to keep them in place during their use, since there is no solid foundation for the Aon. Once the Aon is used, the force that kept it in place goes away and entropy takes over, destroying the Aon's form. Aons carved in stone, however, would not require a constant stream of energy to retain their form, since the now-natural shape of the stone does not require any special support to endure. So Raoden's Fire-Aons remain in place because they haven't been completed and activated yet, but would presumably dissipate within a reasonable time frame if just left hanging in the air. His Travel-Aon would simply dissipate after use. I think it's also possible that Aons are just being dissipated and/or joining the power that was used to create them into the power of the "spell" they call. So an "air-drawn" healing Aon pours a bit of extra power into the healing as it ceases to exist as a separate entity, while a "stone-drawn" light Aon doesn't need energy to maintain its form and so remains after use. I'm not sure of these theory by any means, but I am trying to show that the Aons needn't necessarily be "destroyed" by their use. Yeah, that's a bit irritating. I think Dilaf became slightly more fanatical after the whole "those false gods tortured my wife in the most horrible way possible, forcing me to kill her" incident, though. Good point on Returned. I'm just developing my thoughts on them, so I'll admit they need refinement. Here's a try: First of all, for all we know there is a slight difference in the frequency of Breaths needed for highly active Returned, averaging out at "once a week" as a rule. Alternatively, Returned get a constant stream of energy from their eaten Breaths--far, far more energy than they actually need to survive (allowing body-transformations and whatnot)--and most of that energy is wasted--still expended, but wasted--by them not using it. On another note, I've realized that the Breath can't properly be eaten gradually through the course of a week. If that were the case, then a Divine Breath should last a lot longer than just a week on its own. It has to be a complete, momentary, destructive process. That, in turn, leads to a rather natural answer to the "why does Vivienne need to eat?" question. I would now suggest that when Breaths are "eaten," they are in fact fundamentally destroyed and their whole energy tacked onto the Spiritual aspect of their eater directly. Normal Breaths held by Awakeners are therefore held somewhat loosely and only benefit their holder with a small amount of their total energy in a small amount of ways. "Eaten" Breaths, though, could be a horse of a different color, fueling everything from strength to metabolism and residing in a fundamentally different "place" than a Breath which is simply being held. All I really want out of this is for magical effects to be fueled somehow. Shardblades might have a self-replenishing power source for all we know, but they still need to have some power source. The power source of Awakened objects is Breath, it seems, while my understanding of a "gateway" is that the gateway allows the power source through from some fundamentally different place while the gateway exists and then stops letting power through when it doesn't exist. Breaths don't reside "elsewhere," though: they're in one guys body and then they're somewhere else. No delivery from a Shard or the Spiritual realm necessary. Actually, when you talk about color as a gateway, do you just mean a gateway from Person A -> Object B, allowing the Breath to flow? Because that (while I still think its wrong, btw ) makes much more sense than how I've understood you thus far. Of course! Sorry, I was reading you as more so caustic than playful. My fault, really. I shouldn't have assumed that. I apologize for my overreaction. No, first one. I think you're right and I was wrong about Ruin tampering with stuff in copperminds, especially since there's a Brandon quote floating around about Ruin liking to mess with stuff at the moment of transition. So "in transit," when I say it, means when the energy is being transferred from wherever it's stored into the Feruchemist. First of all, I think we still have a disagreement on what "power of creation" means. My understanding is that all Investiture is fundamentally the power of creation, so the power that Shards have is fundamentally the same as--and compatible with--the power of Feruchemists. This is backed up by the RPG's treatment of Investiture (see a few posts above for some more sources on the RPG's reliability). I don't have a problem with Shards throwing in a bit more power while an attribute is in transit. To continue the skit model, the "guided power of the Shard" walks up besides the unguided power and then slips a few C-notes into the envelope. Ah, I see. Fair enough. Although I haven't talked about it much, the idea of "compressing points in time actually provides a very intuitive explanation for the cost of "surging"-- which was actually the reason I stopped being annoyed by that energy loss back in the day. Here's a rather excellent explanation from Goradel's Nephew: By the time I got halfway through the topic, I had a good response ready. You just stole it. "Diminishing Returns" Makes all kinds of sense when you take the AoL Ars Arcanum into Account. (Alliteration!) When a feruchemist spends some time storing strength, he's using his own feruchemical power to push that strength into a kind of temporal limbo, outside of time. Later, the feruchemist can again use his feruchemical ability to reach back and draw the strength from past, connecting the two points in time with feruchemy. Paraphrase: When a Feruchemist taps a metalmind, the Feruchemist pulls energy through time, connecting his present self to a past self who is pushing that same energy forward through time. Compounding (which we're going to have to find a new term for) refers to pulling back that reserve faster than it was stored, and puts a strain on his own feruchemical power. He's reaching to draw strength back from himself through time, connecting to Two Separate Periods of Time, forcing his feruchemical ability to work harder, and losing some energy to compensate. Paraphrase: When a Feruchemist compounds his power, he pulls on energy from two separate times, connecting to two past selves instead of one. As I said above, it would be more like *hands the Feruchemists 50,000,010 envelopes and winks significantly* or *hands the Feruchemists 10 suspiciously full envelopes.* It could be that Shards needn't be limited to just courier work, its just the only thing that doesn't cost them their own power. Fez's are quite cool, I agree. Almost as cool as bow-ties. And then we get into the problem of needing the power to be individualized for discrete periods of time, which I know that your mulling over. If the Shard's power are just banks that take in and put out money without regard for the denominations or where it came from, then the 1:1 system can't work. If Shards do perfectly remember increments/rates of storage, then they might as well just be envelopes on shelves. Ruin doesn't normally alter words as they are written, but it isn't outside the scope of his powers. Recall also that magic systems only "cost" to fuel when that system is somehow not natural to the Shard, such as Preservation not losing power from normal Allomancy because its like water over a turbine. Ruin isn't involved in Allomancy at all, normally, but could fuel it if he wanted to. So the Shards could quite possibly have abnormal access to Feruchemical power if they were willing to bear the cost. See my other comments on canonicity. It could be that raw Investiture just isn't as nice as other attributes. Memory A might slot in next to Memory B as polite as you please in a coppermind, but Investiture is only naturally store-able in Nicrosil: It might just run rampant in other metals. I wouldn't be surprised if the only exception to the "Investiture wipe" rule is with other Feruchemist's nicrosilminds. ----- Just a general note on Feruchemical power: since we have a separate discussion going on for that, I didn't reply to some stuff pertaining to it. You've got it about right (by my understanding, at least), and that is a very interesting consequence. Compounders probably just don't give a flying leap about how efficiently they access their nigh-infinite level of storage, but it could conceivably become important, especially when considering Atium-compounding or other rare (read: god) metals and their alloys.

Got an email from Amazon saying that release was moved up to the 15th.

Glad we're on the right page (hopefully). A follow-up on the RPG's canonical status: http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=618#30 http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=428#81 http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=622#164

Okay, I'm tired and also a bit frustrated. I'll deal with the rest at my leisure. Perhaps I lost my head in all the scary numbers. So please explain it to me with words and possibly brightly colored pictures: How, exactly, can you account for variable values of X and Q for different quanta of energy without also, in some way, recording the rate at which that energy was stored? If, 20 years later, you want to draw on that strength you stored oh so long ago, how can you do the calculation--how can you generate the appropriate X and the appropriate Q--if your unit of storage does not fundamentally recall the rate at which it was stored, and so has no way of informing on what compression factor is necessary? P.S. I know it's violating my focus, but quick note on the RPG's canonicity: If you followed the "quote trail" back far enough, you'd see that the only part that Crafty actually just said "we hope he likes it" about is the actual House of Ashes collection of short stores and its characters. When I say "otherwise assumed to be true," and Crafty backs me on it, that indicates a smidgen more reliability than just some impressive theory. It's worth taking into account, at the very least.

Interesting question. It was his wife, by the way. Forgive me if I'm off on anything here, since I haven't read Elantris in forever. She might have actually been taken by the Shaod at a very very unlucky time, in the middle of the healing process, which disrupted the transformation the same way that the chasm disrupted normal transformations, but somehow left it permanently broken. I don't recall if she was genetically capable of becoming an Elantrian, though. Remember that both normal Elantrians and Heod Elantrians are sustained by an outside power source: the Dor as channeled by Elantris and the surrounding countryside. All other Aons are also channeled through Elantris et al. from the Dor. I don't think it's too big a stretch to suggest that Dilaf's wife somehow got hooked up imperfectly to that power stream. The initial, impermanent Aon simply functioned as a mechanism to tweak her Spiritual aspect to tune it in to the Aon of Elantris et al., much like the Spiritual aspects of normal Elantrians are presumably tweaked. It went away, but the changes it made remained (like how a soulcast goblet stays as blood) and those changes drew upon the Dor. Really, I'm coming to doubt even your supposition that gateways being destroyed in the process of their use is normal. An Aon drawn in the air goes away because it's in the air. An Aon drawn on a solid surface just keeps on working, even to the point of that Aon being an entire country city. The only example we actually have of gateways being destroyed is of Allomancy, which may well be either abnormal or at the very least a subset of broader "gateway" magic systems. That's an interesting thought on end-positive systems. That may be the case, but remember that the Ars Arcanum author also described Sel's magic and Allomancy as "form based Investiture." That suggests that the two categories are not one and the same. He could otherwise have said, "like all end-positive systems I have seen, Allomancy and the magic of Sel are form-based investitures." So it might be safer to just claim that gateway => end-positive instead of gateway <=> end-positive. I'll give what I think the power sources are. Shardblades: The Spiritual realm (where all energy comes from) where they're stored between uses. In the past, I and others have suggested that Shardblades are Physical manifestations of Spiritual power. Returned: The Breaths they consume. I presume that Breaths are comprised of a large amount of Investiture, and moreover have the ability to generate a smaller amount of Investiture on a regular basis. so if Breath have 100 units of energy and produce a 10% interest, then Returned eat 15% a day (ish. I don't feel like math today). Nightblood: Doesn't need additional Breath unless he's drawn and in smoking-god mode (when he uses much more power), presumably sustained on a day-to-day basis by the thousand or so Breaths that went into him initially. I suppose we have a fundamental schism of worldviews here, then. I simply cannot conceive of an object continously doing work, producing energy, without some kind of energy coming into it. Thank you. I do try. Are you, by any chance, a follower of the Good Doctor, who died to save us from our aliens (and regenerated, and died, and regenerated...)? Store energy in a D cell, then store more energy in a AAA. Either you can tape them together and treat them as one battery whenever you calculate my available energy or you can treat them as fundamentally separate quanta of energy. I don't particularly appreciate the sarcasm. Fair enough. It doesn't really provide solid evidence for either side. Got a bit overeager, I suppose. EDIT: Actually, hold on a minute. You just said that changing things in transit is okay. So it really doesn't matter how the power is normally accessed, since the Shards just mess with it, once again, while it's in transit. So a fair portion of the basis of your theory (the "like nourishes like," and Preservation can fuel Feruchemy, so...) goes away. No, the "umph" behind the discrete intervals is "what happens if a Feruchemist store 100% strength (and manages not to die) for an hour one day, uses it all , then stores 50% strength for two hours the next?" The Feruchemist's metalmind is storing the exact same amount of energy on both days. The only difference is the rate at which that energy was stored: The first day, he can be at 200% strength for exactly 1 hour. The second day, he can be at 200% strength for less than 1 hour. EDIT: I must emphasize that the total amount of energy that they can access is fundamentally the same at 1:1 tapping. If the Feruchemist is trying to push a heavy block across a flat plane for two hours, he will do exactly as well on both days if he draws at 1:1 on day two. Let's say the Feruchemist can manage 10 feet in one hour at 100% strength (it's a very heavy block). On day one, he will spend an hour at 200% strength pushing the block 20 ft/hr, and then an hour at 100% strength pushing the block 10 ft/hr, for a total of 30ft. On day two, he will spend two hours pushing the block 15 ft/hr, for a total of 30 ft. Both days end with the Feruchemist pushing the block the same distance, ultimately retrieving the same amount of energy from the metalmind. But only if the Feruchemist is tapping at full efficiency. --- This all follows directly from a quote from Brandon Sanderson. It's not one of those third-level theories with 20 suppositions. It's a direct implication with no other alternative in a well-ordered system. If you want to get into addition, it's more like adding together two volumes into a bucket, but with both of them having to go through their own funnel to get to the bucket. V1 has a funnel which is so small that fully half of its water is wasted by flowing over the edge (and missing the bucket). V2 has a bigger funnel, so less of its volume is wasted. The end result depends upon the initial volumes, the amount they can efficiently pour at one time, and flow rates. Once again, this is simply how it works. Read the quote. If you still disagree after reading and thinking about the quote, then please tell me in explicit detail why my interpretation of the quote--at the very least as regards to variable storage rates mattering when you tap--is wrong. TL;DR: The equation is fundamentally wrong, so I don't think any "tighter" version of it would be much more useful. I first proposed my modification to the "spirit locker" theory simply as a mechanism for modeling the effects of Feruchemy. I have yet to really see you address the actually theory in this post, not counting your unremitting sarcasm, and still think that it's standing up rather well overall, but I'm not married to it. What I'm really fighting for here is the fact that variable storage rates are remembered, and affect the tapping of Feruchemical attributes. I'll defend both, but you haven't really addressed the most important one (the one that directly clashes with your theory) very much as of yet. I also find it odd that most of your "criticisms" focus around my proposed mechanism not dealing with "time" enough, despite the fact that your mechanism considers time even less, so far as I can see. The Ars Arcanum author, who has been very knowledgeable and accurate up to this point, described Feruchemy as time shuttling. I'm trying to take that into account by coming up with a system to model such an effect, while you just seem to ignore it all together. EDIT 2: Also, Odiums_Shard just proposed a novel little tweak to my theory. Time passes differently in the Cognitive realm, no? Then is it outrageous to suggest a fundamentally different passage of time in the Spiritual realm as well? If that were the case, then these attributes would actually be quite literally pushed out of time, into another time stream which may even be stopped relative to the Physical realm. Translation: "You're right, that could quite reasonably work as a conceptual model and also accounts for all of the effects we see from Feruchemy--as my theory, indeed, fails to. Well said." I'll just throw that block of text back in and wait for a proper response, if you don't mind. We know from the RPG that Feruchemists can transfer Investiture between their own metalminds. More importantly, they can use their own Investiture to disable other Feruchemist's metalminds by dumping in excess, wrong-keyed investiture and overwriting the other Feruchemist's attributes. So even normal Feruchemists have some access to other people's metalminds. I imagine that Preservation/Ruin could be a bit more gentle about it and put in accessible energy, and I wouldn't be surprised if Feruchemists can willingly transfer right-keyed Investiture between themselves somehow. I also wouldn't be surprised if, failing a non-wipey way to add Investiture to metalminds directly, Ruin/Preservation were simply capable of hijacking the input stream whenever the Feruchemist tapped and throwing in more power, like conscious compounding. Yeah, the RPG had some nice goodies in it. There's a thread on most of the interesting stuff. It's not 100% canonical (for instance, the RPG says that time bubbles are additive, not multiplicative like Brandon said) but most changes were for gameplay purposes, and their discussion of Feruchemical nicrosil was fundamentally about transforming Investiture.

No problem. Us insane theorizers have to stick together! I don't think "war" is quite the right word for this discussion, though. *Enters Gristled WWII Vet mode* This is no war, son. This is a convivial discussion over tea and crumpets compared to real war. *Exit GWWIIV mode* Actually, this is quite pleasant. Thought and I are actually kind of listening to each other and developing our arguments along the way, rather than just standing our ground and trying to see who blinks first. It's more so a spirited debate than a war. That's a good point on possible timelessness in the Spiritual realm.

*Unnecessary oath incoming* I will eat my hat if Awakening is end-negative. Brandon has said that "the overwhelming majority of cases, [investiture is] end-positive or at least neutral. Hemalurgy really is an oddity in the cosmere." Besides that, Awakening is the most end-neutral thing I've ever seen. Color is only used at the moment of Awakening, and then Awakened objects keep on trucking forever, with completely reusable Breath being perfectly retrievable for non-Lifeless. Breath does provide a continuous, regenerating stream of energy (like a soul, even...), but the same can be said for where the energy comes from in Feruchemy.

I'm aware of where you got the term, thank you. I was referring to your use of it, since a long-destroyed splotch of color isn't up to being a gateway for continuous power, by my understanding of the term. There's a difference between objects staying in motion and a continuous supply of new power. Awakened objects can continually do things for quite awhile, implying some kind of continuous energy stream, no? We have no case of an object with no magical power simply continuing to be magical: Vin went flying to the ground as soon as the physical momentum that resulted from her Push was exhausted. I'm fine with Breath providing that continuous energy, and even with colors allowing the Breath to transfer in the first place, but not with color acting as a "gateway" for that continuous energy to come through. Color can move Breath around all it wants, but something else has to take over and supply the energy once the color is gone, so that color cannot be the true gateway for Awakening. Harmony man, you keep misinterpreting that "out of time" business. It's an abstraction. The attribute is stored somewhere for awhile, presumably experiencing the passage of time as well as attributes are able to have experience, but simply does not decay and is available for retrieval. Ruin can access copperminds somehow. That is a fact. I also think its fair to say that even an "undamaged coppermind" is probably a bit less resilient than a living, breathing, Preservation-endowed, sentient person, even one who's vulnerable. It's an object's Spiritual strength as compared to a person's. The object will probably lose in that comparison. There's also the possibility that Ruin works in the transition phase, when the energy is flowing between aspects, when it would be even more vulnerable. Throw that kid in a stasis pod for a year. Then open the pod. Yay. Time shuttling is storage with a level of abstraction to--once again--account for the retention of exact rates of storage for exact intervals of time, which your system still massively fails to account for. The problem is that you lack any variables to even represent the discrete intervals of storage. "Energy" is just a big blob, when it should be a set of tuples: Ex: S[n] = <Energy(n),Time(n)> S[n+1] = <Energy(n+1), Time(n+1)> So: S[0] = <50kg, 1 hr> s[1] = <20kg, 4 hr> ... --- You need to account for the different sizes of these quanta in order to accurately model Feruchemy, and your equations don't. --- EDIT: You could save some space/conceptualization by adding together the times for tupples that store the same energy, so <10kg, 1hr> and <10kg, 3hr> becomes <10kg,4hr>. There is a potential problem with how exactly all of this is accessed, specifically in what order. I would guess that it's accessed from most->least efficient relatively automatically. We already know that there's an impressive ability for a Feruchemist to consciously pick out memories from a Coppermind without necessarily searching through all of them (I don't think we ever saw Sazed dumping his entire Coppermind, finding a memory, then putting everything else back in)--in real time no less--so some robust search mechanism must be chilling out in the backend, perhaps even just some unconscious part of the Feruchemist's Spiritual aspect. Yes, but saying "they send attributes forward in time" is a much quicker, more accurate way to describe this system of variable quanta because it still is, in essence what is happening. Everything else that I've been outlining--metalminds as storage units in the Spiritual realm, etc.--has been a mere mechanism to enable this end result. As far as the end-user is concerned, all that is happening is that he's sending attributes forward in time and then collecting on them later. That's called good software design: get all the nitty-gritty out of the way and let people fight with magic. To reiterate, the end user can quite accurately say that his is shuttling attributes forward through time by using his metalminds as media, blissfully unaware of the complexities underlying it. He can say this because that's essentially how the system works at the end of the day, and really is a fair description of its behavior and end results. Allomancy has been described as "burning metals to get power," but no one seriously suggests that the metals are the source of that power. But, when you have to describe it in a few sentences that still describe the basics of the system and allow a working knowledge of its effects, you still end up saying essentially "they burn metals to get magic powers" without getting into the mechanistic details of it. On this note of simplicity, of hiding the unnecessary details of the process, I would hazard that saying "act as a medium" is less question-provoking then "acts as a place to store the attributes between use," given that the author was previously talking about time-shuttling without even a hint of storage. I agree that it's not definite proof, but I don't think you can just dismiss it out of hand. Fair enough. Moving on. I was talking about a different aspect of Shardblades, namely their Allomantic volatility. Sorry for any confusion. Ok, I see your point. I suppose it was just a misunderstanding. I would hazard that atium and metalminds are just very lightly invested, but still invested. Marsh pushing on Szeth's shardblade would be hard, not impossible, and those things are so powerful that they're essentially middle fingers to nature. The normal process would be like this, I imagine: Feruchemist: "Hey, non-guided power of the Shards, do you mind putting this letter full of money on that shelf over there? I can't reach." Non-guided power: "Sure thing bud." *moves power of attribute to metalmind* F: "Thanks pally!" NGP: "No problem bro. Remember though, I didn't put any money in the envelope!" F: "Ha ha ha! Why would I expect you to do that? It's my money that I'm saving up, I just needed a bit of help to keep it safe." NGP: "Right you are!" --- F: "Hey NGP, I need to get 10,000 envelopes at the same time!" NGP: "That's a bit steep man. You're gonna have to help me out a bit!" F: "Oh man, now I have to spend some of my money to hire workers to help me get the rest of my money out from storage!" NGP: "You should have planned ahead better, or had fewer, but larger envelopes." F: "<sarcasm>Thanks for that advice bro. Really helpful.</s> NGP: We know from the RPG that Feruchemists can transfer Investiture between their own metalminds. More importantly, they can use their own Investiture to disable other Feruchemist's metalminds by dumping in excess, wrong-keyed investiture and overwriting the other Feruchemist's attributes. So even normal Feruchemists have some access to other people's metalminds. I imagine that Preservation/Ruin could be a bit more gentle about it and put in accessible energy, and I wouldn't be surprised if Feruchemists can willingly transfer right-keyed Investiture between themselves somehow. EDIT: I also wouldn't be surprised if, failing a non-wipey way to add Investiture to metalminds directly, Ruin/Preservation were simply capable of hijacking the input stream whenever the Feruchemist tapped and throwing in more power, like conscious compounding. We also know that the powers are fundamentally the same, since Investiture can directly fuel other Feruchemical attributes and TLR was planning on Nicrosiling the Well of Ascension.

I'm totally fine with Breaths providing infinite energy: they're Spiritual constructs, that's kind of what they do. I suppose I'm misunderstanding what you can even mean by "gateway," though, if the gateway "the color" can be long gone while the magic keeps working indefinitely. Preservation and Ruin could mess with Feruchemy by tweaking the Spiritual aspects of metalminds or with the energy as it's in transit from the metalmind's reserve to the Spiritual aspect of its user. We know that it's possible, since Ruin messed with Copperminds. We also know that Ruin messed with them either while they were not being used or at the moment of their use, meaning that, in a gateway model, Ruin can't just utilize/open gateways, he has to be able to subtly alter gateways and/or add and erase gateways in metalminds. Your argument was that Ruin and Preservation could only fuel Feruchemy if they were the same power, fundamentally: the power of creation; that like nourishes like, and thus all is water, essentially. All is water, though! All Investiture is essentially the power of creation. Shards just have a storming ton of it at their disposal, and utilize it for their own ends. Hemalurgy can steal everything, so everything Hemalurgy can steal must be fundamentally the same. The Investiture that Feruchemists put into their metalminds is their own, then, generated by their own bodies and souls and minds. But that Investiture is still fundamentally similar to the power of all shards, so the shards can fuel it if they want to. Problems of efficiency and nature of power transfer for different shards (Ruin not liking to fuel Allomancy) can be chalked up to intent or maybe some unknown factor. But all shards can fuel all magic systems. I think now you're taking this a bit literally . If you read my and Satsuoni's followups on what exactly time-shuttling entails, you'll see that the way that the attribute is not necessarily being "pushed" at all times. It gets slotted into a functionally non-temporal void and then pulled out later. No need for a continuous energy stream to keep it going, and the universe doesn't break if it's left in that void forever. The reason we conceive of it as "time shuttled" is because of the necessity of retaining the unique strengths/characteristics of each moment of storage, as opposed to just throwing it all into a bucket and calling it a well. As for the energy required to push/pull the attributes out in the first place, I think we can safely rub that away as a rounding error, assuming that 1:1 pushes/pulls take some very small amount of energy, say 0.00000001% of a 10% storage or tap. Either that or the shards provide a bit of a boost, but not enough to really be called "end positive," especially since Feruchemists wouldn't really directly benefit from that extra energy beyond it enabling them to store/tap their own attributes. EDIT: I'm more inclined towards the second option, on reflection. Recall that it's the presence of Shards that enables magic, so taking a smidgen of outside power to allow the transference of your own power is fine by me. Yes, I agree, tapping is where the loss comes in and not storing. Good. Perhaps I'm not reading your equations closely enough, but you don't seem to account for why Brandon would say that "You get 1 for 1 back...For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour." That's a general answer for all possible levels of storage, all of them getting 1:1. Please tell me how that can be modeled without knowing how much of an attribute was stored at a time when it was originally put in the metalmind. Okay, "acts as a place to store the attributes between use." Time shuttling is an abstraction, one that I'm fine with because of how useful it is in discussing how exactly attributes are stored and tapped, namely with efficiency of tapping being a function of how large your quanta of storage are. Yes, she could burn it as normal. That's very good, actually. I'd forgotten. In that case, it has to be the Spiritual make up of the metalmind which the Allomantic energy reacts to. As I said, I vastly prefer that, and it seems that now (oh so sadly ) we don't have a choice. Thanks. Well said and good point. Still, though, I am somewhat worried about exactly how much information we're really allowed to put in these gateways, considering that now we have individual gateways: 1) Acting as gateways to Feruchemical power 2) Keyed to specific individuals 3) Not interfering with Allomantic power 4) Storing large amounts of fairly complex, specific memory It's not impossible, but does look a bit daunting to be just a gateway that's "burned" onto a metal (if I understand your theory correctly). That's why I had the "---" above it. It signifies separation. I think it's fair to say that all Investiture is a form of the power of creation. Shards are composed of it and it kind of makes the world go 'round, by my understanding. Hemalurgy can steal everything under multiple suns. Allomancers can't push/pull shardblades effectively because they're Invested. Brandon uses this same terminology of "investiture" for every Cosmere world and magic system. I'm going to say that they're the all operating on the same principles. You're right. We're not sure of what would happen. But the reason why all those ingredients interact is because they're all tangible, ultimately. If Feruchemy and Feruchemy alone is "imprinted on the molecular structure of the metal," and Allomancy is reacting to those imprinted gateways, then Allomancy really shouldn't mind at all if Nightblood, who is invested purely on a level above the Physical, is the one being burned. There wouldn't be any gateways in Nightblood's metal for the power to be diverted through, no power to access. The two would be operating on fundamentally different planes of existence, and so could not meaningfully interact. Therefore, the power of Allomancy has to react to Spiritual ques, strengthening the possibility of Feruchemy operating on that level as well.

I see it as essentially putting the attribute into a limbo space where it can be called out again at any point in the future. It's not, strictly speaking, a case of pushing it forward in time, but merely of storage. "Time" terminology comes in handy because of the nature of that storage and the way that you withdraw it. EDIT: What Satsuoni said.

Not to interrupt lingual discourse, but I've recently been reminded that we have a deadline fast approaching. Yados has somehow time-traveled and acquired The Emperor's Soul, which contains oodles and oodles of of Realmatic goodies according to him. I stopped reading after that point in order to keep my thought processes pure and to avoid spoilers (and I will bring the wrath of Marsh down on anyone who spoils a book for me). This is a timely prod to get us generating falsifiable predictions for TES. All other theorizing ought to temporarily be put on hold (jot it down in a .txt in the meantime, if you must) so that we can focus on predicting something from TES based on this theory, before we've actually read the book. I'm sure that TES will provide oodles of quotes and facts and stuff that will help us refine this and many other theories greatly, but the real prize here is to use an existing theory to make an accurate prediction which is not otherwise necessitated by any currently known facts. *Begins thinking*

I've just had a thought on our so-quickly-discarded "soul locker" theory for Feruchemical storage. What if it is not the Spiritual aspect of the Feruchemist which stores attributes, but the Spiritual aspect of the metalmind? Apparently the physical molecular structure of a metal is what allows Allomancy, so we still need some kind of physical change to metalminds so that compounding works. That's a bit irritating, but okay. It might be the case that the existence of a Spiritual "hey, there's other Investiture here!" flag simply overrides the molecular key, but it might possibly work either way. If this is the case, then Investing a metalmind changes the signal a smidgen, redirecting from "this looks like Allomancy, filter it through the Spiritweb of the user" to "this looks like Feruchemy, grab the attribute stored in the metal's Spiritual aspect." The power has to take a detour through the Spiritual realm at some point, so it could work. As I said, this either works through slight alterations to the physical makeup of the metal or through Investiture in the metal interferring with Allomancy directly. I vastly prefer the second option. AoL Ars Arcanum (just for reference) If my theory is true, then it would explain metalminds storing discrete attributes rather than just "power," since we now have somewhere to put everything without relying on some 3rd party "remembering" your memory or the "gates" you burn into the metal being essentially infinitely complex in order to store everything. Those attributes could very easily be keyed to the Spiritual aspect of their storer, much like invested Breaths are, allowing someone who alters their Spiritual aspect through Hemalurgy or manipulation of Identity to fool someone else's metalmind into giving him/her access. This also offers an interesting method for how Ruin can mess with Feruchemical Copper. Previously, my belief was that Ruin got in there at the moment of transition (as is his wont), while memories were being "time shuttled," but I did not have a very good mechanism for it. EDIT: Under this model, Ruin messes with the Feruchemical part of the Spiritual aspect of Invested metalminds, which are presuambly more easily accessible than the living minds of ensouled people. We already know he has "write" capabilities on people who are unstable (less robust spirit/mind) or spiked (wounded spirit), so it's not too much of a stretch to see him messing with relatively unsheilded metalminds. There is the whole "blind to metal" problem, true, but it could be that invested metalminds are somehow different, or that he can still interact with metal easily enough in the other realms. We know he got at the metalminds storing the Terris Prophocies somehow. --- We know that burning other Invested metals (the One Ring, Hemalurgic spikes, etc.) has odd results, so Feruchemy is not terribly unique in this regard. I don't think that a Shardblade has "gateways" burned into it, so if we want to generalize the reason for these odd effects, it's far better to look to the unifying feature, a Spiritual investment of the metal, then to try to construct a narrow model of Feruchemy which leaves us perplexed as to why/how any other Invested metal ought to react oddly to being Burned. Mass means more than gravity, as we've seen, and gravity as a Spiritual connection could easily be a case of the Spiritual realm saying "accelerate towards other objects as a function of mass and distance" (as well as providing the energy). If you change the mass of an object, then these Spiritual directives obviously have different outcomes, but they remain the same and mass still remains an important part of how gravitation works. I may or may not have posted a mondo-theory to this effect. A metalmind being "full" does not necessarily mean what you think it means. Let's say that an earing metalmind has 1024 "storage space" available. Under a "battery" model, then that space can be filled with 1024 "units of power" which are essentially indistinguishable from each other, with the rate of filling simply determining how fast the space is filled. Under a time-shuttling model, though, two related options exist for how storage works. 1) "Space" in a metalmind is purely a measure of time, say 1024 time spans. So this means that you can store 1024 time units worth or an attribute in the metalmind, regardless of the strength of that storage. A year of storing 1% is thus the same as a year of storing 10%, and both take up the same space and can potentially "fill" a metalmind. I doubt this, since it would result in Wax very rapidly filling up his metalminds with low levels of storage. 2) "Space" used by the storage of any attribute is more likely actually a function of both time spent storing and the strength of storage; but with storage units still fundamentally tied to how strongly they were initially stored. At first blush, this looks exactly like a "battery" or "bucket filling" model, but it differs in one key regard. Two metalminds at 100% capacity do store the exact same amount of power in this model, no matter how they were filled over what time period. But the "sizes" of the smallest quanta of energy are fundamentaly different. A Ferring who stores 10% weight for ten years will have 10,240 "time units" of energy stored in the metalmind, each taking up 1/10 of one of the 1024 "standard" units. A Ferring who stores (infinitely close to) 100% weight for 1 year will have 1024 "time units" of energy stored in the metalmind, each unit 10 times as powerful as the quanta of the 10-year Ferring. How you access that energy is the rub. The 10-year Ferring can access their metalmind at 100% efficiency only over a 10 year period, while the 1-year Ferring can access theirs at 100% efficiency over a 1 year period. The discrete quanta of power stored within the metalmind still need to be surged together, at cost, if you want to get more than 1:1 energy gain. So yes, both full metalminds have the same amount of energy available, but the quick-storing Ferring can access it in much larger quantities at a higher efficiency. The second option is more likely, I think. I tell you this primarily because it is a subtle but important difference between our models, but also because I think it simply makes more sense (thus supporting time-shuttling by implication). If there isn't some kind of ultimate, discrete unit for storage (as opposed to everything being thrown in the vat) then attributes like Memory and Identity are much harder to understand. Given these discrete units, and given that Brandon has stated that the reason why costs go up is because you use energy to "compound" large amounts of Feruchemical power together, it makes sense that the point you run out of 1:1 discrete units is the point when you need to start surging them. EDIT 2: As far as your equation goes, I am nearly positive that multiple percentages of "total recall" have been cited in the books. I also vaguely recall Sazed (possibly) referencing different percentages, meaning that the same Feruchemist had different points of perfect tapping on the graph of your function. I wish I had my books with me . EDIT 3: Actually, never mind. I don't need book evidence. Look 2 posts up. That was a general question about all Feruchemy and he answered in a general manner about Feruchemy. So a Feruchemist always get 1-1 at perfect efficiency (although hFeruchemists aren't a sure thing for this), and storage strength is remembered.

It enables Nalthians to endow part of their souls to others, with Endowment simply providing an easy means of doing so. Fits with Endowment well enough, I would say. Endow: Give or bequeath an income or property to (a person or institution): "he endowed the church with lands". EDIT: Actually, that seems much more appropriate for an Endowment-driven magic system. Awakening and BioChroma are all about giving up something and putting it into something else, endowing objects with life or people with Breath. It seems kind of odd to say that the system consists of Endowment handing out Breaths like quarters to schoolchildren and then letting them go off to pretend they have an economy. Thematically, Warbreaker stresses the give and take nature of BioChroma, how every Awakening is a sacrifice for the Awakener and how much richer a life with Breath is. This theme is cheapened by the ultimate sacrifice--giving up all of your Breath and becoming a drab--being a case of just giving up what was never intrinsically yours. Giving up your Breath to your god then becomes re-gifting, essentially.

They have the same data, but they also have different minds, different presuppositions, a different focus, and a different cultural dynamic. That's a bit valuable. Newton had the same tools as other scientists of his age, but he still generated Calculus before they did.

To me that implies that Breath is the result of an artificial (read: magical) partitioning of a normal person's soul so that it can be split off and used for magic. "What they have" is a full soul, what they can't use is the portion that Breaths split off, since they lack such a partition.

Yeah, that sword. Could be a more metaphysical "contact" where the swordsman was wielding the spike, like how an Inquisitor who wore gloves might be surprised if his spiking of someone didn't work. Actually, it's occurred to me (sorry, I was fast when I posted that because I was in the middle of a reply on another thread when I ran across that quote) that it actually probably isn't the case that only Scadralians can receive spikes. Recall that Catquisitors (may they reign for 1024 years!) are theoretically possible, and more generally that animals can receive Hemalurgic spikes, so there's nothing special about humans/kandra in that regard. It could be the case that animals on Scadrial still have the Ruin/Preservation recipe in them, but it seems less likely that they have the necessary attributes. EDIT: The AoL Ars Arcanum author also acts (x6 Combo!) very interested about Hemalurgy, saying it is "of great interest to the Cosmere. I think there are great possibilities for its use." That suggests a broader application than just to Scadrialians.

That's almost certainly a "no" for colors being a gateway in Awakening. Color is only drained at the moment of Awakening with seemingly infinite energy forever thereafter, presumably provided by self-replenishing Breaths. --- Overall, interesting analysis, though I'm not sure if I completely understand all of your points. I don't see Preservation's ability to fuel Feruchemy as definite evidence that Preservation always fuels Feruchemy. Infact, some Feruchemical attributes don't jive with that interpretation. For memory, in particular, it seems much more natural that discrete memories are pushed forward in time by a Feruchemist than that those memories are "burned" onto a metalmind to provide a gateway for Preservation's power. How is "power" really necessary to get a memory back? This isn't definitive, but it is a line of questioning that ought to be followed up before committing to a "gateway theory" for Feruchemy. We do have a another slight problem with you're idea of "building gateways" actually. As far as surging and the AoL's Ars Arcanum goes, metalminds actually don't act as simple power sources. They instead provide a "gateway," to energy which the Feruchemist is pushing forward in time. This is why it's fundamentally different to tap a half hour of 20% storage for a minute than it is to tap an hour of 10% storage for a minute, for all Feruchemists. As was discussed on the thread I linked to, storage likely consists of a Feruchemist pushing discrete amounts of energy from discrete time spans into the future. Normal tapping is a 1:1 correspondence of timespans, adding one span's energy (the past) to another's (the future). Surging is a disproportionate correspondence, say 2:1, bringing together multiple time spans of the past into a single timespan in the present, and so diverts some of that energy to synthesize the two moments from the past into one energy stream. I don't think it was a "debacle." http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=727#71 This was a big part of our basis for saying that how much you store at a time matters. He says that 1 hour at 50% -> 1 hour at 150%. This heavily implies our conclusion of variable storage -> variable efficiency of withdrawal, unless 50% just happens to be below some threshold where the function doesn't kick in. A natural tipping point, it would seem, would be that you see diminishing returns after tapping 100% of an attribute, but not before. But we only get 25 minutes at 200% for an hour of storage, so that's no good. EDIT: Also, Brandon flat out says "you get 1 for 1 back." Kind of missed that while I sprinted to the pretty pretty percentages. Unless my memory fails me, we've also seen other percentages (that aren't 50%) bandied about in the Mistborn books when discussing the efficiency of tapping Feruchemical attributes, and they all seem to lead back to a relationship between how much you stored at any given time and how much you want to tap at another time (sorry, no quotes right now). --- Also, unless the Ars Arcanum author is simply making stuff up, Feruchemy is described as a "time shuttling" process--not like filling and emptying a bucket--and so would seem to be affected by how much you store at any given time. Actually, they most definitely do store mass. That's the only thing to explain Wax's shennanigans in AoL. Sazed's wise elders were mistaken from the get-go and/or Brandon made a mistake in leaving that reference in after he realized how much better messing with mass is than with mere weight.