Kurkistan

Using my model, I think that it should actually release the equivalent of a large flare of nicrosil, since compounding in this case would both channel greater Investiture into the twinborn and instantiate that Investiture into the energy pattern of a nicrosil burn. This flare could then be generalized and stored in a nicrosil mind, if the twinborn was storing into a nicrosil-mind at the time. Writing this, the question has occurred to me as to whether or not an Allomancer/Feruchemist can choose which of their "active powers" they want a nicrosil tap to be applied to. The game book suggests that they can, but it might be similar to duraluminum's effects in that the tapped Investiture would simply be applied equally to all active powers. Speaking of duraluminum, that's actually an excellent parallel for my model. Tapping a nicrosil-mind is essentially like burning duraluminum, except that it doesn't consume any more metal than normal for Allomancers and can be applied equally as well to Feruchemical attributes.

Okay, I'll try to deal with these issues: Hemalurgy: I favor the theory, which I believe someone else has suggested, that you could increase the power of a spike's Investiture. To flow with my "power-as-conduit" theory for nicrosil, you would need a spike that was previously charged in order to act on with the power of a nicrosil-mind. Unguided-tapping: I think the best solution for this is for it to be simply impossible for a Feruchemist of any stripe to tap a nicrosil-mind without providing a channel for its power. I admit that this is unique for Feruchemical powers in that every other attribute can be tapped whenever the Feruchemist wants to, but I think of it in terms of how a Feruchemist or Allomancer can sense the latent power in metalminds, but can't access it unless they have the "key" to that power. In the case of normal metalminds, the key is apparently the Identity of the Feruchemist who stored the attribute. In the case of nicrosil-minds, then, the key is tapping/burning something else, and the power cannot be accessed otherwise. So basically as far as nicrosil-ferrings go: Yeah they're, nicrosil-gnats (nicrosil-ants?). Too bad for them. They can never tap from their metalminds, although the possibility of serving as the Feruchemical counterpart of a Leecher is raised even within the game book.

I disagree that Feruchemical and Allomantic Investiture are necessarily separate. We've seen that the power that fuels Allomancy can be hacked into fueling Feruchemy in the case of compounding. A sensible way that I think of Investiture working is that yes, it does only boost other applications of Investiture. Accessing Feruchemical attributes or burning metals for Allomancy closes the circuit and gives a very specific path for the power of the nicrosil-mind to follow, like weak voltage switching a transistor and allowing a much stronger voltage to flow through. This way, it makes sense for the nicroisl-mind to not "remember" where it got its power from, and for a nicrosil Ferring to be incapable of casting thunderbolts or something instead of being restricted to simply boosting otherwise-accessible magic systems. TLR, instead of storing Allomantic brass, would simply have stored Investiture from some earlier point in time, burn brass, and then use the act of soothing as a guide to the application of the Investiture, exactly the same as how the metals act for Allomancy and the Aons work on Sel, as the Ars Arcanum author noted. EDIT: Following from this, I would posit that nicrosil twinborn would simply store the Investiture of any metal they burned, instead of getting that metal's effects, similar to how a Feruchemist cannot tap any metalminds while storing in a nicrosil-mind. For a twinborn, this would basically amount to storing the power of burning their metal.

I would bet heavily against the results having much effect on the amount of luck needed. As you yourself said, a coin toss has the same probability of going either way no matter what's riding on it. I would think that the amount of Fortune required is proportional to the degree to which events must be controlled in order to cause a desirable outcome. Messing with an already 50/50 coin flip is a single, almost trivial exercise. Making that same coin land on its side, roll 30.125478 meters down the hall on a heading of S-S-W minus 5.73 degrees over the course of 11.3 seconds so as be under the foot of a specific individual such that they drop a bag of money directly onto your lap is somewhat more difficult. The coin-flip netting you $1 million and the coin-roll netting you $1 shouldn't make the coin-roll any easier, or the coin-flip any harder.

Not to doubt your sincerity, Peter, but I suspect that you already know.

It appears that I've been foolishly stuck in a Newtonian mindset for causality, then. We still have the problem of purely external events being affected by the Spinner: quantum events, in this case.

Ah, I like that interpretation. Makes sense.

Are there any particularly fun annotations someone wants to share?

It still seems a bit fast, though. I thought the next trilogy was supposed to be fully modern, as in 201X. Smartphones, particle accelerators, satellites, international flights, roughly modern concepts and implementations of computing, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, architecture, power generation, mining, gadgetry, etc. In 50 years, you can't develop the kind of industrial base necessary to support a modern society using a relatively small population and starting at 1910 technology - even assuming instant discovery and application of each new branch of science or technology as they become possible - no matter how good your metallurgy is.

I sense a double standard for double posting. Thank you. As to luck, I was hoping there was a mechanism for how your luck expressed itself, as in: will storing luck make it more likely that a meteor hits your house, while tapping it makes you win the lottery? I guess there isn't definite info on stuff like that, though. Aluminum also sounds suspiciously similar to electrum, as far as I can tell.

I'm not sure what you mean. From the description of aluminum: Aluminum is identity, and holy cra[. Sorry, I meant how the Feruchemical aspect of those metals worked. Sorry for the lack of clarity. Speaking of clarity, how exactly could storing or tapping your identity allow you to access someone else's metalminds?

Could someone lay down what exactly Chromium and Aluminum do? Specifically, how does Chromium function?

*Surges chromium-mind and hopes his theoryabout how it actually works is wrong* Entry creates worth, is it because it is worth creating entry? -Not to bad for my first ketek, if I do say so.

We know that Brandon did this on purpose, but the question remains as to whether or not the similarity between the two religions is coincidental "in-universe" Link

Sounds far enough. I just want to make sure that no one who cares enough to re-cast their vote feels that their vote didn't count.

Ahem. . . Speaking of democracy, we should probably use a majoritarian model instead of a first-past-the-post system. Surge got 42% of the vote, significantly less than a >50% majority. I would suggest one last run-off between Surge and Overtap to be sure.

Actually, Miles thinks of how even electrum is a more useful Allomantic metal than gold at one point.

Get away with thee, logic-speaker! That is a perfectly valid point. I think the reason people (including myself) were so willing to accept the assumption that Shallan was of the Sixth Order was because "Creative/Honest" meshes very well with what we've seen of her so far. I still think she's probably of the Sixth Order, if only because it may be the case that that's the reason why her first Soulcasting didn't occur until she was using a garnet.

It's drifted towards the back of people's minds lately, but what exactly does Atium store and why did the Lord Ruler spend time aged in his Terris Hut, given that he could have simply kept re-compounding his initial investment of age?

This. The technology level is meant to be about 1910 New York, but their electrical wires are mostly underground, and technology lags 1910 in certain areas and is ahead in certain areas (especially metallurgy). Let's say that internal combustion engines are at 1910 level, metallurgy is decades ahead, and anything involving electricity is decades behind. Also, I have no idea at all about the current state of medicine. *Pats self on back*

AoL Spoilers

I take offense. The members of the Bold and Noble Organization which I have the Privilege to be a Founding Member of cannot and will never be mistaken for "stray cats." Also, any hazekiller would be too busy dying to even turn on his/her flamethrower to "fight" (ha!) a Catquisitor.

*AoL Spoilers* Page 152, beginning of Chapter 9 This is from the very beginning of the chapter. There is nothing to indicate what the context is, so I assume that we're picking up in the middle of a conversation between Wax and Marasi. Miles also has a thought about burning Gold (Page 243) Since no one except Elend and Vin, to my knowledge, knew about Larasium, and no one knew about the special status of Atium and Malatium, I think it's reasonable to assume that Scadrialians (?) during the time of AoL think that they know all 16 metals - The 14 they have and the 2 that are "lost." Sazed's statement about the last base metal and it's alloy are simply a contradiction under this model, so no one is looking to find Chromium. EDIT: Sazed talks about Atium being "the body of Ruin" in the Epigraphs, but the mistake could still quite reasonably be made.

Actually, a relatively large amount of people knew where it was produced (House Venture, Obligators, guards), but no one besides the Kandra knew where most of it was kept after being mined.

Including buildings, friendlies, stray cats, the guy trying to wield the incredibly bulky and flammable flame thrower (think bullet to the tank). . .