Kurkistan

Quite interesting. I'm not sure if Brandon would be willing to devout enough space in a novel to do a thorough exploration of this, but I can easily see a character making an offhand remark about "Soothing dens."

Even if Ruin wanted to keep literally the only person in the world who knew about the importance of utilizing the power of the Well alive for some reason, I must disagree with your theory. As you say, Ruin guided the events of the Skaa Rebellion so that TLR wouldn't be the one to use the Well the next time around. Ruin wouldn't have needed to instigate a rebellion and/or rely upon Vin to get lucky after she was removed from Ruin's ability to influence her if he could just suck the age out of TLR and kill him instantly. I don't think that such an elaborate an chancy plot would have been the best option for Ruin if he had a more direct method of killing TLR. If that were the case, then I'm sure Ruin could have come up with a more reliable way to ensure his release. Maybe influencing the Inquisitors into a Ruin-cult a few hundred years before the Well refilled: dedicated to freeing their god. Something other than relying upon an un-influenced Vin using a split-second of opportunity to know that she has to Pull off the Atium bracers while somehow believing that it is possible. As to your basic premise that Ruin can change the contents of metalminds: we have very little knowledge about the nature of this aspect of his powers. The only influence that we have seen is on Copperminds, which might reasonably be assumed to be a special case, given the fragility of information - Ruin wouldn't so much have to add or subtract from Time-scuttled memories as tinker with them. Handing over enough age to keep a Millenarian alive is of a different magnitude.

Ah, I wasn't fully aware of the requirement for an "In" and/or that it be positive. I thought "conformist" was rather appropriate, given that it took several days before I inevitably bowed down to everyone else's implicit demands. No offense meant, Peter

Those two words do not create positive associations in my mind. Think in medical terms for a bit there: You'll see what I mean. Sentences incoming! Old ones (for ease of use): New ones: Stacking might just work. It's not very fluid-like, though, and I feel that we're starting to drift away from the necessity of implying entropy. Or am I the only one who cares about that particular aspect of our choice?

A more interesting question arises from this: What are the effects of metal purity upon Feruchemical storage? Do purer metalminds draw large amounts of energy more efficiently? (As asked much earlier in this thread, before tangent-land)

The only problem I have with it is possible confusion with Surgebinding when users first see it. That's not a big deal, though, and I agree that it's a strong contender.

In Over-Tap's defense, it isn't quite as awkward as using alternate wording, and does clearly convey what we're talking about. I think of "condensing" in terms of this post, where you condense multiple points in time when you were storing into a single large tap. I agree that we ought to maintain the "fluid vs fire" dynamic of Feruchemy and Allomancy, but funnels do generally funnel fluids, so I might be able to squeak by on that one. I'm beginning to be persuaded back towards Flood, but it still suggests uncontrollability, and complete or near-complete draining of the metalmind. Just so everyone can see them in a context, I'm going to post sentences using the different words: I also find Channel, Drain, and Sap to be too similar to Tapping, while Flood and Funnel read nearly identically to me. EDIT: Threw in another sentence, courtesy of lauren.e135. I find Flood, Condense, Squeeze, and Synthesize to be in desperate need of a "from" in the last sentence. Funnel is on the edge.

We want a distinction because of the entropy which is uniquely present when you "over-tap" attributes, as opposed to simply tapping more or less without considering energy loss. By the Lord Ruler, that should have occurred to me earlier. Why not just "over-tap?" Also, I would probably use "bolt" for eating really fast.

In case anyone's missed it, Deux Ex moved our tangential discussion of terms over to this thread.

Just to throw up some of the other front-runners before flood/funnel took over: Synthesize, Condense. To clarify exactly what we're looking for, I'll quote Deux Ex: "What we need is _________ : Tap :: Flare : Burn, to use SAT terminology."

I have to say that, on reflection, "flood" might be too strong. When you read "Wax flooded Weight," you don't get a very good sense of control or an upper limit. If I may say so, "funnel" does imply that control: putting a known, but large volume into a small space. Funnel also lacks the entropy-implication of flood, though.

Sorry for the shooting. I guess the thought that you thought that you thought that you knew what you thought I was thinking made me react a bit strongly. *Changes title* Tangent: As for conceiving of space-time as a stretched cloth, I prefer to think of concentrations of mass as points of consistent low-pressure suspended in some constant-pressure substance in three dimensional space. The more massive the object, the lower-pressure it's center of mass. The low-pressure zones this causes would create "flows" of whatever substance occupied this space, which would impel massive objects towards each other at varying speeds based upon how significant the relative amount of low-pressure is for each in any given direction. A massive object alone in space would have constant pressure on all sides, and thus would not be affected by gravity. Throw in inertia, and you just modeled the physical interactions of massive objects. Oh joy.

I guess it does depend on context for condense. You might just have me on the whole connotation vs denotation divide for synthesis. In my defense, you can have a synthesis of multiple identical elements, which in this case is lesser than the sum of its parts. That's the understanding that I was going for. Legitimate LOL at that one. Flood. I like it. Also implies that it's somewhat uncontrolled, perhaps wasteful/destructive. EDIT: Hot off the thesaurus from "siphon:" Funnel.

My point is that gravity isn't an issue. Your "mass shadow" has absolutely no effect upon inertia, while your mass does. Skimmers quite clearly possess more inertia when tapping and less when storing. Therefore mass is stored. This might very well affect the size of your mass shadow, but we don't particularly care about this, for exactly the reasons you've outlined. Mass determines both, and is thus what we concern ourselves with.

I do like this tack of working on a direct parallel to "flaring," though. Seething?

That one doesn't work because acceleration towards the ground (as well as horizontal velocity) remain constant no matter what degree of storing/tapping a Skimmer is at. This means that the effects of gravity are unchanged by a Skimmer's Feruchemy.

Condensing doesn't strike me as passive, "he condensed the soda can into a disk," "Wax condensed 3 days Weight into one second, weighing for that instant as much as an entire day's Weight combined." I'm sorry you feel that way about synthesize. *sniffle* I agree that it has connotations of creating something new, but they aren't overwhelming connotations, and even if they are then it could actually work in our favor by suggesting the unique effects and costs of "synthesizing" Feruchemical attributes. I agree that concentrate has to go due to the confusion it could easily engender. Some mundanity might be welcome, and I do like the connection to Flaring, but the first thing I think of when "stretching" a power is that power being attenuated, like "stretching your fuel supplies out" or "Wayne healed himself slowly to stretch out his reserves." Not exactly what we're going for, sadly.

Well, that should have been blindingly obvious to us all. Nice catch. It runs into some of the same problems of association as "compressing," but it rolls off the tongue a bit better. Condensing does have the implication of losing something, such as "condensed milk." That same implication implies concentration as well, but that concentration is more from removal of impurities than just greater amounts. That which is implied to be discarded from condensation is also strongly implied to be unnecessary, as is not the case with the energy lost in proportionally large Feruchemy. Overall, it has some flaw, but is a common word (that starts with "C," conveniently) and easily carries the message of greater Feruchemical power, although it doesn't imply energy-lost quite as well.

I agree, the hunt must go on! Accumulate sounds a bit passive, though. Compression, compounding, and synthesis are all very active processes that it's somewhat natural to assume some loss/entropy from. Accumulation has always struck me as slower, and is defined as "to gather or collect, often in gradual degrees." Moved my edit from my previous post because of Ninja activity: Seeing the other suggestions: I think that augmenting/magnifying/intensifying might come a bit too close to the meaning of compounding: "Bloodmakers heal faster when the (augment/magnify/intensify) there Health." Perhaps "draw upon intensified health," but that's more of a mouthful necessary to achieve clarity. "Compress" does get the point across: "Spinners waste more Fortune the more they compress it" makes sense. I tend to preference academic-y things, but that might just do.

This works well enough, I suppose. Be careful with those "textbites" of yours, though: I was looking through the AoL Ars Arcanum for a bit there thinking that they were quotes! As for an alternate word to avoid overloading "compounding," what about "synthesis" or "composition?" I favor synthesis, myself, as in "Wax lost energy when he synthesized his Weight to become as heavy as a horse and buggy."

Hmmm. I hadn't been considering how the AoL Ars Arcanum models Feruchemy. Variable "compound limits" make somewhat more sense when you view Feruchemy as time-scuttling instead of seeing metalminds as batteries.

I wouldn't say "angry," but this model of Feruchemy yielding diminishing returns throws a distressing kink in the magic system. My particular distress with this is that, from that quote on the Brandonothology, it looks like metalminds "remember" exactly how many "units" of an attribute were stored at the same time, and that this memory affects how efficiently you can tap those attributes. So we get the case where someone who stores 50% of an attribute for 30 minutes ends up being able to be at 150% strength for the full 30 minutes while someone who stores 75% for an hour will necessarily have less than 30 minutes of 150% strength, due to energy loss. I had a pet theory that any diminishing returns were a result of metal-impurities, but Brandon's quote makes it clear that it's just based on whether or not your were "compounding" your attributes, so we still have paradoxical cases of metalminds storing partitioned sets of attributes, depending on the percentage that they were stored at, with different "limits" for tapping before diminishing returns set in. If there was a hard limit before diminishing returns set in, say "any attribute level above 200% has energy loss," then it would be better, but the way that it's laid out just seems arbitrary.

I sympathize with that view, since I don't like the fact that Feruchemy results in lost energy, but it's basically cannon at this point. Link "Compounding" is obviously used differently here than in AoL, but besides that it still holds.

To clarify, you are asking what happens when you "double up" on Feruchemical abilities? Such as a Bloodmaker recieving a spike charged for Feruchemical gold? That question has been knocking around in my head as well for awhile now, so I'm curious to see if there's a good answer out there.

Oh, Santa, what big eye-spikes you have!