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I guess that would be right if you're thinking that storing the Identity-free, hyper-connected Hemalurgic charge of Investiture use is going to be a qualitatively different that just storing standard Investiture-use in Nicrosil. Which....seeing it written out like that does seem like I should have expected. I thinking the storage step of your theory was a standard application, but it's storing both a hack of hemalurgy (with a side of Identity) and separately a hack of Connection, so it would almost have to operate on odd rules.

Im not challenging your Medallion model with that statement (I dont think it disagrees with any particular part of your proposed Medallion process or function), just trying to suss out what "the Standard Model" means for Nicrosil in light of the new Copper WOB. I just dont think it actually confirms that Nicrosil does not loose its effectiveness with use the way every other feruchemy (including Copper) does.

That's true, and while Im fine with a single type of ferring being functionally useless the way some Mistings are (and Aluminum arguably is already), I do feel it should have some use besides facilitating power sharing to the original Feruchemists. There may be another possible read of the new WOB that might offer a sort of middle-ground: He may have simple been saying that storing Investiture is an All-or Nothing sort of thing (like Copper/Memories) in the sense that you are storing the ability rather than a Quantity; meaning if you where also a Misting you couldnt fill&tap your metalmind to get that cloud penetrating double-strength Bronze (for example). That's a qualitatively relevant distinction and a way to read the statement that doesnt have implications on the nicrosil medallions needing to be refilled, or at least it allows for the possibility that the Investiture signature/capability being stored could also degrade while being tapped and/or utilized in the same way Copper Memories do. In terms of mechanisms that would limit the OP of medallions, that could do it nicely because it would mean that the Nicrosil charge would loose effectiveness over time (at similar rates to hemalurgic spike decay, if I had to guess) and need to be refreshed by an actual Soulbearer.

Personally Id expect him to described as less of a "Robot" if he had any actual, authentic Spiritweb in him.

Ah, gotcha, though you were saying something about them degrading IN the coppermind, nevermind. Chasing this idea of discrete storage versus scaled storage in Metalminds: Most metalminds store some fluid commodity trait (for lack of a better phrase), something nice and basic and easily thought of as an Energy like Weight or Strength or Heat. Some have qualitative distinctions (like storing individual senses in Tin), but are still non-specific in quantity (you are storing Sight, not a specific Vision). The exceptions to this are Copper that you a store specific chunk of Memory, apparently Nicrosil where you store an all-or-nothing ability to use/manipulate Investiture, and (possibly) Bendalloy depending on how much it can counter for a nutritionally incomplete diet. Memories are a discrete all-or-nothing thing when you store them, though I have to assume there's some control over duration, break points, etc (especially in the case of Experience memories versus learned Information). So, in the cosmere are Memories normally an Investiture Construct, or is is storing something else that records the memory? Investiture and the Realm's interact with physics on equal footing, but the majority of where that happens is in the mind and on the boundary between perception and reality; do we think memories themselves (absent even a feruchemist) are naturally Investiture constructs (as compared to the chemistry-based paradigm taught in RL)? And as a tangent, if the Nicrosil Investiture Storage work like memories, how much can it be parsed out? Does it allow for separate metalminds for each power (the way Tin requires separate ones per Sensory type)? Would a full Feruchemist be able to store all Metals in one metalminds, or would it require a separate one for each? For that matter could you steal all metals with a single spike from a full Feruchemist/allomancer, or does it always take the appropriate spike per metal/ability?

Would you mind elaborating on that part? You make a strong argument that we (or at least I) was off-base with respect to Copper, in particular with the bolded part there. Might it be that we have Nicrosil off a bit as well, and the truth is somewhere in the middle? What's sparking this thought is in the implied difference between trying to use metallic arts on Rosharan surges: a Spike would steal the literal Nahel Bond, but while it can store the ability to use Surges it seems like the Bond itself should be a little more out of reach for the same general reason that it takes two separate spikes to steal the Bond. It seems like it might be storing the active Investiture response (ie the surge effect) rather than the fundamental ability to create them.

As others have said, you'd struggle to Awaken a spike at all because it's already Invested and will resist taking on more. However, if you did happen to Awaken a pointy piece of metal, that alone would be enough of an Invested spike for the purposes of a Kandra, it doesnt actually have to have been charged via hemalurgy. Thats just for the purposes of keeping a Kandra sentient though, not for creating new ones or doing any other sort of hemalurgic thing.

Would Kelsier have needed Spikes to become a full Feruchemist? He was a Vessel for a bit, would he have needed a body at the time to make the necessary changes to his own Spiritweb to grant that? I can see easily see why he might have been able to make that sort of change (even subconsciously, depending on the origin of Feruchemy) and still require spikes to reconnect with a physical body later on. Conversely, if those changes do require a body in the equation to make the tweaks to grant Feruchemy, we still dont know where he got that body and I could buy as an option that he created and stored it while he held a Shard, with the expectation that he'd reclaim it later on.

Im not sure that's a great example, given that the whole Color usage on Roshar is very specifically about the perception of color, rather than the actual molecular structure. It doesnt get us around the underlying philosophic question of whether Color itself is an objective trait. Especially if you take it to a Planetary extreme where the Cognitive Realm itself would be significantly altered; if the world's population was entirely subterranean and had no concept of light or color at all, would Awakening work for them? Would it work for a Woldhopper? To be clear Im not trying to argue that it's how the magic behaves one way or the other, just point out that it seems to be running into one of the classic philosophic questions, and (interesting to me) it's one that get extra complicated in a Realmic world.

"If a Tree falls in a [realmically active Cosmere] forrest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a Sound?" Is Color an objective property or a subjective perception, (given that different eyes and different species perceive them in wildly different ways? These are long-standing philosophic questions even when you dont have Investiture allowing Perception to have a direct impact on reality. Mostly meaning I dont think we are going to be able to logically hash it out without some instance in-world as a test-case

I tend to think it being the whole 100% would make it easier rather than more difficult, because you are no longer trying to align two different pieces of the Spiritweb onto a single body, you are just slapping one whole thing back into its natural place. I see where you are coming from about a quantitative limit to how much Investiture could be crammed into a single spike, and you may be proven right on that ultimately, but at this point I just dont think a single person's spiritweb, even a Sliver, wouldn't be so big as to challenge the absolute capacity limits of Investiture in the Physical spike. I mean, to give a cosmere comparison it would seem to be doing generally the same but a whole lot less than a Divine Breath, functionally speaking. EDIT: left out a critical "-n't"

This is mostly a Devils Advocate statement, but I dont think that is nessesarily true. In any other magic system Id readily agree with you, but with Hemalurgy I think that anchoring some percentage of a Spiritweb to a Physical Body via the Spike Suture coexisting in the Spiritual and Physical is a fundamental function of the magic system asa whole, and wouldnt need to be any more specific applikcation than that (since you arent splicing separate pieces together on the spiritual side, just attaching it back to the Physical. Certainly I dont think it should require a different or more exotic metal than the Lynchpin spike that Inquisitors needed to keep their frayed spiritweb together, which expect is more or less the same function. Another example of something I think is a similar function is how the Kandra need to Spikes to maintain their Cognitive integrity, but per WOB any old Invested pointy rod would do it, it doesnt actually have to be an functionally Invested Hemalurgic Spike. I think I would lump this in with how Healing would take very speicific Investiture in the Metallic Arts, but over on Roshar it's more just a natural extension of having Stormlight flowing through the person and doesnt require a specific application/technique of the local magic. For what it's worth, that's only a restriction if Kelsier were to wait and get started in Modern/Era2 times. It took centuries and generations for the Terric to intermingle enough to really stamp out the full Mistborn and Feruchemists, and that's lots of time with him and/or Marsh (and/or Sazed&Co.) active and likely meddling.

Haha, nice, so basically Cosmere Mad-Libs. The Cosmere Cards Against Humanity set is probably a good place to start for both sides of that

I like those. The two big things I figured was a separate Type for doing the Returned thing with normal Breaths rather than Endowments Slivers, and then also to be able to directly Heal with breaths the way that Returned can. Basically I figure the 5th will be a catch-all category for using Awakening for all the same things that Endowment does with Divine Breaths (that are qualitatively different in several ways), and will generally relate to using Breaths as supplemental Investiture healing and/or resurrection, though I tend to think it will prove a touch dark and...icky in the way you'd expect from your more tropey necromancy-based healing. Though for no other reason than Doylistic number themes, I think we will be limited to Five distinct Types for Endowment's Magic, with innovations (like non-sentient awakening with Minerals) falling into one of those five categories.

I like the idea that Willshapers can physically mold things, but as you say, Aluminum is weird. As far as I know the Metallic Arts are the only known way to Invest aluminum in any way.

I was under the impression that Dalinar himself was the only Bait component, that he coaxed the UnMade into the Gem given their past history/association and that Nergaoul obeyed out of a desire to please Dalinar. Makes sense. In WOB's relating to Aluminum shielding he's mentioned that thickness will often play a role which would lead me to think it would need to be continuous. Other WOB's about aluminum, though, definitely describe proximity effects, which is what it would take for Faraday Cage style things to work. In the case of trapping a spren, or especially an Unmade that normally require Perfect Gems, I think the additional requirements would come from the fact that it would have to confound and foil an active intelligence (more or less, with the UnMade) that would be actively seeking avenues of escape.

Nice! I could see it requiring a perfect seal, meaning some sort of a molten pour or casting instead of a creased wrap.

We know that an Aluminum bottle could keep shardpool waters Invested, and that an aluminum lined pouch would prevent one from drawing stormlight from spheres inside it. And we've been told that the Perfect Gems can trap an Unmade because their crystalline perfection keeps it from leaking Stormlight in the usual way. Soooo...could you permanently trap an Unmade just as well in a lesser gem by going through the normal Lure&Trap process and then simply encasing the gem in aluminum? "Simply" being a relative term I understand, but theoretically it should work, yes?

Nalthis and Endowment have a very prominent pattern of Five throughout, but only Four types of Awakened entity. Much like the missing two basement levels of the Pentagon, this stands out to me, and so I thought it would be fun to speculate what the last Type of Awakening might me. Type I: Spontaneous Sentient BioChromatic Manifestations in a Deceased Host, also known as the Returned, Type II: Mindless Manifestations in a Deceased Host, also known as the Lifeless, Type III: Non-sentient Boichromatic Manifestation an Inanimate Host, Common awakening, including advanced mineral awakening Type IV: Awakened Sentient Object, Nightblood is the only confirmed example. Type V (Theoretical): Awakened Sentient BioChromatic Manifestations in a Deceased Host, a Counterfeit/Zombie Returned. So that's my guess. We know that a) the current (warbreaker) state of awakening is still fairly rudimentary, and new innovations are still very much possible. We've seen that there does remain a certain amount of the former person's mind/personality in the Lifeless, and more if they were awakened with their original Breath. So, just like there once was an Innovation to create Lifeless with a single Breathe, I figure the next step will be when somebody figures out how to use a Breath as a more literal Counterfeit Soul than with typical Lifeless, and be able to Awaken them to something akin to their former Sentience. The drama of this is that I assume they will not be able to do it at the moment of death the way Endowment does with the actual Returned, and so the true "Soul" of the person will have already been lost to the Beyond. The Sentient Awakened person would thus be missing a very important Something, and it would be a scenario exploring the distinction between an authentic Soul and a Breath that is "faking" it. Which could make for some interesting Nightblood related philosophy, even if it doesnt go full Pet Cemetery. So that's my guess. Thoughts? Other ideas? Any generally cool and innovative ways to use Breath that you dont think really fit into the existing four Types?

For what it's worth he doesnt necessarily feed on all ambient Investiture. If I recall Correctly, during the Unity fight there was a constant supply of Investiture charging all the gems and Radiant's around, but Nightblood still tried to feed off his wielder.

Id entirely forgotten that not relinquishing his blade was one of his Rules. Nevermind, dont mind me, nothing to see here...

True, but I didnt think there was any mention of him having a Shardblade (or especially Surges) prior to That Night, which makes it seem a bit more logical that he'd received it from his then current masters to achieve that goal. Which would then imply that the Parshendi managed to get hands on an Honorblade at some point, likely since Szeth left, which in turn brings into question the assumption that Shin still has all the unaccounted for Blades. And honestly, I really do doubt that Nale is the only Herald that ever decided (sane or not) that he wanted his Blade back.

Tangent question, but related to Szeth's origins and I cant seem to find an answer: Did he carry the Honorblade out of Shin himself as Truthless, or did he get it from the Parshendi to carry out that attack? Or somewhere else?

Fair enough. I think Im in a wait&see mode on that. In general I think the only ones that have an issue manifesting a Blade are the Godspren, and that's only because they (or at least the Stormfather) already has a specific Physical Realm manifestation (The Highstorm Itself in the case of the Stormfather).

So Steel makes you more like Superman than the Flash, superfast but you still have to actually push through the physical resistance of moving that fast, deal with friction, etc.