dj26792

But we know that if you have sufficient gold, when your arm is cut off you can just grow a new one, thats part of where this theory came from.

I am absolutely positive that Feruchemical gold could allow someone to minimise the trauma of hemalurgy, and heal from the damage done.

I am considerably less confident that they could recover their powers with only Feruchemical gold, but maintain that it is a possibility, although more likely that the use of Feruchemical aluminium is required.  However I don't actually think all that much Feruchemical aluminium would be required, I think lots of Feruchemical gold would be required, and it would probably in practice require a gold compounder to get enough, but Feruchemical aluminium I think you would only need a few days storage because you would only need to keep it up for a short time, so storing at 40% for a week could easily get you 200% for 10 minutes, which is all I think you would need.

Ok so there is a lot I want to talk about here, and this is going to take a while...

However, then one starts to burn steel. Now, one has a trait one didn't have a moment ago; that trait is "allomantic steel investiture"(1). One can now pick which trait to store; physical speed, or allomantic steel(2). One chooses to store the allomancy, the process turning the steel ring into a steelmind(3). Now even though one is still burning the steel in one's reserve, one is not gaining the benefit; one does not see steellines going to metal, and one cannot Push on metal(4).

 

However, later, one now has a full reserve of allomantic steel burned and stored in the steelmind. Like one can tap any attribute, one can now tap this reserve, and even though one is now not actively burning, one can nevertheless see steellines and Push on metal. With the well-known phenomenon of feruchemical dilation, one can draw the trait out faster, filling one's body with allomantic power, making one capable of Pushing on metal with far more force than would normally be possible.

 

And that's the theory.

 

(1)We know that compounding works the other way, so it's not a stretch to think the road goes both ways. If a feruchemical charge can act as a filter, drawing out Preservation's power in a feruchemical "flavor", it isn't a stretch to think that metals might not have the feruchemical potential to store their own allomantic partner.

 

(2)Tin is our evidence that this is possible. With a tin ring, a feruchemist gets to choose which of five attributes to store. So we have precedence of two things: One, that metals can clearly store more than one specific attribute, and two that the feruchemist can easily choose which of those attributes to store.

 

(3)This has been brought up, so I'm going to say again that I think this is a largely semantic difference. Like, yes, the difference between an empty box and a full one. We know that a piece of iron that's not an ironmind can easily have weight added to it; things don't need to already be metalminds in order to become metalminds; in fact, they must not be metalminds in order to become metalminds, the way a scent tinmind cannot start storing sight. Yet, it seems to be a simple, natural process for a feruchemist to take up a piece of tin, "blank" shall we say, and make the decision to store one of five attributes. I've heard people say, "No, you cannot start storing into a piece of tin until it's already a tinmind, and once it's a tinmind you can't store a second attribute," and I would like to find evidence of that first part before I accept it. I think it goes against what we know of tin.

 

(4)Much like bendalloy or brass, it's widely accepted that for certain traits, external power can be applied and then stored. Storing the filtered power of Preservation is no different from storing excess heat while one is in a sauna, or excess caloric energy while one eats at a bar that offers endless wings for $12.99.

 

Ok, your explanation of what is happening and your key evidence makes sense, but I have some issues with your claims.

Your first claim is that we know about feruchemical compounding so its no stretch that allomantic compounding could work, I get your point but I'm yet to see any plausible method that doesn't cause the balancing issues raised by Satsuoni, or make Feruchemical nicrosil pointless, you talk about storing the trait of investiture of an allomantic type in a metal mind, as far as I can tell that makes Feruchemical nicrosil redundant, which seems incredibly unlikely to me.

Second you claim that tin feruchemy shows us that we can store multiple different traits in one kind of metal, again someone else beat me to my dispute here as random man said, tin feruchemy lets you store one thing, your ability to perceive the world, it lets you store different parts of it, and forces you to store or tap those parts separately, but its still one trait, you argue that burning steel and storing steel are different parts of the same trait, but I don't think they are, if they were there wouldn't be mistings and ferrings, everyone would be twinborn.

Your third point makes sense to me, I agree with that, although I would argue that while none of the characters we've seen have known how to do it, it should be possible for a sufficiently skilled/knowledgeable tin ferring to store multiple attributes in one tinmind in the same way that multiple feruchemists can store in one metalmind, but I don't think it would be easy to do and would have to involve some form of cognitive trickery.

Your final point, I would argue that external power is not being stored, your power is being stored and immediately replenished by an external source.  eg for Brass if you stood in a furnace and stored heat, you wouldn't store the furnaces heat, you would store your heat, and then the furnace would heat you back up.  This might seem like semantics, but I think its important because feruchemy is all about storing your attributes for later, not outside power.

In summary (to the first half of my post) I think my biggest problem with this idea is that it makes Feruchemical nicrosil redundant and creates way too much potential for infinite power loops.

before I move on too far, @entropic scholar, I suspect that the attribute is stored in the spiritual rather than the cognitive because

(WoK spoiler)

and also this extremely long and complicated theory.  Essentially the relevant part of this theory is that attributes are stored in the spiritual. I support it because its as close to a confirmed universal realmatic theory as we have on the boards.

I was thinking that the original types 5 and 6 were forms of Compounding via Hemalurgy. So you could share a metalmind or Allomancy, but only to a point. It's more efficient as more than one person can draw on the ability without it being only one person at a time. However, being end-negative it probably loses power.

It always loses power, even if only a little bit.  It does allow for the recipient to use the donor's metal minds but hemalurgy is traumatic to the donor spiritually as well as physically, so it doesn't really allow for sharing so much as theft, and so far as I can tell the spiritual damage is generally enough to be fatal even if the physical damage is minor, although that is only my interpretation of the available information and hasn't been expressly stated

source - one of the last quotes in the post, also, its only for spiritual damage done by hemalurgy.

two points:

1. "Burning spikes is painful"--this implies you have a source stating that you can burn things you have not swallowed. (true/false) If so hemalurgy-allomancy compounding just got a lot easier. ( very exited: post link please )

2. "Burning spikes is painful" -- Miles 'Thousand Lives' has suffered so much physical trauma that he no longer feels pain.

The Most Recent Source - its worth noting that Brandon's position on this seems to wander quite a bit.

I also have a theory which I haven't posted yet that this is due to spiritual damage being done, in which case Miles would steal feel excruciating agony and just in general have a bad day trying to burn a hemalurgic spike, but thats a discussion for another thread.

I've read this a few times and I'm still not sure if it seems confrontational/aggressive, if it does I apologise, I tried to soften some of the language where it seemed bad

Another thing that I also noticed was Hoid's eye colour changing. I'm pretty sure he had a mid colour eye when he was Wit but at the very end of the book when he's left and he's at the gate waiting for the "end to come" the guards say he has light blue eyes. Is that lightweaving or stormlight?

I think you misremembered, his eyes are clearly stated as blue the first time he is introduced, it goes on to say that he isn't really a lighteyes or a darkeyes, but the context makes it pretty clear that thats more because of what he acts like than because of actual legal status

doesn't lift use growth to break a window open?

with the seeds right near the start...

I also would like to suggest that all healing is a manipulation of the growth surge and referred to as regrowth, but I don't really have much proof, except the chart thats floating around with growth labelled as a surge and neither of those orders having another surge called regrowth.  But I don't really remember where it was to get a link.

Considering the interview is from 2010 I would guess that it is almost definitely a book 1 interlude, not  words of radiance... 

But i agree that the lift interlude contains some pretty interesting stuff.

Is the spiritual damage done by a hemalurgic spike (to the donor) similar to the damage done by a shardblade?

and 

Is the spiritual damage done by a hemalurgic spike a 'clean' cut?

(eg: does it make a mess of the soul left behind, or leave a 'clean' edge)

and

Is a hole left in the persons spirit web or does it close up as the spike is removed?

Precise? Sure. Surgical? ... I suspect you would have quite a time trying to find a real surgeon who could ever refer to the process of literally pounding a metal spike into someone's chest with a mallet as "surgical" in literally any possible capacity of the word.

I think alaxel means the spiritual damage only, certainly I would argue for the spiritual damage only being in anyway a clean cut, I wouldn't argue for it stitching up the wound on the way out however, so I clearly disagree with alaxel in some ways.

First of all let me apologise for the tone of that last post of mine, looking back it it now it does come across confrontational and that's a pretty common failing for me so I should know better by now, let me assure you I didn't mean to be so but it even I cringed re-reading parts of it.

I was not offended by any discussion in this topic, or even irritated, I'm even enjoying the discussion (except for the bit where I accidentally made you think I was offended).

I do not think theories are binary things but I think you should have some kind of argument beyond this can't be proven wrong, I thought I said that wasn't true of this one, just a general annoyance (and really with the world at large as much as this forum).

I personally theorise (or attempt to, I'm not perfect) under a simple principle thats quite a common statement among historians:

A lack of evidence is not evidence of a lack, I add a personal addendum that it also isn't evidence, that was the point I was attempting to make when I re-quoted Darnam's version of this statement.

Moving on to the realmatics

As my attempt at explaining how I disagree was a miserable failure, let me ask questions instead because maybe I just don't understand, as there seems to be general agreement (so far as I can tell) that types 5 and 6 are just hemalurgy and types 3 and 4 don't actually happen I will ignore those now, also type 1 because we already understand that fairly well.

Beyond simply feruchemical compounding works what reasoning and evidence do you have for the existence of allomantic (type 2) compounding?

Why does there need to be a spiritual or cognitive difference between a metalmind and another piece of metal, besides the attatched attribute?

Extra question on that topic because that I'm really only working out as I type, would you argue that there is the same sort of change in a box when you place something in it?

ie: is the difference between an empty box and a full box the same as the difference between a piece of metal and a metal mind?

(side note for Darnam: I really have no idea what the change is, entropicscholar keeps talking about a change in some or all of a piece of metal when a feruchemical charge is stored in it, I see no need for a change aside from the presence of the substance, and don't really know what it is.)

there are other world hoppers than Hoid and the 17th shard, but we don't know anything about them, presumably some of them are just in it for the adventure and would be amenable to delivering a letter for someone.

Well you can only steal one trait at a time and it would take huge amounts of health to heal just the physical damage, the spiritual damage would take even more, and even if you can recover your traits with Feruchemical gold the amounts of health required would be even more enourmous than just patching up the spirit web without rebuilding it completely.

Alaxel my guess is that 2 is the most correct we know hemalurgy is traumatic, Brandon always describes it as brutal, and fundamentally evil (in his world view), if it was just nice and neat and did a surgical patch up as you ripped the spike out it wouldn't be that bad, I agree that its a clean cut, but more in the sense of a meat cleaver making a clean cut than a surgeon with a scalpel.

I don't think it would change the persons identity directly though, the reason I think it might not be able to heal the person lost ability is that the hemalurgy will have stolen the persons investiture and that would require outside input (from preservation or other shard, depending on what was stolen) to get back.  AND/OR the 'form' of someone who has been hemalurgically violated in some fashion prevents it because someone who has been damaged like that no longer has their power and that over rides the persons identity as someone who does.  Although I'd like to ask Kurkistans opinion on that just because I'm bit hazy on how the forms would work both generally and in this specific case.

Basically this theory was a random idea and I don't feel qualified to defend it too strongly, even though I'm pretty sure I'm right

People seem to have come up with a way to say, "we can't prove that you can feruchemically store an allomantic trait" which isn't the same as saying you can prove it false.

True, but it is even more true that a lack of evidence is not evidence, if you claim its a good theory because we can't prove it wrong its definitely not a good theory, I'm not saying thats necessarily true of this theory but I've seen a few claims around that theories must be plausible because you can't prove them wrong and that thinking irritates me.

Which portion of my post are you referring to here?

I can't remember. So instead I will just present my understanding of how it actually works and the theories about it that I like, and then highlight where that disagrees with what you've suggested.

Feruchemy works by storing an attribute, not investiture (except nicrosil, obviously), any investiture involved in the process is at storing and tapping not what is being stored or tapped, how this works is to do with cognitive forms and spiritual <what ever the spiritual bit is called>, and its a long time since I've looked into that theory in detail so I'll simply say that this very long theory contains the development of the ideas about how all magic in the cosmere works. (very spoilerific, also that thread is almost a novel in and of itself)

In allomancy the nature of the metal acts as a filter for investiture coming from Preservation and has an effect, this is pretty simple I think we all understand if not the fine detail broadly how it works.

When compounding feruchemical stores you burn a metalmind, and the store in the metal mind provides a different filter for preservations investiture and this is where the extra output comes from, Preservations power filtered by your attribute, you can obviously then re-store your vast output of attributes which will allow you to keep most of it for later since most of the time you couldn't possibly use the huge power output gained by this method thats very helpful.  This is pretty much what you said about type 1 compounding I believe.

What you called Type 6 compounding (I think) is just basic hemalurgy, and you got that right, we know about that broadly at least there are still questions about it, but not about its broad functionality. I would dispute you calling it a type of compounding however, but thats just terminology.

I would make no distinction between type 5 and type 6 and once again, hemalurgy is not compounding.  We don't know exactly how hemalurgic decay effects feruchemy, but it isn't otherwise any different than allomantic hemalurgy.

type 4 compounding I would argue just doesn't work, because of the way multiple types of investiture get stored in an object the store of the metal mind would not be accessible to the person you stabbed with it instead it would steal an attribute from them hemalurgically and you would now have an object that was both a spike and a metalmind and also a corpse.

type 3 really just makes no sense to me, I don't think it would work.

You can burn a hemalurgic spike, but it doesn't have to be in your stomach and as far as I can tell it doesn't compound its just a source of metal, it also causes immense pain and spiritual damage, the reasons for this are unknown and not (to my knowledge) the subject of any theories (although I might change that).

Source

This leaves type 2 which is really the interesting part, at least to me and I honestly don't know that I think it works, but this does come back to the idea that a lack of evidence isn't evidence of a lack, so I won't criticise it too much but I think the only way to power allomancy feruchemically involves using nicrosil and we don't really know how that works except for the clearly modified for balancing version the MAG gives.

LAST MINUTE ADDITIONS IN REPLY TO YOUR LAST 2 POSTS:

Please avoid double posting, edit your previous post, just a bit of forum etiquette.

Your explanation of tin feruchemy I agree with, but I would still argue against any fundamental change in the metal in a metalmind and other metal of the same composition, there is no realmatic reason for it to change beyond your idea that it should (as far as I can see).  Therefore applying Occam's razor, no change. But that's just my opinion.

Yeah, the healing the ability back was something that I didn't really think would work, I would assume the form of hemalurgy would include the fact that once it was used you couldn't just heal your power back, but at the same time Brandon keeps on saying Feruchemical gold and other cosmere healing heals injuries and non-chronic illnesses and I wondered, does hemalurgy inflict a traumatic injury on your spirit web that Feruchemical gold could heal, or does it count as chronic...

I'm inclined to think its chronic for balancing reasons but I really can't think of a realmatic reason so I asked the question.

My understanding of Feruchemical aluminium is that if hemalurgy does damage your identity accessing a stored aluminium identity should allow you to use Feruchemical gold to heal it, but I'm a little shaky on how Feruchemical aluminium works.

most definitely Galivar for some reason

not gonna lie every time I type Gavilar it comes out Galivar and I have to go back and correct it. 

well I am from numerous places, all of which could be termed as Australia.

I was born in Sydney

Lived briefly (4 1/2 years) in Broken Hill while I grew up

Came back to Sydney for my later teenaged years

and currently study in Launceston, Tasmania (Live there during semester, Sydney other times)

Points for novelty if nothing else, I can't think of a reason why not...

Except Honourblades are supposed to be weapons of huge power, far in excess of a normal shardblade and I feel like someone should have noticed, they're also less vanishy than normal shardblades from what we've seen, although that is by no means certain.

I like it better than the theory that Szeth has an honourblade although I don't think either is more likely than the other.

In summary I think that this theory is definitely plausible and can think of no real reasons it has to be wrong, or even is wrong but I currently find it unlikely.

Ok this theory is fairly simple and it concerns the nature of healing, hemalurgy and has potential consequences for Roshar and the damage done by shardblades.

Basic facts:

Being a hemalurgical donor is survivable

Feruchemical gold is capable of healing damage to the soul

Key Assumptions

In the case of non-fatal physical wounds when being used as a hemalurgical donor the spiritual damage would normally still be fatal, but as per WoB isn't necessarily

So this Theory has 2 parts:

1. Feruchemical gold could hypothetically heal the damage done to the soul by hemalurgy if the donor still had Feruchemical gold when the spike was removed (ie A twinborn having their allomantic power stolen or a full feruchemist having another power stolen)
2. This second part is less likely, but based on the fact that Feruchemical gold could repair the damage done by a shardblade and allow the ferring to regain use of their damaged limb could it also repair their spirit web of the damage done by hemalurgy and allow them to regain their stolen ability (if they had a sufficiently large store of health)

Thoeretically this is also a key assumption of the theory, but in my mind its a consequence so I will now state here that for this theory to work hemalurgy and shardblades have to do the same sort of spiritual damage when they cut the spiritweb (with the obvious exception that hemalurgy chops a bit off and takes it to be stapled to someone else where as the shardblade just cuts it off).

So I post this topic to ask firstly is this theory viable, and secondly what are the potential consequences, if it is true and how would we best verify its truth.

The interview is correct, but the question number is not.  

Q12

VIPER

This will probably be RAFO'd, but: Is Szeth bound to a spren?

BRANDON SANDERSON

No. He's not. Haha, I didn't RAFO that.

Want ranged soul-cutting power? Shard-boomerang.

No thanks, boomerangs are hard enough to catch without the fear of losing my spiritual connection to my fingers, or hands, or just in general my soul...

 

There is also something about the Nahel Bond associated with all of this as well.  Is this the bond between the sprens and the Knights Radiant that gave them each particular type of power?  Does Szeth have a bonded spren?  Should he?  Is this related to being Truthless?  Jasnah mentions something about this to Shallan when she asks about the symbol-heads ("Suffice it to say that each Radiant's abilities were tied to the spren").. This is all coming together as Jasnah, Shallan and Szeth head for the shattered plains set to meet Dalinar, Kaladin, Syl and the others (Syl may play a very important role in all of this).

 

We know Szeth doesn't have a bonded spren and isn't on the path to becoming a radiant from WoB

Source (Q4 - I should be able to do direct link to the question but my database fu is lacking)

truth is that a tomato is a fruit.

Wisdom is leaving it out of your fruit salad anyway.

Oh, don't beat yourself up. We all do that from time to time. Except Kurk. That dude's a machine!

You know I have a theory on that...  

I think he IS a machine.  

Well... I'll just calmly remove my foot from my mouth and remember to check my facts next time I say something with such confidence

Just because its difficult for Odium to force a shard to shatter doesn't mean it won't fray apart over time without a guiding influence.  I think it would take a long time for it to happen without Odium's influence but it makes sense to me that the shard lacking the holder would fall apart over time, and in a situation like where scadrial where the shards were so finely balanced that lack of active resistance coupled with a slight weakening in preservation could have let Ruin completely destroy the world.

And that can be true with out the fraying happening quick enough to allow Odium to leave without shattering the shard the hard way and exerting himself as we've been told he does.

I think you've come upon a very important point here. If he could store his gold-shadows, it would make sense for him to draw them out again later.

But he can't store his gold-shadows for later.

Serendipity gave a very good description of why:

 

 

Now you might say that a ferring should be able to "store" any attribute associated with the metal he uses, But that really isn't what ferrings do. Whenever Sazed created a new metalmind, he did just that: he created a metalmind. It describes specifically (when Sazed is researching the hero of ages, with Tindwyl) that when he first stores memories in his copper ring he Transforms it into a metalmind. even though the physical properties of the ring may not have changed, the cognitive and spiritual properties have changed. technically, the ring is no longer 'just copper', but rather is a new substance called a 'copper metalmind', or a 'coppermind', specufically attuned to Sazed. (If it did not work this way, there would be nothing stopping Ferrochemists from sharing their metalminds. it is the fact that the objects used have been spiritually and cognatively altered to recognize the Ferring or Ferrochemist which created them that creates this specificity. Likewise, this is why a single Tinmind can only store one sense, rather than multiple senses; it is only attuned to one, and even if it is emptied it will only be able to accept that one kind of sense again, to be stored later on.)

 

Now. Twinborn. Compounding.

Lets say a Copper-Copper twinborn (called a recaller), named Jasmine, created a metalmind from her copper earring, and begins to store her memories in it. As Jasmine stores more and more memories in the earring the cognitive properties of that ring change more and more (the same way the cognitive properties of a person change, as they learn, and gain experience).

Because the ring has retained all of its physical properties, it can still be burned by an allomancer, filtering investature to create the normal effect of a smoker burning copper.

Because the spiritual and cognitive properties are different, it can act as a different kind of filter for investature. (a recaller burning her metalminds can recall the entirety of the knowledge stored in his metalminds, by burning them, and can do so any number of times, until the metal is used up.) When a Ferring draws from their metalminds normally, they are in fact not drawing strength, memory, or breath: they are drawing investature, and using the metalmind as a filter for the correct type of effect.

 

(This also explains a great deal about nicrosil, which stores untyped investature. It also raises questions about copper, gold and duralium. these questions are not terribly difficult to answer, mind you, but I'll wait for someone to ask before I set them to field)

Some of your facts here I'd need to see a source for and some of them I disagree with based on my understanding of WoB, firstly as far as I know we have no confirmation on what compounding copper does, if you've seen something I haven't I'd love to know, but Brandon has been pretty closed mouthed about copper compounding thus far.

Secondly your understanding of feruchemy doesn't seem to match with what we know based on stuff that Brandon has said in a few interviews, we know for certain that multiple forms of investiture can be stored in an object at the same time, we also know that multiple feruchemists can store in the same metal mind, they just can't access each others store.

This makes me think its unlikely that there is a fundamental change in a piece of metal that could be a metal mind and a piece of metal that is a metal mind, which seems to be what you are suggesting, otherwise it would almost definitely interfere with other forms of investiture and most likely also interfere with other feruchemists sharing the one metalmind. 

On compounding and allomancy I disagree with your theory on the grounds that it can't work that way because you were wrong about feruchemy and it just doesn't feel right, but I need to take a bit more time and do some research before I could articulate clearly what I think is wrong with your theory.

Edit:  I attempted to soften the language a bit, it seemed more confrontational than I meant it to be, it still does, for which I apologise, I think you have a really cool idea, I just don't think its right, please take this  as constructive criticism and be encouraged to keep coming up with theories, we'll never know how this stuff works if people don't come up with ideas but sadly most of those ideas will be wrong.

The other evidence we have is that she appears from nowhere, that is; she uses the travel surge known to be held by the stonewards.