fyodor

This was my thought as well. It glows for Vin/Ruin/Sazed because it's a gateway to their power. Kelsier as a Scadrialian/Allomancer who is given stability by virtue of connecting himself to the Well, sees it the same way.

The metals are generaly accepted to act as gateways to the power of Ruin and Preservation, that is why those shards can't see them as anything but light. I think Kelsier can't see it because being Scadrian, his soul is made of Ruin and Preservation.


Leras and Kelsier look into the Spiritual Realm multiple times along the story. It is the infinite web of connections leading into the past and future.

Allik says that metalborn can store their abilities with "excisors." I'm assuming that the excisor is something which grants nicrosil and aluminum feruchemy so that you can strip your identity and store your allomantic investiture as well as your heat/weight/etc.

It's probably closer to four or five hundred, given that the population has been expanding very quickly.

So on p. 290-291 (Kindle) Allik is talking about Metalborn. WRT to the sovereign he says:

"Sure did. Saved us, bless him. Taught us that the Metalborn were pieces of god, each of them, though we didn't have any of those at first..."

Later, he says in response to Wax's question about creating the medallions.

"If we have the Metalborn to do so and the Excisors, yes. The Excisors are gifts that the Sovereign made for us"

Any thoughts on how the South Scadrialians gained metalborn, particularly Feruchemists? I assume that they, like pre-TLR folks,  had some capacity for allomancy once they learned how to snap, but where would the Feruchemy come from, absent Terris blood?

We know that the Sovereign (who I assume to be Kelsier) had all the powers. Did the just have a bunch of kids? We know that spiked people pass their allomancy along? Did the bring a bunch of spikes and let the spiked people have kids?

I think that any given kind of misting was one in one thousand, rather than mistings generally.

Otherwise the numbers don't work out. You'd end up with one in 16,000 for any given allomantic ability and say Feruchemy is half as common, something like one in 32,000 for any feruchemical ability, or one in five hundred million for any given twinborn combination.

Where if the 1/1000 refers to a given kind of misting or ferring you end up with 1/2,000,0000 for crashers or somewhat less if the lines don't fully interbreed.  Elendel has a population of about 5,000,000. Assuming another 5,000,000 elsewhere and say half the post-ascension population being alive today, imperfect knowledge, record keeping, etc, it's about right.

At the end of HOA Sazed manipulates the bodies of the North Scadrialians so they can survive in the new atmosphere. Kind of jerky of him not to do the same for the S. Scadrialians.

Does Sazed have a physical body now? It seems like the shardholders are just big nebulous masses util they die and their bodies just kind of fall out.

Three points

1.Allik refers to them having metal born who fill the bracelets during his explanation. As for where they came from I don't know. Maybe Kelsier had a bunch of kids.

2.On page 31 of the Kindle edition VenDell floats the idea that most people have some feruchemist blood in them and thus even non feruchemists could tap one of these metal minds. I don't find this particularly satisfying but that is probably how non nicrosil ferrings can tap the amulet investiture.

3.Allik mentions an excisor which lets metal born create the amulet. I assume that this is something which temporarily gives them aluminum and nicrosil feruchemy.

Well, my thinking is that an empowered Kelsier created the Bands, he didn't use them. He hadn't found then at the end of Secret History and the world had been destroyed.

Kelsier/Sovereign had something close to the full set of Feruchemical powers. He might have just needed a spike there

Good point on the eye.

So on this question, on page 31 of the Kindle edition VenDell floats the idea that most people have some feruchemist blood in them and thus even non feruchemists could tap one of these metal minds. I don't find this particularly satisfying but that is probably how non nicrosil ferrings can tap the amulet investiture.

WOB is that TLR did not use one of the beads, but used his temporary preservation powers to make himself stronger . Also he could compound his allomancy to make himself stronger. I assume that, in light of what we learned, this involved storing investiture.

http://www.theoryland.com/intvsresults.php?kwt=%27lord%20ruler%27

Actually, the more I think about it, I think that the actual Bands were probably created by the Sovereign, who I assume is Kelsier, rather than TLR. He was described as having all of the powers. 

I assume that the sovereign (who I believe to be a resurrected Keslier) made the bands. Since Allik's folks seemed to think he had all the powers, it would make more sense for him to have made them himself rather than finding them. Also, where would the sovereign have found them in the first place? None of the characters had found anything like them by the end of HoA and the world was destroyed. 

[edited to remove Secret History spoilers)

I'm on the resurrected Kelsier bandwagon. We know that he was planning to use Hemalurgy to get himself a new physical body.

The timing doesn't work for it to be a possessed Spook.

I guess it could be Marsh, but (A) this type of wholesale intervention in a new society seems like a better fit for Kelsier ( we don't have any evidence that Marsh understands things like investiture, identity, etc, enough to set up the amulets © the scars on the arm, the "survive" , etc, all seem to point to Kelsier.

Depends how Nicrosilminds work. If they're like tinminds (I think tinminds are senses? I lose track of the metals for the more obscure feruchemical powers) then you need one Nicrosilmind for each type of Investiture you can store. In the absense of evidence that seems like a more likely explanation.

Right, just like you need separate Hemalurgic spikes for each power. I agree that this seems like a sensible way for TLR to enhance his power, but it seems like Vin and co. would have noticed Nicrosil bracers if he wore them. 

I think that Brandon said somewhere that you can cut off part of a metalmind. Maybe you take a piece off periodically burn shavings  to fill the rest? 

You don't need to burn the nicrosil- tapping the Nicrosil gives you the ability to store the burned steel or gold or whatnot.

And you'll get all the speed over the period the medallion would burn at, with non of the flexibility you would have with actual steel compounding.


Besides, you can't burn nicrosil as a coinshot, so good luck with that.

An aluminum ferring, by not having enough identity, could get around the problem of the metal being keyed to someone else, but couldn't gain the ability to tap a metal they didn't have. So you'd still need multiple abilities. And the users of the medallion wouldn't be able to tap the investiture in the first place, regardless of how it was made, unless they themselves were nicrosil ferrings.

The nicrosil ferring doesn't need to store his feruchemical abilities to tap nicrosil. He needs to be able to store another feruchemical ability (weight storage, heat storage, etc.) . 

 

That's what I suspect storing in Nicrosil does, though - store your abilities in a metalmind. So, I would take your question in a slightly different direction: how can a Nicrosil Ferring store his F.Nicrosil power in a Nicrosil metalmind, since he loses the ability to store as he stores his ability? (That's a mouthful.) In another thread, I said that I think compounding is used to create and recharge these medallions, so you don't need to give up your F.Nicrosil ability to store it. That helps you

Regarding 1, the brass ferring wouldn't be able to tap the Nicrosilmind in the first place. I guess you could have a nicrosil ferring tap  nicrosilminds to get investiture for for aluminum and brass, but it seems like you'd eventually run out of your original stores of brass investiture. 

You also then run into the problem of how regular people can tap the Nicrosilminds to get the weight/heat abilities. The aluminum trick would mean that it's not limited to a particular person but they'd still need the feruchemical ability to tap nicrosil.

Maybe I'll get it right this time. Assuming you start with an unkeyed nicrosil metalmind that has F.Nicrosil and F.Aluminum, and give it to a Brass Ferring:

 

1. Ferring Taps Nicrosil. Gains F.Nicrosil and F.Aluminum. Now has three F. Abilities.

 

2. Ferring Stores in Aluminum, storing Identity. Doesn't matter what in. From now on, whatever he stores will be unkeyed.

 

3. Ferring Stores in Nicrosil, storing unkeyed F.Brass ability. Creates the Nicrosil part of the medallion.

 

4. Ferring Stops storing in Nicrosil. Regains F.Brass ability.

 

5. Ferring Stores in Brass, storing unkeyed heat. Creates the Brass part of the medallion.

 

Those initial medallions would have come from the Sovereign. Also, Step 1 is the second question in your original post; I don't entirely get how it's possible, but it definitely works. It's how we have seen the Bands and the Medallions behave. Anyone can tap unkeyed Nicrosil; however, it is the only metalmind that behaves that way.

 

So, at no point do you need to tap identity to do this. A nicrosil ferring doesn't need F.Aluminum to TAP someone else's metalmind, but to STORE in his own, so that he can store unkeyed Investiture.

 

Did I finally understand what you're asking?

So, as I understand it, the various amulets are a combination of some sort of Nicrosil metalmind, which includes the investiture associated with the Feruchemical ability (heat, weight, etc) and a second metalmind ( brass, iron) containing stores of whatever attribute needs to be tapped.  Both were originally filled by an aluminum-drained feruchemist so that they're not keyed to  a particular person.

Setting aside how an individual ferring could fill all of these (which would seem to require at least one person with three abilities or two with two abilities), how can regular people without Nicrosil feruchemical abilities tap the investiture in the first place? The aluminum deprivation trick would allow the investiture to not be keyed to a particular person (much like the third party goldmind that Wayne is able to tap) but you'd still need to be a Nicrosil ferring to tap the investiture in the first place, right?

We had an argument back in the day about whether there was telegraphy in AoL-era scadrial.  Confirmed that there is indeed telegraphy.

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/1329-telegraphstelephones-in-aofl/

I originally thought Wax's "steel bubble" could be his "effect," but then I realized this is probably too simple and not really related to being able to store weight.  I think his ability to create that bubble is a factor of him being a really really talented Coinshot, and maybe bordering on savant territory.  

In the newly posted AoL annotations, Sanderson confirms that this is a result of Wax's steel savantism.

Wax had stopped pushing. He pushed into the air once and then increased his weight tremendously, without any loss in speed. While he is zooming up he then pushes against the roof, but because of his significantly increased mass the kickback doesn't slow him down and he keeps moving through the hole created in the ceiling. Speed, not momentum is conserved.

Similarly, if momentum were conserved Sazed would find himself slowing down after he leapt at the door and his leap against the door wouldn't push through the Koloss.

Similarly, Wax wouldn't be able to knock the door open if momentum was conserved. It's only by throwing himself at the door, increasing his mass, and using his heightened mass and conserved speed that he hits the door with enough momentum. If you put on a backpack with 200lbs of weight on it, you wouldn't suddenly be able to knock down doors.