Trusk'our

Sorry, the way I said it probably led to that conclusion, but I mean to say them as separate things (tin or gold for stunning, cadmium for freezing them, or steel or iron to manipulate positioning or cause damage). Does make me wonder if two pieces of Harmonium could be harnessed simultaneously by one device though, which just might allow for multiple effects via the same cube.

As we've seen it with Hoid it seems that Breath held memories are superior in most ways, since they also grant Heightenings and you don't have to forget the contents of the Breath to do so; it's more an expansion of one's memory than a separate archive like a Coppermind (though it seems from Vasher's usage in Warbreaker that this is optional). However, Metalminds probably aren't susceptible to Leeching and similar effects unless they're currently being tapped. However, I do think that you could make a bondable Coppermind that effectively expands your mind too; if attributes can be plugged in like a Nicrosilmind's power can, I see no reason why this isn't achievable (though still no Heightenings).

We know that by using Bio-Chromatic Breaths you can store memories within them, probably by using a Command to "give" those memories to the Breath. However, I wonder if we could take this a step further and effect the s Spiritual as well as the Cognitive Aspect; can attributes from the Spiritweb be transferred via Breath? For example, if a Nalthian had the right Intent and Command, could they use their Breath as a medium to endow another person with a portion of their strength? Get 40 people to give 20% of their strength and you have the strength of 10 people (only it lasts until you give up the Breath, rather than being strictly temporary). It would kind of be like how a Divine Breath (or Hemalurgic spikes) works, pinning a piece of Spiritweb to a person, only it's a specific fragment rather than a whole Cognitive Shadow. I could realistically see a whole culture on Nalthis that had no idea what "Awakening" of objects was, but who knew how to transfer attributes to one another, like some hybrid between Feruchemy and Hemalurgy. Or, at the very least trading memories with their Breaths, maybe archiving valuable information for centuries with Breath too. Maybe a Nalthian could give a portion of Spiritual Connection to someone else, allowing them to speak their language while holding their Breath.

Ooo, good point on primer cubes, especially on tin and gold. Don't forget that the Mistborn can also pull a Marasi by burning duralumin with cadmium before transferring it to a cube, greatly expanding its power. The same could apply for iron, steel, or tin and gold sensitivity.

It's true that he'd still have some color recognition even before the third Heightening, but the reason I say he must be at the second Heightening (before Todium) is because a tiny loss of less than a single Breath shouldn't interfere with his perfect pitch if he has more than 200 Breaths.

I only recall him having perfect pitch, not perfect color recognition though. Plus, when Todium stole a sliver of his Breath it was enough to meddle with his perfect pitch, which suggests to me he's almost exactly at the second Heightening, perhaps excluding any holding his memories.

Well, Connection has a lot of individual possible things to store, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if F-Chromium could do something similar and store specific types of Fortune related to certain skills or tasks. That said, it could also be a general attribute that is simply harnessed better when someone forms more Connections to a given task (i.e. practice), so storing might just make all skills worse.

The more I think about it, the more I think that skill sets in the Cosmere may naturally utilize Fortune. Fortune is a natural attribute that all people have, it has been described as a "gut feeling", and the Atium-electrum alloy was introduced to foreshadow the use of Fortune. Most skills work by repeatedly working at a task until you can intuitively know what to do even without consciously thinking about it. For example, sword fighting would be such that you learn to predict and intercept your opponent before they do the same to you. Atium grants incredible precision and an intuitive knowledge of how to act in order to achieve a desired end result; Kelsier was not only able to kill with it effectively, but was able to save a crowd of Skaa by perfectly Steelpushing/Ironpulling a pair of metal rods to scatter a hail of arrows. Ishar was described by Dalinar as moving before his opponents did, likely by using his incredible skill in dueling to utilize his Fortune (could also be he used his Bondsmithing to hack Connection and directly read Spiritwebs, so this is no guarantee). I find it also worth mentioning that part of Kaladin's abnormally high skill with the spear is his Bond with Syl, which may do so by influencing his Fortune. Before I had only thought of using Fortune in the sense of getting a "spidey-sense" or to have beneficial things happen for you seemingly at random (mostly because Fortune subconsciously moved you into the right place at the right time), but now I seriously wonder if Fortune utilized by Feruchemy could express itself as more of an unusual talent for a given task, where you just happen to have magically induced muscle-memory take over, like with what often happens when burning Atium.

Now that would be quite the conversation. Agreed. Though, maybe if you had enough Stormlight available, the process could be achieved. Wonder if the old Spren's personality would be preserved in one half and the other became a new Spren, or if both became new Spren. Or, if both became the old Spren with the same memories and personality. . . That would be weird.

Ah, that's true, but not all powers would even need to be given at once; if Spook used spike that granted F-nicrosil and either had a F-aluminum spike or an added Feruchemical power spike with no attached Identity, he could store his powers plus the Feruchemical one. How they fit all powers into a single Metalmind is the greater accomplishment in my opinion, as the other Unsealed Metalminds we've seen are highly limited in the number of powers they can hold. Kelsier's expanded knowledge of Allomancy and Feruchemy would likely explain how they made such a device. And as for the powers not yet available Pre-Catacendre, they would have to make more spikes, but I think that they had sufficient time to do so, and once again Kelsier having knowledge he shouldn't have had would aid in the discovery of metals previously unknown.

We know that Kelsier was involved in the Band's creation. My guess is that he used his Sliver-expanded knowledge of the Allomancy and Feruchemy to aid Spook in their creation, likely utilizing Hemalurgic spikes leftover from dead Inquisitors to get the powers they didn't already have.

Tapping in quick enough bursts would probably work. For example, if each burst of Investiture lasted for a full second, 180 mini-Metalminds could allow for about three minutes of highly compressed attributes. You'd need to experiment, but it seems fairly achievable. If you're really good, siphoning off excess attributes from duralumin should be possible too, as you mentioned.

As cool as that would be, I don't think that's how that works. You lose a certain amount of attribute to compression loss regardless of the speed you stored it at. It's the total Investiture that counts, so a person who can lift 200 lbs. Who stored at 50% and a person who can lift 400 lbs. Who stored at 25% for the same time in a Pewtermind would each be able to tap the same added strength (though the needed percentage to tap compared to their base strength to, say, double their strength would be different) for the same duration of time.

That's a much clearer argument than I've heard before, thank you for stating it as such. I still personally think that the double-bubble's advantages aren't that useful compared to pure Bendalloy, at least most of the time; a double-bubble really grants the advantage of a Cadmium bubble, slowing down a group of enemies captured within relative to the rest of the universe all while the Bendalloy bubble keeps you from suffering the same temporal disadvantage. However, Bendalloy gives you a temporal advantage against everyone outside the bubble when used on its own, allowing you to position yourself erratically and zig-zag across the battlefied. I don't see how a double-bubble adds to this chaos, as your speed is still the same as it would be to those inside the cadmium bubble as if you were only using bendalloy, but you now have no temporal advantage against those outside the slowness bubble. You can't move the bendalloy bubble inside the cadmium bubble in most circumstances either, meaning that you're still trapped to your own bubble, except that trying to leave while your slowness bubble is still trapping others would now trap you as well. So my end conclusion is that a double-bubble is useful, but only for the advantages that we'd normally see for cadmium, not bendalloy, and bendalloy just has better advantages provided for more situations. Not all, but most. It's very possible that you'd need more aluminum than what's inside a bullet to pierce the bubble, or that bubbles set are just more resilient. I think it would be great to know whether they're still deflected by the bubble's border, as if they are it means that the temporal effects of the bubble must be indirectly affecting the objects and entities within, pulling on spacetime, but not the things themselves, which means the non-Investiture conductive aluminum would be vulnerable to it. However, any object even touching the border of the bubble is susceptible to its field, so I'm a bit skeptical of this indirect effect.

I mean, the strength component of their powers are largely ineffective in direct combat with the arrival of firearms, but they're notably faster, more dexterous, more durable and more tolerant towards pain (aluminum bullets also at least partially screw with these last two advantages, but only of the aluminum gets lodged in their body and it's apparently not nearly as big a deal as it is with Bloodmakers). That being said, any modern Pewterarm with half a brain would prefer a firearm over a big stick, so a Mistborn probably wouldn't have to contend with that extra reach. . . Just, you know, bullets. Yeah, they're probably the two most interchangeable Metallic Arts. Technically there's some differences in their ability, sure, but you can pretty easily achieve the same end result with the correct targeting. Also @alder24, @Speeding Steelrunner, just going to give my opinion on the Bendalloy/Cadmium duel-bubble trick because even now I find it difficult to grasp why it's so popular. To me, this seems largely wasteful; if a Bendalloy bubble makes you faster relative to the rest of the universe, why would you need to also add a Cadmium bubble? It does slow down your opponents and could leave them open to allies without directly slowing you down, but I don't see that being nearly as useful as just speeding yourself or a small group of allies up in a Bendalloy bubble (yes, there are circumstances where this is preferable, such as getting allies to come and help from far away like in AoL with Miles and Marasi, but that's just the advantages of Cadmium with fewer disadvantages, none of Bendalloy's true advantages, which I would add are preferable in the majority of circumstances). Just move faster with no drawback, and no enemies outside the bubble will be on equal grounds without their own bubble or Steelrunning. Plus, aluminum isn't affected by Investiture, so if your enemies are outside your Cadmium bubble and have decent aim, they may be able to ignore the bubble's ricocheting effects or straight up pop the bubble (for example, Wayne wouldn't even be able to set up a bubble if aluminum poked through its border).

Sorry, I meant to say for shadows outside the bubble, as the Investiture working for them should be expanded due to the expanded time you spend burning metal. A Thug isn't going to be attacking the Mistborn with their fists if they can help it. They'll have a thick, 3-4 foot long dueling cane to break the Mistborn's arm as they try to Leech them. Not impossible to block the attack and sweep in to Leech them, but not easy enough to be a reliable tactic most of the time, particularly not with steel as an option. I would argue that if someone is momentarily shocked into inability due to hyper Rioted fear or an emotionless trance, the combat application will be the same.

I think that's more a misunderstanding on the part of the questioner, as I can't find any reliable sources backing that particular claim up, but the misunderstanding between Misting and Ferring is very plausible.

As Scadrial progresses, mechanical Investiture seems like it will out pace traditional, genetically gifted Investiture. This has made me wonder, the current term for a user of the Metallic Arts is "Metalborn", as you're born with it. The Set used "Metal Blessed" in TLM, but that's seems to reflect it as being a blessing from Autonomy (technically, as we all know it's from Ruin, but they probably don't see it that way). Would "Metal Bearers", those with access to high grade Unsealed or Awakened Metalminds, become the new popular term in the future, perhaps even overwriting the old term when referring to Allomancers or Feruchemists?

Hmm, before I was thinking of the attributes mostly as a magical boost, but since you've brought up Singer Forms it's made me wonder if the static Investiture would require some physical change to facilitate the boost. Hemalurgic attributes from spikes do cause physical changes, but I've seen a lot of evidence showing they also provide a magical boost (like Kandra Blessings). Eh, it seemed like the most plausible method of obtaining a more complex attribute that Feruchemy can't traditionally store, such as intelligence. Mental speed is a different matter entirely, but should be achievable through Feruchemy alone.

Wax and Wayne ended up overwriting some of his old plans for era 3, such as there being an Allomancer SWAT team. So, some of that will end up changing, though I don't know about the main character's powers changing.

Seems they're just a Nicroburst, not a Compounder.

As I've been thinking on the creation and use of Unsealed Metalminds recently, I've thought of another question; you utilize at least the Southern Scadrian's Unsealed Metalminds like Honorblades, right? You plug their contents into your Spiritweb, allowing you to use their powers as if they were your own. Why just powers, then? Why not, say, with some tinkering create a Hemalurgic copper spike that uses Connection to grant the user an intelligence boost, but with no damage to oneself since it's not actually piercing the Spiritweb? Or, take a Metalmind and plug in extra human mental speed like with Feruchemy, but since it's a static Investiture boost it will never run out or cause Savantism, also like an attribute based Hemalurgic spike. It might require some work on what could be Stored, but at the very least it feels like whatever is Feruchemically viable should be on the table to receive a permanent, stable boost via Unsealed Metalminds, not just powers.

Pretty fun ideas! The most interesting game changers in my opinion would be Bendalloy mixed with duralumin Flares, as a Mistborn could use a duralumin/steel/pewter attack and immediately recuperate their lost metals by setting up a Speed Bubble. What's more, burning electrum inside a Speed Bubble shouldn't interfere with its effects since its Spiritual Realm based, and since they're technically burning it faster they may get a significant boost to its strength, and on top of all of that they can more clearly track their electrum shadows because their environment is much slower. Adding onto Speed Bubble shenanigans, Seeking (and Smoking) would likely be far augmented, as they're not Physical Realm effects, so getting the ability to reliably piercing Copperclouds is achievable (duralumin can do it too, but only momentarily). Chromium definitely gives them an edge against Thugs, since they can potentially Leech them, but they lack reach with it which severely limits its real power in my opinion. However, adding a duralumin/Pewter Flare with it adds incredible speed for a brief Leeching, but of course if you miss that leaves you vulnerable since you can't set up a Speed Bubble afterwards. Duralumin/zinc or duralumin/brass could be used to momentarily stun a target, perhaps even causing lingering distress like with Straff. Plus, since two metals can achieve pretty much the same end result, you have two potential shots with it before needing to down more metals. Duralumin/steel/pewter can not only deal massive damage to people and surrounding terrain, it can launch you far, far away from your enemies. Adding a Slowness Bubble while a mile in the air will almost guarantee they'll lose you. Speed Bubbles may be able to stick with you if you need to travel into or out of a fight very, very quickly, but that really depends on the Mistborn's perception. If you need to recover quickly after a fight, spamming duralumin/pewter might be able to significantly speed up recovery, though it would be no where near as efficient as F-gold.

Doesn't the gold Allomancy let you Compound health though?

I've been browsing the Arcanum and I've stumbled upon something that piqued my curiosity regarding Connection manipulation and magic usage: This feels pretty big to me. Does this mean that Connection is the lowest "program" for Investiture then? For example, if you were to look at and measure the power of an Allomancer or Feruchemist, would you mostly see Connections existing as the language used to tell the Investiture what to do? But diving into the main idea for this topic, how far can you take F-duralumin then? We know that you can at least store/tap things like Connection to people, places, and times, but full transformations of self through this method are not achievable for some reason (I'm still curious as to why this is though; if Connections are essentially the Spiritweb's way of recording what's happened to an individual and changing Connection to a land can trick your soul into believing its grown up in a place so you can effectively learn a new language, why not be able to change more?) Despite these limitations, it's making me wonder of advanced Feruchemical Connection could be used to be nearly useful as Forgery (actually, could that be some of the reason you can't get a full transformation? Maybe like Forgery it has to be a plausible change? Or, maybe it changes the base of the Spiritweb, but doesn't have the energy to translate to the Cognitive or Physical Realms, limiting its capacity?) I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on this.