Trusk'our

I think I made a few connections this morning (the neural kind, not spiritual ) about the nature of Invested powers, Metalminds, and Hemalurgic spikes. I was reading an answer in the Q&A section regarding how a Surgebinder's power would be stored in a Nicrosilmind when I realized that when a Feruchemist is capable of storing multiple different things (such as a Windwhisperer or Consumer Ferring) they must use a separate Metalmind. Before, I (for some reason) assumed that this was just an optional thing, but now I don't think so. It's certainly not worded that way in the Ars. Arcanum, for one. We learned in RoW that Investiture picks up a rhythm, echoing it. I believe that this is the "language" of Investiture, which determines how it will act. I think that when two or more kinds of Investiture are stored in the same object, their rhythms will begin to interfere with one another, like the ripples in a pond (I would also like to argue that this isn't required by Archivist Ferrings because while each memory is unique, it's general rhythm is the same, just as different nutrients stored by a Consumer Ferring don't seem to require a separate Metalmind for each kind of food you eat). However, there are examples of multiple powers existing in people (Mistborn, Full Feruchemists, Twinborn, Radiants, etc.) and objects (Malwish medallions and the Bands of Mourning). So, clearly this means that you can get multiple powers inside an Unsealed Metalmind and probably by extention a Hemalurgic spike, but there's an extra step needed, and it's not just Identity contamination. In fact, because of this, I'm not sure anymore that you could naturally make a Metalmind with all 32 Metalborn powers as a Fullborn without some leg work; even if they share the same Identity, the rhythms of the various powers will interfere with each other too much (this could also help explain why Steel Inquisitors couldn't make Hemalurgic spikes with multiple powers despite having access to Mistborn and Full Feruchemists @Duxredux). We do know that Feruchemical duralumin is utilized in some fashion to create the Unsealed Metalminds used by the Southern Scadriens, so I think that this may be part of the puzzle; some kind of hardwired Connection that binds the powers together in a more congruent manner (perhaps different powers have slightly different Identities even, keeping their rhythms separated, but the Connection keeps them linked up. But that's just a theory, of course). Perhaps this can even help explain why Hemalurgic spikes don't usually generate Resonances; the spikes don't have the proper Connection to each other or the Hemalurgist, so they don't resonate properly with each other either. Thoughts?

I suppose it could also just be because Ruin's subconscious influence on Hemalurgy may have made non-lethal spiking more or less impossible during the time of the Final Empire. It was more destructive to the bearers of the spikes, allowing for the addition of more spikes than a soul can (or probably should) carry, so why not thedonors too? (Drinks from tea cup in a fancy manner while lounging in a luxurious armchair) "Oh, pish posh my dear fellow, when has this 'morality' business ever been an aspiring Hemalurgist's concern?" But in all seriousness, I think I see your point; supercharged Hemalurgic spikes, while useful, are a lot more expensive than other alternative methods. Still, if you have access to either one, overcharged spikes are simply more powerful than the other available hacks in the majority of cases. And I really do think you can get it morally, though you really need the right set up and powers to do so (F-gold and tin to remove pain and regenerate the donor's Spiritweb, along with them being willing and properly compensated). It wouldn't be cheap this way, but it is doable.

Oof, I forgot about that one. I still think that Metalborn must be notably more Invested than a standard person. Maybe not by Awakener levels, but surely at least one or two BEUs higher than normal. TLM even goes on to talk about the placement of Autonomy's Perpendicularity requiring (or at least benefiting from) having a high concentration of Investiture already present in the area from the Set's captured Allomancers. And, if not particularly Invested with only their powers, what are Hemalurgic spikes grabbing?

When a person has more of Endowment's Investiture, you get access to the Heightenings, which is pretty neat. Reduced aging, health, heightend intuition of Awakening, all that sweet stuff. However, we know for a fact that it's not just Breaths that can grant Heightenings, but at least some other general Investiture attached to a person can do the trick too, such as being a Dawnshard or a Dawnsliver. I suppose my question for everyone then is, does only Investiture that is "unprogrammed" have Heightening effects, or does any Investiture do this? For example, would a Mistborn only need something like 34 Breaths to gain the First Heightening? We do know that Mistborn and Steel Inquisitors lived a bit longer than average, as do Radiants, but that could just be because of A-pewter or Surgebinding health. There was also that time Kaladin was once thought to have the Heightenings by a man in the Cognitive Realm (Riino, in OB), which hints at the possibility of programmed Investiture contributing to the Heightenings. What are people's thoughts on this? Personally, I'm leaning in the direction of powers stacking with general Investiture for determining Heightening effects, but if that's the case, why was Rashek still aging despite his Well-granted Allomancy? It could just be that he had significantly fewer than 2,000 BEUs from it I suppose, which has a lot of interesting implications in and of itself, like how much you'd have to do to get Lord Ruler level effects from your Allomancy.

I would say that something like the Oathgates is as efficient you'll see it get, as teleportation is pretty powerful. However, a sufficiently powerful/knowledgeable Radiant with the Surge of Transportation may be able to learn how to self-teleport across large distances, as that's really just what the Oathgates themselves do. It's also worth mentioning that TenSoon talked about how the BoM may have been able to transport objects long distances when used to their full extent, which may be by exploiting a temporary Perpendicularity. In any case, Cosmere teleportation seems to be very costly no matter how you cut it.

I would say because it's likely that to steal different powers from a donor you must touch different Bindpoints with the spike, and since Inquisitors didn't know (or care) about a non-lethal method of Spiritweb theft, so by killing a Mistborn to get one of their powers they never got a chance to spike another of their Bindpoints. That's one way to interpret this WoB anyway, though admittedly the way it's worded makes me feel there's some wiggle room. I can think of around 6 tactics in which someone might try to make A-duralumin non-instantaneous; making the metals flared with duralumin unable to be burned all at once (rapidly piercing yourself with metals to burn or having a multi-layered ball of metals), deliberately weakening your duralumin Allomancy (letting a duralumin Allomancy spike partially decay or storing power in a Nicrosilmind), becoming a duralumin Savant, or just tapping a Nicrosilmind for extra power. These are all pretty cool, but even if all of these methods could be viable to boost your Allomancy they all have costs, such as burning through your metals rapidly, requiring clunky physical devices, demanding Spiritweb strain from Savantism or multiple Hemalurgic spikes, needing time to store, etc. If you could manage to charge a single Hemalurgic spike with more power than average, you can get a steady stream of notably more powerful Allomancy for no added cost. Metals don't burn more quickly, you don't need more than one spike, no extra machinery, nothing. Just free, continuous power that doesn't leave you vulnerable after a single momentary burst. But still, I see your point; if we're worried about total power in terms of expense (especially for an organization rather than a single entity), spiking 10 Allomancers' powers into a single spike so one person can play demigod is probably less useful than giving 10 different people standard levels of power.

Technically, you can Awaken liquids if they're a part of a more solid mass (like a human body) but it's almost impossible to Awaken a liquid on its own.

Theoretically, yes. Investiture really works by having the correct Instructions, so if you could understand the mechanics of what you were doing very, very specifically and combined that with enough Investiture you could do pretty much anything that Cosmere mechanics will allow. I think that this is at least part of how Dawnshards do their thing; a highly advanced, godlike understanding plus Investiture equals the ability to use it in whatever way you can imagine, basically. About Nalthian Awakening specifically, it's probably a little more complicated. It usually only allows an object to function as it would normally (which is why Nightblood is so weird), so for example Commanding a rope to start a fire wouldn't cause it to smolder and spontaneously burst into flames, but it could rub itself to create friction and generate heat as a side effect. So, with just standard Awakening I would say you'd need some extra steps, maybe by harnessing a Nicrosilmind or Fabrial containing the desired Surge or at least something similar, which can then be built upon via Breaths.

Easiest way I can think of is to find out how the Malwish medallions are made, then replicate the process, but for Surgebinding. Those should be permanent, only needing Investiture to fuel the actual abilities. Or, convince a Surgebinder to use an Unsealed Nicrosilmind to store access to their Surges for later use, then Compound that Nicrosilmind to create temporary (yet rechargeable) Surgeminds.

There's some wiggle room as to how it would go, I think. Currently, my thought process for how attribute spikes warp you is that since human attributes are tied to your Spiritweb's "structure" in terms of anatomy, you pull off some spiritual DNA of sorts with the attribute. This code is a pattern, just like with physical DNA, and the Bindpoint you place the code in determines how that code is integrated into your own and how is expresses itself, causing a change to cascade down to the Physical and Cognitive Realms. The attribute itself, the bulk of the Investiture, I don't think does this. Kandra Blessings are made from attribute spikes, but they don't require a physical warping in a Kandra to receive their magical benefits (such as the Blessing of Potency's pewter-like effects). It also is worth noting that Sazed's commentary on Koloss in WoA and HoA makes them seem to have a magical boost like the Blessing of Potency in addition to their growing muscles, which also supports the idea of attribute spikes' magical power being separate from its sDNA. If this holds true, I would think that you could deliberately craft a Hemalurgic spike that warped an individual more than it would normally be expected to (such as when Tensoon was surprised at how much Paalm was able to warp the Chimera with only one spike), but you would need to improve your Intent when charging it, changing what pieces of the Spiritweb and how much are harvested. However, just charging an iron spike with five people's strength doesn't immediately exaggerate the physical warping of each, I would think; if you have five sentences in a book that say exactly the same thing back to back, it holds the same amount of information as it would with only one of them, which ultimately changes nothing. This, of course, is only theoretical as of right now and is therefore a guess on my part.

Sweet

I really do think it's the number of spikes that counts, not the Investiture inside for determining the strength of the Flaw in a Hemalurgist. Bleeder was just as vulnerable to being controlled when her second spike was a minimally charged Pathian earring-bullet, which helps push this idea. However, this isn't strictly confirmed yet, so I want to be careful so as to not spread false information.

It depends on if it's the number of Bindpoints hit by Hemalurgic spikes that open you up to outside influence, but if it is you could take a single F-aluminum spike and split it into four or more pieces, then spike them with that. It gives them the necessary power to Blank their Identity and cracks open the Spiritweb. As for powers on yourself, yeah, it's pretty much required, though having the powers themselves is pretty nice. TLM and SA spoilers:

Technically, you could implant each "donor" with four or more spikes, then use duralumin augmented Emotional Allomancy to control and force them to use a F-aluminum spike to Blank Identity. Or, possibly an easier (though even more morally reprehensible) method may be to practice stripping Identity away with a duralumin spike, preserving desired attributes to be spiked next, but with no Identity remaining. Kandra Blessings are weird. It doesn't seem like the Lord Ruler made each Blessing for a specific Kandra, as he handed them over to the older generations of Kandra to bestow full sapience on Mistwraiths of their choice. However, since we know each Blessing is uniquely keyed to a specific Kandra, that implies that the spikes' Identities either adapted to fit a Kandra after binding to them, or that the Kandra's Identities shifted to fit the spikes. This is how I see it currently, anyway.

If I understand it correctly, yes, you should be able to rip off the Spiritweb fragments of a spike with another Hemalurgic spike. This does mean you could use this as a way to charge a single spike with a greater quantity of Investiture. However, the fragments from the spike and the Hemalurgist's natural Spiritweb will have differing Identities, which will likely cause them to not function in a single spike. Now, I do sort of wonder whether this applies to Kandra Blessings, as they seem to be uniquely keyed to a Kandra (such as when ReLuur needed both his spikes before being stable enough to accept another in BoM). As such, perhaps you could steal the Spiritweb fragments in a Kandra's Blessings with a single spike and get a greater Blessing to bestow on another Mistwraith or Kandra. Also, just wanted to say, it's great to have another new Sharder to post ideas! Welcome!

What determines an item is how it's perceived, and how long. So, what if I am in a carpenter's workshop with lots of table parts that aren't yet assembled, and I decide to help the carpenter out by making a few likely Forgeries of unassembled table legs and bodies to have been sanded and polished up with more care. Awesome. Now we've got a likely Forgery in place that doesn't require more time or resources on the carpenter's part. However, what happens if those table parts that are individually stamped are assembled? Will the Forgeries dissolve, as they are no longer individual parts but now a table with multiple incompatible Forgeries on a single object? Will the Forgeries force the Cognitive Aspects of the table parts to stay table parts, thus freezing its ability to change and thus maintaining the Forgeries? Or, do the Forgeries themselves change to fit the table's new history and Cognitive Aspect, effectively merging into a single Forgery? In short, what happens to a stable Forgery if an object changes its nature without being outright destroyed?

Hmm, this actually seems like a very plausible combination to me. Tracking an object leaving a speed bubble is really hard, but it seems to be predictable, technically speaking, albeit very, very difficult. So, perhaps it would be more doable with electrum, just somewhat difficult. Now, because speed bubbles don't interfere with Investiture interactions in the Cognitive and Spiritual Realms, I suspect burning electrum in a speed bubble would augment the strength of your electrum shadows, allowing you to see further, and perhaps more clearly than outside. Plus, you get more time to study the shadow, perhaps giving you an extra edge.

I'm not sure if Forgery would be well suited to this task. As you mentioned, a medium needs to exist that can be Forged. Since Honor created the Honorblades directly, even having sufficient Stormlight available to fuel the process wouldn't have a way to be stamped into existence; there's just nothing to stamp that would have the prerequisite spiritual Connections. I think you could, for example, Forge a regular sword to have been Awakened Nightblood style, but it would be very, very Investiture expensive and it's only possible because it already has a medium to stamp. However, you can create Godmetals, such as Tanavastium, with Soulcasting. This would likely require so much Investiture even a Bondsmith couldn't conventionally fuel it, but it is theoretically possible with that power. This would just be Godmetal though, and not a true power-granting Honorblade. To create a true Honorblade from Tanavastium, you likely need a way to program the Investiture. Perhaps if you understood fully what Navani's method of overwriting Investiture's Rhythm, you could use that to encode whatever power you wished in it.

WHAT!? GIMMIE THOSE COOKIES!!!

Compounding on it's own with no duralumin takes time, just as burning any metal normally does. Compounding while burning duralumin makes the process instantaneous. In other words, if a gold Compounder wanted to Compound 20 pounds of Goldminds into health, it might take them days to do so. If the Compounder can also burn duralumin at the same time, they can Compound the same amount of health, only in 1 second instead.

There's something about Hemalurgy that stuck out to me recently, and it's made me consider some things regarding the Spiritweb. We know that when someone puts a Hemalurgic spike through the eye that it allows them to see via the Spiritual Realm, right? Essentially, just a modified version of a Coinshot/Lurcher, but without strictly needing either of those powers (Kelsier is a good example of this; he can bear no powers from Hemalurgy, yet his spike still grants him Connection vision). we also know that Hemalurgic spikes are physical objects that require no prerequisite Connection to an individual who wishes to hold their power (likely holding Investiture in the Physical Realm, much like Breaths, which may also help explain their similar transferability). My theory is that in order for a Hemalurgic spike to staple a Spiritweb fragment onto a Hemalurgist's Spiritweb, it must draw their Spiritual Aspect into the Physical Realm, which is why eye spikes allow you to see via Spiritual Realm shenanigans as a side effect. What's more, this also lines up with why Kelsier is able to pin his Spiritweb to a body; since Hemalurgic spikes drag the Spiritual Aspect into the Physical Realm, this naturally aligns with pinning a Cognitive Shadow to a body. This may also explain why Steel Inquisitors can survive without certain spikes for a time; their Spiritweb is more strongly stapled to their body, making them resistant to death. It could also help explain Inquisitor's longer lifespan; depending on what spikes they have, perhaps certain organs function more on a spiritual, unfailing way while regular body parts fail (I actually think that this may be why the Heightenings grant an extended life too. They draw the three Realmatic components of a being together as enough Investiture anywhere pierces the three Realms, perfecting them and slowing the aging process). Inquisitors were also incredibly strong. The Inquisitor Bendal threw an entire prison wagon at Kelsier during their fight in the Luthedel fountain square. Could this extra strength be a partial result of their Spiritual Aspect adding more to their physical prowess? In any case, Bindpoints being inverted to draw the Spiritual Aspect into the Physical Realm may have more possibilities. Could certain organs being pierced by a Hemalurgic spike augment them, or at least significantly alter how they function? For example, muscle fibers interrupted by large chunks of metal doesn't seem to prevent them from functioning just fine, so are they magically altering how the muscles contract? Would a spike through the thymus prevent it from deteriorating with age, thus preserving auto-immune responses? Maybe a person with a spike running through specific parts of the brain could improve, or at least preserve certain brain functions (maybe by creating a more direct link between the Spiritual ideal of intelligence or brain function and the actual physical brain?) Thoughts?