Trusk'our

Ah, okay. I was wondering if it was just my computer acting like a drunkard again or if OP post was the thing doing it. Yes. The Coinshot on the train fight in BoM had a Steelbubble surrounding them. I'm on the same page. We have confirmation via WoB that his whole mimicking people thing isn't magical in nature, it's just skill.

Nice!

Interesting idea. I wonder if that would prevent someone from performing Hemalurgy in the first place? For example, if a Hemalurgist wanted to charge a spike and they were inside a giant aluminum box, would they be able to draw on Ruin to pull the Investiture from the Donor, or would the aluminum prevent this? If there is interference, perhaps aluminum could be used to shield someone from Hemalurgic theft; enough aluminum on a person would mess with Hemalurgy's ability to Connect to access the SR, which would prevent any spikes from ripping off chunks of their Spiritweb (though it wouldn't stop the physical damage). Additionally, perhaps this is why aluminum helmets can't just be used by Inquisitors or Kandra to prevent them from being controlled? There's just too much interference with their own spikes perhaps?

I'm on the same boat as Savantism being a result of a Spiritweb that has been overtaxed over a long period of time; I doubt you could become a Savant through a single short burst of power, no matter how much power was there. I don't know about the whole PR Investiture Savantism being any different though; if an Allomancer were fueled by another source of Investiture (such as Unkeyed Dor), they'd become a Savant same as they normally would over time. I don't see any proof for this at this time, especially with SA. I do think that perhaps Allomancers with more innate potential would be safer from the possibility of becoming Savants though. Someone like Rashek wouldn't have their Spiritweb be as taxed as someone who was a run-of-the-mill Misting, even if both tapped the same amount of Unkeyed Dor since his Spiritweb is better equipped to handle those levels of power.

True, a Hemalurgist cannot make direct use of multiple Identited charges, but you can put that Investiture in a spike or other metal compartment as the Set proves. Plus, Identity isn't necessarily going to prevent those charges from becoming a being that is made up of said Investiture. Yeah, that could be a bit of a problem. Maybe Scadrien Atilla just really likes personally executing a lot of people through the correct Bindpoints? Yeah, apparently it would take thousands of years for it to do so naturally. Not very practical if one wanted to actually use said Hemalurgy Shardblade in their lifetime Maybe there are good ways to speed it up though? I wonder if Scadrien Atilla happened to be a Connector Ferring if he could enhance his Connection to the sword, sort of creating a rudimentary Nahel Bond, but instead of maintaining the sapience of a previously existing piece of Investiture, it would help form it? That's a fair conclusion. I wonder if Intent were used correctly by the person who made the sword if such a thing would be more likely to occur, similar to how a Soulstamp must be made by someone with a valid Connection to MaiPon, but afterwards it could be used by anyone. Basically, the blacksmith has the proper Intent of what he wants the sword to do (be a Sharblade like Nightblood) when he creates the sword, inlaying a pseudo-Command there. The Hemalurgic charges act as the Investiture to fulfill that "Command" as the power of the sword grows. Yeah, I Nightblood probably has something extra going on to allow what it does, I suppose.

There's a short story about Allomancer Jak interacting with a group of Koloss. Inside the story, he finds a treasure; a pile of old Koloss spikes which are kept within a box lined with aluminum. Now, we know that aluminum can prevent a Hemalurgic spike from leaking Investiture, but I had assumed that it worked like gas under pressure, so aluminum would only work to prevent leakage if it were an air-tight coating sticking to the spike (such as if a previously charged spike were to be dunked into molten aluminum). However, it seems that this story suggests that this isn't the case; you only need to put the spike a box or something of the like to make it work. It may be that it's more of a field effect that aluminum provides, similar to aluminum hats protecting from Emotional Allomancy. So basically, I now think that the aluminum that prevents Hemalurgic decay works like that; it's a field that "confuses" the spikes, making them think that there is nothing else for them to seep into surrounding them, so instead of following their impulse towards seeking equilibrium they just keep their Investiture put. You may not even need to completely coat the spike to prevent decay, you probably just need enough nearby to confuse the spikes.

Let's have another fun little hypothetical scenario, shall we Say there was a blood thirsty Scadrien (basically Atilla the Hun, but Scadrial instead of Earth) who knows of Hemalurgy and is a big fan of ripping off chunks of enemies Spiritwebs as he kills them. Scadrien Atilla then gets regular steel sword forged for himself and gets an aluminum sheath for it. Every time Scadrien Atilla kills someone with his sword (which is a lot) he uses the Intent to perform Hemalurgy, charging his sword with a little more Investiture each time he slays an opponent, and since the sword his secured in aluminum between killings, it doesn't lose power during that time. Time passes, and Scadrien Atilla gets old and passes his sword to his descendants, who are each told the secret of Hemalurgically stealing Investiture when the use the sword, and they all use the same tactic as their fathers (/mothers?). More time passes, and the sword has become so Invested that it begins to take a life of its own, with its personality shaped by the view of Scadrien Atilla's descendants and followers. Eventually, it begins to become self-aware, and starts to act like Nightblood, absorbing Investiture of its enemies (and possibly wielder) of its own accord and takes on Shardblade-like qualities to help it fulfill its Intent filtered by its congnitive aspect; to destroy, to Ruin. Does this sound like a plausible way to create a new Nightblood, or at least to create some form of a Scadrien-style Shardblade? Also, would a Hemalurgic Shardblade be able to become supersaturated with Investiture, similar to Nightblood, or do you think it would have stricter limitations?

All brute force, I suppose. I wonder if the grace and dexterity provided by pewter would help offset some of the debilitation of the tin Savantism? Well, obviously not some of the stuff (like near blindness or deafness), but maybe at least that? I also wonder if someone who was the donor of a Hemalurgic spike but who didn't die who then became a Savant afterward would be "healed" a little bit, since their Spirtweb may adapt to use the new influx of Investiture by being a Savant via Hemalurgic spike (a different spike from the one they had before) and in the process also try to adapt to the hole in their Spiritweb? Basically, think neural plasticity, but for the Spiritual aspect rather than the brain.

Does anybody know why Steelsight lines are blue? Is it just for narrative purposes, or is it actually tied to some deeper meaning, such as what spectrum of light Steelsight belongs to (even though it's a Spiritual thing rather than physical)?

My wondering is, could you take two paired Gemstones that were Connected (Spanreed Gemstones) and build a Fabrial that picks up vibrations on one side, then transfers them to the other Gemstone, allowing for auditory communication via Fabrial tech? It follows the same principles as Spanreeds after all; move one Gemstone and the other moves the same way, so just find a way to translate vibrations from a person's voice into something that a Gemstone can pick up, which causes the Gemstone paired with it to emanate the same vibration, which leads to auditory communication. This has probably already been come up with at some point, but I figured I might as well see what people thought of my idea anyway

In a hypothetical (and somewhat ridiculous) scenario, let's say that a time-traveling Set scientist stole Spook's ability to burn tin, but left him alive and let him keep his Hemalurgically granted pewter. Spook then flairs his pewter nearly all the time to compensate for his loss of tin, just as he had done with his natural power. The question I have is, would his Spiritweb shift to accommodate the new power and overwrite (remove and replace) his other form of Savantism, meaning he would suffer from pewter Savantism, but not tin Savantism?

Technically, that's duralumin. And indeed, they probably have some very interesting ramifications Cosmere-wide I think that nicrosil Hemalurgy would grant something akin to the Heightenings, but you'd need to find a way to either combine multiple charges into a single spike (a LOT of them) or you'd need to spike a single, very Invested being- such as a Radiant Spren- to get enough Investiture to get the job done properly.

Same here. I'd love to see nicrosil Compounding allow some epic uses of Allomantic power, Lord Ruler style power. Yeah, I think that we probably just don't have enough information to be sure of anything yet, but sometimes you have to bend the rules a little as an author to make the magic any good, which I personally think is okay, especially if you come up with new mechanics and a proper explanation for why it works the new way afterward. Hemalurgic Compounding comes to mind, which I actually really like, since it adds more layers to crack through coming up with my crackpot ideas Currently, I think that the Excisors may just be a specialized set of Metalminds created by Kelsier and Spook working together- Kel for the knowledge of a Sliver of Preservation, Spook to bear Hemalurgic spikes and allow for the necessary powers. I would be willing to bet that the Metalborn who create the Malwish medallions use the Excisors to Blank their Identity whilst storing their power, which can then be tapped for others to use. F-duralumin may come into play by having two or more Metalborn tapping Connection to each other while they are storing their power; this Connects the powers stored in the new medallions, which would allow them to interact as if they were from one individual. However, too many people with differing Connections would muddy this a little, hence the reason no medallions have been made yet that grant more than three powers. I also think that since Investiture tends to gain a life of its own, it's possible that the reason medallions have their own Identity and "life" is because they have F-nicrosil; perhaps their is more "soul" inside a Soulbearer's power than other Feruchemical attributes, which the medallions pick up on? Anyways, those are my current ideas, but I'm excited for era 3 so that we can know for sure how the medallions work soon (thank you for asking btw, I'm honored that you value my opinion ).

That certainly could be the case, but based on the nicrosil being like a Coppermind quote, it's possible that it was referring specifically to the Malwish medallions, which have also been stated to be more limited in some ways than straight up nicrosil Feruchemy (part of the greater restriction on the medallions being that you can't choose to tap them at an accelerated rate). I may just be reading into that too much, however. That could be the case. It could help explain why Rashek didn't just make himself even more powerful when drawing on the power of the Well of Ascension- he couldn't. It may just have been that he didn't consider making himself into an ultra-powerful Mistborn until only the dregs of the Well remained though, so him being at the max limit of Allomancy isn't necessarily the only explanation (though it still seems like a good one in my estimation- perhaps you could temporarily draw out more, but stress your Spiritweb when doing so?). Thank you, I appreciate it! Assuming that's possible, things would very quickly get very powerful (which based on this quote, should be achievable) I don't know, he seemed pretty hesitant about using Hemalurgy during his conversation with Sazed. I wonder if, since Spiritwebs are mostly made up of Connection (acting as the "structure" of the Spiritweb, while Identity defines its borders, and Investiture is the substance it's built of), if perhaps a rudimentary Spiritweb is crafted for each medallion via the Excisors. After all, they do have more of a "life force" and individual Identity than other Metalminds.

Okay, we don't know for certain yet that someone could use nicrosil Feruchemy to temporarily augment their Allomancy (storing and then tapping their ability to use their Allomantic power at an accelerated rate), but for the sake of this conversation, let's say that it can be done and that Compounding can be used to increase its effectiveness. I think that there would be a greater physical limitation on nicrosil-empowerment than would be with naturally more powerful Allomancy. In order to make it work, you'd store your ability to use one of your Allomantic powers inside a Nicrosilmind, then you would tap it faster than normal at a later time (say, at 500%). First off, you'd face the limitation of whether or not a feedback loop was possible or not. If you tap your Nicrosilmind to increase the power of your Allomantic Nicrosil, thus letting you draw more Investiture from the SR when you Compound, thus letting you store that power inside your Metalmind, which you then tap to increase the power of your Allomancy, etc. I kind of doubt this would work; if it did, you could more or less constantly increase your Allomantic power to ridiculous levels. I think that, more likely, if you tried this method you'd get a net loss of power; more Investiture would be drawn from your Feruchemy to enhance your Allomancy than what your new Compounding-level drew from the SR. That way, your base Allomantic strength still matters, and you can't stay at a greatly enhanced level of Allomantic power constantly. And it's a good thing that this would be a limitation of nicrosil Compounding, since it makes the power more balanced. Second limitation: Metalmind size. For example, if you tried to make yourself into a Thug that had fifty times the raw Allomantic power of a normal Thug, you'd have a problem; you can only cram so much Investiture into Nicrosilminds of a usable size. I think that this is also good, because you wouldn't see a Nicrosil Compounder having Lord Ruler level strength on a consistent basis. TLDR, if Nicrosil Compounding does work, you'd have two limiting factors; base Allomantic strength and Metalmind size. And that's a good thing, because it makes the power more balanced, and actually possible to make cannon because it doesn't break the game, so to speak.

Likely because the Medallions have an Identity of their own; their kind of like their own separate entity that people can draw power from, rather than just a battery a Feruchemist created to manipulate and draw upon at a later time as they please. Additionally, Medallions may be considered more "external" than regular innate Feruchemy, since the power is coming from another source (the nicrosil portion, at least). It would be cool to see if perhaps because of this that medallions can't let you tap as quickly as you could with natural Feruchemy, or perhaps you can't control it as well? It would be a reasonable limitation (could help explain why the Malwish don't have a bunch of Steelrunner soldiers), and I could see it happening based on its mechanics.

That... makes a lot of sense, and would be another nice limitation to Medallion tech. I think that this WoB backs this up as well; the more deeply tied to one's soul, the more effective the healing an Invested source provides. In other words, mechanical devices have a hard time if not straight up inability to heal soul wounds (though Regrowth used by a Radiant can be used on someone else to heal Shardblade wounds I think, so perhaps there it some more things going one there than needing the healing power to be an innate part of the person being healed). That's a fair takeaway, and you may be right about Brandon misspeaking. I do currently think that if you use powers gained via Hemalurgy that you draw from Ruin, however. From a meta perspective, how else would one "get" the Shard's Investiture? It just doesn't make much sense to me, though admittedly that's just personal opinion, and aside from that one WoB with Lift we don't have any concrete proof of that actually being the case. So take the whole Ruin fueling all Hemalurgy (with the exception of Hemalugically gained Feruchemy) with a grain of salt, I'd say. I think that it depends on the specific attributes you're looking at, but most I think work by using the Spiritweb of the Feruchemist to draw Investiture directly from the SR, which gets stored in Metalminds to be drawn from for later use, but a few attributes are different and directly convert matter or parts of the Cognitive aspect into Investiture for latter use (made a thread about Feruchemy drawing from all three Realms recently, as a matter of fact). I still think that since you're drawing from the Feruchemist's Spiritweb (at least for most of the attributes) that the health stored by a Nalthian would be Endowment "flavored" but admittedly that speculation on my part, so it could be wrong. Interesting. I like that idea and think that it has some real merit to it. I wonder if Savants have something similar happen to them; their Spiritwebs get worn away and replaced by the Kinetic Investiture they constantly use, which does allow them to have a deeper tie to and control over their power, but if they ever stop using it, the Kinetic Investiture is no longer there to "fill in the gaps" so to speak, leaving them in a terrible condition, with only a worn out shadow of their original soul, their original self... EDIT: Okay, I remembered seeing this quote about Scadriens having Ruin's Investiture inside them, which also meant that their Feruchemical attributes had some of Ruin's essence, which is why Ruin could manipulate Sazed's Coppermind contents while they were being transferred to his mind. I think that this supports my idea of most Feruchemical powers drawing form the Feruchemist's natural Investiture, rather than attuning it to Ruin or Preservation.

Huh. That makes even more sense. Especially considering Copperminds; if Identity changed over time, the Keepers wouldn't be able to tap their stores of knowledge. I wonder what some of the consequences of storing Identity might be then, aside from letting others tap your Metalminds, because Identity seems kind of important; separating your soul from everything you're Connected to feels like... a big deal. Now I wonder if two Ferruchemists storing Identity and excessively tapping Connection to each other might do. Maybe they form a temporary hive-mind?

Never watched the movie (though it sounds interesting), but I think that I agree along these lines; it may be possible to use gold Allomancy to pull off something like a Soulstamp, effectively turning yourself into an alternate version of yourself, but unlike Forgery the effects are solely mental in nature. So no turning yourself from a couch potato into a bodybuilder, though you may be able to give yourself a semblance of skills that another hypothetical version of yourself could have with enough practice and the right Intent. It may require more than Intent though, such as using Hemalurgy or duralumin to augment it. Additionally, gold is expensive, burns fast, and combining that with the effects being purely mental, I think that this wouldn't be considered "overpowered" so to speak, and could therefore see it happening (I don't see it being unacceptable from a narrative viewpoint, that is). Huh. Now I really want to see more Allomantic gold be experimented with! Actually, before reading this post I honestly considered A-gold to be basically worthless with the exception of Compounding. Now it may be one of the most fascinating metals. Thank you for the fresh viewpoint @Koloss17, I love it! I wonder if perhaps some other powers could be the same- underestimated, yet with secrets to be found? Say, Allomantic aluminum?

Circles and circles my friend, all the way up until Brandon finally decides to tell us the answer

Ah, thank you for clearing that up It would be pretty neat to figure out attribute spikes and how to use them properly. The end goal of copper spikes for me isn't to offset the Hemalurgic weakness they cause or negate the inherent damage associated bearing them; if that were the case, taking fewer spikes- or none at all- would be the best bet. From the information I have, copper Hemalurgy seems to actually increase the fluid intelligence of the one bearing the spike(s) as well as granting them some other cognitive benefits (such as enhanced memory, the ability to focus better, and a resistance to- though not immunity- to madness). Plus, I don't think you'd need a lot of spikes- just one or two that each have a large Invested charge in order to get the magical intelligence boost they provide.