Trusk'our Posted April 6, 2023 Report Share Posted April 6, 2023 Often when people come up with crazy ideas on the 17th Shard we disregard how such a circumstance came to be for the sake of discussion. That's okay, but I think that it makes some theories seem far-fetched because from a meta perspective they would be too game breaking if they were true. Take the ability to combine multiple Hemalurgic charges into a single spike; if you took the power of one hundred Pewterarms and cramed it into a single Hemalurgic spike, the recipient becomes bulletproof (or near it at least), strong enough to casually punch people's heads off, and has their natural healing and physical speed increased to insane amounts. Basically like Shardplate, but you always have it, it helps you in more ways (such as healing quickly), it's easier to use when and wherever you want, and since you have an increase to your dexterity, you don't have to worry as much about breaking stuff accidentally (to a reasonable extent, at least). However, even if such a thing were possible, it would be very, very, very difficult to bring about. First, you'd either have to get a single Misting who was willing to donate their power and heal back parts of their Spiritweb a hundred times over via F-gold- which takes some serious Compounding with H-spikes or medallions (the latter of which may actually not be viable due to the Malwish not having Allomantic Medallions) to achieve- or you'd have to find one hundred Mistings of the same type who were willing to donate their powers, as they'd need to use Hemalurgy or Medallions to blank their Identity to prevent the H-charges from being incompatible with each other. Technically, it is achievable, but you pretty much won't see it happen; it's just not very believable that such a scenario could happen. Another limiting factor is Hemalurgic decay. If my hunch is correct, Hemalurgic decay works a bit like a gas under pressure; the more you try to squeeze into a smaller and smaller space, the more Investiture will leak from the spike within the same window of time. There probably are ways to offset this, such as using Raysium and Perfect Gemstones to collect Hemalurgic charges, but I think that there is one more limiting factor; Identity development. We see with the Southern Scadrien Medallions that they have developed some of their own Identity despite the fact that they would have to be made from Blanked Investiture originally, or else they couldn't be tapped (don't ask me why they can still be tapped; it likely has to do with some mechanic Sanderson has yet to introduce). Basically, I think that if you were to Spike out a Misting's power, let them heal it back with Investiture, then give them some time to recover from the lingering aftereffects, the Hemalurgic charge may end up developing a new Identity, which would prevent it from being combined with other H-charges. So you'd have to harvest all your power in one sitting, likely meaning that you'd have to have lots of Mistings willing to donate their powers to prevent the worst of the side effects, which could be possible, but not likely or easy. Basically, I think that the concept of having a single Hemalurgic spike providing godlike power is pretty neat, and we likely will see some spikes containing a few charges in the future, but I don't think that it would be a world-building pit that unbalances magic systems. And if we do ever see a supercharged spike, it will likely be a very rare occurrence which will be used by villains (kind of like Miles gold Compounding). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frustration Posted April 6, 2023 Report Share Posted April 6, 2023 A spike wouldn't be able to hold that much charge, they fill up just like metalminds do. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trusk'our Posted April 7, 2023 Author Report Share Posted April 7, 2023 (edited) 2 hours ago, Frustration said: A spike wouldn't be able to hold that much charge, they fill up just like metalminds do. True, but Metalborn aren't considered to be particularly Invested before they burn their metals. The same rule applies to Hemalurgic spikes, as all of their power comes from said Metalborn. It's definitely possible, likely even, that you'd run into some difficulties cramming hundreds of Allomancer's worth of Investiture into a spike (see my aforementioned argument against myself), but there could likely be quite a bit that could be stuffed in there. I suppose it would also be worth noting that the more Investiture a Metalborn or Metalblessed wields, the less efficient their powers would be, similar to compressing Feruchemical attributes or Flaring metals; more and more of the power is siphoned off to offset the compression and to allow the practitioner to use the power they have. This means that one hundred Allomancers' worth of Investiture may look a lot more like twenty times the actual effects it bears. Of course, we don't have any exact measurements for Invested-ness currently, so this point is rather moot. Edited April 7, 2023 by Trusk'our 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
therunner Posted April 7, 2023 Report Share Posted April 7, 2023 (edited) 10 hours ago, Trusk'our said: Often when people come up with crazy ideas on the 17th Shard we disregard how such a circumstance came to be for the sake of discussion. That's okay, but I think that it makes some theories seem far-fetched because from a meta perspective they would be too game breaking if they were true. First, you'd either have to get a single Misting who was willing to donate their power and heal back parts of their Spiritweb a hundred times over via F-gold- which takes some serious Compounding with H-spikes or medallions (the latter of which may actually not be viable due to the Malwish not having Allomantic Medallions) to achieve- or you'd have to find one hundred Mistings of the same type who were willing to donate their powers, as they'd need to use Hemalurgy or Medallions to blank their Identity to prevent the H-charges from being incompatible with each other. I think some game breaking things won't be possible due to intentional restriction on Brandon end. E.g. TLM spoilers Spoiler Compounding is now only possible if you were born with the powers, neither Spikes nor Medallions allow for Compounding. Technically only stated for Hemalurgy, but since the reason is 'Identity contamination' and Medallions have their own Identity, I expect it would be the same. 10 hours ago, Trusk'our said: Take the ability to combine multiple Hemalurgic charges into a single spike; if you took the power of one hundred Pewterarms and cramed it into a single Hemalurgic spike, the recipient becomes bulletproof (or near it at least), strong enough to casually punch people's heads off, and has their natural healing and physical speed increased to insane amounts. Basically like Shardplate, but you always have it, it helps you in more ways (such as healing quickly), it's easier to use when and wherever you want, and since you have an increase to your dexterity, you don't have to worry as much about breaking stuff accidentally (to a reasonable extent, at least). I don't think you could fit that much charge into single Hemalurgic spike. They contain (or serve as conduit for) parts of spiritweb, which are just Investiture and quite a bit of it. Even if you could, I think you would end up with some sort of Hemalurgic construct/monster, because at the end of the day you are still spiking in ~100 people's worths of spiritweb fragments to single spiritweb. And finally, you can never fully store an Attribute, so there will always (at least within scope of Feruchemy alone) be some left-over Identity. There is a floor to storing. So I think it would have to be with single donor who would have to heal all the damage done. Edited April 7, 2023 by therunner 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted April 7, 2023 Report Share Posted April 7, 2023 12 hours ago, Trusk'our said: Often when people come up with crazy ideas on the 17th Shard we disregard how such a circumstance came to be for the sake of discussion. That's okay, but I think that it makes some theories seem far-fetched because from a meta perspective they would be too game breaking if they were true. Take the ability to combine multiple Hemalurgic charges into a single spike; if you took the power of one hundred Pewterarms and cramed it into a single Hemalurgic spike, the recipient becomes bulletproof (or near it at least), strong enough to casually punch people's heads off, and has their natural healing and physical speed increased to insane amounts. Basically like Shardplate, but you always have it, it helps you in more ways (such as healing quickly), it's easier to use when and wherever you want, and since you have an increase to your dexterity, you don't have to worry as much about breaking stuff accidentally (to a reasonable extent, at least). However, even if such a thing were possible, it would be very, very, very difficult to bring about. First, you'd either have to get a single Misting who was willing to donate their power and heal back parts of their Spiritweb a hundred times over via F-gold- which takes some serious Compounding with H-spikes or medallions (the latter of which may actually not be viable due to the Malwish not having Allomantic Medallions) to achieve- or you'd have to find one hundred Mistings of the same type who were willing to donate their powers, as they'd need to use Hemalurgy or Medallions to blank their Identity to prevent the H-charges from being incompatible with each other. Technically, it is achievable, but you pretty much won't see it happen; it's just not very believable that such a scenario could happen. Another limiting factor is Hemalurgic decay. If my hunch is correct, Hemalurgic decay works a bit like a gas under pressure; the more you try to squeeze into a smaller and smaller space, the more Investiture will leak from the spike within the same window of time. There probably are ways to offset this, such as using Raysium and Perfect Gemstones to collect Hemalurgic charges, but I think that there is one more limiting factor; Identity development. We see with the Southern Scadrien Medallions that they have developed some of their own Identity despite the fact that they would have to be made from Blanked Investiture originally, or else they couldn't be tapped (don't ask me why they can still be tapped; it likely has to do with some mechanic Sanderson has yet to introduce). Basically, I think that if you were to Spike out a Misting's power, let them heal it back with Investiture, then give them some time to recover from the lingering aftereffects, the Hemalurgic charge may end up developing a new Identity, which would prevent it from being combined with other H-charges. So you'd have to harvest all your power in one sitting, likely meaning that you'd have to have lots of Mistings willing to donate their powers to prevent the worst of the side effects, which could be possible, but not likely or easy. Basically, I think that the concept of having a single Hemalurgic spike providing godlike power is pretty neat, and we likely will see some spikes containing a few charges in the future, but I don't think that it would be a world-building pit that unbalances magic systems. And if we do ever see a supercharged spike, it will likely be a very rare occurrence which will be used by villains (kind of like Miles gold Compounding). I see few problems with it, preventing it from happening. First is that you can't fit so much into a single spike - TLM showed that spike can fit 20 people worth of pure innate investiture, single Allomantic ability would likely fill it even more. Secondly, identity contamination. Thirdly, you're still spiking dozens of different spirit webs into your web, the "hole" in your spirit would have to be much wider to fit all of that together, so I think it would basically act like multiple spikes, not one, creating hole big enough to not only allow for hemalurgic control, but also cap you on the amount of power you gain from that spike (set up by Harmony). And to add more - it would drastically deteriorate your mental health - dozens of different souls stample to your in a big hole, that's not healthy at all. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trusk'our Posted April 8, 2023 Author Report Share Posted April 8, 2023 On 4/7/2023 at 4:59 AM, therunner said: I think some game breaking things won't be possible due to intentional restriction on Brandon end. E.g. TLM spoilers Hide contents Compounding is now only possible if you were born with the powers, neither Spikes nor Medallions allow for Compounding. Technically only stated for Hemalurgy, but since the reason is 'Identity contamination' and Medallions have their own Identity, I expect it would be the same. True, Identity contamination causes some problems with Hemalurgicly Compounding gold, but I bet that F-aluminum could help if a donor blanked their Identity while donating their power. It would require either their willingness or for someone to spike them with four or more Hemalurgic spikes, then to control them and forcibly make them blank their Identity though. On 4/7/2023 at 4:59 AM, therunner said: I don't think you could fit that much charge into single Hemalurgic spike. They contain (or serve as conduit for) parts of spiritweb, which are just Investiture and quite a bit of it. There would be an upper limit to the Investiture a Hemalurgic spike could hold, but we don't really know yet what it is. However, we do know exactly how much Investiture is in a single Hemalurgic spike containing a single Metalborn power, but we do know that it isn't a lot. Quote https://wob.coppermind.net/events/217/#e7299 Questioner I've got a list of various Cosmere bits of metal and I was wondering if you would rank them from like one to ten or just easy to difficult on how hard it would be to steelpush on them. So with one being just a regular coin, ten being like when the Lord Ruler was moving bits of glass on the floor, so like metal inside a person's body. Brandon Sanderson It depends on how strong the Investiture in them is. Questioner Is that gonna be the answer for all of these? Brandon Sanderson Probably! Questioner How about a spike charged with Hemalurgy? Brandon Sanderson A spike charged with Hemalurgy... that depends on... Questioner Not in a person. Brandon Sanderson Depends on how strong, yeah, a spike is moderately, (in the realm of these kinds of things) moderately easy to push on because a spike does not rip off very much Investiture. Only enough to short circuit the soul, and less it over time. I would put that at the bottom, with the top being very hard, to be one of the easier things. Questioner How about a metalmind that is full? Brandon Sanderson That is full? That is going to be middle of the realm of the, yeah. Generally easier than, for instance, a Shardblade which is going to be very hard. Questioner #2 A Shardblade is [inaudible] actually metal? [metal]-ish? Brandon Sanderson Ish. Is Lerasium a metal? Yeah. Questioner So that'd be the same for Shardplate too? Brandon Sanderson Shardplate and Blade are very hard. Blade is probably gonna be a little harder. Questioner A Half-shard? Brandon Sanderson A Half-shard shield? That's gonna be moderate. Questioner Nightblood? I imagine that being hard. Brandon Sanderson Hard, of all the things you've listed, that is going to be the hardest. Far beyond even a Sharblade. Questioner Far beyond metal inside a person? Brandon Sanderson Uh, yes. Depending on how invested the person is. Questioner If somebody was invested as much as Nightblood? Brandon Sanderson Yes, for instance the God King, right. At the end with all those Breaths. Pushing something inside of him, getting through all of that? Gonna be real hard. Average person on Scadrial? You've seen how hard that is. A drab? Much easier. Questioner That was my next one, or no, sorry not a drab. A lifeless? Brandon Sanderson A Lifeless, yeah. Even... yeah. Lifeless are kind of weird because they've had their soul leave but then they've had a replacement stuck in in the form of Breath which leaves them in a very weird position compared to a drab which has had part of their Investiture ripped away but a majority remains, so, anyways. I'm going to give you one more. Pick your favorite. Questioner A soulstamped piece of metal? Brandon Sanderson A soulstamped piece of metal is going to be on the lower, easier side. Not a lot of Investiture going on in a soulstamp. On 4/7/2023 at 4:59 AM, therunner said: Even if you could, I think you would end up with some sort of Hemalurgic construct/monster, because at the end of the day you are still spiking in ~100 people's worths of spiritweb fragments to single spiritweb. Huh. I hadn't considered that possibility, but maybe that would happen with enough individual Hemalurgic charges. It would be interesting to see a villain use a supercharged spike and turn into a literal monster, which would introduce a new limitation/cost to Hemalurgy, which would also be interesting; if you want to gain godlike power via Hemalurgy, you have to leave behind your humanity. On 4/7/2023 at 4:59 AM, therunner said: And finally, you can never fully store an Attribute, so there will always (at least within scope of Feruchemy alone) be some left-over Identity. There is a floor to storing. So I think it would have to be with single donor who would have to heal all the damage done. It may be that only certain attributes follow that rule (though we don't really have any proof of that, it might make sense for Medallion tech), but assuming that all of them do that would mean that you can at least combine a few people's powers, since we see something similar happen with the Malwish medallions. Though, you're right; ultimately, it would probably be easier and more efficient to use a single Metalborn who used F-gold to produce all the powers- the trauma on the person donating might be terrible though. On 4/7/2023 at 7:12 AM, alder24 said: I see few problems with it, preventing it from happening. First is that you can't fit so much into a single spike - TLM showed that spike can fit 20 people worth of pure innate investiture, single Allomantic ability would likely fill it even more. I don't know that that proves you can't fit more than 20 people's worth of Investiture inside a Hemalurgic spike. They were attempting to Invest the spikes specifically to create powers, so when they said "Fully Investing one takes between twenty and thirty people (TLM p.g. 318)" I think they meant that it takes between twenty to thirty people's worth of Investiture before you see any powers budding from the spike. And if they were talking about it's total Investment, it's important to remember that they used a Trellium spike (and not a large one at that- if it was like the other Marasi found, it would be four to six inches long); as a Godmetal it would be too Invested to hold much of a charge in the first place, so a normal piece of metal as a Hemalurgic spike would be able to hold a lot more. Quote https://wob.coppermind.net/events/69/#e5912 Questioner 1 What would happen if you used lerasium as a spike for Hemalurgy? Brandon Sanderson Oh lerasium as a spike for Hemalurgy? Um lerasium as a spike for Hemalurgy-- Questioner 1 Would it work or would it just not work? Brandon Sanderson No I mean it would work-- Questioner 1 If you were to place a lerasium spike would you transform into a full Mistborn as opposed to-- Questioner 2 Well it can also steal powers, not just grant them, right? Brandon Sanderson Um, right. The thing about it is you're trying to Invest something that is already very Invested, which always has weird effects. So while you could do it, it would be a gross waste of the potential. It's like using a nuclear bomb as a paperweight. It is functional but-- Questioner 1 Does that mean it would be hard, for example, to make Nightblood stick something? Because-- Brandon Sanderson Yes it would be very hard to make Nightblood stick to something. The amount of Investiture in Nightblood is-- Bystander Astronomical? Brandon Sanderson Yes. Larger than most things you've seen. So Pushing on Nightblood, really hard. On 4/7/2023 at 7:12 AM, alder24 said: Secondly, identity contamination. F-aluminum on the part of the donor may be able to counter, or at least mitigate that problem. On 4/7/2023 at 7:12 AM, alder24 said: Thirdly, you're still spiking dozens of different spirit webs into your web, the "hole" in your spirit would have to be much wider to fit all of that together, so I think it would basically act like multiple spikes, not one, creating hole big enough to not only allow for hemalurgic control, but also cap you on the amount of power you gain from that spike (set up by Harmony). And to add more - it would drastically deteriorate your mental health - dozens of different souls stample to your in a big hole, that's not healthy at all. I don't know that would be the case. We've seen that even a Hemalurgic spike at its minimum charge (Wax's Pathian earring) can pierce the soul enough to count as a full spike; it was enough to let Harmony directly communicate with Wax and for Paalm to be vulnerable to control. This seems to suggest that it's the number of spikes piercing someone's body and not the total Investiture inside those spikes that matters for Hemalurgic control. I like to think that this is because it's the number of Bindpoints being pierced that matters; more Bindpoints, more holes for outside Investiture to get in. In other words, the hole in the Spiritweb doesn't have to be very big, since it's just used to hotwire the Spiritweb of the recipient to that of the spike, but each new Bindpoint being pierced creates a new entrance for outside Investiture to get in. Although, this isn't concrete, it's just an educated guess, so I could be wrong. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted April 9, 2023 Report Share Posted April 9, 2023 11 hours ago, Trusk'our said: I don't know that that proves you can't fit more than 20 people's worth of Investiture inside a Hemalurgic spike. They were attempting to Invest the spikes specifically to create powers, so when they said "Fully Investing one takes between twenty and thirty people (TLM p.g. 318)" I think they meant that it takes between twenty to thirty people's worth of Investiture before you see any powers budding from the spike. And if they were talking about it's total Investment, it's important to remember that they used a Trellium spike (and not a large one at that- if it was like the other Marasi found, it would be four to six inches long); as a Godmetal it would be too Invested to hold much of a charge in the first place, so a normal piece of metal as a Hemalurgic spike would be able to hold a lot more. It wasn't Trellium spike, it didn't have red cast and spots on it, like all Trellium has. They did talk about total Investment, saying that spike it 5% invested. TLM ch 47 Spoiler Quote Then one took out Then one took out a silvery spike, long and thin. [...] Almost like they were sewing with a six-inch needle. [...] “Roughly five percent Invested,” [...] “Ah, my lord,” the woman said. “This woman isn’t Metalborn. We’ve Invested a spike—a tiny bit, granted—using an ordinary person. All people are Invested by Ruin and Preservation as part of our very makeup—and we have a little extra Preservation, blessed by the Shards upon our creation. We’re pulling some of that out. “The percentage you get depends on the person. We think it might have to do with how likely they were, genetically, to be Metalborn. But they don’t need that extra if the powers didn’t manifest in them. It’s vestigial. We simply slice it off and use it in a spike. Fully Investing one takes between twenty and thirty people.” This means that Allomantic powers would fill up the spike more, how much is very hard to estimate, but single won't fully fill up the spike. If 5% comes from raw, innate investiture, then stealing powers would take something like 10-25%, based on the fact that you can steal more than one power with a single spike, but they don't know how, so even inquisitor's spikes weren't full Spoiler Aerlion Is it possible to use Hemalurgic spikes to steal multiple attributes from the same person? Brandon Sanderson No. At least, this isn't thought to be possible General Signed Books 2018 (March 20, 2018) Spoiler Brandon Sanderson The Sliding Scale of Allomantic Potential Noblemen, despite what Spook says in this chapter, are not immune to the mistsickness. The rumor Spook is referencing does have merit, however. You see, since the mists are Snapping people and awakening the Allomantic potential within them, it will affect far fewer noblemen than skaa. Why? Because a lot of the noblemen have already Snapped. They were beaten as children to bring out the powers. However, that won't stop all of them from being affected by the mistsickness, because the mistsickness is also awakening Allomantic potential that would otherwise be too subtle to be brought out. Pretend there's a sliding scale of Allomantic potential. 100% means you're an Allomancer—in this series, only two people have hit 100%—Vin and Elend. Buried within a lot of people, however, is enough of a touch of Preservation's power to hit, say, 50% on the relative scale of Allomantic power. These people, when beaten and made to pass through something traumatic, awaken to their Allomantic abilities. There are a lot of people out there, however, with something more like 20% to 30%. These are the people the mists are Snapping—since the mists are, themselves, partially the power of Preservation, they can touch people and increase their Allomantic potential slightly and then bring it to the forefront. The Hero of Ages Annotations (Dec. 29, 2009) So if they steal from regular people, who have lower Allomantic potential (because of weaker Preservation's fragment in them), then stealing from Allomancers/Feruchemist would take more soul, as you're stealing more than from non-metalborn. But the spike they used was thin but long (6ft long), slightly bigger spikes, like inquisitor's spikes, could likely hold a bit more, but still not enough to hold 100 people worth of stolen powers. Doing just some math for example, if 5% is the average you steal from people with low Allomantic potential (average 25% potential), then stealing from Allomancer would fill up the spike up to 4 times more, up to 20% for a single power. But then because Set used a thin spike, using a bigger spike would give you 4x more space, therefore you could fit in total 20 powers in a single large spike. Not even close to 100. But that's just relying purely on assumed numbers. I think in inquisitor's spike you could fit at most 4 powers, as that number would make more sense (4 quadrants with 4 power, one spike for all powers from each quadrant etc). And if you need investiture from 20-30 to manifest a single power (which fills up that thin spike fully), then bigger spikes would fit much less than 20 powers, closer to 4 powers, fitting my belief. 12 hours ago, Trusk'our said: F-aluminum on the part of the donor may be able to counter, or at least mitigate that problem. It might, but good luck forcing people you want to spike to blank their identity, how would you even know they did that and not pretend? 12 hours ago, Trusk'our said: I don't know that would be the case. We've seen that even a Hemalurgic spike at its minimum charge (Wax's Pathian earring) can pierce the soul enough to count as a full spike; it was enough to let Harmony directly communicate with Wax and for Paalm to be vulnerable to control. This seems to suggest that it's the number of spikes piercing someone's body and not the total Investiture inside those spikes that matters for Hemalurgic control. Each spike creates a hole in your soul. While the difference between low invested spike and high might not be that big, for me it makes sense that the more spikes it contains, the bigger hole it makes, as there is more stolen soul that needs to be fitted in your soul. But it's not like a single spike containing 10 powers would make as big a hole as 10 separate spikes with a single power. But it's a guess on my part. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trusk'our Posted April 9, 2023 Author Report Share Posted April 9, 2023 (edited) 8 hours ago, alder24 said: It might, but good luck forcing people you want to spike to blank their identity, how would you even know they did that and not pretend? Yeah, even after coming up with everything else, that's honestly going to be the biggest limiting factor; getting dozens of Mistings to be willing to let you spike their powers out would be very difficult. You might be able to take a powered spike, split it into a dozen or so pieces and pierce the individual with it, then use a duralumin-enhanced Emotional Allomantic blast to make them blank their Identity when you want it and to so that you know they did it. But still, that may end up being harder than it appears on paper. 8 hours ago, alder24 said: Each spike creates a hole in your soul. While the difference between low invested spike and high might not be that big, for me it makes sense that the more spikes it contains, the bigger hole it makes, as there is more stolen soul that needs to be fitted in your soul. But it's not like a single spike containing 10 powers would make as big a hole as 10 separate spikes with a single power. But it's a guess on my part. Ah, okay, I can understand that. I think we'll probably need more information on the mechanics of Hemalurgy before we set it in stone though (I guess we do that with basically all our theories, I suppose). 8 hours ago, alder24 said: It wasn't Trellium spike, it didn't have red cast and spots on it, like all Trellium has. They did talk about total Investment, saying that spike it 5% invested. TLM ch 47 Reveal hidden contents Ohhhhh. Okay, I don't know how I managed to completely miss that part despite me reading that section like seven times. But yes, you're right, that wasn't a Trellium spike. 8 hours ago, alder24 said: This means that Allomantic powers would fill up the spike more, how much is very hard to estimate, but single won't fully fill up the spike. If 5% comes from raw, innate investiture, then stealing powers would take something like 10-25%, based on the fact that you can steal more than one power with a single spike, but they don't know how, so even inquisitor's spikes weren't full Reveal hidden contents Aerlion Is it possible to use Hemalurgic spikes to steal multiple attributes from the same person? Brandon Sanderson No. At least, this isn't thought to be possible General Signed Books 2018 (March 20, 2018) Reveal hidden contents Brandon Sanderson The Sliding Scale of Allomantic Potential Noblemen, despite what Spook says in this chapter, are not immune to the mistsickness. The rumor Spook is referencing does have merit, however. You see, since the mists are Snapping people and awakening the Allomantic potential within them, it will affect far fewer noblemen than skaa. Why? Because a lot of the noblemen have already Snapped. They were beaten as children to bring out the powers. However, that won't stop all of them from being affected by the mistsickness, because the mistsickness is also awakening Allomantic potential that would otherwise be too subtle to be brought out. Pretend there's a sliding scale of Allomantic potential. 100% means you're an Allomancer—in this series, only two people have hit 100%—Vin and Elend. Buried within a lot of people, however, is enough of a touch of Preservation's power to hit, say, 50% on the relative scale of Allomantic power. These people, when beaten and made to pass through something traumatic, awaken to their Allomantic abilities. There are a lot of people out there, however, with something more like 20% to 30%. These are the people the mists are Snapping—since the mists are, themselves, partially the power of Preservation, they can touch people and increase their Allomantic potential slightly and then bring it to the forefront. The Hero of Ages Annotations (Dec. 29, 2009) So if they steal from regular people, who have lower Allomantic potential (because of weaker Preservation's fragment in them), then stealing from Allomancers/Feruchemist would take more soul, as you're stealing more than from non-metalborn. But the spike they used was thin but long (6ft long), slightly bigger spikes, like inquisitor's spikes, could likely hold a bit more, but still not enough to hold 100 people worth of stolen powers. Doing just some math for example, if 5% is the average you steal from people with low Allomantic potential (average 25% potential), then stealing from Allomancer would fill up the spike up to 4 times more, up to 20% for a single power. But then because Set used a thin spike, using a bigger spike would give you 4x more space, therefore you could fit in total 20 powers in a single large spike. Not even close to 100. But that's just relying purely on assumed numbers. I think in inquisitor's spike you could fit at most 4 powers, as that number would make more sense (4 quadrants with 4 power, one spike for all powers from each quadrant etc). And if you need investiture from 20-30 to manifest a single power (which fills up that thin spike fully), then bigger spikes would fit much less than 20 powers, closer to 4 powers, fitting my belief. True, based on the previous information a single thin, 6" spike can hold about 4 Allomancer's worth Investiture within them, which isn't anywhere close to my original guess. So, I finally decided to do some math (which I actually ended up enjoying far more than I originally thought I would). The spike used by the Set members was 6" long, and is compared to a sewing needle, so I used a non-conservative estimate and said that the Hemalurgic spike had a width of about a quarter inch (0.25"), about as thick as a pencil. Following the equation of Pie x radius squared x height, I estimated that a Set needle-spike has about 0.3 cubic inches of metal (radius- which is 0.125 squared = 0.015625 times Pie = 0.049087385 times 6- the height- equals 0.294524311 cubic inches). I got my dad to help me take some measurements for a Steel Inquisitor spike (to which my mother was utterly disgusted when she found out what I was up to ), and we estimated it would be about 11" long to pierce the eye and come out the back of the head, and the diameter of the spike head would be about 1" if it were to take up most of the eye socket (which I think is how it was described in TFE, but it has been a while). Using the same cylinder area-finding equation, I estimated that a Steel Inquisitor spike had about 8.6 cubic inches of metal (radius is 0.5 squared = 0.25 times Pie = 0.785398163 times the height of 11 = 8.639379797 cubic inches). So if an Inquisitor spike is about 8.6 cubic inches of metal and an experimental Set spike is about 0.3 cubic inches of metal, then an Inquisitor spike is 28.7 times bigger (8.6 % 0.3 = 28.7). And if one of the needle-thin Set spikes can contain 4 Mistings worth of power, an Inquisitor spike could therefore contain 114.8 Mistings worth of power. ...Except that if Hemalurgic mechanics are similar Feruchemical ones, the amount of Investiture you can store inside isn't linear. Quote JordanCon 2016 - Arcanum (coppermind.net) Questioner I was wondering if the size of a piece of metal determines the amount of Feruchemical charge that can be stored in it. Brandon Sanderson Yes. Questioner So how does that scale, like, in terms of the volume or mass of the metal or... Brandon Sanderson It-- So I've talked about this before, I'm trying to remember exactly what I've told people-- It does not scale as logically as you think it does. How about that? It's more like certain thresholds. You can have a-- You can store a Hemalurgic or Feruchemical charge even in very small pieces of metal, but larger pieces of metal will let you get more. Questioner So it's kind of like there are different classes of sizes? Brandon Sanderson Yeah, kind of like that. So based on this WoB, the amount of Investiture you can store inside a piece of metal increases more than just one to one. That means that you could absolutely store a hundred Mistings worth of power- or more even- inside a properly sized Hemalurgic spike- which I honestly didn't think was going to be possible until I did the math and found this WoB (I was just throwing out a random high number), so that's awesome! Thanks for the motivation to dig deeper @alder24, I really appreciate it! Also, Warbreaker spoilers and minor OB spoilers. Spoiler We know that you can stuff 1,000 Bio-Chromatic Breaths inside a sword without any problems as we see Azure's sword is Awakened, and unlike Nightblood it doesn't have trouble holding all it's power- 1,000 Breaths isn't enough to make a sword start to leak Investiture. Plus, there is actually more Investiture inside a Nalthian (their Breath) than your standard Scadrian. Quote https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100/#e3458 KingSloth Doesn't all 'extra' investiture require a cracked soul? How are Nalthians born with extra breath, if so? Brandon Sanderson No. The Scadrians have extra investiture too, on a lesser scale. 8 hours ago, alder24 said: I think in inquisitor's spike you could fit at most 4 powers, as that number would make more sense (4 quadrants with 4 power, one spike for all powers from each quadrant etc). I actually wonder if you could make four powers of the same Hemalurgic quadrant work within one spike. It would really depend on whether or not the Bindpoints for the quadrant were interchangeable; if they are, it should work. If not, the spike would only provide the power(s) congruent to the Bindpoint the spike was currently piercing. Edited April 9, 2023 by Trusk'our 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted April 9, 2023 Report Share Posted April 9, 2023 7 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: You might be able to take a powered spike, split it into a dozen or so pieces and pierce the individual with it, then use a duralumin-enhanced Emotional Allomantic blast to make them blank their Identity when you want it and to so that you know they did it. Emotional Allomancy isn't mind control. Even with duralumin. At best you paralyzed them. 8 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: Ah, okay, I can understand that. I think we'll probably need more information on the mechanics of Hemalurgy before we set it in stone though (I guess we do that with basically all our theories, I suppose). Waiting is lame! We want to know now! 10 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: I got my dad to help me take some measurements for a Steel Inquisitor spike (to which my mother was utterly disgusted when she found out what I was up to ), Did you tell her that those spikes are hammered down into the bodies of the victim and recipient on a terrifying table? 15 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: True, based on the previous information a single thin, 6" spike can hold about 4 Allomancer's worth Investiture within them, which isn't anywhere close to my original guess. So, I finally decided to do some math (which I actually ended up enjoying far more than I originally thought I would). The spike used by the Set members was 6" long, and is compared to a sewing needle, so I used a non-conservative estimate and said that the Hemalurgic spike had a width of about a quarter inch (0.25"), about as thick as a pencil. Following the equation of Pie x radius squared x height, I estimated that a Set needle-spike has about 0.3 cubic inches of metal (radius- which is 0.125 squared = 0.015625 times Pie = 0.049087385 times 6- the height- equals 0.294524311 cubic inches). I got my dad to help me take some measurements for a Steel Inquisitor spike (to which my mother was utterly disgusted when she found out what I was up to ), and we estimated it would be about 11" long to pierce the eye and come out the back of the head, and the diameter of the spike head would be about 1" if it were to take up most of the eye socket (which I think is how it was described in TFE, but it has been a while). Using the same cylinder area-finding equation, I estimated that a Steel Inquisitor spike had about 8.6 cubic inches of metal (radius is 0.5 squared = 0.25 times Pie = 0.785398163 times the height of 11 = 8.639379797 cubic inches). So if an Inquisitor spike is about 8.6 cubic inches of metal and an experimental Set spike is about 0.3 cubic inches of metal, then an Inquisitor spike is 28.7 times bigger (8.6 % 0.3 = 28.7). And if one of the needle-thin Set spikes can contain 4 Mistings worth of power, an Inquisitor spike could therefore contain 114.8 Mistings worth of power. ...Except that if Hemalurgic mechanics are similar Feruchemical ones, the amount of Investiture you can store inside isn't linear. So based on this WoB, the amount of Investiture you can store inside a piece of metal increases more than just one to one. That means that you could absolutely store a hundred Mistings worth of power- or more even- inside a properly sized Hemalurgic spike- which I honestly didn't think was going to be possible until I did the math and found this WoB (I was just throwing out a random high number), so that's awesome! Thanks for the motivation to dig deeper @alder24, I really appreciate it! Math looks fun. Imperial units don't, but numbers do. Good job on estimating sizes of spikes! It's Pi nit Pie!!!! I interpret the WoB, that you can fit less than 1:1, because "It does not scale as logically as you think it does" 18 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: I actually wonder if you could make four powers of the same Hemalurgic quadrant work within one spike. It would really depend on whether or not the Bindpoints for the quadrant were interchangeable; if they are, it should work. If not, the spike would only provide the power(s) congruent to the Bindpoint the spike was currently piercing. There are 200-300 known bind points, but I think their purpose would change if you have an intent to grant several different powers in a single spike. You would definitely find a fitting binding point. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trusk'our Posted April 10, 2023 Author Report Share Posted April 10, 2023 15 hours ago, alder24 said: Emotional Allomancy isn't mind control. Even with duralumin. At best you paralyzed them. Well, I meant more like you deliberately give them Hemalurgic spikes to crack open their Spiritweb enough to make them susceptible to control the same way Koloss and Inquisitors are. I suppose that it would still be pretty hard though, as they still have their faculties about them. Wish we'd seen a Steel Inquisitor getting controlled by a Mistborn withough Ruin or the Mists interfering- then we'd actually know how viable an option this is. 15 hours ago, alder24 said: Waiting is lame! We want to know now! I know! 15 hours ago, alder24 said: Did you tell her that those spikes are hammered down into the bodies of the victim and recipient on a terrifying table? Didn't even get there before I was threatened to have my Sanderson books taken away! 15 hours ago, alder24 said: Math looks fun. Imperial units don't, but numbers do. Good job on estimating sizes of spikes! It's Pi nit Pie!!!! Thanks, I appreciate it! (also, thanks for pointing out my mishap with Pi! ) As a fun side note, I decided to find out how much steel was in a longsword's blade to compare it to an Inquisitor spike. Mr. Google-pants the chrome engine said that there's between 2.5 and 4 lbs. of steel in the blade of a longsword. So, since 1 cubic inch of steel is 0.2833 lbs., a sword with 2.5 lbs. of steel would equal 8.8246 cubic inches and a sword with 4 lbs. of steel would equal 14.1193 cubic inches. Which makes an inquisitor spike a bit smaller than a smaller sword, and about 1.6 times smaller than one of the larger swords (8.8246 % 8.6 = 1.026116279, and 14.1193 % 8.6 = 1.64177907). Now we just need to know exactly how much a certain Nalthian Investiture equals compared to Allomantic powers 15 hours ago, alder24 said: I interpret the WoB, that you can fit less than 1:1, because "It does not scale as logically as you think it does" That's a fair takeaway. I suppose I did jump toward assuming that it meant the storage space was bigger than a 1:1 scale though (since I wanted it to be, but of course that doesn't make it true). There are two questions that if we knew the answers to I think would help resolve this: would it be better storage space wise for a Feruchemist to carry 200 little pieces of jewelry that equal the total mass of 2 bracers, or is it more advantageous for a Feruchemist to carry around one or two larger Metalminds? The second question involves Warbreaker and mild OB spoilers... Spoiler How much does a Bio-Chromatic Breath equal to a normal Scadrien's Innate Investiture, or better yet, how much does it equal to an Allomancer at minimum power? We could use that to give us at least a general idea of how Invested Hemalurgic spikes could become, since Awakening a sword takes upwards of 1,000 Breaths, and since Vivenna's blade doesn't have issues containing all its power (doesn't leak as Nightblood does) 1,000 Breaths worth of Investiture likely isn't a problem storage wise for objects of a similar size. I suppose you'd also have to call into question what "size" means in this case: is it total mass of the object, or is it the Cognitive aspect of the object that matters more (how people view it)? 16 hours ago, alder24 said: There are 200-300 known bind points, but I think their purpose would change if you have an intent to grant several different powers in a single spike. You would definitely find a fitting binding point. yeah, that might work. I wonder if it matters which eye a Steel Inquisitor uses for their Allomantic iron vs steel? That would help answer that question, I would think. This quote says the Bindpoints are slightly different, but doesn't directly refute whether they are interchangeable or not. Perhaps attribute spikes through different eyes would create a different Hemalurgic construct though (which makes some sense, I believe: one eye is connected to the analytical side of your brain while the other is connected to the artistic side). Quote Lhyonnaes (paraphrased) Okay, next question. The Hemalurgic bind points for the right and left eyes - are they the same? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) In terms of...? Lhyonnaes (paraphrased) Like, the Inquisitor spikes, is it the exact same process for either eye? Is it interchangeable? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) They're slightly different. Lhyonnaes (paraphrased) And on bind points... are these something that we could figure out ourselves one day, through analysis and guessing? Or is it something we'll just have to wait and see? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) They're... it would be a lot of trial and error, but it's... possible? And you need Intent, so... it would be a lot of trial and error. It wouldn't be easy. Probably not. Also, it mentions that Intent is important when fiddling with them, so perhaps @alder24's idea of tweaking a Bindpoint's purpose would work with Intent. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alder24 Posted April 10, 2023 Report Share Posted April 10, 2023 (edited) 38 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: Wish we'd seen a Steel Inquisitor getting controlled by a Mistborn withough Ruin or the Mists interfering- then we'd actually know how viable an option this is. I think we've already had the answer to that, HoA ch 65: Quote Vin took a deep breath, then hit Marsh with a duralumin-Soothing. If it worked on koloss and kandra, why not Inquisitors? Marsh stumbled. Vin's Push lasted a brief moment, but during it she felt something. A wall, like she'd felt the first time she'd tried to control TenSoon or the first time she'd taken control of a group of koloss. She Pushed, Pushed with everything she had. In a burst of power, she came close to seizing control of Marsh's body, but not close enough. The wall within his mind was too strong, and she only had one vial's worth of metal to use. The wall shoved her back. She cried out in frustration The wall in Marsh's mind, like the wall in Koloss and Kandra, was to strong for Allomancer to break in with duralumin. The wall isn't there because of Ruin, but because of the mind resisting control, strong mind that Inquisitors have is able to push control away. But that's not Ruin - We saw Ruin's control later, when Vin pushed on emotion with the power of Mists: Quote Vin drew upon the mists. It happened again. She didn't know how, or why, but it just happened. She breathed the mists into her body, as she had on that day so long ago when she'd killed the Lord Ruler. She somehow pulled them into her and used them to fuel her body with an incredible Allomantic surge of power. And, with that power, she Pushed on Marsh's emotions. The wall inside of him cracked, then burst. For a moment, Vin felt a sense of vertigo. She saw things through Marsh's eyes—indeed, she felt like she understood him. His love of destruction, and his hatred of himself. And through him, she caught a brief glimpse of something. A hateful, destructive thing that hid behind a mask of civility. Ruin was not the same thing as the mists. 38 minutes ago, Trusk'our said: Now we just need to know exactly how much a certain Nalthian Investiture equals compared to Allomantic powers Breath would be more invested than a single spike - breath is able to replace a soul in Lifeless, single spike carries only small piece of a soul. Edited April 10, 2023 by alder24 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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