Alloying a Metalmind

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Something that has been bothering me the last few day is what happens if a partially full metalmind is used in an alloy.

 

For example: a Feruchemist stores some sight in a tinmind and then that tinmind is melted down and mixed with copper to make allomantic/feruchemical brass.  What happens to the stored attributes?

 

I can think of three possibilities, and none of them seem right.  Either the attribute disappears.  The attribute is unaltered and still accessible, so the feruchemist can tap sight from a brassmind.  Or the attribute is converted into the metal's corresponding attribute, in this case, warmth.

 

Does anyone know if Brandon has ever been asked this?

[kroen]

Having the attribute disappear makes the most sense to me.

[Senor Feesh]

Speculation, because I have no idea but am now intrigued.

When storing a ferruchemical attribute, what you're actually storing is investiture, filtered through the metal (similar to how allomancy is accessing the same source, except in this case your own investiture is being filtered through the metal). The reason you store different attributes is purely a function of this interaction, and you are normally limited to drawing your investiture back through the same filter, hence tapping the same stored attribute.

If however, you were able to alter the chemical makeup of the filter (by alloying a metalmind as you suggest) then you could pull your investiture back in a different form, as you are now pulling it through a different filter.

Only one metal (forgive me, I forget which) allows you to store investiture in its unaltered state.

What do people think? I think this is a great question to ask, by the way.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

I think it would act as if it were a very bad alloy.

Problem being, we don't know how bad alloys act, feruchemically. I suspect the answer is 'the power exists in theory, but it's currently in an inaccessible state'.

Attempting to burn it allomantically would make you sick.

[Vortaan he/him]

We've speculated about that before. Personally I feel like it would be like calling a wrong telephone number. There is probably someone on the other end, but you can't access the person you want because you aren't calling the correct number. Likewise I suspect that if you alloy a metalmind, the metal would keep it's Investiture but it would act like another Feruchemist's storage, able to be sensed but not accessed.

[Jaaaaaade]

I don't think that the Investiture would change outcome. Otherwise there would require a complicated Investiture exchange rate; as in, how much sight is worth this much heat?

 

Being end-neutral it would have to still be there, but only useable after it's been re-purified.

 

This leads to another question; if something is put into a low-quality metalmind, then the metal got purified, there wouldn't be any change to the Investiture, would there? Only the rate or efficiency at which it can be stored and tapped, right?

[Senor Feesh]

I would say as long as the process doesn't cause the investiture to be lost, I see no reason why it wouldn't become easier to access.

Consider this analogy: you're pouring flour through a dirty sieve into a bowl. It takes a long time because some of the holes in the sieve are blocked. Later you clean the sieve, and put the flout back through the sieve and into the packet. It's the same amount of flour, but now the transfer is faster because it flows more easily.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

An answer for this came out during May

http://www.reddit.com/r/Mistborn/comments/1exfc6/melting_down_metalminds/

I got a chance to meet Brandon in Houston this past week at a signing. I asked him:

If a metalmind is melted down and changes shape, does it still retain its power?

His answer:

Yes, only by mixing it with other metals would the power be completely lost. Also if any pieces of the metalmind are lost, then some of the power will be lost (as it would be in the missing pieces).

I tried googling this question for awhile and never found a suitable answer, so I thought I would share it now that I know the answer!

[Kadrok she/her]

Only one metal (forgive me, I forget which) allows you to store investiture in its unaltered state.

Nicrosil. Though I wonder if Nicrosil Investiture is really unaltered? It seems to me that "power of creation" investiture can do a whole bunch of things, depending on what is used to draw it (the whole... power of creation in mortal form... the metal is only an access key to a specific power business which Phantom will likely quote now). Were-as from what I've read, Nicrosil Investiture is kind of just... blank power... unshaped, and only useful in conjunction with something else (at least, that's how the MAG styles it). Forgive me if I'm saying pretty much exactly what you're saying, I've been writing essays all night and my brain is pretty much mush at this point.

 

 

EDIT: Reread my paragraph, it makes no sense, let me try again... the way MAG has it working... you can't just tap Nicrosil Investiture, you have to tap something else with it to "shape" it. So I wouldn't view it as unaltered because it is the equivalent of, say, Warmth (Brass) Investiture stripped of it's shape. Makes it a neat wildcard, but useless without something to shape it. I was trying to contrast it with "power of creation" investiture which I view as having the opposite issue... too many shapes, too many things it could do, so systems like Allomancy force it into particular shapes... it is shaped into just one function so mortals can handle it. Does that make any sense? POC-I needs to be shaped because it has too many options, and NICRO-I needs to be shaped because it doesn't have any on its own. Phantom, you're our quote archivist, what do you think?

Edited June 14, 2013 by Kadrok

[Senor Feesh]

Well, I did say on that post it was speculation I don't mind if it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. The idea I had though, was that when you're storing Ferruchemically, you're actually storing PoC, but the manner in which it must be stored is down to the access key (metal) you're using. So that if you could change the metal, you'd change the kind of access required to tap it back, so one could store heat and tap weight, if the storage was changed. However, as per PMs quote above, mixing it with other metals DOES destroy the investiture, so that's out.

 

I wonder still if a) using a slightly-off alloy is doable, and is refining it to a 'better' form for these purposes would make it more efficient as per Jaaaade's musings - that doesn't seem to be accounted for.