Paladin Brewer (paraphrased)
If Preservation and Ruin created life on Scadrial but did not create Feruchemy, where does it come from? The planet?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
All magic systems come from Shards power in some way.
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If Preservation and Ruin created life on Scadrial but did not create Feruchemy, where does it come from? The planet?
All magic systems come from Shards power in some way.
In Allomancy, bad alloys can be detrimental to you, can make you sick and stuff like that. Does it also apply in Feruchemy or generally impurities, do they apply?
Not as strongly.
How would they apply? Is it more like a smaller charge or?
It would just take less of a charge. It wouldn't make you sick.
Seeing that Vin and Kelsier was able to absorb Preservation's power due to Connection, is it theoretically possible for a duralumin Compounder to compound Connection so much to the point where they could draw in the mists and 'absorb' some of Harmony's power?
RAFO
Feruchemists that can store Investiture, would they be able to then use that to power Allomancy with say Stormlight?
RAFO.
This is more towards the whole physics stuff, but is Feruchemy really balanced? If it gives diminishing returns, wouldn't this end up as a net loss of power?
It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does—but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself.
In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful.
Allomantic pewter strength can be stored in a metalmind, but it's probably easier to just Compound.
Since the dawn of Scadrial, why was Feruchemy isolated in a single distinct population in the world, namely the Terrismen? Allomancy, while rare within the population of Scadrial, at least was not isolated to one population, it was spread evenly, it seems. What is special about the Terrismen that only they get the power of Feruchemy? Does it have something to do with the previous Ascensions before Rashek, with the guardian keeping the power for a time?
It's all in the spiritual DNA, which is passed on like normal DNA. However, they are a separate people. They've kept themselves isolated, similar to the Jews in our world. When I asked he said there have been some Feruchemical-mistings [Ferrings] in the past, but they are very rare.
Since there's a Feruchemical metal that stores calories, is there one that stores the need to eliminate waste?
Not yet.
In Bands of Mourning, the Connection medallion is filled with "Blank Connection" and Marasi can't understand Allik when she puts it on, but how do you fill the medallion with Blank Connection in the first place? And could Allik fill the medallion with his own Connection so that when Marasi taps that non-blank Connection, she would understand him ? Or even better, if instead of tapping Connection, Marasi decided to fill the medallion with her own Connection, would she become 'blank' herself then get auto-connected to local land? If yes, then why would Allik need to tap Connection when using the medallion instead of just filling it, becoming blank and understanding her? Or would that make him not connected to anything and unable to understand anyone ?
All right, so I want to be very careful on this. I typed out my response, but I've sent it to Peter to double-check to get another set of eyes on it. Once we get into mechanisms like this, we're digging into the cosmere-equivalent of computers or complex circuits. I need to make sure another person is double-checking my work.
As a side note for the Sharders reading this, when I dodge these types of questions in physical Q&As, this is kind of the reason. It took me a good thirty minutes to dig into the mechanisms I've written out, re-read to reconfirm to myself I have the methods right, then write it out. And I still have to send it to Peter, just because there are a lot of complex nuances here.
just looking to prod you about the "blank connection" answer you mentioned running by Peter last week
So, I sent my reply to Peter, and he said, "This works, but I don't think you should answer it yet, as it comes too close to revealing things for the next books." So that's a RAFO via Peter, one of the first that has come that way, at least through me.
Hi, pinging you again as you requested to see if Peter ever replied to you.I've waited patiently for you to finish touring (and maybe this is the wrong time now with christmas right around the corner), but can /u/mistborn or /u/peterahlstrom answer that first question. Seeing as BS already spent 30 minutes writing the answer, it would be a shame if it was lost in the end.
I responded to Brandon back in October, and we have an answer, but I'm not sure now is the best time to reveal it publicly. Sometimes Brandon decides to leave the mechanical reveals for the books.
So, you know when Feruchemists increase their weight or strength, something like that, [...] like when they're increasing their strength their muscles literally grow bigger, why does that not happen with Allomancy?
So, the idea with Feruchemy, in Feruchemy you're storing like your own physical strength. So, when you're filling the metalmind, you kind of shrink *inaudible* and you get it back. With Allomancy, you are drawing on the strength magically from something else and so the power and strength you're getting is actually not related to your muscles, it's related to the magical power, you're pulling directly from another place. So, that's why.
I'm not going to ask what malatium does in feruchemy, but it'd be neat to know if Sazed had a chance to experiment with the little bar of it Kelsier found. Did he get around to trying it offscreen during the first trilogy?
Yes, but he didn't get far.
Would tapping Feruchemical speed cause you to burn metals faster as your whole body speeds up?
Yeah. I think it probably would. I don't know if we've gotten to that interaction yet, but it probably would. Good question. If it's speeding up... Yeah, I think it would. Good question. If you're in a speed bubble and doing it, it's totally going to do it, and there's some analogies there.
I was wondering if the size of a piece of metal determines the amount of Feruchemical charge that can be stored in it.
Yes.
So how does that scale, like, in terms of the volume or mass of the metal or...
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.
So it's kind of like there are different classes of sizes?
Yeah, kind of like that.
Okay, so if we spiked a Listener with Feruchemical Nicrosil, could he store that spren and lose their form, and then bond another spren and then switch them?
I'm gonna give you your third RAFO, because he's already got two. In part, because I don't wanna give spoilers for Oathbringer, and this answer could spoil some little bits of that.
Would a Connection medallion work for sign language?
Yes.
Would it make the person's fingers move or would spoken word be interpreted mentally as the appropriate sign? Would it overcome deafness?
Ehhh... It would translate the communication. I can say that.
If someone used Hemalurgy to take someones Feruchemical abilities would they be able to use that persons personal metalminds? Most relevantly perhaps to take that person's knowledge from their copperminds?
Yes.
If someone stored their identity in an aluminium metalmind, then had their powers and metalminds stolen via Hemalurgy, then the person who took the powers used the aluminium metalmind to draw out the first persons identity would it permanently overwrite their personality with the original persons ? ( would kind of be a long winded way of stealing someone else's body and becoming immortal )
All Identity questions are a RAFO until I deal with it more in the books. (Sorry.)
If the spike granting Feruchemy were to be reforged/split into two distinct spikes which are then implanted into two different people, could those two people "share" a metalmind (as in actually be able to tap something the other stored and vice versa?).
It's complicated, but no.
There would be too much of the other person mixed in. Both could use the metalminds of the person the Feruchemy was stolen from, but when they made their own, their own Identity would "muddy" the creation.
Can you store any sort of Temporal Connection?
Um, most.
Hoid is regularly around when important events take place. How does he know where to go?
He uses Feruchemy. Part of it that will show up in later books.
*translated* In Feruchemy, if someone's existence is being in--stored in it, is it as a whole?
It is little pieces of Investiture filtered through their mind and their soul. *waiting for translator* You could say it's a little piece of them, but it's not the whole them.
If Feruchemists can store warmth, and you can Compound if you have the dual... Could they harm themselves by drawing too much warmth?
Could they draw it out of their body and therefore kill themselves by freezing themselves?
Either way. Either that, or burn and Compound too much...
This is harder to do that you think it [is], because built into Feruchemy is the natural body's resistance to the things you're doing, but it is possible.
What happens when you break a Hemalurgic spike or metalmind? What happens to that power?
Hemalurgic power can be split among multiple spikes and reforged, but remember that the longer a spike is outside of a person, the more the power is going to decay. Things like splitting it will decay it even further. Metalminds can also be broken and still be accessed
What happens if there was a Feruchemist who was an Elantrian? Could they store Elantrian abilities into a nicrosil metalmind?
I'm RAFOing most of the stuff, but that one's a RAFO just because I am leaving nicrosil Feruchemy far away until I get there... I'm basically RAFOing everything about Investiture and Connection metalminds and things like that...
When a Steelrunner taps speed, does it work by breaking the laws of motion, letting their speed be higher than it should be when considering their kinetic energy during movement or the force they impart upon impact with something (and inversely while storing)?
A lot of [Feruchemy] breaks the laws of thermodynamics, and this is indeed an example.
What would happen if you shot a thug with an aluminum bullet or stabbed him with an aluminum knife?
Ah, that's a good question. The wound would not be able to heal around the aluminum, but once the aluminum came out and was gone from the system, they would be okay.
Wait, is that a Bloodmaker, not a Thug?
Oh, you're talking about Thugs?
It would work similarly, but it really wouldn't have a huge effect on them.
Alright, because Peter was implying that there was some weird aluminum interaction with Thugs.
What was he thinking of...?
There is some weird interaction but...
In the wedding scene, Wax thinks they would have aluminum bullets to deal with Thugs, and I was like, "Oh, that's a typo." And Peter was like, "Oh no it's not..."
No, no. That would just be-- it's like I said: healing it until the bullet is gone, it's just the same as Bloodmakers.
Why don't Feruchemists wear small metalminds like rings, toe-rings, earrings (Lot of rings it seems), as backups.
Most Feruchemists do just what you say. Look at the Lord Ruler and Sazed. Both have tons.
In the new era books, you have two Feruchemstis where it doesn't make sense. Wayne's healing stores are very difficult to build, and take a lot of time. He generally burns through them quickly, though sometimes mentions he's got a little stored away. Being Wayne, though, he tends to use these up and push himself right to the edge of running out.
Wax is somewhat similar. He can use iron, a very common metal, to store and make a metalmind. He's generally storing weight everywhere he goes, a little, as the books point out. He's got many metalminds, but he's not as possessive of them, as filling his metalmind is as much of a power as tapping it.
So...I'm not sure what gave you the impression that they don't have lots of metalminds. Also, keep in mind that in your example of someone getting knocked out, they're going to get searched well enough to find a toe ring. Generally, as Wayne has pointed out in the books, sticking a coin or something in your mouth is the preferred way to hide something.
Chapter Twenty-Two - Part One
Feruchemy. Some like the word, others aren't as happy with it. It used to be called Hemalurgy, but I decided that would be a better word for the third magic system in the series. (You'll see it eventually.)
Feruchemy (not called that, however) was a magic system I lifted from Final Empire Prime, a book I wrote some years before I wrote this book. I had a person who could store up attributes, such as strength, then use them when he needed them. The thing is, the magic wasn't really that well formed, and this character never got any viewpoints, so I didn't get to use the magic as often as I wanted.
When I was developing this world, I knew I wanted the Keepers to have the fantastic memories. I realized that Feruchemy would make the perfect magic system for Sazed and his people. When I decided that I could use metals as a focus for this magic system (something that made it much more interesting, because it put a definable limit on what could be stored and how much of it could be stored) I knew I had something really good.
I like to use multiple magic systems in books, but I like it when they all have common elements. Feruchemy and Allomancy are like different aspects of the same concept. They both do some similar–yet different–things. There will be a lot more about this in the text.
What abilities, if any, does a double aluminum Twinborn have?
RAFO.
Could a Feruchemist manipulate their identity such that they could make a metalmind that anyone could tap?
Ah... RAFO.
Okay; could they manipulate their identity such that they could pull Breaths out of something that somebody else Awakened?
Ah... ahahah, Awakened, oh yeah... That one's going to be harder, but you're thinking along-- You're thinking with portals. *smiles* Do you know what that means.
Yes, I know what it means--
You're starting to think with portals.
I'm thinking with portals, okay, thank you.
Yes. In other words you're wrapping your head around the way that the magic system is working, so.
That's so excellent.
If you tap Connection in one area, for location, would that remove your Connection to your original place, where you're actually from?
Um, RAFO.
I have a question about Mistborn. Is it possible for a spike to steal powers from other worlds?
It is possible, yes.
And, by extension, Feruchemical storage... in the metalmind...
Oh, in the metalmind, if they had the other power, could they store the power...
If there is the Feruchemist, like the...
So that is theoretically possible, but it would take a lot of finagling. Yeah, theoretically possible.
If there's really no upper limit to Feruchemy for practical reasons* , why didn't Sazed just fill steel at ridiculous levels for a few minutes in [Well of Ascension], and then go back to running instead of leaving his steelminds there? Say, being some 100,000 times slower than he would normally be for about a minute. Meaning that a Feruchemist should be able to fill a given metalmind in very short periods of time if you fill at a high enough rate.
*(yes, you have the limit of how much you can store in a given metalmind and for how many metalminds you can carry on your person, but those are probably too high to really be taken into account in more "normal" circumstances)
The low end is bounded. You can pull out tons--but in filling, you can only go so far. I didn't ever explicitly talk about this in the series, but the implications are there. Not all have the same bounds, but in your example, the body just can't slow beyond a certain point. Think of it this way--you can only fill a weight metalmind with as much weight as you have to give. So you can become very, very light--but you only add to a time for doubling your weight. You can't make yourself 100,000 times slower and gain 100,000 times multiplication. You can give up all of your normal speed, and so when you tap that speed out you are at 200% for an equal period. (And that's a theoretical maximum; realistically, you can only go to down around 75% slower or the like.)
So, AonDor is super versatile and powerful.
Yes, but region-locked!
Yes, it is region locked, exactly. If a full Feruchemist using nicrosil were to create an unlocked medallion that allowed an Elantrian to store Connection to Elantris' location, would it let them use AonDor at full power as long as they were tapping that Connection?
Yes. That should work just fine.
...
Just understand that the medallion's going to have to be usable by everyone in order to work. You're going to have to jump through some hoops, but I think what you want there would work. And for those of you listening, that would be the harder way to unlock AonDor. There are easier methods.
For Feruchemy, can you only inherit that? Or is there another way to get it?
Yeah, you could obviously get it through a Hemalurgic spike.
Yeah, but that’s kind of a different thing.
It is hereditary, but it came from somewhere. Which is a RAFO, but it’s not a big RAFO. There’s not something you missed in the books, or anything like that. It originally came from Preservation long ago. And there are other ways to get it, but you have not missed any major plot points regarding that. Good question.
How does Feruchemical gold interact with organ transplants?
In an interesting way.
In a good interesting or bad interesting?
It depends on the situation.
If someone broke a coppermind, could the feruchemist still access a fragment of the information in it from a chunk of the coppermind, or would he require that the whole thing be reformed to access any of its storage?
The information would be fragmented.
Is there any way to become a Feruchemist outside of Hemalurgy and genetics? Something in the vein of lerasium?
Yes, there are other ways to become a Feruchemist.
So nicrosil. Wax couldn’t use a blank gold metalmind because he’s not a gold ferring, why can he use a blank nicrosil metalmind?
So this will all come out eventually but the idea is there are certain ways to connect yourself to magic, to hack the magic and make it think you have the Spiritual DNA that you don’t actually have. And this is one of the ways.
So then the people who made this medallion have this thing that a regular nicrosil Ferring couldn’t--
Yeah, you’re picking up on it. We’ll dig deeper into it as the series progresses.
So, Metalminds: if you store weight, how does that work, do you decrease your mass or...?
So, storing weight actually plays with your mass, because if you look at how we do the physics of it… This one is really screwy, because we are changing mass and playing with it. You watch, like with Wax decreases his weight while he's in motion he'll speed up, and if he increases it, he'll slow down. The conservation of momentum and things like that, but we'll doing really weird stuff. It's like, how can you store your mass… Well, in the magic system it works, but it’s one of the weirdest things we do. *pauses to sign book* We kind of play loose and free with the physics sometimes. Like the example that I often use is Wayne doing a speed bubble, the light that is trapped in the speed bubble...like if he turns on a flashlight would actually radiate because of the redshift, and you could just kill everybody by flashing that. So, we make the speed bubbles not cause a redshift for that reason. We kind of work with what is good storytelling first, and then work the physics around it, but we have to put in all these little breaks and things like that in there regularity in order to actually have the story.
Does the nicrosil portion of the medallions function identitically to how a Soulbearer Ferring would use Nicrosil?
Not exactly. The medallion is a little more restrictive, for one thing.
If you made a sword-shaped nicrosil metalmind, and dumped a lot of unkeyed Investiture into it, could you make a Nightblood-esque Shardblade? And if you actually didn't go to the trouble and just dumped a lot of keyed Investiture into it, would that change the outcome?
You're getting close to how this type of thing works but you're missing a few things. Keep working on it.
Does the general population know about nicrosil and chromium?
Yes, though they are like this world's version of advanced physics in our world. They've heard of them, but many an average person might be hard-pressed to say exactly what they do.
Would it be possibly to have a bunch of iron Ferrings store a bunch of weight into some iron, turn that iron into steel, and then use that steel to make guns as a cheaper alternative to aluminum?
Yeah but the guns wouldn't be immune--
But they would be resistant, that little bit of extra time could be enough to make a difference.
Yeah.
And the guns would be harder to see with iron/steelsight, correct?
Yes, they would be. Do keep in mind however that we get a very skewed perception of the world and how important stuff like this is because the main characters of the books are Allomancers. This just isn't something that is important to the average person on the street. But this does relate to some things later on in the series.
I asked him if a feruchemist were to visit Earth and tap Duralumin, could they do something as involved as talk local sports with someone?
No -- when you trick your spirit into thinking it's from where you're currently tapping, it's not a full transformation, like Sel-ish magic making a copy.. It doesn't just fill your head with things from the place you're visiting.
The compounding trick that the Lord Ruler performed. When you're storing Investiture, are you storing your "Mistborn-ness" or all the powers individually?
All of the powers individually.
Oh okay!
Yeah, the compounding trick. Really what's happening is you're fueling Feruchemy with the power of Allomancy, but you're filtering it through you, and then you're storing it.
So it's not that you're a more powerful mistborn when you've tapped [investiture]
No, good question.
Next up: can Feruchemical storage store stormlight?
You will find out exactly what it* does coming up
Hey, you've mentioned before that for the Lord Ruler to be able to be a Mistborn and a Feruchemist he had to alter his spiritweb in some way because a person can't normally hold all 32 powers. What about a Mistborn Ferring? Would it be possible for someone born with all 16 powers of Allomancy to also be born with a Ferring power? What about a Ferring Misting? Thanks
This is possible now, when it once wasn't, but would be very unlikely.
Just as getting a Mistborn nowadays is very unlikely but that hasn't stopped people from trying ;) ;)
Follow up, having past a certain number of medallions doesn't work currently in world. Is this because of this same issue? Or is it more of a technical hurdle with the medallion?
The core root is the same issue, but it's not insurmountable with technological improvements.
If a Shardblade was put through Wayne's eye, would he able to use his ability to heal the wound?
Yes, he should be able to heal that.
In Alloy, there are those who use both Allomancy and Feruchemy. However, I recall Sazed in The Hero of Ages stating that he believed he was the last surviving Feruchemist (I think he may have said "Keeper"?). Was he incorrect in his assumption of being the last Feruchemist (based on the fact that people use Feruchemy in Alloy) or could Feruchemy have been recessive in some Terris people?
It was most certainly recessive. But the specific way Sazed speaks there is important.
When you a get a Hemalurgic spike, if you just immediately... tap gold, do you lose the spike, or is the spike already in there and can't get out?
Okay: so hemalurgic spike, tap gold? RAFO.
Could a coppermind be able to memorize physical memory?
Ooh, never been asked that before. I am going to RAFO that, but in an "I need to think about it more" sort of way, cause I have actually never been asked that. My gut instinct says no, but maybe. I'm gonna have to really ponder on physical memory and the cosmere, and how that all works. Good question. Not often I get stumped by one like that.