Iron-Spiking a Pewterarm

[Parthinaxe]

Simple question that I’m sure has been asked before, but I’m unable to find anything on the topic: what happens if you spike a pewterarm with an iron spike while they burn pewter? Would you only get their base strength, or would you get their allomantically boosted strength?

[Treamayne]

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1 hour ago, Parthinaxe said:

Simple question that I’m sure has been asked before, but I’m unable to find anything on the topic: what happens if you spike a pewterarm with an iron spike while they burn pewter? Would you only get their base strength, or would you get their allomantically boosted strength?

Unclear, since we have not yet had any Words of Brandon on the topic that I have found. Mostly, I think it's unknown because we have not seen examples of somebody spiking an Allomancer for a non-Allomantic property.

The closest I could find was:

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

People are Invested in ways that do not give them active powers. So for instance, everyone on Nalthis is Invested. Everyone in the cosmere is, really. You want to steal their Investiture, but they don't have a power. You're still ripping off a piece of their soul. So there is a distinction between the actual Investiture that's in a human being and a specific power that they have.

So that distinction is pretty easy. You can also, with Hemalurgy, steal specific things. You can steal just general Investiture. You can steal, if you want--this is where the kandra Blessings come from. You can instead steal specific things that are not like stealing Allomancy. Stealing, for instance, someone's mental acuity.

Pagerunner

So abilities is like the half that's all the strength, speed, all that kind of stuff? Those are abilities, versus the Metallic Arts are all powers?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

If you are not familiar with the Arcanum or Coppermind, you can look things up there (beware spoilers if you have not read all Cosmere works).

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[alder24]

10 hours ago, Parthinaxe said:

Simple question that I’m sure has been asked before, but I’m unable to find anything on the topic: what happens if you spike a pewterarm with an iron spike while they burn pewter? Would you only get their base strength, or would you get their allomantically boosted strength?

Welcome to the Shard. 

Because Allomantic pewter strength can be stored in a pewtermind, I think you can steal that together with base strength. So if a normal iron spike steals 1x human strength, a Thug burning pewter, who gets 2x stronger, will charge a spike with 2x human strength instead. Flaring would charge it 3x.

This begs an interesting question - how strong would a Koloss be, who's made out of 4 spikes charged with Thug flaring pewter strength? That would be scary.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Allomantic pewter strength can be stored in a metalmind, but it's probably easier to just Compound.

Alloy of Law 17th Shard Q&A (Nov. 5, 2011)

 

Spoiler

Sandastron

I’m very curious about pewter. How much Feruchemical pewter, steel, and gold would you have to take in in order to be equal to burning pewter and flaring.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh…um, okay. So you wanna...ok, let’s back this up. So you wanna know feruchemically what would it take to match burning?

Sandastron

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay. So burning pewter, I kind of imagine...roughly doubling. Roughly.

Sandastron

Double your strength?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. But without the muscle mass change, it’s a magical boost. So because of that it has some pretty dramatic effects, like when Vin jumps and things like that.

Sandastron

So it’s only a double, so would flaring it bring it any higher?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Flaring would go higher.

Sandastron

Would it be like triple?

Brandon Sanderson

Maybe like triple.

Sandastron

Maybe like tripling...that’s fascinating. So I always thought normal burning would triple it and flaring would quadruple.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah I always felt kind of double. You won’t see people burning pewter and lifting a car.

Sandastron

Right, exactly.

Brandon Sanderson

You see people burning pewter and delivering a really solid punch.

Sandastron

Gotcha, thank you. That is fascinating…and would it be about doubling speed and healing ability?

Brandon Sanderson

I haven’t worked out the numbers on that exactly. I have an instinct that says thatburning pewter, healing goes a bit faster but I have to look in the books and see what we’ve done in the past and then kind of canonize it.

Calamity Philadelphia signing (Feb. 20, 2016)

 

[Quantus he/him]

5 hours ago, alder24 said:

Welcome to the Shard. 

Because Allomantic pewter strength can be stored in a pewtermind, I think you can steal that together with base strength. So if a normal iron spike steals 1x human strength, a Thug burning pewter, who gets 2x stronger, will charge a spike with 2x human strength instead. Flaring would charge it 3x.

 

I dont think that follows, Allomancy and Feruchemy both work with the Investiture Power supply sources (things that can be used up), while Hemalurgy takes the static/constant machinery of the spiritweb itself.  You can store the allomantic strength increase of Pewter into a Metalmind (in a sort of reverse Compounding) but those will still run out.  I dont think you can use Hemalurgy to transform either brand of Temporary Investiture-augmented Strength into a permanent effect, because the realmics require an additional power source/conduit (either the natural One-Person strength of Feruchemy, or the Plugged-into-the-power-grid source of Allomancy that requires burning metals to hold open. 

[Doug he/him]

What would happen if someone were to tap into their stored strength in pewter and then spiking them whilst they're doing it?

 

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

57 minutes ago, Doug said:

What would happen if someone were to tap into their stored strength in pewter and then spiking them whilst they're doing it?

 

Depends on what you think would happen to a Pewterarm. If you think you could steal more strength off a Pewterarm who's burning, you could get more strength off of a Brute who's tapping. I don't think either is the case since Hemalurgy deals with the Spiritweb and neither one affects the Spiritweb at all, so neither would make a difference.

However, if you're a Savant, it would change your Spiritweb, so that could potentially affect it, although Savantism isn't generally transferred with Hemalurgy, so probably not.

Actually, depending on how you think Feruchemy works, you could maybe get more strength off of a Brute who's tapping than a regular person, even if you can't from a Pewterarm.

[cometaryorbit]

10 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Actually, depending on how you think Feruchemy works, you could maybe get more strength off of a Brute who's tapping than a regular person, even if you can't from a Pewterarm.

Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if Feruchemy temporarily changes your Spiritweb "code" that defines a person - I don't think Pewter Feruchemy is literally storing muscles into metal, though that's the apparent effect.

I'm still not sure if it would be stealable by Hemalurgy, though.

I'd tend to think that Feruchemy boosts are too ephemeral to steal as permanent - at best, the charge would be trapped in the spike and then immediately run out (as the pewtermind is no longer being tapped).

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

1 minute ago, cometaryorbit said:

Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if Feruchemy temporarily changes your Spiritweb "code" that defines a person - I don't think Pewter Feruchemy is literally storing muscles into metal, though that's the apparent effect.

I'm still not sure if it would be stealable by Hemalurgy, though.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking; things like speed just aren't physical in a storable sense, not in the way it's portrayed, so Feruchemy must be storing away a part of your Spiritual Ideal, which forces your body into a slower state, and then when tapping you add all that stored Spiritual code back onto your Spiritweb, making you faster. In that case, a Feruchemical change would be stolen.

4 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I'd tend to think that Feruchemy boosts are too ephemeral to steal as permanent - at best, the charge would be trapped in the spike and then immediately run out (as the pewtermind is no longer being tapped).

This seems reasonable and accurate. You might get the extra strength for a split second before it reverts to the original.

[alder24]

17 hours ago, Quantus said:

I dont think that follows, Allomancy and Feruchemy both work with the Investiture Power supply sources (things that can be used up), while Hemalurgy takes the static/constant machinery of the spiritweb itself.  You can store the allomantic strength increase of Pewter into a Metalmind (in a sort of reverse Compounding) but those will still run out.  I dont think you can use Hemalurgy to transform either brand of Temporary Investiture-augmented Strength into a permanent effect, because the realmics require an additional power source/conduit (either the natural One-Person strength of Feruchemy, or the Plugged-into-the-power-grid source of Allomancy that requires burning metals to hold open. 

Very likely you're right. But Savantism happens because so much investiture has flown through a soul that it changes it - this means while burning Allomantic metals investiture is flowing through the soul and spike might be able to hijack it as well. Would it be permanent or would it last temporarily depending on the amount of investiture stolen, that's another question.

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

7 hours ago, alder24 said:

Very likely you're right. But Savantism happens because so much investiture has flown through a soul that it changes it - this means while burning Allomantic metals investiture is flowing through the soul and spike might be able to hijack it as well. Would it be permanent or would it last temporarily depending on the amount of investiture stolen, that's another question.

Like @cometaryorbit said, If the Investiture itself gets captured, it'll most likely be temporary, as it doesn't have a source for more to be drained. You'll get Pewter Allomancy for as long as the Investiture you stole allows, then revert to regular strength.