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Why Savants Exist


Chaos

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I've always considered savantage as being similar to how Vin ascended.

We have this epigraph from Sazed

This, then, should have been our first clue. Allomancers could see through the mists because the mists were, indeed, composed of the very same power as Allomancy. Once attuned by burning tin, the Allomancer was almost part of the mists. And therefore, they became more translucent to him.

and this quote from Brandon on the forum Q&A

2) What about a Lerasium savant? Or would that require so much Lerasium that the person attempting it would ascend to become a new Shardholder?

Basically, this is what ascension is.

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=727

Kaimipono (16 October 2008)

Allomancy is fueled by Preservation's body? How exactly does that work? And how does that interact with Atium—it's fueled by both gods' bodies?

Brandon Sanderson (17 October 2008)

The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.

Condensed 'essence' of these godly powers can act as super-fuel for Allomancy, Feruchemy, or really any of the powers. The form of that super fuel is important. In liquid form it's most potent, in gas form it's able to fuel Allomancy as if working as a metal. In physical form it is rigid and does one specific thing. In the case of atium, it allows sight into the future. In the case of concentrated Preservation, it gives one a permanent connection to the mists and the powers of creation. (I.e., it makes them an Allomancer.)

So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak—though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists, however, she'd doing just that—using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself—to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips 'troughs' through her body. It's like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive.

Basically, savants are getting 'troughs' ripped through them, but they aren't getting enough power to vaporize or anything - they're basically ripping a bigger hole into their spiritweb(?), which lets them channel more power at once (thus creating massively overpowered effects relative to normal allomancers), but also causes a lot of damage to them.

A 'lerasium savant' would basically be ripping massive troughs into their 'channel more of preservation's power' channels, which, hey, means that you'd be channeling all of preservation's power, and ascent.

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The oaths of the KR make you a better Surgebinder, Raoden was particularly adept with AonDor and the heightenings of Biochroma are quite similar as well, I think I'm espousing this theory, really makes a lot of sense, the more investiture used the bigger the troughs get ripped in you.

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But if this were the reason why savants happen, wouldn't all savants change the same way? They're all, by this theory, being warped by steady investiture of Preservation, yet their symptoms vary by which metal they burn. 

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But if this were the reason why savants happen, wouldn't all savants change the same way? They're all, by this theory, being warped by steady investiture of Preservation, yet their symptoms vary by which metal they burn. 

 

Maybe they just alter whatever body part or spirit web part they are fusing with energy?

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Hmmm...another thing that probably isn't major, but in answer to certain yados wondering about investitures happening differently; TLR seems to have gained savanthood in a different way than Spook, and seems to not have the same repercusions.

 

His happened over a thousand years of regular use instead of violent flaring over a short time. Maybe he had smaller troughs ripped through him. Or maybe his Feruchemy allowed him to keep the troughs small enough to not be so detrimental.

 

Either way, I would say TLR's savanthood happened differently and resulted in lesser detriment.

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But if this were the reason why savants happen, wouldn't all savants change the same way? They're all, by this theory, being warped by steady investiture of Preservation, yet their symptoms vary by which metal they burn. 

Hemalurgic monsters are all warped in different ways by the excess investiture, because the investiture is still being channeled through the metal which gives it a specific effect.

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Hmmm...another thing that probably isn't major, but in answer to certain yados wondering about investitures happening differently; TLR seems to have gained savanthood in a different way than Spook, and seems to not have the same repercusions.

 

His happened over a thousand years of regular use instead of violent flaring over a short time. Maybe he had smaller troughs ripped through him. Or maybe his Feruchemy allowed him to keep the troughs small enough to not be so detrimental.

 

Either way, I would say TLR's savanthood happened differently and resulted in lesser detriment.

 

Why would the TLR ever try to be a tin savant when he can compound tinminds and get the same result with no drawbacks? Actually, he should be able to get an even better result since he can compound zinc and there's no upper limit on how good his senses could be if he tapped enough.

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Hemalurgic monsters are all warped in different ways by the excess investiture, because the investiture is still being channeled through the metal which gives it a specific effect.

It's not by the excess investiture per se - it's altering the appearance of your spiritual aspect, which then has changes that propogate to your physical form.

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It's not by the excess investiture per se - it's altering the appearance of your spiritual aspect, which then has changes that propogate to your physical form.

Which is what all Investitures do, just not as messily or dramatically as Hemalurgy necessarily. 

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Why would the TLR ever try to be a tin savant when he can compound tinminds and get the same result with no drawbacks? Actually, he should be able to get an even better result since he can compound zinc and there's no upper limit on how good his senses could be if he tapped enough.

 

Well I never said anything about tin. But we know TLR is a savant (or near-savant) in almost every metal. Off the top of my head? Feruchemy tin has nasty side effects like queasiness and only one attribute at a time. Not sure what that has to do with anything though.

 

I'm confused about the whole using zinc to enhance his senses, did you mean nicrosil?

 

It's possible he became a feruchemy savant in several metals because of the way he used nicrosil, but we don't really know a whole lot about that except for it being hinted strongly that Miles is a Health/Gold Savant.

 

But I was talking about the allomantic side of things only. TLR likely came to his savanthood differently than Spook. And doesn't show many side effects like Spook developed.

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A 'lerasium savant' would basically be ripping massive troughs into their 'channel more of preservation's power' channels, which, hey, means that you'd be channeling all of preservation's power, and ascent.

1. What would happen to the current shardholder though? Say Sazed decided to make a bunch of lerasium beads and give them to someone, who in turns ingests them. Would he replace Sazed as Harmony? or would it cause a split, having Sazed become Ruin and the new guy Preservation? or perhaps it would create an entirely different shard with a new intent?

2. Why did the TLR hand out lerasium beads to his supporters at the beginning? Why not ingest all of them himself? this way he would truly have become an immortal god. And even if he didn't have enough beads to ascent, ingesting them all anyways would have made him massively more powerful than he was in the books.

3. Maybe TLR had his reasons to want to have Mistborns around.* Well then, will becoming an atium savant also cause ascension? TLR had been tapping/burning atium for 1000 years, why hadn't he ascended? or maybe a non-compounding burn is required? If so, why hasn't he done it? He surely had enough atium in his trove. This way he ascends permanently and still have his Mistborns. And if atium can't cause ascension, then why not? Why does lerasium does and atium doesn't?

 

*Then again if he ascended permanently he could simply have created lerasium beads to hand out. So let's just say he didn't have enough beads to ascent.

Edited by kroen
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You'd need way more lerasium than TLR had to become a savant. Remember that Lerasium is concentrated Power of Preservation - if you've got a big pile of the stuff lying around, that's a not-insignificant fraction of the shard's energy

Edited by Phantom Monstrosity
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I don't think there is enough atium in the entire hoard to become a savant using it. You have to spend something like a couple weeks burning your metals at maximum flare rate to become a savant, and atium burns so ridiculuously fast that it just wouldn't work out, even if you were using all of the atium that was ever produced.

Basically, it'd take so much power from the shard to make the atium or lerasium for a savant that you're effectively tossing a splinter at the guy and hoping for the best.

If the shard wasn't claimed, the savant could maybe get the whole shard by virtue of having first dibs on it. Kelsier grabbed preservation from Leras, somehow, so who even knows.

2. Why did the TLR hand out lerasium beads to his supporters at the beginning? Why not ingest all of them himself? this way he would truly have become an immortal god. And even if he didn't have enough beads to ascent, ingesting them all anyways would have made him massively more powerful than he was in the books.

You're assuming that lerasium stacks linearly, and that you could keep increasing allomantic potential indefinitely. That probably isn't the case. See the 'sliding scale of allomantic potential' annotation - if Elend is at 100% maximum potential, using lerasium to rewire his spiritweb again isn't going to help at all.

The Sliding Scale of Allomantic Potential ( http://www.brandonsanderson.com/annotation/318/mistborn-3-Chapter-Forty-Nine-Part-2)

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.

According to side material, apparently all sorts of nifty things you could do with lerasium that nobody has any idea about - which are probably related to its spiritweb rewrite ability.

Note that it's possible to harvest this sort of stuff from other planets too, and that 'becoming a mistborn' is a side-effect of burning lerasium, not the primary one. No word on atium's side effects.

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/2383-qa-with-brandon-sanderson/page-6 Q:Is there a way to harvest BioChromatic Breath from a planet, if it holds any? (If a person dies, and their body turns to dusty he dust of the earth, then doesn't the earth—or sharever planet they have—therefore hold thousands, if not millions, of BioChromatic Breaths?)

A: Possible. It would be the same thing as harvesting the nature of Preservation or Ruin, which--on Scadrial--took the form of nuggets of metal.

Chaos:Does atium have a "side effect", much like how lerasium has a "side effect" in creating Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson:RAFO

Edited by Phantom Monstrosity
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More uses for Lerasium? You mean like Feruchemy and Hemalurgy? I have a theory that TLR had a lerasiummind. Wonder what it can do. Maybe it allows you to store your spirit and later tap into creation or something. And what about compounding lerasium?

Edited by kroen
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It's probably easiest just to link to the theoryland search for lerasium.

That said, the feruchemical and hemalurgic properties of lerasium are for later trilogies

3)Does Lerasium have feruchemical and hemalurgical powers.

A: Yes. Brandon will probably be getting into these, and the other metals hemalurgical and feruchemical powers, in greater detail in the future Mistborn Trilogies. He also will probably release full charts for these as he did with allomancy.

Edited by Phantom Monstrosity
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That probably isn't the case. See the 'sliding scale of allomantic potential' annotation - if Elend is at 100% maximum potential, using lerasium to rewire his spiritweb again isn't going to help at all.According to side material, apparently all sorts of nifty things you could do with lerasium that nobody has any idea about - which are probably related to its spiritweb rewrite ability.

But Hemalurgy allows you to have over 100% like with double bronze. It would seem to me that each lerasium bead would add 100% to your powers. So the first will make you 100% and the second 200% third 300% etc. But maybe TLR didn't know this, or maybe he thought that he was going to be powerful enough and anything above would be overkill.

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But Hemalurgy allows you to have over 100% like with double bronze. It would seem to me that each lerasium bead would add 100% to your powers. So the first will make you 100% and the second 200% third 300% etc. But maybe TLR didn't know this, or maybe he thought that he was going to be powerful enough and anything above would be overkill.

 

If the average mistborn was a 4 on a scale of allomantic power, then Vin would be an 8 with her piercing. She wasn't over 100%. The mistborn rpg covers this.

 

To go over 100% you need duralumin or nicrosil or some other source of power.

 

According to the rpg, one charge of lerasium can increase your powers to a 5, and each successive charge increases your power rating by 1. So it may take quite a bit of Lerasium to increase your powers to the max of 10.

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If the average mistborn was a 4 on a scale of allomantic power, then Vin would be an 8 with her piercing. She wasn't over 100%. The mistborn rpg covers this.

 

To go over 100% you need duralumin or nicrosil or some other source of power.

 

According to the rpg, one charge of lerasium can increase your powers to a 5, and each successive charge increases your power rating by 1. So it may take quite a bit of Lerasium to increase your powers to the max of 10.

The RPG isn't always canonical. And you're saying Elend wasn't 100%? Beause the quote in the previous page says he was. Was Elend able to pierce Copperclouds? 

 

Sorry, but I can't accept that ingesting a lerasium bead -the body of preservation, a god- won't upgrade you powers at all. It seems preposterous to me that if a 100% Mistborn ingests lerasium it wouldn't have any effect whatsoever.

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