hwiles

I think @Quantus has the golden answer already on this one, but i would just add that the risk for extreme dysfunctional mental illness and emotional collapse resulting from attempting to bind multiple spren, which are embodiment of forces of nature, into a single soul should probably not be ignored for anyone considering attempting hemalurgic experimentation on Singers and Listeners. They would be more likely to create an uncontrollable monster that runs impossibly hot until it kills itself than a construct that "works" in any meaningful way. Not saying it's impossible, it would simply be extremely horrifying in all likelihood.

So...with the retcon that Era 1 atium was actually atium alloyed with electrum, I'm confused about why malatium does not seem to confer any consciousness-expanding properties. Era 1 "atium" gives one the power to comprehend impossible volumes of information about the future, but malatium just...doesn't seem to offer any additional insight into the past than if the power of gold was simply inverted. Has there been any word on whether this will get revised or explained? The uses of malatium are short-lived enough that they could probably get away with saying it does expand the mind and just glossed passed it on screen, but that feels like a really sloppy explanation. Anyone have ideas or references?

This is the literal kindest and coolest response back to my post as is possible. Elend is my favorite character, I just also am hyper aware of how annoying other people can think him to be for...reasons that can be self evident if or when needed...totally agree with you.

Things like this is why I always tell people to read secret history before Era 2. Blend was a bit of an annoying know it all, but he's the only mortal to see what he saw, and it's good to understand how he did what he did and why it worked perfectly.

To the first question: yes, absolutely, Szeth holds a bond to a true artificially intelligent spren who is not bound by the normal constraints of governing oaths and possesses the apparently unique ability to kill souls. To the second: mhm. It works exactly like the nahel bond except that nightbloods parameters are artificially min-maxed, so basically anyone could pick him up and bond him if they aren't a literal deviant criminal. It's just a quirk of his engineering, honestly the story would cast szeth in a better light if that wasn't true... To the third: yes...nightblood can absolutely kill spren by accident and any intelligent spren would think twice before bonding szeth unfortunately. That does, however, mean that any spren that DOES choose to bond him is automatically going to be extra super hardcore and unwavering about it though!

Lol. No yeah, I think that would've worked just as suggested and, unfortunately, yes, that would've made Kaladin a holy knight of the Windbreakers I'd gladly take that curse in exchange for the boon of two spren at the same time though!

One thing that is important to recall is that, even in Era 2, Scadrial's government has begun maintaining lists of the names of those individuals known to possess access to the metallic arts. This will evolve into watch lists and databases of known relatives and connections unfortunately. Much like how world governments IRL keep track of people's academic credentials. If you've ever submitted an idea for a new type of weapon in any world real or fictional, you are, unfortunately, being monitored. I still question if steel needs to be nerfed on a magic-system level. A steel ferring can be persistence hunted just as easily as a gazelle by any government or police department that wants them brought in badly enough to risk human lives over the matter, which they almost always do for literally all deviants and criminals. So...I would suggest that this is going to an extremely soft nerfing, in the sense that it will be with soft controls, like labeling offenders as armed and dangerous menaces to society and harassing their friends and family with investigators (not even Inquisitors! Lol) until they are isolated and forced to run out of charge.

Haha, exactly! They'll just have to break their soul incurably in two places at once to give both spren room to grow and invest!

This makes a lot of intuitive sense. Seems like a double-Radiant would need to be a pretty damaged individual with more heart than head in order to wind up with a pair of extremely understanding spren both feeding their power simultaneously. Still though...it seems to me that swearing six mid-range oaths to two spren might still be easier than swearing all five to one in some cases.

Tie between truthwatcher and windrunner, but I prefer to just say windrunner because I look like Szeth irl.

From what I've seen, true skybreakers almost never pick themselves. Edit: also switched to skybreakers. Also super psyched about the next release. Greatly enjoyed the post, just didn't have a whole lot to add beyond validation.

Okay, so imagine a protoradiant was simply hellbent on bonding two spren. I would think it would be conceptually easiest for a Skybreaker initiate to wrap their head around simply because they have the nature, order, and quantity of oaths explicitly explained to them upfront, meaning they would be well positioned to intuitively understand other Order's oaths. So my question is: what would be the best way to go about doing it? Would it be easier to progress through oath number 5 then loop back around and start at number 1 with a new order? Or would progressing through the first 2 or 3 oaths in parallel with eachother with two non-fully-aware baby-spren be fundamentally more achievable? What orders would pair well with eachother and allow the spren to get along well enough to not tear their radiants mind apart with contradictions and competing priorities?? Asking for a friend...

No no, eugenics works in fiction exactly the same way it works in real life, people just generally seem to hate the concept of coerced breeding programs aimed at power consolidation... As a theoretical alternative, it has been suggested that it might be possible for parents to establish adequate Connection with Harmony to allow them to produce a Mistborn or Feruchemist without being one themselves; this would be sort of like a way of hacking around needing Lerasium, but it certainly hasn't been confirmed as a possibility at this point.

Thinking on this more, it occurs to me that explosives and bendalloy bubbles are a natural pairing for a mistborn who can also steel push. Imagine lighting sticks of dynamite in the safety of a speed bubble then either launching them out or dropping them on the ground and duralumin-steel pushing oneself up in the air to set a speedy trap.

I'm strongly inclined to agree; I'm thinking that northern scadrial is where we'll see the next mistborn if one ever pops up and, if they go rogue, they would probably not have access to hacked metalminds, medallions, or hemalurgic spikes that they don't make for themselves (think unabomber vibes...) On that note, a person with iron, steel, tin, and Pewter would be ridiculously maneuverable in an urban environment at night. If they were also predisposed to flinging dynamite and cackling like a madman, they would be like if superman and the joker were polymerized together. An aluminum garrote would be an obvious weapon of choice for a stealthy serial mistborn, and couldn't be used against them very effectively if the tables turned. Their access to emotional allomancy will make them charming, but they'll probably be solitary by necessity; It's a small detail, but I would infer that they'll probably need to maintain a fake identity and be able to have some rudimentary access to disguising themself quickly (probably not to the extent Wayne does, but at least enough to keep different groups from sharing information on them effectively). This should be going down 80's style, so Kevlar and/or lightweight body armor should be available. I wonder what they'll spend the hours on when they're not hunting people though...