Search the Community

So, I'm almost certain others have theorized this already, but after some extensive searching, I was unable to find anyone on here who did. So, here we go. In Epilogue 7, Marsh approaches Wax, Steris, and Marasi before Wayne's statue. When asked on how he walks about without drawing attention, he passes it off as emotional Allomancy. Still, Wax expresses his doubts. I think all Cosmerenauts on all worlds stirred in their beds with that phrase. But regardless, this moves on to my theory. I think Marsh moves about unseen through a combination of emotional Allomancy... and Feruchemical duralumin. To quote from the Coppermind, Feruchmeical duralumin functions as such. This seems a very likely explanation for that "something more" Wax postulates. Granted, don't know if Marsh was given spikes following the Catacendre, and there is no way of knowing if Rashek was aware of duralumin's Feruchemical properties. Still, he was a Feruchemist himself, and discovered duralumin. It makes sense he would test it. Anyway, there's my three cents. Thoughts? ~Longshot97

I'm wondering what different kinds of unique interactions may exist between the powers of the Metallic Arts. For example: 1. Tapping and storing F-iron allows for your Steelpushing and Ironpulling to be enhanced and manipulated. 2. F-tin can store other senses, even at least some granted via Allomancy, such as Bronze-sense. 3. Healing enhancement from A-pewter can be Feruchemically stored in gold. 4. A-duralumin can be used to make compounding a Metalmind instantaneous. 5. A Hemalurgic spike providing A-bronze on top of a natural bronze Misting will allow them to pierce Copperclouds. 6. Emotional Allomancy used from the inside of a Bendalloy-Speedbubble will have its effect (raw power) increased when used on someone outside of the bubble. Any other weird/cool Metalborn powers that might go interesting together and make new and interesting affects?

I recently re-read era 1 Mistborn when I noticed something interesting when Tensoon comments on the Blessing of Potency. He mentions it as "more than doubling" his strength, but not tripling. This actually sounds a lot like Allomantic Pewter's affects, with it roughly doubling one's strength when burned normally, and roughly tripling it when flared. Since we know that Hemalurgic spikes typically provide the Investiture from only one person, and that a Blessing requires two spikes, a Blessing provides nearly (Hemalurgic decay) the raw level of Investiture found in two regular humans. Using this principle, a Thug burning pewter would only count as being a few times as Invested as a normal human being, even when flaring his metal. And that's for one of the faster burning, and therefore more Investing, metals. Originally, I had just kind of head cannoned that Mistings were about as Invested as first Heightening Awakeners when burning metals (albeit with kinetic Investiture rather than static), with a slight variation based on what specific metal they burned. It now seems like I was totally out of the ball park: the Metallic arts do not have very much Investiture within the system compared to some others. Which we do have a WoB on, but I hadn't realized just how big the difference was until recently. This also means that quite a bit of stuff can be done with a comparatively small amount of Investiture to what I had once imagined (which I suppose makes sense. After all, you can more or less permanently Awaken a Lifeless with only a single Breath). This also means that a first Heightening Awakener is likely dozens of times as powerful (in terms of raw Investiture) than your run-of-the-mill Allomancer.

This is a theory that has been brewing in my head for some time, concerning Steel Compounders. While extremely powerful, an effective limit is placed in the form of air resistance. Thus, they cannot tap too much speed, lest they literally burn up. While an interesting case study of Sanderson's Second Law of Magic, I have always found it to be frustrating. So, I started thinking of ways to circumvent this issue. This is no novelty. Many have already conceptualized combining the [Stormlight Archive Spoiler] with Steel Compounding, which would be an effective way of going about eliminating the issue. However, such inter-planetary interaction isn't likely to occur for some time. So I started thinking of ways to make Steel Compounding safer using only things available on Scadrial. This leads to my theory. Could a Steel Compounder take a brass medallion (or a brass spike) and begin storing heat? With the use of heat Feruchemy, all heat generated by the air resistance would be siphoned away, preventing any damage to the Compounder. With enough metalminds, no heat would linger long enough to pose any threat, allowing the Steelrunner to speed up. Of course, the faster the Compounder goes, the more heat will be generated. This may eventually prove too much for the limited nature of Feruchemical storage. However, the Steelrunner would not be forced to last long. Eventually, they should be able to accelerate enough to break the sound barrier, thus ceasing the accumulation of heat. This is how I think Steel Compounding can emerge even more powerful than before. What's worse, Hemalurgy isn't even necessary. Southern Scadrian medallions solve that problem quite beautifully. I do not know if this theory is sound, so feel free to comment below with any corrections or counterarguments. ~Longshot97

So I'm doing a writing thing about the origins of Rashek as the Lord Ruler and I'm wondering about how many metals were known to have properties in Feruchemy back before Rashek Ascended and became the Sliver of Infinity? Because Feruchemy was the only widespread Magic System in Classical Scadrial and from what little we know they were in the middle of a kind of industrial revolution when the Deepness happened and Rashek screwed up the world.

Hey there, so I've recently had an idea that I'd like a bit of help fleshing out. So this idea sort of came to me while I was thinking about a certain section in a Mistborn Era 2 newspaper, the one with 'K and N', who are probably Krhiss and Nazh, asking people to come to them if they hear their metal tools start to talk to them (Which all on it's own is interesting to wonder about but I digress) and I was also thinking of a fanfiction idea where a new magic system occurs on Scadrial. So the idea is that during the Catacendre things go a little wrong and bit of Ruin and Preservation are torn and became Splinters, like Spren (Though I don't know if I should call them that or not) these Splinters then attempt to mimic the Nahel Bond but due to Scadrial's Affinity for Metal they need to use one of the 16 Metals as a middleman. And the metal they Bond to must have some kind of Connection to the one they wish to bond with , so they can't just Bond with a piece of scrap metal, more like some kind of family heirloom or something of great significance to the 'Bonded' which is also Allomantically viabe. They can't Bond with a Metalmind or a Hemalurgic Spike due to them being Invested. Which would mess up the Bond. There will be 16 types of Splinters which for the sake of simplicity I''m just going to call Spren, there would be one for each of the metals like Steelspren, Pewterspren and so on, I don't know exactly what powers the person would get from this Bond or if it's be more like an Aviar Bond. But I wouldn't want them to be anymore powerful then what is shown by the Metallic Art, Compounding not included. Any thoughts? I'd love to hear some.

Hey, JustQuestin here, I've got an idea I want to use but I want help to flesh it out. This idea is creating a new Magic System based on the principles of Surgebinding and the Metallic Arts, specifically Spren and the 16 Metals. So the basic outline (if you could even call it that) I have for this is that during the Catacendre, some things go a little wrong and bits of Ruin and Preservation are Splintered off and become similar to Spren, they end up deciding to mimic the Nahel Bond (Don't ask why they'd know about it they just do) but they have to use certain Metals as sort of middlemen for the bond to work, the 16 Metals to be precise. The core of this is from a newspaper article from the Second Era of Mistborn, the one with an ad that has 'K and N' asking people to come to them if they notice they're metal tools start talking to them. I don't quite know what the powers granted from this would be, nor how exactly one would gain this bond aside from having a Connection to a piece of metal, like a bracelet or something. Thoughts?

In mistborn era 1 we learnt how if an allomancer burns a metal to much they become essentially addicted and its effects can kind of... leech, I guess?... in to there normal life. We know what would basically happen if you become a bronze or tin savant. But what about other savants, gold, electrum, cadmium, bendalloy, chromium, aluminum???

To specify a little more on the title, ive have not been able to really get into MB Era 2. The transition to a new cast of characters and practically new world definitely throws me off but i think the majority of it is my lack of care for the metallic arts... in the current era. I mean theres nothing wrong with the metallic arts, theyre real solid magic systems that have the groundwork to do great things in the future of the Cosmere.... But there just isnt any real exitement when i think of them. When i think of like... any other magic system i think of fantastical feats, mysticism, obvious displays of the magic(soulcasting, aon dor), vibrancy(breath), etc.. And when i think of the Metallic Arts im just like "oh.... thats practical... has some real practical applications. Pushing metal through the air... yeah..." Like i dont even really see Allomancy&Feruchemy as magic systems anymore.at this point theyre just tools like a wrench. Granted they are the tools that will build/power FTL spaceships eventually, but still just tools. From what we've already seen to what Brandon has told us/hinted about what future applications of the magic will be like to what weve theorized on... it just feels like there isnt a whole lot of mystery or intrique left in the Metallic Arts. I think also a big part is that era 2 maybe feels a little too "earth-like" and "current" for me and the magic just seems wrong in a more industrialized, technological, up-to-date society. Should i just push through it and read them anyway? Is the story/characters of era 2 worth it regardless of not liking the magic?

So we know Nightblood is an attempt to replicate a Shardblade from another magic system (Awakening). I wonder if the same could be done with the Metallic Arts? It seems that a sufficiently invested metalmind could block a Shardblade, at least for a bit: So the Metallic Arts could at least produce something functional as a half-shard shield. But what about the other-Realm destructive function of a Shardblade? Nightblood is a Shardblade, but its turn-to-smoke effect isn't identical to the deadening-limbs/burn-out-eyes effect of Rosharan Blades. The Bands aren't enough: But the Bands are only a spearhead. A Nightblood-sized sword blade made like the Bands, 100% full of investiture, should be able to hold more than a spearhead, and if the Bands are "close", it would be enough to qualify. That would block a Shardblade, but would it actually give the other-Realm destructive function of a Shardblade, or would it just qualify since it is "a heavily invested magical weapon"?

Just noticed, in Oathbringer, the Reachers appeared to be using veins of copper (or bronze) running across the ship to communicate with each other without speaking.

I've been thinking a fair bit about what Era 3 could possibly reveal about the Metallic Arts. When I first read Era 2 and Era 1 (yes, you read that right, I was dumb), the metallic arts seemed pretty feature-complete... But now that I've gotten more knowledgeable about how Invested Arts tend to work, and stuff like what the underlying mechanics of Ettmetal and Medallions might be, I'm starting to wonder; what could Era 3 possibly add to this? My preferred potential candidate is, of course, Reverse Compounding, wherein a twinborn of the same metal can store allomantic power in their metalminds, to be extracted at a potentially greater (or more precise) rate than just sheer allomantic burn rate can manage (easily, without Duralumin, for example). Imagine if a Steel compounder not only had incredible amounts of speed to tap, but could also precisely and powerfully Push on metals, possibly even some (probably lightly) filled Metalminds to catch his opponents off guard. Granted, that may not seem as useful as "UNLIMITED POWERRRR" I mean physical speed. Another possibility is the reveal of power-sharing medallions. In theory, if F-Nicrosil works as I believe it does (at this point in time), then a Medallion granting F-Nicrosil and F-Aluminum would allow the user to store any other metalborn powers they have access to inside unkeyed nicrosil to be tapped by another nicrosil ferring. Oh wait, you've got a medallion that grants F-nicrosil right there, just let the recipient keep it while the freshly made unkeyed nicrosil has a charge! Now anyone can basically rent the power of a Coinshot, or a soother, or... a misting can have Duralumin allomancy... for a day. Maybe more, if they keep their rental going. Or someone could rent the paired metal of their power (the allomantic counterpart of their natural feruchemical metal, or vice-versa) and become a temporary Compounder. Let them keep that F-Nicrosil/F-Aluminum medallion and an Augur with a Bloodmaker's unkeyed nicrosil could create scores upon scores of unkeyed gold for injured or sick people to tap using a Gold feruchemy medallion (or an F-nicrosil medallion and unkeyed nicrosil with F-Gold inside). Another addition to Reverse Compounding could be Unkeyed Allomantic Metalminds, unkeyed, say, Steelminds filled with Steel allomancy. If you give that to someone with steel feruchemy (either by birth or by unkeyed nicrosil or whatever else), then they can be a "Feruchemical Coinshot" too. Just as a Steel misting could burn an unkeyed Steelmind filled with physical speed to become an "Allomantic Steelrunner". And I haven't even touched on Hemalurgy (because let's face it, Hemalurgy should not be touched upon). What sort of other reveals might Era 3 make for the Metallic Arts' synergistic behaviors or previously assumed rules?

This didn't so much arise as a showerthought as much as it was a "2 am insomnia thought". It occurs to me, that, with the proliferation of Medallions capable of giving the user the power to make Unkeyed Nicrosilminds (that is, a Medallion that grants F-Aluminum + F-Nicrosil), people will be able to store their metalborn powers in unkeyed nicrosil and give it to someone else to tap with a medallion that gives F-Nicrosil. Neat, you can rent metalborn powers if you have F-Nicrosil. Where this gets a bit zany is when you consider Nicrosil compounding. A nicroburst (such as, oh I dunno, Era 3's protagonist) could burn unkeyed nicrosil to recieve tenfold the power stored inside it. Given that we know F-Nicrosil works similarly to F-Copper (storing discreet things rather than a reservoir of power like say, pewter), this means that a Nicrosil Twinborn could infinitely (read: for as long as they could afford allomantically accurate Nicrosil) compound their Nicrosil Feruchemy to an arbitrary level of power. ...By itself, that doesn't sound all that great. But remember, we've established that you can "borrow" other metal powers, kind of like Nalthian Breath transfer. They could, in theory, take someone's allomancy and compound it to an arbitrary strength, and then give it back to the original owner, who now has allomantic strength on par with... well, however much power this Soulburst (Soulbearer+Nicroburst) can muster. Lerasium-mistborn (but for a single metal), Lord Ruler... Who knows. If the Soulburst can get ahold of an extra copy of Nicrosil allomancy, they could compound it an arbitrary number of times and keep it for themselves to expedite the process by being able to shove more allomantic power into that feruchemical trait to duplicate it faster. Where this got fun for my "2 am insomnia thoughts" brain was with my other pair of metalborn powers, duralumin compounding. With this compounding method, you could give someone stupidly powerful duralumin allomancy... Which again, doesn't sound that useful, much like stupidly powerful Nicrosil feruchemy. (Which, brief side note, is the natural-born twinborn combo "I" have. The compounding was obtained via power sharing medallions and gracious donations from other Metalborn) However, with the ability to Compound Duralumin at arbitrarily fast speeds (burning allomantic duralumin at arbitrarily high strength alongside a duraluminmind) I of course thought "...Can you just... supercharge a Nahel Bond with this? And wait, if Nicrosil stores "investiture" and that really means "powers" like Allomancy and Feruchemy, does that mean you can store and then compound the Surges themselves from a bonded Radiant spren? Can you become arbitrarily potent in Surgebinding with these two Compounding abilities?" And with me being a Lightdancer I then realized "wait. I can Soulcast Duralumin to burn, and there's a WoB that Duralumin Allomancy would be able to directly power Surges... So if there is a net gain in power from using Duralumin to Soulcast Duralumin, I don't even need Stormlight to Surgebind!" And of course me being me I have to take this a theoretical step further and throw in Reverse Compounding (tl;dr my belief for RC is that you can store allomantic power inside the matching metalmind if you have the matching metal for your powers). So with Reverse Duralumin Compounding, I can store a Duralumin... burst? What even is that called? like using Steel produces a "steelpush", and nicrosil produces a "nicroburst", so... Duraluminburst? Anyway. I can in theory store allomantic duralumin's effect inside duraluminminds and then tap that to have power that can fuel the Surges. No nicrosil-storing-stormlight needed, if that's even possible (though would be moot for myself, as I have both). So yeah, kind of a rambly post about how I realized I am in fact incredibly overpowered and should not be allowed to exist but people like this could still exist in era 4 because of Medallions and probably also Soulcasting fabrials... Huzzah...

OK, this isn't a theory per se, more like an observation. The basic idea is this – there seem to be many parallels between Cultivation's magic and the Metallic Arts. I have no idea why or what to do with it, so I'm looking for suggestions Here is what I came up with so far: Artificial creation. The Metallic Arts come from an artificially created planet, Old Magic comes from an artificially created godspren Form on Investiture. Cultivation's gaseous Investiture is explicitly called mist and it's green color seems to match the Shard's symbolism, just like on Scadrial. Unlike Breath or Stormlight, it doesn't seem to be directly usable by regular magic users, which again matches the character of Preservation's mists and Ruin's black smoke The effects of the Scadrian godmetals. Allomantic Lerasium and Hemalurgic Atium allow for very general spiritweb modification, and so does the Old Magic. A person burning atium and duraluminium gets pulled into the Spritual Realm, so the regular atium users seem to exist there at least partially, just like Lift exists partially in the Cognitive Realm. Burning atium allows you to see the future, which is an occasional side effect of visiting the Nightwatcher's Valley Cultivation's boons. We have a confirmation that Dalinar and Taravangian got their boons and curses directly from Cultivation. Lift is also a very likely candidate, based on the “Act of Cultivation” WoB. The boons of these three characters actually share some similarities with the three Metallic Arts, and each character also seems to provide a different look at famous users of said magic from Scadrial: Lift – her boon (using food as a gateway for Investiture) is clearly based on the same principle as Allomancy. She also happens to be a young, very Preservation-minded thief with strange, incomprehensible powers given her by a Shard. Unlike Vin, however, Lift is a skilled healer, not an assassin Taravangian – his cognitive abilities (intelligence and compassion) can be increased/decreased at the cost of the other attribute, which bears some similarity to Feruchemy. Like Sazed, he figures a plan o save the world in a moment (OK, more like a day) of transcendence. He doesn't use knowledge gathered by other people though, he uses people as a resource to get knowledge Dalinar – when his boons wears off, he mentions that his pain seems like “tiny spikes in his soul” and he hears a mysterious voice talking to him, a known side effect of Hemalurgy. He's a Sliver (I think he counts after the ending of Oathbringer?) that tries to keep a hostile Shard imprisoned, but unlike Rashek he didn't end up conquering the world There are also some open questions: The Well of Ascension was used to contain a Shard and dramatically change a planet – something very similar to what the Dawnshards are supposed to do. It was also used to create the mistwraiths (and by extension kandra) and had a great effect on Preservation's sanity. We have the kandra-like Siah Aimians on Roshar and Honor wasn't very coherent in his final days... Are these all connected to each other and to Cultivation somehow? The ettmetal is crucial for developing Scadrian technology. Is Cultivation's magic somehow necessary for creating fabrials? Just like the previous question, it points to Aimia If this cool theory turns out to be true, Cultivation's magic helped to create the Nightblood, which contains Ruin's Investiture – another potential link to Scadrial

What could a Feruchemist possibly store with Lerasium? It is the metal that can be burned by an Allomancer to become a Mistborn. Could it store Intention or maybe their Spiritweb? Are there any theories discussing this?

Summing up this one Q&A at the starsight release thing. It's not on the Arcanum WoB thing yet but someone should put it on there. Link to the question is at the bottom. Basically, he says it is indeed possible for a Mistborn to burn a piece of a Shardblade, though it would be hard to make happen. If a Mistborn were to do this, it would act as an alloy of the godmetal of Honor and would do something (of course, what it does is a RAFO). Now, I appreciate y'all's thoughts on this or what it might do, though I don't think we can go very far there. However, I would also like to point to the fact that, including all the godmetals and their alloys and all that, there should be a lot of different metals, each (likely) with Allomantic, Feruchemical, and Hemalurgic abilities. My main problem is I am, really, out of ideas when it comes to what any of these new and unknown metals would be able to do. Like, what we already have covers a lot. What else is there? And that is where I invite ideas on new powers and abilities for metals. Check out all the ideas (not necessarily theories) inside the spoiler thing. I will edit it when new ideas come along. Thoughts? The ideas don't even have to be viable, just interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9lgxCojYzY at point 55:49

Can Allomancy be used in the Cognitive Realm? In Secret History, Kelsier cannot use Allomancy while in the Cognitive Realm. I realize this could also be due to him not having any connection with the Physical Realm as a Cognitive Shadow but he also noted that "the souls of metal and men are the same", both glowing when viewed from the Cognitive Realm. I simply took it to mean that Allomancy doesn't work in the Cognitive but now I'm not so sure. After all, metal can be brought to the Cognitive Realm, but can they be burned while in the Cognitive Realm? Same question about Feruchemy. Can one store or tap an attribute in the Cognitive Realm? I think yes... With Hemalurgy, I want to ask who fuels it? I mean Hemalurgy is Ruin's magic, I think Ruin only fuels the theft and grafting of the stolen attributes, and that he does not provide the Investiture to fuel any stolen Investiture art, that either the original Shard still provides the necessary Investiture or that it goes through Ruin somehow, who corrupts the Investiture then passes it to the Hemalurgist. Preservation used Ruin's Investiture in the form of Atium to fuel Allomancy, but how did it also work with Feruchemy, which is of both Ruin and Preservation? I understood the concept of Atium as just a source of Investiture within Preservation's system of Allomancy but what about Hemalurgy? Trell is doing the reverse with Trellium in Ruin's system, now Harmony's system, of Hemalurgy. Shouldn't Harmony be able to sense something? The use of Hemalurgy isn't instantaneous, it's a two step process: first you have to spike someone's attributes, then you have to spike yourself. I would say Harmony should be able to sense both, even if all he's providing the Investiture for is the theft and the grafting. Plus, at the end of 'Bands of Mourning', he told Wax that "[Harmony] always take the time to have this walk". Yet he missed the spiked souls? Don't tell me that the Set managed to keep the spiked ones alive after doing that!

So Elendel is somewhat based on Victorian England right. So I was wondering how my favorite character of that genre would live in Elendel Now analoges of Sherlock Holmes are quite common and can be found inany genres and I thought how about one in Elendel. I was thinking her / him being non-metalborn at first. Then the charecter moved to being a bronze Ferring , then an Allomancer , then as I was moving onto twinborn , I got this idea. Now , Sherlock Holmes and his analoges are famous for making astounding observations based on the most trivial and non-conspicuous details in extremely little time. Now it would be impossible in real life. While it seems simple when Holmeian charecters explain thier chain of deductive reasoning. But There's no way one could actually do that ..... Unless , one could think 50 times faster than average. Viola , ladies and gentlemen , I give u Sherlock Holmes as a Zinc compounder. Could it be possible for Mr. Sanderson to make such a charecter. Wax kinda started out like him but became less deductive genius and more adventurous Indiana Jones later on. But still having a scientifically ( according to the fourth law of thermodynamics ,endemic to the Cosmere ) would be amazing. I think Brandon Sanderson could write a decent enough version. Wax , Vasher , Raoden all could count as practice , prototypes if u will. What do you think ? Maybe we should pitch this to Mr.Sanderson. Maybe it won't be too different. But then again , a Zinc compounder with the fierce yet dispassionate intellect of Sherlock Holmes going up against rogue noblemen with access to allomancy or other allomancers. Ooooooooooo If not Sanderson , then maybe some other writer getting a loan of small temporal pieces of Scadrial , namely era 2. P.S : Funnily and Ironically enough, even tho the analog is a Rioter , he himself has a composed and calm personality , almost free of emotion.

Everything in this theory revolves around the idea that Investiture, energy and matter are interchangeable within the Cosmere. So within era 2 of Mistborn, Scadiral is on the cusp of powering its technology with electricity (instead of using what I assume are coal powered trains). If the Northerners were to incorporate electricity into the Metallic arts then here are some fundamentals I believe could be possible. Hemalurgy: Hemalurgy works on the principle that you charge a Hemalurgic spike with Investiture by ripping out someones soul and splicing onto someone else. The spike will lose its charge the longer it is out of the body and also doesn't hold a lot of charge to begin with. How will electricity fit in this system. Well it hinges on the principle that matter and energy can be converted into Investiture. We see this with how Soul casting works. The inject investiture into an object and change the cognitive and spiritual aspect of the object into something else. My theory is doing the same thing in reverse. You pass an electric current though the Hemalurgic spike and when it hits the Investiture in the spike it changes and molds to that Investiture. Obviously intent and some other things will have to happen for the electric energy to suddenly change into Ruin's Investiture but the underlying principle should be the same. The electric energy passes through the Investiture in the spike and changes to suit that Investiture. This will a sort of Investiture hack so you can get around the whole less power then you started thing that Ruin loves so much. You could also fully fill a Hemalugic spike. What the hell would happen then? Allomancy: With Allomancy there are a few ideas. The fist if just that its gives a small boost when burning your metal. You hook up one of your piercings to a small battery then burn you metal. Preservation's power flows through the metal hits the electric current and converts it to extra allomantic power. The second one is that you can use the electric energy flowing through the metal to stop it from being destroyed when preservation's power flows through. The metal is just the gateway so if you could convert the the electric energy into Investiture and use that Investiture to keep the gateway open (not destroy the metal) then so long as your battery lasts you can continually use allomancy. Feruchemy: This ones woks just like Hemalurgy. Pass an electric current through a charged metalmind and as the current hits the Investiture in the metalmind it will change to suit that Investiture. No more having to ruin your body to fill a metal mind. Also you could hook up other pieces of the same metal in a series circuit to fill up multiple metalminds for the price of one. This could also be done for Hemalurgic spikes. It would be more efficient then compounding because no metal is being destroyed. I'm interested to see what you all think about my theory.

Aaaaall right, time to see how many holes will be poked into this theory by those more knowledgeable than I. So, the basic premise is that Trell (whoever or whatever they are; that's not what this theory is about) specifically designed Trellium to be the most desirable metal for the Metallic Arts, particularly for Kandra. We see this clear enough with Bleeder in Shadows of Self. It can, apparently, steal any Power (Metalborn power) or Ability (the non-power stuff that hemalurgy deals with) as a single spike, including being used as a Kandra Blessing. It can even create aggresive, durable, and powerful Constructs. This is HUGE, as anyone who's read SoS will probably agree. Now, on to the theory part. The theory being; Trellium ALSO works for Allomancy and Feruchemy, and the effect it has is... Anything. Any metalborn ability that exists. Allomantic steel, Feruchemical Brass, it can mimic ALL of them. A Trelliummind would be a bit like a Tinmind, in that any one mind can store one power (or sense, for Tin), but if you drain it fully, you can put in a different one. This also kind of draws on an older theory I had (but never made a post about); the "true" allomantic effect of Lerasium. I believe that Lerasium could, if an Allomancer tried (with proper Intent), be burned for any Allomantic ability, all the while strengthening the Connection to Preservation. They could act as a Mistborn while becoming a Mistborn, but with just one metal. But I digress. The idea with this theory of Trellium being able to do anything within the bounds of the Metallic Arts also offers an explanation for why the Set seems to be attempting to breed Mistborn. They may want to be able to spike Trellium Allomancy out of them and give it to a Kandra. Imagine that, a freaking Kandra with any Allomantic effect they wanted, using just ONE spike. Absolute madness. And I feel like it lends some credence to this theory, if only theoretically. Additionally, if it can store any Feruchemic Trait, the Set may also (less obviously) be attempting to breed Full Feruchemists (or they'll start trying soon, perhaps in The Lost Metal), and spike Trellium Feruchemy out of them. That would also be somewhat terrifying, a Kandra with access to the entire repetoire of Feruchemic effects. We already saw how lethal Bleeder was with just Steelrunning, imagine a rogue Kandra with that and more. ...the really terrifying part is if they can somehow manage to make a single spike (or equivalent when it comes to Harmony's control) that grants both Trellium Allomancy and Feruchemy simultaneously. Instant Fullborn. Instant Kandra-with-power-equal-to-the-Lord-Ruler. This is probably the longest shot in this whole theory, and loads of this is probably going to be proven inaccurate, but honestly, I don't mind. I want to refine this theory to the truth.

I was thinking about Awakening in the shower today and I wondered if a Nalthian compounding their own breath (using either Hemaspikes or Medallions) would have a difference at high heightenings compared to a normal person who has gathered many breaths from many people. The primary realmatic differences I can see right off the bat are: 1. The Breath will have only the Compounder's Identity, and Intent (unless using Preservation's Investiture to Compound it causes some weird overwriting/blending). 2. The breaths may resonate (not Resonance-resonate, but like, harmonize, but not Harmony-harmonize) with their matching Intent and Identity and constructively interfere. The effects of this are obviously unknown for now, but let's speculate. I feel like it would be easier to Awaken using compounded Breath because all of them share the Awakener's natural Intent (even if slightly muddied with Preservation's Investiture due to the nature of Compounding) so focusing their Intent into a Command would take less effort. The harmonization of the Breaths may also mean it takes fewer to reach certain Heightenings, or that those milestones have new or different properties. What do you all think?

I'm mainly placing this in cosmere because of the WoB that needs to be included. So to start with, we've been given this WoB on the progression of technology in Scadrial. Spoilered for length, followed by the relevant portion. So the we had step one of the Metallic Arts, which was just using the powers themselves. We're in the process of seeing step 2, which is technology that relies on the interaction of those powers in the form of Medallions and the bands... Which I happen to believe relies heavily on Hemalurgy But step 3... Step 3 is where things get interesting... And also where I think things take a decidedly dark turn. Allomancy has diluted over time, and the genes have gotten weaker, but this has reached a saturation point. At least it has in the north... The south is decidedly weaker. There's an important point about allomancy in the south though, just like allomancy prior to Rashek. So what happens when the north and south mix heavily and the allomantic genes dilute further? All scadrians, power or not, have the seeds of the Metallic Arts in them... And understanding of Hemalurgy, now that it's being used is going to grow, whether Harmony approves or not. So what I think is going to happen, is that knowledge of the Metallic Arts is going to increase to the point that Hemalurgy can take those seeds from anyone. A single person obviously isn't going to grant you anything usable... But they aren't limited to a single person. People are fantastic at rationalization, and giving up a piece of yourself on your deathbed to better the lives of everyone is an easy thing to rationalize. Especially if that gift you're giving is what enables all of the fantastic technology that enables FTL travel, and who knows what other amazing and miraculous feats. So in short I think that the basis of technology in the future of Scadrial is going to rely on Hemalurgy, and it will be societally ingrained and accepted by the majority, and adamantly protested and opposed by others. Era 4 scadrian technology will be the Cosmere's Soylent Green. Edit: just going to insert this post here to make things more clear. Let me try to clarify a bit, because I think that as the genes dilute further, and the technology progresses, the magics generally are going to be much less things that people are born with, and much more focused on the technology that will become pervasive. I think it will be known that the "gift" that people give up is the basis for the proliferation of the technologies that allow everyone to live in a world of wonders. So I don't think it will be an attempt to assuage guilt. They'll be taught that it's just the way that things are and it will be accepted because if there is one thing that humans are good at, it's rationalizing away the things we should question. I don't think the majority will believe there's anything to feel guilty about.

Ok, so from a WOB a while back, it was said that Allomancy was powered by the pattern of the molecular structure of the metals, similar to the patterns that Elantrians must draw to access the Dor. This begs the question... would an Elantrian on Scadrial b able to draw the molecular pattern of... let’s say iron... and have access to the metallic arts? The whole “location based” aspect of the Magic really confuses me so there may be something I’m not understanding. This is a question I’ve had for a long time.

What is the distinguishing feature (if any) that determines if a metal has an allomantic use or not? Is there a patterns or system that determines which metals/alloys work? Or is it just the will of Brandon and what he likes? I haven't heard or seen this addressed before although I'm sure it's come up in the past. Thanks

So, this theory is centered around Lerasium, Allomancy, and Hemalurgy. The first thing we need to do is figure out Lerasium in Allomancy. See, there is this WoB that suggests that consuming Lerasium makes one Mistborn. However, burning it supposedly has a different effect, and it is also said that anyone can burn Lerasium. So, we'll use clues from our knowledge of the mists, Atium, and the Well of Ascension. So there is that quote from Kelsier: "It's the same power, after all. Solid in the metal you fed to Elend. Liquid in the pool you burned. Gaseous in the mists, confined to the night, hiding you, protecting you, giving you power! So, I figured something interesting: what if it really is the same power? The mists could be burned as a catch-all, any sort of metal, and more effective than any other as well. Evidence 1: Elend somehow obtained pewter that worked especially well, which saved his life after a gut wound. Or was it Lerasium? Evidence 2: Atium is a catch-all in Hemalurgy, so Lerasium should be a catch-all in Allomancy. So, Hemalurgy. Lerasium, near as I can figure, "preserves" more effectively. Since Atium "ruins" more effectively in Allomancy, as pointed out by Vin and Elend.