Lost Metal Chapter 12 and 13 Reactions

[Isilel]

The plot thickens! Given Marasi's mention of tectonics, there is totally a giant tectonic fault under Elendel that was stabilized by Harmony, right? And the Set intends to dump a massive ettmetal-trellium bomb in it, which they think would not only destroy the city, but also cause ash-mounts to erupt. The Set having enough ettmetal for this endeavor likely means that they have found a source of ettmetal on the northern continent - maybe even around Bilming?

Or that Trell has been working on the southern continent too and SoScads supplied it. Though this does seem less likely, given the many covert flights that would have been required to transport it. OTOH if they unloaded outside the Basin and skirted it during their flights, they could have done so undetected. Ettmetal may then have been brought to Bilming under a guise of normal ore caravans from the Roughs.

I love Wax's and Steris's scientific experiments, but I am in the minority re: lerasium. I don't want the Mistborn to return - they are far too overpowered, even more so with the new era 2 metals, and therefore boring. I also suspect that having them would skew Harmony's Ruin-Preservation balance even more. I'd rather see people being clever and creative with a handful of powers via medallions, which also have the advantage of not requiring a win in genetic lottery to access. 

Melaan breaking up with Wayne should better not be a prelude to pairing him up with Marasi! Not every friendship between people of different genders needs to turn into romance!

[+Oltux72]

22 minutes ago, Isilel said:

I love Wax's and Steris's scientific experiments, but I am in the minority re: lerasium. I don't want the Mistborn to return - they are far too overpowered, even more so with the new era 2 metals, and therefore boring. I also suspect that having them would skew Harmony's Ruin-Preservation balance even more. I'd rather see people being clever and creative with a handful of powers via medallions, which also have the advantage of not requiring a win in genetic lottery to access.

(First of the Sun)

Spoiler

There must be a reason Scadrial will be competitive to Roshar in the future. The obvious candidate is Mistborn.

 

[JustQuestin2004]

2 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Malatium isn't a new elemental metal, it's an alloy of Atium and gold, so I'd assume you'd just alloy the two like any other metal.

Although there is that one recent WoB that may throw a curveball into that:

  Hide contents

Apparently it's possible the "atium" we all know is actually an atium-electrum alloy, with atium mistings likely being electrum mistings and "pure" atium doing something entirely different.

Yeah that might make sense, smelting a God Metal Alloy would probably be easier than smelting Pure God Metals.

2 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

... actually, what happens to the actual harmonium when it reacts with water? It does so, but where does it go?

I assume that it returns to being raw Investiture, kind of like what happens with regular metals when Burned Allomantically.

[king of nowhere]

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

I love Wax's and Steris's scientific experiments, but I am in the minority re: lerasium. I don't want the Mistborn to return - they are far too overpowered, even more so with the new era 2 metals, and therefore boring. I also suspect that having them would skew Harmony's Ruin-Preservation balance even more. I'd rather see people being clever and creative with a handful of powers via medallions, which also have the advantage of not requiring a win in genetic lottery to access.

then again, once everyone has access to aluminium guns and powers from medallions, mistborn aren't all that overpowered anymore.

[StormingTexan]

36 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

then again, once everyone has access to aluminium guns and powers from medallions, mistborn aren't all that overpowered anymore.

Also the allomantic grenades. A Mistborn is less OP if you can toss a grenade by them and empty their metal reserves. I think the technology aspect does level the playing filed a bit. 

[Ashbringer]

3 hours ago, StormingTexan said:

Also the allomantic grenades. A Mistborn is less OP if you can toss a grenade by them and empty their metal reserves. I think the technology aspect does level the playing filed a bit. 

Every Mistborn would also have access to Bendalloy and Chromium, too. That’s a big jump in power from Era 1.

[Subvisual Haze]

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 I’ll be the first kandra to go out there long-term, with an official mission.

Very precise wording from Melaan there.

I think the clear reading between the line intent here is that other kandra have gone off world short term and/or unofficially.  Lessie/Paalm seems like the obvious guess there, that's probably where she got spiked by Trell.

[Isilel]

4 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

then again, once everyone has access to aluminium guns and powers from medallions, mistborn aren't all that overpowered anymore.

Except that Mistborn would have access to all these things too, for even more overpoweredness. Compounding via feruchemical medallions, ettmetal grenades that they can charge on the fly with any allomantic metal, etc. Aluminum guns and bullets aren't very good either and being practiced at burning electrum would help avoiding getting hit by them. 

As Mistborn era 1 demonstrated, there is no matching a halfway skilled Mistborn, even as a group, unless you are a full Feruchemist with sufficient stores. Full Feruchemists without compounding were at least limited by the need for preparedness and clever use of  finite resources.

I also don't see why broad mechanical access to the Metallic Arts and advanced technology shouldn't be enough to make Scadrial powerful in the future? Why can't Kelsier remain the only Mistborn, since he is hanging around throughout Mistborn series chronology anyway? Why be so attached to heroes who are special by birth?

[HavingTheHasHoidAPurpose?]

25 minutes ago, Isilel said:

Why be so attached to heroes who are special by birth?

I think a POV character with no metallic powers to speak of in a world of magic would be really really cool, as they come up with more creative ways to level the playing field. Brandon should really bring back hazekillers

[king of nowhere]

34 minutes ago, Isilel said:

As Mistborn era 1 demonstrated, there is no matching a halfway skilled Mistborn, even as a group, unless you are a full Feruchemist with sufficient stores. Full Feruchemists without compounding were at least limited by the need for preparedness and clever use of  finite resources.

mostborn era 1 demonstrated absolutely nothing. just because a fight went a certain way, doesn't mean it's a foregone conclusion, especially when the protagonist is concerned.

a mistborn can absolutely be killed by regular mistings, or even by hazekillers. otherwise, those would not be employed as they would be a waste of resources. put in a firing squad with aluminium bullets, and it only takes a lucky shot to kill one.

in fact, mistborn never struck me as too overpowered. knights radiants do, because their healing is so powerful they are basically immortal. mistborn, by comparison, only have mildly increased speed and endurance. take metal manipulation out of the list - which is what happens with aluminium - and a small number of ordinary men is a fair match for one. I'd say mistborn are very well written, because they can't just with a fight with brute power, but have to rely on cleverness instead.

to stay on scadrial, i'd put a steelrunner ferring with a decent amount stored as a lot more powerful than a mistborn. increase your speed enough that you can move as a blur, kill a mistborn before he can react. miles is also probably stronger than a mistborn, because the mistborn has virtually no way to kill him until miles can land a lucky shot.

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I also don't see why broad mechanical access to the Metallic Arts and advanced technology shouldn't be enough to make Scadrial powerful in the future? Why can't Kelsier remain the only Mistborn, since he is hanging around throughout Mistborn series chronology anyway?

it's not a matter of wanting more power. i don't care either way, I only care that we don't get boring invincible heroes (or villains; and I'd qualify paalm there). but I do want the mistborn setting to progress in a consistent manner. if this means technological manipulation of investiture, sure. if it means some people will be mistborn, either by genetics or hemalurgy or whatever, why not? so long as it makes sense.

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Why be so attached to heroes who are special by birth?

I am not - though it is a staple of fantasy, and it does provide a perfectly good explanation for why the fate of the world rests on this specific guy.

i repeat, it's about setting consistency. wax said it better than me: the set is looking for ways to get power, and they will get a mistborn. somehow.

7 minutes ago, HavingTheHasHoidAPurpose? said:

I think a POV character with no metallic powers to speak of in a world of magic would be really really cool, as they come up with more creative ways to level the playing field. Brandon should really bring back hazekillers

indeed. i always liked the badass normal in the special team.

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by king of nowhere

[Ashbringer]

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

to stay on scadrial, i'd put a steelrunner ferring with a decent amount stored as a lot more powerful than a mistborn. increase your speed enough that you can move as a blur, kill a mistborn before he can react. miles is also probably stronger than a mistborn, because the mistborn has virtually no way to kill him until miles can land a lucky shot.

Versus Miles, a Mistborn could just Duralumin Leech all his gold away. That would put a dent in his defenses, if not remove them entirely. Leeching metalminds is weird. Steelrunner is trickier, but Vin and Elend managed against an Inquisitor with it before. And outside an ambush/assassination situation, the Mistborn can just fly away from either and attack from above, or duralumin Steelpush their metalminds away.

A Steel Compounder might hurt those strategies a lot, but I don’t think Steelrunning works well midair. That’s more Wax’s thing.

[Karger]

39 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Versus Miles, a Mistborn could just Duralumin Leech all his gold away. That would put a dent in his defenses, if not remove them entirely. Leeching metalminds is weird. Steelrunner is trickier, but Vin and Elend managed against an Inquisitor with it before. And outside an ambush/assassination situation, the Mistborn can just fly away from either and attack from above, or duralumin Steelpush their metalminds away.

A Steel Compounder might hurt those strategies a lot, but I don’t think Steelrunning works well midair. That’s more Wax’s thing.

That would not work very well.  You would have to get close enough to touch Miles and have enough metal to keep up with his health storage.  The problem with Miles is the shear amount of healing investiture he has access to.  Even with duralumin that is very difficult to overwhelm.  His metalminds are fully stored and on top of that they pierce his body. 

Stealrunning won't increase your speed in midair but it does increase your time.  Even if you aren't moving any faster you have Wayne's advantages

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

 Steelrunner is trickier, but Vin and Elend managed against an Inquisitor with it before. And outside an ambush/assassination situation, the Mistborn can just fly away from either and attack from above, or duralumin Steelpush their metalminds away.

A Steel Compounder might hurt those strategies a lot, but I don’t think Steelrunning works well midair. That’s more Wax’s thing.

vin and elend managed against an inquisitor who ran out of speed before completing the blow. sazed was mopping the floor with marsh before he run out too. paalm could have killed wax very easily had she wanted to.

and no, it won't let you move midair. if the mistborn goes flying, you just speed yourself up, take out your aluminium gun, take aim leisurely and shoot a very easy target. being exposed in midair like that is terribly dangerous; it's generally a bad idea to leave cover to fly around when somebody is aiming for you.

it's long been my opinion that feruchemical speed is overpowered. to try and balance it, brandon tries to remove it from the equation whenever possible. sazed used up all his stockpile to return to luthadel quickly. the inquisitor run out fast. paalm didn't actually want to kil wax, and she ran out.

that's the problematic power. mistborns are ok.

[Ashbringer]

1 hour ago, Karger said:

That would not work very well.  You would have to get close enough to touch Miles and have enough metal to keep up with his health storage.  The problem with Miles is the shear amount of healing investiture he has access to.  Even with duralumin that is very difficult to overwhelm.  His metalminds are fully stored and on top of that they pierce his body. 

Stealrunning won't increase your speed in midair but it does increase your time.  Even if you aren't moving any faster you have Wayne's advantages

There’s a WoB about Leechers being able to burn off piercings and being able to burn away the Feruchemical charge as it’s being used, although it would take a lot of chromium. That and getting in close shouldn’t be too large an issue for a Mistborn, they’d have pewter and can get away from being close when they’d need to. And if they need more time at a distance, burn bendalloy.

33 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

vin and elend managed against an inquisitor who ran out of speed before completing the blow. sazed was mopping the floor with marsh before he run out too. paalm could have killed wax very easily had she wanted to.

and no, it won't let you move midair. if the mistborn goes flying, you just speed yourself up, take out your aluminium gun, take aim leisurely and shoot a very easy target. being exposed in midair like that is terribly dangerous; it's generally a bad idea to leave cover to fly around when somebody is aiming for you.

it's long been my opinion that feruchemical speed is overpowered. to try and balance it, brandon tries to remove it from the equation whenever possible. sazed used up all his stockpile to return to luthadel quickly. the inquisitor run out fast. paalm didn't actually want to kil wax, and she ran out.

that's the problematic power. mistborns are ok.

I doubt shooting a flying Mistborn would be “leisurely” no matter what the circumstances were. There’s too many things they could be doing, especially with duralumin in the equation. The Mistborn would also be moving quite fast themselves, which means tapping more speed to make up for it, and it already seems to run out fast. I think that’s more the nature of the metal that it’s hard to store and easy to run out of when tapping than it is (purely) a plot device to limit it’s use.
 

Steel Feruchemy also isn’t perfect slow-motion bullet time, you’re just moving faster. You’d need to toss in Zinc mental speed for that. And then you start getting into a Full- or at least multi-Feruchemist with a lot of prep time beating a Mistborn without it, which I’d agree with. And future Hemalurgic Mistborn may well be more like Inquisitors in combining the best offensive Allomantic and Feruchemical metals instead of getting all 16 Allomantic.

[Frustration]

I hate how self deprecating Wayne is being. It feels like it belongs in a Shallan PoV not his.

[Requiem17]

Wayne has had moments like this throughout the series, like Book 1:

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Some mistakes, though, you can’t fix by being sorry. Can’t fix them, no matter what you do.

Book 2:

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he was half inclined to string himself up, which was really disturbing, since he was generally suicidal only in the mornings.

Book 3:

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“Wax,” he said, shaking his head. “No. No. I can’t do this without you.” “Yes you can. Fight.” “Not that part,” Wayne said. “The rest of it. Livin’.

There's more but I don't want to go grab everything. It's part of what makes Wayne as a character really fascinating on a reread. He's not only fooling his friends, he's fooling himself, and us by extension. 

[Isilel]

16 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

that's the problematic power. mistborns are ok.

I agree with you - particularly if we are talking about a double steel compounder.

My current head- cannon is that a human wouldn't have been able to replicate Paalm's feats without incurring a debilitating injury. She was also using up life-long storages of a Ferring in a couple of bursts of super-poweredness and, of course, also had centuries of experience as an assassin. So, a simple steel Ferring probably wouldn't be that overpowered or skilled. But a compounder, who'd have unlimited speed storages and all the opportunity in the world to actually practice with them? Yea.

OTOH, a Mistborn would be able to easily take Miles or any other Twinborn, except for the steel compounder out. I mean, the trick with Miles was to take off his exterior metalminds and then hurt him until his implanted ones ran dry. A combination of steel, iron, pewter and electrum allomancy + duralumin-boosted chromium once he is immobilized would do nicely. In any shoot-out, a Mistborn with tin, pewter, electrum and bendalloy would have an overwhelming advantage too. 

Once you bring in feruchemical medallions, it gets even worse, because now a Mistborn can compound.

IMHO, 16 basically unlimited powers is just too much. Even in the first trilogy, with fewer powers, everyone except for the Mistborn and Sazed was side-lined for that reason. And Elend was even made into a Mistborn to remain relevant. It worked well enough there, but repetition of the same pattern would be boring. 

IMHO, lots of people having  access to some powers and the protagonists having to be clever and skilled to prevail, rather than relying on an unbeatable inborn advantage, like they did in the first and to somewhat lesser, but still significant  degree in the second series, would be much more interesting*.

Re: badass normals, sadly the only times when they don't feel incredibly contrived is  when they are the brains of the operation or technical/ emotional support. Hazekillers did well enough against single mistings, I am sure, but they weren't much of an obstacle for the Mistborn. And would have been even less so with all the additional metals.

*Which is why I was somewhat disappointed by the fact that there were again so few Metalborn in Era 2, when the mist-snappings should have resulted in 16% of the survivors of Catacendre being mistings. For that matter, while Sazed was remaking them, he could have made everybody who wasn't already a Misting a Ferring without disturbing his Ruin-Preservation balance. But maybe, hopefully a society where everyone has some powers, whether naturally or mechanically will appear in eras 3 or 4? It would be much fresher and an interesting inversion  of the usual trope of a few rare powered individuals among the sea of normals.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Isilel

[Nesh]

19 hours ago, Isilel said:

I also don't see why broad mechanical access to the Metallic Arts and advanced technology shouldn't be enough to make Scadrial powerful in the future? Why can't Kelsier remain the only Mistborn, since he is hanging around throughout Mistborn series chronology anyway? Why be so attached to heroes who are special by birth?

For me, well, Mistborn are cool, and you know, it's the name of the series.  It would be weird if going forward Mistborn didn't have any Mistborn it it.  (Kelsier and Hoid notwithstanding.)

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

Re: badass normals, sadly the only times when they don't feel incredibly contrived is  when they are the brains of the operation or technical/ emotional support. Hazekillers did well enough against single mistings, I am sure, but they weren't much of an obstacle for the Mistborn. And would have been even less so with all the additional metals.

i'm thinking people like adolin, or lan in the wheel of time. people who can't go toe to toe against magical foes, but who still manage to be pretty useful. even marasi in book 1 qualifies, as she got to use her power only once. and she was useful for a bunch of stuff. including killing Pull

[Nesh]

Spoiler

So, I may be off base about this, but I think we can rule out Tellium as an alloy.  Looking at its light spectrum it's a full spectrum with a larger band of one color, in this case red.  That lines up with what we saw in Rhythm of War with the various pure lights (Stormlight, Lifelight,and Voidlight) I'd say that hints toward it just being a pure Godmetal.

SA

Edited October 26, 2022 by Nesh

[Shardsplinter]

I agree with most of the points made about the fact that bringing back Mistborn might make them way too OP. In the OG trilogy anyone who wasn't Mistborn, Inquisitor, or a Full Feruchemist had very little chance in a fight. But by this time we will/might have:

1- Twinborn Compounders who are pretty much at the same level or above (steel is defenitively more OP like some said).

2- Medallions might actually make Compounding quite common.

3- Hemalurgy could become a common practice or at least used by a part of the population (giving people more abilities) -I'm mostly thinking of villains here but that could just be a bias-

4- Hemalurgy + Medallions might give some pretty powerful charachters that weren't necessarily metalbon.

5- If unkeyed metalminds become commonplace, the ferruchemichal disadvantage of having to invest (pun-intended) your time storing attributes might disappear as people begin to work storing them for you.

 

In conclusion, this changes could change pretty drastically the power levels. Undoubtably, Mistborn will still be OP and since some of those changes actually benefit them too, they might become even more so. But TBH there are so many new ways of using your powers as a Mistborn (specially with the Era 2 newfound metals) that personally I'm super excited to have Mistborn back in the picture!!

[offer]

Spoiler

1 hour ago, Nesh said:

So, I may be off base about this, but I think we can rule out Tellium as an alloy.  Looking at its light spectrum it's a full spectrum with a larger band of one color, in this case red.  That lines up with what we saw in Rhythm of War with the various pure lights (Stormlight, Lifelight,and Voidlight) I'd say that hints toward it just being a pure Godmetal.

 

Good catch!

It does seem to hint that it is only one pure godmetal and not a mix of two, but on the other hand also harmonium behaves this way so it probably can be combination of two shards if they are strogly combined in some sense.

SA

[Nesh]

3 minutes ago, offer said:

  Hide contents

 

Good catch!

It does seem to hint that it is only one pure godmetal and not a mix of two, but on the other hand also harmonium behaves this way so it probably can be combination of two shards if they are strogly combined in some sense.

SA

Spoiler

Perhaps, though that seems unlikely given what we know about the encroaching shard from WOBs.  It's one of the nine shards we knew of as Shadows of Self, and we know it's one Sazed can't identify.  he talked with Endowment who is holding to that one Shard per planet thing, and knows of Devotion and Dominion, which would be the obvious choice for a new Shardic combo.  Anything from Roshar would spoil SA5.

 

[Frustration]

Compounding isn't that powerful. Even steel isn't world ending.

[NameIess]

51 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Compounding isn't that powerful. Even steel isn't world ending.

World-ending power isn't required in order to be powerful.