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Thoughts on Compounding metals (Alloy of Law spoilers)


None70

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Hi,

I just finished to read the Alloy of Law and I have to say I was fascinated by the idea of same metal twinborns and the compounding of metals and decided to discuss about it with you guys

-First of all Wax says that by being twinborn of the same metal the power of that metal is increased tenfold.

That would explain clearly why the lord ruler was so much powerful then Elend or even Vin (without the mist)

TLR was probably compounding all the metals and not only Atium to stay young

-Gold compounding can regrow limbs, brain shot are ineffective and explosions make them laugh

I am sure TLR was compounding gold since they even say he did not die when decapitated

-Gold compounding enhanced the feruchemical power of health and regeneration but did it enhance as well the Augur power ???

It seems to me that his split personalities when he burns gold are much more fleshed out then in the mistborn trilogy, to a point that he feels that the two images actually hate each other. that brings up the next question:

Could be that the psychological problems he is having are due to his continuous burning gold and split of personality ???

And now some theories"

-A bendalloy twinborn would be able to expand his bubble tenfold and indeterminally as long as he has enough metalminds ???

Would he receive tentimes the calories/energy that he stored (talking about sugar rush. Slider on Redbull )

Let me know what you think

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I don't think that the "tenfold" refers to allomantic ability, only feruchemical ability. A compounder can burn their Feruchemical reserves increasing the power in the reserve tenfold. This is basically the same thing that Sazed says, particularly the tenfold increase. Their allomantic abilities aren't affected. Miles wasn't a super-great Augur, but he could perpetually recycle/compound his healing reserves.

The one difference in the treatment I noted was that Miles didn't seem to ever need to regularly go unhealthy or store new health. I understand his function to allowed him in the very first instance fill some metalmind for internal consumption, burn that metalmind, releasing 10 times as much healing, and store the excess, with some part of the excess being stored in another for--burning metalmind. Whereas the Lord Ruler could produce age more productively with his Feruchemy/Allomancy, but still needed to spend some time naturally storing age.

Hi,

I just finished to read the Alloy of Law and I have to say I was fascinated by the idea of same metal twinborns and the compounding of metals and decided to discuss about it with you guys

-First of all Wax says that by being twinborn of the same metal the power of that metal is increased tenfold.

That would explain clearly why the lord ruler was so much powerful then Elend or even Vin (without the mist)

TLR was probably compounding all the metals and not only Atium to stay young

-Gold compounding can regrow limbs, brain shot are ineffective and explosions make them laugh

I am sure TLR was compounding gold since they even say he did not die when decapitated

-Gold compounding enhanced the feruchemical power of health and regeneration but did it enhance as well the Augur power ???

It seems to me that his split personalities when he burns gold are much more fleshed out then in the mistborn trilogy, to a point that he feels that the two images actually hate each other. that brings up the next question:

Could be that the psychological problems he is having are due to his continuous burning gold and split of personality ???

And now some theories"

-A bendalloy twinborn would be able to expand his bubble tenfold and indeterminally as long as he has enough metalminds ???

Would he receive tentimes the calories/energy that he stored (talking about sugar rush. Slider on Redbull )

Let me know what you think

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None70, on 09 November 2011 - 02:03 PM, said:

I am sure TLR was compounding gold since they even say he did not die when decapitated

It was a partial decapitation, not a complete decapitation. The story got exaggerated over the years. If you really did succeed in chopping TLR's head completely off, he would die.

That would make sense :P

I don't think that the "tenfold" refers to allomantic ability, only feruchemical ability. A compounder can burn their Feruchemical reserves increasing the power in the reserve tenfold. This is basically the same thing that Sazed says, particularly the tenfold increase. Their allomantic abilities aren't affected. Miles wasn't a super-great Augur, but he could perpetually recycle/compound his healing reserves.

Maybe you are right, but it would be cool B)

The one difference in the treatment I noted was that Miles didn't seem to ever need to regularly go unhealthy or store new health. I understand his function to allowed him in the very first instance fill some metalmind for internal consumption, burn that metalmind, releasing 10 times as much healing, and store the excess, with some part of the excess being stored in another for--burning metalmind. Whereas the Lord Ruler could produce age more productively with his Feruchemy/Allomancy, but still needed to spend some time naturally storing age.

This could be due to different reasons, the ones I can think of are :

1-TLR was over 1000 years old so it already had stored more then a 1000 years of age to appear young

2-maybe the rate of burning is different, Atium burned very fast and maybe could save only hours at the time

3-TLR had only 2 Atium mindswhich were filled with hundreds of years, infact when Vin take them off he ages in seconds.

Miles had 30 goldminds all over his body and considering the ending even 1 or 2 inside his body, plus Miles said he would age eventually

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I don't think that the "tenfold" refers to allomantic ability, only feruchemical ability. A compounder can burn their Feruchemical reserves increasing the power in the reserve tenfold. This is basically the same thing that Sazed says, particularly the tenfold increase. Their allomantic abilities aren't affected. Miles wasn't a super-great Augur, but he could perpetually recycle/compound his healing reserves.

The one difference in the treatment I noted was that Miles didn't seem to ever need to regularly go unhealthy or store new health. I understand his function to allowed him in the very first instance fill some metalmind for internal consumption, burn that metalmind, releasing 10 times as much healing, and store the excess, with some part of the excess being stored in another for--burning metalmind. Whereas the Lord Ruler could produce age more productively with his Feruchemy/Allomancy, but still needed to spend some time naturally storing age.

Miles might have been a gold savant from the constant burning of gold metalminds

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Let's see other combinatios one by one:

IRON

is Iron compounding useful ???

If you burn an Iron metalmind you automatically will be heavier, this could be good if you want to refill metalminds faster but in combat, when storing weight is as useful as tapping it, not so much.

on the other side with compounded iron you could have enough weight (we are talking tons here) to stop a running car or even a train.

if you actually pull it towards you you better get out of the way fast.

To me the coolest thing of this combination is actually by making yourself lighter and then pull your self from skyscraper to skyscraper without getting tired (twinborn spiderman anyone ! B) ). I would walk upside down on metal ceilings or crawl up buildings .

possible name: CRAWLER or IRON SPIDER :rolleyes:

Helpful equipment : Iron breastplate/metalmind, a vial of compounded Iron if needed Iron Boomerang :D

Thoughts ???

I

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One more for the night

STEEL

is steel compounding useful ?

Hell yeah

Imagine be able to tap speed from a metalmind without the need to store as much. You would need to go slow only at the beginning but then it would replenish itself anytime you burn it. Awesome.

Imagine as well to be able reload guns faster, shoot and move faster. alleluya

possible name : SPRINTER or SPEEDSTER OR STEEL FLASH :P:Por

Possible equipment : Guns, throwing stars, steel arm bracers with blades attachments on the side B)

Ciao

Edited by None70
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Let's see other combinatios one by one:

IRON

is Iron compounding useful ???

If you burn an Iron metalmind you automatically will be heavier, this could be good if you want to refill metalminds faster but in combat, when storing weight is as useful as tapping it, not so much.

on the other side with compounded iron you could have enough weight (we are talking tons here) to stop a running car or even a train.

if you actually pull it towards you you better get out of the way fast.

To me the coolest thing of this combination is actually by making yourself lighter and then pull your self from skyscraper to skyscraper without getting tired (twinborn spiderman anyone ! B) ). I would walk upside down on metal ceilings or crawl up buildings .

possible name: CRAWLER or IRON SPIDER :rolleyes:

Helpful equipment : Iron breastplate/metalmind, a vial of compounded Iron if needed Iron Boomerang :D

Thoughts ???

I

I was actually thinking about the ramifications of "compounding." (I like that name, it makes sense. So far we have been going with "TLRs atium trick" for a name, which is clunky.) Some of which led me to create TLR Allomantic strength thread, others which I will say now. As an interesting note, the stronger the Allomancer, the larger the multiplier one should get from Feruchemical compounding. (A Feruchemist who eats a Lerasium bead should get much more power out of burning a metalmind than a mere Twinborn.)

For each metal, the "benefits" are as follows:

Pewter- Super Strength: Probably on the order of building thrower.

Tin- Super Senses: Binocular vision, with truly ridiculous magnification, Super-sensitive touch, hearing, taste and smell (at or above Tin-Savant level.)

Iron- Super Weight: Umm, you are very big boned. Very.

Steel- Super Speed: Supersonic is probably easy.

Brass- Super Heat: Brass may or may not be able to increase body temperature. If it actually increases body temperature, then you could have a Human Torch thing going on, though the host may not survive it. If not, then you will never be cold again. Ever.

Zinc- Super Mental Speed: Calculating large equations in your head has never been easier.

Bronze- Super Wakefulness: Who needs caffeine? You never need to sleep again. (Though it may run into a problem after a long time of no rest: the longer you stay awake, the more Wakefulness you may need to tap to stay awake.)

Copper- Super Memories?: This is weird...

Gold- Super Health: As has been mentioned, this makes the user close to unkillable.

Electrum- Super Determination: Manic state extraordinaire, you never feel depressed and probably experience delusions of grandeur.

Bendalloy- Super Sustenance: Never need to drink or eat again (may be under the same constraints as Bronze.)

Cadmium- Super Breath: Who needs to breathe? (again, see Bronze)

Alluminum- Super Identity: ...no clue...

Duralumin- Super Connenction: You are everyone's best friend!

Chromium- Super Luck: You are now Mat Cauthon.

Nicrosil- Super Investiture: We don't really know what it does normally so we can't speculate on what would happen with a super boost.

Atium- Super Age: We know what this does (see Bronze for possible limitations)

Time for some fun:

Situation: TLR has grown weary of his existence on Scadrial and decides to commit suicide. After debating over it for a few years, he decides to crush himself to death with Iron Feruchemy; a painful end to his miserable life. He decides to use all of the iron in Kredik Shaw as a metalmind to store enough Weight to kill himself, and then burning as many Iron metalminds as he can eat to increase the Weight by a large multiplier, while burning a Pewter metalmind to stay alive long enough to be tapping every ounce of Weight from Kredik Shaw at the same time.

What TLR doesn't know is that the amount of Weight he plans on tapping will cause the density of his body to rise so high that it, combined with his size, will be smaller than the Schwarzschild radius for his body, turning his body into a black hole!

This is, mostly, a joke, as it would require increasing TLR's density from around 1 kg/m^3, assuming TLR has a mass of 100kg and a "radius" of 1m, to a truly ridiculous density of 6.74*10^24 kg/m^3, which is seven orders of magnitude larger than the density of a neutron star. It is more likely that his density would approach that of very dense metals (Gold, Platinum, Osmium; densities around 2*10^4 kg/m^3) or maybe high enough to be similiar to a White Dwarf (density of ~10^9 kg/m^3), which would still kill him. But, as a thought experiment, it is fun to play around with. :D

Edit: Afaik, compounding only grants an increase in Feruchemy. The storage being burned is just metal (for Allomancy) and the increased Feruchemical effects are due to the stored attribute "going along for a ride."

Edited by Thor
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Bronze- Super Wakefulness: Who needs caffeine? You never need to sleep again. (Though it may run into a problem after a long time of no rest: the longer you stay awake, the more Wakefulness you may need to tap to stay awake.)

Bendalloy- Super Sustenance: Never need to drink or eat again (may be under the same constraints as Bronze.)

Cadmium- Super Breath: Who needs to breathe? (again, see Bronze)

Actually, I think that there is a relatively good case for only Atium facing the decreasing-returns problem (perahps Bronze too). What does storing and tapping "age" actually do? It increases or decreases your age from the variable "base age" that you are at in your normal life. As you grow older, your base age keeps going up, requiring a proportionally greater amount of stored "age" to get you down to the same physical state. Therefore, an Atium user has to draw more and more age as the years go by.

That raises the question of exactly how the other attributes work. As far as I can see, just about all of them have a fixed "base level" no matter how old you are. Strength, health, determination, etc. might go up or down throughout the course of your life, but they are not bound to do so. I suppose an older Compounder might have to draw a bit more health, strength, etc. as their "base-stats," as it were, go down a bit, but it is by no means comparable to the geometrically increasing cost of Atium compounding.

I would say that while I don't see Bendalloy and Cadmium having Atium's problem, Bronze is on the fence.

If "Wakefulness" ought to be considered as a base-stat that oscillates throughout the course of a few days at most (depending on sleep), then the Atium restriction might apply, in that the normal oscillations will be disturbed and your base-stat will simply keep plummeting as you stay awake. Alternatively, Wakefulness could be a resource that your body only produces so much of (like Health, but only produced when you sleep) but which can be supplemented easily on top of a constant base-state of "sleeping," much like the normal level of Health your body produces keeps you above the base-state of "dead."

EDIT: Nice table, by the way. It's about time we had something that was easy to reference.

Edited by Kurkistan
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Actually, I think that there is a relatively good case for only Atium facing the decreasing-returns problem (perahps Bronze too). What does storing and tapping "age" actually do? It increases or decreases your age from the variable "base age" that you are at in your normal life. As you grow older, your base age keeps going up, requiring a proportionally greater amount of stored "age" to get you down to the same physical state. Therefore, an Atium user has to draw more and more age as the years go by.

That raises the question of exactly how the other attributes work. As far as I can see, just about all of them have a fixed "base level" no matter how old you are. Strength, health, determination, etc. might go up or down throughout the course of your life, but they are not bound to do so. I suppose an older Compounder might have to draw a bit more health, strength, etc. as their "base-stats," as it were, go down a bit, but it is by no means comparable to the geometrically increasing cost of Atium compounding.

I would say that while I don't see Bendalloy and Cadmium having Atium's problem, Bronze is on the fence.

If "Wakefulness" ought to be considered as a base-stat that oscillates throughout the course of a few days at most (depending on sleep), then the Atium restriction might apply, in that the normal oscillations will be disturbed and your base-stat will simply keep plummeting as you stay awake. Alternatively, Wakefulness could be a resource that your body only produces so much of (like Health, but only produced when you sleep) but which can be supplemented easily on top of a constant base-state of "sleeping," much like the normal level of Health your body produces keeps you above the base-state of "dead."

EDIT: Nice table, by the way. It's about time we had something that was easy to reference.

That is indeed the burning question: does tapping Wakefulness stave off fatigue (so when you stop tapping Wakefulness your body acts as if it has been awake all this time and you become VERY tired) or do you enter a "fatigue free zone" where your body is immune to fatigue (when you stop tapping Wakefulness, your body is as tired as it was when you started tapping.) If the former applies then the Atium problem will exist; the later yields no problem. Same with Cadmium and Bendalloy: if your body is "supplied" by the metalmind (food/liquid for Bendalloy and oxygen/air for Cadmium) and you are not racking up a "debt" (the metalmind is actually giving you energy/air/sleep rather than allowing you to ignore the need for energy/air/sleep), then you will not have this problem. I think that the latter idea makes more sense than the first, based off of the Ars Arcanum. (So, if you are tapping Bendalloy, do you still need to use the bathroom?)

Atium may still have that restriction as it doesn't supply a substance, it just reverses time (in the case of getting younger.) The older you get, the more Age you need to tap to stall the aging process. If you are 50 and you want to be 20 then you need 30 years of Age being tapped continuously to appear that young. If you are 100 and you want to be 20 then you need 80 years of Age being tapped continuosly to appear that young. I think the next question that needs to be answered is: does your "base body" still age if you are continuously tapping age? TLR would seem to point that this is true, which would force him to be continuously tapping ~1000 years of age to stay youthful (around 25-30 years old is my guess) and that takes a lot of Atium... Immortality takes a lot of effort, with Atium compounding.

Edit: Grammar...

Edited by Thor
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Atium may still have that restriction as it doesn't supply a substance, it just reverses time (in the case of getting younger.) The older you get, the more Age you need to tap to stall the aging process. If you are 50 and you want to be 20 then you need 30 years of Age being tapped continuously to appear that young. If you are 100 and you want to be 20 then you need 80 years of Age being tapped continuosly to appear that young. I think the next question that needs to be answered is: does your "base body" still age if you are continuously tapping age? TLR would seem to point that this is true, which would force him to be continuously tapping ~1000 years of age to stay youthful (around 25-30 years old is my guess) and that takes a lot of Atium... Immortality takes a lot of effort, with Atium compounding.

Edit: Grammar...

My point exactly. :)

P.S. I would also like to formally propose "Compounder" as the name for any Twinborn whose Allomantic and Feruchemical metals are the same. Fyodor was the first to bring it up that I've seen, and I think the name is quite appropriate.

An iron/iron Twinborn would be an "Iron Compounder," a steel/steel Twinborn would be a "Steel Compounder," etc.

Edited by Kurkistan
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My point exactly. :)

P.S. I would also like to formally propose "Compounder" as the name for any Twinborn whose Allomantic and Feruchemical metals are the same. Fyodor was the first to bring it up that I've seen, and I think the name is quite appropriate.

An iron/iron Twinborn would be an "Iron Compounder," a steel/steel Twinborn would be a "Steel Compounder," etc.

Makes sense to me. I like it. And, along that vein, the method of Allomantically burning a Feruchemical storage should be called "compounding," with the verbs/verb conjugations being based on "compounding." Ex: The Lord Ruler compounded Atium for functionally immortality. Being able to compound Pewter is what made George so strong. etc.

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Makes sense to me. I like it. And, along that vein, the method of Allomantically burning a Feruchemical storage should be called "compounding," with the verbs/verb conjugations being based on "compounding." Ex: The Lord Ruler compounded Atium for functionally immortality. Being able to compound Pewter is what made George so strong. etc.

That works: They actually already call it "compounding" in AoL (pg 191). I don't think I saw an example of it being used as a verb, though.

Edited by Kurkistan
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First of all I agree with all you guys said so far .

I was thinking about STEEL storing speed, what would be the middle ground of speed,

I googled the average speed of a man running and was 15 MPH while the average for a marathon runner ( a continuous run) is around 13 MPH

I probably can run only 7 or 8 MPH :P

- would the storing affect differently people in various stages of physical fitness ??

- if a store speed do I have to run in slow motion or just walk slowly ??

Let's say I run at half my average speed (8/2) storing the rest for an hour when I tap on the metal mind will I run at double my speed or at my average speed plus what I saved (12 MPH)

-Let's say I burn that metal mind instead and I am able to store ten times the speed would that mean that I could now run at 40 MPH ???

would I be able to instead run at say 20 MPH for twice the amount of time ???

Since a "pewter drag" ran can reach the speed of a galloping horse (25-30 MPH) a steel compounder would be faster and what if we compound those metal minds again ???

So the main question is when you store speed you store the actual MPH speed or the time you can old the burst of speed or both ???

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My point exactly. :)

P.S. I would also like to formally propose "Compounder" as the name for any Twinborn whose Allomantic and Feruchemical metals are the same. Fyodor was the first to bring it up that I've seen, and I think the name is quite appropriate.

An iron/iron Twinborn would be an "Iron Compounder," a steel/steel Twinborn would be a "Steel Compounder," etc.

Wayne said Miles was "Double Gold." I don't know whether that was what you called a gold/gold twinborn or if he made it up on the spot. I like Double as the noun. He's a Double Steel. She's a Double Bronze. Compounding can still be the verb though.

So the main question is when you store speed you store the actual MPH speed or the time you can old the burst of speed or both ???

Don't forget that steel affects more than just land-speed. Sazed's attacks on the Kandra guards in HoA were sped up, and he was standing in place at the time.

As for other cases of compounding, here's my take:

Pewter- Brute + Thug = Hulk

Tin- Better senses than savants, but you'd be able to use them separately, Feruchemests store sight in different metalminds than hearing and so forth.

Iron- I'd call this guy a Diver. He'd sink into the ground like it was water.

Steel- Dibs.

Zinc- Mate in 32.

Brass- Better wear metal underpants because I'm guessing you'd burn the clothes off your back. Also, if you set a house of fire by accident, you'd probably asphyxiate.

Copper- I could see a Double Copper being able to go back and actually walk though his memories like he was on a holodeck.

(Wait did I just reference Star Trek before mentioning Star Wars? Rust and Ruin! Fetch me caffeine!)

Bronze- I'm thinking of wakefulness as being clarity of thought. You don't think faster, you think better.

Gold- Already explained.

Bendalloy- ...

Cadmium- ...

Alluminum- I'm thinking of Identity like self awareness, It lets you see yourself as you truly are, better than an Auger even. It might also help defend against emotional allomancy.

Duralumin- His Charisma is over 9000!

Chromium- Vegas Baby.

Nicrosil- ...

Some of these might only be useful if you have the full set like TLR and (probably) Marsh. Kind of like how in Allomancy aluminum and Duralumin are only useful to Mistborn.

Edited by Goradel's Nephew
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The thing about speed is that you're not storing the rate of speed, but the capability for speed. Sazed describes storing speed as moving through molasses. Brandon kind of explained it like this to us at AoL, but in this example he's referring to strength.

A person who can bench 300 lbs will have greater returns on their stored strength than someone who can only bench 100 lbs. If the 300 lb lifter stores half his strength, he will only be able to lift 150 lbs while storing, and can tap that to gain his strength half again for the same amount of time, meaning that he will be able to lift 450 lbs. Where someone who benches 100 lbs storing half his strength would lift 50 lbs and tap for 150 lbs. I think that's related to what you're referring to, anyway. :P

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Wayne said Miles was "Double Gold." I don't know whether that was what you called a gold/gold twinborn or if he made it up on the spot. I like Double as the noun. He's a Double Steel. She's a Double Bronze. Compounding can still be the verb though.

Well don't I feel sheepish. They used "double" on the same page I referenced to show that they were using "compounding." :unsure:

I agree that "Double" works fine as the noun.

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Goradel, on 10 November 2011 - 02:02 AM, said:

Wayne said Miles was "Double Gold." I don't know whether that was what you called a gold/gold twinborn or if he made it up on the spot. I like Double as the noun. He's a Double Steel. She's a Double Bronze. Compounding can still be the verb though.

Well don't I feel sheepish. They used "double" on the same page I referenced to show that they were using "compounding."

I agree that "Double" works fine as the noun.

They are both good but I still think Brandon will find a specific name for it

I suggest :

Immortal

unbreakable

regenerator

"kickThis post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules" :P

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The one difference in the treatment I noted was that Miles didn't seem to ever need to regularly go unhealthy or store new health. I understand his function to allowed him in the very first instance fill some metalmind for internal consumption, burn that metalmind, releasing 10 times as much healing, and store the excess, with some part of the excess being stored in another for--burning metalmind. Whereas the Lord Ruler could produce age more productively with his Feruchemy/Allomancy, but still needed to spend some time naturally storing age.

I don't think we ever actually saw the Lord Ruler storing age. Think about it--in order to store age, he would have to spend time being older than he actually was, and just catching up to where he should have been killed him in the end. I find it more likely that the time the Lord Ruler spent as an old man was actually more about conservation--after a certain point, he would be unable to store any more age, and could just live off his reserves, so conserving that reserve would be very important for him.

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I don't think we ever actually saw the Lord Ruler storing age. Think about it--in order to store age, he would have to spend time being older than he actually was, and just catching up to where he should have been killed him in the end. I find it more likely that the time the Lord Ruler spent as an old man was actually more about conservation--after a certain point, he would be unable to store any more age, and could just live off his reserves, so conserving that reserve would be very important for him.

Wasn't there a scene where TLR was discovered in his Terris-shack in Kredik Shaw looking like an old man? And we were told by Kelsier that TLR went in there on a regular schedule - for three hours every three days (I think). That, to me, sounds like he was spending those hours as an old man so he could store youth.

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I don't think we ever actually saw the Lord Ruler storing age. Think about it--in order to store age, he would have to spend time being older than he actually was, and just catching up to where he should have been killed him in the end. I find it more likely that the time the Lord Ruler spent as an old man was actually more about conservation--after a certain point, he would be unable to store any more age, and could just live off his reserves, so conserving that reserve would be very important for him.

Keep in mind how compounding works.

First you store the attribute in your metalmind.

We will use age as an example. So you store 1 year of age.

Then you burn the metalmind. This releases the attribute 10 fold.

In the age example this would give you 10 years of age.

You then store that in a metalmind. You now have 10 years of age in a metalmind.

If you were then to burn that metalmind you would have 100 years of age. After the first storage you never need to get older to store the attribute.

So I don't think reserves were a real problem. However the Lord Ruler was trying to hide as much atium as possible so he would probably try to use as little as possible. So the being older as a conservation method might be true.

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I don't think we ever actually saw the Lord Ruler storing age. Think about it--in order to store age, he would have to spend time being older than he actually was, and just catching up to where he should have been killed him in the end. I find it more likely that the time the Lord Ruler spent as an old man was actually more about conservation--after a certain point, he would be unable to store any more age, and could just live off his reserves, so conserving that reserve would be very important for him.

I agree that it would seem to be impossible for him to store age the natural way, but that's what Sazed seemed to think was happening during his periods of relative age.

As for Miles, it seems like he never needed to stop healing-he basically could re-store some part of his Allomantically released healing in another allomantically usable goldmind, thus making it unnecessary to ever store healing after the initial bit.

Edited by fyodor
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I have a somewhat random theory as to why TLR retreated into his “Terris-shack” and allowed himself to grow a bit older on a regular basis: In order to avoid Ruin’s attentions.

We know that TLR was very aware of Ruin’s existence and inimical nature. He may or may not have been aware that Ruin was influencing him through his atium bracers. If he was aware of Ruin’s ongoing influence, then he presumably allowed it to continue in order to distract Ruin from his preparations (the tunnels, hiding atium, etc.) by making Ruin fixate on him. He also might have been, for some reason, unwilling or incapable of going without Hemalurgically charged atium spikes in the course of his daily life.

Assuming that TLR was aware of Ruin’s influence through the spikes, then it makes sense that TLR would occasionally want to have moments “alone” to plan and think that he could be sure were not being observed or influenced by Ruin. From this desire comes the shack, where he would remove his atium bracers and use an alternative source of atium to keep himself alive.

Going on the “conservation” argument, we see that TLR would be more willing to appear “weak” in the shack than throughout the course of his daily life, thus allowing minimal expenditure of resources. TLR also wouldn’t want there to be any large amount of atium around that wasn’t directly on his person, both for security and for Ruin-defeating purposes. Therefore, the amount of atium he used to keep himself alive while in the shack would be minimal.

To sum it up, TLR might have chosen to allow himself to be more old while in the shack because he voluntarily deprived himself of the lion's share of his stored age in order to be able to think clearly on a regular basis without the interference of Ruin.

Alternatively, he could just be mopey and want to “feel” his age while he thinks of times past.

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Keep in mind how compounding works.

First you store the attribute in your metalmind.

We will use age as an example. So you store 1 year of age.

Then you burn the metalmind. This releases the attribute 10 fold.

In the age example this would give you 10 years of age.

You then store that in a metalmind. You now have 10 years of age in a metalmind.

This is one thing that bugged me about Miles.

I thought that this was the manner in which it worked, but when Miles used his Augery, it was written as if he hardly ever used it.

This makes me think that either he wasn't actually burning his goldminds, or burning a metalmind overrides any allomantic effect of burning a metal in favor of activating the feruchemical effect at an amplified degree.

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