Refined Atium feruchemancy

[Stormlightsong]

Because of Brandon’s retcon on Atium in the second era of Mistborn, I have been thinking about the feruchemantic implications of refined Atium.

As I was looking at the Coppermind to find answers, I found that the Feruchemical abilities of refined Atium are unknown.

I suspect I know the answer, but first we must revisit what we know of the ferachemantic abilities of Atium.

feruchemantic Atium stores youth. Of course, this is very vague and we haven’t encountered it in use much. I suspect that the effects of feruchemantic Atium are both physical and cognitive.

On the physical level, your body ages forward and backwards when you store or tap. In addition, I suspect that as you age forward, or store youth, you become more lethargic and less interested in doing things, or might I say, undetermined.

You see, because of the Atium Retcon the Atium we know and love is an alloy of Atium and Electrum. So therefore, refined Atium should have the abilities of Atium without the abilities of Electrum.

Feruchemantic Electrum stores determination. So refined Atium should not.

This is why I have reason to believe that feruchemical refined Atium should store physical youth and should not affect you cognitively.

[alder24]

9 minutes ago, Stormlightsong said:

On the physical level, your body ages forward and backwards when you store or tap. In addition, I suspect that as you age forward, or store youth, you become more lethargic and less interested in doing things, or might I say, undetermined.

You see, because of the Atium Retcon the Atium we know and love is an alloy of Atium and Electrum. So therefore, refined Atium should have the abilities of Atium without the abilities of Electrum.

This doesn't work with Allomantic Atium and its electrum alloy. Pure A-Atium grants extended vision of the future, the same way Electrum-Atium alloy does when burned with duralumin. It seems that Electrum in the alloy is more like a restriction of power than giving abilities to the alloy. Storing youth in pure Atium might likely get rid of restrictions that Rashek was facing, maybe even allowing him to permanently overwrite his spiritual age (basically change his age in all three realms), as now Atium is pure, and it's more affecting Spiritual Realm, just like pure Allomantic Atium allows you to look more into Spiritual Realm. But that's speculative of course.

Spoiler

/u/AAKS_

My understanding is that Brandon thinks it is a plothole that Lerasium can be burned by Scadrian (regardless of if they are mistings/mistborn) but Atium can't.

His solution is to retcon the Pits to naturally produce an Atium/Electrum alloy, presumably by the design of Preservation. Therefore we don't know what pure Atium looks like or does when used in any magic.

Peter Ahlstrom

We do know what it does. It’s on the Allomancy poster, and the effect appeared one time at the end of Hero of Ages.

LewsTherinTelescope

Interesting. Do you know if he had already conceived the retcon by the time the poster was written, or if that line about pure atium just turned out to fit really well retroactively?

Peter Ahlstrom

The retcon is way older than a lot of people assume.

LewsTherinTelescope

Does this mean he had it in mind by the time Hero of Ages released (since the first public version of the poster dates to 2008), or just that it's old but not sure exactly how old?

Peter Ahlstrom

Remember that what's in the books is filtered through the understanding of the characters. So even if Brandon planned it from the beginning, if the characters didn't know about it, it's not going to come out in the book.

And see this thread reply from 2009.

Footnote: The link is to a post on the Timewaster's Guide forums, where Peter responds to someone asking about whether atium is an alloy by saying he now knows enough to confirm or deny the theory, but is not allowed to.
General Reddit 2022 (Dec. 4, 2022)

 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

The Lord Ruler died because he had filled his bracers with a large amount of youthfulness, and had to keep drawing it out to stay young--as his soul knew how hold it was, and his body kept trying to 'bounce back' to its perceived age. Compounding is how he gained enough extra youthfulness to pull this off.

Phantine

Actually, I have a question about the 'bouncing-back'.

Is the 'bounce back force' actually what's stored in a metalmind?

For instance, when storing atium a feruchemist ruins his body to make himself old, and then his metalmind 'catches' the force the soul puts out as it tries to restore his true, younger age?

So you create metalminds by seesawing a ruining and a preserving impulse together.

Brandon Sanderson

The bounce back is caused by the relationship between the three realms of the cosmere. What you're saying isn't terribly far off, but at the same time, ignores some underpinning fundamentals of how it all works.

In the cosmere, your soul is basically an idealized version of yourself--and is a constant force pushing your body to match it. Your perceptions are the filter through which this happens, however, and many of the magics can facilitate in interesting ways.

General Reddit 2016 (Jan. 2, 2016)

 

12 minutes ago, Stormlightsong said:

Feruchemantic Electrum stores determination. So refined Atium should not.

You don't store memories in bronze, despite it being the alloy of copper. Electrum-Atium alloy doesn't store determination at all.

[Stormlightsong]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

You don't store memories in bronze, despite it being the alloy of copper. Electrum-Atium alloy doesn't store determination at all.

Then, why is it that you get electrum shadows in allomantic atium? This shows that the electrum does give abilities to the alloy.

Edited April 20, 2023 by Stormlightsong

[Mistchemist16]

5 minutes ago, Stormlightsong said:

Then, why is it that you get electrum shadows allomantic atium.

You get future shadows because that’s how Metallic Arts future sight works. You see shadows. It happens with gold too. There’s no real justification to say that the Atium shadows must be the same as electrum

[Stormlightsong]

24 minutes ago, Mistchemist16 said:

You get future shadows because that’s how Metallic Arts future sight works. You see shadows. It happens with gold too. There’s no real justification to say that the Atium shadows must be the same as electrum

But you don’t get shadows with gold it’s specifically an electrum and Atium thing

[Mistchemist16]

5 minutes ago, Stormlightsong said:

But you don’t get shadows with gold it’s specifically an electrum and Atium thing

Gold still works by showing you shadow versions of the thing beyond time. I’m not saying gold functions exactly the same as electrum. I’m saying that gold, electrum, Atium, and malatium all use shadows as a medium. Gold and malatium give you more information from that past version plus a few other things. Electrum and Atium are the ones that’s see the future and share their own common traits (splitting into tons of shadows against another person seeing the future). 
 

I just don’t see the point you’re exactly trying to make by saying Era 1 Atium provides electrum shadows. It just provides shadows of the future. It’s possible that electrum does help shape the more limited Atium, but that doesn’t soildly confirm Era 1 Atium is comparable to electrum. 

[Stormlightsong]

1 hour ago, Mistchemist16 said:

Gold still works by showing you shadow versions of the thing beyond time. I’m not saying gold functions exactly the same as electrum. I’m saying that gold, electrum, Atium, and malatium all use shadows as a medium. Gold and malatium give you more information from that past version plus a few other things. Electrum and Atium are the ones that’s see the future and share their own common traits (splitting into tons of shadows against another person seeing the future). 
 

I just don’t see the point you’re exactly trying to make by saying Era 1 Atium provides electrum shadows. It just provides shadows of the future. It’s possible that electrum does help shape the more limited Atium, but that doesn’t soildly confirm Era 1 Atium is comparable to electrum. 

When someone uses gold, they do not see a shadow. They see another version of themself if something had gone differently. Both Electrum and Atium make what is described as a “shadow” because of its dark blurry appearance, and the fact that it follows around the person it is showing the future of. I have seen some people say that Electrum should have been an alloy of Atium because of how similar they are.

[Mistchemist16]

43 minutes ago, Stormlightsong said:

When someone uses gold, they do not see a shadow. They see another version of themself if something had gone differently. Both Electrum and Atium make what is described as a “shadow” because of its dark blurry appearance, and the fact that it follows around the person it is showing the future of. I have seen some people say that Electrum should have been an alloy of Atium because of how similar they are.

The term shadow is still used for gold. It is “gold shadow”. Check the Alloy of Law Ars Arcanum entry for gold. I imagine it’s more a matter of detail that distinguishes gold and electrum. That both have the same “base” shadow, but gold fills it in with more past details. I accept that the metals have very different functions, but the principles are the same.
 

Also, I do like the idea that Era 1 Atium can be used as either electrum or a lesser refined atium. However, the really annoying part is Preservation’s 16 scheme. 1/16th of the Mistings got super sick and became Atium Mistings. There should’ve also been 1/16 Electrum Mistings.
 

But that being said, I don’t believe we excplictly see electrum mistings get found in HoA. So it is technically possible that Preservation did double up and made one group of electrum Mistings extra sick to make them seem like “Atium Mistings”. He does have future sight, so maybe he could still translate that. But I don’t know if there’s more concrete proof for either side of that argument.

[alder24]

11 hours ago, Stormlightsong said:

Then, why is it that you get electrum shadows in allomantic atium? This shows that the electrum does give abilities to the alloy.

10 hours ago, Stormlightsong said:

But you don’t get shadows with gold it’s specifically an electrum and Atium thing

8 hours ago, Stormlightsong said:

When someone uses gold, they do not see a shadow. They see another version of themself if something had gone differently. Both Electrum and Atium make what is described as a “shadow” because of its dark blurry appearance, and the fact that it follows around the person it is showing the future of. I have seen some people say that Electrum should have been an alloy of Atium because of how similar they are.

Just like @Mistchemist16 said, you do also get a shadow when you're burning gold. It's a gold shadow, but it shows you your past or different present, but that's still a shadow. Pair of gold and electrum and pair of Atium-electrum and Malatium show you a shadow of the future/past. Electrum isn't an alloy of Atium!!  Electrum is an alloy of Gold. Period. Even Brandon and Ben refers to the images of gold as a "gold shadows":

Spoiler

Dirigible (paraphrased)

If Shai had a gold shadow, and she used one of her Essence Stamps, would her gold shadow change to reflect her new self?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, because she is changing her soul so the gold shadow changes.

Arcanum Unbounded Fort Collins signing (Nov. 29, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Oudeis16

If you burned gold allomantically, who do you think you would see?

Ben McSweeney

Hmmm... well, there'd certainly be a version of myself that joined the US Navy at 19, 'cause that was a thing that very nearly happened. A classified ad and one phone call made the difference that day.

It's hard to imagine a version of myself that isn't an animator, but it's easily feasible to imagine that I could have stayed in illustration and never split the XP to go dual-class. I have no idea what I'd be doing now or if I'd even still be drawing at all, but it'd certainly be different.

Somewhere down a leg of the Time Trousers is a version of me that never discovered Brandon's work, or decided to draw up some fan-art, or posted it to his fan-forums... or tried doing any of those things at a different time in life, because I happened to cross Sanderson's path at just the right time.

The thing about gold shadows is that they show you "a version of who you could have been", but there's a near-infinite set of possibilities for that.

Oudeis16

Yeah, the default seems to be pivotal moments in your life, but life isn't exactly short on near-pivotal moments. It's sorta a rorschach test; when you think about gold, what are the moments in your life that you think are pivotal?

What do you think the Sailor would think of you if you met him via gold? From our limited sample (Vin and Miles) goldshadows haven't shown a tendency to get along very well...

Ben McSweeney

Hard to guess. If military discipline took hold, he might be a different kind of person not just in terms of life history, but also personality and views. If he saw combat, he'd definitely be a very different Ben.

Ben McSweeney AMA (Oct. 6, 2015)

 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Vin's attempt at killing the Lord Ruler was, I thought, rather clever. I made a point of making her be able to touch her past self when she was burning gold. There are a couple of reasons why this didn't work. First of all, the images are just that–images. When Vin touched the face of her past self, it was all part of the illusion that gold produced. None of it was real. So, even if she HAD been able to touch the image of the Lord Ruler's past self, she wouldn't have been able to hurt the Lord Ruler himself by killing it.

The other reason is important as well. The thing is, the Eleventh Metal isn't actually an alloy of gold, but an alloy of atium. If you understand Allomantic theory, you'll understand why this has to be. Each quartet of metals is made up of two base metals and two alloys. The base metals are the Pulling metals, like iron and zinc. They are also made up of two internal metals and two external metals. Two change things about you, two change things about other people.

The Eleventh Metal, like atium, changes something about someone else. Both have to be external metals–that's the way the pairing works. Gold (and its compliment) change things about the Allomancer.

So, atium shows the future of someone else, malatium shows the past of someone else. Gold shows the past of yourself, and electrum (gold's compliment) shows your own future. (We'll talk about that in a different book.)

So, anyway, the Eleventh Metal (malatium) matches with atium–both of which create images from other people. And, just like atium shadows are incorporeal, so are malatium shadows. That's why Vin couldn't touch the one she saw of the Lord Ruler.

Mistborn: The Final Empire Annotations (May 28, 2007)

From Coppermind, about gold, based on the AoL Ars Arcanum:

Quote

A gold Misting is known as a Augur. An Augur burning gold is able to see a hallucination of who the user could have been, known as a "gold shadow."^[1]

And here is this WoB, telling you not to look for the pattern in Atium alloys:

Spoiler

BrandonColevander

How come the base 8 abilities come in pairs by base metal & alloy, but the higher ability pairs are not related?

Peter Ahlstrom

Which book are you on? Things change after the first book. They don't understand things as well as they think.

BrandonColevander

I've read all 4 several times. Ex: electrum is a gold alloy yet it is opposite of atium & malatium opposite gold...>

Peter Ahlstrom

Alloys of atium can't be thought of as establishing any pattern.

BrandonColevander

@PeterAhlstrom there are alloyS (plural) of atium?! Any chance that atium or its alloys show up again in any of the upcoming novels?

Peter Ahlstrom

RAFO

General Twitter 2015 (Jan. 24, 2015)

 

8 hours ago, Mistchemist16 said:

Also, I do like the idea that Era 1 Atium can be used as either electrum or a lesser refined atium. However, the really annoying part is Preservation’s 16 scheme. 1/16th of the Mistings got super sick and became Atium Mistings. There should’ve also been 1/16 Electrum Mistings.

There for sure were electrum Mistings there, but keep in mind, electrum was very rare at this point, almost unknown, so Elend would have only a few flasks worth of electrum just for himself, no more. They had chemists/metallurgists that made them electrum. And there was a cut in chapter as soon as Elend found out that mistfallen were Mistings now. I think it was even mentioned by Elend and Yomen that they have only base 8 metals in storage, no fancy metals. But Brandon's words support that all of them were Mistings of one of 16 metals, including Atium and Malatium. There were Malatium Mistings too, as Malatium and Atium were swapped in base metals for cadmium and bendally.

Spoiler

little wilson (paraphrased)

I saw Brandon at a book signing back in mid-December, and I asked him about the 16 percent deal. He said that Preservation replaced the real External Temporal Metals with Atium and Malatium (at least I'm assuming Malatium, but he didn't mention that specifically. He only said Atium). So not-Cerrobend and Cadmium weren't counted in the 16%. Nicrosil and Chromium, on the other hand, were. So there are Chromium and Nicrosil mistings running around, not knowing that they're mistings.

TWG Posts (Jan. 20, 2009)

 

Spoiler

Kirrin

Also, you should tell us what the last two metals are.

Brandon Sanderson

The last two metals are chromium and nicrosil. We'll reveal what they do on the Allomancy poster. Suffice it to say that in the next trilogy, the main protagonist would be a nicrosil Misting. And, to make a Robert Jordan-type comment, what those two metals do should become obvious to the serious student of Allomancy... (It has to do with the nature of the metal groupings.)

Happy Man

If I read the poster correctly, and have the correlations down, these metals are the external enhancement metals.

The simplest idea is that they do to another person what aluminum and duralumin do to the Allomancer burning them. If this is true, then chromium would destroy another Allomancer's metals (useful skill, that, especially in a group of Mistings fighting a Mistborn) while nicrosil would cause the target's metals that are currently burning to be burned in a brief, intense flash. This could be used either to enhance a group of Mistings or to seriously mess up an enemy Allomancer.

Peter Ahlstrom

The other metals do not have exact one-to-one power correlations like that, so it seems more likely to me that they would work differently. It could be like an area effect weakening or enhancing spell. You would want an enhancer in your party, and you wouldn't want to go up against a weakener.

Nicrosil is a rather more complicated alloy than the others. It's an interesting one to pick, rather than something simpler like nichrome (though I guess that's actually a brand name).

Brandon Sanderson

Nicely done.

Ookla is right, the others don't have 1/1 correlations. But I liked this concept far too much not to use it.

In a future book series, Mistborn will also have become things of legend. The bloodlines will have become diluted to the point that there are no Mistborn, only Mistings—however, the latter are far more common. In this environment, a nicrosil Misting could be invaluable both as an enhancer to your own team or a weapon to use against unsuspecting other Mistings.

Douglas

I take it either Spook did not have children or Sazed made him a reduced-strength Mistborn rather than giving him the full potency of the 9 originals and Elend?

Brandon Sanderson

Spook is a reduced power Mistborn.

Chaos

Very interesting about the nicrosil.

So, if there is no more atium, then that would mean in any future trilogy, there would only be 14 metals, right? Somehow, that doesn't seem right, but maybe that is because it irks me that one quartet to be left incomplete with the absence of atium.

Would it be possible for Sazed to create a replacement metal, by chance, or will the temporal quartet remain inherently empty? It doesn't seem like it's too far of a stretch for Sazed to make more metals: after all, the metal Elend ate was a fragment of Preservation, and now Sazed holds Preservation.

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid. Suffice it to say that what the characters think they understand about the metals, they don't QUITE get right. If you study the interaction between the temporal metals, you might notice an inconsistency in the way they work...

Peter Ahlstrom

Uh-huh. That was already noticed by theorizers in the forums here. Gold works like malatium and electrum works like atium. Yet they're on opposite corners of the metal square.

Brandon Sanderson

Ah. I wondered if that had been noticed.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

 

8 hours ago, Mistchemist16 said:

But that being said, I don’t believe we excplictly see electrum mistings get found in HoA. So it is technically possible that Preservation did double up and made one group of electrum Mistings extra sick to make them seem like “Atium Mistings”. He does have future sight, so maybe he could still translate that. But I don’t know if there’s more concrete proof for either side of that argument.

No, because precisely 1/16th of all mistfallen were Atium Mistings.

[Stormlightsong]

36 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Just like @Mistchemist16 said, you do also get a shadow when you're burning gold. It's a gold shadow, but it shows you your past or different present, but that's still a shadow. Pair of gold and electrum and pair of Atium-electrum and Malatium show you a shadow of the future/past. Electrum isn't an alloy of Atium!!  Electrum is an alloy of Gold. Period. Even Brandon and Ben refers to the images of gold as a "gold shadows":

I’m sorry, I did not know about gold shadows.but gold shadows are very different from Atium and electrum shadows. Though I think we can both agree that shadows only appear in things that contain gold. I will admit that my claim is that feruchemical Atium is influenced by electrum is flawed, but it is a personal theory of mine. And by the way, I never said that Electrum is an alloy of Atium. All I said, was that some people (not me) believed that that SHOULD have been the case because of how similar the two metals behave allomanticaly.
 

[alder24]

15 minutes ago, Stormlightsong said:

Though I think we can both agree that shadows only appear in things that contain gold.

Yes? Malatium is an alloy of gold and Atium, so that's true. For now, we don't know how the rest of Atium alloys behave. So it doesn't really need to mean anything.

16 minutes ago, Stormlightsong said:

And by the way, I never said that Electrum is an alloy of Atium. All I said, was that some people (not me) believed that that SHOULD have been the case because of how similar the two metals behave allomanticaly.

I'm just making sure there is no misunderstanding. They're wrong, they don't understand god metals. Their placement on metal table is more important than similarities of their effects, and we don't know what that means:

Quote

[...]

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid. Suffice it to say that what the characters think they understand about the metals, they don't QUITE get right. If you study the interaction between the temporal metals, you might notice an inconsistency in the way they work...

Peter Ahlstrom

Uh-huh. That was already noticed by theorizers in the forums here. Gold works like malatium and electrum works like atium. Yet they're on opposite corners of the metal square.

Brandon Sanderson

Ah. I wondered if that had been noticed.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

 

[Mistchemist16]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

There for sure were electrum Mistings there, but keep in mind, electrum was very rare at this point, almost unknown, so Elend would have only a few flasks worth of electrum just for himself, no more. They had chemists/metallurgists that made them electrum. And there was a cut in chapter as soon as Elend found out that mistfallen were Mistings now. I think it was even mentioned by Elend and Yomen that they have only base 8 metals in storage, no fancy metals. But Brandon's words support that all of them were Mistings of one of 16 metals, including Atium and Malatium. There were Malatium Mistings too, as Malatium and Atium were swapped in base metals for cadmium and bendally.

  Reveal hidden contents

little wilson (paraphrased)

I saw Brandon at a book signing back in mid-December, and I asked him about the 16 percent deal. He said that Preservation replaced the real External Temporal Metals with Atium and Malatium (at least I'm assuming Malatium, but he didn't mention that specifically. He only said Atium). So not-Cerrobend and Cadmium weren't counted in the 16%. Nicrosil and Chromium, on the other hand, were. So there are Chromium and Nicrosil mistings running around, not knowing that they're mistings.

TWG Posts (Jan. 20, 2009)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Kirrin

Also, you should tell us what the last two metals are.

Brandon Sanderson

The last two metals are chromium and nicrosil. We'll reveal what they do on the Allomancy poster. Suffice it to say that in the next trilogy, the main protagonist would be a nicrosil Misting. And, to make a Robert Jordan-type comment, what those two metals do should become obvious to the serious student of Allomancy... (It has to do with the nature of the metal groupings.)

Happy Man

If I read the poster correctly, and have the correlations down, these metals are the external enhancement metals.

The simplest idea is that they do to another person what aluminum and duralumin do to the Allomancer burning them. If this is true, then chromium would destroy another Allomancer's metals (useful skill, that, especially in a group of Mistings fighting a Mistborn) while nicrosil would cause the target's metals that are currently burning to be burned in a brief, intense flash. This could be used either to enhance a group of Mistings or to seriously mess up an enemy Allomancer.

Peter Ahlstrom

The other metals do not have exact one-to-one power correlations like that, so it seems more likely to me that they would work differently. It could be like an area effect weakening or enhancing spell. You would want an enhancer in your party, and you wouldn't want to go up against a weakener.

Nicrosil is a rather more complicated alloy than the others. It's an interesting one to pick, rather than something simpler like nichrome (though I guess that's actually a brand name).

Brandon Sanderson

Nicely done.

Ookla is right, the others don't have 1/1 correlations. But I liked this concept far too much not to use it.

In a future book series, Mistborn will also have become things of legend. The bloodlines will have become diluted to the point that there are no Mistborn, only Mistings—however, the latter are far more common. In this environment, a nicrosil Misting could be invaluable both as an enhancer to your own team or a weapon to use against unsuspecting other Mistings.

Douglas

I take it either Spook did not have children or Sazed made him a reduced-strength Mistborn rather than giving him the full potency of the 9 originals and Elend?

Brandon Sanderson

Spook is a reduced power Mistborn.

Chaos

Very interesting about the nicrosil.

So, if there is no more atium, then that would mean in any future trilogy, there would only be 14 metals, right? Somehow, that doesn't seem right, but maybe that is because it irks me that one quartet to be left incomplete with the absence of atium.

Would it be possible for Sazed to create a replacement metal, by chance, or will the temporal quartet remain inherently empty? It doesn't seem like it's too far of a stretch for Sazed to make more metals: after all, the metal Elend ate was a fragment of Preservation, and now Sazed holds Preservation.

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid. Suffice it to say that what the characters think they understand about the metals, they don't QUITE get right. If you study the interaction between the temporal metals, you might notice an inconsistency in the way they work...

Peter Ahlstrom

Uh-huh. That was already noticed by theorizers in the forums here. Gold works like malatium and electrum works like atium. Yet they're on opposite corners of the metal square.

Brandon Sanderson

Ah. I wondered if that had been noticed.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

 

Are we sure that Atium and Malatium were swapped for cadmium and bendalloy? There is a more recent 2016 WoB that initially said chromium was subbed out, but then claimed Atium instead. Not sure what the caveat is. If malatium is still there, that suggests Duralumin Mistings were also bumped. Maybe because they could t use a power even if they did get that rare metal. Or to stop Ruin from sneaking more Duralumin by tracking Preservation’s forced Snapping.

Quote

wicktacular

At the end of the first Mistborn trilogy it's really significant that 1/16th of the soldiers who got really sick are now atium Mistings.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

wicktacular

So were there-- were 1/16th of the rest of them just *inaudible* just not significant?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Sixteen that he-- when Preservation set that all up. He, number one, was not all there. But he was trying to create sixteen as a symbol to say, "Hey, catch this. I've given you a clue-- uh-- help." And so it was devised specifically for that. "*inaudible* Something's going on here."

wicktacular

But we know that there's more than sixteen metals. Wh--

Brandon Sanderson

No, no, they would have been Mistings of other types as well.

wicktacular

Did he bump one of the other types then to make it sixteen?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

Chromium.

wicktacular

Okay. Do you have in your head *inaudible*?

wicktacular

Chromium?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that's right. It would probably have been one of the metals that was difficult to get at that level of technology. It would have been chromium - chromium would be hard gather at that time. Actually, no, it would have been aluminum. *about a minute later, while signing someone else's book* Hold on, there's a caveat to that last answer. Let me finish signing this and expand on that. *pause* So, it would still have been aluminum, but not for the reason your thinking. It would have been aluminum, but there's an asterisk next to that answer.

wicktacular

Okay. Interesting.

Brandon Sanderson

Hard to get chromium.

wicktacular

I've been thinking about--

Brandon Sanderson

Oh no! He bumped aluminum. Yeah, he bumped aluminum. Sorry I had to-- I changed my mind.

wicktacular

Oh!

Brandon Sanderson

*a moment later*

Okay, Chad? I have a <qualification> for you. I'll do this and then we'll...

*a moment later*

So...

wicktacular

On the sixteen or the *inaudible*...

Brandon Sanderson

The sixteen. So the answer is "yes," but it's not something-- it's not what you're thinking it is. 

wicktacular

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

Alright, there's an asterisk on it, okay? There's an asterisk on it, it's not what you're thinking. Uh, you're making-- you're making assumptions. 

Arcanum Unbounded Hoboken signing (Dec. 3, 2016)

 

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

No, because precisely 1/16th of all mistfallen were Atium Mistings.

Let me make sure I’m on the same page with you for a moment. I’m suggesting that Preservation knew he wanted mechanical electrum for the Atium mistings. but had just enough future sight to know he couldn’t just have them be sick for the same amount of time as everyone else. So he faked it. He made two 1/16 groups of Electrum Mistings, but made 1 Group extra sick so that Elend would assume they were for Atium. That accounts for how exactly 1/16 of mistfallen became super sick. They didn’t necessarily have to be, but Preservation knew he needed Elend to draw the proper conclusion about them. The other Electrum Mistings just got sick for a few days because that was the minimum for Snapping to work.

Now, meta wise, I don’t see this as highly plausible. If I stepped in Brandon’s shoes, I imagine they were truly God Metal Mistings, even with the retcon (though a hack that would never exist naturally). But I also don’t think we know very little about what happened to the Snapped with unknown or Era 2 metals. So I’m just trying to see if it is impossible for the “Atium Mistings are tricked Electrum Mistings” logic to work

 

 

[alder24]

5 minutes ago, Mistchemist16 said:

Are we sure that Atium and Malatium were swapped for cadmium and bendalloy? There is a more recent 2016 WoB that initially said chromium was subbed out, but then claimed Atium instead. Not sure what the caveat is. If malatium is still there, that suggests Duralumin Mistings were also bumped. Maybe because they could t use a power even if they did get that rare metal. Or to stop Ruin from sneaking more Duralumin by tracking Preservation’s forced Snapping.

Preservation swapped 2 metals for Atium and Malatium, and the other 2 were impossible to get as there was no tech on that level. Which one, it doesn't matter  You might be right because of this WoB:

Spoiler

Chaos (paraphrased)

We asked some questions about the Lord Ruler, like if he knew about chromium and nicrosil.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Brandon said he knew about those metals, and then also said "The Lord Ruler knew a lot of things that no one knows."

Alloy of Law 17th Shard Q&A (Nov. 5, 2011)

But there were Mistings snapped by Mist who couldn't use their powers, as those metals were undiscovered at that point in time. 

10 minutes ago, Mistchemist16 said:

Let me make sure I’m on the same page with you for a moment. I’m suggesting that Preservation knew he wanted mechanical electrum for the Atium mistings. but had just enough future sight to know he couldn’t just have them be sick for the same amount of time as everyone else. So he faked it. He made two 1/16 groups of Electrum Mistings, but made 1 Group extra sick so that Elend would assume they were for Atium. That accounts for how exactly 1/16 of mistfallen became super sick. They didn’t necessarily have to be, but Preservation knew he needed Elend to draw the proper conclusion about them. The other Electrum Mistings just got sick for a few days because that was the minimum for Snapping to work.

Now, meta wise, I don’t see this as highly plausible. If I stepped in Brandon’s shoes, I imagine they were truly God Metal Mistings, even with the retcon (though a hack that would never exist naturally). But I also don’t think we know very little about what happened to the Snapped with unknown or Era 2 metals. So I’m just trying to see if it is impossible for the “Atium Mistings are tricked Electrum Mistings” logic to work

I think we've already had this discussion somewhere else. Keep in mind, before the Rashek Ascension tech was on the level of the 1800s, and they might be able to create all metals, so the number 16 appearing then would be even more important than here. But no, math checks out, it was established in books and WoBs there were only 16 types of Mistings snapped by Mists, equally. 1/16 of them were ill the longest, because they gained the most powerful ability. And it would be illogical for Brandon to write 2 separate sets of Atium Mistings, one in a place with no Atium (Fadrex)...