Feruchemical Zinc and Allomantic Atium

[Aminar]

So we know that a split second decision change can split an atium shadow. Vin manages to do this once. Now say we have a Zinc Ferring(mental speed) or Feruchemist with tons of Zinc storage. In theory by cycling through decisions at random super fast they could make Atium level Atium Shadows akin to burning Electrum.

I think it might expand past that though. Does Atium compel appropriate action to the currently visible Atium shadow? Because then cycling through ideas at the correct rate could freeze an atium user into a twitchy seizure until they stopped burning atium because they keep getting compelled into half a dozen different reactions a second(likely more).

From there how would this translate into the mistborn RPG? It doesn't mesh well with rules as written.

[dj26792]

Im pretty sure atium doesnt compel action it just enhances your mental capacity to let you act, you still have to actually do it.

[Aminar]

See, it says that Atium enhances reflexes not perception. Reflexive actions aren't controlled. Hence my thoughts on the compel. The narrative makes the dodges feel almost involuntary.

[Commander Spoonface]

I think the feruchemist has to actually start moving their body to adhere to that course of action to make any substantial atium shadow. So if they were using physical speed as well, it work better. At some point doing this would just make it look like they're not committing to any meaningful course of action.

[ReaderAt2046]

So we know that a split second decision change can split an atium shadow. Vin manages to do this once. Now say we have a Zinc Ferring(mental speed) or Feruchemist with tons of Zinc storage. In theory by cycling through decisions at random super fast they could make Atium level Atium Shadows akin to burning Electrum.

I think it might expand past that though. Does Atium compel appropriate action to the currently visible Atium shadow? Because then cycling through ideas at the correct rate could freeze an atium user into a twitchy seizure until they stopped burning atium because they keep getting compelled into half a dozen different reactions a second(likely more).

From there how would this translate into the mistborn RPG? It doesn't mesh well with rules as written.

I don't think your Atium compulsion theory works for multiple shadows, because there is no "twitchy option-overload seizure" when two atium-burners confront each other. More likely, since there is no longer a single appropriate action, atium-reflexes don't take effect.

[Voidus]

Keep in mind that simply changing your mind mid-swing won't split your atium shadow, you have to dedicate yourself to one course of action and observe the Seer since they are the only ones who can influence what is about to happen, then modify your action accordingly. However keep in mind that if this becomes common knowledge then it just turns into an elaborate bluffing game, it basically depends whether you have enough mental speed to exceed the enhanced mental capabilities of a Seer, otherwise you would throw one (bluff) hit, the Seer might then call your bluff and begin to react in a certain way, letting you know to strike in a different direction which they would be aware of and so block anyway, basically just comes down to who's faster but it does negate a large amount of their atium advantage.

[name_here]

I'm pretty sure that the only way to produce multiple shadows is to obtain information from the future. So the reason Vin managed to split her shadow was that she reacted to Zane doing something in response to her existing shadow. Zinc might help with that but wouldn't allow splitting shadows except as a reaction to the actions of the Atium burner. Because of that limitation, it'd be an extremely poor imitation of Electrum, mainly valuable for the element of suprise. If it became known to Atium burners, they could delay reacting until the feruchemist committed to a course of action.

[Vortaan]

I'm pretty sure that the only way to produce multiple shadows is to obtain information from the future. So the reason Vin managed to split her shadow was that she reacted to Zane doing something in response to her existing shadow. Zinc might help with that but wouldn't allow splitting shadows except as a reaction to the actions of the Atium burner. Because of that limitation, it'd be an extremely poor imitation of Electrum, mainly valuable for the element of suprise. If it became known to Atium burners, they could delay reacting until the feruchemist committed to a course of action.

I don't know that they could. As people say, it's almost an automatic response. Actually, with this theory... it seems pretty unlikely that a Mistborn could kill a Feruchemist who has a decent amount of health, speed, and mental speed stored. Probably some weight too to offset Pushes/Pulls.

[Aminar]

I disagree with the committed to an action theory. If that were so then Atium v Atium would still only give one shadow. It shows every possible motion a person can make. It may not grant mind reading but the atium itself has some form of precognative ability. It sees what they will do. Is that based on thought or vision of the future? It can't really be said, but from the descriptions I've read, especially the bit with Vin, it has something to do with thought. Even if they have to twitch their hand as if commiting and then circumvent the command by thinking faster than muscles can react it's still exploitable.

[dj26792]

Its based on future sight the way Vin splits her shadow is by moving fast enough to gain future sight by reading her opponents atium assisted block and changing her move the reason atium gives multiple shadows is that both parties have future sight and adjust their reactions according to each possibility thus making new possibilities and new adjusted reactions. I think a more likely method for a feruchemist to beat atium is steel a skilled fighter could read their opponent like vin did and the speed burst of steel would give them time to respond and adjust their move.

At least as far as I understand it, also I apologise for the terribleness of this post it came from my phone

[Voidus]

Steel would be a bit helpful but given that it doesn't enhance your mental speed your initial reaction speed will be just as slow, the physical action (Changing where you strike) will be faster but you still have to notice where they are about to block and change your own motion, I think the best option would be a Zinc/Pewter, slightly faster speed from the pewter and more time to react from the Zinc, although actually to a double Zinc I think that something like this would become quite easy, you literally have all the time in the world to react to their block.

[Lady_Yasha]

If Zinc is storing mental speed and from what we know of how Vin used Atium to trick Zane, I'd imagine Zinc would increase the frequency of those feints. Being able to think faster gives the Feruchemist more options; they can look into multiple situations and their consequences with astounding alacrity. So one burning Atium as well would produce more Shadows due to their hyper-accelerated brain activity. They'd be thinking of multiple different moves at once and only moving in one of them.

[Aminar]

What I have learned from this. Its worth asking Brandon when my girlfriend and I finally get our Vin Elend cosplay going.

[name_here]

The key limitation is that Atium actually looks into the future and it appears that the cosmere has the future be fixed absent time travel or precognition. So merely considering a lot of options would not produce multiple shadows; only cascade effects from reactions to precognition can do that. Zinc would make that easier, but not inevitable.

[Voidus]

The key limitation is that Atium actually looks into the future and it appears that the cosmere has the future be fixed absent time travel or precognition. So merely considering a lot of options would not produce multiple shadows; only cascade effects from reactions to precognition can do that. Zinc would make that easier, but not inevitable.

Stole the words out of my keyboard yeah it doesn't matter how quickly you can change your mind, realistically that's going to be happening in every fight as the combatants re-evaluate their actions based on the environment, basically in mistborn the future is deterministic, (As in atium can tell which action you will eventually decide to act on, it actually shows the future, not the future based on current actions) but Zinc would give you a lot more time to analyze a Seers actions and should give you enough time to think about what they are going to be reacting to and so change your original action which would cause a split, but simply changing your mind without any reaction from the Seer will not give you atium shadows.

[Aminar]

But it clearly doesn't do that. If Atium saw an unchangeable future then Vin couldn't have tricked Zane's atium. Now, that could be her own natural speed and her mastery with Pewter allowed her to trick the atium, but I doubt it. If so Feruchemical speed should easily obliterate Atium users. The way the scene is written implies extreme mental speed being involved.(As well as physical speed.) Either way Atium visions are not set in stone, this has been proven.

[Cracknut]

But it clearly doesn't do that. If Atium saw an unchangeable future then Vin couldn't have tricked Zane's atium. Now, that could be her own natural speed and her mastery with Pewter allowed her to trick the atium, but I doubt it. If so Feruchemical speed should easily obliterate Atium users. The way the scene is written implies extreme mental speed being involved.(As well as physical speed.) Either way Atium visions are not set in stone, this has been proven.

Atium visions are not set in stone if both sides see future. Vin saw future through Zane's actions. Feruchemical Zinc would make it easier but it wouldn't work all the time even if physical speed matches between Feruchemist and Mistborn (though I'm sure Feruchemists can be a lot faster then Mistborns/pewter Mistings). Because it was Zane's mistake, he was too confident in his abilities. Seer can act in last moments, then even if his opponent reads his actions he won't have enough time to do anything. I don't think Atium gives special reflexes and forces Allomancer to act according to those reflexes. Tt just enhances Seer's mind so she/he can calculate where he should be, what he should do to successfully avoid/counterattack when its needed.

[Aminar]

Now I'm aware that The RPG isn't canonical, but It was signed off on by Brandon and has the largest descriptions seen of individual metals workings. The entry for Atium says (noting I just got my copy of the book so I could look this up) that a defense against Atium is to act on instinct, not thinking at all to minimize what a seer can gain. This implies some thought reading involved in atium. I believe Kelsier mentions this to Vin at one point as well.

Lastly every description of Atium implies it increases reflexes. At no point is an Atium user examining a persons shadow and thinking I could do this because of this. They still think at normal speed. They react much faster though. Again implying reflexes.

Edited August 19, 2012 by Aminar

[Voidus]

On the reflexes thing I think the best example would be Elend Duralumin-burning Atium, he wasn't compelled by reflex to act on anything, it is mentioned that they sometimes react before they even realise what they're reacting to but it's not necessarily a compulsive reflex.

On the Atium mind reading, if it were as easy as changing your mind in a fight then everyone would have multiple atium shadows, at the very least it would be occasionally noticed by mistborn and Seers, and yet Zane is incredibly surprised at Vins atium shadow splitting.

The entry for Atium says (noting I just got my copy of the book so I could look this up) that a defense against Atium is to act on instinct, not thinking at all to minimize what a seer can gain.

I would say that this is going off of what Vin is thinking when she does manage to split her atium shadow, she says she doesn't plan out her attack, simply letting her body react, note that Zane then attempts to block this which means it is obviously still able to be seen by atium, the trick is that she then observes where he is about to block, effectively letting her see her own future, which she didn't already know as she was acting instinctually, this acts like very limited electrum allowing her to see only one of her possible futures but this is enough to allow her to change it and so split her atium shadow.

[Aminar]

Having been in a large number of fights I have to disagree. There is very little I could do this or this. Everything is action reaction. Only the absolute best can do much more than that-see Von pulling it off once barely.

[happyman]

My view on Atium visions and free will is that free will is the limit on atium shadows---the fact that other creatures roughly as intelligent as you will be making their own decisions as best they can is what limits how far you can see into the future. In a fight, decisions occur very quickly and people are processing things slap-dash---the next few seconds is pretty much determined, and seeing that and thinking faster gives you a deadly edge.

Even the Shard's have a limit on how far into the future they can see. This is probably caused by humans making an enormous number of almost (but not quite) deterministic decisions. If other shards are involved, it becomes a lot dicier.

[ReaderAt2046]

My view on Atium visions and free will is that free will is the limit on atium shadows---the fact that other creatures roughly as intelligent as you will be making their own decisions as best they can is what limits how far you can see into the future. In a fight, decisions occur very quickly and people are processing things slap-dash---the next few seconds is pretty much determined, and seeing that and thinking faster gives you a deadly edge.

Even the Shard's have a limit on how far into the future they can see. This is probably caused by humans making an enormous number of almost (but not quite) deterministic decisions. If other shards are involved, it becomes a lot dicier.

Witness Honor's "shattering window" comment. Every time someone makes a free choice, the future splits into two courses.

BTW, just because beings have free will does not prevent the future being pre-ordained. If you know exactly how someone thinks, you can predict exactly how they'd react to any given situation.

[Cracknut]

There is no free will. Atium sees future. You can't trick Seer if you yourself can't see future. When both sides have Atium both see each others future therefore big number of shadows are created. X sees Y action in future and reacts, then Y sees X reaction and changes his action, then X sees how Y changed his actions and reacts again and so on. When Vin fought Zane she saw 'future' through Zane's actions and that in itself altered future.

'Future' isn't something written in stone. Every time Mistborn burns Atium he changes future. But you can't change it without being able to see future.

[Aminar]

213. Given Brandon's religious views and direct evidence to the contrary throughout his books I will say this. You are wrong. There is freewill in the cosmere.(now the irony of it being a published work is still there, but that's a different bag of worms. If you find it fun go read Redshirts by scalzi.)

[Cracknut]

And? Free will changes future? How would you know that your free will isn't 'the' future? You can't change future if you don't know exactly what it is. Otherwise whatever you do was always the future. Atium burner doesn't binds you to some future you don't want to be real. It just shows to seer what will be, is it someones free will or not. Only way to change that is to actually know the future.

I didn't meant that there is no free will and everyone does whatever written in some book of fates or w/e. I meant that free will won't help you to kick seer's chull.

Edited August 20, 2012 by 213