Small spoiler, don't read if you don't know anything about Hoid and lerasium

[Oudeis]

It's widely assumed that Hoid went to the Well before Vin made it, and stole one of two beads of lerasium, leaving the other, which Vin gave to Elend blah blah blah.

 

What if he hadn't?

 

How would the events of the third book have been different if Vin gave one bead to Elend, they all realized what it could do, and they had one more bead left, to use as they saw fit?

 

Would it have been given to Vin? Make their most powerful weapon even more powerful? I feel she wouldn't have wanted it. Her own powers at that point were peculiar enough to herself that she might not have wanted to mess with them, and she'd've made the case that two supermistborns and a well-trained mistborn was better than one supermistborn and one well-trained supermistborn.

 

Would it have gone to Demoux? He was young, strong, fit, a decent fighter. They didn't at the time know he was an unsnapped Seer. In their eyes it would have been elevating one of their allomantically weak but trusted teammates into a very powerful tool for Elend's empire.

 

Or Sazed? As a full Keeper, he would have become a full Compounder, which EVERYONE knows is a freakishly powerful thing. And there's no one who doesn't trust him. He himself would prefer not to have it, but I feel like enough people would have convinced him it was a good enough idea and he'd've done it.

 

Tangent I just thought of... can a Kandra burn lerasium? We know they can't mimick a Soother and actually soothe, but do they have the ability every human has to burn lerasium?

[aeromancer]

Um, Demoux isn't an unSnapped Seer. That was magically given to him by the Preservation.

 

As to your theory on the second bead, knowing Elend, he would have argued to divide/dilute it. Or give it to Sazed for safekeeping.

[Pechvarry]

Ham for Mistborn, 2014.

I would say Dox, but he was a bit dead by then.

More likely, they would've studied it all book 3, and it would finally be consumed in a time of need 8 pages before the end.

[Shardlet]

No, Demoux and all the others taken by the mist sickness were natural allomancers who had not yet snapped.  That is why the nobility was mostly untouched by mistsickness.  Most had already been abused to forcefully snap them.  The reason the mists started snapping people was because the mists returned to a default state to cause the snapping.  This was part of the system set up by Preservation before he committed almost all of himself to form Ruin's prison.

[Oudeis]

knowing Elend, he would have argued to divide/dilute it. Or give it to Sazed for safekeeping.

 

I can see where you're going with this, but due to the fact that the world was literally ending, I feel like even Elend would have accepted that there wasn't a lot of point to "safekeeping".

[aeromancer]

Elend is an optimist who hopes that such a potent weapon need never be used, Alternatively, he would've tried bargaining with Yolen using the Lerasium

[Shardlet]

Yolen Yomen wouldn't have believed him.  Also, it is not like Lerasium is a weapon of mass destruction where you compromise your morality to use it.  It makes a powerful mistborn.  I think Ham would have been the likely choice. Maybe perhaps Spook, but I think he likely would have been overlooked.  Also, he was in a bad place emotionally at the end of WoA.

 

Edit: Just noticed that I gave an obligator the name of a planet.

Edited September 27, 2013 by Shardlet

[Miyabi]

I feel it would have been something which was kept a huge secret and Sazed would have studied in great detail throughout the book.

I would have liked the idea of Sazed eating it, but I don't think that anyone would allow that. As much as they loved Sazed, they would fear what might happen with having that much power.

Vin's bloodline seems to be one of the most pure aside from Rashek and Elend, so I don't think that having taken the Lerasium would increase her powers THAT much. I feel that they would have come to the same conclusion so I doubt they would have given it to her.

[Wonko the Sane]

You're leaving out the fact that, in Sazed's hands, the bead could have created an all-metal compounder in the vein of the Lord Ruler. It's true that they didn't have a complete understanding of compounding (heck, we still don't), but they did work out the basic principle in the epilogue of book 1. If Marsh could figure out how to do it (he achieves immortality through atium compounding), I would bet Sazed could.

EDIT: Never mind -- you were leaving that out. Miyabi addressed it. All the same, I would risk a potentially corrupt dictator to stave off the apocalypse.

And WoB says that a mistborn who burns lerasium gets stronger. I don't think that there's an upper limit.

Edited September 17, 2013 by Wonko the Sane

[Shardlet]

I would have liked the idea of Sazed eating it, but I don't think that anyone would allow that. As much as they loved Sazed, they would fear what might happen with having that much power.

Vin's bloodline seems to be one of the most pure aside from Rashek and Elend, so I don't think that having taken the Lerasium would increase her powers THAT much. I feel that they would have come to the same conclusion so I doubt they would have given it to her.

 

I'm not sure that they would've withheld it from Sazed.  He is the one most trusted by both Vin and Elend.  He is first in line to the imperial throne.  That is a position of exceptional trust to give someone who is not a blood decendant.  I think it would be more likely that Sazed would refuse to take it and use it.  Particularly with how he was feeling after Tindwyl's death.

 

True Vin's bloodline was purer than most anyone around and she was a powerfull mistborn. But, it was also readily apparent to her that Elend was much more powerful than her.  So, I think it would have given her a noticable bump in power.  Nevertheless, I agree that Vin would have been unlikely to use it since, like has already been stated, three mistborn are better than two. 

 

 

And WoB says that a mistborn who burns lerasium gets stronger. I don't think that there's an upper limit.

 

Consider though, that Elend was the only lerasium mistborn in the last thousand years.  So any mistborn at that time or after (with the exception of Elend) would have had an increase of power.  To further support this, I point out that the quote says 'most mistborn' as shown below:

 

Quote

17th Shard: If a Mistborn burns lerasium, as in, not just ingests it, what effect would it grant Allomantically?

Brandon:  That is a RAFO. It would do something, but the thing you've gotta remember is that, when ingesting lerasium for the first time and gaining the powers, your body is actually burning it. Think of lerasium as a metal anyone can burn. Does that make sense?

17th Shard: It does.

Brandon: By burning it you gain access to those powers. It rewrites your spiritual DNA, and there are ways to do really cool things with lerasium that I don't see how anyone would know. Were most Mistborn to just burn it, it would rewrite their genetic code to increase their power as an Allomancer.

Edited September 17, 2013 by Shardlet

[Oudeis]

Elend is an optimist who hopes that such a potent weapon need never be used,

I've said this before, but however much of an optimist Elend is, the world is literally and obviously ending. This is the rainy day you save stuff for. He's got his best academics telling him "it's about three years until there's no more food in the world." Optimist or not, he's time and again in the books done what he needs to, in order to save his people. A lump of metal isn't doing anyone any good. A loyal friend with the powers of a supermistborn might save the world.

 

Alternatively, he would've tried bargaining with Yolen using the Lerasium

 

At that point in the story he might've, but he doesn't know at the time that Vin is going to get taken hostage. If he did, he would probably have been more likely to use the lerasium earlier, to prevent the occurence from coming about. There are a few other issues. "Hey Yolen! Give me my wife in exchange for this metal you've never seen before! You just kind of have to trust me that it does something awesome, there's no way to test it."

 

I feel it would have been something which was kept a huge secret and Sazed would have studied in great detail throughout the book.

 

Studied how? What's he got to research, apart from observing Elend himself? Also, see above re: they don't really have the luxury to take their time. It's crisis mode. They've seen it doesn't kill you, and they need more people with the power to control Koloss.

 

I would have liked the idea of Sazed eating it, but I don't think that anyone would allow that. As much as they loved Sazed, they would fear what might happen with having that much power.

 

Shardlet covered this pretty well. They trust him with the whole empire. I'm not saying it wouldn't be a hard, desparate decision, but they made a lot of those as the world was ending. They'd eventually risk giving him that much power, if it meant a chance to save the world.

 

 

Vin's bloodline seems to be one of the most pure aside from Rashek and Elend, so I don't think that having taken the Lerasium would increase her powers THAT much. I feel that they would have come to the same conclusion so I doubt they would have given it to her.

 

I feel like here, the thought process would be more like "we know what happens when a normal person takes lerasium. We don't know what will happen to Vin." We, the people here on this forum, have it from the man who invented and controls the metaphysics what would happen. They didn't know that, in the book. Apart from the argument that increasing her powers isn't as good as making a third mistborn, I don't think they'd've risked learning that a mistborn burning lerasium does something interesting, but not actually useful.

 

 

You're leaving out the fact that, in Sazed's hands, the bead could have created an all-metal compounder in the vein of the Lord Ruler. It's true that they didn't have a complete understanding of compounding (heck, we still don't), but they did work out the basic principle in the epilogue of book 1. If Marsh could figure out how to do it (he achieves immortality through atium compounding), I would bet Sazed could.

EDIT: Never mind -- you were leaving that out. Miyabi addressed it. All the same, I would risk a potentially corrupt dictator to stave off the apocalypse.

All I'm gonna mention is, in my first initial post, I did point out that Sazed would be a full Compounder. I agree with you. I think that Vin and Elend would trust Sazed, but even if they didn't, they'd prefer to give the world to a tyrant than watching it die. 

 

EDIT: Um... in my attempts to multi-quote, my quotes seem to have broken. Trying to fix. Not... working as well as I'd like. My apologies to everyone I'm quoting, I don't mean to give any offense or fail to give you your due.

Edited September 17, 2013 by Darnam

[Kurkistan]

No, Demoux and all the others taken by the mist sickness were natural allomancers who had not yet snapped.  That is why the nobility was mostly untouched by mistsickness.  Most had already been abused to forcefully snap them.  The reason the mists started snapping people was because the mists returned to a default state to cause the snapping.  This was part of the system set up by Preservation before he committed almost all of himself to form Ruin's prison.

 

Maybe, maybe not. He could have been an unsnapped Seer (which I doubt, given the agony he's likely already gone through in life), or he could have been someone who would never snap, ever, into anything. Now we still have the question on whether he was still technically an unSnapped Seer, or if he was made into a Seer by the snapping.

 

Did the mists really pick out that exact percentage of the army who happened to be latent Seers, or (more likely), did they make them into Seers?

 

http://brandonsanderson.com/annotation-Mistborn-3-Chapter-Seventy/ (yeah, Annotations are back up!)

[Kadrok]

Studied how? What's he got to research, apart from observing Elend himself? Also, see above re: they don't really have the luxury to take their time. It's crisis mode. They've seen it doesn't kill you, and they need more people with the power to control Koloss.

Well, for example... the Feruchemical properties of Lerasium.

[Vortaan]

Well it definitely would have been used. Letting it sit is asking for an Inquisitor to take it. I think it may have gone to Spook. Ham already has a prime battle metal, Sazed was refusing to even use Feruchemy, Breeze was shell shocked, and Demoux was still pretty much trusted young captain. That leaves Spook, their best spy without being Mistborn. Since Elend and Vin were searching for caverns, having a Mistborn spy seems like the most logical choice