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A theory on lerasium's role in Hemalurgy


TheOneKEA

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I just experienced a minor brainwave regarding lerasium's potential role in Hemalurgy and I'd like to know if the theory is at all plausible.

 

Theory: A Hemalurgic spike made entirely of lerasium heals all of the physical, cognitive and spiritual damage caused by the use of any other Hemalurgic spike on a still-living donor, returning the person to the state they were in before they were spiked. A Hemalurgic spike made of Lerasium and another Hemalurgic metal only heals the damage caused by the theft of the trait stolen by a spike made of that same Hemalurgic metal. If either spike is removed, the effect is lost and the donor returns to their damaged state.

 

This occurred to me when I was thinking about atium's use in Hemalurgy, and how it can be used to steal any trait at all from a donor. Because of everything we know and have speculated on regarding the balance between Preservation and Ruin, it occurred to me that lerasium might have a complementary and opposite effect of undoing the theft of Hemalurgically stealable traits. It makes me wonder, for example, if Marsh could be returned to normal by replacing his keystone spike with a lerasium spike and then removing all of the other ones...

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I kinda doubt this one. Our precedent is Allomantic Atium, which is used for a very powerful but highly specific purpose. This seems a little too broad. That makes Lerasium pretty hard to figure out, since Hemalurgy has a confined set of things it might potentially do that the regular metals have pretty well covered, and any specific improvement to the theft process leads to the question of which abilities it works on.

 

Maybe pure Lerasium is ineffective, but alloys have non-decay for whatever they'd normally steal.

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/>The fact that atium works in allomancy belies your claim.

 

Nto Really beaucse a magic system NEEDS inevesture from the sahrd involved to work otherwise it is not linked to the shard right? and lalomancers all have little preservatgions in them whcih makes themn have their powers but anyone form anywhere on nay planet with no ivnestture can use heamlrugy if they know hwere to put the spikes and want to, but there was a RAFO on if any kinda metal could work.

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Maybe pure Lerasium is ineffective, but alloys have non-decay for whatever they'd normally steal.

 

I highly doubt that lerasium wouldn't work in hemalurgy.  It would make no sense, atium works in both so lerasium should work in both.

 

I also highly doubt lerasium or its alloys would have "non-decay" because that would kind of make them "better" than atium which doesn't have non-decay.

 

On the OP... Eh, I'm not sure, maybe? I'm not really sure spiking can be healed though. My personal theory is that lerasium acts as an allomancy-master spike, i.e. it can be used to spike for any allomantic ability.

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I highly doubt that lerasium wouldn't work in hemalurgy.  It would make no sense, atium works in both so lerasium should work in both.

 

I also highly doubt lerasium or its alloys would have "non-decay" because that would kind of make them "better" than atium which doesn't have non-decay.

 

On the OP... Eh, I'm not sure, maybe? I'm not really sure spiking can be healed though. My personal theory is that lerasium acts as an allomancy-master spike, i.e. it can be used to spike for any allomantic ability.

 

That seems redundant. Atium already does that. I wonder if lerasium can actually hold multiple abilities, but at lesser strength. I think that would follow the whole Preserving aspect, as you aren't wasting anything, but still accomplish the Ruin part of Hemalurgy since you still need to sacrifice someone.

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While I don't believe lerasium will 'heal' the "being spiked" of hemalurgy, I can actually see something of a case for it. In allomancy, lerasium re-writes your spiritweb. Normal hemalurgy rips bits off of your spiritweb. There's a connection, tenuous though it may be, that a lerasium spike could "reboot" your spiritweb, or at the very least take the ripped shreds of it and "stitch" them together.

 

If you follow the analogy, normal hemalugy is like ripping off a person's arm and attaching that arm to someone else. In this theory of lerasium spikes, it might either give you a new arm, either the one you lost or a close simulation, or at the very least it might close off the wound, so instead of being a person with a gaping wound at your shoulder, you're an amputee.

 

In keeping with the principles of hemalurgy, however, I think you'd still have to charge the spike by killing someone else with it. Perhaps lerasium takes the other person's spiritweb whole, instead of taking it to pieces. That's not to say that it then grants you multiple powers with a single spike, I just think that whatever effect it has requires an entire, complete spiritweb.

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Keep in mind guys that Hemalurgy -always- results in a loss of power. You can't sidestep that, anymore than you can sidestep Allomancy creating a net gain. I find it more likely that whatever a lerasuium spike would do, it does it less effectively than if you are not spiked at all. I personally still think that spiking an Elend and putting that in a normal person to get a Vin is pretty darn handy.

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I'm guessing Lerasium would be a bit like atium in that it can take any attribute but only in much smaller quantities and preserves even if the spike doesn't enter the human body again. This makes it ideal for taking a bunch of little bites from a bunch of people without having to worry about it ever loosing its charge. So if Atium can take 90% of any single attribute but works like the rest of Hemalurgy in that there is a loss and continues being lost of not inserted into a body, then Lerasium would be 1% of multiple attributes permanently without need to resheath it. However given that Hoid's letter state he's keeping it as safe as his skin may mean it does loose power if not the body, or he doesn't yet know if it can experience loss or not.

 

Combined with the fact that burning hemalurgic spikes splices the attribute into a person's spirit web and Lerasiums ability to grant all allomatic powers... could produce some very powerful abilities when applied to steal non-scandrial powers as well could mean this spike would be Hoid's endgame. Plus there's Hoid's potential for compounding given he's a feruchemist.

Edited by Darkarma
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I just imagined it stealing one specific albeit incredibly useful trait, although there is a case for it decaying less as well, given that Atium is used up so quickly in allomancy Lerasium should do the opposite, then again Lerasium burns instantly in allomancy so i guess that might not carry over.
I was thinking something along the line of stealing fortune would be sufficiently awesome.

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I just imagined it stealing one specific albeit incredibly useful trait, although there is a case for it decaying less as well, given that Atium is used up so quickly in allomancy Lerasium should do the opposite, then again Lerasium burns instantly in allomancy so i guess that might not carry over.

I was thinking something along the line of stealing fortune would be sufficiently awesome.

 

But atium already does this. In fact, atium steals... anything. So what would make a lerasium spike good? It either steals a lot of things... or maybe doesn't deform spiritwebs when you use it.

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  • 2 years later...
On 10/29/2013 at 6:32 PM, TheOneKEA said:

I just experienced a minor brainwave regarding lerasium's potential role in Hemalurgy and I'd like to know if the theory is at all plausible.

 

Theory: A Hemalurgic spike made entirely of lerasium heals all of the physical, cognitive and spiritual damage caused by the use of any other Hemalurgic spike on a still-living donor, returning the person to the state they were in before they were spiked. A Hemalurgic spike made of Lerasium and another Hemalurgic metal only heals the damage caused by the theft of the trait stolen by a spike made of that same Hemalurgic metal. If either spike is removed, the effect is lost and the donor returns to their damaged state.

 

This occurred to me when I was thinking about atium's use in Hemalurgy, and how it can be used to steal any trait at all from a donor. Because of everything we know and have speculated on regarding the balance between Preservation and Ruin, it occurred to me that lerasium might have a complementary and opposite effect of undoing the theft of Hemalurgically stealable traits. It makes me wonder, for example, if Marsh could be returned to normal by replacing his keystone spike with a lerasium spike and then removing all of the other ones...

Except that you are forgetting that Atium and Lerasium are not always opposites. Allomantic Lerasium makes someone a mistborn, or increases a mistborns power, while Atium lets them see other peoples future.

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1 hour ago, The True Survivor said:

Just as a sidenote to this, whatcha all think about the possibility of using the wildcard properties of Atium to steal Surges or Breath?

Just a thought.

Well we know it's possible to steal Surgebinding therefore the Atium is a good candidate. Instead is impossible to store Breath because it's "too physicalt to work with Hemalurgy (that steal piece of SpiritWeb) but you may steal a Divine Breath

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It should be noted that the effects of the Magic are often unrelated to their Shard. In this case we can do a little extrapolation. 

1) Atium works as an allomantic metal, so Lerasium should work as a Hemalurgic one.

2) In allomancy, hemalurgy and feruchemy Atium Has a spiritual effect. In allomancy Lerasium has a spiritual effect. Therefore Lerasium should probably do something spiritual in hemalurgy and feruchemy.

3) Atium has an allomantic effect that no other allomantic metal can duplicate. (I believe this includes Lerasium as Vin could not give Elend Atium when she fueled his allomancy.) Therefore Lerasium should do something Atium cannot duplicate.

4) Atium allomancy gets its power from the investiture inherent in the metal, as opposed to the other metals which act as a key. Thus, Lerasium hemalurgy should also take its power from the metal. This may actually result in the spike degrading faster, but we don't know enough.

my guess is that a Lerasium spike would steal the extra bit of Preservation that gives sentience to the people of Scadrial. So it would basically steal the capacity for intelligent thought... which is kind of awesome.

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