Aluminum is weird to everyone

[Kurkistan]

So I just spent an indecent amount of time hunting this quote down, and thought I'd share it with the forums since I don't recall any discussion of the relevant passage when AoL was released.

Source:

Kurkistan:
Possible error towards the middle of [AoL chapter 3]: "The thieves had aluminum bullets to deal with Coinshots, Lurchers, and Thugs."

Why would Thugs be includeed [sic] on this list? As far as I know, Thugs simply gain increased physical abilities across the board, none of which would make a Thug more or less resistant to certain types of metal.

#corrections

P.S. Didn't realize I wasn't logged in. Double post unless the other one is removed due to the flag.

PeterAhlstrom:
@49 Kurkistan: It's not an error.

 

So the line in AoL about aluminum bullets being useful against Thugs is definitely certainly not an error.

 

Anyone care to discuss the implications of how aluminum might be useful against a Thug? Disrupting their burning? Ignoring the extra toughness pewter gives their bodies?

[Kadrok]

Kind of fits with Brandon's quote about designing Aluminium to do funky things in all of the magic systems. It makes sense that it isn't just Zinc/Brass and Iron/Steel it interferes in.

 

I wonder... if you could somehow bond Aluminum to the mist, I imagine Tineyes couldn't penetrate it.

[Satsuoni]

Anyone care to discuss the implications of how aluminum might be useful against a Thug? Disrupting their burning? Ignoring the extra toughness pewter gives their bodies?

That is.. weird. The second one, probably (aluminium absorbing Investiture from the tissue as it penetrates)

[bartbug]

Put this on the list of questions to ask Brandon. It's a good one.

[Kurkistan]

Good idea. Done.

[Mailliw73]

What about Copper and Bronze? I wonder if it could block Seeking and Smoking.

[Claincy]

Yeah I think I would guess that it would be that pewter was ineffective at dealing with it. For a couple of example ideas:

-A thug trying to lift a heavy aluminium object might struggle where if it was brass or another metal they would be fine.

-Their enhanced muscle tissue that normally makes them resistant to damage would be useless against an aluminium weapon.

 

Basically more evidence that aluminium is really really really weird. You can keep your Cadmium and Bendalloy Kurk, this is what I want to know about most

 

A note though, I reckon he will RAFO that. I honestly don't think he will answer anything but the most obscure questions about aluminium for now.

[Edgedancer]

So woud Aluminum linings in clothes also protect from Chromium?

[Claincy]

So woud Aluminum linings in clothes also protect from Chromium?

Clothes themselves should protect from chromium. Unless I'm vastly mistaken it has to be skin to skin contact to work, same with nicrosil.

[Pechvarry]

I was thinking perhaps any quantity of aluminum piercing the body would disrupt your ability to channel investiture. The problem becomes: why not use it on Miles? And I think the only reasonable answer would be that he would lose the ability to burn gold, but not tap it (his own power, not Harmony).

[Oudeis]

To play devil's advocate... the phrasing doesn't fully support this interpretation but I like to consider all possibilities... he's not simply saying something like "An aluminum bullet will hurt a Thug worse because his Lurcher friend can't pull it out of the way"?

[Kurkistan]

So woud Aluminum linings in clothes also protect from Chromium?

Clothes themselves should protect from chromium. Unless I'm vastly mistaken it has to be skin to skin contact to work, same with nicrosil.

 

It's not 100% clear. The MAG (Trustworthy and Right  ) says skin-to-skin, and that may well be the case, but there is a case to be made (by me, as turns out ) that you could do it through someone's clothing.

 

To play devil's advocate... the phrasing doesn't fully support this interpretation but I like to consider all possibilities... he's not simply saying something like "An aluminum bullet will hurt a Thug worse because his Lurcher friend can't pull it out of the way"?

 

Thank you for your sacrifice Darnam, but I think we're fine here.

 

Why include Thugs at all if that were the case? Literally anyone would be able to slot into "deal with Coinshots, Lurchers, and X" just as well, or better yet just say "Coinshots and Lurchers" and call it a day, since they're the only ones you need to worry the Aluminum directly changing the actions/options of.

[Oudeis]

Thank you for your sacrifice Darnam, but I think we're fine here.

 

Why include Thugs at all if that were the case? Literally anyone would be able to slot into "deal with Coinshots, Lurchers, and X" just as well, or better yet just say "Coinshots and Lurchers" and call it a day, since they're the only ones you need to worry the Aluminum directly changing the actions/options of.

 

That's how I read it, too. I just like to examine all options, especially if you think about how many doors this opens up. If aluminum can affect more than just the external, physical and mental metals... this could be huge. Any time something excites me as much as this does, I try to play devil's advocate and make sure our foundation is rock-solid before proceeding. With this sentence, and proof that it's not a typo, our foundation might be less than rock-solid but it's pretty darn strong.

 

Sidenote: we talk about allomantic aluminum and feruchemical aluminum... are we gonna come up with a retronym when we're talking about just aluminum, itself? The actual literal metal?

 

Is there any chance this might be part of how southern Scadrians use mechanical allomancy?

 

Is it possible the other metals all have properties of their own, like how aluminum does, and people just don't know it.

 

As some of you may know, my personal interest is in copper and bronze. How does it work? If a Smoker is surrounded by aluminum, does it prevent his cloud? If there's a wall made of aluminum, could it block his power? If there's a small ring of aluminum on the ground with a soother and a seeker inside, and a smoker smokes the area all around outside, can the seeker still seek the soother? Is that redundant; would the ring of aluminum block everything outside anyway? Can it just be a circle on the ground like a magical ward, or does it need to be a full wall to block the power? How do Smoke and Bronzepulses refract at the edges of aluminum?

 

Cosmere-wide: Does Scadrian aluminum resist Soulcasting? Would an aluminum statue not appear in any Memory Shallan drew of it? If you stab a Dakhor Monk with an aluminum knife, does it affect him as it would a Thug? Metal is already pretty resistant to Awakening, so I dunno that I think there's a ton of "point" in asking if aluminum is immune to something it's already incredibly resistant to, just by virtue of being a metal.

 

Shadows for Silence:

Might Scadrian aluminum work like silver to fight off shades?

[Kurkistan]

@Darnam

 

Fair enough on the devil's-advocation. I just have some bad associations with quibbling over interpretations, so might have reacted a bit too strongly. 

 

As to aluminum's weirdness: All excellent questions. Also of note is that some think that "ralkalest" in TES might be aluminum.

 

As to the sidenote: What do you mean? We are talking about the powers whenever we say "allomantic" or "feruchemical" aluminum (or Allomantic aluminum/Feruchemical aluminum, if you like): it's usually pretty clear when people are talking about the metal instead.

 

Aside: Here's another aluminum quote backing up it's universal (at least on Scadrial) weirdness:

 

Source:

QUESTION

Which I did catch was very entertaining to see like that [regarding the Aluminum Hats].

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

I built aluminum to do all sorts of funky things to all the powers, and I actually hadn’t made the connection of tinfoil hats until after I’d built it in, and I was writing it in Alloy of Law, years after I built it in, saying “Wait a minute! I just put tinfoil hats in the book!” (laughter) So I actually built that without thinking that there would be a joke to that.

[Oudeis]

@Darnam

As to the sidenote: What do you mean? We are talking about the powers whenever we say "allomantic" or "feruchemical" aluminum (or Allomantic aluminum/Feruchemical aluminum, if you like): it's usually pretty clear when people are talking about the metal instead.

 

Hopefully I'm worried over nothing, then. I just fear potential misunderstandings on any text-based communication where you can't get inflections, face, or gestures. I've seen people who will start talking about "allomantic gold" or "Allomantic gold" but then, like naming a person and then switching to "he", they'll just talk about "gold" from then on for the post (or sometimes in replies). If this is really about to expand, if it turns out that gold has properties on its own even when not used in any metallic art, I was simply speculating that it might arise that people will come up with a term for this, too.

 

I hadn't even made the connection to the "unforgeable metal", good catch. If it turns out aluminum on every planet has the same anti-Investing powers, then that'd be a strong indication that an allomancer really could just drop onto Sel, pick up some local iron, and burn it, which is counter to my current theory.

 

Perhaps a had with nicrosil in the hatband could be used by a Soother as a boost to his own powers? Maybe pewter has higher tensile strength in this world than in others; maybe a tin mirror reflects light more perfectly than it should, with less diffusion and refraction?

[Vortaan]

Does anyone else find it interesting that aluminum has all these interesting physical qualities, but as a Feruchemical metal it stores what seems to me to be a primarily Spiritual attribute? 

[cem]

Not really. All the physical attributes of aluminum actually applies to Allomancy. But the categorization of Allomancy is not the same as of Feruchemy. For example you can't really differentiate Feruchemical metals as internal/external or pulling/pushing. Things are bound to be different.

[Claincy]

It's not 100% clear. The MAG (Trustworthy and Right  ) says skin-to-skin, and that may well be the case, but there is a case to be made (by me, as turns out ) that you could do it through someone's clothing.

That made for a very interesting read. However I would think that for a general statement for aluminium it has to be skin-to-skin. Why? Because Allomantic battles would get very disappointing otherwise and any future mistborn v mistborn battles end with whoever manages to get the timing right on the chromium to do it first. I just don't think it would work well from a story perspective even if it made sense realmatically.

 

So you know, it got me thinking about how much the person had to consider their clothing a part of them for it to work. Considering that for most people specific clothing isn't really all that important and might not apply for this. For many mistborn however their mistcloak could cognitively be significant to their identity. There would be a certain irony to wiping a mistborns metal reserves through their mistcloak

[Oudeis]

Does anyone else find it interesting that aluminum has all these interesting physical qualities, but as a Feruchemical metal it stores what seems to me to be a primarily Spiritual attribute? 

 

Its effects on emotional allomancy aren't physical, they're cognitive...

 

Speaking of aluminum clothes... first and foremost, I'm all for realmatics, but I feel like hard-and-fast rules will trump them. If it gets written that a Leecher has to touch skin-to-skin, then those are the rules, regardless of how any of us feel about realmatic identiy.

 

That said, if we are going to treat realmatics as the ultimate trump card, then the act of deciding "I'm doing this thing in order to protect myself from chromium" will probably give your clothes the "identity" of armor, so would then likely protect you. BTW, the fact that mistcloaks are designed to be torn off in a fight if need be prolly gives them the same "armor" identity.

 

I don't understand this though. If you can do literally anything by simply believing it, why can't crazy cosmermen fly? They will believe, wholly, deep down, that they can fly. If that's all it takes, shouldn't they be flying?

[Kurkistan]

Speaking of aluminum clothes... first and foremost, I'm all for realmatics, but I feel like hard-and-fast rules will trump them. If it gets written that a Leecher has to touch skin-to-skin, then those are the rules, regardless of how any of us feel about realmatic identiy.

 

That said, if we are going to treat realmatics as the ultimate trump card, then the act of deciding "I'm doing this thing in order to protect myself from chromium" will probably give your clothes the "identity" of armor, so would then likely protect you. BTW, the fact that mistcloaks are designed to be torn off in a fight if need be prolly gives them the same "armor" identity.

 

If there's a hard-and-fast rule that trumps our understanding of Realmatics, then either our understanding is wrong or we're interpreting the rule incorrectly. At no point will a rule just "trump" Realmatics, with no reasonable Realmatic explanation for its workings possible. The door is open about Chromium/Nicrosil in particular because our only source is the MAG, which is of dubious veracity.

 

Also, I'm not sure on Chromium/Nicrosil being able to affect people by touching their clothes. It was a suggestion of possibility. I state in the "clothes and identity" thread that it only seems to matter for a few systems, namely some of those in the business of affecting entire objects (including people) as singular.

 

Either way, it's without a doubt that your skin is more a part of you than your shirt: that might be all the threshold we need to look to for powers like C/N that go into you to mess with you on a pretty fundamental level. We might also want to consider a division between Cognitive and Spiritual definitions of the self as a possible divide: you're Spiritual aspect probably doesn't care what shirt you're wearing, for instance.

 

I don't understand this though. If you can do literally anything by simply believing it, why can't crazy cosmermen fly? They will believe, wholly, deep down, that they can fly. If that's all it takes, shouldn't they be flying?

 

Because he doesn't have magic, much less a magic that's that responsive to his Cognitive aspect? Not to mention that your Cognitive self is also affected by other's perceptions of you (and Forms, I'd say, but that's another discussion). It is by no means the case that "you can do literally anything by simply believing it".

Edited December 12, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Pechvarry]

If there's a hard-and-fast rule that trumps our understanding of Realmatics, then either our understanding is wrong or we're interpreting the rule incorrectly. At no point will a rule just "trump" Realmatics, with no reasonable Realmatic explanation for its workings possible.

I don't think he's implying "there's realmatics except when there's not." But remember: the magic systems are more rigidly defined than realmatics allows.

The same power that can move a planet is also responsible for moving metal objects. But a coinshot can't move rocks like big Harmony can, because his power is more narrowly defined.

Hence, while Chromium allomancy must necessarily adhere to the limitations of realmatics, it will have more restrictions.

[Kurkistan]

@Pech

 

A fair enough interpretation. Sorry if I read you too broadly, Darnam.

[Argent]

So, turns out (hey, look, my country gets a mention!) that aluminum is really rare in nature. Didn't know that.

[Kurkistan]

Yup. It's highly abundant, but the purification process is... not pleasant until you really get the science down.

[QuantumHarmonix]

Has anyone ever asked if Shardplate is Aluminum? I wonder if Aluminum is what makes Surgebinding with it difficult?