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allomantic spying and pickpocketing


king of nowhere

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In the final empire, a mistborn always kept some atium on him in case of need. the atium had to be somewhere easy to access, for fast use in combat. a mistborn also kept no metal on him except for vials.

Now, since regular vials contain shavings, and atium comes in beads, a skilled iron or steel burner should be able to distiguish an atium vial from a regular one, at least from close.

So just using an allomancer that way at a party (+ eventual smoker if not mistborn) should reveal which of the other nobles were allomancer, and who were the mistborn. Also, since atium vials couldn't be fixed tightly in place, someone burning iron may be able to steal the vial from the target. To counter that, nobles may have started to carry decoy vials on them, with beads of other metals disguised as atium, as well as giving metal vials to people who were not allomancers.

Do you think those kind of things happened often in the final empire?

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Makes sense.  It seems that the identity of allomancers was generally hidden so as to keep an ace in the hole.  It would make sense to employ such feints.  

 

However, on the other hand, there doesn't seem to have been much physical danger at social functions.  The weapons used were political, social, and economic.  Atium would not be particularly useful in such cases.  I think our perception is somewhat skewed since our POV characters were outsiders who needed to be always ready to win a fight.  This means that they would have been always armed.  The same condition would not necessarily generally apply to the nobility.  

 

Back to the first hand, we have the words of the dressmaker in WoA who prepared many features into Vin's ballgowns to facilitate her allomancy.  This was due to his prior experience in providing formal wear for noble allomancers. 

Edited by Shardlet
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The shavings vs. beads thing seems to be an expedient the main characters use rather than an actual rule.  If I remember correctly, Vin used a bunch of pewter beads in WoA. I see no reason any of the other metals cannot be cast into beads for Alomatic use.  The primary advantage with shavings is that whoever prepares the vial has control over how much metal goes into a dose.  With beads it is the metallurgist who decides how much steel a coinshot needs.

 

Also I don't know if there are many people with the audacity to try to pick the pocket of a Mistborn.  To paraphrase a movie I like:

 

Let me see if understand.  You believe that this noble, one of the wealthiest, most influential men in the final empire is secretly a wizard who spends his free time stabbing people with glass daggers, and your plan is to pickpocket this person?

Good luck with that.

Edited by MathEpic
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I don't think Brandon ever explicitly addressed this in any way, but in all the books, it's pretty strong tradition that metals are carried in some sort of alcohol solution. In AoL, Wax even comments on it, saying that he fills his with his favorite whiskey.

 

Allomancers cannot, for all practical purposes, pull/push metals that are encased in someone's body. 

 

Alcohol is an organic solvent.

 

Coincidence? You decide.

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Also I don't know if there are many people with the audacity to try to pick the pocket of a Mistborn.  To paraphrase a movie I like:

 

Let me see if understand.  You believe that this noble, one of the wealthiest, most influential men in the final empire is secretly a wizard who spends his free time stabbing people with glass daggers, and your plan is to pickpocket this person?

Good luck with that.

Good point, but to try that you must be a mistborn yourself. and once you pull that atium vial, the other guy will have the choice between facing a mistborn who has atium without atium, or letting himself be robbed.

Although I agree it's on the rude side and can only be done in times of house wars.

 

@thorderknigh: being inside a body and being immersed into an organic solvent are two completely different things, especially from a realmantic perspective. Otherwise they could just keep any kind of metal coated with oil. or into a woolen sheat.

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@thorderknigh: being inside a body and being immersed into an organic solvent are two completely different things, especially from a realmantic perspective. Otherwise they could just keep any kind of metal coated with oil. or into a woolen sheat.

 

The question really is why you can't push on metals inside a body - is it because they're part of the spirit, and thus part of the person's Investiture, which resists efforts to Push it? If so, it would be rather easy to protect metal vials - just make the vial regularly, but coat it in a layer of tin and get a Feruchemist friend to charge it. But if it's more Realmatic, ie. metal inside you becomes 'you' and considers itself as metal less, then that changes things.

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I don't think Feruchemy actually accumulates enough Investiture under normal circumstances to resist Pushes and Pulls.

 

As far as I know, Sazed never actually managed to fill a metalmind. Wax had what, years of weight stored up when he did his little stunt? His metalminds weren't full. Sazed's rings and bracers are also comparatively huge compared to what I am thinking -  I am talking about making a very very thin coating (think gold foil) so it fills to maximum very quickly and thus becomes immune to Pulling/Pushing. I don't think total Investiture matters, I think what matters is Investiture density.

 

And of course, they could always just use aluminum foil.

Edited by Moogle
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THey can use aluminium foil in aol era, because they know about it. in final empire era, they didn't knew the properties of aluminium, likely. Maybe some of the nobles that used it as diningware for its value noticed it didn't give allomantic lines, but if so they kept it a secret.

As for full metalminds being push/resistant, it's probably not the case. even if sazed's one weren't full, they should still have had some resistance. or it should be known in aol era. so probably the reason it's so difficult to touch metal inside a body is because cognitively they register as part of you.

Ok, the actual reason is that if allomancers could push the metals in each other's stomacs allomancy wouldn't be as spectacular as it was, and all the stuff with Vin's earring could have never happened. But since it has to be justified realmantically...

 

Anyway, I got another idea: burn atium to be the perfet pickpocket and steal atium from your rival nobles. You'll still have the same amount of atium you started with, and you'll weaken them.

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As for full metalminds being push/resistant, it's probably not the case. even if sazed's one weren't full, they should still have had some resistance. or it should be known in aol era. so probably the reason it's so difficult to touch metal inside a body is because cognitively they register as part of you.

 

We have these two WoBs, actually:

 

Herowannabe ()
Can an infused Hemalurgy spike be affected by Allomancy—steel pushes and iron pulls? Or does the charge interfere with the Allomancy much like a persons body would?
Brandon Sanderson

Anything infused (regardless of the world or magic that infused it) is resistant to magic. So you'd have a lot of trouble pushing or pulling on a spike, unless you had access to a boost of some sort to overcome the resistance.

 

 

Why are invested objects like metalminds and Hemalurgic spikes able to be Pushed and Pulled on, but Shardblades and Shardplate, which are also invested, are not susceptible to Pushing and Pulling?

His answer was complex, I took notes, but didn't get recorded audio. I am going to try to explain as best as my notes and memory support.

BRANDON SANDERSON (paraphrased)

There were a few concepts that he outlined in answering this question.

1.) The ability to push/pull an invested object is predicated to the amount/power of the investiture

2.) Further, invested objects also gain resistance to pulling/pushing based on proximity to soul possibly via the soul. An example given is that A hemalurgic spike touches the blood of the person, and from there is now part of both the Spiritual Realm and the Physical Realm. This provides what Brandon termed a kind of "soul interference," based on its proximity to the soul.

 

So... kind of a conflicting answer, though I think it can be argued that the soul is Investiture, and so metal inside somebody is kinda-Invested.

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As far as I know, Sazed never actually managed to fill a metalmind. Wax had what, years of weight stored up when he did his little stunt? His metalminds weren't full. Sazed's rings and bracers are also comparatively huge compared to what I am thinking -  I am talking about making a very very thin coating (think gold foil) so it fills to maximum very quickly and thus becomes immune to Pulling/Pushing. I don't think total Investiture matters, I think what matters is Investiture density.

 

And of course, they could always just use aluminum foil.

 

saze had rings at max seo it si not that he ddint ever fill thngs up ig he hadnt then he coudl use jsut rings and not other metlaminds but eh said the rings only coduld hodl so much

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