Thoughts and Questions About The Lord Ruler’s Power (and Spikes)

[Fakeout]

This is going to be such a long, long, rambling post, with lots of spoilers. Sorry  Its for my benefit though, so people can correct me where I’m wrong

So I’m re-reading all the Mistborn books currently, I’m on HoA. I’m just going to outline some thoughts and ideas I have and then end with some questions. 

So Lord Ruler has incredible power from compounding. As I understand it, for TLR to compound, he would go chill in his hovel in Kredik Shaw. Let’s say he’s got a bowl full of beads of the metal he wants to compound, like atium. He takes his first atium bead, stores a little age in it, then swallows and burns it, flaring it and artificially pulling more anti aging power out of it. He takes out the next atium bead and stores the resulting youth in it, then burns that one and and stores it in the next bead. Ultimately, once he has multiplied the power to his satisfaction, he would store the last bead’s power in a bracer that he would then wear. This is the hypothetical way he could compound.

Other than his compounding abilities, TLR is a full strength Mistborn in the same vein as Elend in HoA. However, though Elend certainly had great raw Allomantic power, he doesn’t seem to compare to TLR’s strength of Allomancy. TLR could push on Vin’s metals in her stomach and throw her around the throne room even though she had no external metals on her, and if I remember right his pushing also pushed on the trace metals in the windows and walls and shook the room. His soothing could pierce copperclouds and affected the entire city of Luthadel. So this is where things start breaking down into questions and ideas for me—

Sazed says in the epigraphs of HoA that TLR had incredible allomantic strength but that most of his most spectacular feats came from compounding. So my first thought was that TLR used compounding to somehow increase his allomantic strength. I’m going to go off on a tangent about nicrosil, because I think this is the only way one could increase Allomancy power with feruchemy, however I’m pretty sure the TLR didn’t know about or have access to nicrosil.

Nicrosil minds can store investiture, so if a Fullborn were to burn steel for example, they could store steel in a nicrosil mind similar to how tinminds hold one sense at a time (I’m pretty sure this is how nicrosil minds work lol). Through compounding, you could massively increase the amount of Investiture being used for steel’s effect of pushing metals, like an artificial flare that isn’t gated by the amount of metal or strain on the body or even how fast you can pump out the power. This is how I think Kelsier/the Sovereign could make a person a Mistborn through the Bands of Mourning, by having unkeyed nicrosilminds that held massive amounts of   the different metal’s Investiture shapes. Inquisitors can see more metal through steelsight than normal Allomancers because of their spikes giving them greater steel power. When Wax used the Bands for steel, so much steel investiture was used that he could see that metal and people and everything were all made of the same thing— Investiture. Wax is already on his way to becoming a savant of steel but I think while using the Bands he became a temporary super-savant of steel, which is what allowed him to perfectly modulate how hard he pushed to fly above  the ground rather than jump repeatedly. A smaller example of this would be Zane. With a steel spike, Zane could float down on a coin with concentrated effort. I know he isn’t technically a savant, but  savantism is the same thing but on a small scale/through a different cause. It’s a side effect of pumping more power through yourself. This is supported by the fact that a persons mind is expanded when they take up the power of a shard.

One final thing about nicrosil, a cool thing you could do is compound duraluminum in a nicrosil mind for the most godlike burst of power to one of your other metals. 

So while you could increase Allomantic strength with feruchemy, I don’t think that option was available to TLR. So, question time— 

Were TLR’s bracers hemalurgically charged? Ruin influenced him through the spikes, but wouldn’t they need a hemalurgic charge for him to do this? Or can ruin influence anyone that has piercings of any kind? I know he can influence people with mental illness, so maybe Rashek was just loose in the head. Also, this brings up the question of, are Pathian earings hemalurgically charged? I would assume they are because Wax used it for Harmony to regain control of Paalm in Dhadows of Self. If they are, then who are they killing to give earrings to everyone in the church???? 

If TLR wasn’t hemalurgically enhanced, then was his greater strength a result of him usIng the power at the Well? Vin didn’t become a stronger Allomancer because of the Well, but she didn’t Ascend when she went because she gave it up before anything could be done with it. So TLR could have been spiritually stretched by Ascending and thus have even greater capacity for lerasium to fill when he burned a bead of it to become a Mistborn.

aight ramble over

Edited February 11, 2018 by Fakeout

[The One Who Connects]

10 minutes ago, Fakeout said:

If TLR wasn’t hemalurgically enhanced, then was his greater strength a result of him usIng the power at the Well? Vin didn’t become a stronger Allomancer because of the Well, but she didn’t Ascend when she went because she gave it up before anything could be done with it.

TLR did not burn Lerasium for his Allomantic Strength, that was the Well. TLR rebuilt himself to be a powerful Allomancer, as strong as the power would let him. Vin didn't use the power to do anything, so that's why she remained normal. Taking up the power of the Well counts as temporarily ascending, by the way.

40 minutes ago, Fakeout said:

One final thing about nicrosil, a cool thing you could do is compound duraluminum in a nicrosil mind for the most godlike burst of power to one of your other metals.
So TLR could have been spiritually stretched by Ascending and thus have even greater capacity for lerasium to fill when he burned a bead of it to become a Mistborn.

This doesn't work on Lerasium. We've tried.

12 minutes ago, Fakeout said:

Were TLR’s bracers hemalurgically charged? Ruin influenced him through the spikes, but wouldn’t they need a hemalurgic charge for him to do this? Or can ruin influence anyone that has piercings of any kind? I know he can influence people with mental illness, so maybe Rashek was just loose in the head. Also, this brings up the question of, are Pathian earings hemalurgically charged? I would assume they are because Wax used it for Harmony to regain control of Paalm in Dhadows of Self. If they are, then who are they killing to give earrings to everyone in the church???? 

His Bracers ... weren't(read the footnote).

I think Pathian earrings are from melted down Inquisitor spikes, but I can't find a source on that. They still hold a very faint charge, which is all Harmony needs.

13 minutes ago, Fakeout said:

Sazed says in the epigraphs of HoA that TLR had incredible allomantic strength but that most of his most spectacular feats came from compounding. So my first thought was that TLR used compounding to somehow increase his allomantic strength. I’m going to go off on a tangent about nicrosil, because I think this is the only way one could increase Allomancy power with feruchemy, however I’m pretty sure the TLR didn’t know about or have access to nicrosil.

Being a strong Allomancer isn't that fantastic of a feat. Living for 1,000 years is a fantastic feat. Being burned alive/beheaded/etc.. and continuing on like it's nothing is a fantastic feat. And while I'll agree that TLR probably didn't use Nicrosil, he knew a lot of things nobody knows.

38 minutes ago, Fakeout said:

This is how I think the Sovereign could make a person a Mistborn through the Bands of Mourning, by having unkeyed nicrosilminds that held massive amounts of the different metal’s Investiture shapes.

Medallions aren't just Nicrosil, you know. The Bands were made from all 16 Metals. As for your compounding talk, I'll direct you back to an old topic.

[King Cole]

1 hour ago, Fakeout said:

One final thing about nicrosil, a cool thing you could do is compound duraluminum in a nicrosil mind for the most godlike burst of power to one of your other metals. 

 

Alternatively, you could just compound Nicrosil with one of the metals you want to burst, giving you godlike power that doesn't disappear instantly. Cuts out the middleman and is even more useful

[Fakeout]

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

TLR did not burn Lerasium for his Allomantic Strength, that was the Well. TLR rebuilt himself to be a powerful Allomancer, as strong as the power would let him. Vin didn't use the power to do anything, so that's why she remained normal. Taking up the power of the Well counts as temporarily ascending, by the way.

Okay, makes sense. Actually, I did have one more question about Lerasium, how does it make you a Mistborn without requiring snapping? The lord ruler reforging his body to be an Allomancer beyond Lerasium strength makes sense, since he could fiddle with his spirit web while ascended. 

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

This doesn't work on Lerasium. We've tried.

I think there was a misunderstanding here, I was thinking of compounding duraluminum’s strength for a basic metal and seeing just how far a steelpush or something could be taken. 

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

His Bracers ... weren't(read the footnote).

I think Pathian earrings are from melted down Inquisitor spikes, but I can't find a source on that. They still hold a very faint charge, which is all Harmony needs.

Okay so was Ruins influence indirect then? Like with Kelsier, where he had a strong spiritual connection to him and could influence events around them?

also, very cool tip about the Pathian earrings, I hadn’t thought of that. You got that from secret history’s ending right?

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

Being a strong Allomancer isn't that fantastic of a feat. Living for 1,000 years is a fantastic feat. Being burned alive/beheaded/etc.. and continuing on like it's nothing is a fantastic feat. And while I'll agree that TLR probably didn't use Nicrosil, he knew a lot of things nobody knows.

I did get that Sazed was more referring to TLR’s immunity to beheadings and age, but it was what started me thinking about all the stuff I threw into my post so I included it. 

Also, while not lending him deity status like immortality, his Allomancy was pretty legendary

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

Medallions aren't just Nicrosil, you know. The Bands were made from all 16 Metals. As for your compounding talk, I'll direct you back to an old topic.

I did know that haha. What I meant is that nicrosil could have been the way by which he gave access to the Allomantic powers, as well as made them so strong through nicrosil compounding. Does nicrosil in feruchemy work in the way I described though, where you can store a power in it one at a time, similar to tinminds storing one scent per mind (before melding the metalminds together of course)

—————

1 hour ago, King Cole said:

Alternatively, you could just compound Nicrosil with one of the metals you want to burst, giving you godlike power that doesn't disappear instantly. Cuts out the middleman and is even more useful

I don’t think Allomantic nicrosil can be used on yourself though. Also, using nicrosil on someone else is basically like making them burn duraluminum afaik so it would burn up the metals you enhance in the process, like an Allomantic Leeching with benefits.

One benefit of using duraluminum from out of a metal mind is it wouldn’t run out in one use I don’t think. It would burn up the Allomancy metal you use though, unless you also pulled that power out of a nicrosil mind.

[The One Who Connects]

Just now, Fakeout said:

I think there was a misunderstanding here, I was thinking of compounding duraluminum’s strength for a basic metal and seeing just how far a steelpush or something could be taken. 

There wasn't a misunderstanding. I typed that in response to your "spiritually stretched by ascending and thus have even greater capacity for lerasium" bit, saw the other piece, and lumped them together instead of typing something mostly similar twice. I could've written it better, but it happens.

3 minutes ago, Fakeout said:

Actually, I did have one more question about Lerasium, how does it make you a Mistborn without requiring snapping?

It rewrites your Spiritual DNA. (But you've made me curious.. would you have to have snapped to use Hemalurgically granted Allomancy..? I suppose the spike could contain a bit of snapped spiritweb from someone else.. hrmm...)

5 minutes ago, Fakeout said:

Okay so was Ruins influence indirect then?

Maybe? We know he whispered to him while he was holding the power of the well, which is why TLR knew how to make things with Hemalurgy, so it stands to reason that he could already talk to him in some capacity.

7 minutes ago, Fakeout said:

also, very cool tip about the Pathian earrings, I hadn’t thought of that. You got that from secret history’s ending right?

I mean what I said in that I'm fairly certain people have stated this as largely accepted fact on the forums, and that's what I'm remembering.
I personally think most of those spikes from the end of SH would have gone into making the Sovereign's body.

10 minutes ago, Fakeout said:

I don’t think Allomantic nicrosil can be used on yourself though.

He's talking about F-Nicrosil. Store and Compound a bunch of normal Investiture, and then you've essentially got a battery to shove extra power into your magics.

12 minutes ago, Fakeout said:

One benefit of using duraluminum from out of a metal mind is it wouldn’t run out in one use I don’t think. It would burn up the Allomancy metal you use though, unless you also pulled that power out of a nicrosil mind.

You still need physical metal to burn for Medallion granted Allomancy. Medallions merely give you access to the powers.

[Fakeout]

8 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

It rewrites your Spiritual DNA. (But you've made me curious.. would you have to have snapped to use Hemalurgically granted Allomancy..? I suppose the spike could contain a bit of snapped spiritweb from someone else.. hrmm...)

Is there some kind of maximum capacity to a spirit web that would require a hole to fill to gain power? Maybe the hemalurgic spike isn’t just stapling on a piece of spirit web from someone else but completely replacing that section of your own spirit web with the other persons, like a forced snapping.

14 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I mean what I said in that I'm fairly certain people have stated this as largely accepted fact on the forums, and that's what I'm remembering. I personally think most of those spikes from the end of SH would have gone into making the Sovereign's body.

That epilogue just has too many questions needing answers, I’m really excited to figure out what happened next with Kelsier and Spook 

18 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

He's talking about F-Nicrosil. Store and Compound a bunch of normal Investiture, and then you've essentially got a battery to shove extra power into your magics.

You still need physical metal to burn for Medallion granted Allomancy. Medallions merely give you access to the powers.

I honesty think I’m just completely misunderstanding nicrosil here, haha. So in Feruchemy, does nicrosil just store Investiture in its basic form that you can then put into other things to enhance them? Or does it store specific uses of Investiture? For example, if you had a nicrosil medallion (medallion being a F mind that is unkeyed so it can be used by anyone) you could get it to hold Allomantic steel and tap the medallion to gain the ability to burn steel until the medallion ran out. 

[Weltall]

44 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I mean what I said in that I'm fairly certain people have stated this as largely accepted fact on the forums, and that's what I'm remembering.

Chapter 3 of Bands of Mourning confirms that the earrings are made from melted down Inquisitor spikes. Brandon has also mentioned on occasion that Wax's earring specifically must have started as a spike in order for Harmony to be able to communicate with him. Slightly trimmed WoB:

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Wax's earring is Invested. (Or, in other terms, it's a Hemalurgic spike.)

bettse

Doesn't that imply it was shoved through someone's heart at one point (ala Steel Inquisitor creation process)?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, the metal would have to have been part of a spike that at one point was used to kill someone and rip off a piece of their soul.

 

Quote

It rewrites your Spiritual DNA. (But you've made me curious.. would you have to have snapped to use Hemalurgically granted Allomancy..? I suppose the spike could contain a bit of snapped spiritweb from someone else.. hrmm...)

Hemalurgy could be used to give a kandra allomancy so it doesn't seem like snapping is required. And since it's a 'universal' magic system it seems like it really should automatically perform the necessary Initiation on you for whatever power it grants, otherwise it wouldn't be nearly as useful as Khriss (and Brandon) have implied.

Edited February 12, 2018 by Weltall

[The One Who Connects]

Just now, Weltall said:

Chapter 3 of Bands of Mourning confirms that the earrings are made from melted down Inquisitor spikes. Brandon has also mentioned on occasion that Wax's earring specifically must have started as a spike in order for Harmony to be able to communicate with him. Slightly trimmed WoB:

I knew about the WOB, but all Brandon said is that the earring used to be a spike. Given the existence of Vin's earring, it doesn't really lock it down to formerly from an Inquisitor.

But they explicitly say so in the book, so there's no misinterpreting that. Also explains why I didn't remember where that was from, so there's that.

[Yezrien]

Two quick points on snapping:

1. Hemalurgy damages the soul, so receiving allomancy via hemalurgy probably has a built-in snapping.
2. When Elend burned lerasium, he had been snapped already by his traditional beating. So we can’t say for sure that lerasium mistborn don’t require snapping. (Unless there is a WoB that I don’t know about. Is there? I checked the Arcanum, but I couldn’t find anything.)

[Isilel]

On 12.2.2018 at 1:27 AM, The One Who Connects said:

TLR did not burn Lerasium for his Allomantic Strength, that was the Well. TLR rebuilt himself to be a powerful Allomancer, as strong as the power would let him.

Hm... so why didn't he also re-make himself as properly immortal, or, at least very slow-aging? We know that things like that are possible in Cosmere and you'd think that Preservation's power, in particular, would lend itself to something like that. Or was it just that he didn't think about it until it was too late and the power was (mostly) gone?

[Weltall]

Rashek learned a lot from his time Ascended but he didn't have anything close to the full knowledge of a Shard. Brandon's mentioned that Rashek's method of prolonging his lifespan wasn't terribly efficient (and would eventually have failed him) and that there are much better ways he could have done it. He's mentioned manipulating Connection as something that would have been more difficult to do but also far more efficient. Rashek didn't know enough to do that, whether such manipulation would require the Well's power or if it could have been done with some cunning and currently unknown applications of the Metallic Arts.

We know the Well did have the power to grant a form of immortality but Brandon has said that the trick would have worked with any sufficient source of Investiture so it wasn't directly related to Preservation's power as such. And that produced a Cognitive Shadow, which wouldn't have suited Rashek's purposes at all. So while there are ways Rashek could have made himself immortal with all that power, it's highly unlikely that he could have learned how in the limited time he had (especially since he spent most of that time trying to stop the Deepness, then correct the problems he caused in doing so) and it must have been more complex than just willing it to be so.

[The One Who Connects]

6 hours ago, Isilel said:

Hm... so why didn't he also re-make himself as properly immortal, or, at least very slow-aging?

Well, he did all the things he did in mere seconds, from the perspective of us mortals. So, technically, the power did fade away before he could do too much.

But it's largely what Weltall said. Holding the power expanded his mind and granted him knowledge, but it didn't give him everything, nor did he make the mental choice to search out other knowledge(hence this Returned question).

Compounding is a hack, and one that he probably discovered himself. If this is true, then his method of "immortality" was discovered after using the power. He may not have planned to live forever, and adjusted the plan as time went on. Had he made it to the refilling of the well, it's entirely likely that he would have tried to give himself a better form of immortality.

[Isilel]

On 15.2.2018 at 0:52 AM, The One Who Connects said:

Compounding is a hack, and one that he probably discovered himself. If this is true, then his method of "immortality" was discovered after using the power. He may not have planned to live forever, and adjusted the plan as time went on.

Well, having just re-read the first Mistborn trilogy, Rashek apparently had this idea while he was using the Well - because that's when he decided to turn all living Feruchemists into kandra, so that they wouldn't be a threat to him and came up with _that_ type of immortality. Though, judging by how the First Generation looked by the time of HoA it was far from perfect, too. As we know from the Era 2, there was no reason for him to be afraid of a potential Fullborn appearing naturally, so he must have been intent on keeping the secret of the age compounding hack. 

On 15.2.2018 at 0:52 AM, The One Who Connects said:

Had he made it to the refilling of the well, it's entirely likely that he would have tried to give himself a better form of immortality.

Though he did seem to be pretty strongly influenced by Ruin towards the end, so who knows? BTW, would completely embedding his age metalminds in his flesh still have allowed Ruin access? And is it still possible to push and pull on metals completely coated by aluminium, I wonder? 

[Calderis]

9 hours ago, Isilel said:

As we know from the Era 2, there was no reason for him to be afraid of a potential Fullborn appearing naturally, so he must have been intent on keeping the secret of the age compounding hack. 

During era 2 that's true. At the beginning if Rashek's reign, before he'd spent generations suppressing the feruchemical genes (that still needed suppression after all living feruchemist became mistwraiths), and he'd just handed out the lerasium? 

I'm pretty sure that if they hadn't changed into Kandra and mistwraiths, Fullborn wouldn't have been an impossibility. The genes on both sides were just so much stronger than they are later after dilution and heavy culling. 

[RShara]

9 hours ago, Isilel said:

Though he did seem to be pretty strongly influenced by Ruin towards the end, so who knows? BTW, would completely embedding his age metalminds in his flesh still have allowed Ruin access? And is it still possible to push and pull on metals completely coated by aluminium, I wonder? 

It is not

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

So this flashlight is made of aluminum. So obviously, I could not affect the flashlight itself with iron or steel. Could I affect the battery inside it?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

No.

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Could I like, pop the trigger?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes.

source

 

[Isilel]

18 hours ago, Calderis said:

I'm pretty sure that if they hadn't changed into Kandra and mistwraiths, Fullborn wouldn't have been an impossibility. The genes on both sides were just so much stronger than they are later after dilution and heavy culling. 

But isn't it the conflict between the 2 types of sDNA which is the problem? I.e. it doesn't matter if both are strong or weak, intermixing will still result in fracturing of the abilities and Twinborn at best. After all, culling here or there, those few Terrismen who were Metalborn  remained full Feruchemists until they started to interbreed with the Allomancers. Also, do we actually know that their abilities were becoming weaker, rather than just rarer?

BTW, was TLR honestly trying to completely destroy Feruchemy for good or was it another ploy, at least to a degree? I mean, _only_ a Feruchemist could have saved the world, after all, and a lot of TLR's preparations appear to have been informed by Preservation's plan, even if subconsciously. And given his having kandra spies at his disposal, it seems unlikely that the Keepers could have been as unknown to him, as they hoped to be.

P.S. @RShara:

Thanks. So does it mean that people could keep their metals in alu containers and be safe?

Edited February 23, 2018 by Isilel

[RShara]

4 minutes ago, Isilel said:

But isn't it the conflict between the 2 types of sDNA which is the problem? I.e. it doesn't matter if both are strong or weak, intermixing will still result in fracturing of the abilities and Twinborn at best. After all, culling here or there, those few Terrismen who were Metalborn the remained full Feruchemists until their interbred with the Allomancers. Also, do we actually know that their abilities were becoming weaker, rather than just rarer?

BTW, was TLR honestly trying to completely destroy Feruchemy for good or was it another ploy, at least to a degree? I mean, _only_ a Feruchemist could have saved the world, after all, and a lot of TLR's preparations appear to have been informed by Preservation's plan, even if subconsciously. And given his having kandra spies at his disposal, it seems unlikely that the Keepers could have been as unknown to him, as they hoped to be.

P.S. @RShara:

Thanks. So does it mean that people could keep their metals in alu containers and be safe?

I think he was trying to destroy Feruchemy for good.  He killed any he found out about, and the breeding program was to stamp out Feruchemy.

 

Yep, aluminum vials will totally be a thing!

[Isilel]

On 23.2.2018 at 6:51 PM, RShara said:

I think he was trying to destroy Feruchemy for good.  He killed any he found out about, and the breeding program was to stamp out Feruchemy.

The problem is that Preservation's plan to save Scadrial pretty much required that the person who picked up Ruin and Preservation had to be a Keeper with all the necessary information stored in their copper metalminds. And a lot of TLR's preparations and even otherwise incomprehensible/bloodthirsty actions, like creation and use of the Inquisitors and the koloss were geared to either help Preservation's plan along, or to mislead Ruin. Might this have been another such case, just not as obvious in hindsight?

Persecution being aimed at keeping the Feruchemists contained, few in number, unable to interbreed with the Allomancers and focussed on preservation of knowledge. After all, it is fairly easy for a Mistborn/Inquisitor to test if somebody's metal jewelry are in, reality, metalminds. They just need to try to burn it and they'll sense the feruchemical reserve, like we saw with Vin's and Sazed's experiment.

And another thing that I don't really comprehend - TLR made all the preparations in case of his demise, but somehow didn't think to leave a steel plaque warning not to release the power by the Well itself? I wasn't sure if Marsh didn't just remove it at some point during HoA, but having now re-read The Secret History it doesn't seem like anybody except Hoid  entered the room between the last Inquisitor burial while TLR still lived, and Vin coming there in WoA. And Hoid only took a lerasium bead, he didn't remove anything else that Kelsier could see. Was it part of Preservation's plan that the things needed to come to a head and be resolved in a more permanent fashion this time around? After all, there were no new lerasium provided...

BTW, the books and the early WoBs suggest that the Well had filled up and been emptied several times before before Rashek mucked the things up, but is it even feasible, given that the shardic period of the Cosmere is now supposed to only encompass  between 10K and 20K years, rather than "aeons" mentioned in the first Mistborn trilogy?

On 23.2.2018 at 6:51 PM, RShara said:

 

Yep, aluminum vials will totally be a thing!

Not the vials themselves, methinks, but belt containers for them. Also, holsters, so that people wouldn't need to immediately drop their gunbelts when confronted by a Coinshot/Lurcher. Allumium guns, even using an alloy, could never be as good as steel ones or usefully durable, so that could provide a better alternative.

[RShara]

Hmmm I hadn't thought that the whole persecution of Feruchemists might be another deep laid plan.  Interesting, I'll have to ponder it

That is another really good point.  Why DIDN'T TLR say something on the metal sheets?  I mean, granted, they didn't find any of them till after WoA, so it wouldn't have made a difference.  Maybe he was being influenced by Ruin enough at that point that he didn't ever think to put that down?  Or, oh, he did have the giant metal sheets of Kwaan's words at the Conventical of Saren that spoke of it.  Maybe he thought that was enough?

 

I think the vials themselves will be aluminum.  That way, they don't run the risk of the metals inside being pushed away while they are raising it to their lips.  Same problem with holsters.  I guess it's a pros/cons thing for guns.  Unpushable but more fragile? or stronger but pushable while firing?

[Isilel]

On 25.2.2018 at 9:05 PM, RShara said:

Hmmm I hadn't thought that the whole persecution of Feruchemists might be another deep laid plan.  Interesting, I'll have to ponder it

Glad to be of service . I mean, TLR _did_ want to keep the secret of his power too and perhaps was truly afraid of a very small to non-existant possibility of a natural Fullborn. But given his resources, I think that he could have stamped out the Keepers completely, if he really put his mind to it. And given how crucial it was   for survival of life on Scadrial that a Keeper  took up both Shards, it doesn't seem coincidental.

BTW, the legends about the Bands of Mourning that allegedly existed during TFE, and not just among the kandra who knew the truth about Rashek, kind of contradict the whole secrecy aspect concerning TLR's true nature in Era 1 trilogy in the first place, which I find pretty jarring. I honestly don't understand how these legends could have come about, given that nobody human even knew that he was a Feruchemist  during TFE, and how crucial this secret was for him being perceived as a deity. Or did VenDell lie about these rumors existing pre-Catacendre?

 

On 25.2.2018 at 9:05 PM, RShara said:

  Why DIDN'T TLR say something on the metal sheets?  I mean, granted, they didn't find any of them till after WoA, so it wouldn't have made a difference. 

? It would have made a huge difference if a metal sheet had been left where Vin could have seen it when approaching the Well. Of course, since the Inquisitors knew how to get down there, they'd have probably removed it as soon as they became Ruin's, but TLR still could have tried. He did leave 2 priceless beads of lerasium there, after all, and for some reason the Inquisitors didn't think to grab them...

On 25.2.2018 at 9:05 PM, RShara said:

  Or, oh, he did have the giant metal sheets of Kwaan's words at the Conventical of Saren that spoke of it.  Maybe he thought that was enough?

Surely not. Only the Inquisitors would have had access to those. It was just another feint - TLR pretending that he didn't know that Ruin would seize control of his Inquisitors as soon as he himself was dead. BTW, it seems that Rashek wasn't particularly fond of his uncle, as, apparently, he let him end his days as a mindless mistwraith, along with all the other Terris Feruchemists of the time, except for his packmen pals.

On 25.2.2018 at 9:05 PM, RShara said:

Same problem with holsters.  I guess it's a pros/cons thing for guns.  Unpushable but more fragile? or stronger but pushable while firing?

I am not knowledgeable about guns - in fact, I have never held a handgun, but wouldn't aluminium guns be quite inaccurate, in addition to breaking down very  quickly? Maybe they could learn to coat guns in aluminium, apart from a few crucial parts, and make it more difficult to push/pull on them without sacrificing too much efficency.

[Calderis]

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

BTW, it seems that Rashek wasn't particularly fond of his uncle, as, apparently, he let him end his days as a mindless mistwraith, along with all the other Terris Feruchemists of the time, except for his packmen pals.

He didn't. He killed Kwaan. 

Quote

Tyran Amiros

What happened to Kwaan? I was half expecting to see him amongst the kandra First Generation.

Brandon Sanderson

Kwaan went into hiding, and he was eventually discovered and executed by Rashek. He wasn't among the First Generation, though he would have been if he hadn't turned against Rashek. Rashek kept the plate, however, just as he kept Alendi's logbook. Partially because even then, Rashek was going a little mad, but partially because of the reminders about his old life they contained.

Vegasdev

I'm assuming you meant Alendi hunted him down because he turned against Alendi. Or did Kwaan also turn against Rashek?

Brandon Sanderson

No, I meant that he turned against Rashek. Remember, the members of the First Generation were offered immortality in exchange for their Hemalurgy. They had to make this choice for all of the world's Feruchemists. Because his uncle had been the one who gave Rashek the chance to become the Lord Ruler in the first place, Rashek blessed him and included him in the decision. (Speaking directly into his mind along with the others during Rashek's moment of ascension.)

Kwaan was the only one who turned down this offer, calling it a betrayal of who they were as a people. Rashek could have just made him one anyway, but in a moment of anger, he tried to destroy Kwaan—which he couldn't do, not with Preservation's power. As the other Feruchemists changed, Kwaan remained the same. Rashek eventually hunted him down and killed him.

source

 

[Isilel]

On 27.2.2018 at 2:51 PM, Calderis said:

He didn't. He killed Kwaan.

Woah!  Thanks for this most interesting quote. So, Kwaan was a contrarian to the end, I see. And Rashek was a terrible person even before Ruin got to work on him for a millenium. Not that the books didn't already convey that, but still.

BTW, it also seems like a con that his pals accepted the whole "immortality for Feruchemy and humanity" deal on behalf of all living Feruchemists... but they were the only ones who actually got that immortality, while the others were changed into animals with a 50-year life-span according tothe  Annotations. Not to mention that even what the First Generation received was kinda shabby and not worth having, both according to what was seen on page and again the Annotations that divulged that they were mainly confined underground in the kandra Homeland subsisting on the unappetizing algae-fungi stuff that TLR developed for them for the rest of their long lives.

Apropos of nothing, spikes for the First Generation must have been made from the Klennium contingent of their expedition, right? Even after being permeated by Preservation's investiture, TLR was immediately murderous. Sigh.

So, stuff like that, in addition to this:

 

Quote

 

sherlockeb

Why did Rashek feel the need to create skaa and nobility, why not alter all humanity to be nobles if you have the power?

Brandon Sanderson

Rashek, particularly back then, was a petty man. This caused him to do many things that, strictly speaking, were not best for his empire.

source

 

 

 

not to mention all that we have learned about him in the first Mistborn trilogy makes me even more confused about Sazed writing this jarring eulogy of TLR in his letter at the end of HoA:

Quote

but he was a good man, who ultimately had honorable intentions.

because from everything we know, Rashek was actually a bad person, who, nevertheless, didn't want his world to be destroyed. And at least part of his motivation may have come from having been permeated by Preservation's investiture, rather than from any personal virtues. This was part of what made him so interesting. He wasn't an initially good person, who was gradually corrupted by Ruin, but pretty terrible from the start. In fact, that was why Kwaan involved him in his plot in the first place! 

I was also astounded by these WoBs about Rashek's descendants (the first 6 WoBs):

https://wob.coppermind.net/adv_search/?query=Rashek+children

which seem to imply that he had them after his Ascension. So, was he afraid of a naturally occuring Fullborn or not? Because I kinda thought that he either wasn't interested or followed his own draconic edicts in the matter of sex. He could have had access to contraceptives, too - after all, if the Breeding Masters of Terris had functional fertility drugs, as we know they did, the opposite would have also existed. But now it turns out that he had kids, who were allowed to survive and reproduce in turn - shouldn't that have led to some Ferrings occasionally popping up among the nobility of TFE? Did it depress Mistborn/Mistings ratio among them? And how come that no houses boasted about such a connection?