Let's try to tally and catalog Marsh's spikes

[+robardin]

There are sixteeen (16) metals for the Metallic Arts, usuable for Allomancy and Feruchemy, for a total of 32 possible Metalborn powers.

Marsh was made an Inquisitor at the end of the Final Empire, and then enhanced by Ruin according to the same set of metals - before Harmony switched back cadmium/bendalloy for atium/malatium on the Metallic Chart.

Even though chromium/nicrosil would have been unknown or unavailable metals to the Scadrians of the Final Empire, their abilities would still be on the Chart, and Ruin would have known about them and their uses.

With that in mind, what is Marsh's known or suspected power set?

(A) What was the Standard Set of (11) Steel Inquisitor spikes?

Marsh says he had 11 spikes in him as a recently minted Inquisitor, in the Lord Ruler's throne room at the end of The Final Empire:

• 8 for the basic Allomantic metals
• 1 for F-gold
• 1 for A-atium (?)
• The linchpin spike (which may have had a property of its own as well)

It would seem all Steel Inquisitors should be able to burn atium, but can we be 100% sure? Certainly Bendel and Kar were seen to do it, so either they were base Mistborn, or a spike for A-atium was standard issue. I would think that it was: it would be odd for a significant subset of Inquisitors to be subject to an ordinary Mistborn's use of atium against them.

But that would raise the further question: where would they harvest hemalurgic spikes for A-atium from, without skaa Seer Mistings to harvest? Yomen said that Seers like himself were flushed out by the Ministry spiking the punch at noble balls with atium dust and then Seeking out any instinctive, unconscious use of Allomancy to burn it (since all nobles would have been Snapped by a certain age), which certainly isn't a viable strategy to discover any skaa Seers; yet he didn't seem to be nervous about potentially being a walking Inquisitor spike in waiting.

The same problem seems to be there for creating new Inquisitors if they all have a spike for F-gold healing. It just doensn't seem like there'd be enough Feruchemists on hand to create the 20 or so Inquisitors alive at the time of TLR's overthrowing.

Did the Ministry reuse weakened but usable spikes for A-atium and F-gold from previous Inquisitors? That seems the only logical conclusion, which then would set an upper limit for how many Inquisitors there could be at a time. As for where the putative set of spikes for A-atium came from originally, that could come from either dying Mistborn Inquisitors, condemned criminal Mistborn or discovered Seers, or straight up "kidnapped and disappeared" Allomancers whose fate would be assumed to be a loss in a House war - this is the Steel Ministry we're talking about, after all.

 

(B) What did Ruin add to Marsh's set later?

Marsh is later described has having "upwards of twenty" spikes in him at the end of The Hero of Ages, which means Ruin gave him at least 9 more spikes.

Assuming A-atium is in fact part of the default set, he's seen or inferred to have used these five (5) powers:

• F-steel
• F-pewter
• A-duralumin (per the Mistborn Annotations, gained by spiking a Mistborn*)
• F-atium**, as inferred by his surviving via Compounding atium, and given by Ruin, per WoB
• F-bronze**, as inferred by the same (otherwise he'd die while sleeping once past his natural age)

*That Annotation about how Marsh got a spike for A-duralumin carries implications with it as well. Ruin considered using up a Mistborn to gain a single Allomantic power a waste, and only did so for a power like A-duralumin where no Misting for it could be found, due to a case of "bad gnattitude". And we know Ruin created new Inquisitors from scratch (I think?) as well as enhancing existing Inquisitors from outside Luthadel that escaped Marsh's murder spree outside TLR's throne room. So why wouldn't Ruin have created or used a Mistborn Inquisitor as his chief pawn, instead of adding A-duralumin to Marsh?

I think the logical answer is that any "base Mistborn" Inquisitors (the most powerful ones) were kept close to TLR in Luthadel, and thus one of the 8 killed by Marsh in his little murder spree outside the throne room. And by the time Ruin got his hands on a Mistborn to make a spike from after his release, Marsh had already gained a number of other enhancements as his "work in progress" as a chief pawn, and it was more economical to add one spike to Marsh than to add 11+ spikes (requiring 11+ Mistings or Feruchemists) to the Mistborn, even if it was kind of a waste.

The illogical answer, but also possible, is that Ruin wanted to twist the knife into Kelsier in the Cognitive Realm and into his surviving crew on Scadrial by using their former friend and associate to be his most visible hand against them.

And in further thinking it through, there probably weren't many base Mistborn Inquisitors, anyway, since they all start out as obligators in the Ministry. Any noble House would value their Mistborn as assassins in the service of their House above letting them become an obligator, unless the person in question was particularly religiously fanatical and enrolled him/herself, or if the Ministry paid a handsome bonus for such an obligator (groomed to become an Inquisitor) and the Mistborn came from a destitute or more minor House.

**As for the inferred spike for F-bronze: if we take Ruin's giving Marsh a spike for F-atium as an indication of his intending to prolong the use of Marsh as a super-pawn in his plans for the Cosmere once he was done destroying Scadrial, via Compounding atium in what I call "The Rashek Maneuver", then the other part of The Rashek Maneuver would require compounding bronze for wakefulness. As has been pointed out in several threads before, because tapping a metalmind requires Intent, TLR could not sleep once he aged past his mortal lifespan, as he needs to constantly and increasingly draw on his atiummind to reverse his aging, and cannot do so in his sleep. Ruin would have known and observed this, and after a while, the same would apply to Marsh.

So that tally brings us to 16, leaving at least 4 still to account for.

 

There are up to four (4) obvious enhancements with immediate utility in the Scadrial End Game:

• A-gold - so as to be able to Compound health for healing
• A-electrum - at a minimum, to function as "the poor man's atium", to conserve the Real Thing.
  • One drawback which could be a deal breaker, though: Electrum Mistings were unknown to the Final Empire, unless their existence, like Seer Mistings, were a Ministry secret. So giving Marsh a spike for this would likely have required using a Mistborn, who would be far more valuable to harvest for duralumin for a different Inquisitor.
• F-zinc (speed of thought)
• F-iron (weight) - pairs great with Steelpushing or Ironpulling

That's 19 or 20. What might be the "upwards" count of spikes, then?

 

Three (3) long-term Metalborn powers, excellent for a post-Scadrial future:

• F-duralumin - Compound Connection? Yes, please. Ruin would realize how useful this would be in going off-world.
• A-chromium (would require a Mistborn, like A-duralumin). If Ruin had been planning to take Marsh off-world, being able to Leech Investiture across all magic systems would be extremely useful.
• F-chromium (Fortune) - very possible Ruin would love to Compound this. Whatever it is.

That's 22 or 23. Seems about right.

 

The other nine (9) potential spikes seem less useful as add-ons for Ruin, with one possible exception, especially at the cost of a Feruchemist or full Mistborn which could be harvested for other Inquisitors (and we did see others with Feruchemical spikes, especially for F-steel):

• F-tin (sensory storage)
• F-brass (body heat)
• A-nicrosil - unclear why this would be useful unless there were a second Inquisitor around, except...
• F-nicrosil - ...maybe to compound Investiture? Hmmm! (But not if it just means creating unsealed metalminds)
• A-malatium, F-malatium: implausible to the extreme
• A-aluminum - would require spiking from a Mistborn, and to what end?
• F-aluminum (Identity) - ditto, but for a Feruchemist
• F-electrum (Determination) - No need, as Ruin planned to have direct control of Marsh.

Edited August 27, 2019 by robardin

[Govir]

18 hours ago, robardin said:

Did the Ministry reuse weakened but usable spikes for A-atium and F-gold from previous Inquisitors?

I'm not sure about the rest of your post, but this is something I'm pretty sure I remember: when an Inquisitor died, their spikes were kept in blood which reduced or eliminated the decay of the power. I believe we saw the blood in Secret History, and there's a WoB or annotation about blood reducing the decay.

Couldn't quick find a specific WoB, but the first few results in this search imply blood will completely stop Hemalurgic decay.

[+robardin]

2 hours ago, Govir said:

I'm not sure about the rest of your post, but this is something I'm pretty sure I remember: when an Inquisitor died, their spikes were kept in blood which reduced or eliminated the decay of the power. I believe we saw the blood in Secret History, and there's a WoB or annotation about blood reducing the decay.

Couldn't quick find a specific WoB, but the first few results in this search imply blood will completely stop Hemalurgic decay.

Yeah, I seem to remember that from somewhere, as well. But we also know Marsh was made with several "fresh from the Misting" spikes taken from sacrificial skaa victims. So my guess is those were for the more common, base Allomantic powers, to off a few half-breeds and gain maximally powerful spikes at the same time. And it's pretty strongly implied that Marsh was initially given a spike for F-gold, as he waves off Sazed's attention after being manhandled by The Lord Ruler, saying, "I will heal quickly; see to the girl." Presumably a recycled one.

The Coppermind entry for Inquisitors has un-footnoted entries about how not all Inquisitors had spikes for atium or F-gold: "Depending on which Hemalurgic spikes the Inquisitor had, their abilities could vary immensely. Not all Inquisitors had an atium spike, nor could all of them tap health. During the time of Kelsier, however, most had those spikes."

I really wish whoever put that in there had some links to the source of that information!

Edited August 28, 2019 by robardin

[Govir]

@robardin I somehow completely forgot about the scene / recollection of when Marsh became an Inquisitor. Definitely seems like most of his spikes were new.

[+Harrycrapper]

5 hours ago, robardin said:

Yeah, I seem to remember that from somewhere, as well. But we also know Marsh was made with several "fresh from the Misting" spikes taken from sacrificial skaa victims. So my guess is those were for the more common, base Allomantic powers, to off a few half-breeds and gain maximally powerful spikes at the same time. And it's pretty strongly implied that Marsh was initially given a spike for F-gold, as he waves off Sazed's attention after being manhandled by The Lord Ruler, saying, "I will heal quickly; see to the girl." Presumably a recycled one.

The Coppermind entry for Inquisitors has un-footnoted entries about how not all Inquisitors had spikes for atium or F-gold: "Depending on which Hemalurgic spikes the Inquisitor had, their abilities could vary immensely. Not all Inquisitors had an atium spike, nor could all of them tap health. During the time of Kelsier, however, most had those spikes."

I really wish whoever put that in there had some links to the source of that information!

There's a WoB somewhere on the inquisitors not all having the same spikes depending on availability of the desired powers. A-Atium and F-Gold were probably the common ones they could be missing, and they'd probably not send those inquisitors on dangerous missions and used them to intimidate nobles and obligators instead. Also, I doubt Ruin used A-Copper spikes on many of his inquisitors, Vin and Elend could easily pierce any coppercloud that a non Mistborn-Inquisitor could put up and possibly even the Mistborn-Inquisitor coppercloud. 

[HSuperLee]

I've considered that its possible the Lord Ruler knew about the Keepers attempts to sabotage the Terris breeding programs by inserting female feruchemists into the program to keep feruchemy alive, and he allowed it to continue for the express purpose of creating new inquisitor spikes. If so, that could potentially be where all the f-gold spikes came from.

[Govir]

On 8/29/2019 at 9:20 PM, HSuperLee said:

I've considered that its possible the Lord Ruler knew about the Keepers attempts to sabotage the Terris breeding programs by inserting female feruchemists into the program to keep feruchemy alive, and he allowed it to continue for the express purpose of creating new inquisitor spikes. If so, that could potentially be where all the f-gold spikes came from.

Interesting point, since we know the Lord Ruler didn't hate Feruchemy, he just didn't want Feruchemy and Allomancy mixing. They Synod was not a threat to the Lord Ruler at all, so long as they stayed secluded.

[+robardin]

On 8/29/2019 at 9:20 PM, HSuperLee said:

I've considered that its possible the Lord Ruler knew about the Keepers attempts to sabotage the Terris breeding programs by inserting female feruchemists into the program to keep feruchemy alive, and he allowed it to continue for the express purpose of creating new inquisitor spikes. If so, that could potentially be where all the f-gold spikes came from.

Another point in favor of this line of thinking is that, as long as you know about Feruchemy at all, it's pretty easy for many Allomancers - and all Inquisitors - to spot a Keeper: that'd be the Terrisman or woman wearing not just the traditional metal jewelry, but metalminds.

We see that Wax, a weaker Era 2 Coinshot, immediately differentiates an ordinary bracelet from an Invested one by the thickness of the blue line to it with his Steelsight, as the more invested a metalmind is, the harder it is to Push on (and the fainter the line would be). So obviously an Inquisitor, Mistborn, Coinshot, or Lurcher could easily be trained to do the same, as long as they realized it was possible.

Edited September 4, 2019 by robardin