Thoughts on Temporal Allomancy

[Mage]

 

I wrote this before I saw the thread on atium+electrum which is related to what I am saying here, but this goes a bit deeper.

Note: None of this stuff is backed up by any WoBs, this is just straight from my head

I have recently been thinking about the relationships between the 4 temporal allomantic metals and atium, so I thought I would put all these ideas in my head onto paper in essay form. Most of these ideas and theories originated from that fact that Ruins god metal happened to be time-related. It makes sense why the pre-catacendre allomancers wouldn't have made the connection that atium didn’t fit into the nice 4 groups of 2 groups of 2 that they have discovered in era 2. (I guess they didn’t have that whole diagram, so it makes sense that they wouldn’t have known it.) Basically the point I am trying to get to is that bendalloy and cadmium are the right and proper counterparts of gold and electrum because it makes more sense based on the relationships between other allomantic metals, and atium has certain properties that make it stand out from the other metals.

First, using the relationships between other metals as analogies. If one just looked at the enhancement section of the allomantic table you might think that atium fits right in with gold. Aluminum leeches your own metals, and chromium leeches the metals of others. Electrum shows the future of yourself, and atium shows the future of others. This seems like a fair analogy until you look at the rest of the table where we see a more widely applicable pattern. The pattern is that internal metals affect only you, and external metals directly change something in the world around you. Pewter only directly affects you, while steel can directly change the outside world. Bronze gives you information, while zinc can change another’s emotions. That is the problem with atium. It does not directly affect the world around you, it only gives you more information. Bendalloy and cadmium do affect the world around even if they don’t make as nice of a pair as aluminum and chromium, but these are really the only ones that do.

Lastly, atium needs to be a god metal because of its special properties. Most obviously is the way it grows. Since when did metals grow in geodes? Even if most Final Empire scandrians didn’t know about the perpendicularity (most of them didn’t know about what the pits were for either) they still could determine that something was seriously wrong with the way that the metal developed. The next reason is probably wrong, so someone please correct me, but I think that seeing the future is a property of the spiritual realm, and therefore burning atium to see the near future implies a stronger connection to the spiritual realm than what a normal metal could give you. Therefore atium is a god-metal, and god-metals don’t fit into the allomantic table.

So to conclude atium is not one of the temporal metals (we already knew this, but these are just more reasons why), because it should be an external metal but doesn’t affect anything externaly, and second it does things that only a god metal can do.

 

Thanks for reading my rambling thoughts, I just thought I would get this out here. I would also appreciate it if people could find WoBs to either support, or disprove any of the things I said.

[Karger]

Yoman states an incomplete picture in HoA but does not take it to the final conclusion.  The Ars Arcanum agrees with you although it does not put things a succinctly. 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Karger

[+Harrycrapper]

I don't think the too many Scadrians thought how Atium grew was odd. It's similar to how people on Roshar think things like spren, deathrattles, and the Thrill are normal things, they've just been that way for as long as people remember. It's possible some people right after Rashek changed the world found the way it grew odd, but after a while any who knew of its origins just thought of it as the way it had always been. And post Catacendre most people know nearly as much as we do about it because Harmony explained it in The Books of Founding. 

[Halyo_Alex]

Alright, you did call that it was probably wrong, so here's the quick correction

3 hours ago, Mage said:

The next reason is probably wrong, so someone please correct me, but I think that seeing the future is a property of the spiritual realm, and therefore burning atium to see the near future implies a stronger connection to the spiritual realm than what a normal metal could give you.

The simple disproval is that Allomantic Electrum and Gold DO both use the spiritual realm, simply because time and space are meaningless there. So seeing the past or the future is easy (or... easier) with the SR. In fact, it should be possible to Duralumin-burn Electrum to see the future similarly to how Elend Duralumin-burned Atium to see the future. It's just that now (in era 2) we don't have Mistborn. You'd have to be either a Duralumin Gnat or an Oracle with a hemalurgic spike of the other metal (...or a Medallion) to do that.

[+Oltux72]

4 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

In fact, it should be possible to Duralumin-burn Electrum to see the future similarly to how Elend Duralumin-burned Atium to see the future. It's just that now (in era 2) we don't have Mistborn. You'd have to be either a Duralumin Gnat or an Oracle with a hemalurgic spike of the other metal (...or a Medallion) to do that.

They must have used a pair of an Electrum Misting and a Nicrosil Misting.

[Mage]

7 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Alright, you did call that it was probably wrong, so here's the quick correction

The simple disproval is that Allomantic Electrum and Gold DO both use the spiritual realm, simply because time and space are meaningless there. So seeing the past or the future is easy (or... easier) with the SR. In fact, it should be possible to Duralumin-burn Electrum to see the future similarly to how Elend Duralumin-burned Atium to see the future. It's just that now (in era 2) we don't have Mistborn. You'd have to be either a Duralumin Gnat or an Oracle with a hemalurgic spike of the other metal (...or a Medallion) to do that.

Okay. Thanks for pointing that out. Now you’ve got me thinking about how different classifications of metals correspond to the different realms. I’ll have to think on that more. 

[Halyo_Alex]

8 hours ago, Mage said:

Okay. Thanks for pointing that out. Now you’ve got me thinking about how different classifications of metals correspond to the different realms. I’ll have to think on that more. 

Well given what the Coppermind has on allomantic copper's power, it seems that Copper's true, general effect might be something like "reinforces the separation between the 3 Realms in an area around the misting" or something. It seems to dampen a lot of non-metallic powers from other places that require the use of multiple realms, or involves bringing information from one realm into another.