theory Oddities With Atium

[Halyo_Alex]

5 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Ah, another WoB on the topic I just stumbled across.

More indication that godmetals are perhaps ordinarily supposed to be burned by anyone.

Plus, there's the whole thing where Brandon wants the Mistborn Screenplay to have Atium be burnable by anyone, implying that, like atium being pullable, that was (or was related to) one of the "rules" about how investiture interacts that he wishes he had cemented prior to writing those scenes.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

26 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Plus, there's the whole thing where Brandon wants the Mistborn Screenplay to have Atium be burnable by anyone, implying that, like atium being pullable, that was (or was related to) one of the "rules" about how investiture interacts that he wishes he had cemented prior to writing those scenes.

Yeah, he's mentioned that as things go on, it's started to feel odd to have godmetals be a Mistborn-only thing.

 

[Honorless]

Def like the idea of Atium as a means of Realmatic travel. I think it grants true access to Fortune: like what Taravangian saw at the end of RoW in the Spiritual Realm. Elend seemed to have seen the same thing, imo.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

Well well well, looky what we have here...

Quote

Xais56

Brandon has said that everyone ought to be able to burn Atium, like they can all burn Lerasium, and the fact that they can't was an oversight on his part that he would've done different in hindsight.

Maybe now he's had an in-universe reason to re-write the laws of allomancy it's back to his intended concept; Mistborn burn all 16 base metals, mistings burn one base metal, non-allomancers can only burn godmetal.

Peter Ahlstrom

My explanation for this is that Preservation somehow caused all naturally occurring atium to form as an alloy of atium and electrum. The atium Mistings were actually electrum Mistings.

Xais56

It's a very tidy solution, but it creates the maddening question of what does pure atium do?

Peter Ahlstrom

That answer has already been revealed canonically. RAFO.

General Reddit 2021 (Nov. 2, 2021)

[Halyo_Alex]

2 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Well well well, looky what we have here...

Hype for The Lost Metal intensifies-

[ScadrianTank]

The malatium thing still irks me, even with the WoB. (WoP?)  We're at the point where fixing these oddities means that it breaks other things around it. If this is the case, we'll end up in a situation where the fundamental part of the worldbuilding of the series is referred to incorrectly for more than three books straight, 

[Serack]

@LewsTherinTelescope watching you interact with Brandon and Peter cracks me up.  

Your OP here is the type of annotated theorizing of the highest standard.  I used to do that kind of thing for Jim Butcher's stuff, but I've burned out on taking it to that level, and really admire your work.  

[LewsTherinTelescope]

2 hours ago, ScadrianTank said:

The malatium thing still irks me, even with the WoB. (WoP?)

What malatium thing specifically? There's a few things with it I'm confused by either way, tbh, lol.

2 hours ago, ScadrianTank said:

If this is the case, we'll end up in a situation where the fundamental part of the worldbuilding of the series is referred to incorrectly for more than three books straight, 

I actually don't see this part as too much of an issue. The Allomantic table was something Brandon intended from the start to be wrong and grow and change as knowledge evolves, so while this wasn't originally intended, I think it fits the spirit of the thing for them to later discover it's a bit more complex than previously thought, helping some loose pieces fall into place. Basically what happened with them even placing atium onto the OG chart in the first place.

1 hour ago, Serack said:

Your OP here is the type of annotated theorizing of the highest standard.

Thanks!

1 hour ago, Serack said:

but I've burned out on taking it to that level

Lol yeah there's a reason I haven't made a proper new one in a hot minute despite having theories that could really benefit from that organization.

[ScadrianTank]

12 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

What malatium thing specifically?

That malatium is made from another alloy instead of base godmetal.

[Inquisitor #5]

I wish to add to something brought up in the OP, but that LTT doesn't seem to have taken in this direction.

Specifically citation 14:

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Electrum

I held off on using this metal because while I knew what it had to do, I also knew that it would make atium far less important.

The way I built Allomancy, there is a logic to its framework. Atium shows other people's futures. Gold shows your own past. Each group of metals has internal and external powers. Therefore, one of the two alloys (either atium's or gold's) had to show other people's pasts—the Eleventh Metal from book one, an alloy of atium.

The final metal of that group, then, had to show your own future. I wanted this to be an alloy of atium. But the problem was that it couldn't be. There is always a pushing metal and a pulling metal to each set. The pull always comes first; the push is always the alloy. The two external metals (that do things to other people) have to be grouped together, and the two internal metals (that do things to yourself) have to be grouped together.

That means atium and gold are both pulling metals, and the ones that do things to you both had to be related to gold—and both metals that do things to other people had to be related to atium. Therefore, even though initial logic makes it seem that the alloy of atium should be the one that shows your own future, the way the magic is arranged means that it has to show other people's pasts. [Editor's note: Careful readers may intuit something else about this that Brandon is holding back.]

The Hero of Ages Annotations (June 25, 2009)

This might be old hat, but I'd never thought about it before, and I don't recall anyone pointing it out either.

The pattern here is wrong, atium, given as a pulling metal, acts like electrum, a pushing metal.

Seeing the past/alternate present is a pulling effect, why does pure atium not show others' pasts?

I think LTT's conclusion is the easiest solution. The Pits precipitate an electrum-atium alloy, aligning the effects of atium and electrum when burned.

Malatium presumably simply has a large enough proportion of gold to overwrite the natural silver content.

Atium (probably) grants the mental processing boost required to make use of the power, as well as skewing it in an external direction, possibly simply as an effect of skewing the power towards the Spiritual. Electrum grants the nature, glimpsing the immediate future, skewing it away from the fuller vision of the future that access to the Spiritual/Fortune typically grants.

In malatium, the gold provides the nature, skewing the raw power of atium towards pasts/alternate presents.

Pure atium would presumably grant something more similar to Renarin's visions. 

It may also be that the way electrum-atium and gold-atium work are simply the power of Ruin, from the atium, filtering through the metal, rather than the standard power of Preservation. (Working from the assumption that, based on Allomancy and the fabrial info in RoW, the Investiture/metal interaction is broadly true, regardless of the nature of the Investiture.)

I'm not sure why the atium externalises the power entirely, rather than doing both internal and external, since we know that it's possible to see yourself from Renarin. Though you will of course throw off any future-vision by reacting to it.

It might of course simply be that the power of Ruin is directed outward, similar to how he can slip into cracks. So you might have to do something on the level of Elend's "I can see forever"-moment or messing around at the level of the Bands to get a vision that encompasses yourself as well.

Especially given this WoB:

Quote

Wigginns

What would a Hemalurgic spike granting atium do for an Allomancer already able to burn atium? Does it function similarly to bronze, granting enhanced atium-ing? Along this line of thought, would enhancing electrum burning via spike be of any advantage?

Brandon Sanderson

A spike of something you have would enhance your ability, giving your more strength. With atium, more strength makes for a minimal edge--the length you can push out the atium shadows. However, there's a certain breaking point where you kind of crack the whole system, peer straight into the [Spiritual Realm], and kind of have a "It's full of stars" moment.

Electrum could reach this same moment, potentially, though there's more interference to fight through. Extra strength in electrum isn't going to be terribly useful up to that point.

Alsadius

Is that what happened when atium was burned with duralumin?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Footnote: In his original response Brandon mistakenly said burning atium and duralumin would cause the Allomancer to peer into the Cognitive Realm, rather than Spiritual Realm. He has since confirmed that this was a mistake.
/r/books AMA 2015 (Aug. 1, 2015)

Emphasis mine.

Since the self-directed electrum can reach that same moment of trascendence, it stands to reason that an externally focused power could reach the same from the other side.

 

 

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[LewsTherinTelescope]

3 hours ago, ScadrianTank said:

That malatium is made from another alloy instead of base godmetal.

Ah. Yeah, it's odd, but depending on the ratios involved it might work, since Allomantic electrum is about half gold still.

It's sorta odd malatium was discovered either way, tbh. Because there's a bunch of alloys of atium, and yet both Shezler and Rashek only ever seem to have discovered malatium. It being the only one that could be gotten (in a slightly impure form) by adding things to electrum-atium might help explain that, but it's still... weird.

To respond to a comment from the other thread here, to keep it in one place:

1 hour ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

I do think that someone who had the ability to burn atium Allomantically would be able to burn any atium alloy.

In a similar way to how lerasium can be burned by anyone, but also has some Allomantic effect.

So, anyone with correct Connection could non-Allomantically burn a godmetal, a mistborn could Allomantically burn godmetal (uncertain how exactly Connection plays into that one.)

Seems plausible. I'm a bit hesitant because of the following WoBs:

Quote

Questioner

When will we find out about the other effect of burning lerasium?

Brandon Sanderson

Ummm, you-- I think it-- Ehhh, maybe eventually. I don't know. Not as relevant as it once was.

Shadows of Self release party (Oct. 5, 2015)

Quote

Shardlet

If Vin and Elend hypothetically each blindly ingested equivalently sized beads of lerasium, would Vin be a stronger Mistborn than Elend, or would they be equal?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Vin would be stronger. It is additive, not just an overwrite.

Firefight Seattle UBooks signing (Jan. 6, 2015)

Which sorta sound like he might be backtracking that idea of the "main effect" and "side effect". But if that still stands, then yeah, atium probably has one too.

Not sure about it allowing burning alloys, because being able to burn iron doesn't let you burn steel, but I think it's still plausible.

52 minutes ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

The pattern here is wrong, atium, given as a pulling metal, acts like electrum, a pushing metal.

...huh. I even read and used that very line and still missed that even more obvious problem Good catch lmao

57 minutes ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

Pure atium would presumably grant something more similar to Renarin's visions. 

Hm, I was thinking a more limited version of what Elend got (less time, less knowledge, less understanding), but I think that's a reasonable effect as well.

1 hour ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

I'm not sure why the atium externalises the power entirely, rather than doing both internal and external, since we know that it's possible to see yourself from Renarin. Though you will of course throw off any future-vision by reacting to it.

It might of course simply be that the power of Ruin is directed outward, similar to how he can slip into cracks. So you might have to do something on the level of Elend's "I can see forever"-moment or messing around at the level of the Bands to get a vision that encompasses yourself as well.

Hm, good question. My gut feeling is it's mostly just a somewhat arbitrary thing to make the metals actually distinct instead of one just better than the other, but even then Brandon does like to make rules for what was otherwise arbitrary, so... Not sure.

[Inquisitor #5]

On 2021-11-10 at 4:05 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

It's sorta odd malatium was discovered either way, tbh. Because there's a bunch of alloys of atium, and yet both Shezler and Rashek only ever seem to have discovered malatium.

Huh, did Rashek discover malatium?

In any case, I think this might be relevant:

Quote

"The Eleventh Metal," Ruin said, amused. "You think that was a coincidence? A story nobody else had heard of, a secret way to kill an immortal emperor? It fell right in your lap."

-Mistborn: Secret History, part 6, chapter 1

Quote

"Please," the woman said. "Free us. Or kill us."

"What is this place?" Kelsier hissed, working on her arm bonds.

"He's searching for half-breeds," she said. "To test his new metals on."

"New metals?"

"I don't know," the woman said, tears on her cheeks. "I'm just skaa, we all are. I don't know why he picks us. He talks about things. Metals, unknown metals. I don't think he's completely sane. The things he does . . . he says they are to bring out our Allomantic side . . . but my lord, I've no noble blood. I can't . . ."

Ruin claims that malatium was his plan, and one of Shezler's prisoners thinks that he's not entirely sane.

I think it's safe to say that Shezler had a guide to the correct recipe, and if Rashek also found out about it, well, someone was whispering to him as well.

Other than that, Rashek couldn't reveal the existence of another metal without overturning his own propaganda and possibly incentivising people to start experimenting or finding out that atium was weird.

Atium having any known alloy would also clue people into that gold should have a counterpart, and the discovery of Allomantic electrum would ruin (heh) the atium economy and possibly the whole scheme to hide the atium among the kandra.

On 2021-11-10 at 4:05 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Which sorta sound like he might be backtracking that idea of the "main effect" and "side effect". But if that still stands, then yeah, atium probably has one too.

Huh, I had missed those.

Yeah, that makes my interpretation less likely.

On 2021-11-10 at 4:05 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Not sure about it allowing burning alloys, because being able to burn iron doesn't let you burn steel, but I think it's still plausible.

I actually wonder about that (can't remember if this is ever said explicitly); if steel would register as really bad iron to a Lurcher. I assume that impure elemental metals could still be burned, just like bad alloys, but I don't know the tipping point where viability ceases.

Hmm, things get really weird when the godmetals enter the equation...

If atium being a natural electrum-atium alloy prevents non-Allomancers from actualising the power, and there isn't really a difference between Allomantically burning godmetal and just actualising its power, then it's less likely that having the ability to burn a godmetal would let you burn its alloys.

But then you throw lerasium into the mix and... it becomes confusing.

Though, looking through the WoBs on lerasium, it's never expressly stated that anyone can burn lerasium alloys. It's an easy assumption to make, and I'm not convinced that this is true, but it's possible that lerasium alloys being burnable by anyone is just an assumption we made.

There's a lot of things implying it, but it's not stated outright.

Urgh...

There's also this incredibly infuriating WoB:

Quote

Questioner

I was also wondering if... I just finished reading the Ars Arcanum in the back of Bands of Mourning and I heard it mention that god metals could be alloyed to give different abilities or traits.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Could you give an example of one?

Brandon Sanderson

So, you could alloy lerasium with certain metals of the sixteen in the table and get, if you had just enough lerasium, it would make them a misting of those powers.

Calamity Philadelphia signing (Feb. 20, 2016)

Which implies that we don't really get lerasium yet either. "Certain metals" and whatnot.

So, godmetals seem to be complicated.

On 2021-11-10 at 4:05 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I even read and used that very line and still missed that even more obvious problem

Heh, I didn't notice it myself before either, and the Metallic Arts are my favourite magic systems.

On 2021-11-10 at 4:05 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Hm, I was thinking a more limited version of what Elend got (less time, less knowledge, less understanding), but I think that's a reasonable effect as well.

I don't mean it has to be exactly like Renarin's stained glass-o-vision, but further up the scale of Fortune from standard atium shadows.

Though I suppose Renarin gets snapshots, rather than a continuous image.

On 2021-11-10 at 4:05 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

My gut feeling is it's mostly just a somewhat arbitrary thing to make the metals actually distinct instead of one just better than the other

Fair enough

It would also break the whole scheme of Allomancy far too early if a metal seemed to do both internal and external.

On 2021-11-10 at 4:05 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

but even then Brandon does like to make rules for what was otherwise arbitrary, so... Not sure.

It might be similar to Renarin's (probably) Voidbinding, it's accessed through the Radiant bond, so it has to follow the rules of the Radiant bond, or in this case, through the scheme of Allomancy, so it has to obey the rules of Allomancy.

 

¤_¤

[LewsTherinTelescope]

7 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

Huh, did Rashek discover malatium?

Yeah, it's in one of the storage caches.

Quote

“ ‘This is the last metal I will tell you about,’ ” she read. “ ‘I have trouble deciding the purpose of it. It allows you to see the past, in a way. What a person could have been, and who they might have become, had they made different choices. Much like gold, but for others.”

...

Beneath that was listed an Allomantic compound of metals, one with which Vin was already familiar. It was the alloy of atium they called malatium—Kelsier’s Eleventh Metal. So the Lord Ruler had known about it. He’d simply been as baffled as the rest of them as to its purpose.

 

7 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

I think it's safe to say that Shezler had a guide to the correct recipe, and if Rashek also found out about it, well, someone was whispering to him as well.

Good point, can probably excuse it with that.

7 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

Huh, I had missed those.

Seems a lot of people have, with how often I still see the side effect thing brought up

7 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

Though, looking through the WoBs on lerasium, it's never expressly stated that anyone can burn lerasium alloys. It's an easy assumption to make, and I'm not convinced that this is true, but it's possible that lerasium alloys being burnable by anyone is just an assumption we made.

Hm, that's a good question. I'm more willing to accept lerasium alloys being odd, due to a.) containing the power granting it or b.) due to the extra innate Preservation in Scadrians being the thing that allows Allomancy, but that'd be a good question for Brandon I think.

7 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

Which implies that we don't really get lerasium yet either. "Certain metals" and whatnot.

God I forgot about that one........... Might be that only Enhancement alloys make Mistings or something like that.....

7 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

I don't mean it has to be exactly like Renarin's stained glass-o-vision, but further up the scale of Fortune from standard atium shadows.

Though I suppose Renarin gets snapshots, rather than a continuous image.

Ah okay, yeah probably.

7 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

It would also break the whole scheme of Allomancy far too early if a metal seemed to do both internal and external.

looks at copper Yeah...

7 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

It might be similar to Renarin's (probably) Voidbinding, it's accessed through the Radiant bond, so it has to follow the rules of the Radiant bond, or in this case, through the scheme of Allomancy, so it has to obey the rules of Allomancy.

Yeah could be.

[Inquisitor #5]

19 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Yeah, it's in one of the storage caches.

Would you look at that. I guess an Era 1 reread might be in order.

20 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I'm more willing to accept lerasium alloys being odd, due to a.) containing the power granting it

Possible

20 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

or b.) due to the extra innate Preservation in Scadrians being the thing that allows Allomancy

So Hoid could not have... wait...

Quote

PallonianFire

You said that it's theoretically possible that Hoid could have alloyed the lerasium bead with another god metal to acquire another magic. Has he done so?

Brandon Sanderson

He has not. Because there are certain things that were preventing that from working.

Skyward Denver signing (Nov. 15, 2018)

That would work as a plausible explanation for that.

20 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

looks at copper

And today on "things about Allomancy I never noticed." 

Rusts!

What the heck is up with that?

Bronze might also be the same way, a "bubble" around you where you can "hear."

Also, copper and bronze are backwards. It feels like the elemental metal should let you sense, as with tin.

The entire classification system seems flawed (even if the categories are true, going off the Hemalurgy chart.) The physical and emotional external metals let you do things, the only metals with active effects, btw, but the temporal and enhancement metals are a binary burn/not burn.

I didn't expect to find even more cracks in Allomancy.

And I'm not sure if this is the right place to start rambling about Investiture fields and what the heck copperclouds and bronze pulses actually are and why burning copper prevents emotional Allomancy but copperclouds do not.

 

¤_¤

[LewsTherinTelescope]

On 11/15/2021 at 10:40 AM, Inquisitor #5 said:

So Hoid could not have... wait...

Hoid is weird and I'm not willing to base anything on him

On 11/15/2021 at 10:40 AM, Inquisitor #5 said:

That would work as a plausible explanation for that.

Hm could definitely be

On 11/15/2021 at 10:40 AM, Inquisitor #5 said:

What the heck is up with that?

Vin and Marsh discuss it, though I dunno how much I agree with the distinction made.

Quote

“But, bronze and copper,” Vin said. “Kelsier called them internal metals, but it seems like they affect external things. Copper keeps people from sensing when you use Allomancy.”

Marsh shook his head. “Copper doesn’t change your opponents, it changes something within yourself that has an effect on your opponents. That’s why it is an internal metal. Brass, however, alters another person’s emotions directly—and is an external metal.”

(After all, you could probably argue the same for the emotional metals' pulses.)

On 11/15/2021 at 10:40 AM, Inquisitor #5 said:

Also, copper and bronze are backwards. It feels like the elemental metal should let you sense, as with tin.

Yeahhhh Pushing and Pulling are kind of weird outside steel and iron. In fact, from the sound of it, copper is literally pushing some sort of field out from yourself...

On 11/15/2021 at 10:40 AM, Inquisitor #5 said:

And I'm not sure if this is the right place to start rambling about Investiture fields and what the heck copperclouds and bronze pulses actually are and why burning copper prevents emotional Allomancy but copperclouds do not.

Yeah it's interesting stuff.

[Inquisitor #5]

On 2021-11-16 at 10:44 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Hoid is weird and I'm not willing to base anything on him

Fair, fair.

On 2021-11-16 at 10:44 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Vin and Marsh discuss it, though I dunno how much I agree with the distinction made.

That explanation sounds a lot like "well, each category has to have an internal and external pair."

Turns out that the stagnant, oppressive empire might not be the best place for scientific study.

On 2021-11-16 at 10:44 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

After all, you could probably argue the same for the emotional metals' pulses.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.

On 2021-11-16 at 10:44 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Yeahhhh Pushing and Pulling are kind of weird outside steel and iron. In fact, from the sound of it, copper is literally pushing some sort of field out from yourself...

Steel and iron and brass and zinc are the pairs that make intuitive sense, IMO.

The Enhancement metals make at least thematic sense, but might actually be "backward." It can be argued that wiping metal reserves should be a Pushing effect and consuming them explosively a Pulling one.

Internal Temporal are... honestly arbitrary, as far as I can tell. I guess gold pulls something to you, thematically? Heh, maybe I should have gone through all the external ones first.

External Temporal are really weird. To me they feel entirely backward. The intuitive effect of Pulling on time is that it compresses it around you, making it pass faster. I suppose I can see the idea of "grabbing" time and slowing its passage as well. Hmm...

Internal Physical make sense to me, the idea that one lets you more easily affect the world, the other making it easier for the world to affect you.

Internal Mental are an absolute mess and makes me think about Investiture fields.

I'm sure this is an idea that's been hit upon before, though I have, IIRC, not been involved in any such discussion.

(And I wish that I could take full credit for this idea, but proper credit for the basis I'm rambling from goes to my cousin, who isn't on the Shard AFAIK.)

So, Investiture fields, or the most sensible explanation for how all this works, IMO. 

So, Investiture has associated waveforms, this information was seeded in Mistborn, reinforced in SA and ultimately confirmed outright in RoW. 

Investiure seems to produce a field around the user/holder. This field is related and unique to the nature of the power in question. This field allows the Investiture to affect things within it, either actively (e.g. steel and iron) or passively (e.g. Heightenings, Internal metals.)

Gosh, I hope these ramblings make some degree of sense, just trying to phrase this is making my head spin.

I think something along the lines of a spherical field surrounding the... do we have a generic term for "Investiture user?" (Or possibly something like a magnetic field, but this is Investiture physics, not proper physics, so who knows.) The exception is fields that only overlap the person and possibly things they touch, not sure how this part works exactly. It might also be that it simply is a field that doesn't propagate beyond the person, one that propagates by touch and one that affects everything within it. (Think the difference between a Soulcaster fabrial and Radiant, which I'd say is reinforced by the fact that something is either in a speed bubble or not, touch brings something into the Soulcaster "bubble.")

The field varies in size by the power (and probably things like Allomantic strength, where applicable, given Rashek's ability to blanket soothe all of Luthadel) and determines the range of the power.

The clearest example of this is probably the speed bubbles, being clearly delineated. 

So, in Allomancy, we have four (standard) catgories of metal/power, Physical, Mental, Temporal and Enhancement. Within each category, there are the further divisions of Pushing, Pulling, Internal and External.

The above should be known by everyone in the thread, so why bring it up? Why follow the rambling on Investiture fields and waveforms with this?

So, there's the interesting fact that all the Internal metals seem to have an Investiture field that only affects the user... except the Mental metals.

One creates a field that "silences" Allomantic pulses, and presumably other Investiture pulses as well. The other creates a field in which you can "hear" the same Allomantic pulses, and other pulses if you know what you're doing. (Singer Seeker when Brandon?)

Why are these Internal metals so... odd? Why are they the only ones that affect your surroundings no matter what you do?

I posit that we have misunderstood Allomancy in yet another way. (Why stop when we're overturning a ton of established theory anyway? ) We know that for every Push, there's a Pull, as it were. 

All the Mental metals might actually be External and all Enhancement metals Internal. We know that at least Leeching works by touch, Primer Cube notwithstanding.

 

Under my waveform/field scheme the Allomantic pulses and Tones of Roshar are also both expressions of the waveform of the Investiture. Which also leads to some interesting conjectures, like that you should be able to sense a difference between Allomancy depending on the fuel source, even if the base pulse is the same.

Bronze is also interesting here (Pushing metal ) because of the mechanics of how it works. Can you sense Investiture being used outside your range/field? Can you sense it if your Investiture fields simply overlap? Does the originator of the Investiture you sense have to be fully within your field? Why can you even sense pulses from Internal metals?

 

This turned rambly, but hopefully somewhat understandable.

(Might make a proper writeup if I ever figure out how to phrase it properly...)

 

¤_¤

[LewsTherinTelescope]

8 minutes ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

Turns out that the stagnant, oppressive empire might not be the best place for scientific study.

True enough

8 minutes ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.

The pulses also probably are something originating in the user affecting the enemy, and might even work sorta similarly to copper in that it's emanating rhythms (depending on how exactly copper does what it does, that's meant to be framed as a theory not fact).

9 minutes ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

Steel and iron and brass and zinc are the pairs that make intuitive sense, IMO.

Honestly brass and zinc are the ones that are hardest for me to remember, because the intuition I use for the rest is kinda "Pulling is less active and/or more defensive, Pushing is more active and/or more offensive" (pulling into yourself, vs pushing at someone else), but to me Rioting and Soothing break that idea.

11 minutes ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

Internal Temporal are... honestly arbitrary, as far as I can tell. I guess gold pulls something to you, thematically? Heh, maybe I should have gone through all the external ones first.

Yeahhhh I have no idea what's up with those

13 minutes ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

External Temporal are really weird. To me they feel entirely backward. The intuitive effect of Pulling on time is that it compresses it around you, making it pass faster. I suppose I can see the idea of "grabbing" time and slowing its passage as well. Hmm...

This is where the defensive/inactive vs offensive/active crutch helps me keep track, thinking of the way Wayne goes out and uses his bubbles to attack, whereas Marasi uses hers to wait for help.

16 minutes ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

Gosh, I hope these ramblings make some degree of sense, just trying to phrase this is making my head spin.

Lol understandable. I am exhaaaausted right now, so I'll have to come back to the deeper theorizing stuff tomorrow, because as interesting as it is I can barely read what the words say, let alone what they mean

18 minutes ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

I posit that we have misunderstood Allomancy in yet another way. (Why stop when we're overturning a ton of established theory anyway? ) We know that for every Push, there's a Pull, as it were. 

All the Mental metals might actually be External and all Enhancement metals Internal. We know that at least Leeching works by touch, Primer Cube notwithstanding.

The interesting thing here is the rhythms, because there's patterns that indicate whether a metal falls into the internal category or external one (though this doesn't mean they haven't slightly misunderstood what it actually is, and it means something subtly different from "internal/external").

Quote

"Eventually, you’ll be able to sense two different pulse lengths. Internal metals, like bronze and copper, give off longer pulses than external metals, like iron and steel. Practice will also let you sense the three patterns within the pulses: one for the physical metals, one for the mental metals, and one for the two greater metals."

(An interesting note here is that atium does share a pattern with the temporal metals, which I might've actually brought up in the main post now that I think about it but am too lazy to check lol.)

[Inquisitor #5]

On 2021-11-22 at 3:32 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

The pulses also probably are something originating in the user affecting the enemy, and might even work sorta similarly to copper in that it's emanating rhythms (depending on how exactly copper does what it does, that's meant to be framed as a theory not fact).

Oh gosh, it's Investiture echolocation.

You are probably not "hearing" the actual output from another Investiture user, but the "echo" against their power.

That works so much better for me than simply sensing their power.

I think.

The Rhythms and the Well muddy things here. Though I suppose that "hearing" the echo of your own bronze pulses would use the same sense.

Of course, that explanation only works if bronze actually projects something outward.

In this case, copper produces a "deadened" bubble, nothing "echoes" back from it.

On 2021-11-22 at 3:32 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Honestly brass and zinc are the ones that are hardest for me to remember, because the intuition I use for the rest is kinda "Pulling is less active and/or more defensive, Pushing is more active and/or more offensive" (pulling into yourself, vs pushing at someone else), but to me Rioting and Soothing break that idea.

Interesting.

I've always pictured it as a bar graph, Pushing makes the bars shorter (pushing them down) and Pulling making them longer (pulling them up.) So to me that's always worked.

On 2021-11-22 at 3:32 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

This is where the defensive/inactive vs offensive/active crutch helps me keep track, thinking of the way Wayne goes out and uses his bubbles to attack, whereas Marasi uses hers to wait for help.

Hmm, I see.

Though I feel like my problem here isn't so much remembering the pattern (which is fully consistent, elemental metals always Pull, alloys always Push) as finding that the pattern doesn't seem to fit the effects as I'd concieve them.

I think I basically have to imagine it as a Doppler shift, Pulling makes the "time wave" longer, making you experience time at a slower rate than the outside world, Pushing compresses it, making it shorter, and you experience time more quickly compared to the outside.

On 2021-11-22 at 3:32 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I am exhaaaausted right now, so I'll have to come back to the deeper theorizing stuff tomorrow, because as interesting as it is I can barely read what the words say, let alone what they mean

I'm not sure I could puzzle out what they mean while fully awake if I didn't already know what I was trying to say.

Isn't it fun when you have a concept in your head, but don't know how to verbalise it? 

On 2021-11-22 at 3:32 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

The interesting thing here is the rhythms, because there's patterns that indicate whether a metal falls into the internal category or external one (though this doesn't mean they haven't slightly misunderstood what it actually is, and it means something subtly different from "internal/external").

Quote

"Eventually, you’ll be able to sense two different pulse lengths. Internal metals, like bronze and copper, give off longer pulses than external metals, like iron and steel. Practice will also let you sense the three patterns within the pulses: one for the physical metals, one for the mental metals, and one for the two greater metals."

That is interesting.

So, we know that there are multiple possible patterns. Just counting base Allomancy, there are four patterns for metal type, and two each for Internal/External and Push/Pull.

The question is what this actually means.

We know one variable from the quote above, Internal/External affects the frequency of the pulse.

Now, I think we can safely say that the frequency of each Internal/External metal is not consistent. If they all had the same beat it should not take training to pick them out.

Aaand looking at the rest of the scene where Vin trains with Marsh this goes out the window... darn it...

Marsh claims that "a long pulse that beats against you and has a quick pattern will be pewter" which is... argh...

Unless quick pattern just means that it consists of a loop of few beats?

This does (kinda) give us another data point however, it implies that the pulses of Physical metals have a quick pattern. Whatever that means.

My entire being is screaming that the pulse of each metal should be an interference pattern.

Foiled by Investiture physics...

I will still say, Push/Pull seems the easiest to distinguish, while pulse length and speed seem harder to pick up on.

Hmm, I do realise that I've probably been thinking about this wrong. It's probably not an interference pattern.

Push/Pull creates the feel of the pulse, Internal/External creates the frequency of the pulse and metal group creates the pattern of the pulse. That works.

So, just from how hard it is to tell bronze and iron apart (and just being able to tell that one is Pushing, one Pulling makes Marsh think Vin's been practising), the variance in frequency and pattern seems very slight. Or it's an untrained ear and two competing imputs.

It still feels like all physical metals can't exhibit the exact same pattern, just at different frequencies and in different directions. It feels like it would be too easy to tell.

Maybe not though.

It would be really helpful to get an in-depth look at all of allomancy from an experienced seeker.

 

As for the rest of it, I got nothing. I will fully conceed that my harebrained speculation isn't exactly solid.

On 2021-11-22 at 3:32 PM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

An interesting note here is that atium does share a pattern with the temporal metals

That makes perfect sense though, it's just Ruin's Investiture being filtered, not Preservation's. Though I suppose saying that here means I implicitly contradict my own assertion that there should be variance in the pattern within a metal group.

That's fine. I'm still walking away with a more solid theory on bronze pulses.

 

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[Cocoa]

If all the 'atium' we've seen so far really is an electrum alloy, then that raises even more questions than just what pure atium does allomantically. We're also up a creek in regards to what pure atium does feruchemically and what 'unrefined' (i.e. electrum alloy) atium steals as a spike, if anything.

For feruchemy, I'm at a loss. atilectrum storing youth would at least still seem to fit in the Hybrid metal quadrant, but with feruchemy alloys don't seem to have a direct link to their base metals the way they do in allomancy. And what trait could possibly mix with 'determination' to get 'youth?' At the very least, though, we can deduce that god metals and their alloys have different effects, since according to WoB Sazed experimented with malatium and "didn't get very far," which doesn't strike me as something that would happen if it also stored youth.

For hemalurgy, I can at least make a guess. Electrum spikes steal enhancement allomantic powers. We know that a refined atium spike can steal any trait and do so more efficiently than other spikes. We know that lerasium turns someone into an allomancer when burned and its alloys turn people into mistings when burned. Allomancy is to Preservation as hemalurgy is to Ruin. So, taking all that together, I think that atilectrum spikes would still steal enhancement allomantic powers but more efficiently than pure electrum would.

Edited November 28, 2021 by Cocoa

[Honorless]

Okay, so the theory got confirmed:

at 39:21, thank you for asking this to Brandon, @Kingsdaughter613! Honestly Punny, and a lot of the rest of you, how do you guys even notice these things?!  This is amazing!

[LewsTherinTelescope]

15 minutes ago, Honorless said:

Honestly Punny, and a lot of the rest of you, how do you guys even notice these things?!  This is amazing!

Spending far far too much time overthinking everything and coming up with so many wrong theories some of them eventually stick

[Honorless]

28 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Spending far far too much time overthinking everything and coming up with so many wrong theories some of them eventually stick

Oh and congrats and thank you for getting that Fainlife question in and not getting RAFO'd! Omg, I wonder if the Evil on Threnody being Fainlife theory might be correct! So much hype!

[LewsTherinTelescope]

5 minutes ago, Honorless said:

Oh and congrats and thank you for getting that Fainlife question in and not getting RAFO'd! Omg, I wonder if the Evil on Threnody being Fainlife theory might be correct! So much hype!

Yeah that was the one question I asked where I was like "yeah this is an almost certain RAFO" but not complaining 

[Honorless]

1 minute ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Yeah that was the one question I asked where I was like "yeah this is an almost certain RAFO" but not complaining 

Thank you for taking the risk, because I wouldn't have!

[Inquisitor #5]

Huh, would you look at that.

Well theorised!

 

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