Allomantic Copper vs. Soulcaster

[Trusk'our he/him]

If someone were to burn allomantic copper, would they have some added protection from being Soulcast (aside from simply holding more investiture) since their cognitive aspect would be less mutable to outside influences?

As a side note, would someone who’s soul was pierced by a Hemalurgic spike be extra susceptible to being Soulcast?

[Dunkum he/him]

this should work, though you might need to be  savant to extend the copper effects beyond allomancy (but then, in era 1 mistborn at least, most copperclouds likely are savants just from trying to avoid detection as mistings)

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, Dunkum said:

this should work, though you might need to be  savant to extend the copper effects beyond allomancy (but then, in era 1 mistborn at least, most copperclouds likely are savants just from trying to avoid detection as mistings)

Why would you need to be a savant? Regular Allomantic copper already protects your cognitive aspect from manipulation.

[Dunkum he/him]

13 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Why would you need to be a savant? Regular Allomantic copper already protects your cognitive aspect from manipulation.

not finding the WoB right now, but i vaguely recall one suggesting that a seeker would need to be a savant to detect other types of investiture beyond allomancy, and something similar for aluminum savants being able to remove other types, so i'm extending from that to the possibility that a coppercloud is sort of tuned to allomancy and might need something extra, such as savantism, to affect other types of investiture. but that's pure speculation, it might work fine as is.

[NameIess]

1 hour ago, Dunkum said:

not finding the WoB right now, but i vaguely recall one suggesting that a seeker would need to be a savant to detect other types of investiture beyond allomancy, and something similar for aluminum savants being able to remove other types, so i'm extending from that to the possibility that a coppercloud is sort of tuned to allomancy and might need something extra, such as savantism, to affect other types of investiture. but that's pure speculation, it might work fine as is.

The only WoB that I could find that implies a seeker needing to be a savant to detect other types of investiture is this one:

Quote

Questioner

Would a Seeker know if something's endowed with Breath or if someone was holding it?

Brandon Sanderson

Seekers have a lot of trouble with just detecting investiture that isn't being used in some way. They could catch Stormlight that you've breathed in, because it's starting to do stuff. If just something has Stormlight, like a gemstone or something like that...

Questioner

I meant from Warbreaker. If you'd endowed like, a large thing with that, could you see that?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, something with Breath, could they find that with a Seeker. That's right. There are theoretical applications of this, but I would say your average Seeker, no. There is a way to get there but if you just took a Seeker from - and said do you - they would not be able to do that.

DragonCon 2019 (Aug. 29, 2019)

and I found a couple of WoB's similar to these that have no mention of savantism:

Quote

Questioner

Would a Seeker burning bronze be able to tell what order of Knight Radiant someone is? Or what Surges they have access to?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but they'd have to be actively using it, right? So you could hear somebody -- for instance -- Lashing, but if you just saw somebody who'd drawn in Stormlight, you probably wouldn't be able to tell until they use that Stormlight, which it was. You'd be able to probably hear that they have the Stormlight.

Questioner

So the pulses are not unique to Scadrial's Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

No they're not. You'd be able to do that. In fact there are other things in the cosmere that are kind of the same sort of "radar detection" here and there, that you can read in the same way. Bronze is just the one of the best... way to do it -- being a Seeker is really handy for these reasons.

Being able to go off-planet with your Allomancy also is a pretty big advantage. It's really hard, for instance, to get a Surgebinder off of Roshar, because of the Connection stuff that's happening. In fact you may have heard in a prologue just recently someone complaining about that.

Footnote: The prologue Brandon talks about can be found here.
DragonCon 2019 (Aug. 29, 2019)

 

Questioner

If an Allomancer found themselves on Nalthis or Roshar, would they be able to use chromium on someone using Stormlight or Breath?

Brandon Sanderson

I am staying away from answering too many questions like that until I start having it happen. But do know that the magics interact... some ways they interact very naturally, some ways, they don’t. One way I’ve released is, you could use bronze on most forms of Investiture to find it. So you can extrapolate that some of these things would work. But not necessarily all. All of them could be made to work.

Shadows of Self San Francisco signing (Oct. 9, 2015)  

On aluminum savantism, there is this WoB:

Quote

Douglas

What benefit does an aluminum savant get? Yes, I know this would normally never happen because aluminum burns itself up. Suppose a mad scientist with a willing Mistborn test subject shoved a feeding tube down the Mistborn's throat to pump in a continuous stream of aluminum, replenishing it steadily so there's always a new unburned supply. Add another tube to pump out excess water if necessary. What would he discover? Alternatively, what would Sazed with his Shard-granted knowledge know?

Brandon Sanderson

Ha, that IS a little silly of a method. However, on the extreme end of aluminum, I have in the notes the possibility of cleansing the spirit of unwanted effects of other Investitures. You'd get really good at this, and maybe even be able to cleanse the body of other impurities.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 27, 2012)

That mentions cleansing investiture from the spiritweb. It doesn't say that you need to be a savant to do so, but being a savant would make you better at it.

As for copper blocking soulcasting, A-copper probably would make it harder to soulcast someone. However, considering the fact that we've seen things pierce copperclouds, such as inquisitors with bronze spikes or TLR with soothing, I think that the higher investiture levels from copper would be more significant.

[Dunkum he/him]

3 hours ago, Nameless said:

The only WoB that I could find that implies a seeker needing to be a savant to detect other types of investiture is this one:

and I found a couple of WoB's similar to these that have no mention of savantism:

On aluminum savantism, there is this WoB:

That mentions cleansing investiture from the spiritweb. It doesn't say that you need to be a savant to do so, but being a savant would make you better at it.

As for copper blocking soulcasting, A-copper probably would make it harder to soulcast someone. However, considering the fact that we've seen things pierce copperclouds, such as inquisitors with bronze spikes or TLR with soothing, I think that the higher investiture levels from copper would be more significant.

I could definitely be misremembering, and even without that I'd probably be at least 70% or so in favor of the interpretation that A-copper would disrupt that automatically, just wanted to hedge a bit because I am not 100%.

I do use the word disrupt deliberately there, because I think a Radiant, at least, could pump in enough investiture to overcome the coppercloud, but it would take more than normal

[Trusk'our he/him]

19 hours ago, Dunkum said:

I could definitely be misremembering, and even without that I'd probably be at least 70% or so in favor of the interpretation that A-copper would disrupt that automatically, just wanted to hedge a bit because I am not 100%.

I do use the word disrupt deliberately there, because I think a Radiant, at least, could pump in enough investiture to overcome the coppercloud, but it would take more than normal

Based on the fact that Kaladin can still lash a Fused who is holding voidlight, albeit with some added effort, I'd say you're most likely right that even if a it did offer you some added resistance, a Coppercloud could be overwhelmed by a determined Soulcaster with enough stormlight.

It's really just a question of whether it would only be the added investiture from Allomantically burning copper that would be protecting you, or whether the actual ability would grant you some added protection as well.

[Immortal Platypus]

On 1/1/2022 at 0:29 PM, Trusk'our said:

Based on the fact that Kaladin can still lash a Fused who is holding voidlight, albeit with some added effort, I'd say you're most likely right that even if a it did offer you some added resistance, a Coppercloud could be overwhelmed by a determined Soulcaster with enough stormlight.

But what if a copper savant flared their copper right as the Soulcaster or Radiant tried to change or lash them or something like that. With that extra surge of power, would they be able to block the Stormlight or would the coppercloud be diminished and shrink as the Stormlight tried to penetrate and maybe break through or would both powers just dissipate? And if a Radiant is trying to lash them, does the stormlight flow over the coppercloud like a storm over a bubble and basically put pressure on it until the metaphorical bubble popped or would the stormlight focus on breaking through a specific point like a knife jabbed at a massive bubble? If it acts the second way, does the coppercloud still protect from Rioting/Soothing/other investiture, or does it collapse on itself and the Investiture dissipate. Also, can you like pour extra copper influence to the bubble under the same laws as you can lash something multiple times, assuming you have the copper for it.

[Dunkum he/him]

6 hours ago, ImportantQuestions said:

But what if a copper savant flared their copper right as the Soulcaster or Radiant tried to change or lash them or something like that. With that extra surge of power, would they be able to block the Stormlight or would the coppercloud be diminished and shrink as the Stormlight tried to penetrate and maybe break through or would both powers just dissipate? And if a Radiant is trying to lash them, does the stormlight flow over the coppercloud like a storm over a bubble and basically put pressure on it until the metaphorical bubble popped or would the stormlight focus on breaking through a specific point like a knife jabbed at a massive bubble? If it acts the second way, does the coppercloud still protect from Rioting/Soothing/other investiture, or does it collapse on itself and the Investiture dissipate. Also, can you like pour extra copper influence to the bubble under the same laws as you can lash something multiple times, assuming you have the copper for it.

we've seen a coppercloud pierced before and it definitely does not break the coppercloud, so I don't think it would in this case either.  I suspect a flare of copper at exactly the right time could maybe halt things, but only if the Radiant were using just bare minimum power (or possibly lightweaving, which seems to use less invesiture than other surges), but I think it more likely it would turn a full lashing into 1/2 of a full lashing (or whatever appropriate fraction).  Basically a lot of Knights Radiant powers just use tons more investiture than anything from Scadrial other than Compounding.  expecting a coppercloud to repel it is like expecting a wooden shield to repel a cannonball - technically it will slow it down some, but I doubt anyone would even notice unless they had really precision measuring equipment.

[Immortal Platypus]

8 minutes ago, Dunkum said:

expecting a coppercloud to repel it is like expecting a wooden shield to repel a cannonball - technically it will slow it down some, but I doubt anyone would even notice unless they had really precision measuring equipment

fair enough, but I think that if the Misting/Mistborn had enough copper, they could stop it because I think of it more as a knife stabbing into rubber or paper or something but the farther it goes, the duller it gets and so it's eating up the copper but if there was enough copper, and they could burn it fast enough, it could stop it. I agree that It would take a freaking ton of copper (to release Investiture) to equal the Radiant's Investiture in the form of the Lashing. Or, I guess compounding could possibly equal the Investiture.

Edited October 25, 2022 by ImportantQuestions
Had another thought

[Dunkum he/him]

1 hour ago, ImportantQuestions said:

fair enough, but I think that if the Misting/Mistborn had enough copper, they could stop it because I think of it more as a knife stabbing into rubber or paper or something but the farther it goes, the duller it gets and so it's eating up the copper but if there was enough copper, and they could burn it fast enough, it could stop it. I agree that It would take a freaking ton of copper (to release Investiture) to equal the Radiant's Investiture in the form of the Lashing. Or, I guess compounding could possibly equal the Investiture.

yea, I was considering a different analogy, closer to the one you use, but didn't feel like retyping the post.

the problem with just adding more copper is that there is a hard cap on how much a misting can burn and how fast.  With Duralumin it may be possible, but that's one shot and all your metals are gone, plus it requires a second allomantic ability, which complicates things.  someone with both Nicrosil ferruchemy and Copper allomancy might be able to manage it as well, but in either case I don't think they could sustain it very long (basically no time at all in the duralumin case).

Nicrosil Compounding +  Copper Allomancy is probably the best bet, but that requires 2 types of allomancy plus a ferruchemical ability to boot, and even that depends on how tapping more of an ability that you already have actually works and/or how increasing your allomantic power actually works (does it increase the rate of burning metals or how much investiture you get from burning a given amount of metal?  or both?  something else?). it should increase your power cap, but might (????) increase the rate you burn through your copper as well.  but rationed correctly, I think this one might be able to hold its own against a KR by flaring bronze and Compounded Nicrosil to drastically increase the coppercloud strength in short bursts against the KR powers. unless you are fighting in a highstorm, in which case you may as well just give up, because the radiant isn't running out of power anytime soon. and of course, a coppercloud isn't going to do much good against just plain old stormlight enhanced punching.

[Immortal Platypus]

well, if you're fighting in a highstorm, you're practically dead anyway unless you're Kaladin*

 

 

*or any other KR/honorblade wielder