Atium in Tin Compounding?

[Mistchemist16]

We know by WoB that it’s possible to store Allomantic senses, among other things

 

NewbSombrero

Can Feruchemical tin store Allomantically granted senses like bronze sense?

Brandon Sanderson

Possible.

General Signed Books 2018 (Feb. 8, 2018)

 

Naturally, this would apply to atium, which is definitely a separate sense that even the blind can use. So a Fullborn could have atium sight all the time. In fact, you could probably Compound up to seeing the Spiritual Realm. Given this, I have a few questions

1. Would the constant supply of atium connect you to Ruin and make you more likely to destroy stuff?

2. Could you ascend to Ruin if you compounded enough atium-tin or would it only be coded to the sense part?

3. Did the Lord Ruler know this was a thing? Is there any evidence to prove he didn’t?

 

Edit: Wanted to clarify a few more things. Here’s the WoB about using atium while blind

 

Herowannabe

I recently picked up the Mistborn Adventure game and am loving it. I made a character who is a blind Mistborn because hey, I thought it would make for some interesting possibilities. As I understand Allomancy, he can hear/sense well enough to get around with Tin, plus even though he's blind he can still "see" steel lines (like the inquisitors), and I assume Atium would work the same way- that is, he could still "see" Atium shadows. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Brandon Sanderson

No, you're right. That works. He'd have to burn metals a LOT though. It might warp him a little.

/r/fantasy AMA 2013 (April 15, 2013)

 

I guess you could argue that atium doesn’t become a proper sense unless you become a savant, but that doesn’t quite make sense. You’d have to intepret “burns metals a lot” as “can only use the sense by becoming a savant”. As opposed to “will need to rely on this sense and probably become a savant”.
 

I also suspect that becoming a savant in any pure God Metal causes you to ascend, thought it might just be lerasium. But that just makes me even less sure of whether you could use Era 1 atium filtered through tin to get there. If we intepret Elend’s vision of the Spiritual Realm in HoA as basically mimicking refined atium, then maybe you can Ascend with the tin hack
 

Personally, my theory on God Metal ascension is not that you literaly take all of the Shard’s power from the metal. Instead, your Connection becomes so strong that you have a “key” that gives you free access to the Shard. Of course, it’s merely a theory, but I believe it makes sense with what we know. 

Edited January 12, 2023 by Mistchemist16
Needed to clarify

[IlstrawberrySeed]

1: Probably not. Definitely not. Just because you are connected to something doesn't make you more likely to destroy. Easier to manipulate? Possibly. (I don't think so)

2: Probably not. Probably.

3: Unknown, but I would think not, otherwise he should have seen what happened in TLE and pull on the bracers as she was pushing, or otherwise use some trick to avoid loosing his metalminds. Perhaps even use her earring to stop her from accessing the mists.

[Returned]

I think that there is a flaw with the premise. It's far from clear that you could store "seeing the future" generically, though maybe you could. I'm not sure I'd agree that what atium grants is a sense so much as it is a conduit to the Spiritual Realm where "time" isn't exactly a thing. It's true that you "perceive" that information in some form, but that isn't necessarily the same thing as having a distinct sense that can detect it. Like, maybe you could retain the ability to perceive and process such information, but without that conduit there isn't anything for you to perceive or process. And there's the arbitrary retcon cheat that the atium in Mistborn 1-3 is really just an alloy of atium, so it may behave differently from how the pure godmetal would.

1. We see in Secret History that Kelsier, whose Mistborn nature is a result of stronger Connection to Preservation than most, was aligned with Ruin anyways, so the issue seems more complicated than just burning a lot of an alloy of the godmetal. And if tin wouldn't grant you more future-sight than the atium you burned to fill it in the first place it seems like it would be a non-factor (if the process would work as you suggest).

2. The compounding seems irrelevant to me. Compounding lets you store more of an attribute than you put in, forced into a particular form by the metals used in the process. Burning enough true atium Allomantically would probably allow you to Ascend to Ruin if you were properly aligned with it and the Shard were not already held. We've already got a WoB indicating that doing the same with Lerasium is effectively Ascending to Preservation. But that's burning all the atium there is and could be, not storing some other effect that an atium alloy grants. And that's even if you could store the future-sight, which is at best unclear. In any case an effect granted by burning atium isn't the same thing as the atium itself, and the nature of godmetals as the physical manifestation of Shards seems like an important factor for such an effect.

3. There isn't much evidence of the extent of what the Lord Ruler knew about the Metallic Arts, in no small part because the details of compounding have been deliberately reserved by Sanderson to be revealed in future books. I think it's safe to say that the Lord Ruler probably knew more or less everything about them, as Sazed seems to know everything after his own Ascension. And in any case his efforts around atium were to sequester the vast majority of it in a hidden place for a very good reason, so he probably wouldn't want to make use of the knowledge even if it does exist and he did have it.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Returned
I mistook something in the original post, and edited to correct

[Trusk'our]

On 1/12/2023 at 4:18 PM, Mistchemist16 said:

1. Would the constant supply of atium connect you to Ruin and make you more likely to destroy stuff?

2. Could you ascend to Ruin if you compounded enough atium-tin or would it only be coded to the sense part?

3. Did the Lord Ruler know this was a thing? Is there any evidence to prove he didn’t?

1. I find this extremely unlikely, as compounding fuels whatever power you are using with Preservation's Investiture, not whatever Investiture happened to be used for the power previously. So, if you compounded an absolute ton of the metal, maybe you would become more willing to not destroy stuff, similar to how... Warbreaker spoilers.

Spoiler

Awakeners will be influenced by their Investiture in minute ways, so it may be possible to take in enough Investiture over time via compounding to be influenced by it in a similar manner, but I'm totally sure.

2. No. Even if compounding used Ruin's Investiture and not Preservation's, you would need to have no Vessel currently holding the Shard and you would need so much Investiture that it would be comparable to the Well of Ascension. Even then, it still likely wouldn't work, as channeling Investiture to do work doesn't seem to necessarily create a Connection between you and the Shard in question.

3. If it is possible, the Lord Ruler likely knew of it, since he gained an intimate knowledge of Allomancy and Feruchemy when he Ascended.

However, I think that Returned is right. Future sight seems to be more a property of oneself being closer to the Spiritual Realm than having a "sense" that is directed in that way. I think that if you could Feruchemically store Allomantic Atium's Investiture, it would more likely be done with Nicrosil, though it seems to store the ability to use Invested powers and Innate Investiture (such as Biochromatic Breaths) more than Kinetic Investiture, which means that it probably isn't even possible to store Atium's foresight in a Metalmind.

[Mistchemist16]

3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

1. I find this extremely unlikely, as compounding fuels whatever power you are using with Preservation's Investiture, not whatever Investiture happened to be used for the power previously. So, if you compounded an absolute ton of the metal, maybe you would become more willing to not destroy stuff, similar to how... Warbreaker spoilers.

  Reveal hidden contents

Awakeners will be influenced by their Investiture in minute ways, so it may be possible to take in enough Investiture over time via compounding to be influenced by it in a similar manner, but I'm totally sure.

 

Are you sure about that? Compounding works because the Feruchemy decides how Investiture acts. The initial Atium burning would still use Ruin. Thus, the Compounding should just alter Preservation’s power to act like Ruin. That being said, your logic would still be interesting for most Compounding

3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

2. No. Even if compounding used Ruin's Investiture and not Preservation's, you would need to have no Vessel currently holding the Shard and you would need so much Investiture that it would be comparable to the Well of Ascension. Even then, it still likely wouldn't work, as channeling Investiture to do work doesn't seem to necessarily create a Connection between you and the Shard in question.

I would sorta agree with you here. When I first asked this question, I had underestimated just how potent God Metals were. But there is still a valid question to ask: what happens if you Compound with another Shard’s Investiture, like Atium or breaths via nicrosil? I see three options

1. Compounding simply can’t copy that way. Given this is the Cosmere we’re talking about, it’s easily the least likely IMO.

2. The other Shard’s power is copied by Preservation, but they separate like oil on water. When the Investiture is used up, both Shards get their power back as appropriate 

3. The hack permanently tricks Preservation’s Investiture into becoming another Shard entirely. This seems most likely as a fatal hack in the magic

I’m not convinced the other two options are right, but if you can prove one is, I’d be willing to cede this point too

3 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

3.  If it is possible, the Lord Ruler likely knew of it, since he gained an intimate knowledge of Allomancy and Feruchemy when he Ascended.

However, I think that Returned is right. Future sight seems to be more a property of oneself being closer to the Spiritual Realm than having a "sense" that is directed in that way. I think that if you could Feruchemically store Allomantic Atium's Investiture, it would more likely be done with Nicrosil, though it seems to store the ability to use Invested powers and Innate Investiture (such as Biochromatic Breaths) more than Kinetic Investiture, which means that it probably isn't even possible to store Atium's foresight in a Metalmind.

Based on what we know of Fortune, you might be right. Everyone has it and it does see the Spiritual Realm similar to atium, but you store it with chromium, not tin. If any metal besides tin could store Atium sight, it would probably be chromium and not nicrosil. It depends on whether you view Chromium as stretching to other Spiritual time awareness or just Fortune, but you could make the case. This would also explain why TLR didn’t have that ability (imagine if he did).

If Chromium stores Atium, it probably also stores the other time senses like electrum and gold (why would you ever reverse compound gold?). You could argue steelsight too, since it uses the Spiritual Ream, but I wouldn’t. It’s actually be really cool to say that Fortune is something more like spiritual time awareness and that chromium covers all time senses, while tin covers the rest (bronze, steelsight, Awakener lifesense). I’m headcannoning this now cause I think it’s cool

Edited February 1, 2023 by Mistchemist16

[Trusk'our]

17 hours ago, Mistchemist16 said:

Are you sure about that? Compounding works because the Feruchemy decides how Investiture acts. The initial Atium burning would still use Ruin. Thus, the Compounding should just alter Preservation’s power to act like Ruin. That being said, your logic would still be interesting for most Compounding

Ah, you're right. I forgot that when you burn Atium, you draw purely from the metal's power, which is Ruin's, not Preservation's.

But yeah, for any non-Godmetal compounding, the Feruchemical charge reprograms the metal's "key" so that you draw from Preservation's Investiture, but the effect of said Investiture is what the Feruchemical charge was.