Did Spook have lerasium level tin?

[Mistchemist16]

Per WoB, we know Spook was not made into a lerasium level Mistborn. However, there should still be one area Spook is more powerful in. In both Hemalurgy and Lerasium, we know duplicating a power makes it stronger

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)

So in theory, Spook should have extra powerful tin. One from his natural Tineye abilites and one from the Mistborn boost. Unless Harmony took away Spook’s original ability completely before making him Mistborn, but that seems unlikely. Not a big game changer. Tin isn’t like brass or bronze, where having a higher power level has an obvious benefit. But it would be a nice fun fact if Spook’s bloodline had a little stronger and longer Allomancy than it would otherwise. Though Era 2 is as low as Allomancy gets, so it maps the same either way. Either way, I think it’s a nice minor detail.

   

[alder24]

Possible, but Sazed could just give him rest Allomantic powers without tin, so his tin strength wouldn't change. But it can be like you said. He is a reduced power Mistborn so even if he had double tin strength, he would still be weaker in that than Lerasium Mistborn.

Spoiler

[..]

Douglas

I take it either Spook did not have children or Sazed made him a reduced-strength Mistborn rather than giving him the full potency of the 9 originals and Elend?

Brandon Sanderson

Spook is a reduced power Mistborn.

[...]

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

 

[cometaryorbit]

Yeah, I agree, lerasium strength is probably significantly more than x2.

[Mistchemist16]

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

Yeah, I agree, lerasium strength is probably significantly more than x2.

That’s plausible, but I’m not entirely sure, due to the Vin/Elend bronze comparison. Vin with a spike should be less than twice as strong as normal bronze, thanks to decay. Yet, she can break copperclouds without any real training, while Elend would have to learn that. I assume Vin taught Elend enough about bronze that he should’ve had roughly that same level of experience. Even if only a session as long as Marsh gave her. So the question is how much Vin’s innate skill with Allomancy adds to what would otherwise be a bit less than x2 bronze. That’s the only way I could explain why she can automatically pierce copperclouds and he can’t.

Questioner

There is quantitative difference in Allomancy (e.g. Elend is stronger than Vin), there is skill difference (e.g. Breeze is better than Vin with zinc), but is there a qualitative difference too?

Brandon Sanderson

That’s the scale of what we call savant. Wax can do more with less. It’s not just skill, the burning for long, using for so long, will actually adapt your soul to the power.

Questioner

So can bronze savants pierce copperclouds?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, a bronze savant should be able to pierce copperclouds. It depends on the strengths of the coppercloud and the strength of the savant, but yes.

Questioner

So Elend could theoretically learn to pierce copperclouds?

Brandon Sanderson

Weaker ones, yeah, totally. He can learn how to do it by brute force.

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

Either way, I’m not sure I see the significantly more part. Rashek was certainly strong, but I never got the impression Elend was anywhere close to him. But maybe that’s because Rashek had Savantism and Sliver effects. Or he used the Well to act as if he had consumed more than one lerasium bead. We don’t have enough data to make waterproof conclusions

 

Edited March 26, 2023 by Mistchemist16

[cometaryorbit]

Well, Elend with Pewter was able to match raw strength with a giant koloss, whereas normal pewter allomancy is about x2 normal human strength, x3 flaring. I think matching strength with a 11-12' koloss is much more than x4-x6 normal human strength.

Elend's Soothing also seems to be more than double what Breeze can manage, possibly vastly more - he might be Rioting courage for the entire army (tens of thousands?) when Demoux is taken by the Mists. He is definitely far stronger in Soothing both from the battle at the beginning of HoA and the ball scene in Fadrex. (He can also control tens of thousands of koloss, but that doesn't seem to scale the same way as Soothing humans. Still, I think his greater strength is probably why he rather than Vin hold nearly all the koloss.)

I don't know what learning to pierce copperclouds means. It seems to be a simple matter of power. Vin certainly didn't have to learn how to do it.

[Mistchemist16]

16 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Well, Elend with Pewter was able to match raw strength with a giant koloss, whereas normal pewter allomancy is about x2 normal human strength, x3 flaring. I think matching strength with a 11-12' koloss is much more than x4-x6 normal human strength.

We know koloss have 4 spikes adding strength. Counting for the base humans strength, that’s somewhere less than 5 times base strength, thanks to decay. Barring impact from the size, that’s enough to trade blows with double pewter or slightly above. And I could believe that Hemalurgy makes the build slightly deceptive. 
 

Spoiler

Chasmfiends use spren to move despite their impossible weight. I could easily see a world where the strength is being tracked by spikes and the body warping is more for show.

 

16 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Elend's Soothing also seems to be more than double what Breeze can manage, possibly vastly more - he might be Rioting courage for the entire army (tens of thousands?) when Demoux is taken by the Mists. He is definitely far stronger in Soothing both from the battle at the beginning of HoA and the ball scene in Fadrex. (He can also control tens of thousands of koloss, but that doesn't seem to scale the same way as Soothing humans. Still, I think his greater strength is probably why he rather than Vin hold nearly all the koloss.)

I do actually have to give credit where credit is due. We know that several Soothers can take a koloss and thus be equivalent to a Mistborn using duralumin. Elend doesn’t need duralumin, so that puts him as equal to several Soothers.

Lerasium > Mistborn + Duralumin = X Soothers/Rioters > 1 Soother/Rioter

Which should put him as way more than double, but we also don’t know how much each individual Soother counts for. And keep in mind that Elend might not have affected every soldier at once. He could leave the memory to bolster courage and keep walking. We know for a fact brass lasts longer than 10 minutes because pewter is much shorter and only lasts for that time. But I’d also love a recap of the onscreen numbers, just for confidence sake.

16 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I don't know what learning to pierce copperclouds means. It seems to be a simple matter of power. Vin certainly didn't have to learn how to do it.

I agree that it seems to be mostly power based, since Vin can do it without understanding what she does. At most, she also needed Marsh’s lesson to get just good enough at bronze. But that also makes things more confusing. The WoB implies that Elend didn’t know how but could learn to pierce. Not that he did have the ability and simply never showed it on screen

<snip>

Questioner

So Elend could theoretically learn to pierce copperclouds?

Brandon Sanderson

Weaker ones, yeah, totally. He can learn how to do it by brute force.

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

If it is power based, then Elend should also pick it up easily because he is stronger then her. Realistically, I think there are three main explanations

1. Vin benefited from more training in bronze than Elend did. Whatever she taught in bronze was not equal to Marsh’s lessons.

2. Vin’s greater skill makes up the boost.

3. Elend does have the ability and we’ve just never seen it commented on.

I assume it’s some version of #2. I don’t buy that lerasium has less raw power than a spiked Allomancer: it doesn’t seem right. But even then, lerasium could be less than x3 Allomantic strength. 

Edited March 27, 2023 by Mistchemist16

[Kendelian he/him]

I think that it is said that Saze undid the tin savantism so he might’ve just reduced the tin and given him the powers. IDK tho.

[cometaryorbit]

On 3/26/2023 at 10:52 PM, Mistchemist16 said:

I do actually have to give credit where credit is due. We know that several Soothers can take a koloss and thus be equivalent to a Mistborn using duralumin. Elend doesn’t need duralumin, so that puts him as equal to several Soothers.

 But I’d also love a recap of the onscreen numbers, just for confidence sake.

Vin apparently does it without duralumin in HoA ch 3, but only against one koloss.

"And so, she burned brass and Pushed on the emotions of one of the smaller creatures. At first, it resisted. She shoved harder. And, finally, something broke within the creature and he became hers."

As for numbers, unfortunately it's mostly very vague...

The army in HoA ch 3 (~2000 soldiers)

"He burned brass and Pushed on their emotions, Soothing away their fear. An Allomancer couldn’t control minds—not human minds, at least—but he could encourage some emotions while discouraging others. Again, Vin said that Elend was able to affect far more people than should have been possible."

Ball scene in HoA chapter 32 (no number given)

"Other Allomancers—Breeze, or even Vin—would have had trouble Soothing an entire room at once. For Elend, with his inordinate power, it barely took any attention."

Koloss control quotes (TL;DR: 36,000 koloss)
 

Spoiler

 

Chapter 3 - "She couldn’t see Elend burn duralumin, then brass, but she could feel it. Feel him pressing on her emotions as he sent out a general wave of power, Soothing thousands of koloss at once. They all stopped fighting."

Chapter 15 - "Human turned, glancing toward the south, where the koloss army waited, separate from the humans. They remained under Elend’s control, twenty thousand in number, now that they’d picked up the ten thousand that had been waiting with the main bulk of the army. It made more sense to leave them under Elend’s control, since—in terms of raw power—he was a much stronger Allomancer than Vin."

[so even though controlling koloss still works when the controller stops burning metals, looks like power is still relevant]

Chapter 51 - "The creatures surrounded him, and he burned duralumin, then burned zinc, and Pulled. The village fell silent. Elend paused, stumbling slightly as he finished his spin. He looked through the falling ash, turning toward the remaining koloss—thousands and thousands of them—who now suddenly stood motionless and patient around him, under his control at last."

Chapter 61 - "Ham whistled quietly. “Twenty-eight thousand?” he asked. “Or, at least, that’s what the scouts say.” Elend nodded. “I hadn’t realized how large the group was,” Ham said. “With that many . . .” Thirty-seven thousand total, Elend thought. More than enough to storm Fadrex."

[Vin was controlling 1000 of the ones left at Fadrex, so that's 36000 under Elend’s control]

 

 

Edited March 31, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[Mistchemist16]

12 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Vin apparently does it without duralumin in HoA ch 3, but only against one koloss.

"And so, she burned brass and Pushed on the emotions of one of the smaller creatures. At first, it resisted. She shoved harder. And, finally, something broke within the creature and he became hers."

First off, thanks for the numbers!

The chapter 66 epigraph explains it. Koloss can be controlled without duralumin as long as they are in a frenzy. When in said frenzy, koloss lose whatever logic they had and can be controlled. Interestingly, the reverse applies when you are already under control. Strong emotions allow the subject autonomy, instead of making them vulnerable 

“Koloss also had little chance of breaking free. Four spikes, and their diminished mental capacity, left them fairly easy to dominate. Only in the throes of a blood frenzy did they have any form of autonomy.

Four spikes also made them easier for Allomancers to control. In our time, it required a duralumin Push to take control of a kandra. Koloss, however, could be taken by a determined regular Push, particularly when they were frenzied.”

12 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

As for numbers, unfortunately it's mostly very vague...

The army in HoA ch 3 (~2000 soldiers)

"He burned brass and Pushed on their emotions, Soothing away their fear. An Allomancer couldn’t control minds—not human minds, at least—but he could encourage some emotions while discouraging others. Again, Vin said that Elend was able to affect far more people than should have been possible."

Ball scene in HoA chapter 32 (no number given)

"Other Allomancers—Breeze, or even Vin—would have had trouble Soothing an entire room at once. For Elend, with his inordinate power, it barely took any attention."

Koloss control quotes (TL;DR: 36,000 koloss)

Quick confirmation: Did Elend get all of his thousands of koloss at Fardrex? Or did he have others from past encounters with Inqusitors? I believe the former

The koloss are also the only time we see Elend use duralumin with brass/zinc. The problem is, we don’t know how koloss control compared to humans. But using the two above, Elend can probably affect thousands of regular humans on regular burn: no flaring needed. It doesn’t seem like the troops in Chapter 3 would be less than 1000. And if the ballroom is even less, that would explain how casually Elend can affect them

The other option is that mass Soothing simply affects everyone within a given radius and that area is bigger for Elend. I remember seeing another thread that used it to explain the Lord Ruler soothing 100000 people, though I don’t know where it is now. But I have no proof for those mechanics and we can’t draw conclusions from TLR anyway

I have no idea how many humans Elend could get with duralumin. Maybe as many as TLR did. That being said, I know TLR wasn’t using duralumin. His mass Soothing never just stops like it would with duralumin. Of course, TLR has lerasium and Savantism, plus we don’t know if he’s flaring. But even then, Im not sure Elend could match that even with duralumin

[cometaryorbit]

Broken down/numbers added for easier reply:

11 hours ago, Mistchemist16 said:

1) First off, thanks for the numbers!

2) Quick confirmation: Did Elend get all of his thousands of koloss at Fardrex? Or did he have others from past encounters with Inqusitors? I believe the former

3) The koloss are also the only time we see Elend use duralumin with brass/zinc. The problem is, we don’t know how koloss control compared to humans.

4) But using the two above, Elend can probably affect thousands of regular humans on regular burn: no flaring needed. It doesn’t seem like the troops in Chapter 3 would be less than 1000. And if the ballroom is even less, that would explain how casually Elend can affect them

5) The other option is that mass Soothing simply affects everyone within a given radius and that area is bigger for Elend. I remember seeing another thread that used it to explain the Lord Ruler soothing 100000 people, though I don’t know where it is now.

 6) I have no idea how many humans Elend could get with duralumin. Maybe as many as TLR did. That being said, I know TLR wasn’t using duralumin. His mass Soothing never just stops like it would with duralumin. Of course, TLR has lerasium and Savantism, plus we don’t know if he’s flaring. But even then, Im not sure Elend could match that even with duralumin

1) You're welcome!

2) He was down to about 8,000 (9,000 total - 1,000 under Vin's control) after the siege weapons/ensuing frenzy at Fadrex killed 10,000 or more; he took control of 28,000 more at the village.

So he didn't get all 36,000 at once, but he did get 28,000.

3) true, this is the issue

4) the army in Ch 3 was 2,000 (1000 sort of trained + 1000 basically raw recruits). The text doesn't absolutely prove Elend was affecting them all, but I think he was.

Yeah, the ballroom was probably hundreds- near Breeze's limit (he's supposed to be able to Soothe several hundred people at once) but easy for Elend.

There's also this part from chapter 17, when the army is exposed to the mists:

"They trusted him. They knew that the mists were advancing toward Luthadel, and understood the importance of capturing the cities with storage caverns. They believed in Elend’s ability to do something to save their families.

Their trust made him even more determined. He reined in his horse, turning the massive beast beside a rank of soldiers. He flared pewter, making his body stronger, giving more power to his lungs, then Rioted the emotions of the men to make them braver.

“Be strong!” he shouted."

Question is, is he Rioting all the men, or just the rank he's nearest to? If it's all the men, that's tens of thousands.

5) seems likely, though TLR was likely hitting much more than 100,000. Luthadel is ~1-2 million, and I believe at least all men were required to be in the square: so likely something like 300k-600k.

6) yeah. If Elend can take over "thousands and thousands" of koloss - and likely most of that 28,000 - with one duralumin fueled pulse, he likely could hit 100,000 or more humans, maybe even as many as TLR affected, with duralumin. Especially if he could really Riot the whole army (over 30,000 I think) at base strength ... then hitting 300-600k with duralumin seems completely reasonable.

But TLR wasn't using duralumin.

There's no question TLR was stronger than Elend, I'm just not sure it was this vast orders-of-magnitude difference. Apparently TLR was using some kind of "reverse compounding", but given that he's Soothing basically constantly he's probably a Soothing savant. That might be a significant power boost.

 

Edited April 1, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[Mistchemist16]

12 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

There's also this part from chapter 17, when the army is exposed to the mists:

"They trusted him. They knew that the mists were advancing toward Luthadel, and understood the importance of capturing the cities with storage caverns. They believed in Elend’s ability to do something to save their families.

Their trust made him even more determined. He reined in his horse, turning the massive beast beside a rank of soldiers. He flared pewter, making his body stronger, giving more power to his lungs, then Rioted the emotions of the men to make them braver.

“Be strong!” he shouted."

Question is, is he Rioting all the men, or just the rank he's nearest to? If it's all the men, that's tens of thousands.

It’s also worth noting that Elend could’ve flared zinc in this scene. Unfortunately, I don’t believe we can just use the triple mechanic like we can with pewter. However, we do know that if Elend is skilled with any metal, it would be the emotional metals. So perhaps flaring + skill makes up the difference. So he definitely Rioted the rank around him. But I don’t think we can judge how much of the army was affected. There’s no way to tell which people were Rioted and which were inspired by seeing the display.

12 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

But TLR wasn't using duralumin.

There's no question TLR was stronger than Elend, I'm just not sure it was this vast orders-of-magnitude difference. Apparently TLR was using some kind of "reverse compounding", but given that he's Soothing basically constantly he's probably a Soothing savant. That might be a significant power boost.

 

Oh absolutely. TLR’s Soothing aura is clearly constant. But I do agree that Elend and TLR aren’t nearly as far apart as people think. It’s entirely possible that he started with the same strength as Elend and boosted it higher through other factors.
 

Let’s start by saying TLR’s minimum strength should be equal to Elend. From there, we can add these boosts
 

1. TLR  is a savant in zinc and brass, which is probably an even bigger boost than regular Savantism
 

theFinisher4Ever

Was the Lord Ruler using Feruchemy + Allomancy to Soothe all of the people around him? Or was he, as I like to think, flaring for so long that he became a Soother Savant?

Brandon Sanderson

He lived long enough and used his metals enough (particularly Soothing) to become nearly a savant in every area, if not a full savant.

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

2. TLR had a thousand years to practice his powers. Even if Elend is skilled, he can’t have practiced for more than 2 years, which would be nothing for TLR. 
 

3. TLR was flaring brass in most cases. That  also fits with him being a savant

4. TLR is a Sliver of Preservation. That could provide a boost to Allomancy, but we don’t enough about Slivers to say for sure

 Whatever difference is left can be made up with the Well superboost. But I honestly think he could’ve started with the same base power as Elend, even though he used the Well. 
 

TL;DR: Elend’s duralumin Soothing may be equal to TLR’s brass, flared or otherwise. 

[cometaryorbit]

2 hours ago, Mistchemist16 said:

It’s also worth noting that Elend could’ve flared zinc in this scene. Unfortunately, I don’t believe we can just use the triple mechanic like we can with pewter. However, we do know that if Elend is skilled with any metal, it would be the emotional metals. So perhaps flaring + skill makes up the difference. So he definitely Rioted the rank around him. But I don’t think we can judge how much of the army was affected.

[...]

Whatever difference is left can be made up with the Well superboost. But I honestly think he could’ve started with the same base power as Elend, even though he used the Well.

TL;DR: Elend’s duralumin Soothing may be equal to TLR’s brass, flared or otherwise. 

True, it's really not clear how many people were actually affected. And yeah we can't necessarily assume that x2 strength normal burn / x3 strength flaring means flaring is always a x1.5 increase to a metal's effect.

---

TLR's base power level ("essential Allomantic strength") probably was the same as Elend's. Harmony says so in the HOA epigraphs. The fact that it's now canon that TLR got that strength from the Well rather than a bead doesn't necessarily retcon the statement that their strength level was the same (though Brandon might do that eventually if "reverse compounding" ends up not being a thing in the books - but I don't think it's current canon).

And I agree that "reverse compounding" wouldn't be strictly needed. The difference between Spook's senses in HoA and normal Tin Allomancy is probably significantly more than the difference between Elend's Soothing and TLR's - so savantism plus extreme skill could explain it.

With the savantism 'soft retcon', TLR probably wasn't a savant in so many things, but he probably still was in bronze (which is low-consequence) and brass (which he used constantly). He apparently was also a savant in Compounded Atium, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was in some other Compounded metals (if he had to stay awake to keep tapping youth, bronze would be likely, and gold seems plausible as well).

I doubt he was a savant in the Physical Allomantic metals, since he doesn't show Spook-like side effects (although f-Gold would let him survive becoming a pewter savant, so he could have done that if he'd wanted). And he surely wasn't in the rarer metals, some of which weren't really available.

I agree that Elend+Duralumin is likely at least comparable to TLR without duralumin. In practice, both can affect any group that they'll ever encounter.

Edited April 1, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[alder24]

3 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

TLR's base power level ("essential Allomantic strength") probably was the same as Elend's. Harmony says so in the HOA epigraphs. The fact that it's now canon that TLR got that strength from the Well rather than a bead doesn't necessarily retcon the statement that their strength level was the same (though Brandon might do that eventually if "reverse compounding" ends up not being a thing in the books - but I don't think it's current canon).

I don't think he was on the same level just after Ascension. This WoB says he made himself an extremely powerful Allomancer, and if his power level was just like normal Lerasium Mistborn, then at that time he would be just "normally" powerful Allomancer.

Spoiler

Chris King

Did the Lord Ruler use lerasium to gain his super Allomantic abilities or did he grant that to himself with the Well's power? If he used the bead, does he count as one of the nine original Allomancers that Sazed mentions?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. He did not use the bead. He-- In all of this he granted himself basically, he rebuilt himself to be extremely powerful and he did not use one of the beads.

Chris King interview (Sept. 24, 2013)

 

7 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

With the savantism 'soft retcon', TLR probably wasn't a savant in so many things, but he probably still was in bronze (which is low-consequence) and brass (which he used constantly). He apparently was also a savant in Compounded Atium, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was in some other Compounded metals (if he had to stay awake to keep tapping youth, bronze would be likely, and gold seems plausible as well).

If he was a savant in Aluminum, he could likely cleanse his soul from harmful effects of savanthood:

Spoiler

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)

 

10 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I agree that Elend+Duralumin is likely at least comparable to TLR without duralumin. In practice, both can affect any group that they'll ever encounter.

I still doubt it. Executions were mandatory to witness for all inhabitants of Luthadel, so there would be more than 1 mil people on the execution square. He was soothing all of them. Even Vin felt it from the building on the other side of the square during the first execution when TLR arrived. That's too much even for Elend. Even if we take into account reverse compounding, savanthood etc, he would still be stronger than Elend. 

[cometaryorbit]

Lerasium Mistborn level is still super powerful compared to what we've actually seen in the books, though. He totally could have made himself stronger than Elend's level, I just don't think we've seen anything from WoB confirming that he intended to retcon the clear statement in the book that their base power levels are equal.

I don't think there was enough aluminum available during the Final Empire for even one person to become a savant in it.

I thought it was just adult men who had to be present, not literally the entire population of Luthadel? So likely more like 300-600k.

If a normal strength Era 1 Soother can affect hundreds of people but they need to combine efforts to affect koloss, 300-600k humans could easily be less power needed than 28k koloss.