Things I'm still confused about

[Heilven he/him]

Recently I have been rereading the mistborn series. This prompted me to realize that there are a decent few things that I don't understand. For the most part this is all Era 1 stuff. Specifically 3 things.

1.) What makes ruin/harmony able to talk in someone's mind? I was under the impression that in order for ruin to talk/manipulate someone, they had to have a sufficiently damaged spiritweb. This could come from people who have had a truly rough go of it, or hemalurgic spikes. As far as I was aware, the spike had to be hemalurgically charged. But in WoA, Marsh uses Sazed's rings as weapons, pushing them into Sazed. This nearly kills him, but he hears a voice that reminds him that those rings are metal minds. I assumed this voice was ruin, since ruin is the only one who could actually do that.

So, does it have to be a spike? Or is it really just anyone pierced by metal?

2.) The atium plan. This one I think is the most easily explainable, I just don't get it. The lord ruler's plan with the atium was to sequester a massive supply, effectively keeping a chunk of ruin's power away from him, slightly weakening him enough to level the playing field between him and preservation. But then, elend and his seers burned all of that atium, which enraged ruin because he couldn't have done it himself. This leads me to believe that the process of burning the atium actively converts the investiture into energy, which permanently weakens ruin. So, then, why even stockpile it? Why not just burn it all? The simple answer that makes the most sense to me is that by burning the atium, the power becomes "dispersed" and needs time to "coalesce". Which would make burning all that atium a significant postponing to ruin's plans, but burning it piecewise as it formed wouldn't be useful. 

3.) I left this for last because it's the one I'm least confident that we even have an answer for. Why is metal the thing that is easiest to push and pull on? It's obviously not because if it's connection to allomancy. You can push and pull on all metals regardless of if they are allomantic. And it doesn't have anything to do with preservation, since metals on other planets can be pushed and pulled on just fine. If hard stop, only metal could be pushed on, then I would be comfortable calling it "because leras said so". But anything *can* be pushed, it's just metals that are the easiest. But of course, metals aren't just the easiest, they are the easiest by far. So there's a pretty big divide between metal and everything else. I have a theory on this that I think answers a lot of these questions, but it has enough holes that I'm not confident enough to say it is definitely true. It's pretty cosmere connected though, so it's probably a discussion worth having there instead of here.

[Treamayne]

Please let us know (preferably in an Introductory post or your user profile) what, if any Cosmere works you have not yet read, so we can avoid appropriate spoilers. 

4 hours ago, Heilven said:

1.) What makes ruin/harmony able to talk in someone's mind? I was under the impression that in order for ruin to talk/manipulate someone, they had to have a sufficiently damaged spiritweb. This could come from people who have had a truly rough go of it, or hemalurgic spikes. As far as I was aware, the spike had to be hemalurgically charged. But in WoA, Marsh uses Sazed's rings as weapons, pushing them into Sazed. This nearly kills him, but he hears a voice that reminds him that those rings are metal minds. I assumed this voice was ruin, since ruin is the only one who could actually do that.

So, does it have to be a spike? Or is it really just anyone pierced by metal?

Preservation can hear all thoughts because all people have a piece of Preservation inside them. Inserting thoughts requires:

• Significant Connection (Vin talking to Elend to lead him to the Homeland)
• Cracked Spiritweb (Vin's mother being Schizophrenic)
• Pierced by Invested Metal (shown primarily to be Hemalurgically Charged Spikes, but implied that Feruchemical Metalminds that Pierce the body - like Earrings - are also sufficient)
  • Implied that having snapped (allomancy) or becoming a Feruchmist also require cracks in the spiritweb - that then become "filled" with the manifestation of investiture (MoI). So an investiture charged Metal Piercing allowed Ruin to have some influence (easier with Hemalurgy, because that was Ruin's MoI) - with more spikes or piercings increasing the influence or sending thoughts. 

 Resources:

Spoiler

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kilomtrs

So in the trilogy, we see that when someone has a Hemalurgic spike implanted in them, they can hear Ruin talking to them, both as a vision and in their head. However, we learn in the Hero of Ages that Ruin cannot hear a person's thoughts no matter how much under Ruin's influence they are.

In Alloy of Law, we see that Wax (and other Pathians) uses an earring to "pray" to Harmony, and we see that Harmony can hear his thoughts and respond.

So I guess this leads to three questions: How does Harmony hear the thoughts of Wax, when it's explicitly pointed put that Ruin cannot?

Are the earrings that the Pathians use Hemalurgically charged, as otherwise they would be of no use to Ruin, and therefore Harmony?

Or did Harmony completely change how that aspect of Hemalugy works?

Brandon Sanderson

How this all works dates back to the original design of the magic system.

I wanted Ruin and Preservation to be complementary opposites, like many things in the Mistborn world. Allomancy, for example, has Pushes and Pulls were are less "negate one another" opposites, but instead two sides to the same proverbial coin.

Ruin is invasive. The power is more "Yell" than "Listen." The philosopher would probably have some interesting things to say about the masculine symbolism of Hemalurgy and its spikes.

Ruin can insert thoughts. That power, however, can't HEAR the reactions. It's about invasion.

Preservation, however, is the opposite. Preservation listens, Preservation protects. (Perhaps to a fault--if there were no Ruin, there would be no change to the world, and life could not exist.) Because of this, Preservation can hear what is inside people's minds. It cannot, however, INSERT thoughts. (This is important to the plot of Hero of Ages.)

Harmony is both, the two complementary opposites combined. And so, he inserts thoughts with Ruin and still uses Hemalurgy. He can also listen.

Yes, Wax's earring is Invested. (Or, in other terms, it's a Hemalurgic spike.)

bettse

Doesn't that imply it was shoved through someone's heart at one point (ala Steel Inquisitor creation process)?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, the metal would have to have been part of a spike that at one point was used to kill someone and rip off a piece of their soul.

General Reddit 2012 (July 4, 2012)

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Questioner

Why, in your books, are your characters so often, per se -- before they get the powers they become broken first.

Brandon Sanderson

There is a narrative reason and there's an in-world reason. The narrative reason is characters in pain are more interesting to write about. This is just a rule of thumb for writing. Find the person who's in the most trouble, things are going the worst for and that's gonna be generally your easiest character. In the stories, the actual cosmere, the mechanics of the magic finds, this is one way to describe it -- it's not the only way -- may not even be one hundred percent accurate but it's an easy metaphor -- cracks in the soul allow the magic to seep in and that's how you end up with a lot of the different magic systems.

Barnes & Noble B-Fest 2016 (June 11, 2016)

Alendi's Logbook (TFE Epigraph Ch 27):

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I think I've finally discovered why Rashek resents me so very much. He does not believe that an outsider such as myself - a foreigner - could possibly be the Hero of Ages. He believes that I have somehow tricked the philosophers, that I wear the piercings of the Hero unjustly.

HoA Annotations to Ch 62:

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Alendi Epigraph

Also, as a note, Alendi was an Allomancer, as the epigraph notes here. He had to be—he heard the pulsing at the Well of Ascension when nobody else could. “Ah,” you might say, “but I thought that you said Allomancy didn’t exist before those beads.” That isn’t 100% true. The legends say that Allomancy came with the Deepness. Alendi was one of the very first Allomancers, and he gained his powers as the mists began to cover the world.

That’s important.

HoA Annotations to Ch 79:

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The Mists Chose Someone

There’s a lot more going on behind the scenes than even the author of these epigraphs knows. Reasons why Vin was chosen, and why the power of Preservation needed a new mind to control it.

The author is right in that Preservation did need someone to control its power, and it did seek for a host in which to invest itself. It began this search with what mind it had left about sixteen years before the return of the power to the Well of Ascension, just as it began a search for a new host before the return of the power the previous time.

Unfortunately, just as Ruin took control and manipulated Alendi, he took control and manipulated Vin.

Note, if you have not checked out the Annotations - they are free on the website here.

The point of those references were to show that Alendi had a Piercing (but possibly not Helmalurgic Spike), was a Misting and was still influenced by Ruin

Also, the referenced Sazed Scene in WoA was actually a mistake(ish) as that was meant to be Kelsier speaking to Sazed with Connection:

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Phantine

Did you pre-write the Kelsier stuff for Secret History, or did you just outline the events ahead of time?

Brandon Sanderson

Kelsier was notes, though detailed ones. They might mostly worked out. I believe there was one "thought" a character has in HERO that I had written to be influenced by Kelsier, but turned out to be logistically impossible. I worked on Secret History itself on and off for years before finishing it last fall.

Phantine

Was that thought the one Sazed has in his fight with Marsh?

Those weren't coins, a voice seemed to whisper.

The bag Marsh shot at you. Those weren't coins.

Brandon Sanderson

Yup, that's it.

Moving the well, playing with where Kelsier was, and the physics of moving through perpendicularities between Realms all kind of combined to make what I had planned originally there not work. I tried fudging things so Kelsier could be there, and felt it was dishonest to the rules. So I didn't let him stray far enough from the Well to talk to Sazed there. Peter had thought for years that was Kelsier, I recall, and was sad we couldn't connect them.

Herowannabe

I don't suppose you'd be willing to share with us who the new, canonical voice in Sazed's head is?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm afraid I probably won't ever go into this. At some point, you risk twisting and turning too much. I have a canon answer in my head, but for readers, it will probably need to remain ambiguous--with "it was simply him coming up with it on his own" being a valid option.

General Reddit 2016 (Aug. 22, 2016)

 

4 hours ago, Heilven said:

2.) The atium plan. This one I think is the most easily explainable, I just don't get it. The lord ruler's plan with the atium was to sequester a massive supply, effectively keeping a chunk of ruin's power away from him, slightly weakening him enough to level the playing field between him and preservation. But then, elend and his seers burned all of that atium, which enraged ruin because he couldn't have done it himself. This leads me to believe that the process of burning the atium actively converts the investiture into energy, which permanently weakens ruin. So, then, why even stockpile it? Why not just burn it all? The simple answer that makes the most sense to me is that by burning the atium, the power becomes "dispersed" and needs time to "coalesce". Which would make burning all that atium a significant postponing to ruin's plans, but burning it piecewise as it formed wouldn't be useful. 

This was Preservation's Plan - to alter the Metallic Arts to include Atium and Malatium and have teh Pits of Hathsin become a natural outlet for turning Ruin's Power into physical Era 1 Atium (which is not pure atium - but an Atium Electrum Alloy) keeping it bound in the physical realm to "balance" Ruin against Preservation (since he expended more of his power in creating Humans on Scadrial). TLR became aware of Preservation's plan while holding the power of the Well, and created the Trust (guarded by the Kandra) to ensure that most of the Atium was never burned - as using the Atium allowed it to return to the Spiritual Realm and re-enter the Investiture Cycle. 

By Elend and his Seers burning the atium, it prevented Ruin from being able to access the power immediately, as it takes time for the expended Investiture to re-enter the cycle and become available to the Shard again. WoBs and References:

Spoiler

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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.

Footnote: It has since been clarified that the effect was revealed on the Table of Allomantic Metals poster and seen at the end of The Hero of Ages.
General Reddit 2021 (Nov. 2, 2021)

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little wilson (paraphrased)

I saw Brandon at a book signing back in mid-December, and I asked him about the 16 percent deal. He said that Preservation replaced the real External Temporal Metals with atium and malatium (at least I'm assuming malatium, but he didn't mention that specifically. He only said atium). So not-cerrobend and cadmium weren't counted in the 16%. nicrosil and chromium, on the other hand, were. So there are chromium andnicrosil Mistings running around, not knowing that they're Mistings.

TWG Posts (Jan. 20, 2009)

(Note: Cerrobend was the original name for Bendalloy, until Brandon discovered it was trademarked - there was a time after that discovery before he announced using "Bendalloy" as the replacement name)

Epigraph to Ch 78

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It may seem odd to those reading this that atium was part of the body of a god. However, it is necessary to understand that when we said “body” we generally meant “power.” As my mind has expanded, I’ve come to realize that objects and energy are actually composed of the very same things, and can change state from one to another. It makes perfect sense to me that the power of godhood would be manifest within the world in physical form. Ruin and Preservation were not nebulous abstractions. They were integral parts of existence. In a way, every object that existed in the world was composed of their power

Atium, then, was an object that was one-sided. Instead of being composed of half Ruin and half Preservation—as, say, a rock would be—atium was completely of Ruin. The Pits of Hathsin were crafted by Preservation as a place to hide the chunk of Ruin’s body that he had stolen away during the betrayal and imprisonment. Kelsier didn’t truly destroy this place by shattering those crystals, for they would have regrown eventually—in a few hundred years—and continued to deposit atium, as the place was a natural outlet for Ruin’s trapped power

When people burned atium, then, they were drawing upon the power of Ruin—which is, perhaps, why atium turned people into such efficient killing machines. They didn’t use up this power, however, but simply made use of it. Once a nugget of atium was expended, the power would return to the Pits and begin to coalesce again—just as the power at the Well of Ascension would return there again after it had been used.

 

4 hours ago, Heilven said:

3.) I left this for last because it's the one I'm least confident that we even have an answer for. Why is metal the thing that is easiest to push and pull on? It's obviously not because if it's connection to allomancy. You can push and pull on all metals regardless of if they are allomantic. And it doesn't have anything to do with preservation, since metals on other planets can be pushed and pulled on just fine. If hard stop, only metal could be pushed on, then I would be comfortable calling it "because leras said so". But anything *can* be pushed, it's just metals that are the easiest. But of course, metals aren't just the easiest, they are the easiest by far. So there's a pretty big divide between metal and everything else. I have a theory on this that I think answers a lot of these questions, but it has enough holes that I'm not confident enough to say it is definitely true. It's pretty cosmere connected though, so it's probably a discussion worth having there instead of here.

Mostly it's about how much they know and understand, scientifically, and some of it is a presumed limitation that may not be technically true (like in Book 1 we see Vin already challenging the "Copper protects from emotional influence" and "Bronze cannot piece a Coppercloud" rules). Here's the WoB on that (so far):

Spoiler

Quote

 

Argent

Mechanically speaking, how does steelsight work? The scientific definition of "metal" gets a little murky in the middle of the periodic table-

Brandon Sanderson

It does.

Argent

-and we see that powerful enough Allomancers can see more than just metals.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep.

Argent

Are Connection and perception significantly involved here?

Brandon Sanderson

To an extent, but the science of it also is. I feel like the stronger steelsight is getting, the more it is detecting things like electromagnetic bonds and even, you know, the strong and weak force and some of these sorts of things that is just in everything, right? And I do think that in strongest applications, Allomancy is going to be moving beyond metals and moving toward things like fundamental forces. So there you go.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

 

 

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Brandon Sanderson

By the way, you probably remember form book one the way that Inquisitors see. They have such a subtle touch with Steel and Iron, and their lines, that they can see via the trace metals in everyone's bodies and in the objects around them.

The thing is, any Allomancer with access to iron or steel could learn to do this. Some have figured it out, in the past, but in current times, nobody–at least, nobody the heroes know–is aware of this. Except, of course, for Marsh.

And he chose not to share it.

The Well of Ascension Annotations (Nov. 11, 2007)

In Era 1 and 2, they do not yet scientifically understand Electromagnetic Bonds and atoms (Axi in the Cosmere)/molecular theory. They push on metals, because they have always known they can push metals - without ever realizing how trace metals or metallic (electromagnetic) molecular bonds are part of the "why metals" question. 

Also note (Tress and Stormlight Archive Spoilers)

Spoiler

Metals do have a wider Cosmere signifigance - as seen in how they work in Rosharan Fabrials and how they can affect Aether Spores on Lumar.

For example - Rhythm of War Epigraphs Ch 8-9:

Spoiler

"A bronze cage can create a warning fabrial, alerting one to objects or entities nearby. Heliodors are being used for this currently, and there is some good reasoning for this—but other gemstones should be viable."
"A pewter cage will cause the spren of your fabrial to express its attribute in force—a flamespren, for example, will create heat. We call these augmenters. They tend to use Stormlight more quickly than other fabrials."

 

Hope that helps

Edited February 11, 2024 by Treamayne
SPAG

[alder24]

Treamayne has already explained it well, but I will add something from me.

13 hours ago, Heilven said:

1.) What makes ruin/harmony able to talk in someone's mind? I was under the impression that in order for ruin to talk/manipulate someone, they had to have a sufficiently damaged spiritweb. This could come from people who have had a truly rough go of it, or hemalurgic spikes. As far as I was aware, the spike had to be hemalurgically charged. But in WoA, Marsh uses Sazed's rings as weapons, pushing them into Sazed. This nearly kills him, but he hears a voice that reminds him that those rings are metal minds. I assumed this voice was ruin, since ruin is the only one who could actually do that.

So, does it have to be a spike? Or is it really just anyone pierced by metal?

9 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Pierced by Invested Metal (shown primarily to be Hemalurgically Charged Spikes, but implied that Feruchemical Metalminds that Pierce the body - like Earrings - are also sufficient.)

I disagree that Metalminds are sufficient, we have no proof of this - Wax wouldn't have needed to put on his earring to talk to Harmony. A Metalmind doesn't crack your soul and you need that crack for Ruin to talk to you. With no crack, Ruin can't talk. A Metalmind isn't enough, nor any regular, uninvested metal isn't enough. You need to have one of three things: a Hemalurgic spike, insanity which cracks your Spirit Web or a sufficiently strong Connection to a Shard. 

12 hours ago, Heilven said:

2.) The atium plan. This one I think is the most easily explainable, I just don't get it. The lord ruler's plan with the atium was to sequester a massive supply, effectively keeping a chunk of ruin's power away from him, slightly weakening him enough to level the playing field between him and preservation. But then, elend and his seers burned all of that atium, which enraged ruin because he couldn't have done it himself. This leads me to believe that the process of burning the atium actively converts the investiture into energy, which permanently weakens ruin. So, then, why even stockpile it? Why not just burn it all? The simple answer that makes the most sense to me is that by burning the atium, the power becomes "dispersed" and needs time to "coalesce". Which would make burning all that atium a significant postponing to ruin's plans, but burning it piecewise as it formed wouldn't be useful. 

When Ruin was imprisoned, Preservation "kind of" Splintered a part of him and trapped that essence as physical Atium in the Pits of Hathsin. This investiture was fully independent from Ruin - I mean by that it took away Ruin's strength and didn't return to Ruin after it was used up. It was locked in an Atium cycle, beyond Ruin's reach and control. A Mistborn burning Atium would cause this investiture to be expanded but instead of returning to Ruin, it would return to the Pits after around 300 years (said in TFE after Kelsier destroyed them). That means when Elend and his Seers burnt Atium it caused its investiture to disappear from the Physical Realm but it didn't return to Ruin, it would slowly return to the Pits only after 300 years - Ruin would have to wait 300 years to get that investiture incorporated back into his being. He needed to essentially "eat" it and he couldn't have done that if it wasn't physical.  

That's why stockpiling it made sense - Rashek was partially aware of Preservation's plan and prepared for all Atium to be used up when the time has come. Even if he wasn't fully aware what that would accomplished, he still wanted to give his people a few more years to live - that plan would gave them 300 more years to live and come up with a solution. 

Spoiler

Lance Alvein (paraphrased)

You've said that "The Pits of Hathsin were crafted by Preservation as a place to hide the chunk of Ruin's body that he had stolen away". How does one Shard steal a portion of another Shard and create a Physical outlet for it, like the Pits were for Ruin's power?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It has to do with clash between the two Shards' power. When pressed, he then said that it was "kind of" like splintering

Hal-Con 2012 (Oct. 30, 2012)

 

Spoiler

Chaos (paraphrased)

What would have happened if Ruin did get the atium? Yeah, the world is destroyed, but how does Ruin "absorb" the atium so he can utilize the power?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He would metabolize it, just like the normal people have to do. However, if he did get it he would then be able to destroy the world.

Ancient 17S Q&A (May 1, 2010)

 

12 hours ago, Heilven said:

3.) I left this for last because it's the one I'm least confident that we even have an answer for. Why is metal the thing that is easiest to push and pull on? It's obviously not because if it's connection to allomancy. You can push and pull on all metals regardless of if they are allomantic. And it doesn't have anything to do with preservation, since metals on other planets can be pushed and pulled on just fine. If hard stop, only metal could be pushed on, then I would be comfortable calling it "because leras said so". But anything *can* be pushed, it's just metals that are the easiest. But of course, metals aren't just the easiest, they are the easiest by far. So there's a pretty big divide between metal and everything else. I have a theory on this that I think answers a lot of these questions, but it has enough holes that I'm not confident enough to say it is definitely true. It's pretty cosmere connected though, so it's probably a discussion worth having there instead of here.

The short answer is Brandon wanted to do magic with metals. The long answer is metals in general are special in Cosmere, they have some sort of spiritual component that allows some of them to react to investiture. Not every metal from the periodic table is pushable, but they have a relationship. Metal is very important in Cosmere - investiture manifests as metallic as seen by Atium and Lerasium, or even Shardpools have that metallic look to them. Metal conducts power form SR, which you see especially on Scadrial where metal glows in CR and blinds even Shards. All those things likely contribute to the fact that metals are the easiest things to push. 

Another thing as Treamayne said is people's perception and their current knowledge - they aren't aware of what they can do.

Spoiler

Questioner

Quick question on aluminum. Why does it affect other forms of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

When I was building the cosmere, I just had to build certain themes into it, and metal was one of those. And the metals have kind of a Spiritual integrity, and Spiritual component, that if I can get into Dragonsteel explaining why, you'll get your kind of origins.

Questioner

And that's why, in Warbreaker, metals are different with Awakening, and stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

And even in Roshar, the cages that you're building for fabrials, once you start to figure out how those metals affect it, you'll be like, "Oh wait, that makes sense!" And these are just across the cosmere.

And if you want an in-world answer, it has to do with stuff in Dragonsteel. But really, the answer is, I was building this and I'm like, "I just want this to be a theme. So I'm just going to give this Spiritual component to metals." So it works in Mistborn, and it works all across everything.

LTUE 2020 (Feb. 15, 2020)

 

Spoiler

Zmann966

Is the metal on Scadrial specially Invested? Can an Allomancer use metals from other planets?

Brandon Sanderson (Part 1/Part 2)

Metal is a key, not the source of power itself. Most is not specially Invested. It glows because of the power seeking to come through it, not because of the power within it.

#SandersonChat Twitter Q&A with Audible.com (Feb. 4, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Do metalloids [on the periodic table] count as metals for the purpose of allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

So things like gallium and antimony…

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Not everything is pushable or pullable, but it counts in allomancy, and there are certain things… there are certain relationships.

Boskone 54 (Feb. 18, 2017)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

What would be the Allomantic definition of "metal" as it relates to steel and iron, what shows up? Like, the metalloids, compounds, in ironsight and stuff?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, I don't know what you mean by that. What are the percentages?

Questioner

The periodic table.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, the periodic table. On the periodic table, the difference between iron and steel? What do you mean?

Questioner

What do iron and steel define as metals? So they would show up with blue lines?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, on the periodic table, what defines as metals? I see what you're staying. So, this is kind of free-form on my part. I have check marks on them on my periodic table, where I kinda just sat and said "Yes, no, yes, no." But things over on the side with cesium and what-not, they would, they would count. Not everything that looks like it should count does. But most everything in that little batch, next to iron and gold and everybody over there, most everybody right there will, and most everybody over on the side will, the stuff that explodes with water. So for instance, ...sodium and stuff like that, if they're in their pure form would, but it's kinda freeform, I just had to make calls. Because there's gotta be a dividing line somewhere.

Questioner

So, would ironsight in enhanced Inquisitor form, show up on atoms in compounds...

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, yeah, they totally would. That all shows up. Trace metals and things like that, they can see your blood, they can see all sorts of stuff.

Firefight Houston signing (Jan. 23, 2015)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Where did you come up with the idea for Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

It's a combination of several things. One is I started with wanting a group of powers that would complement a gang of thieves. So I designed the powers to work within the roles of a thieving crew. The burning metals came from reading about biology and metabolism and it felt very natural to me because that's how we get our energy as human beings. The whole connection of the metals and the visualization stuff came from mixing the periodic table of the elements with alchemy. All of those things kind of spun together to make it.

Firefight Chicago signing (Feb. 20, 2015)

Slight Tress spoilers WoB:

Spoiler

Overlord Jebus

All the physical manifestations--solid physical manifestations we've seen of Investiture has been metallic. It's been atium, lerasium, Shardblades. Is that just a coincidence?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it's intentional.

Overlord Jebus

It's intentional so we're not going to see Investiture wood or Investiture plastic?

Brandon Sanderson

Right, I mean technically, like, what do you call the aethers? Those are not metal. But I do it as metal intentionally.

Questioner

They could be a metal with very low boiling point.

Brandon Sanderson

*sarcastically* Yes, the vine ones are--

Overlord Jebus

Well we've had liquid, we've had gas, the solids all seem to be metallic, so.

Brandon Sanderson

That is intentional, it's just one of those little laws of the cosmere, that's not meant to mean anything

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 (March 1, 2018)

 

 

 

9 hours ago, Treamayne said:

The point of those references were to show that Alendi had a Piercing (but possibly not Helmalurgic Spike), was a Misting and was still influenced by Ruin

Alendi had a Hemalurgic spike, Ruin influenced prophecies to make sure he would have worn one. He was a double Seeker, able to hear pulses of the Well.

Spoiler

Vegasdev

Alendi's "Piercings of the Hero"?

Brandon Sanderson

This is part of the manipulation Ruin did during the classical era on Scadrial, before the coming of the Lord Ruler. Piercings, and Hemalurgy, were part of the world before the coming of Allomancy in its modern form. Then, they were seen as a means of communicating with deity—which, indeed, they were. Ruin manipulated this to make sure any Hero of Ages who came would be under his influence. The reference is included mostly to indicate that yes, Alendi was under Ruin's influence. He ignored Rashek, though. (At least, right up to the moment when everything went 'wrong' for Ruin, when Rashek killed his chosen Hero of Ages.)

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

 

8 hours ago, Treamayne said:

This was Preservation's Plan - to alter the Metallic Arts to include Atium and Malatium

Spoiler

little wilson (paraphrased)

I saw Brandon at a book signing back in mid-December, and I asked him about the 16 percent deal. He said that Preservation replaced the real External Temporal Metals with atium and malatium (at least I'm assuming malatium, but he didn't mention that specifically. He only said atium). So not-cerrobend and cadmium weren't counted in the 16%. nicrosil and chromium, on the other hand, were. So there are chromium andnicrosil Mistings running around, not knowing that they're Mistings.

TWG Posts (Jan. 20, 2009)

I have to disagree a bit. That was the explanation before the Atium retcon was explained by Peter. Previously as we understood it, Preservation swapped bendalloy and cadmium to Atium (Atium-electrum alloy) and Malatium in Metallic Arts, but now with the retcon known, it doesn't make sense anymore. Atium Mistings are electrum Mistings, Malatium Mistings are gold Mistings - there is no reason to swap any metals because they are already usable by a specific group of people. So now bendalloy and cadmium were part of Metallic Arts before Catacendre, those Mistings were running around the Final Empire not knowing they are Mistings (just like chromium and nicrosil Mistings) and the only thing Preservation needed to do was to program Mistsnapping mechanism to make electrum Mistings ill for 16 days, to give a sign to humanity. There is no need for alteration because Atium and Malatium are already included in Metallic Arts by their nature of god metal alloys. In my opinion all those WoBs talking about Preservation rewriting Metallic Arts are out of date, because they don't really make much sense if you consider that Atium Mistings were just electrum Mistings.

It only makes sense if you make in-world characters think of Atium Mistings as separate from electrum Mistings, so that they wrongfully thought Preservation altered Metallic Arts to include those metals in them, just like they wrongfully think that Atium isn't an alloy. But in reality Preservation didn't have to do that.

P.S. I highly advise you to make space in your posts between quote boxes and spoiler boxes (like I do) because they blend together really well, if you don't space them out. I can't count how many times I skipped your WoBs because a quote box was right below them.

Spoiler

/u/AAKS_

My understanding is that Brandon thinks it is a plothole that Lerasium can be burned by Scadrian (regardless of if they are mistings/mistborn) but Atium can't.

His solution is to retcon the Pits to naturally produce an Atium/Electrum alloy, presumably by the design of Preservation. Therefore we don't know what pure Atium looks like or does when used in any magic.

Peter Ahlstrom

We do know what it does. It’s on the Allomancy poster, and the effect appeared one time at the end of Hero of Ages.

LewsTherinTelescope

Interesting. Do you know if he had already conceived the retcon by the time the poster was written, or if that line about pure atium just turned out to fit really well retroactively?

Peter Ahlstrom

The retcon is way older than a lot of people assume.

LewsTherinTelescope

Does this mean he had it in mind by the time Hero of Ages released (since the first public version of the poster dates to 2008), or just that it's old but not sure exactly how old?

Peter Ahlstrom

Remember that what's in the books is filtered through the understanding of the characters. So even if Brandon planned it from the beginning, if the characters didn't know about it, it's not going to come out in the book.

And see this thread reply from 2009.

Footnote: The link is to a post on the Timewaster's Guide forums, where Peter responds to someone asking about whether atium is an alloy by saying he now knows enough to confirm or deny the theory, but is not allowed to.
General Reddit 2022 (Dec. 4, 2022)

 

[Heilven he/him]

11 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Please let us know (preferably in an Introductory post or your user profile) what, if any Cosmere works you have not yet read, so we can avoid appropriate spoilers

Oh you know I should have said that. Yeah I've read every cosmere book (besides whitesand, and I haven't gotten around to reading sositfoh despite having the arcanum) and I am well versed in theory. So now worries at all about spoilers.

11 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Preservation can hear all thoughts because all people have a piece of Preservation inside them.

Can he really? I was under the impression that we learned in era 2 that he can only hear the thoughts of people with hemalurgic spikes, hence why people in wax's religion (forgot what it was called) wear spikes while they meditate. I especially remember in TLM when Wax became permanently spiked, Sazed promises not to listen to his thoughts without be asked first. I figured that would only matter if you actually had to be spiked for him to hear your thoughts.

 

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

With no crack, Ruin can't talk. A Metalmind isn't enough, nor any regular, uninvested metal isn't enough. You need to have one of three things: a Hemalurgic spike, insanity which cracks your Spirit Web or a sufficiently strong Connection to a Shard.

This is how I thought it worked, so I was confused when rereading WoA and I got to the part with Sazed and his metalminds. It's a shame to hear that that won't ever really be explained, even if it's completely inconsequential.

11 hours ago, Treamayne said:

using the Atium allowed it to return to the Spiritual Realm and re-enter the Investiture Cycle. 

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Preservation "kind of" Splintered a part of him and trapped that essence as physical Atium in the Pits of Hathsin. This investiture was fully independent from Ruin - I mean by that it took away Ruin's strength and didn't return to Ruin after it was used up. It was locked in an Atium cycle, beyond Ruin's reach and control

Okay, so it was kind of like what I was thinking, but I didn't take into consideration that the investiture was separated from Ruin. I figured the thing that made the most amount of sense was it being locked in a cycle, but I thought that the pits of hathsin were directly connected to ruin's investiture, acting like a leak. So I figured that when the atium is used, it either must return to ruin or just get used up. It makes more sense then that the pits of hathsin weren't connected to ruin, but just to a large piece of Ruin. That certainly explains it for me. 

Follow up question then: Why did Kelsier "destroying" the pits of hathsin prevent it's use for travel to shadesmar? Or at least that's what I got out of Hoid's annoyance in secret history.

12 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Mostly it's about how much they know and understand, scientifically, and some of it is a presumed limitation that may not be technically true (like in Book 1 we see Vin already challenging the "Copper protects from emotional influence" and "Bronze cannot piece a Coppercloud" rules). Here's the WoB on that (so far):

  Reveal hidden contents

Quote

 

Argent

Mechanically speaking, how does steelsight work? The scientific definition of "metal" gets a little murky in the middle of the periodic table-

Brandon Sanderson

It does.

Argent

-and we see that powerful enough Allomancers can see more than just metals.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep.

Argent

Are Connection and perception significantly involved here?

Brandon Sanderson

To an extent, but the science of it also is. I feel like the stronger steelsight is getting, the more it is detecting things like electromagnetic bonds and even, you know, the strong and weak force and some of these sorts of things that is just in everything, right? And I do think that in strongest applications, Allomancy is going to be moving beyond metals and moving toward things like fundamental forces. So there you go.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

 

 

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

By the way, you probably remember form book one the way that Inquisitors see. They have such a subtle touch with Steel and Iron, and their lines, that they can see via the trace metals in everyone's bodies and in the objects around them.

The thing is, any Allomancer with access to iron or steel could learn to do this. Some have figured it out, in the past, but in current times, nobody–at least, nobody the heroes know–is aware of this. Except, of course, for Marsh.

And he chose not to share it.

The Well of Ascension Annotations (Nov. 11, 2007)

In Era 1 and 2, they do not yet scientifically understand Electromagnetic Bonds and atoms (Axi in the Cosmere)/molecular theory. They push on metals, because they have always known they can push metals - without ever realizing how trace metals or metallic (electromagnetic) molecular bonds are part of the "why metals" question. 

Idk, it really doesn't seem to just be "they don't know that they can". To start with, Vin challenging the "rules" with copper isn't as simple as knowing that it is possible. It was always possible, you just needed to be sufficiently more powerful. And steelpushing stuff that isn't metal seems to be going this route as well. In BoM, for instance, Wax sees ironlines to axi just by holding the bands and being tremendously powerful. There wasn't a trick to it, it was just tremendous power.

The well of ascension annotation is especially odd to me. We have been told since then that it is the spikes that grant vision in that way, not skill with allomancy. Kelsier has sight due to his spike, but isn't an allomancer in his body. He even directly points to the spike as what gives him this sight- hence why it doesn't require burning metals to maintain. I could certainly see an iron or steel savant learning to see the world this way, but being able to push on non-metals the way Wax does in BoM feels like it's on a different power level. (Now I'm thinking about some sort of daredevil style character who's a blind steel savant, using steelsight to see axi).

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

The short answer is Brandon wanted to do magic with metals. The long answer is metals in general are special in Cosmere, they have some sort of spiritual component that allows some of them to react to investiture. Not every metal from the periodic table is pushable, but they have a relationship. Metal is very important in Cosmere - investiture manifests as metallic as seen by Atium and Lerasium, or even Shardpools have that metallic look to them. Metal conducts power form SR, which you see especially on Scadrial where metal glows in CR and blinds even Shards. All those things likely contribute to the fact that metals are the easiest things to push. 

Metal is special on a cosmere level, of course. And this is pretty obviously why it is the easiest to push. I think I'm more interested in what exactly it is that makes it so easily pushable. I think this is a discussion that I want to have, so I'll set up my theory in the general cosmere discussion forums, since it certainly has to do with the wider cosmere.

However, what does Sanderson mean by this?

Quote

Questioner

Do metalloids [on the periodic table] count as metals for the purpose of allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

So things like gallium and antimony…

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Not everything is pushable or pullable, but it counts in allomancy, and there are certain things… there are certain relationships.

Boskone 54 (Feb. 18, 2017)

Not everything is pushable or pullable, but it counts in allomancy? My understanding is that some things are metals, and others aren't. There's not a particular scientific reason as to where this dividing line is, but Sanderson has made one. Things that are metals can be pushed (besides aluminum) and things that aren't, "can't". Specifically, I'm pretty sure silver, lead, and some other non-allomantic metals are very definitely pushable. I'm very confused by what he means with this then.

Your comment did remind me of something else. Metal glows in Scadrial's subastral. It clearly doesn't glow everywhere in shadesmar, we know that from Stormlight. So why does it glow in CR on Scadrial? I imagine the answer probably has something to do with how important metal is to the planet, causing it to manifest like that in cr, but I feel like that's too time dependent of an explanation. We know that there's nothing particularly special about Scadrian metal, it is of course just a key to power. So what is it about Scadrial that makes metal glow? Oh okay rereading the wob posted about how metal is a key to the power, it clicked for me. And then it clicked out when I thought about it again. Okay so they molecular structure of metals form a kind of "aon", which allows investiture to flow from preservation to the burner. The investiture is specified by this, so it is only used in a specific way. (as an aside, my defense of this also comes from my interpretation of how f-nicrosil works, which I guess is another thing I'm confused about. I'll pull this aside into more detail at the end of this post actually). Because the power is in the spiritual realm, there is no location dependence unlike with aons, so allomancy is possible anywhere in the cosmere. Initially, this clicked for me because as "aons", the power would be trying to use the metal as a conduit, which is what makes it glow in the cognitive realm. But then I remembered the whole metals not being location based thing again, and so I'm back to not being sure. 

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

I have to disagree a bit. That was the explanation before the Atium retcon was explained by Peter. Previously as we understood it, Preservation swapped bendalloy and cadmium to Atium (Atium-electrum alloy) and Malatium in Metallic Arts, but now with the retcon known, it doesn't make sense anymore. Atium Mistings are electrum Mistings, Malatium Mistings are gold Mistings - there is no reason to swap any metals because they are already usable by a specific group of people. So now bendalloy and cadmium were part of Metallic Arts before Catacendre, those Mistings were running around the Final Empire not knowing they are Mistings (just like chromium and nicrosil Mistings) and the only thing Preservation needed to do was to program Mistsnapping mechanism to make electrum Mistings ill for 16 days, to give a sign to humanity. There is no need for alteration because Atium and Malatium are already included in Metallic Arts by their nature of god metal alloys. In my opinion all those WoBs talking about Preservation rewriting Metallic Arts are out of date, because they don't really make much sense if you consider that Atium Mistings were just electrum Mistings

I'm on your side here, it makes far more sense for preservation to not have "switched" how snapping works. We know that atium (or nalatium) was intended to be an alloy of electrum since well of ascension was written, so it makes sense to me that "seers" don't really exist. 

So my promised aside. F-nicrosil stores investiture. The few things we know about it are that it can store the ability to use investiture(which is itself investiture, just applied) and the investiture itself. For instance, holding the bands of mourning grants you all feruchemical and allomantic abilities. That is slightly misleading however, since it doesn't give you feruchemical abilities, it just had a large storage of unkeyed attributes. Except you have to have the feruchemical ability to tap a metalmind, so the bands must store the actual ability in nicrosil. But that would mean that you could both tap and fill the bands, and since they also give you all allomantic abilities, filling them back up would be trivial. So clearly the bands don't make you an allomancer and a feruchemist when you hold them. The one thing it absolutely has to do is make you a feruchemist. All other unsealed metalminds have to have a storage of the attribute as well as the ability to use it. If it didn't have nicrosil to give you that ability, it would just be unkeyed. So, I propose that it doesn't give you allomantic powers. Rather, the nicrosil is storing allomantic investiture. A couple of things follow from this. It must be impossible to store the ability to burn metals in a nicrosilmind, otherwise creating trueborn/compounders in general would be trivial. Secondly, the investiture involved in allomancy must be usable by anyone. So when an allomancer burns metals, they gain investiture with certain properties (I'm not sure what the proper term is for this. I'm talking about the differences that would be most obvious to a seeker) which give them allomantic abilities. That investiture is nearly immediately used, with the limiting factor being how quickly you can burn the metal. I would imagine that storing "the ability to use various surges of the Knights Radiant"(Coppermind) must be similar. Anyone has the ability to use the investiture, it's getting it that's the hard part.

So the allomantic power in the bands is finite, although anyone with the requisite allomantic ability could fill it again. You can't just hold the bands and drink metals. Otherwise, allomantic and feruchemical ability would be very easy to mass produce. Which is clearly not the case.

[alder24]

29 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Can he really? I was under the impression that we learned in era 2 that he can only hear the thoughts of people with hemalurgic spikes, hence why people in wax's religion (forgot what it was called) wear spikes while they meditate.

That's because Sazed is a nice man and he doesn't want to spy on people when he's uninvited. After Kelsier Ascended he could hear everyone, SH ch 6-4:

Quote

However, now he could hear people.
Everyone, not just the mad. He could hear their thoughts like voices— their hopes, their worries, their terrors. If he focused too long on them, directed his attention to a city, the multitude of thoughts threatened to overwhelm him. It was a buzz, a rush, and he found it difficult to separate individuals from the mess.

 

33 minutes ago, Heilven said:

This is how I thought it worked, so I was confused when rereading WoA and I got to the part with Sazed and his metalminds. It's a shame to hear that that won't ever really be explained, even if it's completely inconsequential.

My headcanon is that it was Preservation directly. He sent Sazed to chase after Vin and he can talk to a select few - like Kelsier talking to Spook or Vin to Elend. Leras also once talked to Kelsier, when he Snapped in the Pits. Barriers between realms weaken when people are close to death, that's why Preservation was able to say a word to Kelsier and in my opinion that's why he was able to say those words to Sazed. But that's my headcanon - it could have been just Sazed realizing that. SH ch 6-4:

Quote

Do better, Kelsier, Preservation commanded, his voice fading. If the end comes, get them below ground. It might help. And remember . . . remember what I told you, so long ago. . . . Do what I cannot, Kelsier. . . .
SURVIVE.
The word vibrated through him, and Kelsier gasped. He knew that feeling, remembered that exact command. He’d heard that voice in the Pits. Waking him, driving him forward.
Saving him.

WoA ch 58:

Quote

He felt himself dying. It was an odd experience. His mind was resigned, yet confused, yet frustrated, yet slowly. . .having. . .trouble. . .
Those weren't coins, a voice seemed to whisper.
The thought rattled in his dying mind.

 

Spoiler

RoboChrist

Did Kelsier really hear Preservation's voice telling him to Survive when he was in the pits of Hathsin? Or was it Ruin pretending to be Preservation?

If it was Preservation, does that mean Kelsier died in the pits? Or were there special circumstances that allowed Kelsier to hear Preservation's voice without dying?

Brandon Sanderson

Special things often happen in the cosmere when someone is very close to death, or undergoing intense pain (either physical or emotional.) Barriers between the realms weaken.

I can confirm that the Kelsier who left the pits was not a Cognitive Shadow.

Phantine

Could he have become a Shadow using the pits if he died immediately after snapping?

Brandon Sanderson

Possibly.

General Reddit 2017 (Aug. 28, 2017)

 

41 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Follow up question then: Why did Kelsier "destroying" the pits of hathsin prevent it's use for travel to shadesmar? Or at least that's what I got out of Hoid's annoyance in secret history.

We don't know. There was Ruin't perpendicularity directly below the Pits and that was used to travel between realms. However we don't know why destroying geodes also destroyed this Perpendicularity. In my opinion that was Ruin's essence connected to him that was leaking in this point because there was so much Ruin's essence in general. Once Atium geodes were destroyed, the thing that attracted that investiture to leak here disappeared, thus it stopped gathering there, it faded. But truthfully we don't know.

Or it could have been just because of Atium, with no Shardpool being there. A huge concentration of investiture can open a conduct without a Shardpool being there. When Kelsier destroyed the Pits, that investiture stopped gathering there, the conduct was closed. But that explanation causes problems, as in Kandra's Trust there was no such conduct there for some reasons. 

Either way we don't really know what precisely happened there.

Spoiler

Chaos (paraphrased)

Does Ruin have a pool, similar to Preservation's pool with the Well of Ascension and Skai's pool in Elantris?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes. His pool is the Pits [Pits of Hathsin].

Ancient 17S Q&A (May 1, 2010)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Hoid worldhops between places. How did he do it on Scadrial? With Ati's body?

Brandon Sanderson

So, there were two perpendicularities on Scadrial.

Questioner

I know he uses the pools, but how did he do it with Pits of Hathsin? There was no pool? The body was there...

Brandon Sanderson

So, it doesn't have to be going through the pool. What happens with a perpendicularity is, where there is a massive collection of Investiture, it pulls a conduit through. So, if you know what you're doing and where you are, you can get through that.

Questioner

So you don't have to use the pools, just where there's a huge concentration...

Brandon Sanderson

A huge concentration of Investiture will warp the realms.

Questioner

So can anyone worldhop that way, then? If they know what to do?

Brandon Sanderson

If they know what to do, in a perpendicularity, anyone should be able to get through there. But as proven with Raoden, if you don't know what it's supposed to do, nothing happens. He gets dumped int he pool, he thinks he's gonna die... nothing. So, it's more than just being there.

Questioner

That's how he went from the Physical to the Cognitive, so I was wondering how did he do that at the Pits of Hathsin, when there shouldn't be a pool there

Brandon Sanderson

Well, that is the equivalent.

Arcanum Unbounded release party (Nov. 22, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

So, Hoid says he couldn't use the Pits anymore, but couldn't he have used the Trust, with a lot of atium all together? Would that have not formed a Perpendicularity?

Brandon Sanderson

No. There's a reason for that.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

 

50 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Idk, it really doesn't seem to just be "they don't know that they can". To start with, Vin challenging the "rules" with copper isn't as simple as knowing that it is possible. It was always possible, you just needed to be sufficiently more powerful. And steelpushing stuff that isn't metal seems to be going this route as well. In BoM, for instance, Wax sees ironlines to axi just by holding the bands and being tremendously powerful. There wasn't a trick to it, it was just tremendous power.

Yes, that's required too. You need to know and have enough power. Look at that first WoB below in Treamayne's quote - "And I do think that in strongest applications, Allomancy is going to be moving beyond metals and moving toward things like fundamental forces." That's what Wax was seeing. The more powerful you are the more you can push on, but you need to have that intent, for that you need to know - and you can realize that once you have that power. 

54 minutes ago, Heilven said:

We have been told since then that it is the spikes that grant vision in that way, not skill with allomancy.

It's both. Normal Mistings can learn to do that, but a spike in your eye changes your body, it makes it adapt to your new spike, shifts your brain and changes how your vision works. That's why a spike into an eye gives you steelsight - but we don't know if any spike can do that or if it has to be some specific type of spike. 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

By the way, you probably remember form book one the way that Inquisitors see. They have such a subtle touch with Steel and Iron, and their lines, that they can see via the trace metals in everyone's bodies and in the objects around them.

The thing is, any Allomancer with access to iron or steel could learn to do this. Some have figured it out, in the past, but in current times, nobody–at least, nobody the heroes know–is aware of this. Except, of course, for Marsh.

And he chose not to share it.

The Well of Ascension Annotations (Nov. 11, 2007)

But just like Inquisitors can see traces of metals in your body, they still can't push them - they lack the power to do that. 

58 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Metal is special on a cosmere level, of course. And this is pretty obviously why it is the easiest to push. I think I'm more interested in what exactly it is that makes it so easily pushable. I think this is a discussion that I want to have, so I'll set up my theory in the general cosmere discussion forums, since it certainly has to do with the wider cosmere.

Then I propose that it's the nature of Allomancy. Invested Arts are physical manifestations of fundamental forces of Cosmere and on Scadrial those forces manifest as Metallic Arts. One of those forces may be something like electromagnetic forces and bonds - that's represented by Allomantic steel and iron. Metals are the easiest to influence via that force. But we have no real explanation for why this is happening. 

Spoiler

Kaimipono

Allomancy is fueled by Preservation's body? How exactly does that work? And how does that interact with Atium—it's fueled by both gods' bodies?

Brandon Sanderson

The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.

[...]

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

 

Spoiler

Kimbobhi

Is it possible to Surgebind using gaseous Investiture other than Roshar's?

Brandon Sanderson

So here's the thing. It depends on your definition of Surgebinding. Surgebinding would be the Rosharan definition of all of the magics. They would call the Metallic Arts Surgebinding. You are binding the powers of creation, which the word "Surge" is that word translated from Rosharan into English, that's what the word means in Rosharan, is the powers of creation. The fundamental forces which inspired me to make this. So they would consider all of them to be Surgebinding. And that's just what you're doing, you are binding and using those powers.

[...]

YouTube Spoiler Stream 1 (Dec. 17, 2020)

 

1 hour ago, Heilven said:

However, what does Sanderson mean by this?

Not everything is pushable or pullable, but it counts in allomancy? My understanding is that some things are metals, and others aren't. There's not a particular scientific reason as to where this dividing line is, but Sanderson has made one. Things that are metals can be pushed (besides aluminum) and things that aren't, "can't". Specifically, I'm pretty sure silver, lead, and some other non-allomantic metals are very definitely pushable. I'm very confused by what he means with this then.

No idea. Allomancy would consider those as metas even if they can't be pushed? But this WoB is about metals and metalloids on the periodic table - which is the majority of elements - all of them are metals from an Allomantic point of view, but not every one of them can be pushed. It's probably something that will be explored in Era 3 or 4.

Spoiler

 

 

1 hour ago, Heilven said:

Your comment did remind me of something else. Metal glows in Scadrial's subastral. It clearly doesn't glow everywhere in shadesmar, we know that from Stormlight. So why does it glow in CR on Scadrial?

Because Scadrial and all metal on it was directly created by Ruin and Preservation, it's literally made out of their essence. Other Shards just settled already existing planets. It may be also because it glows in the eyes of Scadrians - who are invested with the same power that leaks glows through metals - power of Ruin and Preservation and only their power. But again, we don't really know why. 

Spoiler

Questioner

If another Shard came to Scadrial, would that be enough to create a metal like atium, or...?

Brandon Sanderson

If another Shard just came to visit, probably not.

Questioner

If they brought a spren or--

Brandon Sanderson

If they came and completely Invested the world, then things might start happening. But there's some special circumstances, remember. Ruin and Preservation created that planet. Specifically. And so there's some goofy things that happened because of that. For instance Roshar was not made by Honor, Cultivation, or Odium. That's one of the big differences about what's going on there.

Shadows of Self Chicago signing (Oct. 12, 2015)

 

1 hour ago, Heilven said:

it can store the ability to use investiture(which is itself investiture, just applied)

It's called innate investiture, part of your soul. There is also kinetic investiture - investiture that is doing something (like steel pushing) and static investiture, that is held by something or someone, but currently doesn't do anything (metalminds, Stormlight breathe in etc). If you want to learn more, check out its Coppermind page.

In my opinion F-nicrosil stores ONLY innate investiture, not kinetic, not static - you can't store Mists in there, or Dor, or Stormlight, only abilities. You can store Divine Breaths because those are innate investiture and because of that you should be able to store normal Breaths too. They are innate investiture as well.  

1 hour ago, Heilven said:

That is slightly misleading however, since it doesn't give you feruchemical abilities, it just had a large storage of unkeyed attributes.

Actually they do. You can tap metalminds and store in them as well while holding the Bands, just like with normal Malwish medallions, and you don't really have to store in Bands/medallions, you can just store in a different piece of metal. Bands do store innate investiture responsible for granting you all Feruchemical power in the same way as medallions do. They also store all innate investiture responsible for storing all Allomantic powers - we don't know if they work like in medallions or differently.

In my opinion normal Feruchemical nicrosil stores innate investiture (abilities) just like you store speed in a steelmind - for example 1h of 50% of your Allomantic steel ability and you can tap with diminishing returns too. This is a finite power, it will run out, it's an attribute. In the case of medallions this is more restrictive and it works like a coppermind - you have it or you don't and that's how all Feruchemical powers are stored in the Bands, with a big reserve of attributes stored in each metalmind. But Allomantic powers aren't stored in that way in the Bands, they are an attribute stored in Nicrosilmind - you have to tap it while holding them to be able to use Allomancy and that runs out over time. But this is my opinion, we still are missing some pieces of information about Bands. We know there are no Allomantic medallions and that's significant.

What medallions are doing specifically is that because they have a bit of lifeforce and identity of their own, they grant you Feruchemical unsealed powers without you needing to tap them consciously. They do it for you, they bond you and give you powers. That's why those Feruchemical abilities are stored like in a coppermind. 

Spoiler

Calderis

Does the nicrosil portion of the medallions function identitically to how a Soulbearer Ferring would use Nicrosil? 

Brandon Sanderson

Not exactly. The medallion is a little more restrictive, for one thing.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 31, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Pagerunner

When you tap the nicrosil portion of a medallion, will it run out over time? Or is it like a coppermind, where something discrete is taken, used, and returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question! Like a coppermind.

General Signed Books 2018 (Oct. 15, 2018)

 

Spoiler

Raddatatta

In Era 1, Sazed says the only thing you can Feruchemically store while sleeping is wakefulness, but in Era 2 they have the sky ships that require everyone to be storing weight to fly and they don't land while people sleep. Was Sazed just wrong, or is that a difference between normal Feruchemy and using the unsealed metalminds?

Brandon Sanderson

Unsealed metalminds, I am moving toward complete—you probably already guessed this—mechanical uses of Investiture, and this indeed is a step toward that. And so we are stepping toward having a little machine that gives you powers. That's what the world wants to try to find. And this is—this being mechanical—we'll just say that the medallions and the things that they're building have more of a life-force, more of an Identity of their own than a traditional metalmind does, even though they're unkeyed and all of this stuff.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

1 hour ago, Heilven said:

But that would mean that you could both tap and fill the bands, and since they also give you all allomantic abilities, filling them back up would be trivial.

Yes. Wax at the end of BoM noted that the Bands are nearly empty but they can easily refill them via Compounding. 

1 hour ago, Heilven said:

The one thing it absolutely has to do is make you a feruchemist.

Yes, I agree with you.

1 hour ago, Heilven said:

So, I propose that it doesn't give you allomantic powers. Rather, the nicrosil is storing allomantic investiture.

Innate investiture. It's still the same type of investiture. Both Feruchemical powers and Allomantic powers are innate investiture. I disagree that Nicrosil can store kinetic investiture with no powers, because Marasi had to swallow metal flakes to use Allomancy. That means that the Bands store Allomantic powers in the form of innate investiture. You wouldn't need metals for kinetic investiture, it would be already in the current form. 

1 hour ago, Heilven said:

A couple of things follow from this. It must be impossible to store the ability to burn metals in a nicrosilmind, otherwise creating trueborn/compounders in general would be trivial.

You mean Fullborn, a person like Rashek? The Bands prove it isn't impossible. The problem however is to create a metallion that can grant more than 3 or 4 powers. Malwish are currently unable to do that. 

1 hour ago, Heilven said:

So when an allomancer burns metals, they gain investiture with certain properties (I'm not sure what the proper term is for this. I'm talking about the differences that would be most obvious to a seeker) which give them allomantic abilities.

That's kinetic investiture they are gaining when burning metals. But that doesn't give them abilities, their abilities are that they can burn those metals in the first place, to draw in kinetic investiture. 

1 hour ago, Heilven said:

That investiture is nearly immediately used, with the limiting factor being how quickly you can burn the metal.

That's the problem with this idea. If it's kinetic investiture then it's already in the form after metal was burnt, it's a power already filtered by a metal, so you don't need to burn anything. You would just release it. 

1 hour ago, Heilven said:

Anyone has the ability to use the investiture

False. You can't draw in Stormlight if you aren't a Surgebinder. You can't use investiture if you lack a proper ability. You need to have something in your soul that will allow you to use investiture - that's Invested Arts, innate investiture. 

The only exception to this is Hemalurgy and Awakening - everyone can use it (if you have Breaths in the case of Awakening, which are innate investiture).

 

[Heilven he/him]

On 2/11/2024 at 1:00 PM, alder24 said:

Scadrial and all metal on it was directly created by Ruin and Preservation, it's literally made out of their essence. Other Shards just settled already existing planets

Except everything was made from investiture originally when adonalsium created the cosmere, and when adonalsium was shattered, all investiture was divided amongst the shards.

On 2/11/2024 at 1:00 PM, alder24 said:

You can tap metalminds and store in them as well while holding the Bands, just like with normal Malwish medallions, and you don't really have to store in Bands/medallions, you can just store in a different piece of metal.

Honestly idk what I was trying to say. I think I was trying to say there was some hypocrisy in the wording but there really wasn't. I know it gives feruechemy, it certainly has to.

 

On 2/11/2024 at 1:00 PM, alder24 said:

You mean Fullborn, a person like Rashek? The Bands prove it isn't impossible. The problem however is to create a metallion that can grant more than 3 or 4 powers. Malwish are currently unable to do that

So I think my argument is hinging on a specific aspect of how this technology even works. I'm not saying that you would create a fullborn by making more Bands of mourning, but by giving them the innate ability to do it. Medallions are able to allow you to tap a metalmind without having the feruchemical ability. But can you take the ability out of the metalmind? Surely you can, or perhaps with the use of two nicrosilminds. 

Anyway that isn't the real problem, the real problem is in duplicating the power. Feruchemical ability is binary, you either have it or your don't. So what does compounding necrosil do when you have a feruchemical ability stored? If the answer is power duplication, than in principle, creating an infinite number of full feruchemists is simple.

Allomantic power, on the other hand, is not binary. It controls your burn rate for metals. If you are correct, and you store the innate ability to burn metals, than compounding should increase the strength of the allomantic ability. That should absolutely let you create more allomancers. You almost certainly should be able to only pull off part of the power (or else storing an allomantic ability would be pretty useless) so getting all of your original power back, and giving the rest to someone else, would be easy given the knowledge they already have. The simple fact that they haven't done this tells me it can't be possible. Something in this chain of assumptions has to be impossible. All you would need is one misting of each type, a nicrosil compounder, and an aluminum ferring.

My method requires feruchemical powers to be duplicatable with nicrosil compounding, or you need a full feruchemist rather than the aluminum ferring. But you also need 1 of those to make medallions in the first place, so it's definitely doable. Regardless, I want to pick out the assumptions that could be wrong that would make my method not work.

If somehow you can't tap only part of a nicrosilmind with an allomantic ability, than this doesn't work. But that seems silly. I'm sure you'll have more objections, and I look forward to hearing them. If my method isn't making any sense I will draw a diagram when I get home to explain myself.

I'll explain what my proposal is better then, I forgot all the proper words so it was hard to explain myself.

On 2/11/2024 at 1:00 PM, alder24 said:

That's kinetic investiture they are gaining when burning metals. But that doesn't give them abilities, their abilities are that they can burn those metals in the first place, to draw in kinetic investiture. 

Yes, I should have been more clear with what I mean by "allomantic ability". Clearly the true power is that you are able to burn metals and draw in investiture. I am proposing that once you have that investiture, using it is the easy part. The power of a steel misting is to burn steel. The investiture gained by burning steel allows you to steel push. Under my framework, if you were somehow able to give that investiture to someone else, regardless of if they are a misting, they would be able to steelpush. So a nicrosil twinborn could burn whatever metal they had allomantically, and store the investiture in the nicrosilmind. Then you could use that investiture later to have a massive burst of power, almost like duralumin you have set up before hand. 

On 2/11/2024 at 1:00 PM, alder24 said:

You can't draw in Stormlight if you aren't a Surgebinder. You can't use investiture if you lack a proper ability. You need to have something in your soul that will allow you to use investiture - that's Invested Arts, innate investiture. 

The way this would work with stormlight is part of my reasoning for thinking it works like this at all. I argue that a knight radiant draws in stormlight, and then is able to use that held stormlight, converting it to a type aligned with a surge. I actually have a piece of evidence from TSM that I think shows this quite well, but I will pull that into an aside later since it messes with the flow. 

This would work with nicrosil by storing the investiture associated with a surge, ready to be used later. A medallion granting gravitation then would let you use the surge of gravitation, but wouldn't let you draw in stormlight. Once you ran out of the investiture in the nicrosilmind, you couldn't replenish it. 

The reason I think it absolutely has to work this way is by nature of how surgebinding powers are gained. Surgebinding is gained by bonds, bonds formed by connection. The idea of storing the ability to draw in stormlight shouldn't really be possible, it's a different type of power. For instance, an honorblade gives you the ability to surgebind. If you could hold an honorblade and store your ability at the same time, what would happen? Would you be able to create infinite surgebinding, constantly getting surgebinding back, or would you destroy the honorblade's ability to grant surgebinding in the first place? Neither option makes sense in my opinion.

Allomancy is similar, you have a connection to Preservation which allows you to burn metals and collect investiture from him. The connection here is somewhat nebulous, I'll admit. But it seems almost an impossibility to me that storing the ability to use stormlight and surgebind seems like an impossibility. 

 

Extremely important caveat:

On 2/11/2024 at 1:00 PM, alder24 said:

I disagree that Nicrosil can store kinetic investiture with no powers, because Marasi had to swallow metal flakes to use Allomancy. That means that the Bands store Allomantic powers in the form of innate investiture. You wouldn't need metals for kinetic investiture, it would be already in the current form. 

I don't have a clear memory of Bands of mourning, if this fully happens in the scene, where Marasi has to swallow metal and only gains the ability to burn said metal, then yeah I'm fully wrong. Just 100% wrong. My framework relies on this not happening. I can't check the book right now but I'll do it when I get home.

Welp I've been writing this for a day now, and I have since checked the book. I am definitely wrong. I am going to think about the consequences of this now. 

 

Spoiler

Don't know how to delete this oops

[alder24]

6 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Anyway that isn't the real problem, the real problem is in duplicating the power. Feruchemical ability is binary, you either have it or your don't. So what does compounding necrosil do when you have a feruchemical ability stored? If the answer is power duplication, than in principle, creating an infinite number of full feruchemists is simple.

In my opinion, for normal Feruchemical nicrosil it would work like any other compounding - give you more attributes so you can tap it for longer or be stronger. For medallion nicrosil we don't know if that's even possible, because medallions have their own identity and like modern Hemalurgists can't compound because of conflicting identities, this can also prevent medallions from compounding. But there is this Malwish device, called Excisor, used to make medallions - I think it may duplicate powers like you propose - but for mechanical purposes, not to give two souls powers.

11 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Allomantic power, on the other hand, is not binary.

Allomantic power, just like Feruchemical power (tapping metals) are not binary. Feruchemical abilities, just like Allomantic abilities are binary - either it's in your soul or not. You either are a Feruchemist/Allomancer or not.

13 minutes ago, Heilven said:

If you are correct, and you store the innate ability to burn metals, than compounding should increase the strength of the allomantic ability.

Yes, but just like you can't store 100% of your mass, you can't store 100% of your Allomantic strength. By compounding you will get more attributes, thus more time to tap or tap more with diminishing returns to make you stronger in Allomancy. And that's what the Bands did - someone stored there their normal Allomantic powers at like 90% strength, compound it and got 900% strength, storing it back - thus Wax/Marasi tapping it had the strength of Rashek. That's my opinion to be clear.

16 minutes ago, Heilven said:

That should absolutely let you create more allomancers.

No, because it's time limited. You can only tap as much as there is the metalmind is full, it's not permanently given to your soul, nor it's like a Feruchemical medallion which is more like an off/on switch. 

18 minutes ago, Heilven said:

You almost certainly should be able to only pull off part of the power (or else storing an allomantic ability would be pretty useless) so getting all of your original power back, and giving the rest to someone else, would be easy given the knowledge they already have.

You don't give anything to someone else. In my opinion, in normal Feruchemy, you store Invested abilities like you store all other attributes (except for memory) - you store for 1h, you can tap for 100%. Once you stop storing/tapping your attribute goes back to its normal value. Just like Wax is storing his mass. 

Let's say a Coinshot stored 90% of his A-steel for an 1h in that kind of metalmind and gave it to someone who is not an Allomancer. That person would be able to become a Coinshot for just an 1h, with just 90% of strength - or tap with diminishing returns to get more strength in a shorter time. Once the attribute runs out that's it, they no longer have A-steel powers. While the original Coinshot had his powers the entire time, he only had to become 90% weaker when he was storing. 

Sure, that sounds kind of useful, until you remember they had primer cubes that do exactly the same thing with no additional steps, with no need for metalminds at all. It's much easier to use Allomantic granates.

26 minutes ago, Heilven said:

The power of a steel misting is to burn steel. The investiture gained by burning steel allows you to steel push. Under my framework, if you were somehow able to give that investiture to someone else, regardless of if they are a misting, they would be able to steelpush.

Give that kinetic investiture? Ok, but what is the target? What that investiture would be pushing at? What with emotional allomancy? If you have someone soothing fear in one person, would storing that kinetic investiture and tapping it by someone else make this investiture also be able to soothe only fear in that original target? Intent was already kind of used to program that investiture when someone burnt metals, its kinetic form was already established but the person who stored it. How much control would you have over steelpushing with just kinetic investiture - it should be just like in primer cubes because they are charged with kinetic investiture, they affect everything in its range and you have no control over it. Primer cubes are the thing you're describing, it would make no sense to make Nicrosilminds work in the exact same way. 

30 minutes ago, Heilven said:

The way this would work with stormlight is part of my reasoning for thinking it works like this at all. I argue that a knight radiant draws in stormlight, and then is able to use that held stormlight, converting it to a type aligned with a surge. I actually have a piece of evidence from TSM that I think shows this quite well, but I will pull that into an aside later since it messes with the flow. 

Yes.

30 minutes ago, Heilven said:

This would work with nicrosil by storing the investiture associated with a surge, ready to be used later. A medallion granting gravitation then would let you use the surge of gravitation, but wouldn't let you draw in stormlight. Once you ran out of the investiture in the nicrosilmind, you couldn't replenish it. 

Make sense.

31 minutes ago, Heilven said:

The reason I think it absolutely has to work this way is by nature of how surgebinding powers are gained. Surgebinding is gained by bonds, bonds formed by connection. The idea of storing the ability to draw in stormlight shouldn't really be possible, it's a different type of power.

True, but because spren's soul and Radiant's soul are merging together via that bond, you may be simply storing spren's ability to Surgebind (it's spren that has that power in his soul). Look at this that way - Allomancy is given to you by Connection to Preservation and yet you can store it in Nicrosilmind despite it being Connection. 

Spoiler

Kaimipono

Allomancy is fueled by Preservation's body? How exactly does that work? And how does that interact with Atium—it's fueled by both gods' bodies?

Brandon Sanderson

The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.

Condensed 'essence' of these godly powers can act as super-fuel for Allomancy, Feruchemy, or really any of the powers. The form of that super fuel is important. In liquid form it's most potent, in gas form it's able to fuel Allomancy as if working as a metal. In physical form it is rigid and does one specific thing. In the case of atium, it allows sight into the future. In the case of concentrated Preservation, it gives one a permanent connection to the mists and the powers of creation. (I.e., it makes them an Allomancer.)

So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak—though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists, however, she'd doing just that—using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself—to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips 'troughs' through her body. It's like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive.

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

 

35 minutes ago, Heilven said:

For instance, an honorblade gives you the ability to surgebind. If you could hold an honorblade and store your ability at the same time, what would happen? Would you be able to create infinite surgebinding, constantly getting surgebinding back, or would you destroy the honorblade's ability to grant surgebinding in the first place? Neither option makes sense in my opinion.

Because neither would happen. Just like storing speed in a steelmind, for the time you're storing the powers of Honorblade would get weak while the metalmind would be filled with attributes. Once you stop storing the Honorblade is back at 100%. You can tap those metalminds for as long as you were storing, getting as much as you stored until you empty it. It's not duplicating powers. 

 

39 minutes ago, Heilven said:

I don't have a clear memory of Bands of mourning, if this fully happens in the scene, where Marasi has to swallow metal and only gains the ability to burn said metal, then yeah I'm fully wrong. Just 100% wrong. My framework relies on this not happening. I can't check the book right now but I'll do it when I get home.

BoM ch 28:

Quote

Marasi clutched the spearhead in two hands.
And tapped everything.
Power flooded into her, lighting her up like an inferno. Snow hung motionless in the air. She stood up and reached to the belt of one of her captors, removing one of his vials of metal. She took them all, several from each guard, and drank them. She was tapping a metalmind, letting her move at a speed so fast that when she lifted her hand, she could briefly see the pocket of vacuum left behind. She smiled.
Then she burned her metals. All of them.

 

[Voidmaker he/him]

Just gonna give my two cents here, Alder's handling most of it.

15 hours ago, Heilven said:

Except everything was made from investiture originally when adonalsium created the cosmere, and when adonalsium was shattered, all investiture was divided amongst the shards.

Small clarification, but Scadrial was created after the Shattering. Ruin and Preservation created Scadrial alone, Adonalsium did create all Investiture, but Ruin and Preservation, with their individual Investiture, worked together to create Scadrial after Adonalsium's death.

15 hours ago, Heilven said:

Anyway that isn't the real problem, the real problem is in duplicating the power. Feruchemical ability is binary, you either have it or your don't. So what does compounding necrosil do when you have a feruchemical ability stored? If the answer is power duplication, than in principle, creating an infinite number of full feruchemists is simple.

Allomantic power, on the other hand, is not binary. It controls your burn rate for metals. If you are correct, and you store the innate ability to burn metals, than compounding should increase the strength of the allomantic ability. That should absolutely let you create more allomancers. You almost certainly should be able to only pull off part of the power (or else storing an allomantic ability would be pretty useless) so getting all of your original power back, and giving the rest to someone else, would be easy given the knowledge they already have. The simple fact that they haven't done this tells me it can't be possible. Something in this chain of assumptions has to be impossible. All you would need is one misting of each type, a nicrosil compounder, and an aluminum ferring.

Allomancy and Feruchemy are both binary (in the 'do-you-have-it' sense) and nonbinary (in the 'how-good-are-you-at-it' sense). Allomancy has raw strength- one guy's steelpush can be better or worse than some other guy's steelpush, varied by training, 'gene purity' (idk how to word this properly, essentially if you're a lerasium Mistborn or if you got it from your parents). Feruchemy has a similar thing (but no discovered Lerasium equivalent)- but it's referred to as Feruchemical 'efficiency'. The greater your efficiency, the less you 'lose' in the transferral process. When the attribute goes from 'attribute' to 'Investiture', it loses a small percent, returning to the Spiritual Realm. When the attribute goes back from 'Investiture' to 'attribute', another small percent is lost. A theoretically perfectly efficient Feruchemist would not have this loss, or have this loss be so neglible it's not even there. An extremely weak Feruchemist would lose a lot in this process, instead of an average Feruchemist losing little by little. I'm going off of memory here, and I don't have any WoB to prove it (I'm bad at finding them) so feel free to disregard this if there's no evidence, but I swear it worked like this. Sorry for not giving proof.

[Heilven he/him]

23 hours ago, alder24 said:

Yes, but just like you can't store 100% of your mass, you can't store 100% of your Allomantic strength.

This is what made it click for me. You're right, you don't store allomantic power the way you store memories. When storing allomantic power, you don't stop being an allomancer, you just become weaker. This does make sense, you're right. It's funny that this actually makes allomantic medallions extremely powerful, since your power as an allomancer isn't consumed by flaring your metals. It would just be consumed over time. 

What piece of your innate investiture controls this is nebulous imo, but it's clearly what is actually happening.

To me this asks even more questions about how feruchemical power works in nicrosil. In medallions, the feruchemical power is not consumed. But you've gone over this a few times by now of course, medallions have their own life force and identity which grants the weilder the ability.

So beyond medallions, how does nicrosil work in feruchemy? 

23 hours ago, alder24 said:

In my opinion, in normal Feruchemy, you store Invested abilities like you store all other attributes (except for memory) - you store for 1h, you can tap for 100%. Once you stop storing/tapping your attribute goes back to its normal value

Your explanation here confuses me, because as far as I know feruchemy is completely binary, no feruchemist is more powerful than another. 

8 hours ago, Voidmaker said:

Feruchemy has a similar thing (but no discovered Lerasium equivalent)- but it's referred to as Feruchemical 'efficiency'. The greater your efficiency, the less you 'lose' in the transferral process. When the attribute goes from 'attribute' to 'Investiture', it loses a small percent, returning to the Spiritual Realm. When the attribute goes back from 'Investiture' to 'attribute', another small percent is lost. A theoretically perfectly efficient Feruchemist would not have this loss, or have this loss be so neglible it's not even there. An extremely weak Feruchemist would lose a lot in this process, instead of an average Feruchemist losing little by little.

I haven't ever heard this before, I don't know if there are wobs or something I missed about this but from what I know, this loss is very small. The loss is related to humans being a porous container of investiture, so when you tap and extreme amount of an attribute, you lose some of the investiture as the investiture flows out of you through osmosis to the environment. So maybe this is true, but since the loss is so small, being highly efficient shouldn't really change much. And that seems like a pretty weak feruchemical ability.

So what does storing a feruchemical ability in nicrosil do? Feruchemy is also granted by connection to Preservation and Ruin, which would cause me to assume that you can't store all of your feruchemical ability in a nicrosilmind. But then what does storing any % of your feruchemical ability mean? When storing speed in steel, you become slow now to become faster later. In nicrosil, you store your feruchemical ability. So there's two options, you store it like copper, or like any other attribute. 

Storing feruchemical ability like any other attribute just seems odd to me. You cannot be a strong feruchemist, you are just a feruchemist. I'm curious to know what you believe here, and how you think this ought to work.

8 hours ago, Voidmaker said:

Small clarification, but Scadrial was created after the Shattering. Ruin and Preservation created Scadrial alone, Adonalsium did create all Investiture, but Ruin and Preservation, with their individual Investiture, worked together to create Scadrial after Adonalsium's death.

Yes, my point was that every planet was made by investiture in the same way. Scadrial was directly created from Preservation and ruin's investiture, but other planets (like roshar) were created by adonalsium. But when the shattering occurred, the investiture became that of Honor and Cultivation's. So scadrial's connection to Preservation and Ruin shouldn't be any different than any other shardworld.

I'll go ahead and say what I meant about TSM. Spoilers for all of TSM

Spoiler

At the end of The Sunlit Man, Zellion consumes Aux and reforms his bonds with his platespren, and gains surgebinding. This investiture is limited, and once it runs out he was no longer able to surgebind. But the power was converted straight into surgebinding, and consumed in the process. He never used stormlight, or any of his investiture. Aux was consumed to give him the power to fly, not the ability to use investiture to fly. So I do believe that this is how storing radiant abilities would work as well.

 

[Treamayne]

27 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Your explanation here confuses me, because as far as I know feruchemy is completely binary, no feruchemist is more powerful than another.

27 minutes ago, Heilven said:

I haven't ever heard this before, I don't know if there are wobs or something I missed about this but from what I know, this loss is very small. The loss is related to humans being a porous container of investiture, so when you tap and extreme amount of an attribute, you lose some of the investiture as the investiture flows out of you through osmosis to the environment.

@alder24  and @Voidmaker are talking about Storing and tapping compression. 

You store <attribute> at <percentage> for <time>. When you stop storing, that attribute returns to your normal. You Tap <attribute> at <percentage of storage> for <time>. Then you stop tapping, that attribute returns to your normal.

Tapping Compression is where most loss occurs because it uses some of the stored investiture to compress the stored investiture. WoB:

Spoiler

Sporkify

This is more towards the whole physics stuff, but is Feruchemy really balanced? If it gives diminishing returns, wouldn't this end up as a net loss of power?

Brandon Sanderson

It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does—but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself.

In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful.

Footnote: This question was asked when fueling Feruchemy with Allomancy had only been seen in Rashek. As such, the term compounding is used purely to reference tapping at a higher rate than can be stored.
Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

Copper is the known exception, because a discrete memory is stored, retrieved, stored again. This also applies to Medallions somehow:

Spoiler

Pagerunner

When you tap the nicrosil portion of a medallion, will it run out over time? Or is it like a coppermind, where something discrete is taken, used, and returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question! Like a coppermind.

General Signed Books 2018 (Oct. 15, 2018)

 

Edited February 13, 2024 by Treamayne
SPAG/Clarity

[alder24]

21 minutes ago, Heilven said:

To me this asks even more questions about how feruchemical power works in nicrosil. In medallions, the feruchemical power is not consumed. But you've gone over this a few times by now of course, medallions have their own life force and identity which grants the weilder the ability.

So beyond medallions, how does nicrosil work in feruchemy? 

It's probably efficiency. It may be that you get perfect return of stored attributes, or maybe you're much more efficient with diminishing returns. it's less flashy than what you can do with Allomancy.

22 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Your explanation here confuses me, because as far as I know feruchemy is completely binary, no feruchemist is more powerful than another. 

In this quote I've made a mistake - you don't store 100% of your attribute (as per previous quote, only memory and now I add also Identity as well can probably be stored 100%). So if you are a Feruchemist storing 90% F-steel in a Nicrosilmind, you would basically get only 10% of stored speed when tapping, rest would be lost - instead of being 190% of your speed, you would be 110%. Probably that's how it works. 

You've seen less powerful Feruchemists in Era 1 - Inquisitors. Because of Hemalurgic decay, their Feruchemy was less efficient than what a normal Feruchemist had. They had to store for longer to get as much as a normal Feruchemist could get. Even natural Feruchemist suffer some slight decay over generations - they don't get a perfect 100% return of stored attributes, some of it is lost. You've also seen Feruchemical Savants, who have their efficiency boosted up as well - Miles and Rashek. While for normal Feruchemist storing Feruchemical power isn't that obvious as with Allomancy, I bet those factors would be weakened/improved when combined with F-nicrosil.

Spoiler

Kurkistan

How exactly does Hemalurgic decay work for Feruchemy? Is it like a leaky tube or something, or…?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah… yeah.

Kurkistan

So they try to store 10 units of health and only 9 gets through, or…?

Brandon Sanderson

Hemalurgic decay meaning someone who has been spiked is less powerful? That Hemalurgic decay, or the Hemalurgic decay when a Hemalurgic spike is left outside of blood?

Kurkistan

Less powerful. So like the Inquisitors are less powerful Feruchemists so they had to spend longer storing: so why did they have to spend longer storing?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah they lose a little bit, it’s a leaky… You’re there, exactly. It just doesn’t quite… it’s not as efficient: it’s an efficiency thing.

Calamity Chicago signing (Feb. 22, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Yoonseo Chang

Looking at Allomancy, you've mentioned that over time the power dilutes and each ability becomes less powerful. (for example a Tineye in Era 2 will generally be less powerful than one in Era 1) Does the same effect happen in Feruchemy as well? How would Feruchemy become less pure or diluted (other than Ferrings appearing)?

Brandon Sanderson

I have not gone as far with Feruchemy in that regard. I would say that if you're going to get a weakening of Feruchemy, which you're asking about, is the amount of stored attribute you get for lost attribute. There is decay there, you don't get a 1:1. Feruchemy generally I would say is not much weaker than it was before, a little bit but not much. This was done partially for narrative reasons. I wanted Allomancy... I wanted to back off a little on Allomancy and tell stories with it a little bit weaker. Again, mostly narrative reasons at this point. At this point on Scadrial, it's weakened about as much as it's going to because by this point people are having children that are more powerful because of the certain mixing. I'm not saying it's going up, I'm saying they have hit an equilibrium on Scadrial for the most part, at least in the Basin.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

There are Allomantic savants, are there Feruchemical savants?

Brandon Sanderson

Much harder to do. My feeling on Feruchemical savants was because it was your own power in the first place, you can't steep in it so much in the way. But, if you can get someone else's power or if you are fueling your Feruchemy another way, you would become one. So, the Lord Ruler is a good example.

Questioner

Was Miles a...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Miles would be the same sort of thing.

Questioner

Is that why he didn't die as quickly in the execution?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

So yeah. Normally no but if you can Compound you become... basically that is how I am explaining part of the Compounding abilities. 

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

To add more confusion, Feruchemy actually slightly draws investiture from Shards - this investiture is used up by magic to facilitate conversion of attributes into investiture stored in metalminds and back. It can be that storing/tapping Feruchemical abilities in nicrosil affects how much of this investiture you're drawing from Shards, thus how efficient your Feruchemy is. The more you draw, the more perfectly you convert your attributes, the less loss there is. This power drawn from Shards is used ONLY to change attributes into investiture and back. The efficiency of that change matters then. 

Spoiler

Questioner

So for the Old Magic, in this classification system of end-positive, end-neutral, and end-negative, where would that fall under?

Brandon Sanderson

So, almost every magic in the cosmere is end-positive, almost every magic is relying upon an external source of Investiture to power it. So that phrasing is mostly more relevant to Scadrial than anywhere else, because that concept is how I'm dealing with things like the laws of thermodynamics, and even what they call end-neutral is relying a little bit on the power of Investiture to facilitate. So even an end-neutral magic system as they define it on Scadrial is actually not end-neutral. What you get put in you get out, but the power is facilitating that transfer… So that phrasing is kind of a... Take that as a science on.. Scadrial that does not extrapolate well, and may not even be 100% accurate.

Moderator

That would have been a great thing to know before we did the cosmere magic panel. *laughter*

Brandon Sanderson

I look at it as, is an Investiture externally powering the magic, and if you look at Allomancy, yes it is. You are drawing that power out. Feruchemy, you are putting Investiture in from your own body, it's your energy transferring to Investiture, which is being stored, which you are then drawing out, and things like that. But that changing forms is facilitated by the magic. Whereas you're stealing stuff with-- So you could look, for instance at the magic on Nalthis, you could look at that one as being-- as kind of working as end-negative, meaning "I am taking it away from someone else", or end-positive depending on if you're the one receiving it or not. So again, it's a phrasing that can be useful as a tool but doesn't scale well to the other magics.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

Lastly it can affect diminishing returns - you store 80% of your speed for 1h, you can tap 80% for 1h back, or tap 160% for 20 min, or 240% for 5 min etc. The more power you want, the more you need to compress the attribute, the more of the attribute is used up to compress it, the less time you have. It may be that storing and tapping Feruchemy in nicrosil increases efficiency of diminishing returns, so you would not lose that much attribute to compression. 

Spoiler

Sporkify

This is more towards the whole physics stuff, but is Feruchemy really balanced? If it gives diminishing returns, wouldn't this end up as a net loss of power?

Brandon Sanderson

It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does—but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself.

In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful.

Footnote: This question was asked when fueling Feruchemy with Allomancy had only been seen in Rashek. As such, the term compounding is used purely to reference tapping at a higher rate than can be stored.
Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

 

Those are my guesses on how it might look if you store/tap your Feruchemical abilities in typical Nicrosilmind, not medallion. It would be far less obvious than with Allomancy, you can never get more attributes than you stored, you can only get closer to the perfect 100% return, which is a small boost, not really that powerful as how I think Allomancy stored in F-nicrosil would be. It's just a small efficiency boost, unless you're a Hemalurgist, then it's a big efficiency boost.

[Iron-Eyes he/him]

On 2/11/2024 at 10:35 AM, Heilven said:

What makes ruin/harmony able to talk in someone's mind? I was under the impression that in order for ruin to talk/manipulate someone, they had to have a sufficiently damaged spiritweb. This could come from people who have had a truly rough go of it, or hemalurgic spikes. As far as I was aware, the spike had to be hemalurgically charged. But in WoA, Marsh uses Sazed's rings as weapons, pushing them into Sazed. This nearly kills him, but he hears a voice that reminds him that those rings are metal minds. I assumed this voice was ruin, since ruin is the only one who could actually do that.

So, does it have to be a spike? Or is it really just anyone pierced by metal?

There are a few ways Ruin could do it,

1. Someone pierced by a Hemalurgic spike (It has to be hemalurgic otherwise anyone wearing an earring would be influenced by ruin)

2. Someone with a sufficiently cracked spiritweb

Spoiler

This is what I think happened to Sazed because he was going through a period of depression after finding Tindwyl dead, ruin was able to influence him.

3. Someone with a close connection to a shard

Spoiler

That is how Odium was able to talk to Dalinar in his visions, because Dalinar had such a close connection to the shard Honour.

 

Edited February 15, 2024 by Iron-Eyes

[CtrlAltDepressed]

Spoiler

6 hours ago, Iron-Eyes said:

That is how Odium was able to talk to Dalinar in his visions, because Dalinar had such a close connection to the shard Honour.

I believe this was due to his connection to Odium through his time with the Thrill, no?

 

[alder24]

11 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

  Hide contents

I believe this was due to his connection to Odium through his time with the Thrill, no?

 

SA spoilers:

Spoiler

Not just because of the Thrill, it's a combination of factors. Odium needs to have a Connection to Dalinar directly. Firstly it's because Odium was preparing Dalinar to become his champion for decades, Thrill was involved. That forged a Connection between them. But after that failed this Connection seems to strengthen because Dalinar was viewed by Odium as the one that would fight against him, and this finally allowed Odium to reach Dalinar without the need of Everstorm or breaking into Dalinar's visions.

RoW I-4:

Quote

Vyre walked closer and knelt. “You can take me without a storm now, Lord?”
OUR CONNECTION GROWS STRONGER, Odium said. I HAVEN’T NEEDED A STORM TO BRING YOU INTO A VISION FOR MONTHS NOW, VYRE. I USUALLY DO IT FOR TRADITION’S SAKE

RoW ch 111:

Quote

Ishar touched his hand to his own chest, creating a line of light between him and Dalinar. “I will take this bond to the Stormfather. I will bear it myself. I sense … something odd in you. A Connection to Odium. He sees you as … as the one who will fight against him. This cannot be right. I will take that Connection as well.”

RoW ch 112:

Quote

“Our Connection grows, Dalinar,” Odium said. “Stronger by the day. I can reach you now as if you were one of my own. You should be.”

 

 

[CtrlAltDepressed]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

“I will take this bond to the Stormfather. I will bear it myself. I sense … something odd in you. A Connection to Odium. He sees you as … as the one who will fight against him. This cannot be right. I will take that Connection as well.”

Firstly, thanks for the info, I hadn't seen that before. 

 

Are we to assume since he was unsuccessful in stealing the Connection to the Stormfather that he was also unsuccessful in stealing the 'will fight against Odium' Connection? 

[Treamayne]

2 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Firstly, thanks for the info, I hadn't seen that before. 

Are we to assume since he was unsuccessful in stealing the Connection to the Stormfather that he was also unsuccessful in stealing the 'will fight against Odium' Connection? 

That was the implication from how Szeth ended the incident. Now, if that implication is a red herring or not . . . 

[CtrlAltDepressed]

2 hours ago, Treamayne said:

That was the implication from how Szeth ended the incident. Now, if that implication is a red herring or not . . . 

Spoiler

I think that would be a really really cool twist. When Taravangian ascended he saw that technically the shard Odium now views Ishar as his opponent, which is the way to beat Dalinar that he mentions. 

 

Instead of a sane Bondsmith bonded to one of the most powerful spren on the planet you get a completely insane Bondsmith that you conveniently just figured out you can kill forever.

 

I dont think this will be the case simply because there are only 10 days until the contest and that seems too much of a twist in a small amount of time. Would love to be wrong though. 

 

[AleStaar he/him]

Treamayne and alder explained this pretty well in the first two comments. I’ll expand on some stuff.

 

On 2/10/2024 at 6:35 PM, Heilven said:

1.) What makes ruin/harmony able to talk in someone's mind? I was under the impression that in order for ruin to talk/manipulate someone, they had to have a sufficiently damaged spiritweb. This could come from people who have had a truly rough go of it, or hemalurgic spikes. As far as I was aware, the spike had to be hemalurgically charged. But in WoA, Marsh uses Sazed's rings as weapons, pushing them into Sazed. This nearly kills him, but he hears a voice that reminds him that those rings are metal minds. I assumed this voice was ruin, since ruin is the only one who could actually do that.

So, does it have to be a spike? Or is it really just anyone pierced by metal?

Ruin and Harmony need the following to talk to minds:

1. Cracks in the spiritweb (the soul). Vin’s mother was schizophrenic, Zane was suicidal (he deserved so much better writing), Quellion had passionate paranoia for following Kelsier and killing nobles etc. This gave Ruin backdoors into their minds to encourage them to spike themselves or others.
2. The Vessel must have personal Connections to their desired subject, they don’t even need to be particularly strong. Though this is something that’s only been used by the Vessels of Preservation or users of the Well’s power, to circumvent their limitation of not being able to talk to minds. Rashek to Kwaan and his Feruchemist friends, Kelsier to Spook and Marsh and Vin, and Vin to Elend. In Sazed’s case, it would’ve been to Kelsier, the crew, and possibly Marsh. Though TBF, I guess a Vessel of Ruin could use this method to hear thoughts. It’s just unconfirmed as far as I know. 
3. The subject must be pierced by Invested metal, which makes Connections between the subject and the Shard. Hemalurgic spikes do this. It’s  confirmed in the annotations of The Alloy of Law that Harmony, contrary to popular belief, can influence people pierced by metalminds. He doesn’t do it because he prefers the approach of allowing free will while subtly nudging people to do his will. https://www.brandonsanderson.com/annotation-the-alloy-of-law-chapter-fifteen/

We still don’t know what’s up with Sazed hearing the voice in the mind. But Treamayne and alder explained the possibilities well.

 

On 2/10/2024 at 6:35 PM, Heilven said:

2.) The atium plan. This one I think is the most easily explainable, I just don't get it. The lord ruler's plan with the atium was to sequester a massive supply, effectively keeping a chunk of ruin's power away from him, slightly weakening him enough to level the playing field between him and preservation. But then, elend and his seers burned all of that atium, which enraged ruin because he couldn't have done it himself. This leads me to believe that the process of burning the atium actively converts the investiture into energy, which permanently weakens ruin. So, then, why even stockpile it? Why not just burn it all? The simple answer that makes the most sense to me is that by burning the atium, the power becomes "dispersed" and needs time to "coalesce". Which would make burning all that atium a significant postponing to ruin's plans, but burning it piecewise as it formed wouldn't be useful. 

The Lord Ruler’s atium plan was part of Preservation’s master plan.

Before imprisoning Ruin, Preservation saw a frail future possibility that people could burn away Ruin’s body, or that such an event might be important for his master plan. Burning atium does not permanently weaken Ruin, it provides a 300 year long opportunity where he can’t regain the atium’s Investiture. That’s a unique weakness that came from the way Preservation created the Pits of Hathsin. 

Preservation alloyed pure atium with electrum, and programmed the Mists to Snap on a massive scale once the Well was nearly full. This set up a system where the Mists implanted Mistings throughout Scadrial’s history, tied to the number 16. Preservation hoped that in the distant future humanity might figure out the clue of the unique atium Mistings being a thing, and burn away all of Ruin’s atium as a response.

Thousands of years pass. The history of Scadrial between Ruin’s imprisonment and Rashek’s Ascension is a huge unknown. But I have theories on what happened.

After thousands of years, TLR Ascended and became partially aware of Preservation’s Plan. He became aware of the Shards’ respective circumstances of impotence, and their inability to see through areas steeped with vast amounts of metal. And it was said by Haddek that Rashek saw into the future, so the Well of Ascension may have granted him a glimpse into Preservation’s web of future possibilities. Because of all this Rashek entrusted the Canton of Resource and the kandra to hide most atium beads from Ruin’s sight. 

It’s not easy to pinpoint exactly how Preservation’s long-term prediction of atium Mistings ties into Rashek’s gathering of atium. It’s also hard to know how they tied into Elend and Vin’s sacrifices, which Preservation predicted might be crucial to Ruin’s defeat. But if we look at canon it might’ve been that Elend and his atium Mistings NEEDED to burn the atium, to provide an opportunity where Ruin can’t regain his full power. But Elend also NEEDED to die to drive Vin to sacrifice her life, sometime within this opportunity. None of this was guaranteed to happen or work. We just saw the timeline where they did.

I like to think that Preservation engineered Rashek’s Ascension (said as much in SH) in hopes Rashek could set up the circumstances for the atium Mistings. 

Awhile ago I noticed it was implied that the kandra have prophecies of their own. Prophecies that Ruin will take control of them one day (hence the Resolution), that an army of Allomancers will appear, and that the mists might disappear. Rashek might’ve learned hints of the endgame hopes of Preservation i.e. atium Mistings and the Ascension of a successor. So he might’ve disseminated them into kandra culture.

Quote

“There isn’t much time left,” TenSoon noted.

 “I can see that,” Sazed said. “It makes me wonder what we can do.”

 “This is the only time in which we could succeed,” TenSoon said. “We must be poised, ready to strike. Ready to aid the Hero of Ages when she comes.”

 “Comes?”

 “She will lead an army of Allomancers to the Homeland,” TenSoon said, “and there will save all of us—kandra, human, koloss, and Inquisitor.”

  An army of Allomancers? “Then… what am I to do?”

 

 

Quote

“Bah,” KanPaar said, waving his hand. “You worried when the mists started staying in the mornings, now you complain that they are gone? We are kandra. We are eternal—we outwait everything and anything. We don’t gather in rowdy mobs. Go back to what you were doing. This means nothing.”

  “No,” a voice whispered into the cavern. Heads turned up, and the entire group hushed.

  “No,” Haddek—leader of the First Generation—whispered from his hidden alcove. “This is important. We have been wrong, KanPaar. Very… very wrong. Clear the Trustwarren. Leave only the Keeper behind. And spread the word. The day of the Resolution may have come.”

Excerpt From
The Hero of Ages: Book Three of Mistborn
Brandon Sanderson
This material may be protected by copyright.

 

Quote

“Tell me, Keeper,” Haddek said as his brothers seated themselves, “what do you make of this event?”

  “The departure of the mists?” Sazed asked. “It does seem portentous—though, admittedly, I cannot give a specific reason why.”

  “That is because there are things we have not yet explained to you,” Haddek said, looking toward the others. They seemed very troubled. “Things relating to the First Contract, and the promises of the kandra.”

 

 

Quote

“He made us promise,” Haddek said. “Each of us. He told us that someday, we might be required to remove our Blessings.”

  “Pull them from our bodies,” one of the others added.

  “Kill ourselves,” Haddek said.

  The room fell silent.

  “You are certain this would kill you?” Sazed asked.

  “It would change us back to mistwraiths,” Haddek said. “That is the same thing, essentially.”

  “The Father said we would have to do it,” another said. “There wasn’t a ‘might’ about it. He said that we would have to make certain the other kandra knew of this charge.”

  “We call it the Resolution,” Haddek said. “Each kandra is told of it when he or she is first birthed. They are given the charge—sworn and ingrained—to pull their Blessing free, should the First Generation command it. We have never invoked this charge.”

  “But you’re considering it now?” Sazed asked, frowning. “I do not understand. Simply because of the way that the mists are acting?”

  “The mists are the body of Preservation, Keeper,” Haddek said. “This is a very portentous event.”

  “We have been listening to our children discuss it all morning,” another said. “And it troubles us. They do not know all the mists represent, but they are aware of their importance.”

  “Rashek said that we’d know,” another said. “He told us. ‘The day will come when you have to remove your Blessings. You’ll know when it arrives.’ ”

 

[AleStaar he/him]

On 2/10/2024 at 10:47 PM, Treamayne said:

This was Preservation's Plan - to alter the Metallic Arts to include Atium and Malatium

Is there a WoB for this? First I’m hearing about it. If this is true, how do the electrum-atium Mistings tie into that alteration.

And if it’s true, then my eyes are wide about malatium being included. Does this mean Preservation predicted Ruin would eventually manipulate humanity into creating malatium?

 

[Treamayne]

15 minutes ago, Ale the Metallic Conjurer said:

Is there a WoB for this? First I’m hearing about it. If this is true, how do the electrum-atium Mistings tie into that alteration.

And if it’s true, then my eyes are wide about malatium being included. Does this mean Preservation predicted Ruin would eventually manipulate humanity into creating malatium?

WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Chaos (paraphrased)

Does Ruin have a pool, similar to Preservation's pool with the Well of Ascension and Skai's pool in Elantris?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes. His pool is the Pits [Pits of Hathsin].

Ancient 17S Q&A (May 1, 2010)

Quote

Lance Alvein (paraphrased)

You've said that "The Pits of Hathsin were crafted by Preservation as a place to hide the chunk of Ruin's body that he had stolen away". How does one Shard steal a portion of another Shard and create a Physical outlet for it, like the Pits were for Ruin's power?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It has to do with clash between the two Shards' power. When pressed, he then said that it was "kind of" like splintering

Hal-Con 2012 (Oct. 30, 2012)

Quote

/u/AAKS_

My understanding is that Brandon thinks it is a plothole that lerasium can be burned by Scadrian (regardless of if they are Mistings/Mistborn) but atium can't.

His solution is to retcon the Pits to naturally produce an atium/electrum alloy, presumably by the design of Preservation. Therefore we don't know what pure atium looks like or does when used in any magic.

Peter Ahlstrom

We do know what it does. It’s on the Allomancy poster, and the effect appeared one time at the end of Hero of Ages.

LewsTherinTelescope

Interesting. Do you know if he had already conceived the retcon by the time the poster was written, or if that line about pure atium just turned out to fit really well retroactively?

Peter Ahlstrom

The retcon is way older than a lot of people assume.

LewsTherinTelescope

Does this mean he had it in mind by the time Hero of Ages released (since the first public version of the poster dates to 2008), or just that it's old but not sure exactly how old?

Peter Ahlstrom

Remember that what's in the books is filtered through the understanding of the characters. So even if Brandon planned it from the beginning, if the characters didn't know about it, it's not going to come out in the book.

And see this thread reply from 2009.

Footnote: The link is to a post on the Timewaster's Guide forums, where Peter responds to someone asking about whether atium is an alloy by saying he now knows enough to confirm or deny the theory, but is not allowed to.
General Reddit 2022 (Dec. 4, 2022)

Quote

Czanos

Are Atium and the External Temporal Pulling metal really the same?

Brandon Sanderson

You are on to something. 

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

Quote

Chaos2651

Hemalurgically, atium steals Allomantic Temporal Powers. But, that seems unlikely, since atium is a god metal. It wouldn't fit in with the rest of the magic system. Did Preservation, in addition to switching cadmium and bendalloy for atium and malatium, also switch atium's Feruchemical and Hemalurgic powers with cadmium? Because it seems to me there's not a lot of atium Marsh can use to live for hundreds of years into the next Mistborn trilogy.

Brandon Sanderson

Preservation wanted atium and malatium to be of use to the people, as he recognized that it would be a very powerful tool—and that using it up could help defeat Ruin. But he also recognized that sixteen was a mythological important number, and felt it would make the best sign for his followers. So he took out the most unlikely (difficult to make and use) metals for his sign to his followers. But that doesn't have much to do with Hemalurgy's use here.

Remember that the tables—and the ars Arcanum—are 'in world' creations. (Or, at least, in-universe.) The knowledge represented in them is as people understand it, and can always have flaws. That was the case with having atium on the table in the first place, and that was the case with people (specifically the Inquisitors) trying to figure out what atium did Hemalurgically.

Their experiments (very expensive ones) are what determined that atium (which they thought was just one of the sixteen metals) granted the Allomantic Temporal powers. What they didn't realize is that atium (used correctly) could steal ANY of the powers. Think of it as a wild card. With the right knowledge, you could use it to mimic any other spike. It works far better than other spikes as well.

As for Marsh, he's got a whole bag of atium (taken off of the Kandra who was going to try to sell it.) So he's all right for quite a while. A small bead used right can reverse age someone back to their childhood.

But this was a little beyond their magical understanding at the time.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A (July 8, 2009)

 

It's unclear if he thought Ruin could manipulate Malatium the way it was used, but it is clear that he thought trapping Ruin's power in physical form and allowing it to be burned would be required for his endgame - hence removing Cadmium and Bendalloy (External Temporal Metals) and replacing them with Atium and Malatium (likely because the pairing requires both or neither and he could not only switch one - but that assumes Realmatic Theory we do not yet information on). 

Hope that helps