Fullborn are Even More Busted Than we Thought (Go Figure)

[Trusk'our]

As we know, Fullborn are super-duper busted, but here's another few reasons to pile on top of the list 

If a normal gold Ferring needed to save health to recover from injuries, they'd need to spend a lot of time being sickly and weak in order to heal from only a few solid hits (Wayne was able to heal from about 4 bullet wounds after spending two weeks in bed feeling awful).

A Compounder like Miles would have the option of instead of fueling his Feruchemy with his Allomancy, Burning gold to fill his Goldminds. This still takes time and a rare, valuable metal, however.

And this is where a Fullborn's Compounding becomes even more busted; they can use duralumin Allomancy to refill their Metalminds in a flash, rather than needing to spend time metabolizing all their metal, tough they'd need practice to make the process reliable, I'm sure (WoB). Basically, if a Fullborn were to, say, run low on their physical speed stores in their Steelmind during battle, they could zip on over to a bag of steel flakes/beads they'd gathered earlier, swallow the metal (probably using A-Bendalloy to buy more time), and Burn it all at once while using A-duralumin to completely and instantly refill their depleted Steelmind.

What's more, normally a Compounder needs to Burn an amount of metal comparable to the Feruchemical charge they want, based on the level of power their Allomancy has. And that's just the thing; a Fullborn could choose to use Feruchemical nicrosil to Store their Allomantic powers for a time, later Tapping while Compounding to use less metals to gain the same Feruchemical charge.

Basically, picture this; Miles wants to get 1,000 hours' worth of health in his Goldminds, so he Compounds a whole bunch of expensive gold jewelry he's looted over the course of a day or two. Boom, massive health stores for combat. A Fullborn could instead choose to Store their gold Allomancy in a Nicrosilmind for free (nobody needs to burn gold), then burn a tiny flake of gold over 1 second while Tapping hours and hours of Storing 100% of their gold Allomancy. There is Feruchemical compression loss you'd have to account for, but this is a legitimate way for a Fullborn to Compound with incredibly efficient rates, using only a fraction of the metal a normal Compounder would need to achieve the same effect.

There's also nicrosil Compounding itself, which may be useful to speed up the process of increasing your Allomantic power stores, which is yet another Compounding hack they have.

And, if a Fullborn ever needed a truly massive burst of raw power, they could Tap hundreds of hours of Feruchemical nicrosil in a single moment while Burning duralumin and a whole stomach full of metal. Since the amount of Investiture you get from Burning metals is directly dependent of the strength of your Allomancy, this means that Tapping nicrosil multiplies your Allomantic output.

Basically, they could rip apart an army (or small city, I'm sure) in a moment with a bunch of pewter and steel with a little duralumin and a full Nicrosilmind.

Or, if the Fullborn needs a more sustained flow of power, they could Tap Compounded nicrosil and Feruchemical steel to speed up the Burn rate and efficiency of their metals, once again multiplying their power manyfold.

[Colors]

Sadly why I doubt we'll ever see another Fullborn on page...but I could be wrong.

[Returned]

We might see more Fullborn, one way or another; the Bands still exist, as far as we know, and that they definitely can exist suggests that they can be duplicated. But not many and I doubt it will matter much. Power inflation has reached absurd levels as it is, and with so many books yet to be written it seems like it can only continue. We'll see more situations in which raw power won't help (there's a bomb at the core of Scadrial but your love interest is on Roshar and will be executed exactly when the bomb goes off, so you can only pick one!), direct countermeasures (you're in some sort of Leeching field, so your amazing compounded power is gone as soon as you prepare it), and standoffs ("I'm a 6th Oath Radiant, Rashek Jr., and even you can't handle that, so stay out of my business!").

Besides, it's not like Rashek was undefeatable despite his awesome might. We've even seen multiple Shards go down, and they're even more potent than Fullborn. It's just as well, for my tastes, since Fullborn are cool but don't exactly lend themselves to interesting plots very easily.

[Trusk'our]

4 hours ago, Colors said:

Sadly why I doubt we'll ever see another Fullborn on page...but I could be wrong.

I'm actually pretty convinced that we will. 

One of era 3's antagonists will be a Mistborn, which leans into that trope a bit. Plus, with the way technology is progressing on Scadrial creating a Fullborn would be much, much easier, but more importantly, countering a Fullborn will become much, much easier.

They're super busted, yes, but on a personal scale- a society with access to create advanced Unsealed Metalminds, Harmonium cubes (especially with A-chromium and cadmium), technologically advanced weapons, and aluminum gear is going to win if a Fullborn goes rogue. I suspect they'll actually make something akin to a Fullborn, perhaps as a kind of super-soldier, though they'll keep a close eye on them and perhaps limit their power a little. Basically, this means that it's possible to reintroduce them into the world of Mistborn for story purposes, as they won't completely disrupt the narrative.

But yeah, I would be quite surprised if we end era 4 and haven't seen at least one more Fullborn in the story.

[Colors]

39 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

I'm actually pretty convinced that we will. 

One of era 3's antagonists will be a Mistborn, which leans into that trope a bit. Plus, with the way technology is progressing on Scadrial creating a Fullborn would be much, much easier, but more importantly, countering a Fullborn will become much, much easier.

They're super busted, yes, but on a personal scale- a society with access to create advanced Unsealed Metalminds, Harmonium cubes (especially with A-chromium and cadmium), technologically advanced weapons, and aluminum gear is going to win if a Fullborn goes rogue. I suspect they'll actually make something akin to a Fullborn, perhaps as a kind of super-soldier, though they'll keep a close eye on them and perhaps limit their power a little. Basically, this means that it's possible to reintroduce them into the world of Mistborn for story purposes, as they won't completely disrupt the narrative.

But yeah, I would be quite surprised if we end era 4 and haven't seen at least one more Fullborn in the story.

Maybe, if anything I think a Fullborn (or an army of them) would be Scadrial's ace in the hole in a certain interplanetary conflict but idk, that would definitely be a new scale of power compared to what we've seen actually used for the most part.

[+robardin]

The very term "Fullborn" is questionable (where does it even come from?), as there has literally never been anbody BORN with both (full) Feruchemy and Allomancy (Mistborn).

In all of Scadrian history, there has only ever been one way to be a full Feruchemist - to be born one, as an appropriately sDNA'ed Terris person.

And, generally, only one way to be a Mistborn instead of a Misting, and that's to ingest a lerasium bead, or to be descended from someone who did.

...or to be Rashek, who was already a Feruchemist, and directly modified his Spiritweb with the power of Preservation while Ascended, to stack on Allomancy beyond the power level of even a lerasium Mistborn.

Prior to this "direct injection of Preservation's power", Allomancy occurred rarely but naturally in the Scadrian population, or by mistsnapping in two periods separated by 1024 years, but only as Mistings (for one metal).

By contrast, until the Catacendre and the elimination of all living Feruchemists (through Ruin's harvesting, the death of Tindwyl, and the Ascension of Sazed), all Feruchemists were "full" Feruchemists. You were either one, or were not.

Ferrings and Twinborn (with just one metal's Feruchemy) exist post-Catacendre specifically due to the admixture of the genes for Feruchemy and Allomancy.

There aren't even any "natural born Mistborn" on Scadrial in Era 2, since the passing of Spook/Lestibournes, was also "twiddled" by divine intervention (Harmony) to upgrade from Tineye to becoming the Lord Mistborn.

It's very, very unlikely, but eventually another Mistborn could be born (probably descended from Spook) - and apparently will be, for the Era 3 storylines (just one person, after like 300 years).

It's very, very unlikely, but eventually a full Feruchemist could arise in the Terris Village. But it wouldn't likely be from Ferring stock, as that would include Allomancy genes. Their "breeding for a full Feruchemist" would have to be seeing who the "pure Terris" ancestors were of a Ferring, and matching them up with other people like that.

To create another living Lord Ruler type person, with both Feruchemy and Allomancy for all metals in one person, without equipment, would require some level of "divine injection": either a recreated Full Feruchemist who ingests lerasium, or some Act of Harmony that massively upgrades someone directly.

Marsh is the closest thing to a "Fullborn" these days, what with all his spikes for metals of many of both powers, and a "classical" ability to Compound with hemalurgically derived powers that appears to have been lost in Era 2.

[alder24]

16 hours ago, robardin said:

The very term "Fullborn" is questionable (where does it even come from?), as there has literally never been anbody BORN with both (full) Feruchemy and Allomancy (Mistborn).

In all of Scadrian history, there has only ever been one way to be a full Feruchemist - to be born one, as an appropriately sDNA'ed Terris person.

And, generally, only one way to be a Mistborn instead of a Misting, and that's to ingest a lerasium bead, or to be descended from someone who did.

...or to be Rashek, who was already a Feruchemist, and directly modified his Spiritweb with the power of Preservation while Ascended, to stack on Allomancy beyond the power level of even a lerasium Mistborn.

[...]

To create another living Lord Ruler type person, with both Feruchemy and Allomancy for all metals in one person, without equipment, would require some level of "divine injection": either a recreated Full Feruchemist who ingests lerasium, or some Act of Harmony that massively upgrades someone directly.

Just saying, it's theoretically possible for a natural Fullborn to be born:

Spoiler

Windrunner

Is it is even possible for a full Feruchemist Mistborn to be naturally born, or will the genes for the two interfere with one another too much?

Brandon Sanderson

It is possible, but highly unlikely.

/r/books AMA 2015 (June 6, 2015)

 

Spoiler

Esmale (paraphrased)

Will we ever see full Mistborn and/or Feruchemists again?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, but they may be cobbled together...

Esmale (paraphrased)

I meant more along the lines of a natural born Mistborn.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO

ConQuest 46 (May 22, 2015)

But overall you're right. However the closest thing there was to a Fullborn was Wax holding the Bands - the Bands are there, they grant powers of a Fullborn, it's possible to make more of them. It's not impossible to think that in the future artificial Fullborn will be present on Scadrial.

Edited February 29 by alder24

[Returned]

"Fullborn" is just the word for the thing it represents. I don't think it's meant to be etymologically decomposed any more than "Mistborn" is-- they were never borne of the mists! And Mistings would have the same claim to the word.

I do agree that it gives the impression of something that it isn't (full of all of two sets of powers by birth), but I treat it more as an idiomatic word than a deceptive affront.

[+robardin]

22 minutes ago, Returned said:

"Fullborn" is just the word for the thing it represents. I don't think it's meant to be etymologically decomposed any more than "Mistborn" is-- they were never borne of the mists! And Mistings would have the same claim to the word.

I do agree that it gives the impression of something that it isn't (full of all of two sets of powers by birth), but I treat it more as an idiomatic word than a deceptive affront.

OK, that's fair - "Mistborn" is the in-world term for the most powerful Allomancers, dating back to the original ten lerasium ingesters (plus TLR) who all appeared after the mists (the "Deepness") had receded, and the entire planet had suddenly and completely changed topologically and ecologically.

At the same time, I think "Fullborn" is, despite its frequent use in this forum, a fan term and not canonical? Like, does the word ever occur in any published Cosmere work, including Khriss' Ars Arcana notes?

It's a useful fan term, one I have used and will use for it, not saying it isn't, and I know there are WoBs where Brandon responds to and uses the term freely.

Still, if it were up to me to coin a term for an OP mashup of a Mistborn and Feruchemist, it'd have been Mistferaku or something like that, LOL

Edited February 29 by robardin

[Returned]

14 minutes ago, robardin said:

At the same time, I think "Fullborn" is, despite its frequent use in this forum, a fan term and not canonical? Like, does the word ever occur in any published Cosmere work, including Khriss' Ars Arcana notes?

That's a great catch that honestly never occurred to me to check. I just searched the text of all of the Mistborn books, including Secret History, and the term isn't there even once! As a fan term it's likely created by fans like us on 17th Shard, and we're a detail-oriented enough lot to have chosen a more properly descriptive name.

It's probably too late to change it, especially since "Fullborn" has a nice sound to it and resonates well with "Metalborn", which is commonly used at least in era 2. But I think that the best angle (and one which follows the reasoning you laid out above) would be to highlight Rashek's innate Feruchemy along with the divinity he held at the Well, which is what he used to become Mistborn. "Divinely Metallic", "Maxmetaled", "Preservacious", "Pinnacle Scadrian"... none of them have the same cachet. But I'm not really good at naming things, so that shouldn't be surprising in my glib first draft ideas 

[Zapata]

14 minutes ago, Returned said:

That's a great catch that honestly never occurred to me to check. I just searched the text of all of the Mistborn books, including Secret History, and the term isn't there even once! As a fan term it's likely created by fans like us on 17th Shard, and we're a detail-oriented enough lot to have chosen a more properly descriptive name.

It's just a combination of parts of the terms "full feruchemist" and "mistborn", although you're right about the impression it lends. Chances are any fullborn-like beings we see in the future will not actually be born with all the powers (and neither was any past fullborn).

[Returned]

It is interesting that the term could technically be correct, as the complete power set of each art is heritable and so the word could fit-- it's the full array of the Metallic Arts powers that a person could potentially be born with. But funny that the one time such a person existed it didn't happen that way, never happened since, and likely will never happen in the future. Sort of like my favorite bone name, the innominate bone (innominate means nameless, so its name is the bone without a name).