theory Genetics and Mistborn in the Modern Scadrial

[Rune]

Essentially, the metal arts are spiritually genetic (ignoring you hemalurgy) I believe which could allow for some breeding. We see that the metallic arts have become watered down among the population esssentially removing the possibility for mistborn or full feruchemists but what if, with careful breeding, there could be a way to bring these power sets back into being outside the use of godmetals like Lerasium. Would this sort of breeding allow for a Fullborn perhaps? I do recognize that these people would most certainly not come close to the power level of an original allomancer or feruchemist but that is not quite the point. Perhaps you could strengthen the power level of people with this but the first priority I’d assume is giving someone a greater skill set in metals. What do you guys think? Am I missing some important info that would throw all this out the window?

[TheSurvivorofDeath]

Mistborn and Feruchemists can be created with careful breeding, yes. The abilities are genetic and can be selectively bred to create a person with a strong enough connection to be a full mistborn or Feruchemist. A Fullborn, however, probably could not be bred. There’s a WOB I think, though I can’t find it, that talks about how allomancy and Feruchemy sort of cancel each other out, which is why even in the earlier days when both were stronger no fullborn were made. The lord ruler was only able to be a Fullborn because he specifically altered his spiritweb with the power of a god to give himself Allomancy. I don’t think you could breed a true Fullborn, though you should  be able to get a mistborn ferring or a misting Feruchemist.

[+hwiles]

3 hours ago, Rune said:

Essentially, the metal arts are spiritually genetic (ignoring you hemalurgy) I believe which could allow for some breeding. We see that the metallic arts have become watered down among the population esssentially removing the possibility for mistborn or full feruchemists but what if, with careful breeding, there could be a way to bring these power sets back into being outside the use of godmetals like Lerasium. Would this sort of breeding allow for a Fullborn perhaps? I do recognize that these people would most certainly not come close to the power level of an original allomancer or feruchemist but that is not quite the point. Perhaps you could strengthen the power level of people with this but the first priority I’d assume is giving someone a greater skill set in metals. What do you guys think? Am I missing some important info that would throw all this out the window?

No no, eugenics works in fiction exactly the same way it works in real life, people just generally seem to hate the concept of coerced breeding programs aimed at power consolidation...

As a theoretical alternative, it has been suggested that it might be possible for parents to establish adequate Connection with Harmony to allow them to produce a Mistborn or Feruchemist without being one themselves; this would be sort of like a way of hacking around needing Lerasium, but it certainly hasn't been confirmed as a possibility at this point.

[JustQuestin2004]

Maybe if people could crack how to use the Mists, that might be enough. Wait no, Gasesous Investiture is just fuel. Maybe the Perpendicluarity?

Either way without the use of Lerasium, which was used to create Mistborn in the first place as there were only Mistings before it, there really aren't very many ways of becoming a Mistborn. We don't even know how Feruchemy is granted, like is it from a balance of Ruin and Preservation?

Though maybe the Nicrosil Spikes the Set were experimenting with might be a way. Spiking more raw Preservation into someone to grant them Allomancy, kind of like the Mistsickness isn't it? Just more brutal. You'd just need a lot of Spikes filled with Preservation to bring someone over the threshold into a Mistborn, maybe. You'd need a lot of power though, possibly more than you can fit into a person thanks to the new Hemalurgic Spikes limit, which thanks to TLM we know is at a minimum of 5.

[alder24]

4 hours ago, Rune said:

Essentially, the metal arts are spiritually genetic (ignoring you hemalurgy) I believe which could allow for some breeding. We see that the metallic arts have become watered down among the population esssentially removing the possibility for mistborn or full feruchemists but what if, with careful breeding, there could be a way to bring these power sets back into being outside the use of godmetals like Lerasium. Would this sort of breeding allow for a Fullborn perhaps? I do recognize that these people would most certainly not come close to the power level of an original allomancer or feruchemist but that is not quite the point. Perhaps you could strengthen the power level of people with this but the first priority I’d assume is giving someone a greater skill set in metals. What do you guys think? Am I missing some important info that would throw all this out the window?

Yes, it is possible for a Fullborn to be born naturally, but that's highly unlikely. It's possible through breeding to select specific genes and strengthen the bloodline so more Metalborn will be made - Spook's bloodline is a bit stronger and that's the reason Vanishers targeted people related to Spook, the Set try to breed Allomancers with those people, Rashek did the opposite with Terrismen, trying to get rid of Feruchemy through selective breeding, modern Terris try to bring back a Full Feruchemist by trying to bring the purest Terrismen together. It’s possible for a full Mistborn or a full Feruchemist to be born out of this, in fact the plot of Era 3 might be centered around catching a full Mistborn criminal. But a Fullborn, while it’s possible to get naturally, it’s highly unlikely to be born because Allomantic genes interfere with Feruchemical genes, breaking them apart, which resulted in Ferrings and Twinborns. But it’s still possible to mix them together and get a Fullborn  - that was what Rashek feared, that’s what Sazed fears. 

BoM ch 3:

Quote

"A Full Feruchemist is bound to be born among mankind eventually —particularly with the Terris elite working so hard to preserve and condense their bloodlines."

 

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

Questioner

One thing when I was reading The Alloy of Law, in Mistborn, all the [Feruchemists] were the Mistborn version of [Feruchemy], and then it changed to the Misting version of [Feruchemy]. Is there...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, there's a reason for that, and I'll delve into it a bunch more later, but basically, there's two things going on. Number one, the bloodlines have thinned, and that's the reason they're talking about [here]. Also, full-blooded Feruchemists mixing, like the populations mixed, is really dangerous, and Sazed knew this. So, I'll just leave it at that.

Firefight Seattle UBooks signing (Jan. 6, 2015)

 

Spoiler

Travyl (paraphrased)

Why do the Twinborn in Alloy of Law have only one Feruchemical power, when all previous Feruchemists, in spite of breeding programs, could use all the metals? 

WetlanderNW (paraphrased)

Or were Ferrings always part of the system and we just didn't meet them in Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The Ferrings are a new development since Mistborn, as the Feruchemists have been interbreeding with the Allomancers. Basically, the Allomancy genes interfere with the Feruchemy genes, breaking it down and creating the limitations we see in Alloy of Law.

Footnote: Brandon's response was very enthusiastic. He noted how perceptive the question was, and obviously enjoyed the discussion. The reporter has expressed their regret at lack of an audio recording to share his enthusiasm.
Alloy of Law Seattle Signing (Nov. 11, 2011)

 

[Trusk'our]

On the topic of Metallic Art genetics, I recall the concept of Mistborn Snapping letting in more Preservation to make them more powerful, despite the fact that both Mistborn and Mistings come from the same blood lines and therefore have the same genetic potential. 

Anyway, branching off from this, do you think this would possibly imply that a Mistborn may actually introduce a boost of power to the lineage as opposed to if they Snapped and just became a Misting, or is it not how it works?

Basically, if a Mistborn and a Misting of the same line were to have both have children, are the Mistborn's kids going to have a higher Allomantic potential?

[Returned]

We don't know enough about the underlying mechanisms for how Metallic Arts are inherited to assess how successful a matchmaking and breeding scheme might be. It's not impossible that it could work. What little evidence we have suggests that it would not work very well, though.

We don't have any evidence suggesting that two Allomancer or Feruchemist parents are (at this point) more likely to produce an Allomancer or Feruchemist child than one parent with a normal Scadrian, which is one of they key concepts behind such a scheme. And a Mistborn doesn't seem to be any more likely to produce another Mistborn than a Misting, while a Misting obviously can produce a Mistborn. We have excellent evidence for general heritability of Feruchemy but the WoBs regarding the dilution of that trait seem to relate to interaction with Allomancy, not necessarily mixing with non-Terris people. If that's true then the change might not be recoverable through matchmaking alone.

The nobility, pre-Catacendre, did at least some matchmaking along Allomantic lines but the population still lost Allomantic strength pretty quickly over a thousand years. Skaa apparently didn't (don't?) have the ability to maintain Allomantic lines at all, absolutely requiring a noble ancestor within five generations to yield an Allomancer (The Final Empire, p. 292). The only people for whom we even know that modern Allomancy (what we see after Lerasium was given by Rashek) is consistently heritable are nobles, and we know that Rashek changed them in some way from what they were before. It's possible that the heritability is more due to those changes than the Lerasium, if not the Allomantic strength. At this point in Scadrial's history noble ancestry might be pretty well distributed through the overall population, but how much noble background does someone need, and could that background be reconstituted into a stronger trait? Maybe. But it's not a sure thing.

Overall, the evidence we have suggests that Allomantic strength and heritability come from two angles: being descended from those Rashek transformed into nobles, and being descended from people that burned Lerasium to become Mistborn. The latter piece seems to dilute with each generation, and even at its strongest point (the immediate descendants of the original Lerasium-burners) we don't have any reason to believe that all of the next generation were Allomancers, while we do have good evidence that each generation was weaker (Allomantically) than those that preceded them. We don't know how noble lineage affects things other than that it seems to matter a lot, somehow. Allomantic strength seems like it has some relationship to matchmaking, but it also seems like the main effect of that is to slow the degradation, not to reverse it.

The changes in expressed Feruchemy over time don't have those same considerations and so a matchmaking scheme might be more effective there, but it's notable that we don't have any evidence that the current Terris efforts have been at all effective in that regard.

So, from what we know now, the idea of a matchmaking program to strengthen Metallic Arts powers across generations is a maybe, at best. But medallion technology (never mind raw Hemalurgy) is so much more reliable, effective, fast, and scalable that I think it would be hard to get enough people on board with a matchmaking program to even make the effort. Regardless, there is clearly more to this for both Allomancy and Feruchemy than simple heritability and we don't have enough reliable information to make very confident guesses.

13 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Anyway, branching off from this, do you think this would possibly imply that a Mistborn may actually introduce a boost of power to the lineage as opposed to if they Snapped and just became a Misting, or is it not how it works?

Basically, if a Mistborn and a Misting of the same line were to have both have children, are the Mistborn's kids going to have a higher Allomantic potential?

Yes, I think so. Mistborns' Allomantic strength weakens over generations just like Mistings' do, and Mistborn don't appear more likely to produce Mistborn than Mistings or vice-versa. And neither is all that likely to produce an Allomancer at all. But Allomantic potential does seem to be preserved, in at least some cases. Kelsier notes this when he is describing Vin's father, though how precise his knowledge is is unclear. But it seems like the difference is in potential strength of an Allomancer child, should one be born, and not necessarily the likelihood of such a child being born. "Seems" being an important word there-- we have very little reliable information from which we can develop guesses.

[Lego Mistborn]

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

On the topic of Metallic Art genetics, I recall the concept of Mistborn Snapping letting in more Preservation to make them more powerful, despite the fact that both Mistborn and Mistings come from the same blood lines and therefore have the same genetic potential. 

Anyway, branching off from this, do you think this would possibly imply that a Mistborn may actually introduce a boost of power to the lineage as opposed to if they Snapped and just became a Misting, or is it not how it works?

Basically, if a Mistborn and a Misting of the same line were to have both have children, are the Mistborn's kids going to have a higher Allomantic potential?

I think the mistings had to snap as well

[Isilel]

@Returned:

Quote

Kelsier notes this when he is describing Vin's father, though how precise his knowledge is is unclear. But it seems like the difference is in potential strength of an Allomancer child, should one be born, and not necessarily the likelihood of such a child being born

 

I disagree. We have a number of family groupings among the known allomancers: Vin and her murdered baby sister, which makes 2 out of 3 for her father's children with his skaa mistress*, Kelsier and Marsh, Clubs and Spook and, of course, Straff and his squad of allomancer kids. It seems to me that likelihood  is very much affected.

*for all anyone could have known, her brother might have been a Misting of one of the 7 unknown metals too, with nobody the wiser.

However inheritance of Metallic Arts is clearly not according to Mendelian genetics in it's simplest form, but is  more complex - perhaps comparable with multi-genetic inheritance, maybe with a dose of epigenetics on top. Which is why that one kidnapped guy in TLM was a child of 2 allomancers, but not one himself, and why strength dilution happens at all. 

Regarding nobles - weren't TLR's alleged  changes to them revealed as mostly sham and propaganda? Allomancy growing weaker with each generation after the original 8 lerasium Mistborn makes sense either way, since they were interbreeding with people who were not allomancers, diluting potential, but also spreading it wider. Nobles being a closed caste limited dilution and fixed allomantic potential among them, that's all. Skaa supposedly not being able to maintain allomantic lines again has to do with dilution among the much larger population group and with systematic elimination of skaa allomancers. 

The nuTerris isolationist project couldn't have been going for long, as in the first few generations after the Catacendre there wouldn't have been any choice about interbreeding with outsiders. So, we don't know whether it could eventually succeed. Kandra seemed to think so. 

It is not like iRL some people don't marry for advantage, both for themselves and for their kids, so if Metallic Arts do provide such (and they should), there might be some choosing to do so.

Medallions and hemalurgy are all well and good, but natural Metallborn are always going to have a leg up, since they can use those too. In addition, they are going to be expensive and medallions are more limited than natural abilities that they mimic.

There is another aspect that I wanted to point out - we don't know how modern snapping works, beyond the fact that it is much easier than in era 1. However, snapping of Mistborn was always much harder than that of Mistings _and_ Harmony apparently doesn't want them running around, so he may have left their snapping threshold as it used to be. That's why, in the absence of routine near-death beatings for the likely prospects, there might be some people with Mistborn potential in Era 2, who never realise it.

[alder24]

20 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

On the topic of Metallic Art genetics, I recall the concept of Mistborn Snapping letting in more Preservation to make them more powerful, despite the fact that both Mistborn and Mistings come from the same blood lines and therefore have the same genetic potential. 

That was only the case for when Mists were Snapping people, I don't think it was said this was also happening naturally. But truthfully it makes sense for Snapping to invest people, otherwise unsnapped Mistborn would be as invested as Snapped Mistborn, which feels wrong.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

The Sliding Scale of Allomantic Potential

Noblemen, despite what Spook says in this chapter, are not immune to the mistsickness. The rumor Spook is referencing does have merit, however. You see, since the mists are Snapping people and awakening the Allomantic potential within them, it will affect far fewer noblemen than skaa. Why? Because a lot of the noblemen have already Snapped. They were beaten as children to bring out the powers.

However, that won't stop all of them from being affected by the mistsickness, because the mistsickness is also awakening Allomantic potential that would otherwise be too subtle to be brought out. Pretend there's a sliding scale of Allomantic potential. 100% means you're an Allomancer—in this series, only two people have hit 100%—Vin and Elend. Buried within a lot of people, however, is enough of a touch of Preservation's power to hit, say, 50% on the relative scale of Allomantic power. These people, when beaten and made to pass through something traumatic, awaken to their Allomantic abilities.

There are a lot of people out there, however, with something more like 20% to 30%. These are the people the mists are Snapping—since the mists are, themselves, partially the power of Preservation, they can touch people and increase their Allomantic potential slightly and then bring it to the forefront.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Dec. 29, 2009)

 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Seventy

The Reason for the Mistsickness

So, it finally comes out. I wonder at this numbers plot, as I think many readers will glaze over it and ignore it. I think others will read into it and figure out what it means very quickly, then feel that the reveal here isn't much of a revelation. Hopefully I'll get a majority in the middle who read the clues, don't know what they mean, but are happily surprised when it comes together. That's a difficult line to walk sometimes.

What is going on here is that the mists are awakening the Allomantic potential inside of people. It's very rough on a person for that to come out, and can cause death. Preservation set this all up before he gave his consciousness to imprison Ruin, so it's not a perfect system. It's like a machine left behind by its creator. The catalyst is the return of the power to the Well of Ascension. As soon as that power becomes full, it sets the mists to begin Snapping those who have the potential for Allomancy buried within them.

Many of these people won't be very strong Allomancers. Their abilities were buried too deeply to have come out without the mists' intervention. Others will have a more typical level of power; they might have Snapped earlier, had they gone through enough anguish to bring the power out.

My idea on this is that Allomantic potential is a little like a supersaturated solution. You can suspend a great deal of something like sugar in a liquid when it is hot, then cool it down and the sugar remains suspended. Drop one bit of sugar in there as a catalyst, however, and the rest will fall out as a precipitate.

Allomancy is the same. It's in there, but it takes a reaction—in this case, physical anguish—to trigger it and bring it out. That's because the Allomantic power comes from the extra bit of Preservation inside of humans, that same extra bit that gives us free will. This bit is trapped between the opposing forces of Preservation and Ruin, and to come out and allow it the power to access metals and draw forth energy, it needs to fight its way through the piece of Ruin that is also there inside.

As has been established, Ruin's control over creatures—and, indeed, an Allomancer's control over them—grows weaker when that creature is going through some extreme emotions. (Like the koloss blood frenzy.) This has to do with the relationship between the Cognitive Realm, the Physical Realm, and the Spiritual Realm—of which I don't have time to speak right now.

Suffice it to say that there are people who have Snapped because of intense joy or other emotions. It just doesn't happen as frequently and is more difficult to control.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (March 30, 2010)

 

20 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Anyway, branching off from this, do you think this would possibly imply that a Mistborn may actually introduce a boost of power to the lineage as opposed to if they Snapped and just became a Misting, or is it not how it works?

Spook's bloodline was strong in Allomancy for a reason - he was a Mistborn. First Mistborn created very strong Allomantic bloodlines because they were Lerasium Mistborn. The likelihood of becoming a Metalborn is increased for a Mistborn's bloodline for certain, the boost in power should also happen. Here is even WoB that confirms that certain mixing can increase the power of a Metalborn.

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)

 

20 hours ago, Returned said:

We don't have any evidence suggesting that two Allomancer or Feruchemist parents are (at this point) more likely to produce an Allomancer or Feruchemist child than one parent with a normal Scadrian, which is one of they key concepts behind such a scheme.

I think that's a pretty reasonable assumption. If one Metalborn parent increases chances of Metalborn children, then two parents should increase it even more. And the proof you're looking for is right in the WoB above.

20 hours ago, Returned said:

We have excellent evidence for general heritability of Feruchemy but the WoBs regarding the dilution of that trait seem to relate to interaction with Allomancy, not necessarily mixing with non-Terris people.

The Allomantic genes were present across the entire population of Scadrial except for Terrismen. They have always kept themselves separate from other nations and thus from Allomancy as well. Terrismen were not being Snapped by Mists - only them.

 

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

Regarding nobles - weren't TLR's alleged  changes to them revealed as mostly sham and propaganda?

No, they were real. But after 1000 years of mixing, those changes became negligible. HoA ch 25 epigraphs:

Quote

The Balance. Is it real?

We've almost forgotten this little bit of lore. Skaa used to talk about it, before the Collapse. Philosophers discussed it a great deal in the third and fourth centuries, but by Kelsier's time, it was mostly a forgotten topic.

But it was real. There was a physiological difference between skaa and nobility. When the Lord Ruler altered mankind to make them more capable of dealing with ash, he changed other things as well. Some groups of people—the noblemen—were created to be less fertile, but taller, stronger, and more intelligent. Others—the skaa—were made to be shorter, hardier, and to have many children.

The changes were slight, however, and after a thousand years of interbreeding, the differences had largely been erased.

[Isilel]

@alder24:

But this quote about Balance, while canonical, is a bit self-contradictory, isn't it? Given that the nobles were the descendants of people who sided with TLR's conquest. Which only began _after_ he had done his modifications and released the power of the Well. 

I have always thought that nobles who weren't already allomancers should have been more susceptible to Mist-snapping, because of their generally heightened allomantic potential, not less. Of course, the situation would have been muddled by some of them being Mistings of undiscovered metals, unbeknownst to anyone, but still.

Edited April 6 by Isilel

[alder24]

36 minutes ago, Isilel said:

@alder24:

But this quote about Balance, while canonical, is a bit self-contradictory, isn't it? Given that the nobles were the descendants of people who sided with TLR's conquest. Which only began _after_ he had done his modifications and released the power of the Well. 

I don't see it as contradictory. When Rashek held the power, he divided the population into nobles and Skaa, but he probably turned those who already had a high social status into nobles, such as aristocrats or kings who were later offered Lerasium. I think those first Mistborns founded the first Great Houses. The story of the first nobleman is a fabrication - it was said his friends became the first nobles, not just those who sided with him. The kings and rules who sided with him became the first Mistborn in reality. It's most likely that not all of the nobles he made sided with him, but those would have been dealt with - killed. HoA ch 62:

Quote

TenSoon fell back on his haunches. "It strikes me as odd, Terrisman. There's one great inconsistency in this all, a problem no one has ever thought to point out. What happened to the packmen who traveled with Rashek and Alendi up to the Well of Ascension?"
Rashek. The man who had become the Lord Ruler.
Breeze stood up straight. "That's easy, kandra," he said, waving his cane. "Everyone knows that when the Lord Ruler took the throne of Khlennium, he made his trusted friends into noblemen. That's why the nobility of the Final Empire were so pampered—they were the descendants of Rashek's good friends."

 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

The First Noblemen Weren't Rashek's Friends

I'm curious to know if anyone figured out the logical problem with the Terrismen becoming nobility. It's what everyone assumed, and it's been mentioned in the previous books. Everyone knows that the Lord Ruler made his friends into Allomancers.

Only, he didn't. That's simply a fabrication he allowed to continue as rumor, then become fact, so that he could cover up the origins of the kandra. The men who became the first Allomancers were actually foreign kings. Rashek knew that he could conquer the world if he needed to—but he also knew that it would be a lot easier to rule that conquered world if he had allies and kingdoms who joined him out of desire, not out of fear. So, he offered Allomancy to the royal families who would give their allegiance to him. Once he showed off his own power as a Mistborn, he managed to get several important monarchs to throw their weight behind him. They got to be Allomancers.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Feb. 25, 2010)

[Duxredux]

Not sure if I'm onboard for the specific mechanics, but I agree with this general sentiment:

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

There is another aspect that I wanted to point out - we don't know how modern snapping works, beyond the fact that it is much easier than in era 1. However, snapping of Mistborn was always much harder than that of Mistings _and_ Harmony apparently doesn't want them running around, so he may have left their snapping threshold as it used to be. That's why, in the absence of routine near-death beatings for the likely prospects, there might be some people with Mistborn potential in Era 2, who never realise it.

I do think it's well worth noting that Allomantic and Feruchemical inheritance is not an isolated system, particularly before the Catacendre. Vin was chosen as Preservation's vessel before Ruin ever considered using her as a pawn to kill TLR and eventually set him free, and Sazed's circumstance as the Hero of Ages was seen millennia before he was ever born. On the scale of the conflict between Ruin and Preservation, Ruin does not have a heritable power, only the seed of Preservation stolen from humanity via Hemalurgy. The Steel Ministry was an incredibly powerful organization, drawing Allomantic power to itself either by employing the nobility, harvesting Allomancy from skaa half-breeds, or the Inquisitors forcibly elevating an acolyte to Inquisitor. Every Allomancer born was a potential target for Ruin to draw power to himself by converting them into Hemalurgic spikes or by spiking them and starting the process to transform them into an Inquisitor. I don't know if Preservation could prevent a person from Snapping, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the practice of beating children was instigated by Ruin, but we know that Preservation had the power to make Allomancers as that was the function of the Mists, but doing so painted a target for Ruin to gather more power. Basically, if you think of Scadrial as a gameboard with Allomancers created by Preservation as super valuable game pieces that Ruin could capture and use himself, there's good reason for Preservation to try to be intentional as to where power is granted - if he was even in a state to do so.

Post-Catecendre with the advent of Twinborn and natural Compounders, Sazed has good reason to be mindful of the distribution of power when he is not in a deadlock between the Intents of Ruin and Preservation, as a dual Shard that is attracting the attention of the likes of Autonomy. It's been hinted that Wax has been able to draw on the Mists, and Sazed speculates that Vin was more powerful as a product of drawing on the Mists... So perhaps this is one method that Sazed can subtly alter the potential within an individual, possibly in preparation for a Metalborn descendent. I'd put a Metalborn child raised by Wax and Steris at a higher probability of turning out decent, though it's never a given. 

So... I think people can try to engineer situations more likely to create Metalborn, and they will work, but that there is definitely Shardic involvement that is difficult to account for when calculating outcomes. Who knows, if he wanted to maybe Sazed could very subtly siphon off Allomantic potential whenever someone steps on an iron nail through general harvesting of Investiture via activated Hemalurgy (I reaaally doubt he's spending his time doing this, but I don't think it's mechanically impossible).

[Isilel]

5 hours ago, alder24 said:

I don't see it as contradictory. When Rashek held the power, he divided the population into nobles and Skaa, 

  Reveal hidden contents

Brandon Sanderson

The First Noblemen Weren't Rashek's Friends

I'm curious to know if anyone figured out the logical problem with the Terrismen becoming nobility. It's what everyone assumed, and it's been mentioned in the previous books. Everyone knows that the Lord Ruler made his friends into Allomancers.

Only, he didn't. That's simply a fabrication he allowed to continue as rumor, then become fact, so that he could cover up the origins of the kandra. The men who became the first Allomancers were actually foreign kings. Rashek knew that he could conquer the world if he needed to—but he also knew that it would be a lot easier to rule that conquered world if he had allies and kingdoms who joined him out of desire, not out of fear. So, he offered Allomancy to the royal families who would give their allegiance to him. Once he showed off his own power as a Mistborn, he managed to get several important monarchs to throw their weight behind him. They got to be Allomancers.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Feb. 25, 2010)

 

But that's not what happened? Weren't the first Mistborn the 8 kings who chose to support him? And nobles in general the descendants of people who supported his conquest of what became the Final Empire? While those who opposed him and their descendants became skaa. 

Now, Rashek might have re-worked the citizens of Klennium into a physically distinct underclass while still in the Well because he hated them so much, but with other nations, he didn't know in advance who was going to side with him.

Not only that, but it appears that zero tolerance towards interbreeding with skaa may have been a somewhat later development in the history of FE, since Lord Cett explained the rarity of allomancers in his family by them having too much skaa blood(!) historically.

So yes, there are some contradictions in the canon concerning the Balance.

None of which has anything to do with Rashek's pals or Terris in general, because we know what happened to them, and that they didn't become nobles. I am not sure why you brought them up.

[Duxredux]

41 minutes ago, Isilel said:

 

But that's not what happened? Weren't the first Mistborn the 8 kings who chose to support him? And nobles in general the descendants of people who supported his conquest of what became the Final Empire? While those who opposed him and their descendants became skaa. 

Now, Rashek might have re-worked the citizens of Klennium into a physically distinct underclass while still in the Well because he hated them so much, but with other nations, he didn't know in advance who was going to side with him.

Not only that, but it appears that zero tolerance towards interbreeding with skaa may have been a somewhat later development in the history of FE, since Lord Cett explained the rarity of allomancers in his family by them having too much skaa blood(!) historically.

So yes, there are some contradictions in the canon concerning the Balance.

None of which has anything to do with Rashek's pals or Terris in general, because we know what happened to them, and that they didn't become nobles. I am not sure why you brought them up.

So... help us understand your main reason for pointing out this contradiction. Narratively Sazed as Harmony is the one confirming that yes, Rashek altered the genetics of the people of the land creating a noble class and a skaa class. Presumably this is a memory from the Shards he holds and probably the most reliable source aside from Brandon. All other historical accounts could be falsified, but there's no reason for residual memory from the Shard of Preservation to have that information if it weren't accurate. Like it or not, historic uncertainties or not, there is reason to believe that the Balance had historical merit, the genetic change made while Rashek held Preservation's power in the Well of Ascension. Sazed wouldn't lie about that.

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

But that's not what happened? Weren't the first Mistborn the 8 kings who chose to support him? And nobles in general the descendants of people who supported his conquest of what became the Final Empire? While those who opposed him and their descendants became skaa. 

That was the myth Rashek spreaded to hide the fact that his friends were Feruchemist and he was as well. The epigraph from my post earlier is clear on that - Rashek held the power, created the race of nobles and when he started to conquer Scadrial, he offered a few monarchs Lerasium and they joined him. The simplest explanation is that those monarchs were already nobles, that Rashek changed pre-Ascension nobility, or those with a high social status into the race of nobles. The whole thing about supporters and opponents turned into nobles and Skaa respectively is most likely a fabrication. The class of nobility had to be made during his Ascension and the only nobles that survived his conquest were those who supported him, the rest were most likely killed until their children supported him, or entire bloodlines were ended.

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

So yes, there are some contradictions in the canon concerning the Balance.

None of which has anything to do with Rashek's pals or Terris in general, because we know what happened to them, and that they didn't become nobles. I am not sure why you brought them up.

I don't really see any contradictions. We know Rashek held the power and that's when he created nobility and Skaa. Because he couldn't have known who would support him and who would oppose him, he had to do this by some arbitrary or random rule and when his conquest began, the entire population had to be already divided into Skaa/nobles. We know the origins of the race of nobles - the Well - the modern nobles are just those who survived Rashek's conquest and supported him. Nobles who opposed him most likely perished, or were forced into being Skaa while also being genetically superior, which might have been the catalyst for diffusing the differences between those two groups.

And I'm bringing Rashek's friends because we know that this part was a false flag, so the stories of the first nobles might have been also partially untrue. What is credible is Sazed's words and based on that we can figure out what had to happen.