Interesting Augur Twinborn Combinations that I want to talk about

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

Just been pondering over the still not yet fully understood mechanics of Allomantic Gold and I'm brainstorming about some very interesting Twinborn combinations with it.

For example, A-Gold and F-Aluminum: The MAG (Which I like to take as pseudo-canon-ish until Brandon says otherwise) calls this combination a Vessel. Changing personality overnight. Perhaps by Blanking one's Identity it might allow one's Gold Shadow to possess them, or maybe even storing extra Identities away in various Aluminumminds, though that relies on the idea that one can actually Tap from them, which we haven't seen yet. Practical benefits could be gaining skills or knowledge you wouldn't usually have, like knowing martial arts or engineering.

Another example is A-Gold and F-Chromium: We know that Fortune is connected to Future-Sight stuff, or more accurately peering into the Spiritual Realm, and Gold Shadows are definitely tied to the Spiritual Realm, so maybe by burning Gold, one can have more Fortune to store? Or by Tapping Fortune one can better control what type of Gold Shadow is shown? Practical benefits could more like the above combination, only instead of being possessed by the you that has the skills you want, you gain a backseat driver of yourself that tells you how to use the skills that you don't actually have.

And my final example is A-Gold with F-Duralumin: Storing and Tapping Connection does all kinds of crazy stuff, so what if we added in Gold Shadows of the user's past? Maybe by storing Connection while Burning Gold, one can reduce the overwhelming aspect of Gold Shadows, the 'One becomes Two' aspect that seems kind of uncomfortable. Making so that you might be able to read the Gold Shadow's information more informally without it truly feeling like you or something. While Tapping Connection would further increase the feeling of being two people at once, not sure what if any benefit you'd get from it. 

I'm just rambling on at this point, but it just feels like even though Allomantic Gold isn't very flashy, there is still potential we haven't even scratched the surface of. Especially since throughout 7 Books we've only really seen it used twice, once by Vin and once by Miles and neither ever seemed interested in truly understanding what they were using.

Any thoughts?

Edited August 1, 2024 by JustQuestin2004
another misspelling that I don't like

[Steel Speedster ♂]

I think these are definitely some of the best combinations for A-gold (except of course for F-gold, although that combination doesn't enhance A-gold itself.)

10 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

For example, A-Gold and F-Aluminum: The MAG (Which I like to take as pseudo-canon-ish until Brandon says otherwise) calls this combination a Vessel. Changing personality overnight. Perhaps by Blanking one's Identity it might allow one's Gold Shadow to possess them, or maybe even storing extra Identities away in various Aluminumminds, though that relies on the idea that one can actually Tap from them, which we haven't seen yet. Practical benefits could be gaining skills or knowledge you wouldn't usually have, like knowing martial arts or engineering.

This one would be really cool, but personally, I think it's unlikely that it works this way. For one thing, is a gold shadow an "Identity"? At first glance, it looks like it would be, but from what we've seen so far, Identity is essentially just a spiritual ID tag. If that is all that it is, then your gold shadows would have the same Identity as you, so it wouldn't do anything. However, I would expect that burning gold while storing Identity would have some odd effect on the goldshadows you see, so this combination still has some interesting potential.

10 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Another example is A-Gold and F-Chromium: We know that Fortune is connected to Future-Sight stuff, or more accurately peering into the Spiritual Realm, and Gold Shadows are definitely tied to the Spiritual Realm, so maybe by burning Gold, one can have more Fortune to store? Or by Tapping Fortune one can better control what type of Gold Shadow is shown? Practical benefits could more like the above combination, only instead of being possessed by the you that has the skills you want, you gain a backseat driver of yourself that tells you how to use the skills that you don't actually have.

I don't think A-gold gives you any extra Fortune. It's similar to Fortune, but instead of looking at possibilities like you are with A-electrum, you're looking at something that was a possibility at one point. You're definitely not seeing the future, but it's similar. That said, enhancing your Fortune while burning A-gold could definitely do something interesting. Maybe it would help with examining the gold shadow, due to A-gold's Fortune-like mechanics? Fortune is also just nice to have no matter what you're doing, so I'm sure it would help in some way.

10 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

And my final example is A-Gold with F-Duralumin: Storing and Tapping Connection does all kinds of crazy stuff, so what if we added in Gold Shadows of the user's past? Maybe by storing Connection while Burning Gold, one can reduce the overwhelming aspect of Gold Shadows, the 'One becomes Two' aspect that seems kind of uncomfortable. Making so that you might be able to read the Gold Shadow's information more informally without it truly feeling like you or something. While Tapping Connection would further increase the feeling of being two people at once, not sure what if any benefit you'd get from it.

I think this is the combination that has the most potential. We know that electrum and atium work by reading spiritwebs and Connections to see future possibilities. I would imagine therefore that gold is similar--it just looks at possibilities backwards in time instead of forwards. Tapping Connection might let you glean more information from the gold shadow. Maybe it would let you see more gold shadows. Maybe it would even let you Connect to the shadow in a more permanent way, basically absorbing knowledge and skills from the shadow into you.

11 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

I'm just rambling on at this point, but it just feels like even though Allomantic Gold isn't very flashy, there is still potential we haven't even scratched the surface of. Especially since throughout 7 Books we've only really seen it used twice, once by Vin and once by Miles and neither ever seemed interested in truly understanding what they were using.

Any thoughts?

I really hope that gold isn't useless, but there's a good chance that it might be essentially useless. In this WoB, Brandon mentions wanting to try writing about an Augur to see if he can do anything interesting with it (which implies that at that time, he didn't have ideas for anything interesting that could be done with gold):

Quote

Natalie Perkins

Will we ever find out what EXACTLY gold is? That's been bugging me as well... it doesn't seem complete.

Brandon Sanderson

I leave gold intentionally vague, I'm afraid, even by the end of book three.  I do this in novels, particularly when I feel that I might do more books in a world later on.  The events of books two and three don't lend me to spending much time on gold or malatium, so I figure I'll save really digging into them when I can have a character more focused on them.  (I'd someday, for instance, like to do a Malatium or gold Misting and see if I can do anything interesting with them.) 

TWG Posts (Jan. 20, 2008)

And this WoB says that gold was included as a clue about what malatium does:

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Fifteen

Miles talks with Suit, gets two minders, then burns gold to see two versions of himself

One curiosity of dealing only with Mistings, rather than full Mistborn, was what to do with the less powerful metals. Certainly a Pewterarm or a Tineye can be useful. We've seen them in the series do plenty of interesting things.

But what about a person who can burn only gold? I think there's just one place in the entire first trilogy where someone does it, the time Vin burns it in the first book. (I may have put a second time in; I don't recall.) Gold, as a power, was placed into the schematics to give a clue as to what the Eleventh Metal was. Beyond that, I wanted some of the powers of Allomancy to be more metaphysical, more thoughtful, and less about combat.

I'd already decided that Miles would be a Gold Compounder, capable of the Lord Ruler's healing. That meant he had to be a gold Misting. What would one do, with this power? Ignore it? Was there a way to use it? His nature as a gold Misting is a large part of why Miles is such a thoughtful, introspective person. He is not a good man, but he is a self-reflecting one.

There's more going on here, of course. Pay attention to the name he mentions: Trell. This is one of the gods from the ancient religions Sazed talked about. You might think that the spikes in Miles will let Sazed influence him directly, and they would—except that Sazed has taken a complete "free will is needed" perspective on life. He won't let himself take control of people directly unless they've "given themselves" to him, as most of the kandra have at this point. Even then, he usually only nudges.

But there is something odd going on with Miles.

The Alloy of Law Annotations (Nov. 30, 2015)

These WoBs don't in any way prove that gold doesn't have any uses, but they do seem to suggest, in my mind anyway, that Brandon doesn't see gold as having much potential.

I think that even if gold proves to be useful, it will probably only be Savants or a few types of Twinborn who could use it effectively. From what we know so far, I would say that Augurs seem even less useful than Aluminum Gnats and Duralumin Gnats.

Good thoughts! You picked out some interesting possibilities.