Gold's Cognitive Shenanigans

[Trusk'our he/him]

When an Auger burns gold, they see an alternate version of themselves, presumably how they could have turned out had they made different decisions. 

In fact, not only do they hallucinate this alter ego as an Oracle Misting would, they think it's thoughts and feel it's emotions too.

This makes me wonder a couple of things.

This process of seeing more about yourself and learning about what you could have been I think could lead to you altering the course of your like, particularly if you continue to use this ability on occasion. 

In fact, this is kind of what Miles did, and part of what made him such an introspective man: 

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/40-the-alloy-of-law-annotations/#e707

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.

In any case, an Auger could use this to their advantage, seeing alternate versions of themselves, then using that introspection as a tool for self improvement. Perhaps a person who loves self improvement would love gold Allomancy as a tool to help them.

This also makes me wonder, would this tactic screw up future sight?

While something short term like electrum or Atium/electrum wouldn't likely be affected directly, something like Renarin's or Odium's long term visions probably rely on someone making more consistent decisions. Gold Allomancy used in this way lets you access information via the Spiritual Realm, albeit less directly about the future and more about personal choices. But getting that information should still affect your decisions, so would it interfere with some future sight?

[Quantus he/him]

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

When an Auger burns gold, they see an alternate version of themselves, presumably how they could have turned out had they made different decisions. 

In fact, not only do they hallucinate this alter ego as an Oracle Misting would, they think it's thoughts and feel it's emotions too.

This makes me wonder a couple of things.

This process of seeing more about yourself and learning about what you could have been I think could lead to you altering the course of your like, particularly if you continue to use this ability on occasion. 

In fact, this is kind of what Miles did, and part of what made him such an introspective man: 

  Hide contents

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/40-the-alloy-of-law-annotations/#e707

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.

In any case, an Auger could use this to their advantage, seeing alternate versions of themselves, then using that introspection as a tool for self improvement. Perhaps a person who loves self improvement would love gold Allomancy as a tool to help them.

This also makes me wonder, would this tactic screw up future sight?

While something short term like electrum or Atium/electrum wouldn't likely be affected directly, something like Renarin's or Odium's long term visions probably rely on someone making more consistent decisions. Gold Allomancy used in this way lets you access information via the Spiritual Realm, albeit less directly about the future and more about personal choices. But getting that information should still affect your decisions, so would it interfere with some future sight?

If you internalize the information you gain from experiencing the Gold Shadow's perspective, yes I think it could mess with any sort of long term predictive Sight like the Pattern.  On the other hand, if the person uses that introspection to just reenforce their existing worldview, it might not cause enough ripple to make things any more uncertain.  So it'll depend on the individual, and on how central they are to events.

It should make it a lot easier to design a Soulstamp though. If you somehow managed to find a Forger on Scadrial, just as a random hypothetical example.