Does Marsh have Feruchemical Bronze?

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

Something that came to mind while I thought over the immortality given by Compounding Atium, you would reach a point where you'd need to be constantly tapping your Atiumminds in order to not die, and you can't tap or fill most metalminds except for Bronze ones (Edit: WHILE ASLEEP! How did I miss this part?! it's only the basis of the entire rusting question!). So you'd need to be able to Compound both Bronze and Atium in order to make this method work.

So does that mean Marsh has Bronze Feruchemy? He does have over 20 spikes and did gain Feruchemical abilities, so it's not outside the range of possibility for him to have gotten that power, or am I wrong and you can actually tap your Atiumminds while you sleep?

Edited October 8, 2024 by JustQuestin2004

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

2 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Something that came to mind while I thought over the immortality given by Compounding Atium, you would reach a point where you'd need to be constantly tapping your Atiumminds in order to not die, and you can't tap or fill most metalminds except for Bronze ones. So you'd need to be able to Compound both Bronze and Atium in order to make this method work.

So does that mean Marsh has Bronze Feruchemy? He does have over 20 spikes and did gain Feruchemical abilities, so it's not outside the range of possibility for him to have gotten that power, or am I wrong and you can actually tap your Atiumminds while you sleep?

There are some situations where tapping while in an unconscious state in order to stay alive appears to be allowed, yes, though you are correct that only bronze can be stored while asleep.

That said, Marsh has 22 spikes, of which 20 are generally suspected of granting unique abilities (2 of which are for atium), meaning that he likely was given 18 out of the 32 standard allomantic/feruchemic abilities. So...which 14 did he miss..?

Let's go through what he probably wasn't given:

1. A/F-Nicrosil - not available in era1

2. A/F-Chromium - not available in era1

3. A/F-Cadmium - not available in era1

4. A/F-Bendalloy - not available in era1

5. A/F-Aluminum - wouldn't make sense

6. F-Brass - wouldn't make sense for Marsh in era1

7. F-Duralumin - wouldn't make sense for Marsh in era1

8. A/F-Electrum - Ruin would have been very foolish to grant Marsh these and they wouldn't have helped him in his mission, so I'm going to say they are generally unlikely.

9. Wait...there are a few more, like F-Copper that would have been very peculiar for Ruin to have given him, but we're already up to 14...

Ahem...I would opine that it's very likely Ruin would have given Marsh F-Bronze. It would have helped him hunt down feruchemists and allomancers in the lead up to the catacendre better and there are more likely candidates for which metals he wasn't granted access to.

That said, it seems to me that there's a strong possibility that Marsh has more redundant (multiple copies) spikes than has been revealed...

Edited October 7, 2024 by hwiles

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

Ahem...I would opine that it's very likely Ruin would have given Marsh F-Bronze. It would have helped him hunt down feruchemists and allomancers in the lead up to the catacendre better and there are more likely candidates for which metals he wasn't granted access to.

Reading back in Hero of Ages, we do see Marsh spike a Keeper with a Brass Spike, so they were spiking Cognitive Feruchemical abilities as well, and re-using spikes from dead Inquisitors (It's how Marsh got his F-Atium spike as per WOB).

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

That said, it seems to me that there's a strong possibility that Marsh has more redundant (multiple copies) spikes than has been revealed...

Since the main point of giving Marsh more Spikes was to make it easier for Ruin to control him, and how Mistings were much more common than Feruchemists, it makes total sense to stack Allomantic powers.

Wouldn't be surprising if he had an extra Steel Spike or two to enhance his Pewterarming. That'd definitely be a good choice for practicality.

[Steel Speedster ♂]

5 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Something that came to mind while I thought over the immortality given by Compounding Atium, you would reach a point where you'd need to be constantly tapping your Atiumminds in order to not die, and you can't tap or fill most metalminds except for Bronze ones. So you'd need to be able to Compound both Bronze and Atium in order to make this method work.

So does that mean Marsh has Bronze Feruchemy? He does have over 20 spikes and did gain Feruchemical abilities, so it's not outside the range of possibility for him to have gotten that power, or am I wrong and you can actually tap your Atiumminds while you sleep?

Funnily enough, I was just wondering about what spikes Marsh has last night! In addition to what hwiles said, I thought that it seemed unlikely that Marsh would have had any Cognitive Feruchemical powers except F-zinc, because the other the three would not be worth it. Additionally, even taking F-iron or F-tin seems like it would have been a waste, considering that you could have F-steel, F-zinc, or F-gold instead. (I'll also point out that following the atium retcon, Marsh's "spikes for A-atium and F-atium should actually be A- and F-electrum, which would confirm that he does not have separate spikes for those.) I wonder if he has an A-gold spike? That power is obviously quite useless on its own, especially for an Inquisitor, but it would allow Compounding health, so there's a possibility. However, given that Marsh is supposed to have 22 spikes, it seems that he must either have a lot of duplicate spikes or have most of the physical and cognitive Feruchemical powers. I've seen it discussed that Ruin might have wanted to take the Inquisitors off world, in which it makes sense that he might have given Marsh an F-bronze spike solely so that he would be able to stay alive via Compounded atium.

In any case, he must have one. It's not too surprising if you think about it. After all, it's already quite odd that some Inquisitors have F-atium spikes.

[The Sovereign]

3 hours ago, hwiles said:

5. A/F-Aluminum - wouldn't make sense

We have some circumstantial evidence that Marsh has F-Aluminum; In Era 2 When Wax asks him about how he avoids notice so well he says he uses emotional Allomancy and Wax expresses doubt that alone is what he is doing. If he is storing Identify as well, then he would become much less noticeable in a crowd. I think it is reasonable to assume he has gained more spikes since the Catacendre.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

9 minutes ago, Speeding Steelrunner said:

I wonder if he has an A-gold spike?

Unlikely, since Gold Mistings were mostly unknown, just like Duralumin Mistings.

They'd have to spike a Mistborn with an atium spike which would be considered a bit of a waste.

11 minutes ago, Speeding Steelrunner said:

(I'll also point out that following the atium retcon, Marsh's "spikes for A-atium and F-atium should actually be A- and F-electrum, which would confirm that he does not have separate spikes for those.)

That means he is also the most redundant type of Compounder that Scadrial has ever known.

12 minutes ago, Speeding Steelrunner said:

I've seen it discussed that Ruin might have wanted to take the Inquisitors off world

That would have been impossible, since there was no Perpendicularity active during the Catacendre. The Well of Ascension was used up and the Pits of Hathsin was destroyed, and I doubt Ruin would bother saving anyone or anything. He wouldn't have a want or need to, since if he succeeded he would have his full power and could start destroying other planets without worry.

 

2 minutes ago, The Sovereign said:

We have some circumstantial evidence that Marsh has F-Aluminum; In Era 2 When Wax asks him about how he avoids notice so well he says he uses emotional Allomancy and Wax expresses doubt that alone is what he is doing. If he is storing Identify as well, then he would become much less noticeable in a crowd. I think it is reasonable to assume he has gained more spikes since the Catacendre.

That is not remotely how a Trueself has been implied to work, if anything that's how a Connector would work. Storing Identity only affects one-self, Storing Connection has been explicitly described as 'lowering others awareness and friendships'.

As for gaining more spikes, I'm not too sure. It's been said that Post-Catacendre souls simply can't hold the same amount of powers thanks to Ruin no longer pushing on the fabric of Scadrial. But Marsh already had his soul 'Ruined' and overtaxed with so many spikes, so it could be possible for him where it isn't for others.

[Steel Speedster ♂]

1 minute ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Unlikely, since Gold Mistings were mostly unknown, just like Duralumin Mistings.

They'd have to spike a Mistborn with an atium spike which would be considered a bit of a waste.

And they also spiked Mistborn for duralumin spikes. I think being able to Compound health wouldn't be considered too wasteful. A-atium was the only other ability they could only get from Mistborn, and a lot of Inquisitors already had that. Additionally, they didn't even have a supply of atium, so having that ability would have been pretty pointless. It's perfectly possible that Marsh does not have an A-gold spike, but I don't think anyone would consider it a waste if they knew it would let them Compound.

[The Sovereign]

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

That is not remotely how a Trueself has been implied to work, if anything that's how a Connector would work. Storing Identity only affects one-self, Storing Connection has been explicitly described as 'lowering others awareness and friendships'.

Yeah, you are correct. I had F-Aluminum and F-Duralumin swapped in my head.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

8 hours ago, Speeding Steelrunner said:

And they also spiked Mistborn for duralumin spikes. I think being able to Compound health wouldn't be considered too wasteful. A-atium was the only other ability they could only get from Mistborn, and a lot of Inquisitors already had that. Additionally, they didn't even have a supply of atium, so having that ability would have been pretty pointless. It's perfectly possible that Marsh does not have an A-gold spike, but I don't think anyone would consider it a waste if they knew it would let them Compound.

Maybe, but it would require an Atium spike to steal Temporal powers back then, since there was no cadmium. And if they had no atium by that point, then they wouldn't be able to steal the ability.

And quickly reading back HoA, it doesn't seem like the Inquisitors had any atium at all, until Marsh stole that bag from KanPaar. So even if Ruin wanted to make his Inquisitors Gold Compounders, it doesn't seem like it happened.

[Steel Speedster ♂]

13 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Maybe, but it would require an Atium spike to steal Temporal powers back then, since there was no cadmium. And if they had no atium by that point, then they wouldn't be able to steal the ability.

Oh yeah, I forgot it would require an atium spike. I guess that means that duralumin is the only power it would have made sense for them to take.

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

22 hours ago, Speeding Steelrunner said:

And they also spiked Mistborn for duralumin spikes. I think being able to Compound health wouldn't be considered too wasteful. A-atium was the only other ability they could only get from Mistborn, and a lot of Inquisitors already had that. Additionally, they didn't even have a supply of atium, so having that ability would have been pretty pointless. It's perfectly possible that Marsh does not have an A-gold spike, but I don't think anyone would consider it a waste if they knew it would let them Compound.

I agree with you but, for the sake of playing devil's advocate, It's theoretically possible that some echelons of the steel ministry, including inquisitors, were aware that the ability to burn era1 atium could be harvested from Oracles (electrum burners, who were not tested for within the nobility), whom they mistakenly categorized in their texts as "Seers".

So...during the Catacendre, I would opt to be extra forgiving about the details surrounding how quickly so many Inquisitors aggregated so much apparently ultra-limited supply of rare spikes (they may have had a God pointing them towards an intentionally hidden source via an untested portion of the population.)

[Steel Speedster ♂]

5 minutes ago, hwiles said:

I agree with you but, for the sake of playing devil's advocate, It's theoretically possible that some echelons of the steel ministry, including inquisitors, were aware that the ability to burn era1 atium could be harvested from Oracles (electrum burners, who were not tested for within the nobility), whom they mistakenly categorized in their texts as "Seers".

So...during the Catacendre, I would opt to be extra forgiving about the details surrounding how quickly so many Inquisitors aggregated so much apparently ultra-limited supply of rare spikes (they may have had a God pointing them towards an intentionally hidden source via an untested portion of the population.)

I don't know if they knew that Oracles and Seers were the same thing, but they certainly knew that they could harvest spikes from them. There are still the following problems:

1. Like duralumin Mistings, it would have been very hard to find them, since they didn't know about or use their powers.
2. As JustQuestin points out, since they didn't have cadmium, they would need to use atium spikes to steal temporal powers.

I don't feel like this is problematic or anything though. We don't really see any evidence that they gained any temporal powers under Ruin's control. Some of them got duralumin, and a lot of them got a few Feruchemical powers, but most of them already had A-atium, and it didn't really matter anyway since they didn't have atium to burn.