Just how rare are Twinborn and Compounders in AoL? (AKA fun with statistical mathematics)

[Kaymyth she/her]

So, I've been working on a story featuring a main character who is a Compounder, and I found myself at one point experiencing a wee bit of self-consciousness over the whole thing.  I, like many others (as I've seen from perusing some old topics), was running on the assumption that Compounding Twinborn would be super-duper rare.  I mean, really, there are only 16 types of Compounders out of 256 different types of Twinborn.  How many could there be alive at one time?  I've seen people comment that it seems odd that there would be individual names for every single different type of Twinborn; would there even be one of each type alive at the same time?

 

So I decided to gather some data and do some math.  Hoo boy.

 

Well, to begin with, that 16 out of 256 reduces down to 1 out of 16.  (I am assuming that the different combinations of Twinborn are relatively evenly represented.)  So, if a person on Scadrial were to meet 16 Twinborn in their lives, chances are that one of them would be a Compounder.  Granted, 6.25% of Twinborn = Compounders is a pretty small percentage, but it's hardly infinitesimal.  So really, the question of "how much of an arrogant twit am I for giving my main character this level of power?" starts to hinge on how many Twinborn are running around Scadrial.

 

This is where things get interesting.

 

The Alloy of Law MAG supplement has been anointed as canon until Brandon says otherwise.  Within its pages, it states that Mistings and Ferrings occur in 1 out of 50 people.  It also states these figures independently of each other; i.e. 1 out of 50 people is a Misting, and 1 out of 50 people is a Ferring.  I will take what I hope is a reasonable assumption that the 1 out of 50 figure wasn't pulled from some random nether region and is unlikely to be contradicted.

 

The statistical probability of an overlap between Mistings and Ferrings to create a Twinborn then takes 50 x 50 to come up 2500.  Thus, on Scadrial, 1 in every 2500 people is a Twinborn.  This is assuming an even distribution throughout the population, though, which may very well not be true.  The MAG supplement also states that Ferrings skew more common (about 1 in 25) amongst the Terris enclaves, which would make them slightly less common amongst the general population.  The Terris populations are smaller than the rest of the Basin at large, though, so it's not going to knock down the general numbers all that much.  Still, to be on the conservative side, I'll skew that final figure to 1 in 5000.  It's probably making them rarer then they really would be, but 5000 is a nice, easy number to work with.  (Incidentally, this would also make AoL-era Twinborn at least twice as common as mere Mistings were during the Mistborn trilogy.)

 

Now, in AoL, at one point Wax states that Elendel has several million people, possibly as many as 5 million.  Fantastic!  Another easy number to work with.  5 million divided by 5000 = a possible 1000 Twinborn.  So, there are 256 different types of Twinborn, that leave us with between 3 and 4 of each type, with a total of 62 or 63 Compounders.

 

And that's just in Elendel.

 

Suddenly it doesn't seem so odd for there to be an individual name for every type of Twinborn after all.

Edited December 6, 2014 by Kaymyth

[bartbug he/him]

I've thought about this a bunch, but I've never actually wanted to do the math. This seems about right, though its impossible to know for sure do to the amount of guesswork. Either way, great job.

 

Also, you could take this even further and narrow down the compounders and twinborn who are actually worth something. I mean, aluminum, nicrosil, cadmium, and bendalloy are all essentially useless for compounding (as a twinborn), just off the top of my head.

[natc]

Well, I'm new to the forum and all (first post really . . .), but I did come over from just finishing Hero of Ages. The Misting population (the natural misting population at least) was exactly 16% there, so would it be reasonable to assume the 1 out of 50 people is a Misting/Ferring statistic was a rough estimate rounded off to 20%?

 

Makes the maths more confusing, but as I understand 16 is an important number to the Shards. Though 1/50 is more than accurate enough to picture the scale of rarity we're dealing with here, of course. I was just curious.

[Moogle]

You're making the assumption that the chance of being a Misting and a chance of being a Ferring is independent, which is why you did 50x50 to arrive at the number of people who are Twinborns. I don't think this is at all a safe assumption. I think the probability of someone being a Ferring if they're a Misting and vice versa is higher than 1/50 because those sorts of people would try to marry each other/families would keep it in the bloodline. Still, I don't think that the two are correlated that much, so your numbers are probably not that far off.

 

I also find the MAG's number questionable. 16% of people were Snapped by the Mists, but then a huge amount of Allomancers managed to get themselves killed off when the world ended.

 

Overall, though, I do agree with your proposed number (though I might further halve the number of people with powers). Nice post.

 

Well, I'm new to the forum and all (first post really . . .), but I did come over from just finishing Hero of Ages. The Misting population (the natural misting population at least) was exactly 16% there, so would it be reasonable to assume the 1 out of 50 people is a Misting/Ferring statistic was a rough estimate rounded off to 20%?

 

It's a little bit confusing. 16% of people were Snapped by the mists, but it's incredibly unlikely that the mists would have been able to do this if the population was only 16% Allomancers. By random chance you'd get groups of people in which less than 16% of people were Allomancers (and then what would the mists do?).

 

We know the mists were directed consciously, and that Preservation wanted to leave a sign. I don't think the Mists Snapped everyone they could have in each group. Instead, they didn't Snap some people if that would make the % of people Snapped higher than 16%.

 

I also believe, though I am quite uncertain and this is speculation, that the Mists "added" a little bit to people because they wouldn't be able to Snap on their own without the mists' intervention. This means that a person who wouldn't be considered an Allomancer in modern-day Elendel might have been Snapped by the mists back in the days of the Final Empire. It would sort of be like the mists gave people a little bit of lerasium to burn.

 

WoB:

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.

(source)

Edited December 6, 2014 by Ookla the Infinite

[natc]

So, judging from that WoB . . . technically, during the pre-Harmony Era one can say that humans on Scadrial in general were more or less all "latent" allomancers due to that excess Preservation chunk granting them sentience, and whenever the well refills and the Mists start their work they just take 16% of the population accurate up to as many decimal places as the number of people will allow pseudo-randomly and tries to snap them? Being of a bloodline already more "saturated" with Preservation's power due to ancestral Lerasium consumption just causes the balance to be more easily tipped by normal trauma, essentially?

 

I hear in AoL the snapping process has been somewhat modified by Sazed, but he doesn't really have much reason to just change the percentage does he? It should average out close to that number, if not making it freakishly exact. 1 out of 50 is still pretty close after all (I only brought this up in the first place because I remembered "about 1 out of 50" being mentioned in HoA somewhere when they were checking up on the death tolls before they realized it was exactly 16% everywhere). The system works well the way it did, no point fixing it if it ain't broke, and as far as Sazed seems to care the excrutiating pain necessary was the only problem he saw with it. Maybe the average will drift a little from the modifications though . . .

 

Technically it was already shifted since not all the noble lines have died yet (and Spook has decendents at that, and he's Mistborn now, probably close to Lerasium-level since "divine" intervention was involved), so it was already inaccurate during HoA. The mists don't seem global now either. The fact that the percentage still isn't very different would suggest it's being directed still though.

 

Gotta leave it to Preservation, even without consciousness he can still do calculations in his head well.

Edited December 6, 2014 by natc

[Moogle]

I hear in AoL the snapping process has been somewhat modified by Sazed, but he doesn't really have much reason to just change the percentage does he? It should average out close to that number, if not making it freakishly exact. 1 out of 50 is still pretty close after all (I only brought this up in the first place because I remembered "about 1 out of 50" being mentioned in HoA somewhere when they were checking up on the death tolls before they realized it was exactly 16% everywhere). The system works well the way it did, no point fixing it if it ain't broke, and as far as Sazed seems to care the excrutiating pain necessary was the only problem he saw with it. Maybe the average will drift a little from the modifications though . . .

 

I don't believe the mists Snap anyone at all anymore, so there's no reason to believe that 16% of the population is Allomancers. At least, I don't recall hearing of "mistsickness" in AoL.

[Kaymyth she/her]

You're making the assumption that the chance of being a Misting and a chance of being a Ferring is independent, which is why you did 50x50 to arrive at the number of people who are Twinborns. I don't think this is at all a safe assumption. I think the probability of someone being a Ferring if they're a Misting and vice versa is higher than 1/50 because those sorts of people would try to marry each other/families would keep it in the bloodline. Still, I don't think that the two are correlated that much, so your numbers are probably not that far off.

 

I also find the MAG's number questionable. 16% of people were Snapped by the Mists, but then a huge amount of Allomancers managed to get themselves killed off when the world ended.

 

Overall, though, I do agree with your proposed number (though I might further halve the number of people with powers). Nice post.

 

 

It's a little bit confusing. 16% of people were Snapped by the mists, but it's incredibly unlikely that the mists would have been able to do this if the population was only 16% Allomancers. By random chance you'd get groups of people in which less than 16% of people were Allomancers (and then what would the mists do?).

 

We know the mists were directed consciously, and that Preservation wanted to leave a sign. I don't think the Mists Snapped everyone they could have in each group. Instead, they didn't Snap some people if that would make the % of people Snapped higher than 16%.

 

I also believe, though I am quite uncertain and this is speculation, that the Mists "added" a little bit to people because they wouldn't be able to Snap on their own without the mists' intervention. This means that a person who wouldn't be considered an Allomancer in modern-day Elendel might have been Snapped by the mists back in the days of the Final Empire. It would sort of be like the mists gave people a little bit of lerasium to burn.

 

We do know that the mists were Snapping people to make a point.  The people Snapped were mostly skaa, who didn't have much predisposition to Allomancy, so I don't think it's entirely out of the question that the mists deliberately boosted their Preservation shares enough to hit the power threshold for Allomancy.  It wasn't going for 'Snap all of the people who can be Snapped' it was 'Snap exactly this proportion of people so someone will notice!'

 

That is a good point about folks wanting to have more Twinborn kids.  By the same token, though, at the time of Origin the folks left with powers of both kinds would have suddenly been very desirable as mates, possibly leading to an early Metallic Arts population explosion.  We also know that Harmony wiped out the genetic differences between skaa and nobles, and this might have affected some of the Allomantic genetic markers as well. 

 

I don't believe the mists Snap anyone at all anymore, so there's no reason to believe that 16% of the population is Allomancers. At least, I don't recall hearing of "mistsickness" in AoL.

 

I think the mistsickness 16% and the actual natural distribution of Allomancy are completely independent of each other.  Since we know that Allomancy is genetic, such a desirable trait would tend to be passed on a lot, especially with no authority-enforced rules of who can marry whom.  The old 1 in 10,000 occurrence was a combination of Allomancy being mostly limited to the noble caste and the high Snapping threshold.  Since Harmony lowered that threshold as much as he could and there are no longer caste breeding restrictions, that would make for a much higher natural occurrence of Allomancy in the general population.

[Oudeis he/him]

Before I say anything else, I think you're absolutely right to make a story about a compounder. We know they happen, so they're officially, canonically likely enough that you should absolutely have one in your story if you so wish. Something being somewhat unlikely is sorta what makes for an amazing story.

A few thoughts:

Kaymyth, on 06 Dec 2014 - 02:07 AM, said:

The Alloy of Law MAG supplement has been anointed as canon until Brandon says otherwise.

This one gets confused a lot. The actual quote is that historical and societal information in the books is canon until disproven; things like this, the mechanics of the metallic arts, are an even lower level of canon. Not that they are non-canon, but at this point you're out on a bit of a speculative bridge. It's a good number to go forward with, but be aware that the numbers aren't as rigorous as they might be.

Kaymyth, on 06 Dec 2014 - 02:07 AM, said:

The statistical probability of an overlap between Mistings and Ferrings to create a Twinborn then takes 50 x 50 to come up 2500. Thus, on Scadrial, 1 in every 2500 people is a Twinborn. This is assuming an even distribution throughout the population, though, which may very well not be true.

Hrm... I'm going to mention here again that the numbers prolly don't work out that easily. I, unfortunately, have not the first idea how to calculate how it will work out.

Recall that powers still travel in genetic lines. 1/50 people might be mistings, but that's skewed heavily towards the lines that are strong with allomantic power. Meaning average joe-shmoe has a much, much reduced chance.

Also recall, in order to be twinborn, you first by default must have mixed-Terris blood. Terrismen were 1/5 of the Originators, though at least their reproductive health was restored to them. (If these two facts are disputed I will get of my lazy duff and provide the quotes. The first was from the text, the second is a WoB.) We also know the Terris as a general rule try to interbreed. Just to get a rough idea of how many people have some, but not pure, Terris blood, we'd have to find a way to reasonably guess what percentage of the Terris population each successive generation elected to intermarry, and find some sort of dispersal algorithm across three centuries.

At that point, we'd need to find a way to get some data on what reasonable assumptions we can make about which Terrispeople married into lines with strong, weak, or no allomantic potential. At this point we could begin your process of taking this moiety of the general population, and applying your math to determine the probability of feruchemy, and allomancy, to derive twinborn and thereby compounders.

Additionally, there's a comment Wax makes at one point about "the more common types of mistings," and it's unclear if he means simply that coinshots are more likely to take on a profession which takes advantage of their power, of if he's saying that they truly do crop up more than their share of times.

I, unfortunately, have not the first idea how we'd start getting any of this information. I suspect it would end up proving that twinborn, and by extension compounders, are less common than your estimate, but even if they're 1/10th as common, that's still more than six just in Elendel, so prolly something like 20 at a time across the planet.

I'd like to address one more issue I've seen brought up, which is the idea that people would choose to breed selectively for the metallic arts. I disagree on a few levels. First, the people in the stories don't see themselves as characters, or as cattle, or as playing pieces in need of leveling up. There's no reason to assume women are choosing who they will give their bodies to on the hopes that their offspring will be a powergamer's dream come true. The vast majority of people simply marry for love.

Even in the case of Wax, where his one and only play to save his family is to marry someone rich, basically selling off his own name and place in society for an infusion of cash to keep his house afloat, I don't recall anyone mentioning that he'd be a prize stud for his capacity to have twinborn children. Even when his potential match was Steris, a dispassionate woman of such good breeding she was apparently chosen to be kidnapped and forcibly impregnated in a sociopathic attempt to breed powerful allomancers, no one mentioned that they were combining two allomantically powerful bloodlines. I think the balance of evidence shows that it's simply not something most people in this world consider a reason to breed, so it should be left out of equations.

Ookla the Infinite, on 06 Dec 2014 - 04:18 AM, said:

I also find the MAG's number questionable. 16% of people were Snapped by the Mists, but then a huge amount of Allomancers managed to get themselves killed off when the world ended.

I can't find it though I'm sure there's a WoB somewhere saying that Sazed did something to make Mistborn impossible, but Mistings more common. Even if most Metalborn were killed off at the end of the world, Direct Shardic Intervention should nevertheless make them more common. I could be remembering the WoB wrong, however, since I can't seem to find it...

Kaymyth, on 06 Dec 2014 - 11:04 AM, said:

We do know that the mists were Snapping people to make a point. The people Snapped were mostly skaa, who didn't have much predisposition to Allomancy, so I don't think it's entirely out of the question that the mists deliberately boosted their Preservation shares enough to hit the power threshold for Allomancy.

...

We also know that Harmony wiped out the genetic differences between skaa and nobles, and this might have affected some of the Allomantic genetic markers as well.

...

The old 1 in 10,000 occurrence was a combination of Allomancy being mostly limited to the noble caste and the high Snapping threshold. Since Harmony lowered that threshold as much as he could and there are no longer caste breeding restrictions, that would make for a much higher natural occurrence of Allomancy in the general population.

Just making sure you're aware, the reason "mostly skaa" got snapped is because the Nobles had already tested themselves, and the Terris couldn't be allomancers. I assume you knew that, but just wanted to state it for completeness in case someone is reading this thread and wondering why you said that.

I don't know that he wiped out the genetic difference? Had there been a difference to begin with? Rashek remade the world, changing people to survive it, but didn't give out the lerasium and decide who was noble and who was skaa until sometime thereafter. We know he left the terris as terris, and he didn't conquer the world until afterwards. Even the Hero, in his epigraphs, spoke of not being sure if the Balance was really a thing? We know he changed everyone back to "you can breath normal air" but besides that I think people were basically who they had been anyway.

I think the "1 in 10,000" number is inaccurate, if I recall. That's something Kelsier says in the book, yes? I recall a WoB where someone asks him about that, pointing out that it would make allomancers actually ludicrously common, and I think Mr. Sanderson admitted that he made a mistake, and was essentially retconning it to "Kelsier was mistaken, they were actually a lot less common." It was specifically allomancers within the skaa population anyway, yes?

[Kaymyth she/her]

Before I say anything else, I think you're absolutely right to make a story about a compounder. We know they happen, so they're officially, canonically likely enough that you should absolutely have one in your story if you so wish. Something being somewhat unlikely is sorta what makes for an amazing story.

 

Thanks for that.  A lot of my self-consciousness about it stems from a general terror of accidentally inflicting a Mary Sue upon an unsuspecting world.  I'm pretty sure that I've managed to purge the worst of those tendencies out of her personality and backstory by now, but still, there's that lurking monster in the shadows waiting to devour my soul.  Or just stand there and mock.  Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

 

This whole question actually came about by the standard existential crisis one would expect from a young woman who's dealing with having way more power than most people.  The way I dealt with the "why me" question in this first draft actually involved a friend of hers taking her through the math and showing her that she really wasn't all that much of a freak.  But I figure if I'm going to have that kind of conversation happening in-universe, then I'd better darned well make sure the theories hold water.  Better to let folks have a go at poking holes in it now. 

 

So, poke those holes!

 

 

This one gets confused a lot. The actual quote is that historical and societal information in the books is canon until disproven; things like this, the mechanics of the metallic arts, are an even lower level of canon. Not that they are non-canon, but at this point you're out on a bit of a speculative bridge. It's a good number to go forward with, but be aware that the numbers aren't as rigorous as they might be.

 

Aaa!  Aaaah!  I found it!  The MAG supplement actually DOES state the 1 in 2500 figure.  Good grief.  All that math, and I just now go back and see it in black and white.  I searched high and low before, and had completely missed it.

 

There's still, of course, the question as to whether that number is actually canon or not.

 

I do know that there's a sidebar in the book where Brandon says that not all of the mechanics will be canon, but I was looking at the 1 in 50 figure to more of a societal/demographic piece than a mechanics piece.  I could very well be wrong, but that's how it read to me.  The MAG supplement also does flat-out state that the majority of people have at least enough trace Terris ancestry to have some potential at Feruchemy.  Again, whether that falls under canonical demographics or speculative mechanics is something that only Brandon or someone who knows his mind could answer.

 

I figure it'll wind up falling one of two ways.  He might look at the math sometime later down the line and go, "Whoa, that's way too common!  Nope!"  Or he might take they Syndrome from "The Incredibles" approach (albeit a slightly gentler version) and say, "Well, common people getting powers is the point.  Superpowered people don't get put up on such a high pedestal if a reasonable percentage of people have access to those powers."

 

 

This one gets confused a lot. The actual quote is that historical and societal information in the books is canon until disproven; things like this, the mechanics of the metallic arts, are an even lower level of canon. Not that they are non-canon, but at this point you're out on a bit of a speculative bridge. It's a good number to go forward with, but be aware that the numbers aren't as rigorous as they might be.

Hrm... I'm going to mention here again that the numbers prolly don't work out that easily. I, unfortunately, have not the first idea how to calculate how it will work out.

Recall that powers still travel in genetic lines. 1/50 people might be mistings, but that's skewed heavily towards the lines that are strong with allomantic power. Meaning average joe-shmoe has a much, much reduced chance.

Also recall, in order to be twinborn, you first by default must have mixed-Terris blood. Terrismen were 1/5 of the Originators, though at least their reproductive health was restored to them. (If these two facts are disputed I will get of my lazy duff and provide the quotes. The first was from the text, the second is a WoB.) We also know the Terris as a general rule try to interbreed. Just to get a rough idea of how many people have some, but not pure, Terris blood, we'd have to find a way to reasonably guess what percentage of the Terris population each successive generation elected to intermarry, and find some sort of dispersal algorithm across three centuries.

At that point, we'd need to find a way to get some data on what reasonable assumptions we can make about which Terrispeople married into lines with strong, weak, or no allomantic potential. At this point we could begin your process of taking this moiety of the general population, and applying your math to determine the probability of feruchemy, and allomancy, to derive twinborn and thereby compounders.

 

We do, at least, know that there was enough intermarriage early on to remove full Feruchemists from the Terris pool.  There's a WOB that states that it was the introduction of Allomantic genes into the Terris bloodlines that caused the split into Ferrings in the first place.  So we know that it did happen, just not the details of the full extent.  But if it worked one way, then it's reasonable to expect that at least some ebbed out the other.

 

 

Additionally, there's a comment Wax makes at one point about "the more common types of mistings," and it's unclear if he means simply that coinshots are more likely to take on a profession which takes advantage of their power, of if he's saying that they truly do crop up more than their share of times.

I, unfortunately, have not the first idea how we'd start getting any of this information. I suspect it would end up proving that twinborn, and by extension compounders, are less common than your estimate, but even if they're 1/10th as common, that's still more than six just in Elendel, so prolly something like 20 at a time across the planet

 

I think that "common types" has a lot more to do with which Mistings have an easier time of keeping their powers under wraps.  It's kind of hard to use one's Coinshot abilities without other people noticing them.  A Seeker or an Augur is going to be a lot less obvious when using one's powers. 

 

 

I'd like to address one more issue I've seen brought up, which is the idea that people would choose to breed selectively for the metallic arts. I disagree on a few levels. First, the people in the stories don't see themselves as characters, or as cattle, or as playing pieces in need of leveling up. There's no reason to assume women are choosing who they will give their bodies to on the hopes that their offspring will be a powergamer's dream come true. The vast majority of people simply marry for love.

Even in the case of Wax, where his one and only play to save his family is to marry someone rich, basically selling off his own name and place in society for an infusion of cash to keep his house afloat, I don't recall anyone mentioning that he'd be a prize stud for his capacity to have twinborn children. Even when his potential match was Steris, a dispassionate woman of such good breeding she was apparently chosen to be kidnapped and forcibly impregnated in a sociopathic attempt to breed powerful allomancers, no one mentioned that they were combining two allomantically powerful bloodlines. I think the balance of evidence shows that it's simply not something most people in this world consider a reason to breed, so it should be left out of equations.

 

I probably overestimated the amount that it would factor in.  But people being people, I'm sure that there *are* plenty out there mercenary enough to consider it a factor.  People are weird.  Or I've just been watching too many public television nature shows lately.

 

Now I have a mental image in my head of Wayne doing a nature show narrator impression.  Ow, my brain.

 

 

Just making sure you're aware, the reason "mostly skaa" got snapped is because the Nobles had already tested themselves, and the Terris couldn't be allomancers. I assume you knew that, but just wanted to state it for completeness in case someone is reading this thread and wondering why you said that.

I don't know that he wiped out the genetic difference? Had there been a difference to begin with? Rashek remade the world, changing people to survive it, but didn't give out the lerasium and decide who was noble and who was skaa until sometime thereafter. We know he left the terris as terris, and he didn't conquer the world until afterwards. Even the Hero, in his epigraphs, spoke of not being sure if the Balance was really a thing? We know he changed everyone back to "you can breath normal air" but besides that I think people were basically who they had been anyway.

 

I think the "1 in 10,000" number is inaccurate, if I recall. That's something Kelsier says in the book, yes? I recall a WoB where someone asks him about that, pointing out that it would make allomancers actually ludicrously common, and I think Mr. Sanderson admitted that he made a mistake, and was essentially retconning it to "Kelsier was mistaken, they were actually a lot less common." It was specifically allomancers within the skaa population anyway, yes?

 

Wiping out the genetic differences is from a WOB that I read sometime recently.  I can't remember for the life of me exactly where it is, as I've been all over the site for several weeks now.  But I know that it's out there.

 

And I also remember that generally, if a skaa developed Allomancy on their own, they were almost always the product of a noble's dalliances.  The skaa were pretty much locked out of Allomancy without that sort of bloodline sneaking in, which was why the mists Snapping them was such a surprise at first.

 

And I will admit, it's been a couple of years since I read the original trilogy.  I'm wanting to re-read them again, but I'm not allowing myself until I've finished the first draft of my story.  I'm using that as a sort of carrot reward to motivate myself now that NaNoWriMo is over.

 

[Unhinged he/him]

Now I have a mental image in my head of Wayne doing a nature show narrator impression.  Ow, my brain.

Wayne

"And here we see the wild Koloss in it's natural habitat crikey isn't she a beauty. look at those swords the're sharp and sturdy enough to bisect a man in two with one swing... lets get in for a closer look."

 

From now on I will read Wayne as being Australian.

Edited December 7, 2014 by Unhinged

[Oudeis he/him]

Do we have WoB on there not being any actual full feruchemists? I know it says that in the Supplement, but I don't know Mr. Sanderson has ever flat-out said.

 

I recommend you use my line when someone's trying to make her feel less special. Miles Hundredlives. Make up a few more names. Compounders have existed in history. Therefore, the chance of a Compounder is one, since it's a thing which has happened.

 

What metal did you plan to have her Compound?

[Kaymyth she/her]

Wayne

"And here we see the wild Koloss in it's natural habitat crikey isn't she a beauty. look at those swords the're sharp and sturdy enough to bisect a man in two with one swing... lets get in for a closer look."

 

From now on I will read Wayne as being Australian.

 

You're welcome.

 

Do we have WoB on there not being any actual full feruchemists? I know it says that in the Supplement, but I don't know Mr. Sanderson has ever flat-out said.

 

I recommend you use my line when someone's trying to make her feel less special. Miles Hundredlives. Make up a few more names. Compounders have existed in history. Therefore, the chance of a Compounder is one, since it's a thing which has happened.

 

What metal did you plan to have her Compound?

 

I'm pretty sure there is one, but once again, I can't for the life of me remember where to find it.  I've read a LOT of WoBs over the last several weeks.

 

I'll probably have to change the scene if I can't nail this down a little more firmly.  The statistics route made the most sense, though, given that the talk was coming from a maths genius.  It flowed quite nicely.

 

Eva's double steel, and I threw her the curveball of being a late Snapper.  I thought it would be more interesting to have her go through having to learn how to handle the Allomancy and Compounding on-screen, as it were.  Plus this gave me the opportunity to have her really get her butt kicked fairly early on. 

[the winter system]

Cool! Lots and lots of math stuff.

[king of nowhere]

Hrm... I'm going to mention here again that the numbers prolly don't work out that easily. I, unfortunately, have not the first idea how to calculate how it will work out.

Recall that powers still travel in genetic lines. 1/50 people might be mistings, but that's skewed heavily towards the lines that are strong with allomantic power. Meaning average joe-shmoe has a much, much reduced chance.

Also recall, in order to be twinborn, you first by default must have mixed-Terris blood. Terrismen were 1/5 of the Originators, though at least their reproductive health was restored to them. (If these two facts are disputed I will get of my lazy duff and provide the quotes. The first was from the text, the second is a WoB.) We also know the Terris as a general rule try to interbreed. Just to get a rough idea of how many people have some, but not pure, Terris blood, we'd have to find a way to reasonably guess what percentage of the Terris population each successive generation elected to intermarry, and find some sort of dispersal algorithm across three centuries.

At that point, we'd need to find a way to get some data on what reasonable assumptions we can make about which Terrispeople married into lines with strong, weak, or no allomantic potential. At this point we could begin your process of taking this moiety of the general population, and applying your math to determine the probability of feruchemy, and allomancy, to derive twinborn and thereby compounders.

Additionally, there's a comment Wax makes at one point about "the more common types of mistings," and it's unclear if he means simply that coinshots are more likely to take on a profession which takes advantage of their power, of if he's saying that they truly do crop up more than their share of times.

I, unfortunately, have not the first idea how we'd start getting any of this information. I suspect it would end up proving that twinborn, and by extension compounders, are less common than your estimate, but even if they're 1/10th as common, that's still more than six just in Elendel, so prolly something like 20 at a time across the planet.

All your reserves on the statistical accuracy of just making 1/50 * 1/50 are true. unfortunately, we have no way whatsoever of estimating all those other factors. So, 1 in 2500 is the best guess we can do with the informations at hand, keeping in mind that it is not an exact valued. approximated knowledge is better than no knowledge at all.

I have to say, that number is higher than I assumed. I figured mistings themselves were super rare, but with 1/50 it seems the average joe will know a half dozen of them. with 1 person out of 25 having magical abilities, there's  one in every class at  school. they must be integral part of scadrial's life, not just a rarity mostpeoplewill never see.

 

I think the "1 in 10,000" number is inaccurate, if I recall. That's something Kelsier says in the book, yes? I recall a WoB where someone asks him about that, pointing out that it would make allomancers actually ludicrously common, and I think Mr. Sanderson admitted that he made a mistake, and was essentially retconning it to "Kelsier was mistaken, they were actually a lot less common." It was specifically allomancers within the skaa population anyway, yes?

 

Actually, that number seemed right to me. luthadel had a skaa population of one million if i remember correctly, and that would make one hundred mistings among them. if you consider that "several" of club's apprentices were actually smokers, it means that he employied one third of the skaa smokers in the city. and kelsier mentions another smoker before clubs, who was unfortunately killed by the inquisitors months before. Also breeze had other soothers at his service. And consider that a lot of skaa mistings are killed by the inquisition, or as an aftermath of a robbery ended poorly, than it means that kelsier had most of the misting poulation of luthadel in his team. I think the "1 in 10000 skaa  are  born allomancers" worked pretty well. less than that, and the crew  would become irrealistic.

 

[Titan Arum]

Nice post, and I agree with the previous statements that the probability of a 1/50 Misting and a 1/50 Ferring is probably not independent of each other. I think that your assumptions in general hold, but let's assume, because we have incomplete information, that the average likelihood of being a Ferring or a Misting across the entire population is indeed 1/50. Thus the math to determine the probability of a Compounder of any given type is quite simple:

 

P(Compounder(x))= {[1/50(1/16)]^2} = 0.0000015625

 

If there are 5MM people living in Elendel alone, that implies that:

 

#Compounder(x) = 0.0000015625*5MM = 7.8125 people are of type Compounder(x). If there are 16 types of Compounders, we get:

 

Total Number of Compounders in Elendel (TNCE) = 7.8125*16 = 125 Compounders in Elendel!

 

Such a nice, pretty number! And thus, you are more than justified to have a character be a Compounder and it's justifiable to have names for Compounding types. If we can have names for each KR sect (of which some were supposedly very small), then we can have names for Compounders, who if public, will likely be very famous due to their rare ability. 

[Oudeis he/him]

Sidenote: Do you plan Eva to be from an allomantically powerful family? Does she have a lot of Misting relatives?

 

EDIT: There's a flip side to all the things I point out. If we consider my factors, "any random person" is less likely to be a Compounder. However... if you make Eva from a line of decent allomantic potential, and make her someone with Terris blood... this makes the chances of her being at least Twinborn barely "unlikely". At that point, it's simply a 1/16 chance of your powers matching up to be a Compounder. If you go that route, she was as likely as about 1/16th of "Unlikely".

Edited December 8, 2014 by Ooklalhoo'Elin

[Kaymyth she/her]

My gosh, I'm inspiring further depths of math geekery!  It warms my nerdy little heart.

 

 

Sidenote: Do you plan Eva to be from an allomantically powerful family? Does she have a lot of Misting relatives?

 

EDIT: There's a flip side to all the things I point out. If we consider my factors, "any random person" is less likely to be a Compounder. However... if you make Eva from a line of decent allomantic potential, and make her someone with Terris blood... this makes the chances of her being at least Twinborn barely "unlikely". At that point, it's simply a 1/16 chance of your powers matching up to be a Compounder. If you go that route, she was as likely as about 1/16th of "Unlikely".

 

She is; that's been in her backstory for a while now.  Her father's an Allomancer himself, and her maternal grandfather is a Ferring.  And now you've got me thinking more than I have before about her extended family.  Hah!  I now have some scaffolding popping up underneath one of my weaker plot joins!  Excellent.

 

This whole writing thing is turning out to be an interesting journey.  I've generated little fanfic ministories in my head plenty of times but this is the first one I've dared actually try to put into words.  I can practically plot out my transformation from "why on earth would anyone want to read this drek?" from "huh this might actually turn out pretty good" to "heck, if I'm gonna go with it, go big; protagonists are supposed to be extraordinary, right?"

[Claincy he/him]

A couple of quick notes, though these are just from memory so it is possible that I am misremembering.

 

The quote about 1 in 10,000 skaa having allomancy actually referred specifically to skaa with noble blood in their near ancestry:

 

Sometimes these abilities appear in skaa-but only if that skaa has noble blood in their near ancestry. You can usually find one Misting in...oh, about ten thousand mixed breed skaa.

I have a feeling that someone else in the book mentioned that they usually had to have noble blood in the past 4 generations which fits with "near" but it isn't too important and I could be misremembering anyway. With those numbers the number of skaa mistings in Luthadel actually seems remarkably high. But I guess Luthadel would have a higher concentration of skaa mistings due to the corruption and thieving possibilities, and the presence of more of the high nobility with stronger allomantic bloodlines (so I suspect that half-breeds that were born in Luthadel would, on average, be more likely to have allomancy.)

 

Regarding the genetic differences from what I remember:

-they were real, TLR put them in place while holding the power of the well of ascension

-Noble men tended to have fewer children and skaa tended to have significantly more (though this is definitely in part a social effect)

-I *think* that there was something about Noblemen being taller and fairer on average and skaa tending to be a bit shorter and stockier

-Aside from allomantic potential the differences in genetics had been largely negated by the time of the books by interbreeding over the preceding 1000 years.

 

I think this was from an annotation but I really don't remember which one and I wasn't able to find it with a quick search. (If I come across it later I'll edit it in or add a new post.) So take the above with a pinch of copper.

Edited December 9, 2014 by lord Claincy Ffnord

[Oudeis he/him]

Regarding the genetic differences from what I remember:

-they were real, TLR put them in place while holding the power of the well of ascension.

 

I vaguely recall something similar... but that doesn't jive with what actually happened. He didn't decide which nine people he'd make the first Allomancers until he started conquering the world, all of which happened after his Ascension. The people who chose to support him became Noble, the people who chose to oppose him became Skaa, if I'm remembering correctly. By then, he had used up all the power. How is this possible?

[king of nowhere]

I vaguely recall something similar... but that doesn't jive with what actually happened. He didn't decide which nine people he'd make the first Allomancers until he started conquering the world, all of which happened after his Ascension. The people who chose to support him became Noble, the people who chose to oppose him became Skaa, if I'm remembering correctly. By then, he had used up all the power. How is this possible?

I think he gave the deal to the first nine kings while he was still with the power of the well. they accepted, so he made them noble and gave each a bead of lerasium. it seems all nobles aare descendant of those nine people.

[Oudeis he/him]

There seems to be some confusion about what exactly happened at that period in history. Does anyone have a WoB we can fall back on? Maybe something along these lines should be asked next time he's got an event.

[Claincy he/him]

I vaguely recall something similar... but that doesn't jive with what actually happened. He didn't decide which nine people he'd make the first Allomancers until he started conquering the world, all of which happened after his Ascension. The people who chose to support him became Noble, the people who chose to oppose him became Skaa, if I'm remembering correctly. By then, he had used up all the power. How is this possible?

 

There seems to be some confusion about what exactly happened at that period in history. Does anyone have a WoB we can fall back on? Maybe something along these lines should be asked next time he's got an event.

The issue is that we actually know very little about what happened immediately after the ascension. Most of what I can remember comes from the steel ministry's teachings which means it could be anywhere from slightly inaccurate to a complete fabrication, including the whole thing about the nobles being those who supported him.

 

Getting some WoB on this stuff could be very nice.

[Pathfinder]

Regarding marriage based on ability, that was very prevalent in the original Mistborn trilogy and was the prime reason the Lord Ruler had the law forbidding the nobility from having children with the skaa. I forget where, but there was a comment between Vin and Elend on how over the years the blood has been so diluted anyway, the physical differences between nobility and skaa have become negligible. Now tack on the time between the original trilogy and the Alloy of Law with intermarrying no longer being illegal, and the differences would be diluted even further. Now despite that, there are still noble houses in existence, and these houses trace back to notable allomancers (Breeze and Wax for instance). Would it be such a stretch that these houses would not only marry for money but allomantic and feruchemal potential as well? I could think of a hundred reasons why a Feruchemical zinc or a Feruchemical copper would be insanely valuable to a merchant family. 

[Oudeis he/him]

Regarding marriage based on ability, that was very prevalent in the original Mistborn trilogy and was the prime reason the Lord Ruler had the law forbidding the nobility from having children with the skaa. I forget where, but there was a comment between Vin and Elend on how over the years the blood has been so diluted anyway, the physical differences between nobility and skaa have become negligible. Now tack on the time between the original trilogy and the Alloy of Law with intermarrying no longer being illegal, and the differences would be diluted even further. Now despite that, there are still noble houses in existence, and these houses trace back to notable allomancers (Breeze and Wax for instance). Would it be such a stretch that these houses would not only marry for money but allomantic and feruchemal potential as well? I could think of a hundred reasons why a Feruchemical zinc or a Feruchemical copper would be insanely valuable to a merchant family. 

 

You have a point that in the original trilogy, we do have occasionally note noble families commenting on their allomantic potential, or lack thereof. However, the law about not interbreeding with the skaa is hardly evidence that the noble families frequently chose to marry for allomantic potential.

 

Regardless, as you say, the world is a very different place in Alloy of Law. You imply that it would be a progression based on the previous system, and I disagree. I think with a more-than-decimation of the population and a complete breakdown and restructuring of social and societal order, "who marries who" would be a new system from scratch.

 

I agree wholeheartedly that when some families, particularly politically or financially powerful ones, would certainly let allomantic and feruchemical potential be one factor they use to pressure their children into who they should marry. I am not denying that it's a factor, I'm reacting to previous comments which suggested it was likely one of the primary, overriding factors. I haven't seen any evidence to support this theory. In fact, we see Wax, proof of power in both allomancy and feruchemy, desparate to make an advantageous marriage alliance. His family's history and prominence are both explained as bargaining chips he can offer. At no point does anyone comment, "also, you should be able to make a good match because your offspring might be magically delicious." I find the lack conspicuous amongst all the other things mentioned. If it was something he brought to the table, would it not have been brought up with the other factors?

 

I agree that any merchant family would find themselves pleased to have a child with feruchemical copper or zinc. However, that seems... like a poor bet. I'd suspect that any family who forced their child into a marriage, gambling that their child would not only be one of the 1/50 to have any feruchemical power at all, let alone one of the two powers actually pertinent to your interests... that's roughly a 1/400 shot, meaning you'd have to hope to have about 200 kids before you had a good chance of getting the one you wanted. A family that spends the capital of an entire human being on such a longshot will likely not stay in financial power so much as one who marries for economic or political advantage, finds a Sparker or Archivist, and just hires them.

 

I'm also not sold that an Archivist would be of such tremendous value. Someone who can keep records that literally no other person can access, so if they get sick or go on vacation or die your access to this information is simply lost... it seems like it would only be good for black market activities. Which can be lucrative, I suppose, but it remains a tremendous longshot for a niche position. A Sparker could be useful in negotiations, but it would have to be paired with someone with actual skill in negotiation; if you put me, for example, in charge of a transaction, it would hardly matter how much faster than the other person I thought. I'd prolly still be terrible at knowing how much value I can possibly squeeze out of the deal. Emotional allomancy is useless since the people would prolly wear aluminum-lined hats, and we hardly know how feruchemical duralumin works, but that might be useful.

 

When you're writing a character for a story, when you're able to take someone not only with a drive to accomplish some goal, but both the natural talents and metaphysical wherewithal to capitalize, it's simple enough to just build that together. However, such protagonists are interesting in part because they are extremely unlikely. Actual merchant families who survive long enough for generations to be a thing are not historically ones that gamble on such impossible odds. Someone could totally write a story about one and it might be a fascinating read, but it's hardly the sort of thing that would be commonplace enough to impact society in the manner you're suggesting.

[Pathfinder]

You have a point that in the original trilogy, we do have occasionally note noble families commenting on their allomantic potential, or lack thereof. However, the law about not interbreeding with the skaa is hardly evidence that the noble families frequently chose to marry for allomantic potential.

 

Regardless, as you say, the world is a very different place in Alloy of Law. You imply that it would be a progression based on the previous system, and I disagree. I think with a more-than-decimation of the population and a complete breakdown and restructuring of social and societal order, "who marries who" would be a new system from scratch.

 

I agree wholeheartedly that when some families, particularly politically or financially powerful ones, would certainly let allomantic and feruchemical potential be one factor they use to pressure their children into who they should marry. I am not denying that it's a factor, I'm reacting to previous comments which suggested it was likely one of the primary, overriding factors. I haven't seen any evidence to support this theory. In fact, we see Wax, proof of power in both allomancy and feruchemy, desparate to make an advantageous marriage alliance. His family's history and prominence are both explained as bargaining chips he can offer. At no point does anyone comment, "also, you should be able to make a good match because your offspring might be magically delicious." I find the lack conspicuous amongst all the other things mentioned. If it was something he brought to the table, would it not have been brought up with the other factors?

 

I agree that any merchant family would find themselves pleased to have a child with feruchemical copper or zinc. However, that seems... like a poor bet. I'd suspect that any family who forced their child into a marriage, gambling that their child would not only be one of the 1/50 to have any feruchemical power at all, let alone one of the two powers actually pertinent to your interests... that's roughly a 1/400 shot, meaning you'd have to hope to have about 200 kids before you had a good chance of getting the one you wanted. A family that spends the capital of an entire human being on such a longshot will likely not stay in financial power so much as one who marries for economic or political advantage, finds a Sparker or Archivist, and just hires them.

 

I'm also not sold that an Archivist would be of such tremendous value. Someone who can keep records that literally no other person can access, so if they get sick or go on vacation or die your access to this information is simply lost... it seems like it would only be good for black market activities. Which can be lucrative, I suppose, but it remains a tremendous longshot for a niche position. A Sparker could be useful in negotiations, but it would have to be paired with someone with actual skill in negotiation; if you put me, for example, in charge of a transaction, it would hardly matter how much faster than the other person I thought. I'd prolly still be terrible at knowing how much value I can possibly squeeze out of the deal. Emotional allomancy is useless since the people would prolly wear aluminum-lined hats, and we hardly know how feruchemical duralumin works, but that might be useful.

 

When you're writing a character for a story, when you're able to take someone not only with a drive to accomplish some goal, but both the natural talents and metaphysical wherewithal to capitalize, it's simple enough to just build that together. However, such protagonists are interesting in part because they are extremely unlikely. Actual merchant families who survive long enough for generations to be a thing are not historically ones that gamble on such impossible odds. Someone could totally write a story about one and it might be a fascinating read, but it's hardly the sort of thing that would be commonplace enough to impact society in the manner you're suggesting.

I do not know how to separate your post into numerous quotes so I can answer each section, so I will space my replies out below and hope they link up in a sensible way.

 

Absence of a smoking gun is not evidence that there WASN'T a smoking gun.  Straff Venture bedded numerous mistresses in order to hopefully produce a mistborn, as well as have a secret group of mistings to use in his intrigues. If one nobleman was willing and actively breeding for the trait for a secret army, is it so far fetched that other noblemen might look upon it favorably and take it into consideration in regards to arranged marriages and alliances?

 

I didn't say the new system was based on the old, just that they were similar. Both in the old and the new series we have houses that derive their prosperity and some of their authority from their ancestors who were well know allomancers at the start of their societies. We have women being kidnapped from well known allomantic ancestral lines. The comments we read regarding what appeals to a house for a marriage alliance is from WAX'S perspective. His house already has a twinborn. What does it lack? MONEY. What does he mention being important in the match for his house? MONEY. I did a cursory check for the word marriage in Alloy of Law using my kindle and I do not see any mention on what makes HIM marketable to THEM. Though I will admit this was a cursory check and I could have missed something. 

 

I feel marriage being restructured COULD be a new system from scratch but not automatically WOULD be. In our own world arranged marriages still exist in numerous countries, anywhere from culturally acceptable (India for instance), to group by group (Some families in some states of America) and so on. So marriage even on our own planet has not been completely reworked, so it is not empirical that because it is a new start at a culture, it would be a completely new outlook on marriage. Sure people marrying for love and other reasons would pop up more and be more prevalent around the general masses, but the aristocracy still existed for quite some time in England and still does in Alloy of Law. 

 

So if you were a merchant with lets say some ties to the mob, or less than reputable assets. Wouldn't it be VERY beneficial to be an archivist where you could store all your files, all your black mail, and all your financials in your metal minds where no cop or rival could access them? And if you are marrying in hopes of having allomancy, feruchemy, or twinborn passes on, you would find out as soon as possible if your child has the ability, what the ability is, and then train them in it to exploit it. So if you were a merchant and the child you have is a Feruchemical zinc, could be an asset in negotiations, you would see to it that they get training in negotiations. When a child takes over the business, the parent trains them in all aspects of the job. I am not saying they would breed for SPECIFIC abilities, just that having a child WITH an ability is more advantageous than one WITHOUT.   

 

So the aristocracy from our own history has never been guilty of inbreeding in order to maintain "pure blood"? There was never a great war fought over maintaining a purity in breeding? It is not an impossible gamble if there are clear instances popping up all around you. Maybe to clarify further, I am not saying "oh this is a house that has nothing we want, but the great grandfather of the current head was a lurcher, so lets marry sally off to him!". What I AM saying is "well we need an alliance from a strong house. House A has a strong fleet, while House B has a profitable factory. Hmmm, House B also has a daughter who is a soother. We don't really have interests overseas, so the factory would aid us more, and a soother in negotiations could be a boon. Have my second son be married off to her. Who knows we may be lucky and end up with another misting"

Edited December 10, 2014 by Pathfinder