2 Lerasium questions

[kroen]

1. How and where is Lerasium made?

 

2. I understand that if you allowy Lerasium with any of the 16 basic metals you can make someone a misting of that metal. What I want to know is- why waste Larasium this way? Say you have enough Lerasium to either make one mistborn or 3/4/5 even 10 mistings. Isn't a mistborn more valuable? Unless you have enough Lerasium to only alloy it with something...

Edited March 26, 2013 by kroen

[Phantom Monstrosity]

1) Lerasium was, IIRC, congealed out of the well of ascension's power by the Lord Ruler.  Don't have source on that.

 

2) Granting powers as a mistborn isn't the sole use of lerasium

 

"By burning it you gain access to those powers. It rewrites your spiritual DNA, and there are ways to do really cool things with lerasium that I don't see how anyone would know. Were most Mistborn to just burn it, it would rewrite their genetic code to increase their power as an Allomancer."

 

Aside from secondary stuff, we don't know the ratio.  If it's something like, say, 1% lerasium and 99% iron?  Could be worth it.

[kroen]

1. So it doesn't grow naturally like atium does? 

2. Yeah, you're probably right. 100 mistings are obviously more valuable than 1 mistborn. or are they...? hmm. Maybe I overestimate mistborns...

[Chaos he/him]

You have to remember that--if I recall correctly--part of the idea of Preservation betraying Ruin was that he hid the atium from him. That was the way I understood it. He hid the atium from Ruin and "exchanged" cadmium and bendalloy on the Allomantic Table for atium and malatium. Presumably, this fiddling with the magic system allowed atium Mistings to exist (however, I suppose it is possible that atium Mistings still exist; I have no real idea, but this makes sense in my brain). The atium Mistings were key, of course, because then you have a group of people who can burn that atium, and when that atium is burned, Ruin would have to wait for it to return to the Pits before he could metabolize it and win.

Long story short, I believe the Pits to be a construct of Preservation for atium to appear so he could eventually prevail.

Actually, now that I look at the MB3 epigraphs, this is entirely accurate:

The Pits of Hathsin were crafted by Preservation as a place to hide the chunk of Ruin's body that he had stolen away during the betrayal and imprisonment. Kelsier didn't truly destroy this place by shattering those crystals, for they would have regrown eventually--in a few hundred years--and continued to deposit atium, as the place was a natural outlet for Ruin's trapped power.

When people burned atium, then, they were drawing upon the power of Ruin--which is, perhaps, why atium turned people into such efficient killing machines. They didn't use up this power, however, but simply made use of it. Once a nugget of atium was expended, the power would return to the Pits and begin to coalesce again—just as the power at the Well of Ascension would return there again after it had been used.

So while atium had a natural outlet, that was merely a function of Preservation's prison of Ruin. That is the only reason atium exists. Lerasium would not have a similar outlet, because Preservation wasn't the one imprisoned. Lerasium wouldn't exist naturally.

Which does beg the question, how did lerasium form? I certainly don't have an answer to that, and I'm fairly certain no one does. The coalescing of the Well's power is one guess, but it's just a guess. It is possible simply willed there to be those beads of lerasium in the first place. Who knows?

Since lerasium rewrites Spiritual DNA, if you knew enough about the magic before ingesting it, it could do a great many things, like give you a magic that was totally not Allomancy.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Here are a couple other quotes about it.  It looks like Lerasium is more than just 'rewrites spiritweb'.

 

Kaimipono (16 October 2008)

Allomancy is fueled by Preservation's body? How exactly does that work? And how does that interact with Atium—it's fueled by both gods' bodies?

Brandon Sanderson (17 October 2008)

The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.

Condensed 'essence' of these godly powers can act as super-fuel for Allomancy, Feruchemy, or really any of the powers. The form of that super fuel is important. In liquid form it's most potent, in gas form it's able to fuel Allomancy as if working as a metal. In physical form it is rigid and does one specific thing. In the case of atium, it allows sight into the future. In the case of concentrated Preservation, it gives one a permanent connection to the mists and the powers of creation. (I.e., it makes them an Allomancer.)

So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak—though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists, however, she'd doing just that—using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself—to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips 'troughs' through her body. It's like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive.

Andrew the Great (19 October 2008)

Why can Vin fuel Elend's atium-burning, even though Atium is Ruin's Body and Vin is using Preservation? Or did I misread that and he was just burning atium and had run out of everything else?

Brandon Sanderson (20 October 2008)

Yes, as has been pointed out:

A powerful peace swelled in Elend. His Allomancy flared bright, though he knew the metals inside of him should have burned away. Only atium remained, and the strange power did not—could not—give him this metal. But it didn’t matter. For a moment, he was embraced by something greater. He looked up, toward the sun. (From the text.)

As a note here, the powers granted by all of the metals—even the two divine ones—are not themselves of either Shard. They are simply tools. And so, it's possible that one COULD have found a way to reproduce an ability like atium's while using Preservation's power, but it wouldn't be as natural or as easy as using Preservation to fuel Allomancy.

The means of getting powers—Ruin stealing, Preservation gifting—are related to the Shards, but not the powers themselves.

Edited March 27, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[Chaos he/him]

Those quotes don't really discuss lerasium's abilities directly. That first quote is actually irrelevant to that subject; that first quote doesn't tell us anything new about lerasium, as it says that "In the case of concentrated Preservation, it gives one a permanent connection to the mists and the powers of creation. (I.e., it makes them an Allomancer.)". It doesn't give anything new because that is what it means to be a Mistborn--to essentially have a lot of Preservation inside you, with some added details in there.

Not really relevant quotes, but they are definitely some of my favorites. That first one is very theoretically important, but not for the case at hand, I'm afraid.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Eh, I suppose. 

 

The way I was reading it was that the connection to preservation and power of creation was the fundamental effect; becoming an allomancer was just the natural result of that happening.

[Chaos he/him]

Yes, but the Shaod, for example, gives such a connection to the Dor, so I sort of grouped it with that. I suppose you could interpret it that way, though, but it's a connection on a lower level than being, say, a Sliver. I kind of am on board with what you mean though, I just wouldn't state it like that.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Of course, the question I've always had is... if this is a form of 'connection', can you monkey around with it using duraluminum feruchemy?

[Voidus]

Well there's also the possibility that if you used the same amount of Lerasium to make a misting as to make a mistborn, that the misting would be 16x stronger in that one metal, a coinshot who could push on metals inside of peoples body is going to be hard to beat, as Kelsier once pointed out they could just rip the metals out of you. Or say, a bendalloy misting who can compress time 16x more effectively than anyone else.

[Observer]

I was always under the impression that Lerasium was made when TLR took some of the well's power and condenced it into a physical form.

[Chaos he/him]

I was always under the impression that Lerasium was made when TLR took some of the well's power and condenced it into a physical form.

 

I don't think so. From this epigraph:

 

When Rashek took the power at the Well of Ascension, he became aware of certain things. Some were whispered to him by Ruin; others were granted to him as an instinctive part of the power.

One of these was an understanding of the Three Metallic Arts. He knew, for instance, that the nuggets of metal in the Chamber of Ascension would make those who ingested them into Mistborn.

 

Emphasis mine. This strongly suggests to me that he found those beads there, not create them.

[Voidus]

It's an interesting question though, why would Leras imbalance his power even more by manifesting Lerasium?

[Windrunner he/him]

I think I might have an answer to that.

7) Before the Ascension, why did the mists appear just as the well was gaining power? Did they come out at other times?

A: This one is trickier. From what I got out of it, it's because the mists are a manifestaion of preservation, and physical manifestations of preservation (including allomancers) are intended to do two things - stop Ruin, and Protect the Well of Ascension. Which are kind of the same thing. So, when the Well was dormant, the mists didn't really have much to do. The deepness form of the mists is a result of the concious part of Preservation freaking out and trying to produce a way to protect the well, mostly by producing more allomancers. That's why the mists do all the funky things in the Well of Ascension and Hero of Ages - they're trying to produce more allomancers to combat Ruin. 

Source

As population increased, Allomancy would weaken, so the lerasium could have been there to "boost" the amount of Preservation and number of Allomancers in the population.

[Chaos he/him]

I think I might have an answer to that.

As population increased, Allomancy would weaken, so the lerasium could have been there to "boost" the amount of Preservation and number of Allomancers in the population.

 

I would buy that explanation.

[Tarontos he/him]

some where i think it said that the Terris people created metals from the excess power at the Well of Ascension. also supporting that the beads were there before.

[Windrunner he/him]

Do you know where you heard that? Because I've literally never heard anything like that, so this would be kind of a big deal if it's a valid source.

[Voidus]

Sorry, Terris as in other than Rashek? I didn't think we had confirmation that they'd ever done anything with the well?
Edit: Woo 1,000 posts!

Edited March 29, 2013 by Voidus

[Nepene he/him]

1. How and where is Lerasium made?

 

2. I understand that if you allowy Lerasium with any of the 16 basic metals you can make someone a misting of that metal. What I want to know is- why waste Larasium this way? Say you have enough Lerasium to either make one mistborn or 3/4/5 even 10 mistings. Isn't a mistborn more valuable? Unless you have enough Lerasium to only alloy it with something...

 

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/2357-the-most-useless-uses-for-useful-powers/

 

We've thought of many other ways to squander away extremely valuable powers too.

 

But joking aside, I can see some uses for lerasium alloys. Suppose you were a general and you wanted an army to attack someone. You might not want your soldiers to have too much power or they might overthrow you. So you might give them the powers you want and nothing else.

 

You could give it to someone to strip them of their mistborn powers.

 

If you had a shortage of lerasium you might only be able to afford enough to make a misting.

[Windrunner he/him]

You could give it to someone to strip them of their mistborn powers.

Personally, I doubt having someone burn an alloy of lerasium would remove all their other powers. When a Mistborn burns lerasium, they get more powerful, so presumably a Mistborn burning an alloy of lerasium would get stronger in whatever metal was alloyed with the lerasium and the rest of their powers would remain the same.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

That's how it works in the rpg, but that doesn't really make sense.

[Senor Feesh]

That's how it works in the rpg, but that doesn't really make sense.

 

Why not? Burning Lerasium re-writes your sDNA, there's no reason it wouldn't give you a more efficient system with which to process other metals. And burning an alloy simply does the same for one aspect of Preservation's power.

[Vortaan he/him]

Random speculation: what if the beads are created by the previous users of the Well? I mean, each time you need to get rid of the Deepness aspect of Preservation, and you need to use the power of the Well. Maybe the others came up with the more elegant solution of solidifying the excess power in the Deepness mists into Lerasium.

 

Side note about Lerasium: Does anyone else find it odd that the power of this metal stays inside the populace, but atium vanishes to the Pits? Shouldn't both metals do their thing and then return to the power that creates them?

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Why not? Burning Lerasium re-writes your sDNA, there's no reason it wouldn't give you a more efficient system with which to process other metals. And burning an alloy simply does the same for one aspect of Preservation's power.

It doesn't really seem like you should lose your ability to burn steel and iron, even if you gain super aluminum burning skills in the process.

  On further investigation, though, it doesn't actually settle what happens if a mistborn burns the alloy - just what happens if the wrong kind of misting does.

 

That said, anyone know what's up with the RPG calling it 'larasium' instead of 'lerasium'?

[Chaos he/him]

That said, anyone know what's up with the RPG calling it 'larasium' instead of 'lerasium'?

 

That's an error. I believe they have revised it in a later edition. Larasium has been the longstanding mispelling of that word before it was canonized as "lerasium" on the first Table of Allomantic Metals. The hardcover RPG has it spelled as larasium on their Feruchemical table in the back. It's just an error.

Furthermore, we do actually know that burning lerasium Allomantically just increases your power in Allomancy. I don't have the quote readily available, but that is indeed its normal ability (it isn't just an RPG thing). Of course there are other sDNA things, but if you just naively burn it, that is what will happen.