Why Savants Exist

[Nepene]

The RPG isn't always canonical. And you're saying Elend wasn't 100%? Beause the quote in the previous page says he was. Was Elend able to pierce Copperclouds? 

 

Sorry, but I can't accept that ingesting a lerasium bead -the body of preservation, a god- won't upgrade you powers at all. It seems preposterous to me that if a 100% Mistborn ingests lerasium it wouldn't have any effect whatsoever.

 

However large the bead of Lerasium that Elend ingested was, it was evidently large enough to take him to 100%.

 

I haven't read mistborn 3 in a while, I can't remember. Piercing copperclouds is a matter of skill as well as power, and Elend was not that skilled.

 

We can say all we want, but Sanderson decides what Lerasium does. He could say that a 100% mistborn ingesting Lerasium made you into a duck and it would be true.

Edited May 6, 2013 by Nepene

[kroen]

However large the bead of Larasium that Elend ingested was, it was evidently large enough to take him to 100%.

 

I haven't read mistborn 3 in a while, I can't remember. Piercing copperclouds is a matter of skill as well as power, and Elend was not that skilled.

 

We can say all we want, but Sanderson decides what Larasium does. He could say that a 100% mistborn ingesting larasium made you into a duck and it would be true.

Brandon didn't say that ingesting a second lerasium bead would have no effect. Please link to quote if I'm wrong.

[Nepene]

Brandon didn't say that ingesting a second lerasium bead would have no effect. Please link to quote if I'm wrong.

 

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/annotation/304/Mistborn-3-Chapter-Thirty-Eight

 

He said that granting powers was a side effect, and that if another used it it would do something else.

 

It wasn�t the main purpose of the bead, and if another Allomancer were to burn it, it would do something else.

 

If it is doing something else, its power is not being expended on increasing your power. It will presumably have some power boosting effect, but it may well not be increasing your long term power.

 

Although I imagine, as with all metals, there is some leak through as metal use slowly transforms you into a savant.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

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.

Note the 'most mistborn' thing here. Sanderson isn't saying 'all mistborn' here - and there are a heck of a lot more non-lerasium mistborn than lerasium ones. Presumably a non-lerasium mistborn (like Kelsier or post HoA Spook) would get upgraded to '100%', but additional beads wouldn't do anything beyond that, since they're now at full potential.

Note that the rpg includes your skill with a metal as part of the metal rating, not just your power with it (which is why you can level up your metals naturally).

[kroen]

Note the 'most mistborn' thing here. Sanderson isn't saying 'all mistborn' here - and there are a heck of a lot more non-lerasium mistborn than lerasium ones. Presumably a non-lerasium mistborn (like Kelsier or post HoA Spook) would get upgraded to '100%', but additional beads wouldn't do anything beyond that, since they're now at full potential.

Note that the rpg includes your skill with a metal as part of the metal rating, not just your power with it (which is why you can level up your metals naturally).

So you're saying, again, that if a 100% Mistborn would ingest a lersaium bead, which its body of Preservation, a god- nothing would happen?

 

Because to me this possiblity seems slim to none. Actually, no, it's none to none. Maybe it wouldn't make the Mistborn's powers go over 100% but it would surely do something.

Edited May 6, 2013 by kroen

[Phantom Monstrosity]

So you're saying, again, that if a 100% Mistborn would ingest a lersaium bead, which its body of Preservation, a god- nothing would happen?

 

Because to me this possiblity seems slim to none. Actually, no, it's none to none. Maybe it wouldn't make the Mistborn's powers go over 100% but it would surely do something.

Well, it'd probably make your personality more preservation-warped, like any additional investiture does. And there *is* some primary effect that we don't have any info on. But in terms of 'just being a better mistborn', probably not.

[kroen]

Well, it'd probably make your personality more preservation-warped, like any additional investiture does. And there *is* some primary effect that we don't have any info on. But in terms of 'just being a better mistborn', probably not.

Who knows, maybe it'll make you more skilled with the powers you already have? And before you say anything, I'd like to remind you that Marsh told Vin that a skilled Seeker can detect what emotions Soothers/Rioters are manipulating. We know this feat takes great skill, yet Vin was able to cheat by using duralumin. Now duralumin should only make your Allomancy more powerful for a couple seconds, it shouldn't make you more skilled. Yet it does. So if my hypothesis is correct, then a second lerasium bead would, in fact, make you 'a better mistborn'. If not by brute force, then by skill.

Edited May 6, 2013 by kroen

[Phantom Monstrosity]

There's a difference between being able to differentiate between fifty different jazz musicians when they're being played at minimum volume on a single earbud across the room and being able to tell the difference when you've got a full surround sound home entertainment system.

[kroen]

There's a difference between being able to differentiate between fifty different jazz musicians when they're being played at minimum volume on a single earbud across the room and being able to tell the difference when you've got a full surround sound home entertainment system.

The analogy is incorrect. Being able to hear Allomantic pulses doesn't mean you know which metals are being burned. It takes skill for that. It's the same with emotions. 

[Phantom Monstrosity]

The analogy is incorrect. Being able to hear Allomantic pulses doesn't mean you know which metals are being burned. It takes skill for that. It's the same with emotions.

Marsh said "It took me six months of practice to distinguish pulse lengths" when he was talking to Vin. And he's one of the best seekers around. Seekers *often* become savants without realizing it - and the process of becoming a savant is, well, flaring your metal for very long periods of time. What Marsh is attributing to (in his words) "care and practice" could be just as much the natural consequence of becoming a savant as it is learning to differentiate miniscule overtones on faint pulses.

That said, one of the secondary powers included in allomancy (according to the Ars Arcanum) is the fact that it's a very intuitive system.

Edited May 6, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[kroen]

That said, one of the secondary powers included in allomancy (according to the Ars Arcanum) is the fact that it's a very intuitive system.

Still, there's no denying there's skill involved. And if something like duralumin can make you more skilled for a short duration then there's no reason to think lerasium wouldn't.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Still, there's no denying there's skill involved. And if something like duralumin can make you more skilled for a short duration then there's no reason to think lerasium wouldn't.

Skill is involved to some extent, yes, but in this case it's pretty clear that vin is basically just turning up the volume.  Note that flaring bronze gives more info than just using bronze normally, and all duraluminum does is flare out your metals in one short, incredibly powerful pulse.

 

When an Allomancer burned a metal, they gave off an invisible, drumlike beat that only another Allomancer burning bronze could sense. The rhythm of these pulses—how quickly the beats came, the way they "sounded"—told exactly what metal was being burned.

It took practice, and was difficult, but Vin was getting better at reading the pulses. She focused. Breeze was burning brass—the internal, mental Pushing metal. And. . .

Vin focused harder. She could feel a pattern washing over her, a double dum-dum beat with each pulse. They felt oriented to her right. The pulses were washing against something else, something that was sucking them in.

Elend. Breeze was focused on Elend. Not surprising, considering the current discussion. Breeze was always Pushing on the people he interacted with.

Satisfied, Vin sat back. But then she paused. Marsh implied there was much more to bronze than many people thought. I wonder. . ..

She squeezed her eyes shut—ignoring the fact that any of the others who saw her would think her actions strange—and focused again on the Allomantic pulses. She flared the bronze, concentrating so hard she felt she'd give herself a headache. There was a. . .vibration to the pulses. But what that could mean, she wasn't certain.

Focus! she told herself. However, the pulses stubbornly refused to yield any further information.

Fine, she thought. I'll cheat. She turned off her tin—she almost always had it on a little bit—then reached inside and burned the fourteenth metal. Duralumin.

The Allomantic pulses became so loud. . .so powerful. . .she swore she could feel their vibrations shaking her apart. They pounded like beats from a massive drum set right beside her. But she got something from them.

Anxiety, nervousness, worry, insecurity, anxiety, nervousness, worry—

 

 

After all, if lerasium just made you a better mistborn by virtue of being a chunk of preservation, atium should make you a worse mistborn, by virtue of being the exact opposite thing.  It's been stated repeatedly that lerasium's mistborn-producing ability is a hack to rewrite your spiritual DNA.  I don't see any reason why it'd rewrite your sDNA differently the second time compared to the first time. 

 

 

Of course, a normal mistborn would be one of those 50% guys, so he'd be basically twice as strong after eating lerasium the first time.  Not a bad deal, all things considered.

Edited May 6, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[kroen]

While all of this makes sense, I simply can't acknowedge that ingesting a second lerasium bead would have the same effect as ingesting a sugar pill. My mind can't wrap around the concept. And, as it turns out, there is currently no confirmation that it wouldn't have any effect.

 

Edit: Also, we know that ingesting enough lerasium beads would induce ascension. Let's say it takes 1000 beads for that, just as an example. It doesn't seem right that the only beads that would make any difference are the 1st and the 1000th, and that the rest would have zero effect.

Edited May 6, 2013 by kroen

[Phantom Monstrosity]

If you became a lerasium savant, yeah.  But you'd need to burn and flare lerasium for like, months to get something like that.  Since the process of becoming a savant takes quite a long time (and as far as can be determined, requires long continuous burns, not just using a lot of the metal infrequently), odds are a second bead isn't going to make you noticeably more lerasiumy any more than, say, a second vial of pewter is going to make you signficantly closer to being a pewter savant. 

 

More lerasium is going to have more of whatever the primary effect is, but remember that becoming a mistborn is secondary - it's a side effect that's apparently not what the metal is really for.  Burning additional lerasium might make you slightly closer to being a savant with all your metals, but it isn't like it's going to make you a double mistborn or a triple mistborn if you eat two or three. You might be like... effectively acting as if you were 101% from being more savanty, I guess?  Being a savant isn't really the same thing as having more allomantic power.

 

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/annotation/304/mistborn-3-Chapter-Thirty-Eight

As a tidbit, that was a side effect of what that bead of metal did. It wasn’t the main purpose of the bead, and if another Allomancer were to burn it, it would do something else.

[kroen]

This makes me wonder if atium also has a side effect.

And also, what's the main effect of lerasium.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

This makes me wonder if atium also has a side effect.

And also, what's the main effect of lerasium.

 

Yes it does, and we just don't know (it'll be explored later)

 

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3409-old-god-metal-info/

[Isomere]

From what I understand, everyone on the planet of Scadrial has Investiture from both Ruin and Preservation. This Investiture is what you use to access magic. Most people can't use that Investiture because they have the wrong spiritual Identity. Now for some theorizing. I think Lerasium just makes your Identity different so you can use the Investiture you already have to it's maximum potential.  The 100% we have been talking about in this thread refers to how much of your Investiture you can access. 

 

Let's put Vin at 30%, a fairly strong Mistborn. The reason she can't fully use her powers is due to her Identity: she is half Ska which limits the access. If she were to eat Lerasium, her Identity would be re-written, and her Allomancy would go up to 100%: a much more powerful Mistborn. She can now make full use of her Investiture. 

 

Another example with a weak Coinshot misting who is using 3% of his Investiture. If he were to eat a bit of Lerasium mixed with Steel, he would become an extremely powerful Coinshot able to use 100% of his Investiture. His Identity would still be linked only to Steel, so he would remain a Misting. If this same man were to eat a pure sample of Lerasium, his identity would be rewritten to allow him access to ALL the Allomantic metals, and he would be a Mistborn with 100% Access to his Investiture. 

 

 

A few quotes from Brandon:

Every single person on the world of Scadrial has a bit of Leras in them—a bit of the power of Preservation. Every single person has a bit of Ati in them. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=680/#26

 

To use Feruchemy or Allomancy... one must have the right spiritual and genetic codes, imprinted upon people during the creation of Scadrial by Ati and Leras.  http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=727/#66

 

By burning [Lerasium] 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. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=692/#24

 

If [Lerasium] were fused into specific alloys with certain metals, it could have instead created Mistings of each of the different Allomantic powers. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=727/#7

 

So you're saying, again, that if a 100% Mistborn would ingest a lersaium bead, which its body of Preservation, a god- nothing would happen?

 

 

You're suggesting that repeated doses of Lerasium would increase your Allomancy above 100%. I don't think that's how it works. Once you perfectly attune your Identity to Preservation, I don't see how you can overwrite a better connection. I'd love to hear some ideas on how to manage that, but 100% is 100%. At this point, the way you get more power is to gain more Investiture. For example, Vin has an earring that trapped parts of her sisters soul. When she wears this, her Spirit is infused with extra Investiture, allowing her do do amazing things not normally possible. 

Edited May 6, 2013 by Isomere

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Isomere, Vin is canonically at 100%.  (Which I guess is due to whatever preservation did to make her mist compatible, maybe?)

 

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/annotation/318/mistborn-3-Chapter-Forty-Nine-Part-2

However, that won�t stop all of them from being affected by the mistsickness, because the mistsickness is also awakening Allomantic potential that would otherwise be too subtle to be brought out. Pretend there�s a sliding scale of Allomantic potential. 100% means you�re an Allomancer—in this series, only two people have hit 100%—Vin and Elend. Buried within a lot of people, however, is enough of a touch of Preservation�s power to hit, say, 50% on the relative scale of Allomantic power. These people, when beaten and made to pass through something traumatic, awaken to their Allomantic abilities.

There are a lot of people out there, however, with something more like 20% to 30%. These are the people the mists are Snapping—since the mists are, themselves, partially the power of Preservation, they can touch people and increase their Allomantic potential slightly and then bring it to the forefront.

 

Most allomancers we see are around 50%

Edited May 6, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[Isomere]

Vin is weaker than Elend when he first eats Lerasium right? I would think that she wouldn't start out at 100% with half her sDNA from a Ska mother. It's been several years since I read the books, but I think she gets chosen as something like a Champion for Preservation in the 3rd book, so I could see her hitting 100% then. 

 

Hmm, could Vin be weaker than Elend because she just has less Investiture? That way they could both be 100% and the power difference could still be there. It would look something like this: 

 

Total Allomantic Power = (Investiture) * (% sDNA connection)

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Vin is weaker than Elend when he first eats Lerasium right? I would think that she wouldn't start out at 100% with half her sDNA from a Ska mother. It's been several years since I read the books, but I think she gets chosen as something like a Champion for Preservation in the 3rd book, so I could see her hitting 100% then. 

 

Hmm, could Vin be weaker than Elend because she just has less Investiture? That way they could both be 100% and the power difference could still be there. It would look something like this: 

 

Total Allomantic Power = (Investiture) * (% sDNA connection)

 

 

Vin seems to have far more intuitive understanding of her powers, Elend seems to have more brute force.  Vin has always been a natural at doing the subtle stuff - far more precise and delicate with them.  Even after a year of practice, Elend still can't really stick the landing when steelpushing, but Vin was able to manage it in a couple weeks.

 

We know that hemalurgic spikes don't necessarily grant more power when stacking allomancy onto you,(Zane's spike granted him extra precision with steelpushes), so just being a 100% mistborn seems like it should allow for some variation than just 'strongest in the world with your metals'.  You could also be 'the most precise with using your metals', apparently.

 

 

That annotation I quoted is from the end of HoA, but before Vin takes up the mists at the end, so it could be including her sliver-ness from briefly taking up the well's power, or it could just be something preservation did to make her compatible with the mists. 

Edited May 6, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[Nepene]

While all of this makes sense, I simply can't acknowedge that ingesting a second lerasium bead would have the same effect as ingesting a sugar pill. My mind can't wrap around the concept. And, as it turns out, there is currently no confirmation that it wouldn't have any effect.

 

As a hypothetical. If Lerasium rewrites your sDNA, what if it allowed you to temporarily rewrite your powers? E.g. you could change iron allomancy to pull blood instead of metal. Or what if it allowed you to shapechange at will, changing your shape, strength, intellect? I can imagine lots of possible powers Lerasium could have, and all of them sound fun.

 

I am sure, as Brandon is a good story writer, whatever power Lerasium has will be interesting and fun and be more significant than a sugar pill.

[Bort]

But if this were the reason why savants happen, wouldn't all savants change the same way? They're all, by this theory, being warped by steady investiture of Preservation, yet their symptoms vary by which metal they burn. 

 

This is true, but the same applies to science. You can get different effects from an element depending on which catalyst you use with it. I see no reason why you couldn't get different types of savant due to the different metals.

[DrakeMarshall]

In regard to how atium relates to all this...

Wouldn't it be more likely that you would become ruin's shardholder by getting too many atium hemalurgic spikes in you, rather than by burning too much of it with allomancy? Hemalurgy, after all, is the manifestation of ruin's power.

This sort of makes sense. Lerasium, preservation's metal, rewrites one's spiritual DNA when used to fuel allomancy, preservation's magic system. Atium, ruin's metal, rewrites one's spiritual DNA when used to fuel hemalurgy, ruin's magic system.

This parallelism makes me wonder if using lerasium for a hemalurgic spike would have some kind of temporal effect.

[natc]

Atium spikes just sit there though. As a pointy bit of metal. None of it is being turned back into investiture or connected to you in any way, it only serves as the container and splicing mechanism for the spiritweb fragment that was stolen. The atium never changes state.

Atium allomancy, on the other hand, is unlike non-god metal allomancy, and is fueled directly by the metabolized atium itself. The raw Ruin flows through the crack in your spiritweb like raw Preservation does for other powers.

That ought to be able to Ascend you in the same way Lerasium savantism should be able to Ascend you . . . if you can figure out how to have the power not leave you immediately during the burn anyway.

Also, wow the consecutive necro.

[timasp]

But if this were the reason why savants happen, wouldn't all savants change the same way? They're all, by this theory, being warped by steady investiture of Preservation, yet their symptoms vary by which metal they burn. 

 

I'd argue that preservation has the power of a mixture of all metals, but one metal brings one aspect of you closer to preservation