Duralumin Burn Rate

[Oudeis he/him]

Hypothesis: The enhanced burn provided by duralumin is not instantaneous.

 

Supporting arguments:

 

1. 

 

 

Here goes, she thought, then burned duralumin. Her body flared with hyperenhanced pewter. Immediately, the feeling of tiredness went away. She almost bolted upright from the sudden burst of energy. telden was chuckling. "I'll be," he said to one of the servants. "She actually went for it."

"You'd be dead if she hadn't, my lord," the servant said. "We'd all be dead."

And then the duralumin ran out. Her pewter disappeared with a puff, and with it went her immunity to the drug, which hadn't burned away. It had been a long shot anyway.

She barely heard her weapon click as it slipped from her fingers and hit the floor. Then, she fell unconscious.

 

I've read that three times at a conversational pace, timing myself, without pauses between any of the four clauses, and it always times out just over seven seconds. That's up to five places where pauses could be including the gaps between "she burns" and "the first words," and "the last words" and "the burst ends". It would be natural for each gap to be at least a second, or two, I contend.

 

In short, by timing out this, from a relatively small quantity of pewter (Vin was completely out and was running on the amount of pewter in a single Mistborn vial) you get a burst that lasts 7-15 seconds.

 

2. 

 

 

Metal burning speed is proportional to power withdrawn.

 

Source.

 

This is in reference to Mistborn being stronger than other Mistborn. This says that Elend is more powerful than Vin for the specific reason that he burns metals at a faster rate. From the times he takes control of Koloss, even his duralumin boosts are more powerful. If all duralumin bursts were at the same speed, Elend would not be more powerful. Therefore, he must burn duralumin itself faster/more powerfully, meaning his duralumin bursts are shorter and even more concentrated.

 

Additional speculation:

 

I speculate that each Mistborn will have their own "duralumin burn rate," by which I mean, the enhanced ultra-flare at which other metals burn under the influence of duralumin. This will primarily be based on their own skill/power with duralumin, and therefore with practice and skill a Mistborn could get better at duralumin and affect their own burn rate.

 

This means that even for a Mistborn, two different "bursts" of the same metal will be different lengths. One small amount of pewter let Vin burn for ten(ish) seconds; I suspect if she'd swallowed five beads of pewter as she did at the start of her first pewter drag, which she said would flare through in under an hour, she could burn it for something in the area of a minute or so.

 

Additionally, I suspect a specific Mistborn will have different flare rates depending on their specialties in different metals. Shan Elariel, for example, was by all (very few) accounts good at emotional allomancy. I suspect if she used duralumin, she'd burn zinc faster than some of her other metals.

 

To summarize a point I spread out a little, a Mistborn's duralumin burst rate for each specific metal is based primarily on their skill with duralumin, modified by their skill in the individual metal.

 

EDIT: Here's an equation. Sharders love equations. R = (M*A)*D.

R = The Rate an allomancer burns a metal. 

M = The fundamental burn rate of the metal itself (pewter burns faster than steel, for example)

A = The allomancer's specific skill with that specific metal; Vin, for example, was probably better at pewter than copper, so she'd burn pewter faster and get more power. Also, Elend burns all metals faster than she does.

D = The factor of a duralumin effect. 1, if the mistborn is not burning duralumin. Can vary from mistborn to mistborn.

 

I have no idea if I think a Nicroburst could touch a Mistborn and affect their use of duralumin, or if duralumin is immune to nicrosil the way it's immune to itself.

Edited September 17, 2015 by Oudeis

[Oudeis he/him]

I'm necro-ing. And double-posting. On a thread no one but me has ever said anything in. I REGRET NOTHING.

 

I have an additional question. I guess I could have just started an entire new thread but I didn't want to.

 

What is the factor of a duralumin burst? By how much is the power amplified?

 

We know that in feruchemy, if you 'compound' an attribute (not the allomantic compounding, just the, more-than-double the output compounding native to feruchemy) you get diminished returns; some of the 'energy' is used up to compress it.

 

Does something like this happen in allomancy with duralumin? We know all the energy comes from Preservation anyway, so it doesn't have the same limit as feruchemy for the same reason, but might the increased rate still provide less efficiency? It's possible; who knows?

 

Can anyone think of examples from the books that give a definite comparison between normal allomantic might, and duralumin might?

 

From above, I have a citation to give us an idea of rate; we know Vin starts with a system entirely empty of pewter, and gets enough from one standard vial to duralumin burn it for about 15 seconds. How long does a vial normally last? I feel like we see them last a long, long time. The MAG suggests it can only burn for two minutes from a charge, but we must see Vin fighting, burning pewter, even flaring it, for far longer than that between vials, at least a few times. Her first fight against the koloss in Hero of Ages, for example. Maybe she could have taken an extra dose, however, knowing she'd burn through it quickly.

 

Still. It must burn at least 8x as quickly; 2 minutes seems like an absolute minimum, so 15 seconds is 8x. Does this mean an 8x increase in power? Less due to inefficiency?

 

Any thoughts on the matter?

[Yata he/him]

First of all you have chosen a complex subject XD

 

I had nothing like citation. But I will explain why I think this is as a problematic question.

 

In nature forces like friction don't always are linear with a linear input.

 

Another point is about our main Allomancer (Vin), we have no guarantees about his "Allomantic Level" was the same throught the trilogy.

 

We know that her was the vessel chosen by Preservation and that the Mist conflux into Vin when she don't wear the Earring and his allomancy probably her allomancy was improved.

[Guest]

I think the reason you aren't getting answers is because we just don't know enough. For example, if you're right about the 7-second burn time in the OP, is that 7 seconds set? Or is it based on the amount of Metal available? Would 1Kg of Metal burn away in 7 seconds, or would the 1Kg burn at a set (but abnormally fast) rate and give minutes of enhanced power?

 

We do know that for a Leecher (and probably for a Nicroburst as well), time is (somewhat) of a factor. We don't know if/to what degree that is also true of Aluminum/Duralumin.

 

(I don't have the WoB handy, but it basically says) For a Leecher to vanish a Hemalurgic Spike or other Invested Metal they would have to hold on for at least a few seconds.

[Kaymyth she/her]

I think the reason you aren't getting answers is because we just don't know enough. For example, if you're right about the 7-second burn time in the OP, is that 7 seconds set? Or is it based on the amount of Metal available? Would 1Kg of Metal burn away in 7 seconds, or would the 1Kg burn at a set (but abnormally fast) rate and give minutes of enhanced power?

 

We do know that for a Leecher (and probably for a Nicroburst as well), time is (somewhat) of a factor. We don't know if/to what degree that is also true of Aluminum/Duralumin.

 

(I don't have the WoB handy, but it basically says) For a Leecher to vanish a Hemalurgic Spike or other Invested Metal they would have to hold on for at least a few seconds.

 

I'm the one who got that WoB firsthand, and I know that WeiryWriter stashed it somewhere on the page, but not sure where.  He also said that uninvested metals will go before the invested ones - charged metal (Feruchemically or Hemalurgically) will take longer to burn off than normal metal.

 

Whether that applies to Duralumin, though, is up in the air, as I was specifically asking about Chromium.

Edited September 17, 2015 by Kaymyth

[Guest]

It was an awesome question, nice job.

[Oudeis he/him]

LabRat: Yes, I am aware we don't know enough. I was hoping people could find places where more is stated. I just finished the books and won't be re-reading them, likely, for some time. I guess I could just search the second two for every instance of duralumin. I was just wondering if anyone knew of a time when one person is using a power, then the power with duralumin, to give us a sense of scale between two ceteris parabis uses of the same power. Bronze is tricky; how much "harder" was Vin sensing Breeze in order to determine the specific emotions he was Soothing? She does say her hearbeat is like a drum. Can we make a reasonable assumption about the decibel level of a drum and compare it to how loud hearts sound to a normal tin burner?

[WeiryWriter he/him]

I'm the one who got that WoB firsthand, and I know that WeiryWriter stashed it somewhere on the page, but not sure where.  He also said that uninvested metals will go before the invested ones - charged metal (Feruchemically or Hemalurgically) will take longer to burn off than normal metal.

 

Whether that applies to Duralumin, though, is up in the air, as I was specifically asking about Chromium.

 

Here's that WoB:

 

 

Kaymyth <paraphrased>

 

I asked the question about chromium vs a Compounder with both invested and uninvested metals in both their stomach and piercings.

 

Brandon Sanderson <paraphrased>

 

What it boils down to is this:

 

1)  Yes, the piercings will get burned off.

2)  The noninvested metals go before the invested ones.  He said that because invested metals are harder to effect, it takes a little extra time and effort to get them to burn off.  So a Leecher trying to clean out a Compounder would have to get a good grip and hang on for a few seconds.

3)  Chromium burns about as quickly as duralumin, so if you're trying to burn off a lot of metals, it is possible to run out of chromium before your target is clean.  This would probably only be an issue when dealing with larger pieces (like jewelry) rather than your standard metal-flakes-in-the-stomach deal.

 

(source)

[Kaymyth she/her]

It was an awesome question, nice job.

 

Every time that thing gets brought up, I'm all like: