The Nature of Allomancy as it relates to AonDor

[tobar14 he/him]

Btw, I just noticed the typo in the title and it bothers me . . .

AAAAHHHH, how do I fix it?????

[Oudeis he/him]

I'm still very confused by you. We know for a fact that ingesting metals isn't the only way to access their power; we've had a WoB for months that the Southern Scadrians do it mechanically. Someone spoke people thinking they have to ingest it and so having to ingest it, and you yourself talked about people subconsciously putting themselves into boxes; you both made it sound like people were just deciding not to use metal without ingesting it. Now you're admitting that ingesting it is one entire mechanism, but you're acting like it's a revelation that it might not be the only mechanism.

 

More holes in your theory. If a Lurcher could access power just by drawing the letter B... how would that have gone unnoticed all this time? Again, Vin uses pewter instinctively, and has never even heard of swallowing metals. You think her hand has never touched the letter O before? Reen taught her her letters. Shouldn't she have realized that when she was practicing any word with an R in it (like Reen?) that she suddenly had a wealth of Luck?

 

Also, AonDor is basically the opposite of an alphabet. These symbols already exist with intrinsic meaning, and people have simply discovered it. For your theory to hold water, people would have to have discovered the symbols first in the context of their influence on the metallic arts, and only thereafter have assigned sounds to them. If that were the case, how in the world was this entire process ever wiped from the collective consciousness of all mankind?

 

Your ideas make no sense, are entirely unsupported, and boil down to you trying to find a way to munchkin the system.

[tobar14 he/him]

I'm still very confused by you. We know for a fact that ingesting metals isn't the only way to access their power; we've had a WoB for months that the Southern Scadrians do it mechanically. Someone spoke people thinking they have to ingest it and so having to ingest it, and you yourself talked about people subconsciously putting themselves into boxes; you both made it sound like people were just deciding not to use metal without ingesting it. Now you're admitting that ingesting it is one entire mechanism, but you're acting like it's a revelation that it might not be the only mechanism.

 

More holes in your theory. If a Lurcher could access power just by drawing the letter B... how would that have gone unnoticed all this time? Again, Vin uses pewter instinctively, and has never even heard of swallowing metals. You think her hand has never touched the letter O before? Reen taught her her letters. Shouldn't she have realized that when she was practicing any word with an R in it (like Reen?) that she suddenly had a wealth of Luck?

 

Also, AonDor is basically the opposite of an alphabet. These symbols already exist with intrinsic meaning, and people have simply discovered it. For your theory to hold water, people would have to have discovered the symbols first in the context of their influence on the metallic arts, and only thereafter have assigned sounds to them. If that were the case, how in the world was this entire process ever wiped from the collective consciousness of all mankind?

 

Your ideas make no sense, are entirely unsupported, and boil down to you trying to find a way to munchkin the system.

 

Omg, this is not even the topic of this post.  I am defending a tangent that I do not even care about, nor did I start.  Yes, we all know that there is another way to access Preservation, but nobody knows how yet.  A logical next step to figure this out would be to study other magic systems that are fundamentally the same.  Hence, my comparison of AonDor to Allomancy, specifically with the quote that I used in the first post.  All I did was state something about a current known fact as a setup to help explain where I was coming from, I was not acting like i just discovered that ingesting metal isn't the only way.

 

And what?? A??? B??? R???  I have no clue what you are talking about.  I am talking about the molecular structure of the metals, not the English Alphabet.  If you read the coppermind on Aons, you would find that it is a writing system, that is based off of a real world/physical object.  AonDor uses the Aons as focuses/filters the Dor's power into the physical realm, which is exactly what Allomancy does.  The power doesn't come from the metal, the molecular structure of the metal acts as a focus/filter for Preservation's power.

Yes, Aons already existed with intrinsic meaning, well so did the metals and their molecular structure.

 

Finally, I appreciate everyone's contribution to this topic.  This was the first topic that I posted, I did my research, stated known facts as evidence to my hypothesis, and I was curious what other people thought.  I could do without the negativity, but people tend to be scared of new ideas 

 

Seriously though, Oudeis. Take a chill pill, this was supposed to be fun.

[Windrunner he/him]

Mmkay, let's all take a step back. Everyone knows how easy it is for tempers to flare online. 

 

There is no need for any negativity or harshness in posts. We're here to have a good time discussing something we're all passionate about and while a well-reasoned criticism is useful, there is such thing as going too far. Even if no negativity is intended, without tone it can be hard to tell, so it's good to be cautious. Tobar, it is not your place to tell another member to take a chill pill. That's the moderating team's job. If the Steel Ministry has any desire to administer chill pills, it will be handled by an admin personally, I assure you.

 

I'm not shutting down this discussion yet, but let's try to get it back on track.

[tobar14 he/him]

Mmkay, let's all take a step back. Everyone knows how easy it is for tempers to flare online. 

 

There is no need for any negativity or harshness in posts. We're here to have a good time discussing something we're all passionate about and while a well-reasoned criticism is useful, there is such thing as going too far. Even if no negativity is intended, without tone it can be hard to tell, so it's good to be cautious. Tobar, it is not your place to tell another member to take a chill pill. That's the moderating team's job. If the Steel Ministry has any desire to administer chill pills, it will be handled by an admin personally, I assure you.

 

I'm not shutting down this discussion yet, but let's try to get it back on track.

I apologize for the chill pill comment, it was unnecessary.

[kinxer he/him]

Tobar, I appreciate the thought you've put into this theory, but it doesn't work for me. As far as I can tell, the only reason AonDor is so easy to access is that the Dor (which is in the Cognitive Realm, IIRC) is brimming with energy which needs somewhere to go due to the Odium's destruction of the shards on Sel. The cognitive realm is not in that situation on Scadrial. Here's a WoB that states that there are major differences between the Dor and Preservation's "essence":

 

INTERVIEW: Sep, 2012

Cosmere Q&A - 17th Shard (Verbatim)

WINDRUNNER

Why does Devotion's Shardpool act so differently from Preservation's?

BRANDON SANDERSON

For similar reasons to why the Dor acts so differently from Preservation's essence...

 

And here's one related to the forceful nature of the Dor, emphasis mine:

 

INTERVIEW: Apr 15th, 2013

Reddit AMA 2013 (Verbatim)

LINKHYRULE ()

Why is there only one Chasm line per Aon? Since each Aon is made up of repetitions of Aon Aon, shouldn't there be a Chasm line per repetition?

BRANDON SANDERSON

The Aons aren't JUST made up of repetitions of Aon Aon. There's a lot more to them than that. Some follow a repetition pattern, others do not. The only requirement is using the initial Aon once, then building from there. Because of this, I made the new requirement be only one use of the chasm line.

Aons can actually have multiple forms and still work. For example, if you drew the chasm line on each one of those Aons, they'd work fine. (Maybe even better, in some cases.) What is happening in the books is that the Aons are ALMOST functional, and the Dor is straining to come through them. The chasm line brings them the one step further they need to be functional. However, further tweaking could make them more efficient.

 

Secondly, we know that magics manifest on Shardworlds in ways specific to the planet (I can't seem to find a WoB, but I'm certain this is the case), and it seems highly unlikely statistically and more so from a worldbuilding standpoint that two Shardworlds would manifest magics that could be accessed in such a similar manner.

 

Finally, I'm pretty sure Oudeis was replying to Minsk Ghoul when talking about the letters in reference to metals. Minsk Ghoul had suggested that the allomantic symbols (which are probably naturally-derived symbology as opposed to anything magic-related) could be used as the symbols in your model. Oudeis was referring to the English letters which correspond to the Steel Alphabet symbols for the metals.

Edited August 27, 2015 by kinxer

[Ari he/him]

The stuff in that quote from Brandon is very interesting, Kinxer, hadn't caught that interview before. It makes it sound like, for instance, you could add minor things to the "anchor" Aon(s) Aon in each more complex Aon, such as smaller terrain features, to enhance the functionality, but that the four large natural features (including the chasm) are the bare minimum.

 

Also makes you wonder if you could do some interesting things to circumvent the distance issue, like say, set up a centre of power similar to Elantris in other places in the cosmere, with different terrain, and describe that closer centre using a modified Aon. (It could be it absolutely HAS to be Arelon given the connection between Arelene Spiritual DNA and the powers of Elantris. )

 

see also these quotes from the same interview, which are relevant:

 

 

Windrunner17 ()

Why does Scadrial, which has two Shards, only have three manifestations of investiture, (Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy) but Sel, also with two Shards, has five manifestations of investiture (AonDor, Dakhor, ChayShan, Forgery, and Bloodsealing)?

 

Brandon Sanderson

Sel's magics are much more regionalized than Scadrial's. Each area has its own manifestation, but they're all actually the same magic. So really there is one magic on Sel—much as Windrunning and Lightweaving on Roshar are kind of different magics, but also kind of the same.

 

Satsuoni ()

You said that every person on Scadrial has a bit of Preservation in them. It is possible, then, to accumulate enough Hemalurgic charge from killing normal people by, say, steel spike (at once, or in order), to make that spike grant Allomancy? Building on this, is it possible for the spike to accumulate charge while being imbedded in acceptor body, by killing people with the protruding end?

 

Brandon Sanderson

My, you're making the Scadrial magic systems sound a lot like the one from Nalthis.... Hm....

 

That second quote makes it quite clear that a lot of the similarities between Allomancy and AonDor are also just ways in which types of investiture are just investiture. It takes a little bit of wiggling to get them to function in similar ways to each other, but you have above an idea for a hemalurgical slaughter that would function a lot like accumulating Breath to become an Awakener does on Nalthis. (Presumably, you could also do a non-lethal spike for that kind of system, too)

Edited August 27, 2015 by Ari