Witborn Posted August 25, 2015 Report Share Posted August 25, 2015 From another thread, I confessed my confusion to how electrum works and people have offered up good explanations but there are still things I'd like to explore further so I'm starting a new thread. I wondered if electrum showed the visions of your future self to you or other people. Voidus and natc both state that by showing you your future, you change what you are going to do which changes your atium shadow to nullify the effects of burning atium. At first glance that sound reasonable, but within that seems like there's something in that explanation that makes it just as powerful as atium (which may be the intention). If that explanation in true, that means that my mind, like with atium, must automatically adjust to seeing the shadows and reacting to them. I'm not sure how the mind chooses which electrum shadow to move against since electrum causes many shadows to appear. It must choose one though, in order to affect how someone burning atium sees my shadows because atium allows you to see what the other people (or objects) are going to do, not what they are potentially going to do (hence one atium shadow, not many). If you are both burning atium, your mind reacts to that causing the other person burning atium to do something different and so on and so on. That's why burning atium cancels out atium. Burning electrum can only cancel out atium if it also changes what you are going to do, not what you might do. Therefore your mind must react to the electrum shadows to tell your body to do something else. If that is true, then you could train your mind to do that in general, making electrum not "poor man's atium" but the ability to react to the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted August 25, 2015 Report Share Posted August 25, 2015 The point is that many shadows only appear because each one you see creates a different future, you're not reacting to one you're reacting to all of them. You can't train your mind to see the future... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Witborn Posted August 25, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 25, 2015 The point is that many shadows only appear because each one you see creates a different future, you're not reacting to one you're reacting to all of them. You can't train your mind to see the future... You state that you see one shadow but react to all. You have to react to an individual shadow to create another, according to your explanation, which means you're not reacting to all the shadows at once, you're reacting to each one in turn. Your mind reacting to a shadow means you are reacting to the future, at least somewhat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted August 25, 2015 Report Share Posted August 25, 2015 You state that you see one shadow but react to all. You have to react to an individual shadow to create another, according to your explanation, which means you're not reacting to all the shadows at once, you're reacting to each one in turn. Your mind reacting to a shadow means you are reacting to the future, at least somewhat. You see all the shadows and react to them all, since it involves visions of the future you don't need to actually deliberately analyze a shadow for it to split, when that shadow is created it creates a future where you would do that, which creates another shadow and so on and so on, hence why they all appear simultaneously instead of building up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him Posted August 25, 2015 Report Share Posted August 25, 2015 (edited) Electrum in a vacuum shows you something you were going to do and allows you to change that action. So yes, it shows you what you might do and allows you to change that action. It is the same with Atium/Electrum interplay and Atium2 interplay, except that the possibilities are infinite, and that is what you see. I've always seen it as an unending loop, but processed at the speed of magic and light, so it's so fast that your brain can't comprehend anything but a ton of shadows appearing at once. Maybe if you were burning Atium AND Cadmium at the same time, you could/would see individual shadows appearing on someone on the outside of your bubble. OR if an Electrum burner were for some reason also burning Bendalloy, the Atium burner outside his bubble might see the shadows appearing individually as well. At least that is how I've always interpreted their interplay. Interesting thought experiment with the time bubbles though! Edited August 25, 2015 by Green Hoodie Mistborn 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis he/him Posted August 25, 2015 Report Share Posted August 25, 2015 It makes sense in my head, but as with all things time-related, it doesn't make full and complete sense. Your points are totally valid that it is somewhat confusing, and to an extent I just sorta take a lot of it on faith. However, I also agree with the people up above. You don't have to consciously react to each electrum-shadow, you only have to have the potential to react to it, for it to start splitting, and that's what happens. If it helps, think of it this way. Seeing the future with precision is very, very difficult. Throwing up some confusion about one aspect of it is easier. You don't need to know how to send out a complicated radio signal if all you're trying to do is scramble one. You just need to throw up some random signal for interference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Witborn Posted August 25, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 25, 2015 It makes sense in my head, but as with all things time-related, it doesn't make full and complete sense. Your points are totally valid that it is somewhat confusing, and to an extent I just sorta take a lot of it on faith. However, I also agree with the people up above. You don't have to consciously react to each electrum-shadow, you only have to have the potential to react to it, for it to start splitting, and that's what happens. If it helps, think of it this way. Seeing the future with precision is very, very difficult. Throwing up some confusion about one aspect of it is easier. You don't need to know how to send out a complicated radio signal if all you're trying to do is scramble one. You just need to throw up some random signal for interference. That metaphor makes a lot sense to me. I think I'm going to have to take your approach and go on faith, but I still wonder if there's more to electrum than we know. We really have only seen Elend and Vin burn in and they didn't seem to have too much time to explore it. Some questions I still have: What does an electrum savant look like? Do electrum and atium (or even gold) shadows have a cognitive realm manifestation? If so, that may help to explain some of my concerns. I hope we see more of it in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natc Posted August 25, 2015 Report Share Posted August 25, 2015 (edited) It is said in the AMA recently, I believe, that if you spike someone to be inordinately powerful with atium that nobody can match naturally, they will reach a breaking point in the power and can see into the cognitive realm directly. Even shards can't see the future with absolute accuracy (some are worse than others too), and changing the future with atium already implies that there isn't predestination going on. The above paragraph implies that the shadows utilize the cognitive realm somehow, so I guess it's likely that they're just really accurate forecasts on steroids based on analyzing cognitive aspects? The shadows shouldn't even have a physical manifestation anyway. These are internal metals, so like bronzepulses they should basically all be in your head. Are senses physical or cognitive? Edited August 25, 2015 by natc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis he/him Posted August 25, 2015 Report Share Posted August 25, 2015 Well. Electrum is internal. We don't know about atium. And steel and iron are external, yet they produce lines only the allomancer can see. Internal metals are... weird. What is is that electrum "pushes" on inside of you that allows you to see many potential futures at once? Hrm. That's an interesting idea. So is there always an electrum shadow proceeding you, but you don't see it until you burn electrum, at which point it splits into a cloud? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PewterAGoldF Posted September 21, 2016 Report Share Posted September 21, 2016 I always thought that burning electrum wouldn't show you shadows, it is not paired with atium. Atium shows the users shadows of others furures, Malatium shows users shadows of others (most likely?) alternative life path. Gold puts you into the POV of your alternative life path, so wouldn't electrum put you into the POV of your single most likely future? I can understand how this would appear as shadows I guess. Elend and Vin didnt really get much benefit from it which I always found weird. Also, while useful against atium, I always thought that a hemalurgic spike of Electrum should do something weird to you rather than just give you shadows in the eyes of thos burning atium, what causes those shadows? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savanorn he/him Posted September 21, 2016 Report Share Posted September 21, 2016 7 hours ago, PewterAGoldF said: I always thought that burning electrum wouldn't show you shadows, it is not paired with atium. Atium shows the users shadows of others furures, Malatium shows users shadows of others (most likely?) alternative life path. Gold puts you into the POV of your alternative life path, so wouldn't electrum put you into the POV of your single most likely future? I can understand how this would appear as shadows I guess. Elend and Vin didnt really get much benefit from it which I always found weird. Also, while useful against atium, I always thought that a hemalurgic spike of Electrum should do something weird to you rather than just give you shadows in the eyes of thos burning atium, what causes those shadows? The main difference would appear to be that one is set and one is varied. I think the PoV effect of the past is because the past is set, it's happened, so you can see what it is like...you can see what you or someone else could have done and what they'd be as a result, or what you'd be, but you can't see what you could do. The future isn't set and is hard to predict even for Vessels, so a mere person burning a metal likely has no chance of seeing that fire or knowing what that would be like, thus what you see is a few seconds into the future, the myriad branching possibilities that are made possible by you being. I would guess, and this is a guess, that maybe burning electrum makes you resistant to atium because if you fumbled a future path you'd die, so you'd have no shadow. But I freely admit I don't recall if you can see the results of you being hurt by using atium/ectrum. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PewterAGoldF Posted September 22, 2016 Report Share Posted September 22, 2016 19 hours ago, Savanorn said: The main difference would appear to be that one is set and one is varied. I think the PoV effect of the past is because the past is set, it's happened, so you can see what it is like...you can see what you or someone else could have done and what they'd be as a result, or what you'd be, but you can't see what you could do. The future isn't set and is hard to predict even for Vessels, so a mere person burning a metal likely has no chance of seeing that fire or knowing what that would be like, thus what you see is a few seconds into the future, the myriad branching possibilities that are made possible by you being. I would guess, and this is a guess, that maybe burning electrum makes you resistant to atium because if you fumbled a future path you'd die, so you'd have no shadow. But I freely admit I don't recall if you can see the results of you being hurt by using atium/ectrum. Good points, but I still think that the POV thing is possible, in that you are not seeing the definate future but merely one of the possible futures. The "strongest" one. I think that when the Vessels see the futures they see all the possibilities branching out, some are strong possibilities and some are very weak. Obviously each person also has a huge tree of alternative past paths they could have taken, yet with gold they only see one, possibly the most significant or strong alternative possibility. Of course an alloy can act differently than and element, like how duralumin doesnt flare all metals, only those you are currently burning, while aluminum takes them all out. Do we actually know that when burning electrum you see your shadow running ahead of yourself? Is there still room to speculate on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadeshadow227 Posted September 23, 2016 Report Share Posted September 23, 2016 Electrum is basically a feedback loop. A shadow is generated showing what you are about to do, which causes a chain reaction, because knowing about the future and reacting to it changes it, creating a lot more Electrum Shadows. Of course, a regular person can't keep up because there's too much going on to keep track of. Although...if that person could use Feruchemical Zinc, that'd be a different story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan he/him Posted September 23, 2016 Report Share Posted September 23, 2016 It's actually an open question whether you really need any additional enhancement beyond just the Allomantic electrum itself to be able to meaningfully interpret the shadows. Source: Quote Kurk: Is it practical for an Oracle to get more out of electrum than Vin and Elend tried to? A: Yes. It is totally possible. Q: So if you could see your shadow wince when it turned left, you would think "Oh, Mrs. Peabody's around that corner. I probably shouldn’t turn left!" A: It is possible to squeeze more out of it than they did Personally I'm of the opinion that the whole all Allomancy has mental components thing applies to Electrum too, allowing some extra processing to be able to anticipate, at the very least, big-picture stuff. Like "oh look I get stabbed if I got that way" kind of things. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savanorn he/him Posted September 23, 2016 Report Share Posted September 23, 2016 6 hours ago, Kurkistan said: It's actually an open question whether you really need any additional enhancement beyond just the Allomantic electrum itself to be able to meaningfully interpret the shadows. Source: Personally I'm of the opinion that the whole all Allomancy has mental components thing applies to Electrum too, allowing some extra processing to be able to anticipate, at the very least, big-picture stuff. Like "oh look I get stabbed if I got that way" kind of things. Yeah. Right on. I was actually kind of surprised we didn't see more out of Electrum actually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nervousnerd he/him Posted September 25, 2016 Report Share Posted September 25, 2016 On Friday, September 23, 2016 at 8:35 PM, Savanorn said: Yeah. Right on. I was actually kind of surprised we didn't see more out of Electrum actually. Yeah. I was hoping to see an Oracle somewhere. Adding more characters might not have really added to Era 1 because they still would not have really compared to mistborn. Now that we have all these mistings around though it would be more interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savanorn he/him Posted September 25, 2016 Report Share Posted September 25, 2016 3 hours ago, nervousnerd said: Yeah. I was hoping to see an Oracle somewhere. Adding more characters might not have really added to Era 1 because they still would not have really compared to mistborn. Now that we have all these mistings around though it would be more interesting. Good point. Twinborn Oracle Feruchemical zinc could be cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarevok Posted September 25, 2016 Report Share Posted September 25, 2016 12 hours ago, nervousnerd said: Yeah. I was hoping to see an Oracle somewhere. Adding more characters might not have really added to Era 1 because they still would not have really compared to mistborn. Now that we have all these mistings around though it would be more interesting. The problem with Electrum is still that it's a gold/silver alloy, which means it's pretty expensive, which makes it hard for someone to found out they are an Oracle (even more so in era 1 when no one knew it was possible). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nervousnerd he/him Posted September 25, 2016 Report Share Posted September 25, 2016 6 hours ago, Sarevok said: The problem with Electrum is still that it's a gold/silver alloy, which means it's pretty expensive, which makes it hard for someone to found out they are an Oracle (even more so in era 1 when no one knew it was possible). That makes sense. But It seems as though that is becoming less of a problem in Elendel than it is in the surrounding areas though. Wayne mentioned how he struggled to get any gold at all when he first found out he was a bloodmaker, I wonder if there would be some more mundane job (not involving fighting) that would be particulary suited to oracles that would make it more worth trying to discover them (like coinshot messengers, etc.), Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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