theory Thoughts about Enhancement metals

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

Hi, in this thread I'd like to take a deeper look at how I think allomantic enhancement metals work.

I'll start my theorizing with Duralumin, because that's where the most relevant sources seem to be.

 

Firstly, though it's pretty obvious, the faster you burn a metal, the more power you get. When you flare a metal, it will burn away faster, but you do get more power out of it, even more so when burned together with Duralumin. Here's the relevant WoB 

Metal burning speed is proportional to power withdrawn.

 

Second, we need to note that a quantity of metal has a predefined amount of power output. Whether you burn away a nugget of Steel at a regular burn in an hour, or by flaring it for 15 minutes, or with Duralumin in a few seconds, you'll always have expended the same amount of energy pushing on metal, as said in this WoB 

 

Q: When burning duralumin to enhance another metal’s burn, does a mistborn get only the sum total of the power of the other metal in a single burst or does he get more than just the sum?

 

A: I would have to make sure and look, but my original intention was the sum.

 

Q: Ok, because the thing I was wondering about is Elend with the duralumin atium burn because it seemed more than just the sum of a bead of atium.

 

A: Right, but the thing you have to keep in mind is the thing I’m kind of looking at having it all happen in a moment.  So let’s say you have enough steel to burn for an hour.  If you reduce a plane to a point it’s infinite, does that make sense.   And so it’s very hard to say is it the sum when you are going from a defined amount into a point, I mean a point is infinitely small.  Does that make sense?

 

By combining those two elements, I arrived at the conclusion that what Duralumin does is vastly increase the speed at which a Mistborn can burn metals, this won't be a revelation to many of you, as this has basically been established here on 17thShard already.

If you further combine it with this 

 

A normal human on Scadrial is less connected to Preservation's Investiture than a Misting, who is less connected than a Mistborn, who is less connected than Mistborn who has consumed Lerasium (the direct Physical essence of Preservation), who is less connected than a person using the a pool of liquid Investiture like the Well of Ascension.

 

you can start theorizing about the effect of Duralumin of an Allomancer's connection to Preservation. However, since Duralumin mistings don't get any benefit from their ability and don't temporarily become Mistborn every time they burn Duralumin, I think it's safe to say that Duralumin doesn't directly increase one's connection to Preservation.

Brandon has repeatedly compared allomancy drawing on the power of preservation as a tube. Using that image, I propose that burning Duralumin sort of stretches said tube so that it becomes wider, allowing more of Preservation's power to flow through into the Physical realm.

 

So when burning Pewter for instance, it normally sends a signal of a certain strength to the Spiritual realm and a corresponding amount of power returns and enhances the Allomancer's body. Now the next part can go one of two ways, personally I favor the second. With the stretched tube, when burning pewter much faster a larger/stronger signal can be sent, requesting a larger amount of power. Or, the regular signal gets sent, but because of the stretched tube a much greater amount of power comes back through, and because power=burn rate, the pewter gets consumed that much faster.

 

The question is how this translates to Aluminum. The common sense opposite of stretching the tube wider would be squeezing it shut, explaining why you can't draw any power. What it doesn't explain is how it causes metal reserves to disappear. So let's go another way and assume that Aluminum also stretches the Preservation-garden-hose.

 

If you consider Duralumin as pushing more power through from the Spiritual realm, then Aluminum can be considered as pulling power into the Spiritual. So when you burn metal it happens as in the first model mentioned earlier: Aluminum pulls on (foreign) power in your body (whether it's a form of investiture, like the withering from a shade I've seen mentioned before, or more commonly a focus like metals) forcing you to burn any metal reserves you have. Due to the Aluminum-stretched tube, the signal sent out is larger/stronger than usual, so the reserves get drained immensely fast. But since you're pulling power into the Spiritual realm, any power that gets sent back in return also gets pulled into the Spiritual realm.

 

The same logic applies to Chromium and Nicrosil, but in the case of Chromium, since you're affecting another allomancer the power doesn't affect it's own source, as it does with Aluminum, so it doesn't destroy itself.

 

Does this make any sense to you, or am I fooling myself here?

 

One last point to ponder: The metals that make up the enhancement quadrant for Allomancy are the ones that make up the Spiritual quadrant in Feruchemy. (Which to me reinforces the idea that those are precisely the metalminds that have the potential to enhance Allomancy for Twinborn, but that's a subject for another thread.)

Edit: made the font larger for ease of reading

Edited November 14, 2015 by EagleOfTheForestPath

[KidWayne he/him]

I think this has some merit, but I would amend your metaphorical example a bit.

Imagine a PVC pipe, capped on both ends, in a vacuum. The pipe is filled by metals, since metal unlocks preservation's power and is consumed in the process. Both ends of the pipe are usually closed; however, when either side is opened, the metaphorical vacuum sucks out the metal/power. You seem to say that the "push" side is the normative exit point; however, when aluminum is used, the "pull" side is opened instead causing the metal/power to burn away uselessly.

I've tried to illustrate this below. I even included a shutter valve to allow for the various ways allomancy usually consumes metal (regular, flare, and duralumin). This helps accommodate what you call stretching the tube.

It's not a perfect example, but it's close to the way we think of gasoline in a car. The gas doesn't make the car go by itself. Instead, it releases the power of combustion when it comes into contact with fire (i.e. the spark from a spark plug). That combustion (i.e. small explosion contained within your engine cylinder) pushes the piston head down which turns a rod (cam shaft), which turns the differential gears in your transmission, which turns your car's axles, which turns the wheels. So, an allomancer is like the car and the metal is like the gas.

It seems to me that aluminum simply renders all the other metals inert. That makes more sense to me than having aluminum burn the metal in a way that pulls the the power away so that provides no benefit to the allomancer. To go back to the car example, it makes more sense for the aluminum to render the other metals inert (like putting Bromotrifluoromethane/Halon in your gas tank which would not allow the gasoline to ignite) and then it releases all the now useless metal stores in the same way that duralumin does (i.e. very quickly).

Aluminum would better be explained by a comparison to a wet blanket thrown over a pile of dry wood. It makes the most sense for a Leecher/Chromium user to impose an extinguishing force/agent on another allomancer instead of actually burning the other allomancer's metals. That's just my opinion though.

This is a good theory. It got me thinking about how this could work. Although, a cynical part of me thinks that all of this works in whatever way Brandon needs it to work in order to fit the story he's trying to tell. Somehow I doubt there is a unfied theory of alomancy that will make this all work in a way that follows consistent principals.

Edited November 9, 2015 by KidWayne

[Plaeggs he/him]

And if I understand your point correctly, you can think of each metal as its own separate tube. The enhancement metals affect all of the tubes that an allomancer possesses. Going back to the first analogy, a mistborn has more connection due to its more tubes.

 

On a side note, on the workings of the pushing enhancement metals (Duralumin and Nicrosil). For clarification, correct me if I'm wrong, if you think of allomancy as a soundboard with a bunch of sliders, the different sliders representing different metals and how hard you are burning them, with the highest possible flaring being the highest point the slider can go, then duralumin can be said to do 2 different things: first of all, it connects all of the metals so that they all burn at the same speed. It also raises the cap on how hard you can burn metals and slides all of your metals up at once such that they all burn so quickly that they appear to disappear in an instant, or very close to that.

 

I am seeing a couple holes in my analogy but I think that the general idea is clear.

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

And if I understand your point correctly, you can think of each metal as its own separate tube. The enhancement metals affect all of the tubes that an allomancer possesses. Going back to the first analogy, a mistborn has more connection due to its more tubes.

 

 

I always saw it as one single tube. Kind of like a soda fountain, investiture is the water and the different metals just add different flavors of syrup.

 

To carry on the analogy, a normal burn and flaring are how far you open the tap, with flaring being all the way open. Duralumin would be similar to bashing the tap with a hammer.

 

@ KidWayne

I love that diagram, and the addition of an aperture, you get a cake for that (it's delicious and moist).

Although I do think the aperture should be located between 'Preservation' and 'metal reserve'.

 

About the Push and Pull ends of the metal reserve, it's an intriguing idea. Though we know that burned metals are vaporized, we don't actually know where they go afterwards.

 

The reason my theory had Aluminum (and Chromium) force-burn the metals was that it was a way to convert them into investiture instead of a physical substance. Since we know that Aluminum can cleanse the body of other forms of investiture as well (quote below), it seemed more logical to me that removing investiture were all Aluminum does, instead of investiture and metals. Unfounded, of course, but I think you can see my reasoning?

 

DOUGLAS

What benefit does an aluminum savant get? Yes, I know this would normally never happen because aluminum burns itself up. Suppose a mad scientist with a willing Mistborn test subject shoved a feeding tube down the Mistborn's throat to pump in a continuous stream of aluminum, replenishing it steadily so there's always a new unburned supply. Add another tube to pump out excess water if necessary. What would he discover? Alternatively, what would Sazed with his Shard-granted knowledge know?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Ha, that IS a little silly of a method. However, on the extreme end of aluminum, I have in the notes the possibility of cleansing the spirit of unwanted effects of other investitures. You'd get really good at this, and maybe even be able to cleanse the body of other impurities.

 

[Stormgate he/him]

@ KidWayne
I love that diagram, and the addition of an aperture, you get a cake for that (it's delicious and moist).
About the Push and Pull ends of the metal reserve, it's an intriguing idea. Though we know that burned metals are vaporized, we don't actually know where they go afterwards.

The cake is a lie!

 
Aluminum and Chromium can't get rid of the investiture, since the metal is the pipeline. Get rid of the metal, no investiture involved.
Although, I am currently fascinated with Aluminum's ability to wipe out Investiture. If an Aluminum Gnat with Breaths were to burn aluminum, would their Breath count go to zero?

Edited December 4, 2015 by Stormgate

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

Aluminum and Chromium can't get rid of the investiture, since the metal is the pipeline. Get rid of the metal, no investiture involved.

Although, I am currently fascinated with Aluminum's ability to wipe out Investiture. If an Aluminum Gnat with Breaths were to burn aluminum, would their Breath count go to zero?

Could you rephrase that first part? I'm not quite getting what point you're trying to make.

 

I think it's possible that you lose breaths by burning aluminum, but not always. I believe it depends on how much you consider the breaths to be part of yourself. If you consider the dozen breaths you got a week ago as a foreign entity, aluminum would probably banish them. If you've got a dozen breaths that you've held on to for a decade, have gotten completely used to them and see them as part of who you are, I think it's likely that burning aluminum would leave them alone.

[Oversleep]

It looks like a good topic to ask this question:
Why burning aluminium destroys all of the metal swallowed, but burning duraluminium superflares only those burning at the time?

[Stormgate he/him]

Could you rephrase that first part? I'm not quite getting what point you're trying to make.

 

I think it's possible that you lose breaths by burning aluminum, but not always. I believe it depends on how much you consider the breaths to be part of yourself. If you consider the dozen breaths you got a week ago as a foreign entity, aluminum would probably banish them. If you've got a dozen breaths that you've held on to for a decade, have gotten completely used to them and see them as part of who you are, I think it's likely that burning aluminum would leave them alone.

Basically, in this case, aluminum does not consume investiture, unless it burns all metals in duralumin style and absorbs the investiture released. The metals are like Aons: the Aons have no actual power, they simply serve as a way to get the power from wherever it is into a usable form and where you need it.

[The Ninja Yodeler he/him]

If you've got a dozen breaths that you've held on to for a decade, have gotten completely used to them and see them as part of who you are, I think it's likely that burning aluminum would leave them alone.

So, along tht same vein. If someone from Nalthis burned aluminum, but only had their single Breath they were born with, the aluminum would do nothing? Even though its a form of Investiture? How come that isnt also true for an allomancer who views the metals as part of themselves, no matter the amount of time spent inside of them? I know its all just a guessing game really, just genuinely curious.

[Stormgate he/him]

I propose that they don't regard the metal as part of themselves, similar to us regarding a hammer. Theirs is more useful, but I would feel similar connection to the metal that gave me power.

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

It looks like a good topic to ask this question:

Why burning aluminium destroys all of the metal swallowed, but burning duraluminium superflares only those burning at the time?

 

I think that's in the annotations for TFE somewhere, but I might be mistaken. Mr. Sanderson basically just needed it to work like that.

If aluminum only got rid of metals actively being burned, it would be even more useless. Couldn't be used to "incapacitate" captures allomancers for instance, like the inquisitors did with Vin in Kredik Shaw.

 

 

So, along tht same vein. If someone from Nalthis burned aluminum, but only had their single Breath they were born with, the aluminum would do nothing? Even though its a form of Investiture? How come that isnt also true for an allomancer who views the metals as part of themselves, no matter the amount of time spent inside of them? I know its all just a guessing game really, just genuinely curious.

 

Might have something to do with breath being (mainly) in the Spiritual realm and metal being (mainly) in the Physical.

Edited December 5, 2015 by EagleOfTheForestPath

[Oversleep]

I think that's in the annotations for TFE somewhere, but I might be mistaken. Mr. Sanderson basically just needed it to work like that.

If aluminum only got rid of metals actively being burned, it would be even more useless. Couldn't be used to "incapacitate" captures allomancers for instance, like the inquisitors did with Vin in Kredik Shaw.

I will look for annotations then. Aluminium is not that useless, suppose you try a new allomantic shop and you're not sure if they have good quality alloys or maybe you are afraid that somebody switched your vial with another with very bad alloys in it which could kill you. So first you swallow aluminium, then another metal and if you realise it's a bad alloy, you just burn aluminium to not only get rid of it, but also to cleanse yourself from it's effects. It was stated that it's what aluminium does.

Well, chromium would be better, but I suppose TLR didn't want to give his Inquisitors a weapon which could get used against him.