How would you catch an allomantic assassin?

[Voidus]

So the release of SoS and now some chapters from Bands of Mourning have got me thinking about how Wax, as a lawman would cope in todays society, where to convict someone of a crime you need significantly more evidence than was historically required.

We have advanced techniques for identifying DNA, matching fingerprints and detecting gunshot residue.

So how would you go about proving in todays society that someone had magically pulled a nearby nail into someone's sternum?

Allomancers don't have to be anywhere near the actual instrument of murder, they leave no trace, exhibit no obvious signs and could quite easily conceal themselves in a crowd.

So how would you catch a Lurcher or Coinshot assassin?

[natc]

. . . and that's why that mistborn serial killer plotline we're apparently getting kind of scares me.

[Khyrindor he/him]

If you could prove that someone nearby the incident had such powers, that might be enough for a court.

[natc]

If you could prove that someone nearby the incident had such powers, that might be enough for a court.

Well being a steel chromium twinborn in habit of storing a lot will get you convicted quickly

Actually sounds like the perfect environment for some Phoenix Wright level chull dung logic though.

Edited January 12, 2016 by natc

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

Bronze savants with feru-copper.

 

Seeking over a large area and storing the results in copperminds.

If a crime is committed using allomancy they can go back over their records of that moment and if their Seeking is good enough they might be able to match the allomantic signature to a specific person.

 

This might be possible with mechanical allomancy too (I refuse to use the term mistrials) if you construct a device that detects allomantic pulses as bronze does and outputs the result like a seismograph (or similar). This also has the benefit of being more objective than an actual seeker.

Edited January 12, 2016 by EagleOfTheForestPath

[Voidus]

If you could prove that someone nearby the incident had such powers, that might be enough for a court.

That was another thing I was interested in, could you prove allomancy through genetic testing? Otherwise it would be possible for someone to just never reveal their abilities. And if you could would you be able to test for specific powers?

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

That was another thing I was interested in, could you prove allomancy through genetic testing? Otherwise it would be possible for someone to just never reveal their abilities. And if you could would you be able to test for specific powers?

 

Sure, feed 'em all 16 metals, have a seeker on standby and touch 'em with a nicroburst.

[Moogle]

Sure, feed 'em all 16 metals, have a seeker on standby and touch 'em with a nicroburst.

 

Duralumin doesn't burn metals you're not actively burning, so I don't think this would work. The suspect could just not burn anything.

[Quiver he/him]

I guess part of the question is 'how will science develop on Scadrial, period'. Mistborn has been posited as the Earth-like book... but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

 

Heck, Sazed himself points out that they [i[should[/i] have had radio by now, so clearly their tech isn't a one-to-one for our world

 

Which means... genetic testing, at least as we understand it, might not be a thing that happens on Scadrial. At all.

 

I sort of wonder if, perhaps, Connectivity might be used in some manner to figure out crimes. After all, someone being responsible for the death of another person seems like the kind of thing that might leave some sort of trace in the cognitive realm or something... but that just get's into paranoid theories about how metals that we don't-really-understand work.

 

(But Feruchemist detectives. That's my theory.) 

[DeadFencer]

Duralumin doesn't burn metals you're not actively burning, so I don't think this would work. The suspect could just not burn anything.

Duralumin burns itself though, so that could be detected.

[Moogle]

Duralumin burns itself though, so that could be detected.

 

Sorry, I was unclear... the proposed idea was using a Nicrosil Misting to force a possible-Misting to burn metals next to a Seeker. I was just saying Allomantic duralumin doesn't cause you to burn metals you're not already burning, so nicrosil probably won't either. Because of this, the method probably can't detect Mistings who aren't burning metals.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

outside of having a coinshot's finger prints or some other forensic tie it would be difficult. Even a Seeker who can identify a specific allomantic signature, if such a thing exists for a specific allomancer, is still a "my word against yours". While they may be called upon as a witness, they wouldn't be forensic evidence. 

 

Now, if allomancers and other users of investiture do give off specific signatures to their use of investiture, and that is detectable by a powerful/skilled enough bronze user, then it may be possible now or in the future for Southern Scadrian's Metal-tech to have a sensor or detector rig that can record investiture usage in an area and then you could with a warrant force a subject to burn their metal and record that usage. Kind of link matching shell casings for guns. 

[Pathfinder]

I think we are making this problem far more complicated than it needs to be. A coinshot using a coin to kill someone is no different than a bullet. You use the coin (assuming no finger prints) to track down where it changed hands (like the bank for instance), to narrow down the pool of suspects. Also by examining the body you can figure out the trajectory, force and how it entered an exited which would determine where the culprit was and that he was in fact a coin shot instead of a lurcher. Couple that with witness testimony would hopefully find you your killer. I think it is very possible to figure out who mistborn/misting killers are with more mundane(our world) ways of locating. Just need knowledge of how the magic system works to then apply it to forensics. 

[natc]

They don't necessarily have to have ever made contact or dealt with the projectile though. Hell you can probably stand on the other side of a wooden wall and force the nails or chunks of wall to smash into them with enough force while smoking a pipe with your hands in your pockets.

Also, would it be possible to accuse for use of emotional allomancy to cause disorientation leading to unplanned suicide or accidents?

[Pathfinder]

They don't necessarily have to have ever made contact or dealt with the projectile though. Hell you can probably stand on the other side of a wooden wall and force the nails or chunks of wall to smash into them with enough force while smoking a pipe with your hands in your pockets.

Also, would it be possible to accuse for use of emotional allomancy to cause disorientation leading to unplanned suicide or accidents?

Examine the stress on the object ripped out and the trajectory that led it to hit the target. Then using geometry, determine the angel due to the origin of the pull. Then examine buildings for possible anchors in the direction of the origin of the pull. Once the stress on materials is discovered, the anchor's used can be determined. Then by examining the stress on the anchors, vs the object pulled, it is possible to determine the location of the puller. Then once again use eye witness accounts, or if this is present day, cameras in the location to try to determine who was there at that time. 

 

That would be harder but not unheard of. Through search of the persons affects and a re-creation of their lives leading up the suicide, it would be possible to determine if there was a constant link. So every time the suicide victim seemed distressed to his or her friends, where was she/he? Who was around? What was occurring in that individual's life? The rioter or soother needs to be near by every single time they use emotional allomancy on the person. That kind of effect to drive someone to kill themselves wouldn't happen in one day. So that increases the chance of identification. 

Edited January 12, 2016 by Pathfinder

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

That is a solid circumstantial evidence case. 

 

My thought was more related to the "smoking gun" type evidence, DNA, Blood, finger prints. Those are much harder to achieve and given our current judicial climate, you'd have to have a basically air tight circumstantial case to convict without a shred of direct physical evidence. I'd imagine similar thoughts on Scadrial since they are supposed to somewhat mirror our world a bit. 

[Pathfinder]

That is a solid circumstantial evidence case. 

 

My thought was more related to the "smoking gun" type evidence, DNA, Blood, finger prints. Those are much harder to achieve and given our current judicial climate, you'd have to have a basically air tight circumstantial case to convict without a shred of direct physical evidence. I'd imagine similar thoughts on Scadrial since they are supposed to somewhat mirror our world a bit. 

But all those things come up as a "smoking gun" a lot less than you think. DNA can be damaged or fudged. Finger prints are difficult to get. Same thing with blood. Those on their own do not necessarily convict someone. It isn't like the television shows where someone finds a hair and goes "ah ha! we have him!". It certainly helps, but you still have to establish motive, means, and show the criminal was there through witness accounts (as in individual was not where they said they were at the time of the murder). DNA, blood, fingers prints can all be placed. It is not an automatic win for the prosecution. 

[Fatebreaker he/him]

What'll probably happen is that eventually people will want to enstate mandatory registration of individuals who can use allomancy. Once it's been proven that allomancy was used in the murder, they'll be able to check the database and then use that as a starting place for suspects.

While they're clearing people on the list they can also begin looking for unregistered allomancers. Professional allomantic assassins are essentially the same as specialists among the criminal community today, so there would be ways to track them down. Specific MO's, certain information brokers who keep tabs on allomancers, etc.

One tricky scenario is when you have a regular civilian with allomantic abilities who isn't registered commit a crime. Then you'd just have to catch him like a normal criminal, surveillance footage from the area, door to door, people with possible ties, etc.

Edited January 12, 2016 by Fatebreaker

[Voidus]

The geometry is only going to be precise enough for an approximate location, and then only enough to establish a line, not a point. Anyone along that line could be the culprit and hiding in a crowd would be pretty easy. Yes being in a crowd means you'd still be a suspect but other than that what evidence could there possibly be? That you are a coinshot/lurcher? That's circumstantial. That you had motive? Almost impossible to ascertain for an entire crowd and again circumstantial at best.
 

But all those things come up as a "smoking gun" a lot less than you think. DNA can be damaged or fudged. Finger prints are difficult to get. Same thing with blood. Those on their own do not necessarily convict someone. It isn't like the television shows where someone finds a hair and goes "ah ha! we have him!". It certainly helps, but you still have to establish motive, means, and show the criminal was there through witness accounts (as in individual was not where they said they were at the time of the murder). DNA, blood, fingers prints can all be placed. It is not an automatic win for the prosecution. 

No but they're far more solid evidence than anything else, DNA in particular. If you can prove that somebody was at the scene when they said they weren't then that's a solid start. But a lurcher/coinshot doesn't care if they're directly at the scene, they're not doing anything that's obvious, there's no way to link an individual to the crime. All you can possibly do is place your suspect at the scene, but the terrifying thing is that unlike say a gun, an assasination with Allomancy can be performed in the middle of a crowd with no problems. Sure your lurcher suspect may have been at the scene but so were 80 other people, they have no reason to act suspiciously, no reason to flee the scene, no reason to do anything at all.

And there might not even be an obvious trajectory, wait til the target is at a train station then pull on some loose change in their pocket to yank/shove them in front of the train. No way to prove that that was deliberate homicide in any way.

[Oversleep]

Bronze savants with feru-copper.

 

Seeking over a large area and storing the results in copperminds.

If a crime is committed using allomancy they can go back over their records of that moment and if their Seeking is good enough they might be able to match the allomantic signature to a specific person.

 

This might be possible with mechanical allomancy too (I refuse to use the term mistrials) if you construct a device that detects allomantic pulses as bronze does and outputs the result like a seismograph (or similar). This also has the benefit of being more objective than an actual seeker.

Welcome to the world of paying a Coppercloud to cover your tracks. Unless police Seekers receive Hemalurgic spikes to augment their Bronze, but that is unlikely.

 

I think we are making this problem far more complicated than it needs to be. A coinshot using a coin to kill someone is no different than a bullet. You use the coin (assuming no finger prints) to track down where it changed hands (like the bank for instance), to narrow down the pool of suspects. Also by examining the body you can figure out the trajectory, force and how it entered an exited which would determine where the culprit was and that he was in fact a coin shot instead of a lurcher. Couple that with witness testimony would hopefully find you your killer. I think it is very possible to figure out who mistborn/misting killers are with more mundane(our world) ways of locating. Just need knowledge of how the magic system works to then apply it to forensics. 

The problem with Coinshots/Lurchers is that they can kill without drawing any attention to them. For example, Coinshot Steelpushes himself to the top of the building, flares steel to pinpoint the target beneath him and then Pushes on chandelier to drop it on his target. While police may figure out that a Coinshot was involved, there aren't many people on the roofs of buildings. Allomancer doesn't even have to be in the same room to kill. He doesn't even need to enter the building.

And good luck with tracking the coins... Unlike bullets, there are a ton of coins around, everybody has them and noone registers coins.

Well, I can see paper money coming...

 

Examine the stress on the object ripped out and the trajectory that led it to hit the target. Then using geometry, determine the angel due to the origin of the pull. Then examine buildings for possible anchors in the direction of the origin of the pull. Once the stress on materials is discovered, the anchor's used can be determined. Then by examining the stress on the anchors, vs the object pulled, it is possible to determine the location of the puller. Then once again use eye witness accounts, or if this is present day, cameras in the location to try to determine who was there at that time. 

 

That would be harder but not unheard of. Through search of the persons affects and a re-creation of their lives leading up the suicide, it would be possible to determine if there was a constant link. So every time the suicide victim seemed distressed to his or her friends, where was she/he? Who was around? What was occurring in that individual's life? The rioter or soother needs to be near by every single time they use emotional allomancy on the person. That kind of effect to drive someone to kill themselves wouldn't happen in one day. So that increases the chance of identification. 

With enough anchors and little projectiles the subtle Pull/Push on the anchors would balance the sudden movement of the projectile. There would be virtually no stress on the anchors, the Misting would stay firmly in place. In crowded place you couldn't pinpoint him. The eyewitnesses can describe the person only if they saw him do something (like shooting a gun). A person standing in place won't draw any attention. What's worse, even in the cases where there are many eyewitnesses and the culprit draw attention to himself, people tend to forget and remember many details wrong.

What'll probably happen is that eventually people will want to enstate mandatory registration of individuals who can use allomancy. Once it's been proven that allomancy was used in the murder, they'll be able to check the database and then use that as a starting place for suspects.

While they're clearing people on the list they can also begin looking for unregistered allomancers. Professional allomantic assassins are essentially the same as specialists among the criminal community today, so there would be ways to track them down. Specific MO's, certain information brokers who keep tabs on allomancers, etc.

One tricky scenario is when you have a regular civilian with allomantic abilities who isn't registered commit a crime. Then you'd just have to catch him like a normal criminal, surveillance footage from the area, door to door, people with possible ties, etc.

I can see Metalborn Registraction Act thing going on... How would you force somebody to reveal himself being Feruchemist? You can't force anybody to store. The same problem with Allomancy, you can't just force somebody to swallow something and even if you manage that, there is no way to force him to burn.

Not to mention the social issues with registrating people only because they are Metalborn.

For more problems like catching Metalborn killers check out the topic "Everyday life on Shardworlds" in my sign

Edited January 12, 2016 by Oversleep

[Stormgate he/him]

Registering Metalborn sounds like what people want(ed) to do with the mutants in X-Men.

[DreamEternal]

Registering Metalborn sounds like what people want(ed) to do with the mutants in X-Men.

A perfectly reasonable measure everyone hates for no good reason?

[Pathfinder]

The geometry is only going to be precise enough for an approximate location, and then only enough to establish a line, not a point. Anyone along that line could be the culprit and hiding in a crowd would be pretty easy. Yes being in a crowd means you'd still be a suspect but other than that what evidence could there possibly be? That you are a coinshot/lurcher? That's circumstantial. That you had motive? Almost impossible to ascertain for an entire crowd and again circumstantial at best.

 

No but they're far more solid evidence than anything else, DNA in particular. If you can prove that somebody was at the scene when they said they weren't then that's a solid start. But a lurcher/coinshot doesn't care if they're directly at the scene, they're not doing anything that's obvious, there's no way to link an individual to the crime. All you can possibly do is place your suspect at the scene, but the terrifying thing is that unlike say a gun, an assasination with Allomancy can be performed in the middle of a crowd with no problems. Sure your lurcher suspect may have been at the scene but so were 80 other people, they have no reason to act suspiciously, no reason to flee the scene, no reason to do anything at all.

And there might not even be an obvious trajectory, wait til the target is at a train station then pull on some loose change in their pocket to yank/shove them in front of the train. No way to prove that that was deliberate homicide in any way.

 

Except for a coinshot there would need to be a clear line of fire from shooter to target limiting your pool, and if it was a lurcher I already pointed out using the stress on the anchors and the amount of damage done would help determine at what point of the "line" stood the lurcher. And motive is not impossible to ascertain. Examine the target's life, who they know and interact with. Based on the crime scene we would know what we would be working with, whether it is a coinshot, lurcher, or mistborn. Mistborn are rare enough that they could be outright discounted, or the pool is so narrow as to point the finger right at them. ALL evidence taken by itself is circumstantial. All DNA says is at some point you were at the location, and the time it takes to collect it degrades the accuracy. It is the gathering of multiple forms of evidence that convicts criminals. A large part of that is research. Research into the victim, who would want that individual killed, how would that murder be accomplished, and applied to how the murder was actually done. That is how murderers are caught. If DNA was so full proof then it would be country wide mandated that everyone has to provide a DNA sample and thus crime would be extinct. But that's not how it works. 

 

 

Welcome to the world of paying a Coppercloud to cover your tracks. Unless police Seekers receive Hemalurgic spikes to augment their Bronze, but that is unlikely.

 

The problem with Coinshots/Lurchers is that they can kill without drawing any attention to them. For example, Coinshot Steelpushes himself to the top of the building, flares steel to pinpoint the target beneath him and then Pushes on chandelier to drop it on his target. While police may figure out that a Coinshot was involved, there aren't many people on the roofs of buildings. Allomancer doesn't even have to be in the same room to kill. He doesn't even need to enter the building.

 

With enough anchors and little projectiles the subtle Pull/Push on the anchors would balance the sudden movement of the projectile. There would be virtually no stress on the anchors, the Misting would stay firmly in place. In crowded place you couldn't pinpoint him. The eyewitnesses can describe the person only if they saw him do something (like shooting a gun). A person standing in place won't draw any attention. What's worse, even in the cases where there are many eyewitnesses and the culprit draw attention to himself, people tend to forget and remember many details wrong.

I can see Metalborn Registraction Act thing going on... How would you force somebody to reveal himself being Feruchemist? You can't force anybody to store. The same problem with Allomancy, you can't just force somebody to swallow something and even if you manage that, there is no way to force him to burn.

Not to mention the social issues with registrating people only because they are Metalborn.

For more problems like catching Metalborn killers check out the topic "Everyday life on Shardworlds" in my sign

Yet by your own logic, a person can get an unregistered sniper rifle, get to the roof of a building, and shoot someone and no one will be able to catch that individual. Yet they do all the time. You mean to tell me no one is going to notice a coinshot flying up the side of a building? Not even the occupants of said building? And again pushing on a chandelier allows the forensics to determine origin of push which would lead them to the top of the building which there they could locate your wonderful magical smoking gun of DNA, finger prints, and so on. If DNA, finger prints, and foot prints were the only way a person could be convicted, then what do you think people did before those means even existed?

Edited January 12, 2016 by Pathfinder

[Stormgate he/him]

They could also measure how much force it would take to move said chandelier, and use that to determine the strength of the Allomancer. Then they take their theoretical list of Metalborn and go to all the suspects and measure their strength and hope they haven't gone savant since then.

[Voidus]

Coinshots don't need a clear line between themselves and the target, just between the weapon and the target, same as a Lurcher.
You don't need to use any anchors at all, and if you did the easiest anchor would be one directly behind you, which would not narrow it down at all.

DNA isn't foolproof but it's the closest thing we have, due to how our crimes are commited (Generally in solitude, so that there are no witnesses) establishing that someone was there means they either committed or witnessed the murder, so yeah pretty close to foolproof. Get DNA off of a murder weapon and you have a very strong case.