theory Atium alloy powers

[Ari he/him]

So, we've been having some recent Word of Brandons about how the sixteen base metals in Allomancy can be alloyed with any of the God Metals.

 

So far to date, we have precisely one demonstrated use of one of these alloys, in Mistborn: Final Empire, Vin burns Malatium, an alloy of Atium and gold, and it allows her to see others' past selves. However, this power may be more revealing than we think- for ten of the allomantic metals, the "internal" and "external" powers vary wildly in how they work, and I think we can extrapolate for those metals what happens based on Malatium.

 

My current theory is that alloying Atium with a base metal switches whether it is internal or external, and for most metals it does so without changing the nature of the power. For nine of the metals, this produces a predictable effect. For six of the metals, I expect this would give them a completely new power, as there's already a clean external or internal version of their existing power. Electrum doesn't seem to fit this theory very well as far as I can tell, which I will go into later.

 

As a reminder, here are the base metals:

 

Steel (Physical External Pushing) - Coinshot

Iron (Physical External Pulling) - Lurcher

Pewter (Physical Internal Pushing) - Thug

Tin (Physical Internal Pulling) - Tineye

 

Brass (Mental External Pushing) - Soother

Zinc (Mental External Pulling) - Rioter

Bronze (Mental Internal Pushing) - Seeker

Copper (Mental Internal Pulling) - Smoker

 

Nicrosil (Enhancement External Pushing) - Nicroburst

Chromium (Enhancement External Pulling) - Leecher

Duralumin (Enhancement Internal Pushing) - Gnat

Aluminium (Enhancement Internal Pulling) - Gnat

 

Bendalloy (Temporal External Pushing) - Slider

Cadmium (Temporal External Pulling) - Pulser

Electrum (Temporal Internal Pushing) - Oracle

Gold (Temporal Internal Pulling) - Augur

 

Here is what I expect their counterparts to do:

 

Atium-Steel: Push on metals inside your own body

Atium-Iron: Pull on metals inside your own body

Atium-Pewter: Enhance others' physical abilities (by touching them? Or perhaps in a bubble?)

Atium-Tin: Enhance others' senses

 

Atium-Brass: Soothe your own emotions

Atium-Zinc: Riot your own emotions

Atium-Copper*: Smoke feruchemical pulses?

Atium-Bronze*: Seek feruchemical pulses?

 

Atium-enhancement metals: Absolutely no idea at this stage.

 

Atium-Bendalloy: Speed up your own personal time (ie. no bubble)

Atium-admium: Slow down your own personal time

Atium-Electrum: See others' futures? Allow others to see their futures?

Malatium: See others pasts (confirmed)

 

Atium-iron and atium-steel would, if I'm correct, result in rather gnat-like powers for most Allomancers. (Those powers could maybe be useful for Kandra?) Atium-electrum seems to be a fault in the system, as base atium already allows the person burning the metal to see other people's futures. It's possible that Atium-electrum could allow other people to see their own futures, however then it diverges from Malatium for no good reason. It seems to be the biggest hole in this theory to me.

 

I expect for the Atium enhancement metals and external Atium mental metals that as the existing powers either externalise and internalise very cleanly in the case of the enhancement quadrant, or externalise and internalise based on pulling/pushing in the mental quadrant, that these metals would display completely new powers instead, that vary on the exact same way as their base metals do. I'd guess that perhaps Atium allows copper and bronze to smoke and seek feruchemists, but I may be way off-base there.

 

If I'm correct that alloying a base metal with Atium switches whether the metal is considered Internal or External, I suspect that alloying base metals with other god metals may have similar rotational effects on the chart of powers- so some might inverse Pulling and Pushing, and some might even rotate or flip the quadrants, turning a physical metal into a mental one, for instance.

 

There are also other possibilities to what's going on. One is that there's a third trait to allomantic powers that's hidden within the table, and that all the enhancement metals have the same state for that trait, wheras all the physical and temporal metals vary based on whether they're internal or external, and that Atium alloys actually flip that trait. I'm not sure that's a cleaner explanation, personally, but thought it worth mentioning.

 

Thoughts? Cleanup? Feedback? WoBs?

[natc]

Seeing others' futures can't be atium-electrum, because pure atium does that

Malatium can actually also be argued as an internal metal, because it is essentially an additional sense like electrum and gold. On the other hand it also reads other people's connections rather than your own . . .

[Sam Script he/him]

I'm always confused with relationship between these four metals: Gold, Electrum, Atium, Malatium. Their effects seems to get wrong, maybe just a unrecoverable mistake Brandon did in his early writing era, the time when Cosmere or Allomancy system hadn't been fully completed, but the chance is pretty low, for his style of planning things well.

But it's also annoying of imperfect pairing effects, for an OCD XD

[Yata he/him]

I'm always confused with relationship between these four metals: Gold, Electrum, Atium, Malatium. Their effects seems to get wrong, maybe just a unrecoverable mistake Brandon did in his early writing era, the time when Cosmere or Allomancy system hadn't been fully completed, but the chance is pretty low, for his style of planning things well.

But it's also annoying of imperfect pairing effects, for an OCD XD

Gold: Show your other possible self based on different living paths, here I will call it "Gold Shadow".

Electrum (gold Alloy): Show your possible future.

 

Atium: Show future action of everyone near you.

Malatium (alloy Gold-Atium): Show you the  "gold Shadows" of everyone near you.

 

The Electrum effect neutralize the Atium power because if you know your future you may change it constantly (like two atium users in combat).

While the relationship Gold-Malatium is that the Malatium is actually a "reverse gold" projected to the outside target instead of the user.... It's our only example of Atium Alloy but seems that every alloy Atium-NormalMetal twist the effect of the NormalMetal in some ways.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Yata

[Ari he/him]

Seeing others' futures can't be atium-electrum, because pure atium does that

Malatium can actually also be argued as an internal metal, because it is essentially an additional sense like electrum and gold. On the other hand it also reads other people's connections rather than your own . . .

 

Your first point is addressed in my post. That's the one thing that having Atium switch internal/external effects doesn't explain: what exactly would it do to Electrum given that the base effect of Atium is basically an external version of Electrum. Arguably it could make others view their own futures, but then it's inconsistent with Malatium.

 

Good point that arguably Malatium is instead an internal Pushing metal rather than an internal Pulling metal like gold. That would also make a certain amount of sense.

 

 

I'm always confused with relationship between these four metals: Gold, Electrum, Atium, Malatium. Their effects seems to get wrong, maybe just a unrecoverable mistake Brandon did in his early writing era, the time when Cosmere or Allomancy system hadn't been fully completed, but the chance is pretty low, for his style of planning things well.

But it's also annoying of imperfect pairing effects, for an OCD XD

 

Gold and electrum make sense together. It's Atium and Malatium that don't seem to make sense, mostly because you'd expect Atium's effect to be granted by an external temporal metal, rather than a god metal, and because Malatium seems to be to gold what Atium is to Electrum. Basically, Atium helping you see the future doesn't make sense in terms of base metals.

[Pagerunner he/him]

I like the concept of "filling in the gaps," especially with Copper/Bronze alloys affecting Feruchemy. (Although I personally think that Copper and Bronze already have those abilities, but no one has discovered them yet.) That's keeping in line with how Malatium fills in a gap in the Temporal powers. But I think there is a deeper pattern than just internal/external flip going on, related to how atium and lerasium actually work. We've seen applications for each of these metals, but we know that neither metal has been used to its full potential. (i.e. if you knew what you were doing, you could get other abilities out of pure atium or pure lerasium, no alloys needed.)

 

First, there is some pertinent info included in the Table of Allomantic Metals on alloys:

Atium: Pure Atium grants the Allomancer an expansive vision of the future and enhances the mind's ability to accept, process, and hold information. In alloy form, it produces various expanded mental and temporal effects.

 

Lerasium: Pure lerasium transforms a person into an Allomancer or drastically improves their Allomantic powers. In alloy form, it produces various expanded physical and enhancement effects, including the creation of Mistings.

 

It looks like all atium alloys will either have mental or temporal effects, not physical or enhancement (which are filled by Lerasium alloys). So if an Iron-atium alloy (for example) has a mental or temporal effect, then I don't know how we'd go about using its normal Allomantic power to figure out its atium-alloy's power. But, why are they divided the way they are? Why don't atium alloys give physical effects? Why don't lerasium alloys give temporal effects?

 

Now, I'm going to extrapolate a bit, but it seems like atium's abilities (which, again, haven't yet been fully explored) have to deal with accessing the Spiritual Realm, which is a major component of viewing the future. When Elend burned duralumin and atium, he looked into the Spiritual Realm; just regularly burning atium, however, only gives you enough of a glimpse to see the immediate future of those around you. So, what other Spiritual manipulations can be accomplished that produce Mental or Temporal effects? Identity manipulations, like Soul-Stamping in The Emperor's Soul, might be possible by "changing" something that happened in the past. Connection, another Spiritual property, can be used to communicate directly with someone's mind. (We get some in-depth realmatics of Connection in Mistborn: Secret History, but I'll stay away from spoilery details for now.) Possibly looking at Connections someone else has, to learn specific information about their past (which, hey, sounds a lot like malatium!).

 

What about lerasium alloys? Lerasium alters your spiritweb to give you Allomancy. If you knew how to use it, though, what other alterations could you pull off? Remember, Hemalurgy steals a piece of someone else's spiritweb and tacks it on to yours; if lerasium can alter your own spiritweb, you could also give yourself strength, senses, or other attributes that can be stolen with Hemalurgy. So, Physical (modifying your body) or Enhancement (modifying your magical abilities) have both occurred by altering your own spiritweb.

 

I've considered that anything that can be done Allomatically by a god metal alloy can also be done by the god metal itself. It's just that there's so much potential with the god metals, and they're so rare, so Mistborn just use the first and easiest application they discover. Alloys block out other applications, so a previously undiscovered application can be used. Not sure how strong I stand by this guess, but it's just something I keep in mind as a possibility. It's more that I have a difficult time thinking of 16 extra powers for the alloys, and extra powers for the god metals themselves, and this will help simplify the magic system.

 

So, yeah, there's a lot we don't understand about how the God metals work in the first place, which makes it challenging to see how their alloys might react. I think we might even see a lot of overlap between Feruchemy and Allomancy, especially with respect to the Feruchemical Spiritual quadrant; they are separate magic systems, so I don't think it cheapens Atiuim Alloys if some of them modify Connection or Identity on the Spiritual front, or your respiratory or digestive system on the Hybrid front.

[natc]

Interesting that you bring up atium alloys likely have to do with accessing/manipulating the spiritual realm . . . because that's the primary function of hemalurgy. And the mists fail to emulate atium stores in an allomancer when burned, but IIRC it's not actually impossible, just not as easy. It seems the Power of Ruin is predisposed towards spiritual shenanigans.

Which makes it even stranger that Ruin himself can't predict a plot twist to save his life. Though perhaps that just goes to show that Ruin himself has little personal influence over the properties of atium and the art of hemalurgy.

Either way god metals definitely seem to delve into the properties of raw, Shard-derived investiture.

[Zmann966 he/him]

Atium is a God-Metal though, it's unlike the others in the base system. Even though Lerasium is confirmed to grant mistings when alloyed, that doesn't quite jive with Atium, if you get what I'm saying.

Preservation grafted pieces of himself into Scadrial-humanity (as did Ruin) to bring them to sentience. Preservation did a bit more in his scheme, and Lerasium is pieces of him granting those humans the ability to tap into his power. It's not necessarily "preserving" but... Going along the lines with Leras' actions, it fits.

I feel like Atium's alloys need to fit, if not the same structure then at least the same theme.

It makes sense that Ruin's metal grants future-sight (if any shard is good at foresight, it'd be Cultivation and Ruin)

Atium's alloys should be, if not catering to decay of some kind, focused at least on a similar intent.

The problem here stems with Malatium. It comes from left-field and decimates my entire theorizing. It doesn't conform to the above thoughts and, therefore, renders them all mostly null.

And just because Lerasium combos exactly with other metals like it does, doesn't mean Atium does. Look at the combos of Tin and Copper for instance: Pewter/Bronze. or Aluminum and Copper: Duralumin.

so... who knows?! lol /shrug



 

[Ari he/him]

I like the concept of "filling in the gaps," especially with Copper/Bronze alloys affecting Feruchemy. (Although I personally think that Copper and Bronze already have those abilities, but no one has discovered them yet.) That's keeping in line with how Malatium fills in a gap in the Temporal powers. But I think there is a deeper pattern than just internal/external flip going on, related to how atium and lerasium actually work. We've seen applications for each of these metals, but we know that neither metal has been used to its full potential. (i.e. if you knew what you were doing, you could get other abilities out of pure atium or pure lerasium, no alloys needed.)

 

First, there is some pertinent info included in the Table of Allomantic Metals on alloys:

 

 

 

It looks like all atium alloys will either have mental or temporal effects, not physical or enhancement (which are filled by Lerasium alloys). So if an Iron-atium alloy (for example) has a mental or temporal effect, then I don't know how we'd go about using its normal Allomantic power to figure out its atium-alloy's power. But, why are they divided the way they are? Why don't atium alloys give physical effects? Why don't lerasium alloys give temporal effects?

 

Now, I'm going to extrapolate a bit, but it seems like atium's abilities (which, again, haven't yet been fully explored) have to deal with accessing the Spiritual Realm, which is a major component of viewing the future. When Elend burned duralumin and atium, he looked into the Spiritual Realm; just regularly burning atium, however, only gives you enough of a glimpse to see the immediate future of those around you. So, what other Spiritual manipulations can be accomplished that produce Mental or Temporal effects? Identity manipulations, like Soul-Stamping in The Emperor's Soul, might be possible by "changing" something that happened in the past. Connection, another Spiritual property, can be used to communicate directly with someone's mind. (We get some in-depth realmatics of Connection in Mistborn: Secret History, but I'll stay away from spoilery details for now.) Possibly looking at Connections someone else has, to learn specific information about their past (which, hey, sounds a lot like malatium!).

 

What about lerasium alloys? Lerasium alters your spiritweb to give you Allomancy. If you knew how to use it, though, what other alterations could you pull off? Remember, Hemalurgy steals a piece of someone else's spiritweb and tacks it on to yours; if lerasium can alter your own spiritweb, you could also give yourself strength, senses, or other attributes that can be stolen with Hemalurgy. So, Physical (modifying your body) or Enhancement (modifying your magical abilities) have both occurred by altering your own spiritweb.

 

I've considered that anything that can be done Allomatically by a god metal alloy can also be done by the god metal itself. It's just that there's so much potential with the god metals, and they're so rare, so Mistborn just use the first and easiest application they discover. Alloys block out other applications, so a previously undiscovered application can be used. Not sure how strong I stand by this guess, but it's just something I keep in mind as a possibility. It's more that I have a difficult time thinking of 16 extra powers for the alloys, and extra powers for the god metals themselves, and this will help simplify the magic system.

 

So, yeah, there's a lot we don't understand about how the God metals work in the first place, which makes it challenging to see how their alloys might react. I think we might even see a lot of overlap between Feruchemy and Allomancy, especially with respect to the Feruchemical Spiritual quadrant; they are separate magic systems, so I don't think it cheapens Atiuim Alloys if some of them modify Connection or Identity on the Spiritual front, or your respiratory or digestive system on the Hybrid front.

 

It depends what Brandon has to say on mistings and God Metal alloys. I have a sneaking suspicion, for instance, that Augurs can use Malatium, but I may be proven wrong on that.

 

Nice find on the table, that clarifies what will end up going on with the Enhancement quadrant and will nix my speculation on the physical. I'm definite that based on Malatium that it's either switching the internal/external status of the metals, or maybe the pulling/pushing status.

[natc]

Atium is a God-Metal though, it's unlike the others in the base system. Even though Lerasium is confirmed to grant mistings when alloyed, that doesn't quite jive with Atium, if you get what I'm saying.

Preservation grafted pieces of himself into Scadrial-humanity (as did Ruin) to bring them to sentience. Preservation did a bit more in his scheme, and Lerasium is pieces of him granting those humans the ability to tap into his power. It's not necessarily "preserving" but... Going along the lines with Leras' actions, it fits.

I feel like Atium's alloys need to fit, if not the same structure then at least the same theme.

It makes sense that Ruin's metal grants future-sight (if any shard is good at foresight, it'd be Cultivation and Ruin)

Atium's alloys should be, if not catering to decay of some kind, focused at least on a similar intent.

The problem here stems with Malatium. It comes from left-field and decimates my entire theorizing. It doesn't conform to the above thoughts and, therefore, renders them all mostly null.

And just because Lerasium combos exactly with other metals like it does, doesn't mean Atium does. Look at the combos of Tin and Copper for instance: Pewter/Bronze. or Aluminum and Copper: Duralumin.

so... who knows?! lol /shrug

I actually doubt Ruin's foresight capabilities since this entire time he's been getting outplayed by Leras, even though Leras doesn't even remember what he did. Thousands of years ago. It was a long term gambit if there ever was one.

[Oversleep]

Ruin is not good at future sight since Preservation outplayed him by setting things in motion thousands of years ago.
However, maybe the fact that Ruin is the embodiment of enthropy (passage of time is important here) may be a factor of why Allomantic atium and Feruchemical atium work the way they do.

[Voidus]

The alloys of Atium have various temporal effects, not necessarily making this entirely impossible but pretty unlikely that it would just switch internal and external.

[Dirigible]

An Electrum-Atium alloy might show your long-term Future Connections (i.e. like a Gold shadow but for the future--who you "could become") but it might also have a lot of overlapping versions like Electrum.

[Ari he/him]

The alloys of Atium have various temporal effects, not necessarily making this entirely impossible but pretty unlikely that it would just switch internal and external.

 

Yeah, I hadn't spotted that part of the table for the initial post but it clarifies a few things for sure.

 

There's definitely some reorganisation of the table going on for the atium alloys though, as Malatium is either switching its internal/external factor, or its pulling/pushing one when the Atium is alloyed in.

[natc]

An Electrum-Atium alloy might show your long-term Future Connections (i.e. like a Gold shadow but for the future--who you "could become") but it might also have a lot of overlapping versions like Electrum.

. . . wouldn't that just be stronger electrum?

Atium when duralumin flared already shows the end result of things for every other object besides yourself.

[Dirigible]

It depends on how you view strength...I think short-term future is far more valuable in combat situations (at least when looking at Atium; Electrum is a bit weirder). Because you see actual actions. While what I'm suggesting is more like a version of you just standing around, like your Gold shadow just stands around. Even when Elend did Atium + Duralumin and he saw the future farther, I don't think it was a huge amount into the future (should be all the atium he had compressed into a few seconds--I assumed it was like a 30 minute glimpse into the future, with his mind expanded so he could understand it; and anyway he saw actual events and outcomes).

[natc]

If we beef up the atium burn more and more you eventually just see the spiritual Connections outright, IIRC.

And yes, that would be strength. What you're talking about is practicality; two seconds or so is just perfect as a foresight range for combat. Any farther is hard to base snap decisions on. But that doesn't make a weaker burn stronger, the stronger burn is just less useful. Ham, for example, advocates holding back his pewter except when necessary because it is overkill and unnecessary. Allomantic strength does not make a power more effective, just more extreme.

I doubt it's possible to get a future shadow that just stands there, to be honest. The future is too unstable, and depicts active events. The past is set in stone. Elend saw events in motion, but that's because atium visualizes everything else around you, reaching into the Connections and extrapolating, while electrum cares about you. The "shadow" is a mental projection of the information anyway; it's possible that a freeze-frame can be achieved.

Which brings up a good point. Malatium is single-target as far as we can tell from Vin's POV. Relative to atium that's rather peculiar. Kind of leans towards them not being direct opposites.

[Ari he/him]

. . . wouldn't that just be stronger electrum?

Atium when duralumin flared already shows the end result of things for every other object besides yourself.

 

Nope. Electrum shows your actual future. Gold shows your alternative past. Showing your alternative future would, I guess, make sense. Although it wouldn't protect you against Atium like base Electrum does.

[Oversleep]

Malatium is single-target as far as we can tell from Vin's POV.

IIRC Vin saw not only TLR's Malatium Shadow but also Kar's.

[Pagerunner he/him]

IIRC Vin saw not only TLR's Malatium Shadow but also Kar's.

I think you're not R might not be C:

 

Vin burned the Eleventh Metal. The Lord Ruler's past-self appeared as it had before, forming as if out of mist to stand on the dais beside the throne.

 

Vin ignored the Inquisitor. The creature, fortunately, reacted slowly - she was halfway up the dais steps before it thought to chase her.

 

There is a mention of Kar's history a few paragraphs later, though - TLR mentions that Kar was a soldier before he was an Inquisitor. That might be what you're thinking of.

[Oversleep]

Vin cocked her head. There was something familiar about the man. His features looked very similar to those of the man who had killed Kelsier. However, this man was older and…more alive.

Vin turned to the side. There was another unfamiliar man beside her, a young nobleman. He was a merchant, from the looks of his suit—and a very wealthy one at that.

What is going on?

The Eleventh Metal burned out. Both newcomers vanished like ghosts.

Emphasis mine.

[Pagerunner he/him]

When was this? Right before Vin was captured? It's a good point - I only looked at the climax of the novel. Even if it wasn't Kar (wealthy merchant doesn't necessarily fit with hardened soldier), it may have been another Inquisitor.