The Lord Ruler, Atium, and... Copper? [OT Spoilers]

[vividox]

I had a brainstorm last night on my drive home from work. I thought it was a mildly interesting thought experiment and worth sharing, so here I am.

 

During the Final Empire, The Lord Ruler used Atium to finance his empire by releasing it in very small quantities for exorbitant prices. As we know from the events of The Well of Ascension and The Hero of Ages, there was another, more crucial, reasoning for Atium to be economically limited - it was Ruin's god metal and the Kandra stockpiled the metal to hide it from Ruin.

 

A few thoughts occurred to me:

 

1) If Atium is so important, why circulate it at all? Indeed, if a particularly skilled Mistborn can give a Steel Inquisitor a run for its money, why would you allow access to it at all?

2) In a total dictatorship, controlling the economy isn't hard and can be done with pretty much anything that isn't trivially common. Any metal could have been limited and sold at exorbitant prices to financially sustain The Final Empire.

3) In The Final Empire, bronze is seen as a mostly worthless metal, as most Misting crews and individual Mistborn and undetectable* anyway.

 

So this leads me to a question: What would The Final Empire have been like if The Lord Ruler keep Atium completely hidden and monopolized the COPPER market instead? Think of what this would do to strengthen his rule:

 

A) Steel Inquisitors (and the Lord Ruler himself) become exponentially more powerful compared Mistborn or Feruchemists, as they are the only ones with access to Atium.

With copper at a premium, all of a sudden noblemen are paying a premium to hide their allomantic activity. Story-wise, this would have opened up all kinds of cool house war tactics and premium stealth assaults.

C) This would effectively neutralize skaa thieving crews and skaa allomancy. Any old Seeker could discover skaa allomancy immediately, and skaa Smokers would never be able to try burning copper in the first place due to cost restrictions.

D) Atium would be completely stockpiled by the kandra and have the fact that no one even knows it exists as an added layer of protection.

 

Now, there is minor glitch in that copper is a trace element. I have no idea if a trace of copper would be enough to maintain a coppercloud for any period of time, but oblivious skaa Smokers would have no idea what they were doing and it would be an ineffective endeavor.

 

Under this kind of a system, a skaa rebellion really has no chance. Kelsier surviving the Pits could have tipped him off on Atium and that could have been helpful, but underground thieving crews probably wouldn't exist in the first place.

 

Now, of course, the question as to why The Lord Ruler didn't do this is an easy one to answer: he was over-confident and didn't think anything could touch him - even Atium. But the idea of a The Final Empire society governed by copper instead Atium was really intriguing (well, as far as the nobility is concerned, the skaa are basically checkmated) to me, so... yeah. Thread.

Edited March 23, 2016 by vividox

[Yata he/him]

The problem is that was impossible to monopolize Copper, any nobles may search a mine and find it.

 

While creating the Atium system give to Rashek a tool of control within the Noble House, he was the only avaliable source of Atium and He decided who may defeat who... He spreads the ultimate weapon but in the end, he was the one who manage it.

 

Also a Mistborn with Atium wasn't a menace to him or his Inquisitors (at least the Mistborn-based Inquisitors) but through the Atium Economy every Noble House knows that a single Enemy Mistborn may kill a little army ...It's like starting a Cold War to avoid too much trouble to yourself.

[baby he/him]

Because unlike Atium, TLR doesn't have a monopoly on copper production. Also, he sold it to get the high prices, which the nobility would eagerly snap up, and he also knew that the Atium would be quickly burned by the mistborn, and the pits would immediately start churning it out. He wanted to stop Ruins body from forming.

[Your3rdShadow he/him]

Also keep in mind TLR needed people to mine the pits in the first place, which admittedly wouldn't have been terribly hard to hide, but still, the potential for someone to find out would have been there.

[KSub]

I have nothing additional to contribute to the "why not copper" discussion, but it would be an interesting situation if copper wasn't so plentiful. The ability to hide your allomancy would be much more valuable, unlike now where it's almost a throwaway power.

[vividox]

The problem is that was impossible to monopolize Copper, any nobles may search a mine and find it.

 

While creating the Atium system give to Rashek a tool of control within the Noble House, he was the only avaliable source of Atium and He decided who may defeat who... He spreads the ultimate weapon but in the end, he was the one who manage it.

 

Also a Mistborn with Atium wasn't a menace to him or his Inquisitors (at least the Mistborn-based Inquisitors) but through the Atium Economy every Noble House knows that a single Enemy Mistborn may kill a little army ...It's like starting a Cold War to avoid too much trouble to yourself.

It's not impossible to monopolize copper at all. You make sale of copper outside of the ministry illegal and send your Inquisitors in to clean up any offenders. Any copper mines become the property of the Final Empire and they jack the prices. Perhaps a black market does arise, but those prices aren't going to be cheap, as there is a death sentence attached to them.

 

Hell, copper in the real world isn't cheap. If you monopolized it, it would be very easy to charge whatever you wanted for it.

[vividox]

Also keep in mind TLR needed people to mine the pits in the first place, which admittedly wouldn't have been terribly hard to hide, but still, the potential for someone to find out would have been there.

Sure, but no more so than it already was. No one knew what the Pits of Hathsin were except for Kelsier and Straff (House?) Venture.

Edited March 23, 2016 by vividox

[vividox]

And to clarify, I'm not saying that it doesn't make sense that the Lord Ruler didn't use copper instead of Atium. I'm saying the implications are interesting.

 

[Oversleep]

I was under impression that since Inquisitors all had at least double bronze, the copper wasn't a problem to them. However, skaa Mistings obviously had no idea about that, so they thought they were safe if they had Coppercloud. So they weren't scared about burning metals, since they had Coppercloud, so Inquisitors were able to find them. This in turn meant a source for new spikes and cleaning skaa blood of Allomantic power.

However, if copper was limited, skaa would be way more careful and scared about burning metals, so they would be - paradoxically - harder to find.

[vividox]

I was under impression that since Inquisitors all had at least double bronze, the copper wasn't a problem to them. However, skaa Mistings obviously had no idea about that, so they thought they were safe if they had Coppercloud. So they weren't scared about burning metals, since they had Coppercloud, so Inquisitors were able to find them. This in turn meant a source for new spikes and cleaning skaa blood of Allomantic power.

However, if copper was limited, skaa would be way more careful and scared about burning metals, so they would be - paradoxically - harder to find.

That's a fair point, but if copper was restricted then you wouldn't have as much of a need for Seeker Inquisitors.

[Oversleep]

But if it was restricted then you wouldn't have much chances for finding skaa Mistings.

[happyman he/him]

I think there is a very important point being missed in this entire discussion.

 

The Lord Ruler was very much playing the long game with Ruin.  And he won!  Importantly, he won by having Ruin look in all the wrong places for the Atium!  By using Atium the way the Lord Ruler did, he made it look like he was stock-piling the metal in Luthadel.  This resulted in Ruin looking in all the wrong places for the metal.  The last place Ruin looked was at the pits, giving the world the breathing room it needed to survive Ruin's escape.

 

In fact, in the third book, this careful con game was explicitly identified as what the Lord Ruler "did for the world."

 

This, more than anything, is the reason Rashek did what he did.  The economic benefits were just a very clever part of the smoke and mirrors.  It also very much kept the Lord Ruler on top, as a regular Mistborn, even with Atium, wouldn't really be a threat to him or his Inquisitors.  He could get as much* atium as he needed at any time.

 

As for copper---I agree that it was a clever scam on the Lord Ruler's part to give the people what they thought was a perfect defense against Seekers, only to rip the rug out from under them when it was truly important.  It's a classic misdirection con as well.  The Lord Ruler would have done well as a thief.

*As much means "More than anybody else."  Transporting too much of the stuff would have been a problem.

[Yata he/him]

As for copper---I agree that it was a clever scam on the Lord Ruler's part to give the people what they thought was a perfect defense against Seekers, only to rip the rug out from under them when it was truly important.  It's a classic misdirection con as well.  The Lord Ruler would have done well as a thief.

There would never be Seeker without Copper... He would remove both Smocker and Seeker with this strategy... The Noble Houses never accepts this

[DeadFencer]

Yeah, keep in mind that bronze (which allows seeking) is an alloy of copper. Without copper you can't seek or hide Allomancy.

[vividox]

I think there is a very important point being missed in this entire discussion.

 

The Lord Ruler was very much playing the long game with Ruin.  And he won!  Importantly, he won by having Ruin look in all the wrong places for the Atium!  By using Atium the way the Lord Ruler did, he made it look like he was stock-piling the metal in Luthadel.  This resulted in Ruin looking in all the wrong places for the metal.  The last place Ruin looked was at the pits, giving the world the breathing room it needed to survive Ruin's escape.

 

In fact, in the third book, this careful con game was explicitly identified as what the Lord Ruler "did for the world."

 

This, more than anything, is the reason Rashek did what he did.  The economic benefits were just a very clever part of the smoke and mirrors.  It also very much kept the Lord Ruler on top, as a regular Mistborn, even with Atium, wouldn't really be a threat to him or his Inquisitors.  He could get as much* atium as he needed at any time.

 

As for copper---I agree that it was a clever scam on the Lord Ruler's part to give the people what they thought was a perfect defense against Seekers, only to rip the rug out from under them when it was truly important.  It's a classic misdirection con as well.  The Lord Ruler would have done well as a thief.

*As much means "More than anybody else."  Transporting too much of the stuff would have been a problem.

Agree with all of this.

 

But a TFE society where Atium is unknown and copper is very rare is intriguing, no?

[vividox]

But if it was restricted then you wouldn't have much chances for finding skaa Mistings.

 

Yeah, keep in mind that bronze (which allows seeking) is an alloy of copper. Without copper you can't seek or hide Allomancy.

Ah, yeah, totally overlooked this.

 

That changes things significantly...