Gold savants might be really buff

[Djarskublar he/him]

Sooo... I was reading the thread from a while back about how gold savants would be better at Forging themselves. That was interesting enough, but then I saw the comment that reminded me about how Vin physically interacted with one gold shadow. That got me wondering about what gold shadows can actually do. On to funny things!

Disclaimer for new people: this next paragraph is a joke! Reckoners and Legion aren't cosmere! It is now clear to me that Megan and Stephen Leeds are gold savants. Stephen has a question... ask a gold shadow! Megan needs a distraction? Send a gold shadow that appears to have fire manipulation! The similarity between these powers is striking, though! And I thought Lightweaving was a common Brandon magic system!

Now on to serious things. I wonder how closely a gold savant could mimic Megan's power. Could a savant possibly get their shadow to interact with the physical world? Summoning an army of gold shadows and slaying your opponents is a very interesting possibility. Other people suggested learning skills from them: cool. Getting them to do stuff for you so you can be lazier than Breeze: cooler. And imagine what a Lerasium Mistborn as a gold savant could do with a duralumin burn!

Any idea if this would work at all?

[zeppomarks]

I've had a suspicion for a while that there's something more to burning gold. It's brushed off way too easily by the characters for it not to smell fishy. And the fact that folks are always saying how no one fully understands it's effect... Ohh, the implications...

The savant angle is interesting. We only really got to see a tin savant in action. The only thing I can think of that might directly go against your theory is the fact that Vin couldn't touch TLRs Malatium shadow, But that means next to nothing when you consider all of the other facets of this scenario. I really hope the gold ends up being something crazy awesome like this. Adjacent thought: did Vin or Miles ever attempt to directly talk to their gold shadows in the books? I can't remember precisely.

[Rasarr she/her]

Consider the OP in this thread. To quote the relevant part:

Quote

"Would it be possible for a Gold Shadow to posses a person (willingly or unwillingly)? I'm thinking that because a gold shadow is so believable, that it wouldn't be hard for the body to accept this identity for a time".

He replied with: "this theory has a lot of merit"

But I like your theory. I'm guessing gold works similar to soulstamp, in that it reaches into Spiritual Realm for "data", but perhaps it could be buffed somehow so that it could act in Cognitive one? Say, pumping it with Investiture to the point where it can manifest in CogRealm, and thus do something for you there. 

[Djarskublar he/him]

Or even better, pumping it with Investiture until it manifests in the physical realm... And you make it a gold shadow that has a different allomantic power than you... And then you spike it...

I suppose theoretically if you pump enough Investiture into a shadow, it could gain its own sentience. And if you did something to attach it to a physical form somehow (think Alphonse in Fullmetal Alchemist), you would have golems of 'you' that could possibly be allomancers.

I'm totally wigging out over this possibility. The things a gold savant could maybe do are so incredibly varied. It could spawn entire schools for training users, and different schools would teach different applications. Auugghhh we need to ask Brandon about this!

Edit: actually that reference to Fullmetal Alchemist is more apt than I realized. I just remembered that Scadrial's worldbuilding is based partially on alchemy...

Edited August 22, 2016 by Djarskublar

[The One Who Connects he/him]

My main issue with this theory is how one "pumps" investiture into a gold shadow.

Duralumin + Gold perhaps? To the best of my knowledge, nobody has attempted that yet.

On that subject, I wonder if Duralumin + anything gives a greater output if you have more of that secondary metal...

I feel like ironpulling a star destroyer out of orbit now

[Djarskublar he/him]

Well the best way to pump investiture into something: Breathe really hard on it. I wonder if you could grant your Breath to a gold shadow. Combined with a duralumin burn from a gold savant, that could be interesting. I still love the idea.

[zeppomarks]

This is fascinating... I definitely see the parallels between gold allomancy and soulstamping.

[Spoolofwhool]

I do agree that gold allomancy has more powers than is believed. Powers which have been slightly observed by Miles. What I don't think is that those powers will be anywhere near those "rule of cool", "power-fantasy" ideas you state in the last paragraph. I also do not think that you can really invest into a gold shadow, at least with breath, since we know that requires a physical object. 

What I think that is that gold allomancy uses your spiritual self to create an alternate possibility of your cognitive self, based on your past. As we've seen with Miles, he can get a feeling of the cognitive gold shadow, of how it feels towards his actual cognitive self, and probably other things. Flaring gold, a gold savant, and a duralumin/nicrosil enhanced gold burn probably strengthens the cognitive gold shadow, allowing you to get a better feel for what it actually feels, and maybe thinks. Leading forward from this, I think that, as Miles stated that he was doing, you can actually start mixing your cognitive with your gold shadow. This would result in, as Miles said, an alloy of your cognitives selves, different and possibly superior. One advantage could be to give you insight into something you had forgotten, or were unaware you knew. Maybe even gain skills you never actually learned, but your cognitive did. 

Moving on to whether any of Djarskublar's rule of cool ideas are viable. Quite honestly, no,other than learning from them. There is nothing to suggest that gold shadows can interact with the physical realm, or even anything other than your perception. On the other hand, I do think that you can use malatium to affect people with their malatium shadows. It would possibly allow you to influence their cognitive, either permanently or temporarily. 

Overall, good topic, though I think excessive jokes and rule of cool suggestions should be avoided. Also, try to add a bit more evidence to support your theory. Otherwise, it's not a theory.

[Djarskublar he/him]

Okay then, if he was melding their cognitives, could it be possible to get a gold shadow that had a different allomantic power? AFAIK the power you get is random, so you could pull up a shadow that just had different luck. Then maybe you could pull some hackery to meld their power into your cognitive. Unfortunately, that's useless since you aren't rewriting your spiritweb, so now you would have literally caused yourself to go insane. You would believe that you had the power, but be unable to use it. This would be really hilarious in an 'I pity you' sort of way. Maybe you could use some other power to change your web to what you think it should be, but thinking about the ones we know of, only the healing surge (regrowth?) sounds like it could do that readily. I looked for WoB about gold healing spirit damage, but couldn't find anything explicit, only that it works on a similar principle to Stormlight, so maybe a gold Twinborn could do it. A super complex Aon could probably do it, but getting to an Elantrian is the trick. I don't think getting handed a whole bunch of breaths would do it. Stormlight can heal spirit wounds from Blades back to your cognitive baseline, so that is a point in this method's favor.

I don't remember that part of AoL with Miles very well, so I'll take your description at face value. Sounds right from what I do remember. If that is right, this should work. Also, if this gold misting was Twinborn, they could get shadows of self that have different feruchemy powers... We got ourselves a non-Lerasium Fullborn formula people! The only questions are whether they would need a duralumin spike or not, if they could actually get a shadow that had different abilities, and if it would simply overwrite what power they had instead. Maybe this would work better if they were storing identity when they attempt it?

This, at a guess, would probably twist you more than being made into an inquisitor. You are melding too many variations of your personality together. Still totally worth it ofc.

Quick recap of the process for clarity's sake: gold Twinborn burns lotsa gold to become a savant. Possibly necessary steps of getting an Allomantic duralumin spike and maybe feruchemical alluminum or nicrosil. Burn gold until you pull up a shadow that is so different it had a different power potential at birth. Meld its cognitive perception of having that power into your own like Miles apparently could. Repeat until you have the cognitive perception of having all the powers. Depending on if gold could do it, either tap some compounded gold, or get a radiant to heal you to shift your spiritweb to that of your cognitive perception of having all the powers. You are now Fullborn.

If savantism is all that is necessary to get the right cognitive melding and if gold healing is enough to shift your spiritweb like that, Miles could have done this with no Hemalurgy or Lerasium... Gold compounders just potentially got even more ridiculous.

[Spoolofwhool]

I honestly disagree with any idea that you could create a gold shadow with a different manifestation of investiture. The main point is that I believe the gold shadow is an alternate cognitive of you, based on choices you could've made over your life. Manifestations of investiture have to do with spiritual. Even if the gold shadow is actually spiritual, it still couldn't have a different power, since that is something completely out of your control. 

What you could do though. If you're burning gold and malatium, is possibly, though honestly I doubt this, merge your cognitive with someone else's malatium shadow. If possible, I don't think you should do it anyways. 

[Djarskublar he/him]

I hadn't considered melding with malatium shadows. That would twist you even more. The ultimate case of disociative identity disorder here we come!

Back to gold shadows though, I don't agree. You aren't getting a different manifestation of investiture, just different luck from the same manifestation(s). It is the same thing as getting a different strength Breath after you are born on Nalthis. You couldn't do this with normal gold shadows, you would have to go back to shadows that differ from the moment you are conceived. That would require savantism and maybe a duralumin spike, but I can totally see it as possible. It's not as if you are trying to get a Nahel bond out of the deal (although maybe you could get these too if you go live on Roshar for a few years). The only things I can't see you getting is becoming an Elantrian, aquiring Breath, and powers we haven't read enough about like sand mastery. Other manifestations are more of a stretch, but I can totally see a gold/gold Twinborn being able to make themselves Fullborn.

[Spoolofwhool]

10 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

I hadn't considered melding with malatium shadows. That would twist you even more. The ultimate case of disociative identity disorder here we come!

Back to gold shadows though, I don't agree. You aren't getting a different manifestation of investiture, just different luck from the same manifestation(s). It is the same thing as getting a different strength Breath after you are born on Nalthis. You couldn't do this with normal gold shadows, you would have to go back to shadows that differ from the moment you are conceived. That would require savantism and maybe a duralumin spike, but I can totally see it as possible. It's not as if you are trying to get a Nahel bond out of the deal (although maybe you could get these too if you go live on Roshar for a few years). The only things I can't see you getting is becoming an Elantrian, aquiring Breath, and powers we haven't read enough about like sand mastery. Other manifestations are more of a stretch, but I can totally see a gold/gold Twinborn being able to make themselves Fullborn.

The thing is though, gold is about viewing the past based on different choices you could have made, unless of course people don't know about gold to say for certain. This is of course entirely possible since gold allomancy is probably not a field people put much research into. However, assuming that this is correct, this means that your gold shadow can be changed based on possibilities within your control. The pDNA, cDNA and sDNA you are born with are not yours to control, so they would not change in your gold. The only possibility I could think of where it would, is where you could have encountered an opportunity within your life, based on choices, to gain or alter your sDNA. For example, someone who is knowledgeable of hemalurgy could burn gold and see themselves with additional powers because they used hemalurgy in that alternate past. Or someone on Roshar may see themselves as a surgebinder, having made choices which allowed them to bond with a spren. 

[Knight Oblivion]

On 8/21/2016 at 11:50 PM, Djarskublar said:

Sooo... I was reading the thread from a while back about how gold savants would be better at Forging themselves.

I thought that this would be due to gold savants being able to intuitively know more about their cognitive shadows and thus be able to Forge more accurately if they were from MaiPon, Sel. Of course, such a person would need to either hack Forgery or be Selish and use the gold-Lerasium alloy to get allomantic gold.

 

Anyways, other than that, I doubt that any of the more fantastical things in this thread would be possible. There's little support. Touching one's gold shadow probably does something mildly disappointing like causing awful cognitive dissonance while being a savant would cause multiple personality disorder.

[Spoolofwhool]

13 minutes ago, Knight Oblivion said:

I thought that this would be due to gold savants being able to intuitively know more about their cognitive shadows and thus be able to Forge more accurately if they were from MaiPon, Sel. Of course, such a person would need to either hack Forgery or be Selish and use the gold-Lerasium alloy to get allomantic gold.

 

Anyways, other than that, I doubt that any of the more fantastical things in this thread would be possible. There's little support. Touching one's gold shadow probably does something mildly disappointing like causing awful cognitive dissonance while being a savant would cause multiple personality disorder.

This is essentially it. You summed up everything every nicely. I'll point out though that it isn't necessary for lerasium to be used. All that would be needed is for someone with an allomantic bloodline to go to Mai Pon and continue the bloodline there. Given enough time, and assuming the allomantic genetics aren't too weak, an augur misting with forgery abilities would be born. And yes, too much rule of cool has been employed in this thread unfortunately.

[Knight Oblivion]

8 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

This is essentially it. You summed up everything every nicely. I'll point out though that it isn't necessary for lerasium to be used. All that would be needed is for someone with an allomantic bloodline to go to Mai Pon and continue the bloodline there. Given enough time, and assuming the allomantic genetics aren't too weak, an augur misting with forgery abilities would be born. And yes, too much rule of cool has been employed in this thread unfortunately.

Thanks for the response! My method of combining the two systems was more of a quick and dirty "this would be a definite thing" than messing around with planetary Connection which might effect  or negate Allomancy giving sDNA. I guess Hemalurgy could work too now that I'm thinking about it.

[Djarskublar he/him]

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

The thing is though, gold is about viewing the past based on different choices you could have made, unless of course people don't know about gold to say for certain. This is of course entirely possible since gold allomancy is probably not a field people put much research into. However, assuming that this is correct, this means that your gold shadow can be changed based on possibilities within your control. The pDNA, cDNA and sDNA you are born with are not yours to control, so they would not change in your gold. The only possibility I could think of where it would, is where you could have encountered an opportunity within your life, based on choices, to gain or alter your sDNA. For example, someone who is knowledgeable of hemalurgy could burn gold and see themselves with additional powers because they used hemalurgy in that alternate past. Or someone on Roshar may see themselves as a surgebinder, having made choices which allowed them to bond with a spren. 

I can accept that. There was a lot of rule of cool at first because cool rules! On the other hand, these later posts are well thought out. This is just a question for Brandon at this point. On the other hand, do you agree you could gain a Nahel bond with this? Or potentially multiple bonds so you can get more Surges/Blades. I doubt you could get all 10 surges. Some of the orders would conflict- Honorspren and Highspren don't mix. There would be other conflicts as well with different oaths. When you are trying to 'do what is right' and 'follow the law' at the same time, you will just kill one or more of your spren. I see absolutely no reason why you wouldn't be able to get 2 or 3 bonds. I know of no WoB saying you can't be a member of multiple orders. I can agree that under normal circumstances, it is impossible. I don't think you could exhibit the traits necessary to attract a spren in sufficient quantity to attract more than one type. This hack would get around that. You have to make sure you follow the oaths you make though, which could be a problem. He can save on Light by Allomantically healing though. Plus gold is useful in other ways anyway.

This would still be a total pain though. This would take years of research and practice, and finally just doing it would take a long time too. Then the side effects of playing with your mind that much would not be pretty. DID at the least. I don't know that it would be worth it, but that would be one TOUGH cookie at the end. Ignoring surges, having multiple spren would be ridiculous. Have one manifest as a breastplate, one helm, and one as a weapon of choice. Better than Plate- it doesn't interfere with surges, and it is even harder to get through. You have Light for the physical perks, so losing out on Plate is negligible. Plus you are a gold compounder. It would literally take a nuke to kill you.

[Spoolofwhool]

2 minutes ago, Knight Oblivion said:

Thanks for the response! My method of combining the two systems was more of a quick and dirty "this would be a definite thing" than messing around with planetary Connection which might effect  or negate Allomancy giving sDNA. I guess Hemalurgy could work too now that I'm thinking about it.

True, hemalurgy would be a surefire way as well. I don't think planetary connection would prevent other manifestations of investiture from appearing as long as they're already there in the sDNA genetic. It has been said that the genetics of one manifestation of investiture can be past to someone else on another planet. I believe the WoB in question was regarding Nalthis and allomancy.

9 minutes ago, Djarskublar said:

I can accept that. There was a lot of rule of cool at first because cool rules! On the other hand, these later posts are well thought out. This is just a question for Brandon at this point. On the other hand, do you agree you could gain a Nahel bond with this? Or potentially multiple bonds so you can get more Surges/Blades. I doubt you could get all 10 surges. Some of the orders would conflict- Honorspren and Highspren don't mix. There would be other conflicts as well with different oaths. When you are trying to 'do what is right' and 'follow the law' at the same time, you will just kill one or more of your spren. I see absolutely no reason why you wouldn't be able to get 2 or 3 bonds. I know of no WoB saying you can't be a member of multiple orders. I can agree that under normal circumstances, it is impossible. I don't think you could exhibit the traits necessary to attract a spren in sufficient quantity to attract more than one type. This hack would get around that. You have to make sure you follow the oaths you make though, which could be a problem. He can save on Light by Allomantically healing though. Plus gold is useful in other ways anyway.

This would still be a total pain though. This would take years of research and practice, and finally just doing it would take a long time too. Then the side effects of playing with your mind that much would not be pretty. DID at the least. I don't know that it would be worth it, but that would be one TOUGH cookie at the end. Ignoring surges, having multiple spren would be ridiculous. Have one manifest as a breastplate, one helm, and one as a weapon of choice. Better than Plate- it doesn't interfere with surges, and it is even harder to get through. You have Light for the physical perks, so losing out on Plate is negligible. Plus you are a gold compounder. It would literally take a nuke to kill you.

The thing is, if you're writing a proper theory topic, you really shouldn't add meaningless rule of cool items. It detracts from the point of the theory, its support, and the tone of theory. 

Hrm. Yes. Well, assuming you could use the shadow's congnitive to change your cognitive and by extension your sDNA, it could be possible to duplicate the effects of the nahel bond. You would gain the sDNA part of it. However, I don't think you would actually be able to do anything with it. The reason being is that I don't think you would drag the spren with you, and having the spren nearby is necessary for surgebinding, according to this. Even if it were possible, and the whole spren not being nearby stopping surgebinding is because they are continuously modifying your sDNA, which I doubt, and would allow you to have the surgebinding powers, you wouldn't be able to advance them without a spren. Also, yeah, you wouldn't have any shards either, just the stormlight. Also, pointing out that a KR's own shardplate doesn't interfere with his surgebinding I'm fairly certain. Just when someone else is wearing it. After, a windrunner in Dalinar's vision could lash in shardplate.

[Djarskublar he/him]

11 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

True, hemalurgy would be a surefire way as well. I don't think planetary connection would prevent other manifestations of investiture from appearing as long as they're already there in the sDNA genetic. It has been said that the genetics of one manifestation of investiture can be past to someone else on another planet. I believe the WoB in question was regarding Nalthis and allomancy.

The thing is, if you're writing a proper theory topic, you really shouldn't add meaningless rule of cool items. It detracts from the point of the theory, its support, and the tone of theory. 

Hrm. Yes. Well, assuming you could use the shadow's congnitive to change your cognitive and by extension your sDNA, it could be possible to duplicate the effects of the nahel bond. You would gain the sDNA part of it. However, I don't think you would actually be able to do anything with it. The reason being is that I don't think you would drag the spren with you, and having the spren nearby is necessary for surgebinding, according to this. Even if it were possible, and the whole spren not being nearby stopping surgebinding is because they are continuously modifying your sDNA, which I doubt, and would allow you to have the surgebinding powers, you wouldn't be able to advance them without a spren. Also, yeah, you wouldn't have any shards either, just the stormlight. Also, pointing out that a KR's own shardplate doesn't interfere with his surgebinding I'm fairly certain. Just when someone else is wearing it. After, a windrunner in Dalinar's vision could lash in shardplate.

Yeah, but we haven't seen any modern Radiants with their own Plate yet. We will most likely, but we don't know its source yet.

And like said in one of the other posts, you only get the cognitive from gold. You would use Feruchemical gold compounding to 'heal' your spiritweb to your cognitive standard. I kind of assumed the Nahel bond attached the spren to your web, and that was why they couldn't get far from you. So your healing your spirit would actually be growing a spren. Maybe that's totally off base. That is why it would require some serious healing. That's a lot of Investiture conversion to make multiple Shardblades. Spren are worth their weight in gold, I guess you could say... AYYYYYYY! XD

[Spoolofwhool]

35 minutes ago, Djarskublar said:

Yeah, but we haven't seen any modern Radiants with their own Plate yet. We will most likely, but we don't know its source yet.

And like said in one of the other posts, you only get the cognitive from gold. You would use Feruchemical gold compounding to 'heal' your spiritweb to your cognitive standard. I kind of assumed the Nahel bond attached the spren to your web, and that was why they couldn't get far from you. So your healing your spirit would actually be growing a spren. Maybe that's totally off base. That is why it would require some serious healing. That's a lot of Investiture conversion to make multiple Shardblades. Spren are worth their weight in gold, I guess you could say... AYYYYYYY! XD

There's a theory that shardplate is made from lesser spren related to the bonded spren. So windspren turn into shardplate for windrunners.

[Djarskublar he/him]

Hmm interesting theory. You still don't need it either way with this setup. And after it all is done, you could maybe purify your mind the same way you corrupted it. It might remove the powers though. Not being totally insane after all this would be nice though. This gold shadowmelding could get you a lot of cool stuff. Multiple boons/banes, the spiritual connection to Elantris necessary to become an Elantrian (I doubt it could make you into one directly, though who knows), turn you into a master swordsman, and give you great knowledge of fabrial science and awakening commands. I don't think gifting yourself Breath would be possible though, or making you into an Awakener. There are clear limitations, they are just relatively negligible...

I really think this will work, and is easily the most powerful legitimate idea I've seen.

[Turbonator]

Back to Rasarr's post about gold shadows possibly possessing people, it makes me think about how strong emotional Allomancy can be used to control Hemalurgic constructs. Maybe gold shadows really can possess anyone, though, especially if they're storing Identity. I myself think that it's possible that every Allomantic metal may be able to do things that are not widespread knowledge yet.

[Djarskublar he/him]

I wonder if they could possess/control lifeless? As we saw in BoM, if your iron/steel sight gets good enough, you can see the investiture in all things. I've thought emotional allomancy is underrated anyway. The applications of you could posses someone are varied and powerful. Posses a politician to make them look stupid. Momentarily posses an enemy so they are easier to shoot. Posses your friends and have them hit themselves. Then say 'why are you hitting yourself?' over and over.

[Turbonator]

I don't think possession will be too powerful, but we'll find out if Mr. Sanderson ever decides to include a character who can do that. It would certainly be interesting.

[Djarskublar he/him]

Well, I don't think it would be powerful in the 'I own you forever' department. I think that it would only be possible for anywhere from a second or two, up to a couple minutes depending on the shadow attempting a possession, and the force of will and Investiture of the person being possessed. I bet a powerful shadow could possess a drab for a long, long while, but nobody could touch a Returned or an inquisitor. But even a second is enough to do serious damage. And imagine a savant capable of summoning several possessive shadows at once. A second is enough time to stab yourself or your buddy. It is enough time for a politician to flip off a crowd. Several seconds is enough to ask why someone is hitting themselves. As Forging proves, something doesn't have to be terribly powerful investiture wise to pull off fantastically powerful effects.

Regardless of the exact mechanics of gold shadows, there will be some obscenely powerful application in the right hands. There is no way Brandon would write a totally useless power, and we Sharders can always come up with some combo or hack to make it ridiculous.

[Spoolofwhool]

I don't think gold shadows will actually be able to fully possess someone and control their actions. I think it is more likely that they will just affect and influence their cognitive to a fairly sharp degree, causing them to act differently to how they normally would, in accordance to your cognitive. Also, I disagree that drab or other beings with less spiritual will be more prone to the possession. We're fairly agreed that gold shadows are alternate cognitive selves. This means that they would affect the cognitive of other people, which I don't think would be weakened to a significant degree by a lessening in spiritual.