Emotional allomancy: Doomed to irrelevance?

[Mason Wheeler]

Alloy of Law reveals that a thin sheet of aluminum foil can block emotional allomancy.  At this point, that's still a very well-balanced power, as aluminum is rare and more valuable than gold.  This is historically accurate, but you need go no further than the nearest vending machine to realize something big changed at some point.

According to Wikipedia, "Aluminium is the third most abundant element in the Earth's crust (after oxygen and silicon) and its most abundant metal."  Or, as Paul Twister put it, "the stuff’s about as rare as sand; it’s just extraordinarily difficult to extract from its ores."  In our world, this all changed in the late 1880s, when two chemists independently came up with a way to use electrolysis of a molten aluminum salt refined from bauxite ore to extract pure metallic aluminum at a temperature of under 1000 degrees.  (The older way required temperatures of over 2000 degrees and the use of other rare minerals, such as pure sodium.)

When Scadrial reaches this level of development, anyone's going to be able to afford their very own tinfoil hat.  It makes me wonder what the future holds for emotional allomancy, when anyone can trivially ward against it...

[Pagerunner]

Interesting point. Two thoughts:

• Aluminum might not be as common on Scadrial as it is on Earth. It is a fictional world, artificially created by the Shards, and might have a different composition.
• Emotional allomancers are rare, and getting rarer. Sure, everyone might be able to get an aluminum hat, but here in the US we need to enforce laws for people to wear their seat belts. If people don't consider something a risk, they won't take action or spend money to prevent it. So, I think it will be a lot like it was in the original trilogy, where Soothers and Rioters keep their abilities secret so people don't get suspicious of everything they say. Modern Allomancers need to have a careful and subtle touch so as not to tip off their targets that they're being manipulated at all.

[Kingsdaughter613]

There are also the recreational uses. And if the Scadrians are smart, once they meet the rest of the Cosmere they'll keep quiet about both emotional allomancy and aluminum as a block. It's just to useful a tool...

[nervousnerd]

Also, I do wonder if Nicrobursts will alter the ability of aluminum to block some things. I do not remember if we saw duralumin allowing an effect on anything aluminum in the original trilogy though so maybe it is not possible (I am pretty sure at least emotional allomancy blocking wasn't around then because aluminum was too new).

[DeadFencer]

I don't think aluminum's ability to block emotional Allomancy is as strong as everyone thinks it is. We saw emotional allomancy leaking out of a soothing parlor in SoS. The parlor was supposed to be slews with aluminum, yet it failed. 

[Kingsdaughter613]

It's... Very likely that someone skimped on the construction. Aluminum is expensive and if they really coated the whole building... I just don't see how they could make a profit. That isn't even counting windows. While I doubt Scadrial has a proper building code yet, windows are a safety feature.

aluminum is an investiture sink. It doesn't just block emotional allomancy. It can clear unwanted investiture from a savant. It's not just immune to allomancy; the other systems don't work properly on it either.

interesting idea... If you fire an aluminum bullet from a gun of the same inside a time bubble would it fly true?

[The One Who Connects]

8 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

interesting idea... If you fire an aluminum bullet from a gun of the same inside a time bubble would it fly true?

Aluminum bullets get affected by hitting the time bubble when fired from outside, I see little reason to not expect a two-way street with that.

[Oversleep]

1 hour ago, SafestPear said:

The parlor was supposed to be slews with aluminum, yet it failed.

Do you have source for this?

I find this very unlikely, as aluminium is currently worth more than platinum (well, maybe now they keep refining the methods it's only worth more than gold). Nobody could afford to coat the building with aluminium.

[Mason Wheeler]

3 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

Do you have source for this?

Shadows of Self, the chapter where Wax goes to the soothing parlor to find the cab driver who had transported Bleeder.  (Not sure what the number is and I don't have the book in front of me ATM.)

[Oversleep]

4 minutes ago, Mason Wheeler said:

Shadows of Self, the chapter where Wax goes to the soothing parlor to find the cab driver who had transported Bleeder.  (Not sure what the number is and I don't have the book in front of me ATM.)

Chapter 15.

It does say the they should have aluminium plates in walls to stop emotional Allomancy. That's really surprising, how could anyone afford that?

[Kingsdaughter613]

Which is why they almost certainly don't. Some laws just don't work practically. It's very likely they don't enforce this one as the existence of the law makes people feel safe, while trying to enforce it would lead to people claiming discrimination. It just makes more sense to ignore the violation.

The issue with aluminum bullets is that aluminum creates a dead zone in a speed bubble. So the bullet never actually switches between time frames... What if you stuck the gun barrel through the edge of the bubble?

[Spoolofwhool]

I don't see how emotional allomancy would be doomed to irrelevancy, at least soothing. We say in SoS that soothers had an occupation of soothing people of their troubles, so as long as there's a demand for that, it will not be irrelevant. Perhaps it will become irrelevant so far as subterfuge, but not for general occupation.

[Brightness Enna]

In Scadrial's future, I see people in government who make special decisions, like judges, being required to have some sort of protection. Some people may wear aluminum hats or whatever on special occasions when they really don't want their emotions messed with but leaving them off most of the time, sort of like what @Pagerunner said. So that. 

But I also see specialized groups forming for specific mistings/ferrings/other metalborn, sort of like they have specific schools for performing arts or biotechnology today. So I don't think it will become irrelevant. Manipulating emotions is something us non-super powered Earthlings can't live without, and Scadrians have an even more assured way of doing it. It's not going away. 

[Oversleep]

... actually, now I think about it, it's atium what will be totally worthless with all that aluminium laying around. I mean, aluminium does not have an atium shadow.

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, Oversleep said:

... actually, now I think about it, it's atium what will be totally worthless with all that aluminium laying around. I mean, aluminium does not have an atium shadow.

Well no, people will still give off Atium shadows. It would be definitely way harder to fight with atium if everyone is using aluminum guns and bullets, but people probably won't and since it would probably be mistborns using atium, they could be using tin and focus on hand movements, to better predict where the opponents will shoot. People probably wouldn't be using aluminum dueling canes either, so atium would work against that regardless.

Edited September 21, 2016 by Spoolofwhool

[Oversleep]

9 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Well no, people will still give off Atium shadows.

What if you encase yourself in aluminium completely? On related note: Would Aluminium Gnats be invisible to Seers?

10 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

It would be definitely way harder to fight with atium if everyone is using aluminum guns and bullets, but people probably won't

It's the best thing against Coinshots/Lurchers/Bloodmakers, so I guess it would be not uncommon to carry such a weapon.

12 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

since it would probably be mistborns using atium, they could be using tin and focus on hand movements, to better predict where the opponents will shoot.

Tin and gunshots? It would reduce them to mumbling mess on the floor, probably. At the beginning of WoA, Vin was burning pewter and it hurt when the Smoker started making loud noises with his sticks it hurt her strongly. Gunshots are way louder, so loud that even without tin it's a good idea to protect your ears.

[nervousnerd]

We don't really know how easy it is to start and stop burning tin though do we? With practice it might be possible to do as was said and stop burning when you anticipate a noise. Not likely a great idea but it might be possible. Many powers also create the need for different fighting styles to allow their usefulness in a fight such as when the newspaper articles mention the chromium burner with a special fighting style to allow for touching a person and draining their allomantic reserves. It is interesting to think about how the powers might be used in ways that they haven't before.

The whole point of the metallic arts is that almost any power is useful somehow if a person knows how to use them. Marasi and Spook are good examples of this. Their powers have a limited use but they are useful (as a trap or for spying). I'm sure that there are uses that haven't been thought of for many of them yet though.

Obviously gold, aluminum, and duralumin are the outliers in terms of usefulness right now but we don't really know much about their mistings either.

The problem is that it might not matter what powers you are born with anymore depending on the way things go with the Southerners. I do wonder how medallion tech is going to change things.

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, Oversleep said:

What if you encase yourself in aluminium completely? On related note: Would Aluminium Gnats be invisible to Seers?

I thought of that, or at least aluminum coatings for melee weapons as well. I don't think it will though. I think the aluminum would just be invisible but the meat sack inside would give off a good shadow. Unless, of course the idea that aluminum creates dead spaces in speed bubbles is properly corroborated, then I would think that they would stop aluminum shadows from whatever was inside.

I don't think Aluminum Gnats on their own would be invisible, but if they were burning metal then I think they would be invisible.

1 hour ago, Oversleep said:

Tin and gunshots? It would reduce them to mumbling mess on the floor, probably. At the beginning of WoA, Vin was burning pewter and it hurt when the Smoker started making loud noises with his sticks it hurt her strongly. Gunshots are way louder, so loud that even without tin it's a good idea to protect your ears.

True, forgot about that with tin. 

[Spoolofwhool]

Hate to double post, but I've found something interesting. Apparently the Basin already has Bauxite refining and other chemical processes for increasing the yield of aluminum, so the amount aluminum we see in Era 2 is probably going to be the peak amount, unless they radically improve these processes.

Excerpt:

Quote

“Be that as it may,” VenDell said, “compared to the amount of aluminum in the world before the Catacendre, the metal is now common. Bauxite refining, modern chemical processes, these have given us access to metals on a level that was never before possible. Why, the Last Obligator’s autobiography explains that early aluminum was harvested from the inside of the Ashmounts!”