Tin vs. Electrum

[Crucible of Shards he/him]

Just a fun question: Which would be more helpful for avoiding danger: A-tin or A-electrum?

[Calderis he/him]

The amount of attention that would need to be paid to understand the shadows electric grants would distract from just using your senses normally. It has potential to be useful, but it would be very difficult, and not completely reliable. 

Tin is intuitive.

[The One Who Connects he/him]

I'd say Tin for general life(Redbishop's bomb squad example being a possible exception) because you already have years worth of practice with your senses.

Someone who has had sufficient practice with their Electrum Shadow could probably use it to survive most situations with ease, but until you have that practice? Relying on it will only distract you. I feel like this is a partial reason for why Atium puts you on autopilot to the shadows, rather than having you interpret them yourself. The shadow(s) would only divide your attention until you've gotten used to them.

It's gifting a sense that you haven't used before. If Medicine/Science gave an adult who was born deaf the ability to hear, he's not gonna know how to interpret that information as well as the rest of us until he gets used to it. Tin is like a hearing aid, enhancing/perfecting what's already there. Much easier to get used to improved hearing than from nothing to everything.

Edited September 11, 2017 by The One Who Connects

[redbishop]

I agree with @Calderis based on what we have seen, and in many circumstances.  It raises another question.  With practice, might an Oracle make a very effective safe-cracker/bomb-squad member?

Burn electrum.  "Hmmn...  I think I'll cut the blue..." Visions of bits flying everywhere.  "Nope, definitely the yellow wire!"

Of course, we haven't seen anyone trying particularly hard to explore the capabilities of electrum.  Perhaps Oracles will be the Navigators of Mistborn Era 4 starships.

[Crucible of Shards he/him]

3 minutes ago, redbishop said:

I agree with @Calderis based on what we have seen, and in many circumstances.  It raises another question.  With practice, might an Oracle make a very effective safe-cracker/bomb-squad member?

Burn electrum.  "Hmmn...  I think I'll cut the blue..." Visions of bits flying everywhere.  "Nope, definitely the yellow wire!"

Of course, we haven't seen anyone trying particularly hard to explore the capabilities of electrum.  Perhaps Oracles will be the Navigators of Mistborn Era 4 starships.

These are the kinds of situations I see electrum excelling at. Have we actually had a viewpoint description of burning electrum? The only details I remember are it being described as "poor man's atium" since it counters atium.

[Weltall]

Offhand, I think the only times anyone has used electrum has been specifically as an anti-atium measure so we haven't seen attempts to use it under 'normal' circumstances.

But yeah, while I can also see some cool potential applications for it, I'd think that when it comes to avoiding danger A-Tin would be better in most circumstances.

[King Cole he/him]

55 minutes ago, redbishop said:

Of course, we haven't seen anyone trying particularly hard to explore the capabilities of electrum.  Perhaps Oracles will be the Navigators of Mistborn Era 4 starships.

This immediately made me think of Dune

[redbishop]

2 minutes ago, King Cole said:

This immediately made me think of Dune

That's where I got the idea.  Well, that and:

Quote

Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?
~Han Solo, Star Wars

I also would be interested to see if Electrum acts similarly to

Spoiler

the way Sak shows Sixth of the Dusk the various ways he could die.  This could be an adaptation of a similar, underlying realmatic principle - or possibly related to Allomantic Gold, as Sak was seeming to broadcast the visions to Sixth, rather than them originating with Sixth himself.

 

[Faceless Mist-Wraith he/him]

I have to go with Electrum. Yes, it would take more training, but it is also harder to counter. With tin, if the source of danger knows that you're burning tin, they can use overpowering stimuli to incapacitate you. With electrum on the other hand, not even aluminum bullets will keep you from seeing your future.

There is also the possibility that using Electrum isn't as hard as everyone believes, since Sanderson said that each metal has some instinctual mental component. 

[+robardin he/him]

I brought this up somewhere earlier, but yeah, A-electrum seems underutilized...

Ha ha, in fact it appears to be one of my very first posts here on 17th Shard! - Allomantic Electrum: Underrated?

Wherein @Kurkistan provides two excellent WoBs to that effect:

 

Quote

Kurk: Is it practical for an Oracle to get more out of electrum than Vin and Elend tried to?
 A: Yes. It is totally possible.
 Q: So if you could see  your shadow wince when it turned left, you would think "Oh, Mrs. Peabody's around that corner. I probably shouldn’t turn left!"
 A: It is possible to squeeze more out of it than they did.

[Source link]

 

and:

Quote

 

How does Electrum work?

Electrum can see future shadows only as far in the future as is done with atium in the books. They use it to counter atium in that they see their own future shadow fighting, and if they see their shadow get hit by an attack, they know to avoid that attack, and they change their own future. This compounds the future shadows they see, which makes it practically as effective at countering atium as atium itself.

While the scope of an electrum shadow is very limited, it could be useful in many situations. Like if you were playing tennis, you’d be able to look at your shadow and tell if you managed to hit the ball or not, and adjust accordingly. That would still take a lot of practice to master, but it could be very effective

[Source link]

 

 

So if an Era 2 Oracle burned it frequently from an early age, enough to be a savant, I think they'd be as close to an atium-burning whirlwind as one would see in that time.

Edited September 11, 2017 by robardin

[+robardin he/him]

I also don't think A-tin by itself particularly helps one "avoid danger" - only danger of a specific kind one is already looking out for, and thus where burning tin would alert you as soon as possible. Like looking out for a specific (dangerous) individual from a crowd, or listening for the sound of a trap triggering in a silent room, where a sudden flash of light or loud sound of any kind could be damaging to the allomancer, as well.

A-tin is just not a particularly combat-oriented ability (which is why I find Jak's threat to some koloss of "an Allomancer enraged" so funny), not unless paired with pewter, which as Spiked Spook discovered is a very nicely balanced pair of abilities.