Roshar is the easiest aluminum source

[Stonewardguy]

So, I've seen this mistake a few times and it's starting to bug me. In Words of Radiance on page 562, Shallan is selling her necklace to a debt collector to clear something up for one of her brothers. He says that it is "Simple, but of aluminum, which can only be made by Soulcasting". There is a simple way for radients to get aluminum, so long as they're of the right group as well as anyone who has an actual soulcaster. While it isn't currently common that I can tell, it isn't exceedingly rare and not incredibly hard to make. At the point the cosmere is at, Roshar is likely the easiest place to get aluminum. With this, as it is soulcast, I don't think the stuff he brought to the wall guard in Oathbringer was aluminum, more likely Lerasium or Tanavastium or some other godmetal (I say lerasium because Preservations power seems a good plan when trying to save someone, and Harmonium can be split to get lerasium). I know the aluminum thing was a small detail, and we need to spread this knowledge around the community.

[+Invocation]

Worth noting is that Soulcasting is not actually the only place on Roshar to get aluminum. 

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Questioner

So, I'm intrigued by aluminum, especially the fact that it can only be found by Soulcasting on Roshar. So, how was it discovered in the first place?

Brandon Sanderson

...Did I say you can only get it through Soulcasting?

Questioner

In the Shallan flashbacks, she has the pendant.

Brandon Sanderson

Don't take what she says at 100% truth.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

Probably because mining is so hard when crem fills in the mine as it floods on a very-often basis, and volcanic activity is very low, so they don't have the Scadrian out of scouring the inside of volcanic stacks for meager amounts.

But yes, you're probably right. Soulcasting is a very easy way to get aluminum, and will be nearly the easiest until Mistborn Era 3 happens. Might be the easiest, depending on what's going on over on Sel and Taldain. Selish folks that have magic and the knowledge required could create aluminum too and arguably, given how far back in the timeline Elantris is, could already have a stockpile. Taldain, at least the dark side of it, has a lot of technological advancement too, so they may have found out how Bauxite refining works and have their own amount.

It's all part of that aluminum chess game. He who controls the aluminum controls the cosmere.

[Stonewardguy]

We actually do know that Sel has it from The Emperor's Soul. I am curious, though, because Cephandrius (Hoid) bonded a cryptic and can now soulcast. He's gonna have the ability to entirely collapse an economy from it

[+Invocation]

3 minutes ago, Stonewardguy said:

We actually do know that Sel has it from The Emperor's Soul. I am curious, though, because Cephandrius (Hoid) bonded a cryptic and can now soulcast. He's gonna have the ability to entirely collapse an economy from it

Yeah, I know they have it. It's more a matter of if they'd truly be selling it to other planets. Creating it doesn't do much good if you don't use it. I did not phrase my initial thing right, that's on me.

[danex he/him]

1 hour ago, Stonewardguy said:

With this, as it is soulcast, I don't think the stuff he brought to the wall guard in Oathbringer was aluminum, more likely Lerasium or Tanavastium or some other godmetal (I say lerasium because Preservations power seems a good plan when trying to save someone, and Harmonium can be split to get lerasium). I know the aluminum thing was a small detail, and we need to spread this knowledge around the community.

Huh? You’re saying that because Aluminum can be soulcast, it wasn’t the metal the Wall Guard used?

[Aspiring Writer]

3 hours ago, Stonewardguy said:

So, I've seen this mistake a few times and it's starting to bug me. In Words of Radiance on page 562, Shallan is selling her necklace to a debt collector to clear something up for one of her brothers. He says that it is "Simple, but of aluminum, which can only be made by Soulcasting". There is a simple way for radients to get aluminum, so long as they're of the right group as well as anyone who has an actual soulcaster. While it isn't currently common that I can tell, it isn't exceedingly rare and not incredibly hard to make. At the point the cosmere is at, Roshar is likely the easiest place to get aluminum. With this, as it is soulcast, I don't think the stuff he brought to the wall guard in Oathbringer was aluminum, more likely Lerasium or Tanavastium or some other godmetal (I say lerasium because Preservations power seems a good plan when trying to save someone, and Harmonium can be split to get lerasium). I know the aluminum thing was a small detail, and we need to spread this knowledge around the community.

I highly doubt he could get that much god metal, especially of something like Lerasium, which is one of the most useful god metals of all the cosmere.

[Weltall]

First off, welcome to the Shard!

14 hours ago, Stonewardguy said:

At the point the cosmere is at, Roshar is likely the easiest place to get aluminum.

Soulcasting requires knowing about what you're trying to create and Rosharan metallurgical knowledge isn't actually that advanced, which is why it's rare.

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Oversleep42

I got a question about this and last week's epigraph.

The metals Fused use. How come nobody knows, guesses or even suspects that aluminium and its alloys are Investiture resistant? They know you can Soulcast something into aluminium, so they should also know it's impossible to Soulcast aluminium into something else.

And once they know about metal that cannot be Soulcast, they start experimenting with fabrials - they used that in construction of Fourth Bridge - and then the logical step is to test it against Shardblades.Probably experimenting with alloys of aluminium, too.

Yet the metal Fused use to make weapons resistant to Shardweapons is a mystery to them?

I feel like I'm missing something here.

Brandon Sanderson

They're getting to answers here. Problem is, metallurgy just isn't a big science on Roshar. I feel it's one of those things that is more easy to see externally than internally--and do remember that there are things like god metals (Shardblades, for example) that also behave strangely around investiture. They have far more experience with those than aluminum, which is more of a little historical oddity to them than a big revolutionary part of science. Add to that the fact that some of the metals the fused are using aren't aluminum, and...well, I don't think it's as obvious a leap as you're making it out to be.

Rhythm of War Preview Q&As (Nov. 4, 2020)

 

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With this, as it is soulcast, I don't think the stuff he brought to the wall guard in Oathbringer was aluminum, more likely Lerasium or Tanavastium or some other godmetal

You're making a pretty huge leap from 'aluminum can be soulcast' to 'It's not the metal Hoid provided and he somehow managed to find enough lerasium to make sheets of it'. Consider for a moment that the sum total of lerasium known to have ever existed is (maybe) sixteen small beads, most of which were used over a thousand years ago... and godmetals do not have the Investiture-sink properties that aluminum does. Investiture may behave oddly around them but the properties of the metal sheets are exactly what we know aluminum can do and unlike the Investiture-resistance we see around godmetals.

Also, Kaladin knows what tanavastium looks like because he's held an Honorblade and living Shardblades are an alloy of it and Cultivation's godmetal. He doesn't recognize what's on the walls, ergo it's neither of those.

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(I say lerasium because Preservations power seems a good plan when trying to save someone, and Harmonium can be split to get lerasium)

First, that is not how godmetals work. The intent of a Shard influences how you get access to magic but it doesn't really affect what you can do with the magic and it doesn't have any obvious impact on what the godmetals do outside the specific system(s) of Investiture they normally interact with. A dead Shardblade doesn't really have any necessary connection to acting with honor, you can shank someone with a piece of lerasium and you can engage in compounding hacks to preserve yourself with atium.

Second, while it is hypothetically possible to get lerasium and atium out of harmonium it's not a simple process and accepting your idea as correct for purposes of argument it would be an equally fantastic waste of harmonium when, again, aluminum is already known to do exactly what we see those metal sheets accomplish.

Edited February 21, 2021 by Weltall

[Frustration he/him]

The metal Hoid gave Azure is Aluminum

Spoiler

Questioner

What was the metal that Hoid gave Vivenna and her crew to use the fabrial?

Brandon Sanderson

You're asking, what metal it was that let them use the fabrial without the screamers detecting them? So, should be aluminum. I don't think there's anything sneaky about that. The only thing that I've had to change is, I wanted the sheathes that they use with Shardblades to be aluminum, and Peter tells me I just can't do that. It's not in continuity. So we have to have some sort of aluminum... alloy, or something like that. I'm not sure exactly what I wrote that broke the continuity on that, but he is certain that those can't be aluminum. So, those aren't aluminum, but it was aluminum around that. And Hoid's bag has an aluminum lining, too.

WorldCon 76 (Aug. 18, 2018)

 

[Argus the Awful he/him]

On 2/22/2021 at 11:14 AM, Frustration said:

The metal Hoid gave Azure is Aluminum

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

What was the metal that Hoid gave Vivenna and her crew to use the fabrial?

Brandon Sanderson

You're asking, what metal it was that let them use the fabrial without the screamers detecting them? So, should be aluminum. I don't think there's anything sneaky about that. The only thing that I've had to change is, I wanted the sheathes that they use with Shardblades to be aluminum, and Peter tells me I just can't do that. It's not in continuity. So we have to have some sort of aluminum... alloy, or something like that. I'm not sure exactly what I wrote that broke the continuity on that, but he is certain that those can't be aluminum. So, those aren't aluminum, but it was aluminum around that. And Hoid's bag has an aluminum lining, too.

WorldCon 76 (Aug. 18, 2018)

 

Yes and it supposedly stopped the singers from spying in on them. If this is true, than could a mistborn be impenetrable to the Fuseds' powers?

Edited February 26, 2021 by Willshaper-Kalak

[Frustration he/him]

15 minutes ago, Willshaper-Kalak said:

Yes and it supposedly stopped the singers from spying in on them. If this is true, than could a mistborn be impenetrable to the Fuseds' powers?

Yes, but they wouldn't be able to use their powers either.