fyodor

I don't remember that Ferrings had existed before, but yeah, that makes sense.

Feruchemy was diluted was because they, by necessity, had to breed more from outside the Terris population. Throughout history the Terris population remained insular in that way, preferring to be with one of their own. Now that there's more spread, the powers splintered just like Allomancy.

Also, all the living Feruchemists, including children were killed in WoA, so even among the remaining Terrismen, the genetic potential for Feruchemy was weak.

The Ars Arcanum kind of suggests that some feruchemists might be around. It says that Feruchemists with access to only one power are "common" as opposed to saying that they're the only kind that exist. It may just be vague language, though.

http://books.google.com/books?id=34fV6RKOFpQC&lpg=PP1&dq=alloy%20of%20law&pg=PA332#v=onepage&q=feruchemy&f=false

It also says that the Terris community kind of keeps to itself so it's possible that there are full Feruchemists that just aren't widely known, notwithstanding what Wax thinks.

On a related note: do we know whether any full Feruchemists exist now? Feruchemy still seems fairly concentrated in Terris, which in turn seems to be fairly secretive, so the book doesn't even mention them as legends, but that same isolation might make for a more concentrated breeding population than Allomancers have.

I suppose that, given the incredible power of a full Feruchemist (maybe we should just call these "Sages," just as we use Mistborn instead of "Full Allomancer"?), it's most likely that they'll be gone, or at least absurdly rare, now. I simply cannot help wondering.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

In book two the inquisitors were giving themselves feruchemy spikes. They didn't need the approval of Ruin or TLR. They didn't really have a leader at the time (TLR was dead, and Ruin's touch was weak), and therefore were just having fun powering themselves up, so to speak.

I think that by this point they were under Ruin's influence. My understanding is that once TLR wasn't keeping control of them Ruin could take control. For example, he was able to get Marsh to try to kill Sazed.

I think it is implied that the capturing (and not killing) was done during book 2 but the spiking was done after Ruin was released (the Prologue of Hero of Ages.)

I kind of got the impression that it was ongoing, but I guess that it's ambiguous. I don't know the exact time frame, but it seems that it happened early enough in book 2 for the refugees to reach Elend. It seems odd that they would kill all of the Keepers for the purpose of getting their powers and then hold off.

As far as I can tell, although possible, there would have been absolutely no reason for Ruin* to give Marsh a spike for Atium Feruchemy, especially since he was planning on destroying the world.

Keep in mind that the mass-spiking happened in book 2, before Vin had released Ruin. It's entirely plausible that Vin might have used the Well power or died before going there, in which case Ruin might have wanted someone who could assist him in the long term.

Maybe he was planning on using marsh after the destruction of the world!! Dunno there are a number of possibilities why and how he got it, but he does.

To be honest, it may just be an author oversight, though once again it's plausible that Ruin, like Preservation, wanted a backup plan.

Keep in mind also that the mass-murder of the Feruchemists happens in book 2, before Ruin is released from the Well. Until Vin freed him he didn't necessarily know that he'd have a chance to destroy the world in the short term. If Vin used the power herself or got killed before going to the Well, it might have been useful to have a superpowerful immortal agent who could work on his behalf.

I agree with you that AOL is later though I'd probably say more turn of the century (i.e. automobiles were still brand new enough to be called horseless carriages instead of having their own names).

Regarding the new series, it's kind of speculative, but I'd probably say earlier than modern day.

"They've progressed beyond steam technology to combustion engine technology, are building skyscrapers—that level of technology. "

He talks about "progressing" beyond steam technologies, to combustion engines, "building" skyscrapers as opposed to living in a world full of skyscrapers,. He doesn't mention electronics, computers, television, etc. It could just be a loose description, but it sounds like something earlier than modern day, maybe 20s or 30s.

F

The time frame for Alloy of Law is closer to 1910: in the broadsheet, and mentioned in passing by a character, there are competing ads for horse drawn carriages and primitive cars. Still, Wax is around 40 years old during the book, so his surviving to the next trilogy is incredibly unlikely. I would hazard a guess that the next MB trilogy takes place during the 2000-2020 equivalent for Scadrial.

Aluminum is actually quite plentiful (to us on Earth). In 2008, around 200 million tons (metric) of Aluminum ore was mined throughout the globe. In years close to 2008, compare this to copper: 15 million, iron: 2 billion, tin: 320 thousand, and gold: 2500. (All in metric tons. Or tonnes. )

I'm not aware of any confirmation for or against that. That's a very good question to ask, I think.

The internal monologue here kind of implies that a weaker Hemalurgical charge doesn't mean less control/influence. (click on the p. 372 link).

http://books.google.com/books?id=uTt-H5MAGT0C&lpg=PP1&dq=hero%20of%20ages&pg=PA372#v=snippet&q=spike&f=false

That was my first thinking, that the Set was kidnapping women for the same reason Straff Venture had several mistresses. They're trying to breed another Mistborn. I can't imagine how powerful a Mistborn would be in a society where they would be the only one.

Meh-maybe. But in the modern day setting of the new series, he'd be susceptible to aluminum bullet machine guns, flamethrowers, etc.

The Ars Arcanum said that knowledge of Hemalurgy was hidden by the first post-apocalypse generation and that most of the remaining practitioners are Kandra (which would imply to me that Koloss are not).

http://books.google.com/books?id=34fV6RKOFpQC&lpg=PP1&dq=alloy%20of%20law&pg=PA332#v=onepage&q=hemalurgy&f=false

Well we do know that Sazed changed Koloss so they are true breeding creatures, so I don't think they are Hemalurgic creatures anymore, but it's never specifically stated that they're not. I'm pretty positive that he left Hemalurgy out of his books.

It does say that Lessie was shot and bleeding out and "that is why he (Tan) was able to over power her" in the Prologue, so there doesn't necessarily have to be anything special about him... even coinshots get drunk or careless.

Though taking out allomancers is harder to do, the really crazy thing he does is moving Lessie in front of the bullet. That is why my vote is for some sort of speed Ferring, either Zinc or Steel.

I agree with the Electrum idea, it would show ALL the possible actions he could have taken, so it does seem unlikely to me.

So Sanderson said this about the next series

"Anyway, the Mistborn sequel trilogy, as I've said before, takes place in a more technologically advanced version of the world, several hundred years later. They've progressed beyond steam technology to combustion engine technology, are building skyscrapers—that level of technology. It will follow the exploits of a team of Allomancers who are kind of like an Allomantic SWAT team, a group of hybrid mercenary/deputized individuals who are brought in by the police to take out Allomancer criminals. The first book will deal with when they are called in to deal with a Mistborn serial killer. That's how it starts. It will go bizarre from there, of course, but think guns, cars, skyscrapers, and Allomancers. "

I'm wondering now if the unexplained Allomancer kidnappings relate to an attempt to breed a Mistborn and chasing after him in the second trilogy will lead to an investigation of the Set, etc.

I don't understand this. I guess after posting this I'll go reread some of the earlier parts of this thread, but: I thought to get compounding, you have to burn your storages? Unless you're saying at an earlier time he burned the storage then, got the 10x multiplier, or whatever it exactly is, used that to fill lots of metalminds, and then coasts along using that until he has to rinse and repeat?

But if that is the case, why do they talk about Miles constantly needing new sources of gold?

I should clarify-I am sure that he WAS ingesting, we just didn't get any first person accounts of it. This was in response to whether he was flaring or burning slowly. I was just saying that we don't see the specifics, we just see him tapping healing constantly. There isn't necessarily any reason we'd have to see him doing so- he could have just been doing it once a day instead of chomping pieces of gold constantly.

I still haven't written up my Alloy release report yet, but indeed, the body remembers its actual age. Brandon explained it to me that Feruchemy is all about multipliers. A healthy person like Miles could store 20% of his health in his body, but if a sickly person tried to store that much, that would be very bad (the example we used at the signing involved storing strength, but the same principle applies). That means that as the Lord Ruler aged, he could store less and less age into his atiummind to burn--he'd have to spend more time aging to get the same effect. And the thing is, the Lord Ruler doesn't just need the "same" amount of age-boost, he'll need a lot more as he gets ancient. It simply costs more to snap back from 1000 to look 20 than to go from 100 to 20.

Brandon said that he may have eventually reached a limit, where his Compounding wouldn't be enough to counteract that effect.

This is what I'm still having trouble with-I didn't get the impression that Miles was ever being unhealthy. I'll try to find the quote, but he says at some point that he can't remember pain/illness/infirmity etc.I got the impression that he was always burning existing metalminds and then using the multiplied healing to fill new metalminds. The "compounding" term pretty strongly implies it. And that makes sense on its own.

But TLR did have to do some youth-storage. Less than a regular Feruchemist, but still some. And that's both how Sazed explains it and how Sanderson has explained it in subsequent communications. The stuff about more age being needed at 1000 doesn't really get at the discrepancy. Regardless of how much he needed it would always make more sense for TLR to burn existing metalminds and use the surplus to fill additional metalminds (which could also be burned), instead of spending time being old.

I wonder if it's possible to be a Savant when you're dealing with burning Feruchemical storages.

To become a Savant I thought you had to have your metals flared continuously for a long stretch of time, and it didn't seem like that was the case for Miles to me, he just always had a nice stead "burn" of accelerated healing going unless he was hurt.

If you can become a Savant with a long-long term slow burn, does that mean TLR was an Age Savant?

I'm pretty sure that we never see Miles actually burning his Feruchemical storages. He's tapping healing constantly from his metalminds but I'm not sure that on camera he's ever shown ingesting/burning them.

Just to be clear, I'm sure he WAS burning them at some point, but we just don't see him doing it. He's tapping healing all the time but the actual ingestion/burn/refill happens off camera.

I understand that there are plausible post-hac explanations (i.e. TLR isn't storing new age, he's doing it the same way as Miles but during his "old" periods he's just drawing less age.) And in some ways the Miles model makes more practical sense. But that wasn't how it was described by Sazed or by Brandon previous to this book.

I don't full understand the discrepancy myself, but I overheard Brandon saying something about TLR's body continually trying to snap back to his true age and that having an effect on how much age he was required to expend in a given moment to maintain.

if you think about it though it makes sense, sure he might be getting a 1:10 ratio, but in order to maintain youth he has to expend more of his metalmind/allomanctic burning at any one given time to erase 900 years, and that is just to leave him as a 100 year old (with perfect health because of his gold compounding that he was obviously doing as well).

Like with Wax, when he makes himself heavy enough to flatten the building by pushing on it, he expends years of stored weight at one time. I would think even with compounding, for age, TLR would eventually have to make new metalminds from true age.

OR he might have just wanted to 'feel his age' for a time and feel the weight of the years while he was in his study room, contemplating the past...

Actually, somebody else here has done a good job of explaining this discrepancy. The difference between age and health is that age is something that gets continually more difficult to maintain using compounding. In order to stay the same age, you have to keep using up more and more of it. With health (or most other Feruchemical attributes), you just need to keep using the same amount until you die. Thus the cost of compounding is markedly less extreme for anything besides age. Considering how long TLR had been ruling, it's no wonder it had begun taking a toll on him.

But there's still not any reason that he would need to store *new* age by being old, regardless of the amount. He could always just burn an existing metalmind to generate new age, with some of the excess being stored and some being used to keep him young.

To add to what everyone else has said, Sazed has a pretty good explanation of this in the last chapter of Mistborn 1.

I assume that Miles had some goldminds hidden on the inside of his body under his skin. He could use his healing to control the side effects.

I will say that there is one slight contradiction between how it is discussed in Mistborn and here. It seems that the Lord Ruler had to occasionally store some "real" age by being old, at least according to Sazed's description (unfortunately no previews are available on Google Books for me to cite to).

Miles on the other hand, seems to be able to basically endlessly recycle his healing, burning some feruchemical storages and presumably able to to use some of the excess healing to fill other metalminds which could later be burned. The term "compounding" basically implies this-endless multiplying of healing. I don't have a problem with the explanation, but it contradicts the way TLR's powers were explained.

I am dubious - we have a number of first person views from Wayne and it doesn't seem that anything unusual is happening. I know that Vin could do some things unconsciously but I have trouble believing that someone who was already an Allomancer and Feruchemist wouldn't know that he was burning/tapping.

I don't think anyone is suggesting he is a Kandra as kandra can't use allomancy.

If you're thinking he might be more than a Twinborn however... an interesting idea. Vin used allomancy unconsciously well before she started using "luck" on people, but given that Wayne knows about all the other metals, I would assume that he had been presented with them before. How else would someone come to find out that they are a Benalloy Misting given how expensive they keep talking about Bendalloy being in AoL, you'd think somewhere, sometime, most people are presented with different metals to see if they can burn them?

It is an interesting idea, but I like to think of it as more that he is just a good actor and someone who "speaks your language" is more immediately trusted than someone who doesn't. I think of Kvothe in The Name of the Wind when he switches to the yokel's accent to get information out of him...

Since kandra are a normal specoes now, I think he might be a part-kandra, if somethinhg. We've seen part-koloss, so that might be possible too.

But he behaves more like a kender than a kandra. ;D

Are Kandra a regular species now? I thought that it was only Koloss. I seem to remember Brandon saying that the Kandra were able to reconstitute themselves when their spikes were returned but no more would be created.

I always understood that some of the limitations had to do with Preservation and Ruin balancing/countering each other. Ruin was limited to Hemalurgic spike communication in part because Preservation was blocking and he needed the slight edge he had with Spiked people to communicate. There are some scenes near the end of HoA when Vin is just barely able to get past Ruin to reach Elend and similarly Ruin is able to just barely get past Vin to reach an Inquisitor. But without a countering force, Sazed could probably do more than either.

I don't think we ever actually saw the Lord Ruler storing age. Think about it--in order to store age, he would have to spend time being older than he actually was, and just catching up to where he should have been killed him in the end. I find it more likely that the time the Lord Ruler spent as an old man was actually more about conservation--after a certain point, he would be unable to store any more age, and could just live off his reserves, so conserving that reserve would be very important for him.

I agree that it would seem to be impossible for him to store age the natural way, but that's what Sazed seemed to think was happening during his periods of relative age.

As for Miles, it seems like he never needed to stop healing-he basically could re-store some part of his Allomantically released healing in another allomantically usable goldmind, thus making it unnecessary to ever store healing after the initial bit.

So you're saying you want Brandon to take a voice recorder with him on tour and turn it on whenever someone asks him a question.

Can he also keep it with him when he's writing and record commentary on whatever he's doing at the time? We'll work out a regular update schedule when he will be required to distribute the recordings. Also, please circulate his direct telephone number so we don't always have to go through you if he isn't meeting his responsibilities.

I don't think that the "tenfold" refers to allomantic ability, only feruchemical ability. A compounder can burn their Feruchemical reserves increasing the power in the reserve tenfold. This is basically the same thing that Sazed says, particularly the tenfold increase. Their allomantic abilities aren't affected. Miles wasn't a super-great Augur, but he could perpetually recycle/compound his healing reserves.

The one difference in the treatment I noted was that Miles didn't seem to ever need to regularly go unhealthy or store new health. I understand his function to allowed him in the very first instance fill some metalmind for internal consumption, burn that metalmind, releasing 10 times as much healing, and store the excess, with some part of the excess being stored in another for--burning metalmind. Whereas the Lord Ruler could produce age more productively with his Feruchemy/Allomancy, but still needed to spend some time naturally storing age.

Hi,

I just finished to read the Alloy of Law and I have to say I was fascinated by the idea of same metal twinborns and the compounding of metals and decided to discuss about it with you guys

-First of all Wax says that by being twinborn of the same metal the power of that metal is increased tenfold.

That would explain clearly why the lord ruler was so much powerful then Elend or even Vin (without the mist)

TLR was probably compounding all the metals and not only Atium to stay young

-Gold compounding can regrow limbs, brain shot are ineffective and explosions make them laugh

I am sure TLR was compounding gold since they even say he did not die when decapitated

-Gold compounding enhanced the feruchemical power of health and regeneration but did it enhance as well the Augur power ???

It seems to me that his split personalities when he burns gold are much more fleshed out then in the mistborn trilogy, to a point that he feels that the two images actually hate each other. that brings up the next question:

Could be that the psychological problems he is having are due to his continuous burning gold and split of personality ???

And now some theories"

-A bendalloy twinborn would be able to expand his bubble tenfold and indeterminally as long as he has enough metalminds ???

Would he receive tentimes the calories/energy that he stored (talking about sugar rush. Slider on Redbull )

Let me know what you think

There is a pretty helpful discussion in this annotation.

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/annotation/345/Mistborn-3-Chapter-Seventy

He makes the point that most of these people did not have sufficient strength to be snapped outside intervention from the mists. I would kind of infer the larger point that a larger share of the population has allomantic abilities than is commonly believed but their abilities are never awakened because regular snapping efforts don't work.

So ability is genetic and the nobility because of its Lerasium infusion has a larger percentage of people that are strong enough to be Snapped with the more traditional physical abuse. However, the ability is still floating around in the larger population (also inherited) and is awakened by the mists.

I wonder about the use of capitalization for Investiture in the detailed description. A shard perhaps?