lauren.e135

Hmm, I think flooded and sapped convey the idea well. Every time I see drain I think of how it is already used in terms of an already empty metalmind.

I find Flood, Condense, Squeeze, and Synthesize to be in desperate need of a "from" in the last sentence. Funnel is on the edge.

Agreed. It doesnt strongly convey whether or not the metalmind is being filled or emptied.

Thinking out loud: Flushed, Purged, Gushed, Streamed...

"Wax flushed weeks worth of weight to break the floor"

"Wax purged weeks worth of weight to break the floor"

"Wax gushed weeks worth of weight to break the floor"

"Wax streamed weeks worth of weight to break the floor"

I'm not sure how "fluid" "purged" sounds, but it certainly conveys the feeling of emptying we're going for, I think.

Although listed, I don't really like "streamed." Seems too... weak?

EDIT: Ookla makes a good point in showing them in the different contexts.

I think "flooded weeks worth of weight to break the floor" sounds nice, but "You must remember that flooding Feruchemical attributes costs more energy than you get back" sounds more vague in terms of empty/filling.

So.. we need a word that not only visually conveys a large amount of liquid from one location to another, but specifically that amount of liquid leaving a place. Yes?

That leaves Channel, Squeeze, and Flood as the ones I have no specific objection to. Unsurprisingly, I most prefer the one I submitted in the first place, Flood. Here's why:

* Flood always means "a really large amount of something," which is exactly what we want to convey here.

* Flood, like Fill and Tap, is a word that refers to moving a quantity of fluid.

* Flood has a nice symmetry with "Flare," and thus keeps up an overall aesthetic of Allomancy getting fire words, and Feruchemy getting water words.

* I just think Flood sounds cool.

I like the term flood, for the reasons you list as well. My only objection is that saying "he Flooded his metalmind" sounds kind of like he's filling it, not emptying it, to me.

What about Flushed? "He Flushed his metalmind"? Or does that just sound strange?

"Blessing" is the Kandra term for a spike hemalurgically charged with basic human attributes instead of allomantic or feruchemical powers. The four blessings Tensoon discusses in HoA line up exactly with the four human attributes that can be stolen through hemalurgic spikes, so it's pretty clear that kandra need hemalurgy to live- but we've never seen a Kandra use a spike that is allomantically or feruchemically charged, either on its own, or as a second spike like Tensoon did with his second "blessing".

Koloss were also spiked with basic human attributes, so presumably the same answer would apply to them, too.

Oh yes, thanks. Ha, I was simply thinking of the powers gaining and completely forgot about interaction with metal (burning/tapping).

Hmm, and considering the way a kandra's body is built, they wouldn't even have to "eat" a metal to burn it, right? They could just be touching it considering that's all they have to do to digest food anyways. That would certainly be fun to see. They wouldn't have to worry about filing the metal down into small shavings. As long as the metal was allomantically pure enough, they could just touch it and burn it to gain the powers right?

There are likely other side-effects to receiving hemalurgical spikes than just simply the influence of other Allomancers or whoever controls Ruin's powers. Consider that Koloss and Kandra were both created using human-charged hemalurgical spikes as opposed to allomantically- or feruchemically-charged ones...

And were therefore granted sentience. But considering how different the two are, I'm not sure what additional side effects you are alluding to.

This is what we seem to know about hemalurgy:

It grants either allomantic or feruchemical powers, or sentience.

The observed side effects are that the spiked individual become susceptible to another (allomancer or Ruin's shard holder) controlling their body.

Now, Ari's post makes me wonder: Why were koloss so violent when the kandra were more in control of their faculties?

Didn't they though? Their blessings granted different strengths. Some kandra were stronger than others because of their Blessings, where as TenSoon had more sanity from his blessing (he contemplates how he will never have the escape of madness during his imprisonment because of his Blessing of Presence(?)).

I would have liked if we got a little more information about the non-roughs parts of the Basin. I am kind of skeptical that you could have a 19th century city of two million people as a quasi-stand-alone entity without corresponding supply/manufacturing/resource chains, smaller cities, and trading partners. I guess that Sazed could have played around with things to make it work.

My understanding is that Sazed provided what they needed in the Basin. Once Sazed reshaped the world he brought all of TLR's cashes together. If I remember correctly, all of those cashes were centered around metal deposits as to block them from Ruin's eye. (I'll flip through HoA to try and find where this is mentioned, and feel free to correct me if you know I'm wrong). So there's your metal off the bat, including the large reservoir in one of the caverns.

I believe AoL also mentions in passing how easily plants grow inside the Basin, and how they need little work to flourish.

I'm not sure of all the types of resources they'd need, but it seems as though Sazed provided them with at least most.

Did Spook have a house? Obviously people trace their lineage to him, but it doesn't sound like there is a house with his name.

I think if he did have a House it would have been mentioned. He's such an important figure that his house would be like the Royal Family in England today. Also, if he did have a house, Wax wouldn't have had to trace people's lineage back to see if they were his decedents or not. The robbers would just kidnap from Spook's house, and being that Wax never brought up that possibility, my guess is that Spook has no house. I guess you could look at it like the whole of Elendel being his house.

Why do you think Endowment can't be with another Shard? Not that I disagree with you, I'm just not sure where you're getting it from.

I do like your theory. I'll have to ponder it a bit more, but it does make sense.

But my wonder is why Odium is such a problem. In the Letter in tWoK it seems as though Odium isn't being balanced, so to speak. Why? In terms of your theory. Because maybe he's traveling to other worlds and throwing off their balance?

I believe the currency is based on notes, but I'll have to double check.

In terms of the roughs, they're like America's frontiers back when people were just starting to move west. There isn't enough influence/power to be expended to reprimand koloss attacking cities. I see it as an "at your own risk" type of living. At least until it becomes more developed and "civilized."

You bring up an interesting point about no country name being given. Maybe right now it's just Elendel. My current guess is that Elendel is like a county or region, with a known concentration and with smaller "cities" under it's domain. The poeple may not have expanded enough at this point to feel the need for a "country" name. Remember, although advanced, Sazed created the Basin to have all they need. There isn't much reason to expand beside curiosity/adventure and maybe space at some point.

In terms of labor unions, my thoughts are similar to Aranfan.

With the religions it makes sense that there are only a few prominent ones. They were birthed from the people themselves and thus have the emotional connection. For the most part, the other 300 are probably just interesting tidbits/history to the people currently. With exceptions of course.

I also found it very interesting that the Terris stewardship is still held in high regard, as opposed to as a negative oppression from the past.

It will be very interesting to see how this world progresses. It's magic will help it excel in some areas, but also cause it to neglect others.

The thing with Koloss and Kandra being controlled through emotional allomancy have nothing to do with Ruin itself. It was a weakness that The Lord Ruler put in them as a safe measure if he lost control over them. That being said, I don't think Ruin could directly control anyone, just slightly influence spiked people. He needed the Inquisitors to control the Koloss after all.

I could be remembering it wrong, though.

As Deus said, the weakness was inherent with hemalurgy. That's why the kandra had a clause to commit sentient suicide by ripping out their spikes if Ruin got free so he couldn't see where they had hidden the atium. My guess is that when holding the shards power at the well TLR learned of this aspect of hemalurgy and thus used it in his creations.

As Ruin never directly controlling anyone, we have direct examples of Ruin controlling Marsh's movements.

The amount of spikes someone has in them makes it harder or easier for Ruin to control them. Inquisitors had many, making it easy for Ruin to control them.

My guess is that the number of spikes in a person's body determines the "size" or the back door, so to speak.

Well, and the healing seems to bypass scar tissue. It also regenerates organs. Normal healing does not do that. So this is not just simple healing. That or I simply need more education in biology. As far as I am aware, the only organ that can regenerate is the liver.

With all respect, we have no possible way of knowing that. We see exactly nothing of what he was like before he started running the Vanishers. We do know that he tended to kill criminals rather than jailing them, that Wax respected him, and that Wayne thought he was a terrible person, but we have no read on whether the emotions he displays are in keeping with his nature.

Well considering that the main reason hemalurgy drove people mad was because of Ruin's influence, I think its fairly safe to say that the negative psychological factors are gone. Hemalurgy connected people to Ruin, and he used that connection to corrupt them and further destruction. Now we have Harmony who has no such plans. Stick a hemalurically charged spike into someone and all it does is make it easier for them to communicate with Harmony (hello Pathian Earring).

Now do we know 100% that there are absolutely no negative psychological effects? No, not necessarily. But Ruin is gone so that aspect works differently now.

Yes. Exactly. This is precisely why it makes no sense at all for the philosophy he spouts off to Wax when nobody else is around (and to the firing squad when he has no reason to put on a show for The Set) to align with those of the people he merely pretended loyalty towards.

You misunderstand me. Or maybe I am misunderstanding you. I believe Miles believed that completely. But the whole "Miles working for the Set" I do not think was because he was tricked into submission. I think he saw someone with something he needed, so he used them.

Hemalurgy is too useful and too creepy a setting element to just disappear. Even if I am wrong about Miles and others are wrong about Tan, it will be used by villains again.

The question of how is interesting, but the question of whether it shall occur at all is... nonexistent.

I agree, but I disagree on your timing. Hemalurgy is only one of three metallic arts, and it was focused on so heavily in the MB trilogy. From the stand point of writing, I think the other aspects (feruchemy) will be featured more before we swing back onto hemalurgy. Going back to it now seems to soon. I mean, in a way it's one big red herring. It was the big bad villain in the last book(s), so it's reasonable to assume it's hidden in AoL somewhere too. It may be, but it makes more sense to me from a writing stance to play upon something else. "Hemalurgy is always the bad guy" is too static.

My favorite is Wayne's "That's the smell of incredibleness."

That's extremely interesting. With enough Cadmium one could effectively time travel.

It will also be interesting to see how much the characters we know from MB series 1 (TenSoon, Marsh, etc) will interfere with various happenings. I.E. will they step in to help stop the mistborn serial killer?

Yeah, I think Miles went nuts because he saw himself as a god, and he saw all of the corruption in and from the city. Unsatisfied with the way things were being handled, he decided to take things into his own hands. And we know from Wax that he has an unforgiving sense of justice. He was always boiling beneath the surface, and he finally had enough.

As for the delusions at the end, I think he was just unstable. OR he did know something (probably knowing BS. I doubt that little tid bit will be for nothing). But at this point it's hard to say what.

It's possible that Miles was spiked, but I don't think he needed to be to be the way he was. Also, with the Shards being balanced, I don't think that being spiked has the same negative effects (psychologically) as it did in the Mistborn trilogy.

Also, Miles thought he was simply playing puppet, and did not surrender himself to the control of another so to speak.

Good catch - in The Final Empire, nobody knew where the Atium came from besides Kelsier, The Lord Ruler, the Kandra, and House Venture.

Of course, A House Of Ashes shows Kelsier publishing lots of information on Allomancy and the like to be distributed to the Skaa, so maybe he let knowledge of the Pits get out that way, too.

Yeah, and I guess it's just needed for the game. Not everyone who will play this game will have read mistborn, so the story needs to provide more information than would actually have been leaked by Kelsier and his crew.

I don't remember, but did anyone besides Kelsier and his crew know that Hathsin was an atium mine?

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. On the other hand, Brandon said that Marsh can Compound Atium, and therefore he can.

Another thing to remember is that if Sazed can give Spook full Mistborn status, he can probably give Marsh full Feruchemist status, if he so chose.

*theoretically, TLR could have had the spike placed, but he wouldn't have wanted any other pseudo-immortals competing with him, so he almost certainly wouldn't have give Marsh the spike either.

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.

Oh, I almost forgot. We also know that there are four alters in Survivorism churches.

Marsh isn't combined with Lord Ruler. Wax specifically refers to gold compounding as "the way the Sliver gained immortality". They know Ironeyes and the Sliver are different.

That doesn't mean he isn't associated with TLR's religion more than Survivorism. It just means that they are at least two different figures in Sliverism.

Associating Marsh with Death seems to harken back to TLR and his inquisitors. If Marsh as "IronEyes" was more strongly associated with Survivorism I don't believe he would be held in the same view. In terms of Survivorism Marsh would be the Survivor's brother who martyred himself, not the fearful figure of death.

It's actually kind of odd, The Words Of Founding apparently included a concise summery of the events of the original series. Seems strange they'd mix up major figures like that.

That doesn't really mean anything though. Remember Yomen? He essentially saw his god die and be made a mortal, but he still believed even though he lived through the events.

If he had such strongly opposing views when the events were happening, how much easier would it be for those who weren't even born until hundreds of years later? It would be reasonable for them to dismiss the Words of Founding as "embellished" or "biased" if not seeing them completely false all together.

He could even go so far as to claim to be Last Emperor reborn (or the Ascendant Warrior if it's a woman), who would argue with a full deck of Allomantic powers in one person?

Hmm, wow. I didn't even think of that. That would certainly be interesting. And who knows, the Mistborn may not even need to make those claims. Those religious enough might simply deem him/her the Last Emperor/Ascendent Warrior returned. And even if he/she starts killing people, they might claim they're being punished for something. That could certainly be very interesting.

My thinking is that Aluminum and Duralumin Mistings would become Hazekillers, jealous of the power they don't really have. (that is if they're aware of their power/non-power)

Haha, i love it! Or Chromium or Nicrosil would work really well too. I wonder how hard it would be for a Chromium Misting to leech another allomancer's metals. Perhaps our dear protagonist (or one of them) will be a Chromium Misting because if s/he can deplete the Mistborn's metals, the serial killer will be much more manageable.

By the power of Grayskull! Can you imagine a single, regular looking man with access to all 16 Allomantic abilities in a modern city of millions, intent upon murder? Fading back into the endless crowds, and using copper to hide his every use of allomancy? Making using bendalloy bubbles and the entire range of allomantic abilities to defeat any opponent unfortunate enough to get in close? Using steel-pushes and iron-pulls to their full potential? Rioting and soothing civilians into and out of panics to throw off the police? Using the duraluminum-enhanced version of all of the allomantic abilities?

I'd be afraid of that guy.

That's going to make for some awesome fight scenes.

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

Think Seven or Fallen (in terms of hunt-the-serial-killer movies). Most of it is chase and some close encounters. Kurkistan makes an excellent point. All of those powers are going to keep him very well hidden, and ahead of any SWAT when not hidden. Harmony forbid he get hold of atium and duralumin.

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.

It would make sense that this is where the Set's true motives are revealed--if not earlier. Maybe like:

Book One: Stop the Mistborn serial killer

Book Two: Holy Harmony, what's this Set thing?

Book Three: Try to stop their real plan(??)

Either way I'm looking forward to it. So much can be done with allomancy in a more modern setting (i.e more metal around). I wonder if Hazekillers would come back? So far Brandon has had them in all of his MB books in one way or another. Maybe we might see Hazekiller people again? Or would it be too impractical considering how few allomancers there might actually be?

Well I don't think Hemalurgy works that way, fortunately it doesn't matter as Brandon said they made earrings out of reused Inquisitor spikes, so that's where the charge comes from.

That and the charge depletes when outside the body. So the extra boost it gives would probably be very small at this point.

If you raise someone from birth, you get to control their belief system. If he's been raised since birth to believe that Mistborn (i.e Him) and Mistings are superior, its not hard to believe that he could start thinking of people as simple things for his amusement.

True.

Now back to your original question: What's the point? I'm going to assume they want to breed a Mistborn, but for what purpose? What ideal has brought this group of people together? If we assume they want Mistborn and Misting superiority should we also assume they are Mistings themselves? Or are they an exception to their own rule? Or perhaps, the possible new system of government it also just a tool to achieve the real goal?

Or maybe they just like playing with powerful toys.

Who are they?

What drives them?

And what is the purpose behind the religion (Trell)and the Mistborn? Or are thy just manipulative tools (change in ideology & brute force).

1) The more likely scenario in my opinion is that they aren't trying to breed an army of Mistings, but are trying to breed a Mistborn instead. In that situation, the lack of Terris blood would be a strength, not a weakness.

This is my guess. We know in the future there is at least one Mistborn. So either Sazed granted someone the powers again and their descendent became a serial killer, or a group of people bred one. Considering Sazed seems to not want Mistborn around (somewhere in some text there was comment that he thought they had too much power) I don't think he randomly changed his mind.

Also, as you've stated, if they were simply breeding an army (a la Straff Venture) it would be ideal to mix the two bloodlines.

One thing I was wondering through reading AoL, is why the Set thinks the Mistborn will work for them? I suppose brainwashing of some kind but that can still backfire. Also, it's a very long term goal which gives some insight into their actual goals (assuming that breeding a Mistborn is just for the sake of gaining a powerful tool).

And if they want a revolution, they're being much more careful about it than our friends in FE. My guess is that the goal isn't simply to tear down a government (FE) but to switch it with a new one.