Oudeis

Could you alloy lerasium with steel, bronze, and tin, and become a Misting in three metals?

I'm in Hero of Ages now, I'll re-read that section. I feel like in the first scene, when he first decides to start storing traits, he touches the iron and steel, and makes some comment about how they're "pure enough." Still coincidence, but I believe it does get mentioned. When I get to that scene I will try to remember to come back to this thread and remark upon it. Eh... the information we have is less specific, I think, than you are recalling. We know that if you try to burn a metal that has no allomantic properties whatsoever, it will kill you. Yet, Vin tries several possible aluminum alloys, and is sick, but not only were those percentages way off, they weren't even mixes of the right metals. Once she gets the metals right, and Terion makes her some duralumin, the very first ratio he tries works perfectly fine. From this, and from Kelsier's first explanation to Vin, I suspect that a perfect alloy burns with peak efficiency. The correct alloy at bad percentages works poorly, without much detriment. If the ration is off by a ton, it will still work but make you sick. If you're not even mixing the right metals, it will make you sick and it won't work. And if you burn the wrong metal entirely, you die. This is just one man's opinion. I'm going to re-read Kelsier's explanation near the end of part one of The Final Empire, and Vin when she talks with Ham and Elend about duralumin, and Vin in the scene when she's trying to Pewterdrag back to Luthadel at the end of Well of Ascension, to try to find more accurate information.

First, a couple of nitpicks. The lock was steel. The grate was iron. The earring was plated with silver, not gold. End of nitpick, start of actual response. We know the lock/grate worked; we don't know they worked well. Sazed stored for hours, and only needed to use the attributes for a couple of minutes, not even at all that much of a compounding mulitplier. Allomantic metals at impure percentages were said to work, just badly. Sazed's use could have been an inefficient use of feruchemy. The earring... is interesting. It spent years outside of her body, yet still let her hear pierce copper better than anyone, ever. It seems to break more rules than just this one. This is bizarre and warrants further consideration. I admit it's good evidence for the case that impure metals work fine in hemalurgy... but it also contradicts what little we know of hemalurgy, and how it loses charge when outside of a body. So, like many things about Vin, this one specific data point might be an exceptional scenario. Just my two clips.

Would a Tineye have difficulty hearing through a wall lined with aluminum?

Okay... I think my other points still stand, however. A human heart is necessary for human muscles, and even just the general human shape. While in human form, TenSoon bleeds red blood. We know they have eyes. Eyes don't work without tear ducts, tear ducts don't work without flowing blood...

...I mean, the muscles for movement and vocalization work, and they shouldn't. Clearly Awakening breaks some expectations. Use for cadmium: you're falling off a cliff and you're going to hit a drawbridge. Set up a bubble, let time elapse until the drawbridge opens, and fall safely into water. ... That's a bit idiosyncratic.

From Elend's POV as he enters the Chamber of Ascension for the first time. This reminds me of the cymatic cities on Roshar. Too big, too natural to have been made by man, yet too neat and precise to be natural. Could a similar principle have been at work? Side note, does anyone know how much time stalactites take to form? Would a thousand years have been enough, or do these predate the First Ascension?

I believe Topomouse answered this for us before, when he mentioned that alloying a metal isn't at all like pouring salt and pepper into a bowl and mixing it, it's more like baking a cake. Chemical reactions occur and the final product is not simply eggs mixed up with flour.

1. When doesn't he bleed? 2. I disagree with your initial premise. When TenSoon is about to be killed early in Hero of Ages, he's given a skull. It's said that he has some dissolved flesh already stored in a pouch-like organ, so apparently they do typically have organs. Since their muscles/skin are translucent, and since the muscles are what get turned into organs, I think it's reasonable to assume that the organs they make are exactly as translucent as the muscles. They would not obscure the True Bodies. Young kandra are discussed as secreting digestive juices; where do these juices come from, if not an organ? 3. "Eating with the whole body" is a process of digestion know as phagocytosis, and it absolutely requires organs in the species that do it. My idea of how Kandra work is very different from yours. It sounds like in your model, you believe that a kandra is like an imitation house, with walls and a roof that can be seen from the outside, but totally hollow within. I do not believe this is possible, any more than you could actually build such a house. Not only would this house be obviously seen as a fake with an even cursory inspection, I don't think it would even be structurally sound without a single load-bearing wall. I concede that I have no more proof for my model than you have for yours, I just think that mine makes more sense. Finally, skin is an organ. Eyes are organs. Just having eyes on the front of a face isn't enough to let a body see. It needs to be hooked up to a visual cortex that can process the information. Human bodies are not, as a whole, modular. Getting one part to work typically requires that a bunch of other parts also work, and the result wouldn't look right if the underlying structures weren't there. Skin is the color it is because it has a constant flow of blood. Blushing is capable because of blood. It takes a lot of organs to do all the things that humans do, without which there would not be much of a way for a kandra to remain hidden. Just my two cents.

Based on anything, or just gut? ((...ironically.))

Um... actually this rather handily disproves me. In one aspect, I was right, because there is a limit to how divisible they are, but the specific limitation I proposed is very definitely not this one. Interesting to note, however. The Blessing, it seems, is not the be-all and end-all. They require the Blessing for sentience, but it's only one part, and there are other things they seem to require, as well. EDIT: Rather an allegory for realmatics, in that regard. A realmatic view of the cosmere is important, critical and crucial, but I occasionally see people act like it's the totality of what matters. Some laws of physics and Investiture exist independently, regardless of what people "think" of them, which is why a Lurcher can never simply "believe" that he can burn atium and then be able to burn atium.

I suspect that a kandra is more like an amoeba, and less like a mass of silly putty. I think that, although malleable, it does have a single perimeter, and I'm not sure I agree it can be split in two as easily as you say. This is, of course, flagrant speculation.

Hrm... a Kandra mimics a human, yes? Perhaps this includes systems in the body, explaining why they bleed like anyone else? So, even though a natural kandra exists without needing a heart, perhaps while in human form, they DO need that organ, because all of their other human organs need oxygen and everything else pumping blood requires, and they no longer have whatever structure Kandra use?

There's no reason the individual pieces of a True Body couldn't be crafted to double as a weapon... but they would likely not be as effective as real weapons, and possibly not even as effective as bones. Also, remember that the bones aren't just a general framework; they specifically shape the resulting body. Like someone said before, mace-shaped legs, also how True Bodies often make you seem inhuman. Also, all that metal would be heavy to carry around. I'm not sure anyone would ever need as many weapons as there are bones in a human body... especially if using the last ones means you were now a glob of poorly-defined flesh. Perhaps just a few weapons? A couple of ribs could be custom-made, shaped blades (in sheaths, so as not to cut yourself). Hrm... it's hard to imagine which bones in your body you can do without. You've got two bones in your forearm, but if you take out one and try to use that hand in combat, you'd prolly break your arm very easily. Ribs might be your best bet. Also, remember, kandra brains work differently than humans ones. There's all that useless grey matter a kandra doesn't really need in his human skull. Store stuff there, instead.

If a kandra with the Blessing of Awareness had spikes for allomantic and feruchemical tin, copied an eagle to get great telescopic eyesight, burned tin to improve this sight, stored all of this sight (Blessing, eagle, and allomantic) in a tinmind, then burned that tinmind to compound it all allomantically... would he be able to stand on Roshar and read an eye-chart on Braize?

Pretty much, yeah. Just about the only thing better than seeing a character I love marry Hoid would be seeing a character I hate marry Hoid. This is my point. We would have had Sarene's wedding, but it got ruined. I want an actual, on-screen, amazing wedding. Somewhere in the 36 books of the main cycle.

I want a big wedding. Vin and Elend get married in the shortest ceremony Sazed knows. Siri was declared married to Susebron the instant he wanted her to wife; sure, there was a celebration for a week thereafter, but we get to see five minutes of that going on in the background. Sarene's first wedding ceremony (second engagement), we get to see a bit of the preparation but it ends before the good part, and the second one is only referred to. I want Mr. Sanderson to write us a whole, huge, full giant wedding ceremony on some world, in some religion, between two people who love each other very much. I personally nominate Shallan and Adolin, because he's third in line to the greatest throne in the world and she's one of a very small number of miracle-workers on the planet, so it's fully justified that their wedding would be absolutely spectacular, and it helps that they are already betrothed. She could even enhance the ceremony with some Lightweaving. Dalinar and Navani works, too. And of course I would accept Hoid marrying absolutely anyone.

The source would help immensely in this case.

There's a WoB that Breath is Innate Investiture. It's very possible that the specific mechanics of BioChroma would have unforeseeable interactions with Allomancy. That said, if there is not any other complication... I definitely think that a Drab Smoker (which is gonna be rare anyway, since if I'm remembering correctly that would have to be the child of a Scadrian and a Nalthian, born on Nalthis) would be weaker than a typical Smoker. I wonder if that means a Drab Seeker would be more powerful... To give you an analogy for why the Drab Smoker might be weaker, think of a Thug who lost a hand. He'd still have his power, he'd still be strong and still be able to do all manner of things with his power... but he's still not going to be as effective a fighter as a Thug with a whole body. That kind of trauma would affect much more than just your hand, especially if we're considering medicine at the time of the Final Empire. For a more extreme example, a paraplegic. However strong you are, there will be a limit to how well you can brace yourself. Similarly, a Smoker with a handicapped Innated Investiture might be less effective than one with a Breath. Would many Breaths protect you from emotional allomancy? It's possible. I'm gonna mull it over, but for now I'm saying that by my model, yes. Many Breaths would protect you from the effects of Emotional Allomancy, based on Mr. Sanderson's telling us that Breath is Innate Investiture.

Interesting thoughts. First, I think this falls into something that might have occasionally been noticed, but never widely disseminated. I think Vin mentions at one point, or maybe Kelsier does, that a lot of allomantic knowledge was probably discovered by a lone allomancer, who kept his advantage secret, and it died with him. Or her. Second, remember that Gold and Atium were considered "High Metals". Even if people did notice something, there's a good chance they would have simply chalked it up to, "Well, the High metals just have different Pulses, the same way they're weird because they don't have Mistings." About their Push-Pull... hrm. Malatium lets you see into someone's past... that sounds to me like Push, but I admit I'm basing that on nothing more scientific than "what sounds right to me," so basically it's a guess. As for atium, for the same reason I would guess it's a Pulling metal, but honestly I wouldn't be surprised if Atium and Lerasium simply broke the system and had Bronzepulses that had nothing in common with any of the other metals. Maybe they each just play a totally unique theme, and that theme becomes a leitmotif for all 16 of their own alloys.

WoR spoilers.

?? We have WoB on this?

To be clear, this is what seems to be the case based on a short sentence at the end of the very last book. I remain open to additional interpretations.

How does it work, exactly? The WoB says that the power of the Lashing is how much Stormlight you put into it. Does having the surge "twice" increase your own personal limit of how much stormlight you can put into any specific lashing? What if you had lightweaving twice? What's the difference? Duration? Size? How "convincing" it is? Is it easier to know how to do the more abstract lightweaving tricks?

By the MAG rules, perhaps, though the MAG prevents anyone from using feruchemical duralumin at the requisite levels. The canon as stated in Alloy of Law Ars Arcanum suggests that enormous connection isn't automatically devotion, it's just a strengthing of the emotional connection. If someone thinks positively of me and would typically be inclined to give my words weight, tapping a ton would make them devoted to me. If they like me but consider me the pupil to their mentor, they'll adore me, but still be unlikely to do what I say, so much as feel very strongly that I should do everything they say. If we were talking about someone who thought I was somewhat boring and a little pedantic, they'd suddenly find my presence totally unbearable.