MasterK-Bob

Yes, the selective allomancy genes that allow for Mistings, and not just full mistborn, interfere with the full feruchemist genes. Not the genes for allomancy per se, but the allomancy genes that cause most allomancers to be mistings rather than mistborn. Maybe we need a punnit square of allomancy, though I'm not sure if Brandon has fully worked this out. Maybe there is the possibility of a lack of allomancy genes, or a limiting allomancy gene which doesn't grant allomancy, but says if you have a mistborn gene, you only get one ability, which would then get expressed based on a whole bunch of other things in your genome, then also just dominant allomancy genes that give you misting status if you have one, but don't interfere with Mistborn genes, and then Mistborn genes, which entered the population via Lerasium altering a person, their biology, and their Spirit Web.Then there are feruchemy genes, which we know MUST be recessive, because the Lord Ruler turned all Feruchemists into mistwraiths, and yet the trait survive. The limiting alomancy gene is the thing that didn't exist in the Terris population, and its effect is unknown, but I would suggest that, since it limits mistborn allomancy to one power, the one power thing actually interacts with the feruchemy giving one power. We know the Lord Ruler altered the Skaa so that there would be no Skaa mistings, and prior to that, 1/16 of everybody would be mistings and there would be no mistborn (I think that's right). Perhaps the Lord Ruler eliminated all misting genes from the Skaa and replaced them with limiting allomancy genes, making mistborn ever coming from the skaa much more unlikely, and perhaps renders regular allomancy genes nil to prevent the likelihood even of skaa mistings after interbreeding. I guess the regular allomancy gene could also interefere, but positively, since it is a one power gene, rendering someone with both a twinborn. Call the genes: A=allomancy--a dominant gene giving anyone with it allomancy L=limiting--a partially dominant gene created by the Lord Ruler when he ascended rendering anyone with a Mistborn gene merely a Misting and, perhaps, anyone with a normal allomancy gene, a non-allomancer. M=Mistborn--A dominant gene rendering anyone with it a mistborn unless an L gene is also present. F=Feruchemy--a recessive gene rendering anyone with both a full feruchemist, but doing nothing at all unless both genes are present. N=Nil--this gene would have no influence on allomancy or feruchemy. So the combinations would be: AA=Misting with children guaranteed to also have misting genes. AL=Maybe a misting, maybe nothing if L fully suppresses non-mistborn allomantic genes (I think more likely). AM=A Mistborn AF=I think here we get real direct intereference between one-power allomancy and feruchemy. I think this would be a twinborn. AN=A Misting LL=Nothing, but with very low chances of having an allomancer child. LM=A Misting with suppressed Mistborn genes. LF=A Ferring LN=No power, with a lower than average chance of having allomancer children even if the other parent has allomancy genes. MM=A Mistborn, with very high likelihood of Mistborn children, and a guarantee of allomancer Children. I believe that these are the genetically altered genes of a Lerasium Mistborn, though I don't think the double M is the reason Lerasium mistborns are more powerful, rather I think it's the more direct link between their spirit-webs and preservation that came with Lerarium. MF=A Fullborn (which we know must be possible because the Lord Ruler was terrified of the possibility--it was most of the reason for his doing terrible things to his own people, so the M all power element must interact with the F like the A single power element would, but to create a cullborn.) MN=A Mistborn FF=A full feruchemist with guaranteed feruchemist gene carrier children. FN=A feruchemical gene carrier with no powers. NN=nothing. I would suggest that Harmony altered the L gene so that it no longer suppressed the A gene, just limited the M gene so it acted like the A gene, and also limited the F gene the same way, which harmony didn't have a problem with because he was concerned about anyone being too powerful except Spook, whom he had basically appointed ruler. He also might have altered the A gene itself so that it did interfere with the F gene, which allowed for twinborn, prior to this, it might have been possible to have a misting full feruchemist, or perhaps the genes interfered with one another another way, so that either the Allomancy gene or the Feruchemy gene would be selected based on other genes that otherwise did not affect the metallic arts and only would have come into play in this strange situation. With respect to proportion of the population with each gene--prior to the Lord Ruler's ascension, 1/16 of all metalic arts genes in the non-Terris population were A, and all others were N. Within the Terris population, we don't know what percent of the population were Feruchemists, but the F gene seems really common the Terris community is Era 2, so I would say maybe 1/4 of all Terris had an F gene? The Lord Ruler would have transformed all A genes in the skaa population into L genes, and skaa were probably 80-90% of the population, let's settle on 85%? 85/100X 1/16=85/1600, 85/100X15/16=1275/1600, 15/100X1/16=15/1600, 15/100X15/16=225/1600. The final result would be about 5.3% L genes, about .9% A genes, and about 93% N genes. Add to that a negligible maybe 20 MM people at the beginning, whose kids with nobles are almost certain to be mistborn, but then take into account increased skaa fertility and decreased noble fertility to spread the L gene more than the A gene or the M gene. It's basically a big mess. Add in the Terris and it's a bigger mess, and I've probably oversimplified the situation and got a bunch wrong, but I think that something like this is what's happening. It all has to work out so that by the time of the death of the Lord Ruler, everything is back to about 1/16th of the skaa population having A genes. Maybe preservation actually, with the remnants of his consciousness, altered the L genes so they no longer suppressed A, and altered the L and N genes of the skaa so that exactly 1/16th of the unsnapped were altered to have 1 A gene.

Calderas, I think I read the opposite into ideas of the interaction of allomancy and feruchemy genes--not that they interfere with one another, but whatever it is that allows for people to become mistings much more frequently than being a full mistborn was not present in the Terris genepool prior to the final ascension, which is why all feruchemists to that point had been full feruchemists and it was only the interbreeding of the Terris and the portion of the population who had allomancy genes that introduced this selectivity that accompanied allomancy. I didn't think there was system interference between allomancy and feruchemy. Is there a WOB that says it's system interference rather than whatever genes that allow for mistings instead of mistborn?

I'm not positive I agree with all the perspectives on Lerasium here, though I will accept that it's additive. Let's leave Lerasium aside for a second though. Could someone be a mistborn through inheritance, and a ferring, or would the genes from allomancy that allow for mistings mean that if someone also inherited feruchemy, they would necessarily also be a full feruchemist?

Okay, so we know that Ferrings come from the mixing of allomancy genes and feruchemist genes, which result in the possibility of a single feruchemical power instead of the full set, just like you can the full allomantic suite, or just one power. What I don't know is the full effects of that mixing--if someone was a full mistborn, by inheritance and not Lerasium, and they also inherited feruchemical genes, would they necessarily be fullborn, because they didn't have the gene set for one allomantic ability to affect the feruchemical inheritance, or would it possible for someone just to be a mistborn and a gold feruchemist, for instance? Or vice versa--could someone be a full feruchemist and a misting, or would their being a misting prevent them from being a full feruchemist and they would just end up twinborn? I presume if someone was just a ferring, or just a twinborn, and then consumed Lersasium, they would become mistborn, and would keep their one feruchemical ability, but wouldn't become fullborn, but maybe they would? And/or maybe the one allomantic ability they already had would be supercharged like vin with bronze, albeit in a different way?

Am I write that the glowing metal in the cognitive realm is the reason ruin can't alter things written in metal, or at least related? I think that would have bearing on whether or not anyone would see metal as glowing. Maybe it's that metal glows in the presence of the power of a shard, on scadrial, whether that power is in an invested individual or a manifestation of the shard, since it's not the innate power of Ruin and Preservation that create allomancy etc., but rather the innate power or shards interacting with Scadrial, right?

I just wanted to ask why Scadrian metal glows in the cognitive realm to Kelsier to a degree that he perceives metal and souls to be the same thing. When I first read this I presumed that scadrian metal was manifest investiture just like stormlight, which explained allomancy, if not feruchemy and hemalurgy. This apparently is not the case, since metal is not the source of allomancy, but rather the key to tapping into preservation's power when using allomancy. But then why does scadrian metal glow? I don't think we've gotten any suggestions that metal glows in the cognitive realm of other planets. Is Scadrian metal special, or are Scadrians special because they perceive metal as glowing, or is this an attribute of the Scadrian Cognitive realm anyone would perceive? Does Scadrian metal only glow in the cognitive realm if it's actually in the physical realm, but if taken into the cognitive realm physically, resemble normal metal? Whatever the case, this does seem to be the same mechanism by which Ruin is prevented from reading and/or changing anything inscribed in metal. What bearing does Kelsier's encounter with Nazh in Secret History, with his non-glowing metal knife, have on this discussion?

There is a lot here. What I really don't understand, and what I think I need to to understand Mormon theology period in order to understand how it could apply to Sanderson's work, is whether or not there is an ultimate reality, if God became God through living a life like ours, but perhaps as a Christlike figure, and presumably the God who was God's God did the same, etc. etc. is there a terminus? Is there a prime mover, or an uncaused cause as it were that is like a true one monotheistic God, from which we are just very far removed, or is there not?

Do we know for sure that that is one for one though? Like, the black smoke could be the byproduct of whatever Nightblood does to incorporate the breaths, or whatever other investiture, he consumes. I'm not convinced Nightblood isn't getting progressively more invested every time he is drawn.

I'm a doctoral student and have been an instructor and adjunct professor in Religion and I've got backgrounds in Theology, World Religion (especially Buddhism, but I've worked with most traditions), but I'm primarily a scholar of traces of more ancient myth, like Mesopotamian, West Semitic, Anatolian, and maybe occasionally Egyptian or Myth in the Bible, especially Genesis 1-11. With respect to background I'm a Catholic who is heavily informed in my belief by ideas from other religions which seem to capture things about reality my own tradition has overlooked or at least failed to emphasize. I have to say I think Sanderson does an awesome job thinking about religion, and the concept of religion clearly seems to be one he thinks about, and not just from an LDS perspective. I think a vague monotheism transcending everything else does lie behind most of his work, but it's really interesting where shards fit as like, planetary powers, but have themselves a non-divine origin (I don't think Adonalsium is really God who has been split into 16 shards, but an incredibly potent creative force with many attributes that transcends the realms of reality we perceive and those higher than we are). We have to see, I guess, what Adonalsium really means before I can say more. I need to talk to more members of the LDS tradition because what I know I think is oversimplified, and my LDS friend who I most admire has basically told me that he thinks that his tradition's theology is still very much in its infancy, like Christianity was in its first few centuries. Maybe he's a little biased since he's a biblical scholar too and I think he's often concerned about being taken seriously as a secular scholar despite his faith commitment, but who knows.

I'd say, what happens to the investiture Nightblood consumes? Does it cease to exist, or is it added to Nightblood and Nightblood's power? If the latter, he would have been very powerful and heavily invested at first, but would have gotten way more powerful over time. Perhaps he was more powerful than the amount of breaths used to create him at first, but became one of the most heavily invested things in the cosmere through use and guzzling down investiture in a manner even the Lord Ruler or Kelsier or whatever could never have had time to do.

I definitely agree that Wayne could do it, but it would take either an impractical or impossible amount of storming up healing. Myles has so much healing that he MIGHT have been able to survive a shardblade severing his spine, if he was basically maximally healing at the time when his spine was severed. Progression can apparently heal a fatal shardblade wound do if done immediately. I don't think any amount of stormlight without progression can do that though, so gold healing with enough healing might be more powerful than stormlight. And do you have a quote about pewter providing much greater strength enhancement than stormlight? I would think it might depend on the amount of stormlight you have. A duralumin pewter punch with a lot of pewter would be ungodly powerful, but I'm not positive holding a ton of stormlight in isn't more powerful for as long as you can do it than buring, but not flaring, pewter.

I want to know just how good stormlight is without surgebinding. It heals the body, and I think a gold compounder with like, a pewter hemalurgic spike would be able to maintain a pewter drag with few ill effects as long as he had metal to burn and healing stored. Extrapolation from the story is difficult, and I would guess it probably varies based on how much stormlight one holds, but I would guess holding stormlight gives you, for the amount of time you hold it, about the same affects of gold compounding and flaring pewter at the same time. A more moderate amount of stormlight probably gives you effects similar to regular pewter burning, and regular gold healing. It seems to take quite a bit of stormlight to heal a shard-severed limb, and I don't think Wayne, for instance, could do it with gold, but Myles certainly could have. With respect to gold compounding and pewter dragging vs. stormlight, I imagine either would still leave you quite tired after a while, since wakefulness is a separate feruchemical property, but the healing effects of sleeping are probably less necessary for someone who compounded gold. I would also say it is probably harder to get access to enough stormlight to sustain a says long equivalent of a pewter burn, and stormlight seems to dissipate somewhat quickly.

After the shattering, Odium splintered and killed the holders of (at least) three shards before arriving on Roshar. In the various timelines for the Cosmere I have seen constructed, Odium is always said to have splintered Devotion and Dominion on Sel first, and then mortally wounded Ambition in the Threnodite system before Ambition was fully splintered, almost certainly by Odium, elsewhere (see, e.g. here, for example). Is there any WOB or anything that substantiates this order, because, based on the system overviews in AU, I presumed Odium went after and splintered Ambition before he went to Sel. Concerning Ambition, the Thredodite System overview says: Concerning Devotion and Dominion, the Selish System overview says: The Selish System article, also suggests that there was a fairly substantial period of time that Devotion and Dominion were on Sel before being destroyed, at least in human terms. There is no such suggestion in in the Threnodite Sytem article, though the coppermind article on Ambition makes it sound as though this was the case, or at least that there had been significant enough investiture once on Threnody to suggest it, all albeit without citations backing it up. It sounds to me, all told, that Odium went after Ambition first, soon after the shattering, and then went to Sel after Devotion and Dominion had been there for a fairly significant amount of time, at least from a human perspective. I think this is reinforced by the fact that Odium didn't defeat and Splinter Ambition outright, and that she was able to run away first after being mortally wounded. This suggests to me that Odium was still just figuring out how to splinter and not just kill the holders of other shards. I think Mistborn Secret history also suggested that splintering other shards was something shards had to learn, and that Ruin hadn't learned it, which was what allowed Kelsier, then Vin, then Sazed to take up preservation. Is there a reason to believe Odium went to Sel before going after Ambition, rather than after? If so, can you please share it? Thanks