Trusk'our

That could be interesting... I wonder what else you'd splice into your spiritweb along with the powers, since Hemalurgy kind messily rips off pieces of spiritweb, unlike when you transfer Breaths, which would be an example of a more "clean" removal of investiture.

Which is better of these two powers? Allomantic electrum or Feruchemical Chromium?

That would get pretty confusing if you didn't know what you were doing. I suppose maybe Vin and Elend simply didn't have the time to practice with it, especially since they already had a lot of other powers to rely on. I guess another thing to consider would be that Atium also enhances your mind to allow you to process all the information, but I don't think that electrum does that, which would probably make it harder to use in lots of situations. So maybe if you were to commit to a certain path of action, then check your shadow, maybe you could determine if the short term outcome would be good or not? That might be a useful application of Allomantic electrum.

That actually sounds really useful though. So why wouldn't electrum be used more by Vin and Elend unless it wasn't that powerful?

Well, yeah, but it wouldn't change the innate strength of the system and it's users. You are right that it would work for boosting the powers of those individuals who used the medallions though.

I wonder what "the stick" would have personality wise if it were to be Awakened

That's true, I forgot that you can't sense the investiture within Awakened objects or Lifeless (I'm pretty sure you can't, at least). That actually makes sense then, since a Returned can somehow suppress their Divine Breath within themselves and not have it be sensed by Awakeners, which would imply that Life Sense can't actually detect all forms of investiture.

Is there a way to gain more that one resonance, or to separate the powers that lead to their creation so that they don't wash each other out? Could you do this by somehow separating the powers you hold, and then only allowing the ones you want to make resonances to mix with one another? Maybe a Bondsmith could manipulate the Connections within a person's spiritweb to edit them in the ways necessary to make this work? At the very least, if you had a resonance and wanted to keep it, then were to gain another power via Hemalurgy it probably wouldn't change, weaken, or remove your previously existing resonance since Hemalurgically gained powers don't normally grant resonances themselves.

Definitely true, but Allomantic bronze can only detect kinetic investiture under normal circumstances, while Life Sense can detect non-active investiture. Not saying you're wrong, I just wanted to point out the advantage that Life Sense has, is all.

If you take a Hemalurgic spike that steals a power, you can then split it into multiple smaller spikes, much like the earrings that the Pathians use to communicate with Harmony. After that is done, you can staple the spikes into your recipient and use emotional Allomancy to dominate them. I mean, it's a completely evil way to use Hemalurgy, but hey, it would probably be something that could happen if a villain wanted to use it.

In The Hero of Ages, we see Vin use Allomantic electrum, but she comments on how it doesn’t really affect the fight except to counter Atium. Not only did electrum not “affect the battle much”, neither Vin nor Elend uses it outside of combat. Is Allomantic Electrum just not very useful? What’s more, wouldn’t it not truly counter another form of future-sight unless you could actually use it to reliably change your decisions by seeing the future?

I don’t immediately think of combat applications when I think of Awakening. The system doesn’t seem to have been made with that in mind. However, certain creative individuals could come up with some powerful ways to use it, I would think. Here are some of my ideas, along with some that we’ve already seen be used. 1. Awakened clothing – gives added strength and protections. 2. Awakened ropes and pieces of cloth – can grab, restrain, and/or suffocate your opponents. 3. Awakened corpses – these can fight for you as extra allies, and they can receive more complicated commands than your standard Awakened object. 4. Awakened human-like objects, such as sets of clothing or manikins (specifically not corpses; these aren’t Lifeless) – they can fight for you as if you had allies, then you can retrieve the Breaths after the fight. 5. Large Awakened ropes, cloths, or other items – can be used as catapults, or to grab and constrict/hurl enemies. 6. Bootleg Shardplate (gotta love that name ) – by awakening your clothes (like in idea 1) while wearing regular plate armor, you get all the advantages of plate armor plus a great deal of strength for crushing blows and added mobility because you can now carry the added weight much more easily. 7. Awakened ropes/cloths (now with blades!) – by attaching blades to the end of these, you can make automatic stabbing and slashing constructs. 8. Awakened poisoned needle – similar to idea 7, but much smaller and easier to conceal; can be hidden up your sleeve (literally) to be used in a pinch if someone gets in close and grapples you. 9. Awakened mistcloak – really cool looking, plus, because of its many appendages, it could grab multiple enemies or deflect several attacks directed at you simultaneously. Would be extra effective in bootleg Shardplate, as your added weight would make you a better anchor than your enemies (reminds me a little of steel or iron Allomancy, ironically). 10. Self-Awakening – honestly not sure how this could be useful for combat, but I felt I should mention it Anyway, just in case it reminds someone who is more creative than me of its existence, so that they can apply it somehow. I’m not sure I can come up with anything else. Ideas, anyone?

The Bands of Mourning themselves weren't invested enough to be shardblade-level invested, and they were cram packed with investiture. My guess is that you cannot actually invest a normal piece of metal with enough investiture to make it a shardblade, at least not on the level of a Rosharan shardblade, which is made of a godmetal, and as such it is pure, condensed investiture. Nightblood has more investiture than a Rosharan shardblade, but it's constantly leaking that investiture since it's holding more than it can actually can keep. Plus, simply holding a lot of investiture inside a sword-shaped piece of metal probably won't make it a true shardblade. The investiture needs to be "programmed" to do what a shardblade does.

I found this WoB that says that kandra can leave Scadrial. Since kandra need Hemalurgic spikes to maintain sapience, I think it is safe to assume that someone pierced by Hemalurgic spikes can still worldhop, despite the spikes containing investiture. So I would also venture to guess that Marsh can worldhop too

Is there a way to stabilize your spiritweb to make it less damaged by Hemalurgic use? The kandra blessings of Presence and Stability both make the kandra less susceptible to being controlled, but since they are imparted via Hemalurgy itself, it also causes more holes to be made in their spiritweb than before. Could there be some way to stabilize, heal, or somehow reinforce your spiritweb to make it less susceptible to being controlled via the holes left by the use of Hemalurgy, that doesn't involve using more Hemalurgic spikes?

Which is better for detecting investiture? A Seeker burning bronze, or an Awakener holding Breaths?

True. There are probably easier methods of assasination, but it just struck me as so...well...stupid of queen Fen to personally write via spanreed to the Alethi if she was truly so worried about them being hostile. There are probably other factors I'm not considering here, but I'm not sure what they are yet.

As far as I can tell, Azure's blade doesn't actively try to devour her soul, so I'd say it's construction is a step in the right direction from Nightblood.

True, that could be the case. It would explain why he'd want them doing that type of stuff for him.

My favorite magic system? They're all good! But, if you insist... Hemalurgy. Definitely Hemalurgy. The many, many potential applications for Hemalurgy combined with the fact that despite it being extremely versatile, it's simple enough for me to understand, and it has enough of a rules set that you can't just say "well, I'm goanna cast a spell, and that will fix EVERYTHING...unless it's inconvenient for the plot, in which case, I won't do it. Could, but won't" (you can probably tell I'm not overly fond of Elantrians for this reason). Not only that, it's a magic system for those who study and understand the mechanics of the magic (NO, I still don't like Elantrian magic), and could potentially be used by anyone with the right knowledge. Plus, finding ways to work around the costs it brings (i.e. needing to kill someone to gain the powers, damaging the spiritweb of the recipient of the spikes, etc.) is an interesting challenge, and one that is achievable, I would think.

They likely were made of an assortment of metals, since all his other Feruchemical storages seemed to vanish as soon as they were pulled away from him. One of the metals used in their creation could have been nicrosil.

Hoid's own Yolish version of Lightweaving seems to also be "broken", but he fixed it by gaining access to the Rosharan varient. Could it be that Microkinesis could also be fixed if once were to gain access to it's Rosharan varient?

True, as it would seem. Azure's blade is proof that this is possible. Makes me wonder though; what make the two swords different? A different command? Perhaps they were created using different hacks of magic systems (assuming that you need a hack to make them, which very likely is the case)?

Nightblood is a shardblade, but in a similar way to how Rosharan Lightweaving and Yolish Lightweaving are the same; they have the same name and share many similar principles, but they use different sources of investiture, and are at least somewhat different in how they function. I'm also pretty sure that Nightblood does not actually have a supernaturally sharp edge, but you'd never be able to tell because it vaporizes and consumes everything it touches that isn't aluminum. Which would explain why it's not super dangerous compared to a normal sword when satiated; it can't absorb more investiture, so it can't obliterate you. Probably.

Plus, if the Taldain-ians (don't know what else to call them, unfortunately) want to some day travel between worlds and take that investiture with them, they'll need some way to carry a lot of investiture over a long distance. A dyson sphere could help them gather enough concentrated investiture that they'd actually have a significant amount to take with them on a space ship.