Thor

While it is probably true that one would become a Seer by eating a Lerasium-Atium alloy, a Mistborn burning the alloy would produce a different effect, similar to the fact that eating Lerasium creates a Mistborn, which is not what it does when Allomantically burned by a Mistborn. A Mistborn burning Lerasium gives a different effect, AFAWK.

Psh, totally a comment!

While the idea that the Set is trying to "breed" a Mistborn is probably the best and most likely idea, there is something that seems to be missing: why aren't they also kidnapping males from Spook's family tree? If they want a powerful Mistborn quickly, they need to add Spook's genes on both sides of the equation. They would get a Mistborn much faster by using men and women with Spook's genes instead of only one of the two parents being a descendant. This leads me to believe that some (or all) of the leaders of the Set are descendants of Spook and are planning on using themselves to further their goals... as if they weren't already creepy enough!

Hilariously enough, Scadrial doesn't have a moon, so people on Scadrial wouldn't notice the pun of Wax and Wayne or even know what a moon is!

I actually had a similar idea, though I thought anyone could burn Atium, buuuuttttt...Brandon has specifically said that the Inquisitors would spike the drinks at noble parties with Atium and then cause a commotion to get any unknown Seers to instinctively burn Atium. (The arrival of any Inquisitors was usually enough of a commotion.) They would catch them burning the Atium with a Seeker Inquisitor and then blackmail/coerce/recruit the Misting into joining the Canton of Inquisition. Here is the quote from the Brandonology: (The specific question is about 2/3 of the way down the page. Search for "Atium Misting" and you should find it.)

Actually those have similar problems. Weight, if you are always storing some to make you lighter, will give the same problem as astronauts, albeit not as bad. If you are always tapping heat (if it actually increases the temperature of your body) you might head straight into hypothermia because your body isn't used to producing heat to warm up your body. The temporal ones would be weird. With Cadmium one might not breathe without mental commands from the brain, instead of as a reflex. With Bendalloy one cannot digest. Electrum would give a super depression. Don't know about the Enhancement metals though.

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 think that intelligence (or consciousness) has a lot to do with control. A Koloss is a very basic creature, though not necessarily stupid. They don't really want to resist Ruin, as Ruin wants them to do what the Koloss do naturally, for the most part.

Mind over matter maybe? If you want to burn it you will? People can be stupid with their bodies. Without a persons stupid conscious thoughts to screw the body up, your body generally won't do stuff that is harmful to it, like skateboarding down railing without a skateboard. >.>

For TLR I think we can rule out burning metal that pierces his body. His Atium bracers are confirmed to be Hemalurgic, so burning them would cause...issues, as has been mentioned. When talking about the "Once you start compounding, it is dangerous to stop..." line, it is important to remember that you don't need to be compounding continually to get ridiculous amounts of an attribute. Miles stores a LOT of health in his ~30 metalminds and they pierce his body for combat reasons. He would only need to refill his metalminds every few days by burning a small metalmind, then he would be good to go for a few more days. The dangerous part of not compounding is that you won't be able to keep up your continuous tapping. Your metalminds will run out because you cannot "cheat the system" and tap more than you store, which may cause problems similar to Allomantic Savants. Here is an idea I had with regards to Double Golds specifically:

It's a rather nice piece of information. On to speculation!! I would take a guess that the determining form of the power in Awakening is thoughts not the actual spoken Commands. Remember that the way you visualize the Command influences the result, below the Sixth Heightening Awakening requires touch and that people who reach the Tenth Heightening can awaken without speaking. I don't have an idea for SA either...

Even Ruin isn't able to take control of a person with one spike so a mortal doesn't stand a chance. Brandon mentioned in an annotation that TenSoon wanted Vin to take control of him and if he had wanted to, he could have shut her out. Vin would have broken him eventually but it would have taken time. Remember that at the time TenSoon had four spikes, not the usual two for Kandra.

I think that Vin's body will instinctively burn only the metal that is in close enough proportions to the correct amount. As Kelsier says, “...if the mixture is only off by a bit, you’ll still get some power out of it,” so her body will only burn the mixtures that won't hurt her. The human body is nice that way.

I'm pretty sure that isn't what is being implied by the table. I believe that Atium-alloyed metals give Temporal and Mental powers and Lerasium-alloyed metals give Physical and Enhancement powers. 8 Temporal alloys and 8 Mental alloys for Atium, and 8 Physical alloys and 8 Enhancement alloys for Lerasium, is how I read it. A guess based on this: a Lerasium-alloyed metal, when burned, decreases the burning rate of all other metals, an Enhancement effect. I think that the line "...the Eleventh Metal isn't actually an alloy of Gold, but an alloy of Atium..." is pointing towards the table's definition for god metal alloys: the metal that is alloyed with Atium/Lerasium won't necessarily point out what effect the alloy will have. The alloy's ability is based off of Atium, not the base metal. I believe that Gold is generally believed to steal Feruchemical "Temporal" powers. Unfortunately, the effect of Lerasium and its alloys of turning people into Mistborn/Mistings is not due to burning the metal, just eating it. Burning the metals have different effects. Other than that, the idea has merit.

AFAIK, metals must be in the stomach to be burned. And I think that the way that TLR died is very convincing evidence that he wasn't burning Atium constantly: he ages very rapidly after the bracers are gone. If he was burning Atium metalminds then he shouldn't have de-aged, not for a few minutes at least. He was tapping (not burning) large amounts of Age from his metalminds and without them, he aged very rapidly to his true age.

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. )

Totally called the limit problem (From an older Marsh thread.): I agree with you, happyman. That is the most logical result of a Double Gold aging. legacyblade: I'm not sure. Either of those sounds logical...I think that his body would lack the ability to heal naturally, since his body would start removing the "superfluous" biological functions, similar to an astronaut's body cannibalizing its muscle and losing bone density because the body doesn't need a lot of muscle mass or strong bones to move in space. In Miles case, the superfluous functions would be those that related to healing: platelets, immune system, cell regeneration, etc. I can see why he would be afraid to stop tapping Health, even for a short time.

Green Hoodie Mistborn is correct. That is the way Feruchemical Age works. Remember also that TLR is MUCH stronger than Miles, Allomantically. I'd hazard a guess that TLR got ~1000x out of compounding instead of 10x, if not a higher multiplier. And he could get even more out by using Duralumin. How he stores that much, I don't know. His Allomancy alone is probably enough to survive the spears, let alone a ton of Gold compounding. Keep in mind that Atium, as a god metal, might give larger returns than a terrestrial metal. I also think that in limiting TLRs bracers to two, TLR misled Ruin (and the nobility) by letting them think he only had enough Atium to make the two bracers, plus what he sold to the nobility. Also, metals must be in your stomach to be burnt, IIRC. Miles has his metalminds piercing his body (or inside it) because they can't be Pushed/Pulled on, stolen, or easily removed by the authorities. He probably burns some storages periodically to refill all of his metalminds, then goes around tapping from them constantly until they are around half full (wild guess) then compounds enough to refill them.

When talking about an Electrum-Atium alloy, it is important to note that Atium doesn't show someone's future actions, it shows ALL future events, for a limited distance in the future. There are still Atium shadows for objects that aren't attached to people. Example: A person burning Atium is fighting with a stone-tipped spear (no Pushing/Pulling, as that would add more shadows) against another person burning Atium. Since the spear can be thrown or used to stab, there are many shadows, some thrusting/stabbing and some being thrown. As soon as the spear is thrown, however, the spear collapses to one shadow (its future probability being 1), while the Atium-burner who threw the spear is still projecting many shadows, albeit ones sans spear. I personally think that Atium-Electrum would be the future opposite of Gold, as has been mentioned. Note also that (on the table of Allomantic metals poster) Atium alloys give "expanded" Mental and Temporal effects while Lerasium alloys give "expanded" Physical and Enhancement effects. Some more food for thought.

Someone came up with the idea that he takes the bracers out of his arms to escape Ruin's whispering and runs his Age off of another metalmind or some Atium, so he may not be able to tap/burn as much Age without the bracers in. Just another theory that has been put forward.

I will only answer these two questions as the others have been handled already. Doubles generally have their Feruchemical storages tapped lightly at all times because if they have enough metal they can have an effective infinite storage, by using the logic that DariusJenai summed up so nicely. I think that Miles either had a few gold metalminds that were inside of him or he managed to swallow a few gold metalminds and then burned them during the execution. Or both.

Indeed, the variation in writing style was a very large clue for the identity of the Hero of Ages. This entire discussion is about the in-universe identity of the AA author, as was mentioned by the op to be one person, where we used to think that there was different in-universe authors for each AA (or close to it.)

True, but what would be the point if one is gathering information for oneself/others? Afaik, the AA are used in-universe by the SS as a sort of encyclopedia of magic systems. (And we, as readers, merely get to look at their summaries.) This is my feeling also. The AA are being written around the same time as the novel in question takes place and therefore have the same limitations as the characters in the series (though they may be able to puzzle out what some effects are more easily than the characters, due to a better understanding of Realmatic Theory.) It has a lovely meta-side effect of not spoiling magic systems.

It could be the Allomancer breeding program, a rediscovery of Hemalurgy, or something uglier. Either of the first two would probably upset the balance on Scadrial enough for Sazed to do something, either by himself or through an intermediary (Marsh/Wax). He would also be particularly mad, assuming his original mind is still intact, about the Allomancer breeding program as it hearkens back to the Terris Breeder program by the Lord Ruler and all the implications it brings. (Tindwyl, his being a eunuch)

Obviously eri has never played Starcraft. (Or at least the campaign.) Dominion can also be spoken of as a people/area over which you control but feel obligated to defend/protect. I, too, hadn't ever heard "odium" used before WoK, Chaos. You are not alone. I agree with CrazyRioter that the intent of the Shards are not mutually exclusive and I like the explanation given by Cuaiir, though I think the Dominion part of AonDor is more likely Dominion over the shape/result of the Aons, rather than dominion in a territorial sense. Edit: Good luck on the GRE, Chaos!

Awesome. Thanks again for confirming that. It is pretty much what I had in my head already though I didn't know the location of the other Mistborn trilogies.