skaa

The northern continent already has electricity. Assuming that they're using copper wires as IRL, there'd have been plenty of reports regarding mysterious invisible Smokers that hang around electronic devices.

I've been thinking about the Southern Continent and how they use the Metallic Arts in a "non-genetic" way. So far we've discussed how they might be using Hemalurgy and Feruchemy in creative ways, but after re-reading Alloy of Law, I'm starting to think the Southern Continent is able to use Allomancy even if they don't have Allomancers. In Alloy of Law, we find that Aluminum has anti-Allomantic properties even without being burned. What if all the other Allomantic powers can be accessed just by manipulating an Allomantic metal in a particular mechanical way? This could lead to so many cool technological possibilities. Here are just a few: Environmentally-safe public transportation via mechanized Ironpulling and Steelpushing. Rioting and Soothing gadgets (for government agents, entertainers, therapists, etc.) Bronze-based Allomancy-detectors (could be connected to a computer to produce precise reports, once technology has advanced to allow for that) Cadmium-powered food preservation machines and Bendalloy-powered instacookers. The method of mechanically activating an Allomantic metal can't be too obvious for people with Industrial-level technology, or else they'd already be using Allomantic technologies in Elendel. I'm thinking it might have to do with a seventeenth metal (Miles' "final metal"?) that induces Allomancy when put in contact with an Allomantic metal. Or perhaps one of the other Enhancement metals (Chromium? Nicrosil?) could be used for this. What do you guys think?

Well, Miles would agree with your ranking for Electrum Allomancy (according to him, Gold < Electrum < Iron/Steel). I'd imagine that watching your Electrum shadows would be very useful when running from gunmen, for example, but I'd still prefer Atium for direct confrontations (e.g. fist fights) because there'd only be one shadow to watch (your enemy's Atium shadow).

Alright then. I forgot to include the Lerasium-Atium-normal alloys in my equation, by the way. I don't have a theory yet about how many those would be, but I'm leaning towards 32 Lerasium-Atium-normal alloys (16 with more Lerasium than Atium, 16 with more Atium than Lerasium), mainly because of my theory on the God Metals (here's a relevant post in that thread). I'm still looking for a theory that I like regarding Lerasium-Atium-normal alloys with the same amount of Lerasium and Atium in them. That obviously shouldn't count. Otherwise there'd be an overwhelmingly huge number of alloys to consider.

English is just my second language so I might be wrong, but can't you interpret that as "There are way more than 16 Lerasium and Atium alloys combined"? If there are 16 Atium alloys and 16 Lerasium alloys, that's 32 God Metal alloys, which is "way more than sixteen".

I'd be content with him revealing just one Atium alloy from the Physical metals. I wonder if he'd RAFO the Allomantic effect of Atium-Tin.

Tell me about it. I suppose "running out of metals" could be interpreted in a narrow economic sense, as in "an event wherein the production of high-quality Allomancy-grade metals is unable to meet the immediate demand of Allomancer consumers," but even that isn't very likely to happen unless everyone and their horses on Scadrial suddenly became active Mistborn adventurers and went to buy metals all at the same time. But then again, before I read that post, I've always assumed the metals eventually returned just like Atium did. Allomancy is of Preservation after all, so it kinda makes sense.

One of my favorite hard scifi authors, John C. Wright, once diverted from his usual genre and wrote a fantasy trilogy called Chronicles of Chaos. The magic system is pretty complex. Each magic user belongs to one of six races that determine what kind of magic the person can use: The Dark are intuitive magic users whose abilities are powered by their desires. They can gain superhuman strength just by willing it, for example, and can even transform into animals. The Dark are strong against the Nameless but are weak against the Fallen. The Fallen are spell casters who can summon spirits to do their bidding. Their magic is non-intuitive, and they have to study their art (e.g. read grimoires, learn magic rituals, memorize the True Names of things, etc.) before they can use it. The Fallen see the Dark as just another race of spirits and could therefore control them using spells, but they are powerless against the purely mechanical Lost. The Lost are basically self-learning artificially-intelligent robots with telekinetic powers. They can manipulate the forces of nature and can even modify their techno-organic bodies, but these abilities need to be learned first (just like the Fallen). They consider the Fallen's spirits to be just glorified voice-activated appliances that they can forcibly disable. The Lost are bound by the laws of Classical Mechanics, though, and are incapable of handling the incredibly complex powers of the Nameless. The Nameless are multi-dimensional beings that can intuitively extend their bodies into any number of spatial dimensions (although it gets more difficult the higher they go). They can also sense and manipulate abstract concepts like free-will, purpose, usefulness, and moral obligations. The Nameless can directly manipulate three-dimensional physical objects (e.g. the bodies of the Lost) through higher dimensions, but they lose all multi-dimensional powers when confronted by the Dark. The first four races above are called the Houses of Chaos. There are two other races that have a hybrid sort of magic: The Phaeacians combine the powers of the Dark and the Lost. They have a limited power to change certain details of the past. They can also detect when they are being watched, no matter what method was used. The Olympians combine the powers of the Fallen and the Nameless to manipulate fate. Each Olympian has total control of one aspect of the future (e.g. Mavors, the God of War, can dictate the result of any battle, and can never lose in direct combat). They can also locate and monitor any person that becomes entangled into one of their prophetic declarations. What I like about this magic system is how it connects magic with philosophy. Each of the four Houses of Chaos represent a certain paradigm of thought. The Dark think they are omnipotent and that reality is just an illusion. The Fallen believe both in the spiritual and physical realms, and that all living things (including spirits) are bound by metaphysical laws. The Lost only believe in the deterministic physical laws of Newtonian Physics, having an utterly materialist philosophy. The Nameless, able to create their own metaphysical laws and exist in their own physical dimension, are complete relativists. In the story, the main characters learn to advance in their magical skill by getting advice from the paradigm that defeats theirs. For example, a Lost character teaches a Fallen character how to treat spirits as computers: once he learns the "machine language" for all these "computers," he can directly control any spirit with ease. Basically, the main characters help each other out to become the best in their respective magical paradigms, which I think is pretty cool. As I said, it's a bit complicated, and it sometimes feels like you're reading science fiction (especially when the Lost and the Nameless characters start talking), but I loved it. The reason why I like Mistborn so much is that the interaction between the three philosophically-different Metallic Arts kinda reminds me of this series.

We know that Brandon's Cosmere stories were inspired by various old myths and philosophies, from Eastern mysticism to Plato's theory of forms to even his own Mormon religion. Greek myth is a popular inspiration for fantasy writers, so Brandon might have gotten some things from that, too. I'd wait for an actual Hebrew speaker to verify Khmauv's hunch about Adonalsium's etymology (I, too, doubt Google Translate's accuracy), but the idea of Adonalsium being some mixture of Cronus and Hades seems pretty intriguing to me. It suggests that Adonalsium might have been a god of Time and Death, perhaps not a very benevolent one, and that sounds like it could lead to some pretty interesting pre-Shattering stories.

LOL, that might be the best argument I could give to some of my friends. But yes, Warbreaker was the next Sanderson book I read after HoA exactly because it was free. (I'm a skaa, after all.)

Normal Cadmium Allomancy already sends the user to the future via time dilation. My guess is that Atium-Cadmium shows a vivid vision of the user's future, like being in the future but only in his mind. And unlike Electrum and Atium shadows, the vision would seem real, kinda like Dalinar's last vision that showed the future.This power could be used by Worldhoppers like Hoid to know where he might need to go.

I decided to join an old Harry Potter online community back in college. For my username, I challenged myself to find either a character name or race name that nobody in the forums had taken yet. I had a hunch that "Muggle" would still be available since people probably wouldn't want to be associated with the mundane characters of the series. And I was right, so I became known as muggle in that online community. I remembered that event when I was thinking of a good username for my 17thshard account. That's why I chose skaa. In hindsight, I guess "drab" would have been better, but it's been a while since I last read Warbreaker and that term hadn't occurred to me at the time.

Ah. So much for that idea, then.

Did HoA say if Elend discovered Malatium Mistings in his army? If the 16 Misting Type theory is correct, the Malatium Mistings in the army would have been able to burn gold, so they'd probably be marked as just Gold Mistings. If Elend actually discovered Malatium Mistings, the 16 Misting Type theory would most likely be wrong.

Cool! Haradion's idea that Atium Mistings can burn all Atium alloys sounds intriguing, but I'd be perfectly content with them being able to burn just Atium and whatever metal Atium is based on. Note that I don't necessarily subscribe to this theory yet. It's just one idea that might resolve Phantom's question about the mists' behavior. What I don't like about this idea is that we're back to square one with Atium-Electrum: What is an Atium-Electrum Misting's power?

Ah, I might have to abandon my "Atium is Ruin's Electrum" theory then... Anyway, here's my idea: There might only be 16 types of Misting, each capable of burning one normal metal and at least one Atium alloy. So, an Augur would be able to burn Malatium, a Lurcher would be able to burn Atium-Iron, etc. Since Electrum was already known then, Atium will have to be either Ruin's Cadmium or Ruin's Bendalloy (based on the fact that Atium is Temporal). So under this model, Demoux, Yomen, etc. will either be Cadmium Mistings or Bendalloy Mistings.

I think I have a theory regarding how, as Brandon said, everything works out, but I don't have my copy of HoA at the moment so I couldn't verify my hunch. Could someone please give the list of all the Allomantic metals that Elend didn't know about in HoA? Thanks! Edit: Specifically, did he know about Electrum?

Ah, yeah, sorry if my tiny, technically unnecessary remark spawned an off-topic discussion. Basically, I just thought I'd mention the Kandra because they'd also affect the overall distribution of Ruin and Preservation on Scadrial. If humans are mostly Preservation, and Koloss are mostly Ruin, I was thinking perhaps Kandra would have to be somewhere in between. If Kandra aren't as balanced as I think they are, then either Koloss aren't mostly of Ruin, or Sazed is hiding an extra bit of Ruin or Preservation somewhere.

Uh, guys, the link said "destinies", not "densities". Unless I'm getting seriously dyslexic. I think the Expanse of Destinies sounds like Nalthis. But I'm just saying that so I could fit Vapors (Mist) with Scadrial. Edit: Whoops, I guess the theoryland link had a typo. >_< Sorry, my mistake.

Good points. I was under the impression that Ruin was never really a threat to most of the kandra, but apparently I was wrong.

I've theorized before, based on The Alloy of Law, that Gold Allomancy can be used to mix one's present Identity and past Identity. This allowed Miles to create an "alloy" of himself. It got me thinking about the Atium alloy Malatium, which mimics the effects of Gold, except the target is another person. In The Last Empire, Vin wasn't able to touch the Lord Ruler's Malatium shadows. That's probably because those kinds of shadows (let's call them "Identity Shadows") can only be touched by the specific Identity that owns them. What if Vin had touched the Lord Ruler himself at the time? Here's this post's theory#1: Malatium Allomancy allows the user to "alloy" his Identity with another person's Identity by touching him. There's a problem, though. When a Malatium Allomancer alloys his Identity with someone else's Identity, part of his Identity will have to go somewhere, presumably to the other person. If all of his Identity goes to the other person, they'd basically switch Identities. This may or may not be useful, but I'd imagine a person would prefer not giving part of his Identity to someone else. (Note that Identity is a Spiritual trait, so I'm not sure if Identity alloys would look physically different from their previous selves or not. Any ideas?) But what if the Malatium Allomancer can also store Identity in an Aluminummind? What if he's a Malatium/Aluminum Twinborn? This is theory#2: A Malatium/Aluminum Twinborn (let's call him a Vampire) can store an Identity taken via Malatium Allomancy into an Aluminummind, effectively stealing someone else's Identity without giving up his own. Here's some interesting possible implications if this theory is true: A Vampire would leave victims with absolutely no Identity. I'm not sure what this would look like, but I bet it won't be pretty. A Vampire can tap a stolen Identity from one Aluminummind while storing his own Identity in another Aluminummind, replacing his own Identity with the stolen Identity (with his own Identity safely stored). A Vampire that "wears" another person's Identity can touch that person's Identity Shadows. A Vampire that "wears" another person's Identity can use that person's metalminds. Edit: Come to think of it, a Malatium Allomancer can probably steal the contents of someone else's metalminds, though he'd have to steal back his Identity afterwards.

Phantom, you do realize that the quotes you gave do not refute the theory that mistwraiths are of Preservation, right? Those quotes all suggest that the kandra are less susceptible to Ruin. This fact may be explained by your theory of sheer luck (i.e. the kandra were just very lucky to be ignored by Ruin after so many years) or it could be explained by my theory of the kandra being more balanced than normal humans on account of the mistwraith's extreme Preservation alignment. Or it could be both. In the end, we'll just have to agree to disagree until Brandon clarifies the issue. Personally, I prefer Cosmere theories that actually involve thinking about Realmatics and Shardic Theory (e.g. how the Shards interact Realmatically with the other beings in Cosmere). But I know that's not all there is to it, so I may still be wrong.

Okay, agreed. Many of the kandra had their spikes for longer than the span of a human life, though. I'd bet even Yomen (who was probably spiked for just a short while) won't be able to fight Ruin off in that situation.

Oh, I wholeheartedly acknowledge that it was TLR's plan for the kandra to remove their spikes once Ruin attempted to "seize his prize". What I'm speculating on is the mechanics of that plan. How could most of the kandra resist the temptation to keep their spikes when we know that Hemalurgy increases Ruin's influence? We also know that humans are mostly of Preservation, and yet they are quite easily transformed into Ruin's puppets even with the smallest of spikes, so that proves just how strong Hemalurgy is. How did the kandra manage to beat that? When I think about it, the only possible explanation is that the mistwraiths had no Ruin in them. They were literally of Preservation. And so the Hemalurgic spikes that created kandra only led to them being roughly half Ruin, half Preservation (perhaps a little bit more Preservation, I don't know). It means that they were completely free to choose which side they would go to. Most of them freely chose to go through with TLR's plan.

I like the idea of the true-breeding Koloss being mostly of Ruin. It means that Sazed is serious about his role as the balancer of Ruin and Preservation. If this is the case, Koloss-human offspring would be more interesting than I thought. Did Tarson have equal amounts of Ruin and Preservation in his Koloss-Thug body? I remember that Kandra have always claimed to be of Preservation. I think that's only true for Mistwraiths and that Kandra are "balanced" beings, with their Hemalurgic spikes adding Ruin to their Mistwraith body. I also don't think any new Atium was being made at the time of the Mistborn Adventures, but I'm hoping Sazed would start making Atium and Lerasium again (in equal batches, of course) so that people could prepare for a possible war with Odium's forces in the future.