skaa

That's why I said it was silly of me to say that. Read my reply again.

None. A Goldmind that is almost empty would still be a Goldmind, so burning it would still give the user Health. (Which is very handy for people like Miles ). The stored Health would be destroyed after the Goldmind is burnt out, so it won't make sense to store too much Health in a Goldmind that you're planning to burn later. Of course, it might still be handy to have regular metalminds to store Health if you end up running out of Goldminds in your stomach (e.g. if a Leecher touches you).

Ah well, as I've abandoned the Atium-Electrum conspiracy theory already, let's turn this thread into a general discussion one! Huh. Let me re-phrase, Phantom. Temporal-external-pulling powers are Temporal, right? Even in real world Physics, undergoing time-dilation is a non-controversial form of time travel. That's the same thing that happens while burning Cadmium. That's the same thing that happens when storing a Feruchemical charge. Subjecting your Feruchemical charge to a 1sec/sec time dilation (a.k.a. no time dilation at all) is equivalent to saying that you tapped it the same second you stored it (or had not stored it at all). The longer you go from storing to tapping, the greater the time dilation becomes. Tapping a memory you stored twenty years ago is an incredible feat of time dilation, and not calling that time travel is an affront to all the modern physicists who've studied Einstein. Sorry about that. I just finished a course on the Special Theory of Relativity, so the concept of time travel via time dilation is still fresh on my mind. Depends on the blood that appeared after you soulcast the glass. If it's indistinguishable from the blood you originally soulcast (you can test this), then yes, that would be time travel. Good point. It was silly of me to say that Feruchemical charges are "unchanging." They are just mostly so. A person riding a spaceship at .5c would be experiencing a noticeable time dilation, but he would still be able to move about in the ship (the ship would be like a Cadmium bubble to him). Someone else on a different ship could catch up with him, enter his ship, and then kill him, all while the ship is still undergoing time dilation. The same thing happens when a metalmind is destroyed via Investiture-overloading. You are sending tons of charges to "catch up" with the existing charges and overwhelm them. The only Feruchemy part of Compounding is the initial creation of the metalmind (via initial storing), which changes the metalmind (possibly in all Physical/Cognitive/Spiritual realms) to enable it to act as a "time-dilation spaceship" for charges. When you burn that metalmind, you are now doing Allomancy: gaining power from the outside (usually from Preservation) based on the metalmind's structure. As Brandon has repeatedly said when describing Allomancy, the power no longer comes from the metal. So, the speed gained from burning an Steelmind does not come from the Steelmind. The Health gained from burining a Goldmind does not come from the Goldmind. So, no time travel is involved during the actual burning of a metalmind. You are not tapping a metalmind when burning it. You're... burning it... I don't really understand those questions, sorry. If by "tapping out" you mean burning out all of a metalmind, then the charges are destroyed (imagine your time-dilating space ship, with you in it, being disintegrated by a God-like cosmic force; you'd die).

Drats! And I was hoping to come up with a list of (just 16) possible Atium alloy powers before going to bed! Assuming that the charges are perfectly static and unchanging while inside the metalmind. that's actually indistinguishable from time travel. Suppose a Pulser (Temporal/External/Pulling Allomancer) flares so much Cadmium that months whiz by outside his bubble in a flash. That would be a form of time travel, yes? Now imagine what that Pulser would look like from the outside during those months. Indeed, he'd look perfectly still, frozen in time. That's exactly what is happening to a Feruchemical charge.

This is what I took from the HoA text I quoted and the WoB you quoted: The physical aspect of the base metals on Scadrial are exactly like in real life, but their spiritual aspect contains both Preservation and Ruin. The God Metals are different in that Atium's spiritual aspect only contains Ruin while Lerasium's spiritual aspect only contains Preservation. But Malatium (Atium-Gold) only has an External power. So it's not an Internal-External mixture.

I got it from what Sazed said in HoA:

That is a very interesting theory, Isomere! I was thinking of an idea earlier today that was sort of similar (it relates the Shards to the metals, and it's also an alternative to my thoroughly-battered Atium-Electrum conspiracy theory). We know that both Preservation and Ruin exists in all the base metals on Scadrial, right? Well, my new theory is that the two Shards each chose a metal that would represent him on Scadrial's Physical Realm, took a bit of that metal from the land, and removed the other Shard's influence from that bit. Ati chose electrum, so Atium is electrum that doesn't contain any part of Preservation in it. That's why Atium Allomancy looks so much like Electrum Allomancy. Just like you, I also suspected that aluminum was Leras' metal. But later I decided that Leras probably chose nicrosil, since that would mirror the Atium/Electrum relationship better: Nicrosil is an alloy, just like electrum. Atium is like a more powerful version of electrum with a Self/Others inversion. Lerasium is like a more powerful version of nicrosil with an Others/Self inversion. Nicrosil Feruchemy stores Investiture while Lerasium Allomancy grants Allomantic Investiture. Electrum Allomancy shows your future while Atium Feruchemy stores your future (in a way; it stores Age, after all). So, Atium is electrum without Preservation, Lerasium is nicrosil without Ruin. Of course, your theory sounds so much cooler than mine since it also involves the other Shards outside of Scadrial. May I ask, under your theory, what's the Allomantic power of an Atium-electrum alloy?

Whoa... that's a lot of alloys! That's true. But there has to be a reason why Brandon would make a separate quadrant for Mental Allomancy. How so? Compounding is Feruchemy+Allomancy, so there's more Preservation than Ruin. It's no longer a balance, so Preservation's end-positive nature is now in play. For example, the huge amount of Strength gained from Pewter Compounding did not all come from the user's stored strength (otherwise that would be nonsensical): most of it came from Preservation's power (Allomancy). Edit: Also, I vaguely remember Brandon describing Feruchemy as temporal. I'll try to look it up.

D'oh! I'm sorry for misunderstanding your earlier post, Phantom. I'd forgotten all about that chart's info on the God Metals. So, that makes the 16 "Misting alloys" Physical-Enhancement hybrids. Makes sense. I guess enhancing the body to use Allomancy requires some physical changes as well. And Atium alloys are Temporal-Mental hybrids. I suspect that's because Ruin warps an Allomancer's way of thinking while using the temporal powers of Atium alloys. In the case of Lerasium's Allomantic Enhancement aspect, one could argue that it fits well with Preservation's power, which is described as "end-positive" in nature. I'm not sure about Atium's Allomantic Temporal aspect, but I do have a theory (oh God! not another one!). I think it's because combining Laras' and Ati's powers inherently leads to temporal powers. Here's a summary of my train of thought: Allomancy using Atium alloys leads to using Ruin's power via Preservation's system. Kind of like a mixture of Preservation and Ruin. Feruchemy is another combination of Preservation and Ruin. Feruchemy is inherently temporal. Storing Feruchemical traits basically allows the future you (not the present you) to gain those traits. Allomancy using Atium alloys must be of a similar nature (i.e. temporal). This would require that Preservation+Ruin=Time, which makes sense if you think about it. Things that pass through time are either preserved or ruined. I guess Sazed's intention is more of balancing the two opposite powers instead of combining them, which is why he calls himself Harmony instead of Time.

Well, not directly. The Lerasium-Iron alloy, for example, grants the ability to use Iron Allomancy, which is a Physical power. I think "Enhancement" is a good term for what Lerasium and its alloys do. Wait, which chart is this? I thought the fact that some Atium alloys give Mental powers came from a Brandon quote. Is there a new chart I'm not aware of?

I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this, but I saw another connection between the Sel and Scadrial stories as I was re-reading the Hero of Ages a few minutes ago (possible Mistborn spoiler):

You guys are right. This is getting pointless. Almost everything I've said so far have been ad hoc arguments invented just to support the central theory of Atium-Electrum, anyway. So, consider me defeated. Anyway, moving on. Do you guys know any alternative theory that explains the similarity between Atium and Electrum? Or a theory about what the Atium-Electrum alloy actually does? I'd be willing to back a stronger, less controversial theory if there is one. Edit: As a matter of fact, I'm starting to doubt the significance of the similarity. Aluminum and Chromium (and their alloys) have a similar case, after all (Chromium and Nicrosil have powers similar to Aluminum and Duralumin), so there's actually nothing inconsistent with that per se. But I'm still worried about the Allomantic Table for Atium alloys. Since Atium-Gold reveals the Gold shadows of others, what would Atium-Electrum reveal, if not the Electrum shadows of others?

Well, okay. The destruction of the Atium-producing crystals would be a far worse disaster (economically-speaking) than not getting the single bead from the geode. The Empire sees Atium as wealth, after all. That doesn't really contradict my theory, though. The crystals, the geode, and the Atium beads could all have been destroyed at the same time. Iron and steel Allomancy are the only Allomantic powers that could affect metals outside of the body, and I know that saying "You can destroy pure Atium by Iron-Pulling or Steel-Pushing on it!" sounds far less impressive than "You can destroy pure Atium by doing any Allomancy!" but that's still an important discovery. TLR knows that Atium would be a useless currency if Lurchers and Coinshots could destroy it at a whim. Hence the need to alloy it. Also, since Atium-Electrum is so useful in battle, creating it would be the perfect way to expend Ruin's body while getting something out of the evil bugger. Okay. So maybe it says "Malatium = Atium + Gold." The Lord Ruler and the obligators reading his plates probably have their own secret name for Atium-Electrum to avoid confusion, so that they may talk of Atium (the pure one) plainly among themselves. From what I can tell, TLR only wrote about stuff that his obligators might not yet know about. They already know about Atium-Electrum, so there's probably no plate with info on that alloy.The quote about Sazed is actually the best evidence against my theory that I've seen so far. I don't know... perhaps Sazed wasn't informed by Laras about that particular thing. After all, Ati never figured out Laras' secrets. Anyway, good job, Phantom!

LOL, I really wouldn't mind letting this theory go if I could, but my mind keeps on coming up with counter-arguments like crazy. Sorry guys. Let's see what you make of this batch. I already amended my theory to account for that. You need to actually be using external Allomancy (i.e. "pulling" or "pushing" on the geode) to affect the geode. More importantly, if you won't accept the theory that Preservation's power affects the Atium inside the geode, you'd still have to explain why the Atium can no longer be extracted once the geode is shattered. Surely a Lurcher prisoner that accidentally shatters a geode could just Pull the Atium bead out and hand that over instead. But no, we are lead to believe that the destruction of a geode is always a bad thing for Atium collectors. The beauty of my theory is that it explains that mystery: the Atium bead self-destructed. That's why it's no longer there. Not really. "Combine Atium and antimony, then heat the mixture in a closed container" will not trigger any warning signs for people like Vin and Elend. The obligators (or at least a chosen group within their ranks) already knew about the alloy nature of "Atium", and they were the intended recipients of those plates. You won't do any of that while inside the actual tunnels, though. There'd be no one to Soothe or Riot. Heck, I could even revise my theory again to require that geodes be the actual target of the external Allomancy. Nobody's gonna try to Riot a geode (if they even could; I think emotional Allomancy requires that you can sense the mind of your target, though I may be wrong). Is it? If alloying an Allomantic metal reverses its direction, I feel that the following should be perfectly valid (in an environment where magical rules are valid, anyway): Elemental metal = pulling Elemental metal + X = pushing (Elemental metal + X) + Atium = pulling In fact, it would be weird if it weren't like this. Do you really expect all 16 Atium alloys be Allomantically-pushing?

But... but... the shadows! The similarity! The pattern! *mumbles incoherently and cries in a corner* Oh well. The following replies will be a half-hearted attempt to save the ideas in the first post. You've all made some really good arguments. I still think the similarity between Atium and Electrum is significant, though. If it's not an alloy, perhaps there's an even cooler explanation. We'll see. Well, I could revise the theory to say that pure Atium only reacts to external Allomancy. It would make sense, since internal Allomancy only affects the user so there's no reason for it to affect the Atium geodes. The other external metals known to people at the time (Zinc and Brass) have powers that won't be used inside of the Pits. You won't feel the need to Riot/Soothe when you're crawling all alone inside a tight tunnel. The "Atium" in the kandra homeland would be Atium-Electrum, too, since the geodes were already processed by the Ministry before leaving the Pits, as can be seen in the text you quoted: We know one reason why the geodes were processed in secret (to hide the fact that most of them are being squirreled off), but what if there was another reason? Say, some backdoor alloying going on... That doesn't contradict my theory at all. Atium-Electrum still contains the condensed power of Ruin... just alloyed with something else. And I never said anything about Atium Hemalurgy. For all we know, stabbing a person with a pure Atium spike negates Allomancy's anti-Atium nature the same way alloying does. Or perhaps Atium alloys like Atium-Electrum all have crazy powerful Hemalurgic characteristics. What of an alloy of an Allomantic alloy (e.g. an alloy of Electrum)? Might there not be a reversing involved? I might research on the components of the known Allomantic alloys later to see if any of their constituent components are Allomantic alloys themselves, but perhaps someone here already knows. TLR predicted that Ruin will one day escape, and that Atium-Electrum Mistings will become essential in defeating Ruin and his Hemalurgic army. Surely a bit of obsessiveness with alloying Atium can be forgiven. Regarding the Shardic Theory comments, I am aware that the non-God metals don't really have Preservation or Ruin's power in them, that they are just a focus for their power. But the God Metals have to be different, because they are the condensed form of Shardic power. If my theory is true, then the term "Atium" can mean two things: either (1) the pure Atium, or (2) the "Atium" known during the Final Empire (i.e. Atium-Electrum). Brandon can legitimately use either definition when doing interviews. It allows him to equivocate whenever answering Atium-related questions, at least until the day he decides to reveal the fact. So even WoB might be fuzzy. For example, consider the following purely hypothetical exchange between Brandon and a fan: Fan: Hey, Brandon! I was wondering about Atium. It's Ruin's body, right? How come Allomancers can use Preservation's power to burn Atium? Brandon: Yes, Atium(1) is Ruin's body. When Allomancers burn Atium(2), they aren't really accessing Ruin's power, but only using the Atium(2) as a focus for Preservation's power. In that exchange, the fan will never realize what Brandon was doing (unless he's Skip). It's the perfect way to keep a juicy plot point hidden without having to say "RAFO!" (which would only make fans more curious, anyway). All that aside, I wouldn't really be surprised if ingesting a pure Atium bead would actually affect an Allomancer somehow before it self-destructs. So one could say that pure Atium does have an Allomantic purpose (though probably not a nice one). Nooo!!! *sobs*

Allomancy affects the crystals because the crystals contain the Atium it generates, so the destruction of the Atium within destroys the crystals as well. Has anyone here read The Eleventh Metal short story yet? I'd like to know exactly how Kelsier obtained malatium. I suspect he didn't make it himself; he didn't even know if the metal was Allomantically sound or not. Anyway, there is such a thing as gold parting, and I'm pretty sure this can be used to separate silver from Atium-Electrum and get Atium-Gold (a.k.a. Malatium). Imagine a chemist in a remote village experimenting with "Atium" (apparently because he didn't need wealth and... well, Science!) and discovering that he could extract silver from it. The leftover metal would be a complete mystery to the person. It would be an... Eleventh Metal. No, "Atium" Mistings were Atium-Electrum Mistings. The Atium-Electrum alloy has a similar effect to Electrum, except the user sees shadows of other people, not himself. That could be an Aes Sedai response from Brandon. Lurchers and Coinshots would be more likely to attempt Allomancy in the Pits since the more foolish ones would think that seeing Allomantic Lines helps them get more Atium geodes, and Pewterarms are more likely to burn trace metals unconsciously. My theory does not in any way contradict the wording of the statement about Mistborn. They definitely aren't good for pure Atium! Also, notice the error in Brandon's post: he said "silver" instead of "tin". That might very well be a Freudian slip. Electrum is half silver, after all. There might be. Would you mind sharing links? No worries. I can let go of that minor theory. Preservation may just be more bad-chull than Ruin. Interesting. Could it mean that Atium can only be alloyed with the mental and temporal metals? Or is it that even the physical/enhancement ones will produce mental/temporal powers once alloyed with Atium? He didn't answer the question directly, though. I wonder why... I think it's the opposite. He'd most certainly be aware of the blatantly obvious similarities between Electrum and Atium, and would expect people to ask about it. The fact that he didn't say what the Atium-Electrum alloy actually did means it's basically been RAFO'd, which suggests that it is something special (either that, or he's still figuring out how to explain away the similarities).

We all know that during the time of the Final Empire, Atium was harvested in the Pits of Hathsin. The harvesting had a peculiar quirk: Allomancy cannot be used in the vicinity of the Pits, otherwise the Atium geodes will shatter. The Steel Ministry had to process the harvested Atium geodes first and convert them into Atium nuggets before Ruin's body can actually be used by metalborn. I think this fact, that Atium geodes shatter upon contact w/ Allomancy (Edit: perhaps just external Allomancy directed at the geodes), is very significant. I believe that it happens because Preservation's power negates Ruin, and so Ruin's body (i.e. Atium) cannot endure the presence of Allomancy. We know that Mistborn can use normal Allomancy without destroying their precious Atium reserves, so I began to wonder: What miraculous process was the Ministry using to make Ruin's body usable in Preservation's power? What made Atium nuggets different from raw Atium geodes? (Edit: Almost everything above seems suspect now. I'll just leave it there for future reference.) I remembered another peculiar thing about the Atium nuggets that were used during the Final Empire: Its Allomantic effect is just like that of Electrum, except you saw other people's shadows and not your own. And I remembered Malatium, the alloy of Gold and Atium, which was just like gold Allomantically except it, again, showed other people's shadows. Then it hit me: The Atium being used in the Final Empire wasn't pure Atium at all! It was an alloy of Electrum and Atium! That's why the "Atium" no longer gets destroyed. The Steel Ministry alloyed the pure Atium with an Allomantic metal (in this case, electrum) and this made it Allomantically stable. (Edit: there's a lot of good arguments why the Lord Ruler and his Ministry didn't do the alloying themselves. Also, I no longer think that Allomancy is dangerous to Atium.) This explains the Allomantic effect of burning this "Atium" and why it seems similar to Electrum. It had electrum in it! It could also explain why Malatium was the only other Atium alloy known during the Final Empire. Due to the chemical properties of silver and gold, it would have been easier to discover the silver component of Atium-Electrum (leading to the discovery of Malatium) than its gold component. Without removing the gold, the other Atium alloys couldn't have been discovered. If our Brandonology experts declare that the above theory doesn't contradict WoB, then I plan to discuss other theories regarding Atium alloys. Meanwhile, I'd just like to list quickly some minor theories based on my thought process above: Pure Lerasium cannot be used in Hemalurgy. Trying to pierce a person with a Lerasium spike will shatter it. (Edit: this might have contradicted WoB) Lerasium alloys have Hemalurgic properties. Atium's alloys have a similar (but non-identical) Allomantic effect to that of their non-Atium component. (Edit: it is said that all Atium alloys are mental-temporal. I don't know what this means regarding the 8 remaining physical/enhancement base metals.) The "Atium" used to Feruchemically store Age is also the Atium-Electrum alloy. That's how it can be Compounded. Edit: Alloying a metal that is already an Allomantic alloy produces an Allomantically-pulling alloy. This new minor theory is based on Phantom's comment below. Edit: Since an alloy typically has a similar power to that of its primary metal, this suggests that the alloy of Atium and Electrum has more Electrum in it. This is good, because it allows for a more efficient use of rare Atium. ​Edit: Given the difficulty of assuming that the Lord Ruler and the Ministry were alloying all the Atium they collected, I'm beginning to suspect it was Leras himself who did it, perhaps as another way to keep Atium away from Ati. He told Rashek about it, of course. It's possible that Sazed hadn't learned of this yet when he wrote the book he'd given to Spook. Since Leras is now out of the picture, I suspect pure Atium will appear in the future, giving people the chance to experiment with this God Metal and create more Atium alloys. Edit: This theory is officially "Skaa's Atium Theory #1". I no longer subscribe to this theory, and am currently working on "Skaa's Atium Theory #2", which will be incorporated into a bigger theory on the God Metals, and which will appear in another thread later.

Ooh, I haven't been reading that thread since I last posted there. Interesting. What I got from the quotes is that the only safe way to burn a Hemalurgic spike is if the spike first stole your own power, which is both paradoxical (since you'd be dead before you could even use the spike) and pointless (because even if you could somehow survive that, you'd just be burning your own power back into yourself, anyway). At first I thought that Brandon's ambiguous statement about the "very strange consequences" of burning someone else's spike could save my theory somehow since, after all, "sDNA splicing" is exactly what Hemalurgy is for, but the quote Phantom brought up suggests that it would still be unwise to do such a thing. Perhaps it's because sDNA splicing is an exact science that requires a high degree of precision (hence the specific Hemalurgic bindpoints), something that can't be achieved via Allomancy. This makes me wonder what chromium's Hemalurgic power is. Perhaps a Chromium Compounder could obtain enough luck to burn Hemalurgic Chromium and somehow get all the sDNA splicing done correctly. But maybe that's a bit far-fetched. Oh well. I was hoping that Allomancy would prove to be as complementary to Hemalurgy as it is to Feruchemy. Brandon said in the appendix of AoL that Hemalurgy is not inherently evil. That's why I suspected that, somehow, there is a way to use it without harming people. I really wish that the power of Hemalurgy can somehow be harnessed without using Ruin's methodology. Hopefully Sazed/Harmony will find a way for people to do this later on.

Thanks, Phantom! That's exactly what I was hoping for. Knowing that Allomancers can burn charged metals, even those charged by someone else, makes me a bit more confident about my theory, which I will be describing later. I have been thinking about Allomancy, and how Twinborns are able to drastically augment Feruchemy by burning pieces of their metalminds. Twinborns are special because they can Allomantically access Feruchemical charge. Other Allomancers (including Mistborn) aren't able to do this because it requires Feruchemy to be part of a metalborn's sDNA. The sDNA requirement is also true for Allomancy (i.e. you can't burn metals unless the ability is written in your Spiritweb), but there is one other Metallic Art we haven't mentioned yet, and it is an ability that can be used by everyone on Scadrial (potentially everyone in Cosmere). I'm talking of course about Hemalurgy. My theory (don't worry, I'm getting there) was borne out of the three facts mentioned above: Allomancers can burn charged metal Twinborn can use this to Allomantically access Feruchemical charge Everyone on Scadrial can use Hemalurgy Here's my theory (at last!): Hemalurgic charge can also be accessed via Allomancy. And not just by special Allomancers invented by Harmony. A piece of a Hemalurgic spike can be burned by any Allomancer (well, assuming the spike is made of a metal he can burn, of course). Advantages of Allomantically-accessing Hemalurgic charge: No icky piercings that might kill you if someone pulls the spike off. Compounding of Hemalurgic charge. Squeeze everything from that old spike! Probably no damage to your Spiritweb. Take that, Ruin! Disadvantages of Allomantically-accessing Hemalurgic charge: The Investiture stops as soon as you stop burning (might be an advantage in certain situations). When you run out of Hemalurgic spike to burn, you're gonna have to stab somebody (might be a good thing for certain people). If you can't burn the metal that the spike is made of, you're probably out of luck (unless you're desperate enough to pierce yourself). That spike has dried-up blood on it... "But wait, skaa!" you might object. "I thought the special thing about Hemalurgy is that the power obtained from a spike depends on which bind point was pierced. How do you determine what power you get via Allomancy? And why aren't you working in the fields?" To the first question, I shall answer with this list of examples (you should be able to guess the rest after you see the pattern): While an Iron/Pewter Twinborn is burning Hemalurgic Iron, he can enjoy being a really big-muscled Lurcher for a while, or he could store the compounded charge as Physical Strength in his Pewtermind. While a Coinshot (Misting or Twinborn) burns Hemalurgic Steel, he can also start burning either Iron, Pewter, or Tin as well, depending which Physical Allomancy was stolen. While a Tin Compounder burns Hemalurgic Tin, he can store "human senses" as Senses in his Tinmind. Triple Tin Combo! Kinda pointless, actually, seeing that he's probably better off just Compounding his own metalmind. While a Thug Misting burns Hemalurgic Pewter, he gains temporary Feruchemical Physical abilities depending on what kind of Ferring or Twinborn was originally stabbed using the spike (hopefully Feruchemical Pewter). Okay, I think that's enough examples for now. So, did Brandon ever talk about this possibility before?

No problem at all! As I told Kadrok in my Nicrosil thread, it's good for me to learn more pieces of the Cosmere puzzle even if it means my theories get disproved in the process. I'm now reading Brandon's Q&A thread here to be able to make better theories in the future. He also said that Honor and Cultivation arrived on Roshar at the same time, so that's that. I still think that every Shard (at least the original 16 of them) has a thematic partner. Apparently some of them decided to partner with someone else, and some decided to go solo. Who knows? Maybe there is a Shard called Desolation on another planet. I'm thinking maybe he's Bavadin.

Hey guys. I've been formulating a theory about Allomancy, but I encountered a problem that I hope you could help me with. We know that when a double metal Twinborn burns his own metalmind, its stored trait is Compounded. But what happens when he tries to burn someone else's metalmind (assuming it's the same kind of metal that he can Allomantically burn)? Did Brandon ever reveal that information? I know that Vin consumed a piece of one of Sazed's metalminds back in the original trilogy, and that she said she couldn't access the metal's Feruchemical contents. But I don't think it was ever mentioned if she was at least able to access its Allomantic power. To put it another way: If a Lurcher Misting attempts to burn a piece of someone's Ironmind, his weight certainly won't increase (because he's just a Misting), but will metal objects fly towards him? Will he be able to burn the iron at all?

Okay, so here's a theory about the planet Roshar. So far we've had two planets with only two Shards (Scadrial and Sel). Both of those planets seem to have Shards that are thematically related to each other (Ruin and Preservation, Devotion and Dominion). My theory is that, long before Odium arrived on Roshar, that planet also had two Shards that are thematically linked. If you're thinking, "But the concept of Honor seems to have little to do with the concept of Cultivation," we'd be in complete agreement. And that's where my theory comes in: I don't think Honor was Cultivation's partner. I think Desolation was. This is the story I have in my mind: Long ago, Honor and Odium had a planet all on their own. As expected, Odium tried to destroy Honor, but he failed, and Honor left the planet along with a few humans in his care. Travelling through space, Honor and his people came upon the planet Roshar, which by then was also experiencing its own Shardic war. Desolation was gaining the upper hand over Cultivation, and the land was starting to become more and more desolate. Honor intervened in the fight, defeating Desolation and saving the only part of Roshar left untouched: Shinovar. But Honor's Intent prevented him from killing Desolation, so he imprisoned him the same way Preservation imprisoned Ruin. (Come to think of it, Honor probably imprisoned Odium as well before he left his original planet, though obviously the imprisonment wasn't permanent.) Knowing that Desolation will be able to free himself eventually if he ever regains enough power, Honor requested his own people, his Heralds, to form an Oathpact and ensure that Desolation will never prevail. I'm still unsure why the Heralds had to go to that place of pain in between "Desolations". Perhaps they had to help maintain Desolation's prison somehow. But I know that they endured all the pain due to their sense of honor, and that they only gave up once they felt the influence of their other god: Odium, who had at last located his enemy. And without the Heralds, Honor found it harder to imprison Desolation and was forced to sacrifice his entire Mind the same way Preservation did on Scadrial. This was why his influence over Roshar faded. And with the arrival of Odium, the vast majority of the people on Roshar became less honorable in general. Odium decided that he would destroy Honor and help Desolation escape, perhaps letting Desolation finish Cultivation off before dealing with him as well. So that's my theory. I'm sorry if someone else already thought of this (I did a simple search and didn't find anything like it).

LOL, no worries. It normally would have blown my mind, too ("All your metalmind are belong to me! Mwahahaha!"), but I was hoping I solved the mystery behind these metals. Anyway, I should be happy because getting a new piece of a puzzle is always helpful in solving it. Thanks again!

Awesome! I hope Brandon has a "Scholar" Twinborn in mind for the next trilogy. (Or maybe even in Shadows of Self!)

Well, he did put a shotgun to his head once. I'm not very familiar w/ firearms, but I think (depending on the type of ammunition), a direct shotgun blast to the head would leave a person with not much head left...