Why does Electrum counters Atium?

[kroen]

It makes no sense to me. Electrum allows you to see your own future, meaning you see multiple shadows of actions you can take in the next few seconds, and then you take one of them. A Seer, however, should be able to predict what action you will ultimately choose. The reason Atium counters Atium is because it allows you to see into your opponent's future, not your own, meaning you see what he's going to do and by trying to avoid it he can see that you will try it ad infinitum thus creating an Atium stalemate. 

 

 

Also on a completely unrelated note, I think it's sad that Atium Mistings, which can burn the coolest metal on Scadrial which produces perhaps the coolest effect in the all the Cosmere, are called Seers. I could think of much cooler names like Shade or Ghost or even simply Shadow.

Edited April 28, 2013 by kroen

[WeiryWriter]

Electrum allows someone to see all the possible actions they could perform, and the result, in the next few seconds.  Say I contemplate followine the shadow directly in front of me, and then I see the shadow-me's head get chopped off.  I'm probably not going to decide to follow that one, which leads to your opponent seeing your atium shadows go in all different.  As for why the atium burner can't see your ultimate decision, it's because your ultimate decision keeps changing.  Burning electrum is a continuous process, it is constantly updating.

[kroen]

If what you're saying is true, than why are Oracles considered pretty much uselss? According to your logic, if someone points a gun at me and I burn electrum, I can see which shadow doesn't die and follow that one. Why would Mistborns even bother with atium if they can get pretty much the same effect with electrum?

Edited April 28, 2013 by kroen

[The Scorched]

Why would Mistborns even bother with atium if they can get pretty much the same effect with electrum?

Atium expands your senses and reflexes to allow you to act on the shadows you see.  I don't think that electrum has that effect.  In addition, electrum wasn't well known when mistborns were around; the only ones that we see with the opportunity to use electrum is Vin and Elend.  They use it a lot but they aren't given much opportunity to experiment with it and learn how to use it to it's full extent.  Perhaps in shadows of self we'll see a ninja electrum user.

[kroen]

Atium expands your senses and reflexes to allow you to act on the shadows you see.  I don't think that electrum has that effect.

I know it doesn't. I was merely following WeiryWriter's example.

[king of nowhere]

I think electrum just makes more conscious the process of choosing a future. Normally, in a fight, you chose according to your instincts. Your instincts have some automation, so they can be predicted by atium. electrum, by letting you see what you're going to do, makes easier to pick a different path. I think you could fool atium without burning electrum. Vin did it. if you concentrate enough on all the possible moves you can make, and make sure to pick random, then you'd probably be immune to atium anyway. But it would be a very expensive thought process, difficult to achieve and maintain. electrum just allows you to do it easily.

at least that's my personal idea.

[kroen]

I think electrum just makes more conscious the process of choosing a future. Normally, in a fight, you chose according to your instincts. Your instincts have some automation, so they can be predicted by atium. electrum, by letting you see what you're going to do, makes easier to pick a different path. I think you could fool atium without burning electrum. Vin did it. if you concentrate enough on all the possible moves you can make, and make sure to pick random, then you'd probably be immune to atium anyway. But it would be a very expensive thought process, difficult to achieve and maintain. electrum just allows you to do it easily.

at least that's my personal idea.

Vin's role in beating atium was only 50% of what was happening. Ther other 50% was Zane's falut, as he put himself into a defensing position before Vin even attempted to attack. Vin noticed that, and changed the attack.

Edited April 28, 2013 by kroen

[Nepene]

If what you're saying is true, than why are Oracles considered pretty much uselss? According to your logic, if someone points a gun at me and I burn electrum, I can see which shadow doesn't die and follow that one. Why would Mistborns even bother with atium if they can get pretty much the same effect with electrum?

 

You can see that if you step forward you'll die, but you don't know how you'll die, so you don't know what course of action you should take to avoid dying.

 

Atium lets you see everything, electrum has a much more limited perspective.

 

You can use electrum defensively, but it's harder to do and less expansive.

[Voidus]

Any amount of being able to predict the future renders you immune to Atium, Vin did it by using Zane, Electrum allows you to see the future, seeing that future changes what you are going to do, however that happens be it Weiry's idea of seeing your head come off or even just seeing which attacks look the best, which changes your future, which changes what you do and so on.

[kroen]

I guess. Still though, it's kind of cheap that you can counter a God Metal with a metal that isn't.

[happyman]

I guess. Still though, it's kind of cheap that you can counter a God Metal with a metal that isn't.

 

I think Vin's example of defeating Atium is a pretty solid counter-argument.  Vin found a way to see into the future even though she wasn't burning anything, and that defeated Atium, in a seriously awesome way.  I don't see why another metal that gives you a little look into the future can't do a similar thing.

 

By the way, I think if it was a Seer versus Electrum misting, the Seer would win, all else being equal.  The other benefits are quite nice.  So no, I don't think Electrum is overpowered.

[Vortaan]

I think Vin's example of defeating Atium is a pretty solid counter-argument.  Vin found a way to see into the future even though she wasn't burning anything, and that defeated Atium, in a seriously awesome way.  I don't see why another metal that gives you a little look into the future can't do a similar thing.

 

By the way, I think if it was a Seer versus Electrum misting, the Seer would win, all else being equal.  The other benefits are quite nice.  So no, I don't think Electrum is overpowered.

 

I think that fight goes to a Seer in a fight where there's other stuff going on, like on a street or something, but in a room with just the two of them, no weapons and bare hands, it should be 50/50 most of the time. The advantage of atium is that it shows you the future of everything around you, including inanimate objects. Electrum won't be able to do that. 

[Voidus]

Technically Mistborn using Electrum are still using a god metal, since they wouldn't be mistborn without Lerasium

[happyman]

I think that fight goes to a Seer in a fight where there's other stuff going on, like on a street or something, but in a room with just the two of them, no weapons and bare hands, it should be 50/50 most of the time. The advantage of atium is that it shows you the future of everything around you, including inanimate objects. Electrum won't be able to do that. 

 

I suspect that the mind enhancement probably tips it a bit more in the Seer's favor.  They have a better chance of understanding the shadows, I suspect, even if there are a lot of them.

[Comatose]

I suspect that the mind enhancement probably tips it a bit more in the Seer's favor.  They have a better chance of understanding the shadows, I suspect, even if there are a lot of them.

 

I agree with what's being said here, and that the main advantages Atium has over Electrum are the mental enhancements necessary to interpret information and the ability to see the possible futures of everything and everyone around you, rather than just of yourself.

 

However, on reading the books, I also felt Vin and Elend's reliance on Electrum as a counter to Atium seemed a little off base.  First of all, while I agree that any method of foretelling the future can provide some sort of counter to Atium, during the fight with the Inquisitor, Vin and Elend don't seem to pay any attention to the Electrum shadows they are casting.  They just start burning and forget about it.  If you look at how the scenes are written, they resemble a fight between two atium burners more than the fights in which one person is burning atium and using it to its full advantage.

 

But when using Electrum against someone burning atium, you can't just forget about the shadows that are surrounding you.  If you aren't paying attention to them, you'll just be falling back to your 'default' future, which means an atium burner should be able to see it.  In order to change the future, you have to be able to foretell it, like in the Vin/Zane example, and in the atium fights we have seen, which means that the electrum burner would have to be paying close attention to the shadows they are casting in order for the trick to work.

 

Now, I think the scenes in Hero of Ages still work, because none of the Inquisitors Vin and Elend find are burning Atium.  Perhaps if they had felt the Inquisitors could see their every move, they would have started paying better attention to their electrum shadows in order to activate the atium-thwarting effect.  I do think it is important to remember when considering how a 'regular' metal can so easily thwart a god metal, that there is more involved than just burning it.  From the evidence given I think it is clear that a careful attention would also be necessary, and that moments of inattention could lead to an atium burner having the advantage (you'll remember that an atium burner, because of their ability to see all possible futures of everything around them, and the mental enhancements, would not have this problem).

 

I think another way to pull off Vin's trick could be to use Feruchemical Zinc to tap mental speed, and analyze an atium burner's movements (as one player did in the Mistborn RP).  It would be interesting to see how the Feruchemical power of zinc combines with allomantic electrum or atium.  I think either could create very interesting twinborn, and that a zinc ferring/electrum misting would be the most likely combination to be close to being on par to an atium misting (though the atium mistings ability to see all possible futures would still be an advantage). 

[Pechvarry]

I think electrum augments the mind as much as necessary. I think you guys are saying it doesn't just because it wasn't specified, but all allomancy seems to expand your other faculties to keep up.

Likewise, I don't think Sanderson found it necessary for the narrative of the fight scenes to focus on electrum. That doesn't mean vin and elend ignored the shadows. Brandon likely just found it to be noise. Note that it's noise when you have some 10 other metals to burn, that's not true of a misting.