TaeSeanDo
The Lord Ruler with all 16 metals vs Rand al'Thor. Who wins?
Brandon Sanderson
Rand. The one power is far stronger than even compounding metals.
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The Lord Ruler with all 16 metals vs Rand al'Thor. Who wins?
Rand. The one power is far stronger than even compounding metals.
Does double copper give you perfect memory?
Good question. I haven't answered that one yet.
What happens if you Compound chromium?
RAFO.
A RAFO happens.
A RAFO happens, yeah. Chromium, come on...
Nicrosil Feruchemy stores Investiture. Would a Nicrosil Compounder be able to gain Investiture up to the power of a Shard by infinitely Compounding?
I talk a lot about that in an upcoming Mistborn book. So that’s a RAFO. The reading is coming. I will explain what it does.
Can you use Feruchemy and Hemalurgy together like you can use Allomancy and Feruchemy to Compound?
*asks for clarification* There are some tricks you can play. I wouldn't call them Compounding, but there are tricks.
If you spiked out Miles' Feruchemical gold, would he be able to burn his Allomantic reserves [read: Feruchemical reserves using Allomancy] and heal it back?
If you spiked out his ability to heal gold and somehow left him alive?
Yeah, but still having Allomancy.
Still has Allomancy...
And he’s like in the middle of burning a goldmind.
Yes, that would still work. It'd still have a Spiritual Connection to him.
So if you're a Coinshot and you get [spiked] to have Feruchemical steel, and then you lose the spike after making a store, you can still Compound that for speed?
Yes... Yeah, that should still work.
Was Paalm doing that?
That's a RAFO.
Is it possible to Compound aluminum, or will it all just poof away the second you start trying it?
I have actually been asked that. And I RAFO'd them, so I'm going to RAFO you.
What would happen if a copper-compounder would compound copper?
A lot of people have been asking that one. I don't know why they've all suddenly latched onto it, but you are going to get RAFO-ed, but I will give you a card. *laughter* I have reserve something for later books.
I was wondering what happens when you compound copper?
I will reveal this eventually. You're getting a RAFO. Do know that not all compounding does cool stuff. Not all of it does cool stuff, but a lot of it does cool stuff.
How did Marsh survive for so three hundred years and *inaudible*?
Compounding atium. He got a little pouch that one of the kandra gets sent out with if you watch, and then Marsh shows up and he has the pouch.
<When is that>?
Go look for the little pouch of atium.
Mistborn travels to Roshar, what does he or she use to get Invested?
*pause* So. *pause* I think I've talked about this before on the 17th Shard, but I'm not 100% sure and so I don't want to anything right now, not knowing what I've said. But you can look it up. You can ask Peter. Hey Peter, have I talked about someone using-- Have I ever in an interview before talked about using metals... A Mistborn travels to Roshar and uses the metals there?
I think that you have said that they could do it.
I said it. Okay, so the thing about the metals you have to understand is the metals are a key, the metals are not magical themselves, except for specific ones. If I've already said that I can tell you, go to Roshar and you could use the metals that are there to power your Allomancy because the difference is in your soul and you're actually drawing directly from Preservation. Remember that on the Spiritual Realm, this is the big tidbit--they're listening. On the Spiritual Realm time, distance, and space are irrelevant. It's a place where time and space are compounded in one. So anything that exists on the Spiritual Realm, space doesn't matter for it.
[My friend] thought Hoid is Compounding Luck.
That is an interesting question and they are a smart person.
If compounding Identity protects from mental influence like Soothing would it also protect from more mundane means of influence, like alcohol or a persuasive speaker?
Not as I currently envision it.
Could decapitation kill a Gold Compounder? With a guillotine, for example?
Most forms of extreme cosmere healing don't care much what is done to the physical body, as the person's spiritual template is in power at the time.
When you were coming up with names for the Orders of the Knights Radiants, did you have any names that you liked but couldn't include?
Most of the names I liked but discard were tossed because they sound too much like other compound words I've used, or other terminology in the cosmere. Shardbearer is already troublesome enough; I want to avoid others like this. The toughest one to name was Renarin's order, because most of the ideas I came up with over the years ended up being repeats. Others, like Stoneward and Windrunner, were powerful enough in my mind that when I wrote later cosmere books, I intentionally stayed away from terms that would sound too similar.
I asked the question about chromium vs a Compounder with both Invested and un-Invested metals in both their stomach and piercings.
What it boils down to is this:
1) Yes, the piercings will get burned off.
2) The non-Invested metals go before the Invested ones. He said that because Invested metals are harder to affect, it takes a little extra time and effort to get them to burn off. So a Leecher trying to clean out a Compounder would have to get a good grip and hang on for a few seconds.
3) Chromium burns about as quickly as duralumin, so if you're trying to burn off a lot of metals, it is possible to run out of chromium before your target is clean. This would probably only be an issue when dealing with larger pieces (like jewelry) rather than your standard metal-flakes-in-the-stomach deal.
What would be the Allomantic definition of "metal" as it relates to steel and iron, what shows up? Like, the metalloids, compounds, in ironsight and stuff?
Um, I don't know what you mean by that. What are the percentages?
The periodic table.
Oh, the periodic table. On the periodic table, the difference between iron and steel? What do you mean?
What do iron and steel define as metals? So they would show up with blue lines?
Oh, on the periodic table, what defines as metals? I see what you're staying. So, this is kind of free-form on my part. I have check marks on them on my periodic table, where I kinda just sat and said "Yes, no, yes, no." But things over on the side with cesium and what-not, they would, they would count. Not everything that looks like it should count does. But most everything in that little batch, next to iron and gold and everybody over there, most everybody right there will, and most everybody over on the side will, the stuff that explodes with water. So for instance, ...sodium and stuff like that, if they're in their pure form would, but it's kinda freeform, I just had to make calls. Because there's gotta be a dividing line somewhere.
So, would ironsight in enhanced Inquisitor form, show up on atoms in compounds...
Oh, yeah, they totally would. That all shows up. Trace metals and things like that, they can see your blood, they can see all sorts of stuff.
The Lord Ruler, sixteen-- all sixteen metals, full metalminds, and can compound versus Rand at the end of A Memory of Light *laughter/cheering*
...At that point probably Rand. Sorry. *cheering*
But the Lord Ruler has luck, he can Compound luck.
He can do a whole lot of stuff. Now if it's the Lord Ruler during the moment of Ascension, it's the Lord Ruler, but post-Ascension? No.
So would it be possible to use Steelrunning + compounding to travel FTL?
No, it would not. You could get close, though.
Kind of like Zemo's Paradox, than? You keep halving the distance, never quite making it?
*gleam in his eye* Trying to crack Allomatic FTL?
*guilty* Maybe.
You can't.
I don't know, there are alot of good theories out there.
It involves Allomantic abilities which we don't know about yet.
Can you compound like a, can you compund metalminds to the point where you become like a savant?
A savant happens because persistent use of the power has an effect on your soul, warping it. Compounding is a very different thing, so while you could draw some very powerful effects, I would not call them the same thing, even if they are imitating one another at certain points.
If a non-Windrunner picked up Jezrien's Honorblade would they gain Windrunner powers as well?
Yes.
If a Windrunner picked up that blade, would their abilities be enhanced?
There would be some compounding but strength is not as much an issue with Surgebinding as is the strength of the spren bond and how much Stormlight you are using.
Could an Augur Compound Health out of a goldmind if its proper owner messed with Identity in the right way?
This is possible
Are we going to see any other compounders like Miles Dagouter, but with other abilities?
Yes, I plan to do more, just to show off what different compounding can achieve, so you will see some more like that. you will some other really interesting interactions with the magic system.
You've said that while many of your books are interconnected "behind the scenes", you didn't want to put too much in the books themselves so readers didn't feel like they're missing information (HIGHLY paraphrased). Have your opinions changed on that given the size of your fanbase? When do you expect to have more crossover between worlds (as in major characters or plot points as opposed to cameos and subtle allusions)?
I still think that keeping this to less is going to be better. However, it's going to be tougher and tougher to keep them separate, logically. As the worlds advance and more and more people begin dabbling in crossing planets, the signs will compound. I still intend to keep it from the forefront. There will be an increasing amount of this, however.
How fast could a steel/steel Twinborn move?
You'd hit physical limits eventually. While the Metallurgic arts generally enhanced the body to deal with the powers granted, things like air resistance would hold you back--perhaps even kill you--if you weren't careful.
Why did the Lord Ruler have to stay aged at times?
That's when he was doing his rebuild. He didn't really have to, but he let himself. He has to recharge periodically, and then stays on a higher and higher burn over the thousand years. It gets harder and harder. The way the magic works—he doesn't have to stay aged.
Is he burning or tapping?
He's tapping.
If you make a Feruchemical storage and you burn it, can you put the excess back into a Feruchemical storage?
Yes.
Is Demoux atium compounding to achieve his long life?
RAFO.
1) What benefit does Compounding copper get? Exceptionally clear and detailed memories? Memories that can be split into a new coppermind while still remaining in the Feruchemist's mind? Something else?
2) How does Feruchemical luck work? If a chromium Compounder tried his hand at day trading on the stock market, what would happen? Would it make him choose stocks that were coincidentally going to go up anyway? Would it change stock prices by altering the world around him? Would it fail because the required scale of action is too large? Something else?
So, I've said before that I want to hold off on talking about different forms of compounding and types of twinborn until I can address them in the series. So I'll have to RAFO the first two.
A Coinshot able to store weight can, as you showed us with Wax Push in a ridiculously powerful manner, as the weight/mass is the largest factor which controls the Push strength.
I'm wondering if the same can be done with soothing(or rioting). If you where to increase your identity, that may/should increase your emotional imprint(or whatever you might call it), would your soothings/riotings become vastly more powerful in a similar way as weight makes steelpushing more powerful?
And if it does, is this how the Lord Ruler improved his Soothing in such a spectacular fashion?
Well, the Lord Ruler--don't forget--could compound any Allomancy he wanted. That creates some crazy effects. As for what you discuss in your first question, I don't want to touch too much on Identity yet as I am saving it for later books. Talking too much here might undermine my ability to reveal interesting and cool things in books when the time is right. I like your theory, and it has merit, but I'm not going to give you a yes or a no as it delves too much into what Identity, as an attribute, can do.
Is there any use to being a copper Compounder, from a Feruchemical point of view? I think the same point would also apply to an aluminum Compounder.
Some combinations, like some abilities themselves, aren't really that useful. That said, being able to Compound copper...that could do some things. Aluminum, not so much.
One question, two parts: If a double nicrosil Twinborn started Compounding and storing Investiture in a nicrosilmind, could they do something cool by tapping a whole huge bunch at once? And since Scadrialians have both Ruin and Preservation in them, could they store both those qualities in a one nicrosilmind, or would it require two different ones?
Ha. All things regarding Investiture (particularly in regards to Feruchemy) are instant RAFOs at this point, I'm afraid. I've got to save SOME things for future books.
How does compounding work in Mistborn?
I can explain this better in person because I know things that the characters in the book don’t. So, they haven’t worked a lot of this out. All the magic systems in my work are linked because the books all take place in the same universe. In Elantris, magic works by drawing symbols in the air. What actually happens is that when they draw a symbol, energy passes through it from another place (which is my get-out for the laws of thermodynamics) and the effect of that energy is moderated by the symbol. In one case it may become light, in another it may become fire. In Mistborn, the metals have a similar effect. The magic is not coming from the metal (even if some characters think it is). It is being drawn from the same place and moderated by the metal.
In the case of Feruchemy, no energy is being drawn from this other place. So, you spend a week sick and store up the ability to heal. It’s a balanced system, basically obeying the laws of thermodynamics. So, while it’s not real, it’s still rational.
In compounding, when you have the power of both Allomancy and Feruchemy, you draw power from the other place through the metal and it recognizes the power that is already stored—"Oh, this is healing, I know how to do that”—and so you get the power of Feruchemy but boosted by energy from the other place. This is how the Lord Ruler achieved immortality.
Ok, last question. It was really difficult coming up with three questions that haven’t been asked already...
OK... you’re not going to ask me the “what would you ask me” question?
Not quite...
OK good, because I hate that one! (laughs)
My question is if there’s anything that you’ve never been asked that you would like to talk about?
Oooooh, ok. Hm. That one is so hard! Every time people ask me something like this... What have I never been asked that people should be asking, is basically what the question is? Something that the fans have just missed... They pick up on so much, that it’s hard... I do wonder if, you know… all the magic systems [in my books] are connected and work on some basic fundamental principles, and a lot of people haven’t been asking questions about this. One thing I did get a question on today, and I’ll just talk about this one... they didn’t ask the right question, but I nudged them the right way, is understanding that tie between AonDor [the magic system from Elantris] and Allomancy [Mistborn’s magic system].
People ask about getting the power from metals and things, but that’s not actually how it works. The power’s not coming from metal. I talked a little about this before, but you are drawing power from some source, and the metal is actually just a gateway. It’s actually the molecular structure of the metal… what’s going on there, the pattern, the resonance of that metal works in the same way as an Aon does in Elantris. It filters the power. So it is just a sign of “this is what power this energy is going to be shaped into and give you.” When you understand that, Compounding [in Alloy of Law] makes much more sense.
Compounding is where you are able to kind of draw in more power than you should with Feruchemy. What’s going on there is you’re actually charging a piece of metal, and then you are burning that metal as a Feruchemical charge. What is happening is that the Feruchemical charge overwrites the Allomantic charge, and so you actually fuel Feruchemy with Allomancy, is what you are doing. Then if you just get out another piece of metal and store it in, since you’re not drawing the power from yourself, you’re cheating the system, you’re short-circuiting the system a little bit. So you can actually use the power that usually fuels Allomancy, to fuel Feruchemy, which you can then store in a metalmind, and basically build up these huge reservoirs of it. So what’s going on there is… imagine there’s like, an imprint, a wavelength, so to speak. A beat for an Allomantic thing, that when you burn a metal, it says “ok, this is what power we give.” When it’s got that charge, it changes that beat and says, “now we get this power.” And you access a set of Feruchemical power. That’s why Compounding is so powerful.
So what happens if you have a Bendalloy bubble, and then another Bendalloy bubble inside of it?
It will compound and double, and it will multiply. Bendalloy is one of the metals from Alloy of Law if you haven’t read it, as this person obviously has, or has read the Ars Arcanum, you’ll find out what it does.
Feruchemy is about multipliers. The more the Lord Ruler aged, the less "multiplier" he could store in his metalmind. And the more he aged the more he would need to Compound to stay alive. There could exist an upper bound to the amount of time the Lord Ruler could survive off this trick.
I continued to ask about the Lord Ruler and his Allomantic strength.
There's an upper bound to the amount of power you can get from being a savant. Brandon said that, obviously, the Lord Ruler wasn't using duralumin and Elend could only get that powerful in Soothing using duralumin. He implied that there was a way to Compound to enhance Allomancy.
Inquisitors knowing how to Compound: some may have figured it out at some point. I [Chaos] got the impression it was not a technique the Lord Ruler taught them.
Allomantic pewter strength can be stored in a metalmind, but it's probably easier to just Compound.
Denth Captures Vasher
So, between this chapter and the previous one, Denth's mercenaries—who were being hidden in the tunnels beneath the palace—quietly killed the two soldiers who were standing guard at Siri's door. They are also, along with the Lifeless that Bluefingers broke, securing the Lifeless compound, grabbing Blushweaver, and taking control of the palace.
The priests get wind of this, though, and react by marshaling their own forces. For most of the night, the priests assume that they're struggling with Idrian rebels who have tried to take the palace and rescue Siri.
There will be a _____ Twinborn somewhere in the novel, a Twinborn with matching metals a la how the Lord Ruler used atium.
The City Guard Attacks
Some of you may be wondering whose plot led to this attack by the city guard on the meeting.
Well, it's complicated. The city watch—worried about the upswing in crime and the political tension lately—has grown more aggressive. They know that someone snuck into the palace of Mercystar herself, threatening one of their goddesses. The watch captain is making a play for a promotion and favor, and is looking to score a major victory to look very good in front of the Returned. He got a tip that three of the most important slumlords—whom he's been afraid to attack up until now, fearing to commit his guards to action—will be meeting together. He doesn't even know about Vivenna.
But he did authorize his Lifeless (the city guard has a stock of about fifty that can be used at their discretion) to use deadly force. The Commands weren't quite specific enough, unfortunately.
Beyond that, Bluefingers has managed—by sneaking through the tunnels that Vasher discovered—to get his forces to Command Break some of the Lifeless in the compound, then insert hidden Commands into them alongside their existing ones. In this case, he wanted the Idrians to see the Lifeless and the city watch cause a slaughter among their people. So he seeded some of the Lifeless with Commands to attack and kill if they were shown aggression by Idrians.
He didn't know when the slaughter would happen; he doesn't have enough control over events in order to do that. His little Lifeless bombs just happened to go off here, when the Idrians started to resist. Since the regular soldiers—and even the Lifeless not under Bluefingers's Commands—overreacted once blood began to be shed, everything went crazy from there.
Denth wasn't in on this plan, and Bluefingers never told him that he was behind it. In the end, the whole battle turned into a major embarrassment for the city guard, though they did capture one of the slumlords. He was held until after the events of the book, then eventually released.
What do you call mixing Allomantic powers with Feruchemical powers? Allochemy?
He hasn't decided yet.
What would happen if a person were to burn a metal that was Feruchemically charged using Allomancy?
The metal used in Allomancy is like a key or a doorway to the power that Allomancy actually uses. The metal acts as a filter, much as the Aons in Elantris do, to determine what the power actually does. However, if the metal is Feruchemically charged, then it will basically become a super-burst of Feruchemical power with no Allomantic effect. The Feruchemical charge acts as a filter as well as the metal, and changes what the power does. in this case, say you were burning steel, you would just be massively speedy for a second, and wouldn't actually have the ability to push on anything Allomantically. Hope that answered the question. I get the concept, so if you need me to explain it differently, let me know and I'll try. Oh, the other thing I forgot is that this concept only works if it's a metal that you charged yourself. If it's a metal someone else charged, it would just work like regular Allomancy, and the Feruchemical charge would just cease to exist.
If someone aluminum or duralumin burned the Feruchemically charged metals, what would happen?
Basically the same thing as above, except with aluminum. Aluminum, they would just go away.
This is more towards the whole physics stuff, but is Feruchemy really balanced? If it gives diminishing returns, wouldn't this end up as a net loss of power?
It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does—but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself.
In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful.
......wooooooooooooooah......
I still can't stop thinking that in my head. It's all that's really coming to mind at the moment.
I made the stupid mistake of finishing the book this afternoon in a public place. Therefore I looked like a complete moron as I burst into tears when Elend died. I think it was a good ending. I'm still not totally decided on that. I'm just in shock.
It's just so amazing how the books progressed, developing into this huge cosmic epic that I never expected from just reading The Final Empire a year ago. I guess in some sense what I'm feeling is a slight sense of... awe, maybe? I want to know how he comes up with stuff. I mean seriously, talk about not just writing another fantasy series.
But I'm also shocked that no one else seemed to have figured out that Sazed was the Hero of Ages. I thought it might be him when I started the book, but it could as easily have been Vin or Elend. But at about a third of the way through, page 215 to be exact, there was this line from Sazed thinking in his head:
"I am, unforunately, in charge."
Sound familiar?
"I am, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages."
No one else would have used the same wording as Sazed did when he was thinking to himself. I have to assume that was intentional on Brandon's part. It was very subtle... I'm actually surprised I noticed.
I'm gratified that you noticed. The Terris dialect IS very subtle. That speech pattern is one hint, the other is the use of "I think" to soften phrases at the ending. Beyond that, Sazed speaks with compound, complex sentences using frequent hedging to indicate that he's often uncertain. (That's another Terris speech pattern, not wanting to offend with language.)
The epigraphs in this book particularly (though I did it for Kwaan too) are intended to "sound" Terris, and like Sazed in particular. I didn't think anyone would catch it. You made my day!
So, this is what I wanted to have in chapter one (see the last annotation.) Reading it again, I can see–yet again–why that was a bad instinct. It's much better here, in chapter two. I still feel that it's a tad long. I cut it down significantly (if you can believe that.) I worry that pacing wise, we spend too long in a fight for this early in the book. However, some of the things I get across in this battle are invaluable for the rest of the story. I introduce the Watcher, and I get rid of Vin's atium–thereby compounding the large danger of the kingdom being at war with the more personal danger of Vin being stalked while she's exposed without any atium.
We'll get to a third level of danger–that of something threatening the entire world–later on.
Those of you who have read to the end might wonder where the Lord Ruler got his fantastic healing powers. Well, it has to do with Feruchemy. See, the ability to heal one's body is one of the things a Feruchemist can store up. And, the Lord Ruler's power–by being both Allomancer and Feruchemist–is to draw near-infinite power from his Feruchemical storages by burning them. He can be any age he wants. He can live as long as he wants. And, he can heal as quickly and much as he wants. More on this in book two.