Micro Hemalurgy

[Trusk'our he/him]

I've come up with a couple ways in the past to make harvesting Investiture via Hemalurgy more viable, such as healing donors via F-gold or giving a spiked Metalborn their power back with that very spike. So here's another thought; what if you deliberately only take a fraction of the donor's Investiture that you could take?

The Set scientists seemed to be stripping their victims of all their Innate Investiture, leaving them worse off than a Drab. This, as if it really needs saying, is pretty awful, as it permanently marrs their Spiritwebs and significantly reduces their quality of life. 

However, in the Sunlit Man, Nomad talks to Auxiliary he speaks about the resiliency of the soul:

Quote

He brought out the drained sunheart again, turned it over in his fingers. "These people," he said, "can transfer Investiture to one another through touch. And their highly Invested souls become these power sources when bombarded long enough by the sun. I'm hoping that I can find a way to siphon a little of my soul into this drained sunheart, taking some of the scar tissue with it. Follow?"

Vaguely, yes. It will be like lancing a boil. 

"Yes, but not so gross."

Everything about mortals is gross. But siphoning off your soul. . . won't that, I don't know, hurt?

"Not if it's a very small amount," he said. "Plus, it will regrow, as will the scar. Human souls are resilient things, Aux. Like our bodies, they self-repair."

This line about self-repair is particularly interesting to me, as maybe it could mean that tiny, miniscule amounts of Investiture taken from a donor via Hemalurgy (maybe between 1-5% of their total Innate Investiture) could be healed naturally, as the Spiritweb is constantly changing a little bit.

Now, this line is also coming from a highly Invested Dawnsliver, so it's very possible that Nomad just means you can theoretically heal Spiritweb damage through Invested means, such as his own or something like F-gold.

In this case, I wonder if Micro-Hemalurgy would still potentially be useful, mostly by just skimming off such a small percentage of Investiture from each donor (after having them Blank their Identity) that it doesn't breech the threshold that would have a real impact on the donor's life.

This way you'd need to spike a lot more people to fully Invest that spike, but nobody would have permanent negative impacts to their health. Less convenient, but far more ethical. 

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

2 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I've come up with a couple ways in the past to make harvesting Investiture via Hemalurgy more viable, such as healing donors via F-gold or giving a spiked Metalborn their power back with that very spike. So here's another thought; what if you deliberately only take a fraction of the donor's Investiture that you could take?

The Set scientists seemed to be stripping their victims of all their Innate Investiture, leaving them worse off than a Drab. This, as if it really needs saying, is pretty awful, as it permanently marrs their Spiritwebs and significantly reduces their quality of life. 

However, in the Sunlit Man, Nomad talks to Auxiliary he speaks about the resiliency of the soul:

This line about self-repair is particularly interesting to me, as maybe it could mean that tiny, miniscule amounts of Investiture taken from a donor via Hemalurgy (maybe between 1-5% of their total Innate Investiture) could be healed naturally, as the Spiritweb is constantly changing a little bit.

Now, this line is also coming from a highly Invested Dawnsliver, so it's very possible that Nomad just means you can theoretically heal Spiritweb damage through Invested means, such as his own or something like F-gold.

In this case, I wonder if Micro-Hemalurgy would still potentially be useful, mostly by just skimming off such a small percentage of Investiture from each donor (after having them Blank their Identity) that it doesn't breech the threshold that would have a real impact on the donor's life.

This way you'd need to spike a lot more people to fully Invest that spike, but nobody would have permanent negative impacts to their health. Less convenient, but far more ethical. 

And just like that it seems you've just told us how to make Hemalurgy ethical on a mass scale.

Like blood donations but with your soul.

[Trusk'our he/him]

18 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

And just like that it seems you've just told us how to make Hemalurgy ethical on a mass scale.

Like blood donations but with your soul.

Hopefully, it would turn out that way, yes.

[+hwiles]

21 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

I've come up with a couple ways in the past to make harvesting Investiture via Hemalurgy more viable, such as healing donors via F-gold or giving a spiked Metalborn their power back with that very spike. So here's another thought; what if you deliberately only take a fraction of the donor's Investiture that you could take?

The Set scientists seemed to be stripping their victims of all their Innate Investiture, leaving them worse off than a Drab. This, as if it really needs saying, is pretty awful, as it permanently marrs their Spiritwebs and significantly reduces their quality of life. 

However, in the Sunlit Man, Nomad talks to Auxiliary he speaks about the resiliency of the soul:

This line about self-repair is particularly interesting to me, as maybe it could mean that tiny, miniscule amounts of Investiture taken from a donor via Hemalurgy (maybe between 1-5% of their total Innate Investiture) could be healed naturally, as the Spiritweb is constantly changing a little bit.

Now, this line is also coming from a highly Invested Dawnsliver, so it's very possible that Nomad just means you can theoretically heal Spiritweb damage through Invested means, such as his own or something like F-gold.

In this case, I wonder if Micro-Hemalurgy would still potentially be useful, mostly by just skimming off such a small percentage of Investiture from each donor (after having them Blank their Identity) that it doesn't breech the threshold that would have a real impact on the donor's life.

This way you'd need to spike a lot more people to fully Invest that spike, but nobody would have permanent negative impacts to their health. Less convenient, but far more ethical. 

Lol. I think you just created state-mandated hemalurgic taxes you monster!

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 hours ago, hwiles said:

Lol. I think you just created state-mandated hemalurgic taxes you monster!

Whaaaaaaaat, that was the furthest thing from my mind. Definitely 

[Isilel]

On 5/30/2024 at 4:35 AM, Trusk'our said:

Less convenient, but far more ethical. 

 

Why not wholly synthetic spikes? Grab whatever investiture is freely available, remove it's coding, imbue it into a corresponding metal spike and code it with Preservation's Rhythm and that of a  desired power. IIRC Moonlight even hinted at something like that when she grabbed the Set's scientists research. 

Navani's experiments (and those of whoever created Gavilar's anti-light, IMHO Ghostbloods) already demonstrated the feasibility of re-coding. Purified Dor also likely has it's rythms removed to make it  universally useable.  Now they just need to figure out how to permanently imbue metal with something that isn't Breaths. 

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

Why not wholly synthetic spikes? Grab whatever investiture is freely available, remove it's coding, imbue it into a corresponding metal spike and code it with Preservation's Rhythm and that of a  desired power. IIRC Moonlight even hinted at something like that when she grabbed the Set's scientists research. 

Navani's experiments (and those of whoever created Gavilar's anti-light, IMHO Ghostbloods) already demonstrated the feasibility of re-coding. Purified Dor also likely has it's rythms removed to make it  universally useable.  Now they just need to figure out how to permanently imbue metal with something that isn't Breaths. 

Yeah, it's been proposed before, but it's a lot more advanced and we don't know for certain (though I highly suspect it is the case) whether Tones alone are enough to program Invested powers into Hemalurgic spikes or Metalminds. 

As for using Purified Dor to directly fuel the creation of Hemalurgic spikes or Unsealed Metalminds, I think it's probably more complicated. I think you could do it, and once you did it would prove superior to most other methods of power generation, but you'd have to learn how and what to Command free-floating Investiture with.

All in all, still a really good idea. I'd think the Micro-Hemalurgy would be expected to be seen in an era 3 or 4 setting (less complicated to figure out, but less powerful), with directly programmable Investiture being an era 5 deal.

[Isilel]

34 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

I'd think the Micro-Hemalurgy would be expected to be seen in an era 3 or 4 setting (less complicated to figure out, but less powerful), with directly programmable Investiture being an era 5 deal.

 

It does seem a likely interim step, yes. Though they need to figure out how to make it programmable too, since at this point it both doesn't confer a usable power and it's investiture infusion is impermanent. Once they solve these problems, it will be a very small step to transfer the method to other investitures. 

But then, both the narrative and Sanderson in WoBs are  more disapproving towards hemalurgy than is entirely merited, IMHO. I guess, traditional hemalurgy, even if completely voluntary on the part of a dying donor, would be a kind of suicide, so that's why.

P.S. If they luck into discovering/somehow creating a Nicrosil Compounder, they could multiply a small seed amount of Breath, and use that to begin with, since it is already possible to imbue metal with it. Not quite as ethical as purified Dor, but would probably make proof of concept and earlier prototypes easier to create.

Edited June 2 by Isilel

[therunner he/him]

8 hours ago, Isilel said:

Navani's experiments (and those of whoever created Gavilar's anti-light, IMHO Ghostbloods) already demonstrated the feasibility of re-coding.

It cannot be Ghostbloods, since they are clearly the competing organization to Gavilar, and are trying to get access to that very kind of information (among other things).

Not to mention, they don't seem to possess that knowledge by Era 2, which is later on.

6 hours ago, Isilel said:

P.S. If they luck into discovering/somehow creating a Nicrosil Compounder, they could multiply a small seed amount of Breath, and use that to begin with, since it is already possible to imbue metal with it. Not quite as ethical as purified Dor, but would probably make proof of concept and earlier prototypes easier to create.

Nicrosil Compounder would likely not be able to create more Breath, as Breath is Investiture of Endowment, and Compounders get Preservations Investiture.

See this WoB (different idea, but similar issue of having wrong type of Investiture)

Quote

Djarskublar

So, say you have a gold/gold Twinborn and they worldhop to Roshar and they study the magic and do the whole Khriss and Nazh thing for a while so they know a lot about the magic, but they've also left themselves a lot of options with what they can do. So then they manage to pull up a gold shadow of them having actually become a Surgebinder and then kind of meld themselves with that shadow a bunch, could they change their Cognitive Identity enough so that they could, like, tap a lot of gold and grow the spren and actually be a Surgebinder?

Brandon Sanderson

Unfortunately, no. It's a good question, but no. That won't work for a couple of reasons. One of which is, simply creating Investiture is not something that can happen, right?

Djarskublar

They are a gold Twinborn, so they can tap a lot of gold...

Brandon Sanderson

They can tap a whole bunch, that's true, they can do that, but simply having it is not gonna create a spren because the spren is from a different god, right, a different Shard.

 

Edited June 2 by therunner

[Isilel]

13 hours ago, therunner said:

Nicrosil Compounder would likely not be able to create more Breath, as Breath is Investiture of Endowment, and Compounders get Preservations Investiture.

 

Ah, true. I think that compounding might still happen, but Breaths would be converted into Preservation's investiture in the process. Hm... But then tapping it should make the person more invested, yes? So, potentially a temporary Mistborn perhaps? 

Also what if you store this unkeyed  compounded Preservation's investiture in a Nicrosil spike and then insert it in a  corresponding bind point of an unpowered person? With some added Connection shenanigans it might allow for a permanent artificial increase in a person's investment level. Which should express itself in a random allomantic power, just like it does in natural Mistings. 

I guess that I badly want for Metallic Arts to become broadly accessible and integrated into everyday life on Scadrial, rather than being reserved for the rarest of the genetic elite, who alone merited the protagonist status so far. There was some movement in that direction in Era 2, but not nearly enough, IMHO.  We were still mainly following superheroes by birthright. 

I know that it's an unpopular opinion, but I don't want the Mistborn back - they were far too overpowered and unfocused. Well, one as an antagonist may be interesting, so if it's still the plan for the next trilogy, I am game. Instead, I'd like everyone to be a functional Metalborn of some kind, with potentially a limited access to a couple of extra abilities via gadgets. So that skill, cleverness, creativity and teamwork would carry the day, rather than just an unbeatable power advantage. 

[therunner he/him]

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

Ah, true. I think that compounding might still happen, but Breaths would be converted into Preservation's investiture in the process. Hm... But then tapping it should make the person more invested, yes? So, potentially a temporary Mistborn perhaps?

I don't think it would make temporary Mistborn, you would still lack 'Mistborness', you would just be more Invested with variety of effects like we see in TSM.

Mistborn are not  even all that more Invested than Mistings, in the grand scheme of things.

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

Also what if you store this unkeyed  compounded Preservation's investiture in a Nicrosil spike and then insert it in a  corresponding bind point of an unpowered person? With some added Connection shenanigans it might allow for a permanent artificial increase in a person's investment level. Which should express itself in a random allomantic power, just like it does in natural Mistings.

It would not be power, not unless you programmed it. We see something similar with Set's experiments in TLM, and the powers are temporary and volatile (if they are granted at all), but it has one advantage, in that it is taken from soul of someone (so it comes partially pre-programmed I would think).

If it is just unkeyed raw Preservation's Investiture, that alone won't grant power. It would Invest the person, but not grant them power. You can have Invested soul without having powers. The Investiture would be basically what Mists are, and those have to be guided to Invest person to grant them powers (i.e. programmed).

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

I guess that I badly want for Metallic Arts to become broadly accessible and integrated into everyday life on Scadrial, rather than being reserved for the rarest of the genetic elite, who alone merited the protagonist status so far. There was some movement in that direction in Era 2, but not nearly enough, IMHO.  We were still mainly following superheroes by birthright.

I think we will get there, but by technological means, i.e. Medallions, not by Investing the person directly.

Brandon stated that is direction Scadrial is going, mechanized Invested Arts. And we do see that in TSM as well.

Quote

I know that it's an unpopular opinion, but I don't want the Mistborn back - they were far too overpowered and unfocused. Well, one as an antagonist may be interesting, so if it's still the plan for the next trilogy, I am game. Instead, I'd like everyone to be a functional Metalborn of some kind, with potentially a limited access to a couple of extra abilities via gadgets. So that skill, cleverness, creativity and teamwork would carry the day, rather than just an unbeatable power advantage. 

I am in favour of this as well, and I think that is the direction it will go.

Also, this way Roshar and Scadrial would be furhter differentiated, with Roshar having less, but more powerful magic users with broad powers, and Scadrial far more, but less powerful specialized in few skills. Sort of generalist vs specialist move.

Edited June 3 by therunner

[+hwiles]

On 5/30/2024 at 11:05 PM, Trusk'our said:

Whaaaaaaaat, that was the furthest thing from my mind. Definitely 

Dang. Well...Whatever. If they tax innate power from the metalborn, then I guarantee that they'll tax strength, intelligence, and every other earned attribute possessed by the non-metalborn. That's...the way it goes...

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 hours ago, hwiles said:

Dang. Well...Whatever. If they tax innate power from the metalborn, then I guarantee that they'll tax strength, intelligence, and every other earned attribute possessed by the non-metalborn. That's...the way it goes...

The Scadrian government is gonna reignite the Steel inquisition, it seems. Only instead of being priests, as tax collectors.

[KelsierApologist She/her]

On 6/2/2024 at 3:44 PM, therunner said:

On 6/2/2024 at 9:36 AM, Isilel said:

P.S. If they luck into discovering/somehow creating a Nicrosil Compounder, they could multiply a small seed amount of Breath, and use that to begin with, since it is already possible to imbue metal with it. Not quite as ethical as purified Dor, but would probably make proof of concept and earlier prototypes easier to create.

Expand  

Nicrosil Compounder would likely not be able to create more Breath, as Breath is Investiture of Endowment, and Compounders get Preservations Investiture

I think it’d be some odd preservation-clone of a breath, which might have some funky properties 

[Isilel]

On 6/3/2024 at 3:27 PM, therunner said:

Mistborn are not  even all that more Invested than Mistings, in the grand scheme of things.

 

I disagree. IMHO, the difference between Mistings and Mistrborn is very much in how invested they are. Every Scadrian has some excess Preservation investiture, if they have more than a certain threshold, they become a Misting, if they have more than a second, much higher threshold, they become a Mistborn. Both after snapping, that is. 

Which means, IMHO, that the miniscule dose of lerasium that Wax inhaled, only made him a weak Mistborn because he had already been pretty highly invested. If it had been an unpowered person, they would have become a Misting at best.

The Set's micro-hemalurgy  experiments likely ran afoul of Identity conflicts, which prevented the investiture from sticking around. They did sometimes convey temporary random powers, though, which supports my argument. 

 

On 6/3/2024 at 3:27 PM, therunner said:

think we will get there, but by technological means, i.e. Medallions, not by Investing the person directly

 

I mean, Moonlight/Shai specifically pointed out the possibility of artificial power spikes? Sanderson likes talking about making promises to the reader and this sure sounded like one! 

What is more, medallions are more limited than natural/hemalurgic abilities and don't offer the same opportunities for creativity and fine control. True democratisation of Metallic Arts would allow any Scadrian to obtain an equivalent to one of the latter without winning a genetic lottery or murder/harm to others. With medallions allowing for fun ability combos on top of it.

[alder24]

17 minutes ago, Isilel said:

Which means, IMHO, that the miniscule dose of lerasium that Wax inhaled, only made him a weak Mistborn because he had already been pretty highly invested. If it had been an unpowered person, they would have become a Misting at best.

While I do agree with your previous statement, this is not true. Pure Lerasium will always make you a Mistborn. To become a Misting you must alloy it with one of 16 base metals. But per this WoB it seems like you need a certain amount of Lerasium for it to make you into a Mistborn/Misting.

Spoiler

Questioner

I was also wondering if... I just finished reading the Ars Arcanum in the back of Bands of Mourning and I heard it mention that god metals could be alloyed to give different abilities or traits.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Could you give an example of one?

Brandon Sanderson

So, you could alloy lerasium with certain metals of the sixteen in the table and get, if you had just enough lerasium, it would make them a misting of those powers.

Calamity Philadelphia signing (Feb. 20, 2016)

 

[therunner he/him]

On 6/22/2024 at 5:29 PM, KelsierApologist said:

I think it’d be some odd preservation-clone of a breath, which might have some funky properties 

Might be, but it would certainly not be as easy to give away, which is a rather fundamental part of Breath that allows for Awakening to function so well.

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

I disagree. IMHO, the difference between Mistings and Mistrborn is very much in how invested they are. Every Scadrian has some excess Preservation investiture, if they have more than a certain threshold, they become a Misting, if they have more than a second, much higher threshold, they become a Mistborn. Both after snapping, that is.

Per TSM most Invested people in Cosmere are between 2-3 BEUs.
And per WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/93/#e2675) Mistborn are not particularly Invested when not burning metals.

Quote

Questioner

Is a Mistborn Invested?

Brandon Sanderson

The Mistborn, while they're burning the metal. They are not specifically Invested when they are not burning. When the Investiture becomes active, then yes. Before, no.

Hence simple conclusion, Mistborn and Mistings are rather close together in how Invested they are, in Cosmere terms. When jar of Dor is ~10k BEUs, no one is going to notice 1 BEU more in Mistborn compared to Misting (and I doubt the difference is as large). On Scadrial it might seem like a lot, but it is not in grand scheme of things.

So in absolute terms, no, treshold for Mistborn is not 'much higher' than the threshold for Misting.

Quote

I mean, Moonlight/Shai specifically pointed out the possibility of artificial power spikes? Sanderson likes talking about making promises to the reader and this sure sounded like one!

Not everything that is hinted at will be possible. E.g. burning Metalminds was hinted at in Era 1, but it turns out to have some rather large limitations (it must be yours or perhaps no-ones).

Quote

What is more, medallions are more limited than natural/hemalurgic abilities and don't offer the same opportunities for creativity and fine control. True democratisation of Metallic Arts would allow any Scadrian to obtain an equivalent to one of the latter without winning a genetic lottery or murder/harm to others. With medallions allowing for fun ability combos on top of it.

The limitations is exactly why I think that is what will be the actual mechanism of democratizing Investiture. Sanderson is rather clear he prefers magic systems with limitations (hence why he made it so Hemalurgy is no longer capable of Compounding).
Not to mention he apparently spent a lot of time figuring out how Medallions work and are made (with several pages of notes just on making them), which would be rather pointless exercise if Medallions were nearly immediately superseded by artificial spikes.

Free Hemalurgy without moral compromise is rather boring, and would interfere with his vision of Scadrial as 'Earth-analogue' with some Invested tech on top.

So even if artifical spikes were possible, I will bet that they will be either restrictive in some way, or far weaker.
After all, Hemalurgy is art of Ruin, so if you avoid Ruin, why should it work as well?

Edited June 23 by therunner

[alder24]

2 hours ago, therunner said:

Per TSM most Invested people in Cosmere are between 2-3 BEUs.

Most people, not most invested people. Most people in Cosmere do not have access to any invested ability. The spear that made Charred was worth 2000-4000 BEUs of investiture alone, Charred are therefore significantly invested and the same applies to anyone who has access to some kind of invested art (of course numbers will differ but they are significantly more than 2-3 BEUs).

TSM ch 24:

Quote

Even on highly Invested worlds, a person’s soul isn’t more than three BEUs, Aux replied.

TSM ch 4:

Quote

I’d guess a spear like that has a couple thousand BEUs—maybe ten to twenty percent Skip capacity at most

 

1 hour ago, therunner said:

And per WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/93/#e2675) Mistborn are not particularly Invested when not burning metals.

You've cut a very significant part of that WoB, a correction to his previous words - a Mistborn is as invested as a Radiant is, even if he doesn't burn metals - full WoB:

Spoiler

Blightsong

Would it be harder for Jasnah to Soulcast a Knight Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Would it be harder for her to Soulcast a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Investiture resists Investiture. It's harder for her to even Soulcast a person than a rock, right?

Questioner

Is a Mistborn Invested?

Brandon Sanderson

The Mistborn, while they're burning the metal. They are not specifically Invested when they are not burning. When the Investiture becomes active, then yes. Before, no.

Blightsong

So Kelsier, he stayed around longer, not because he was Invested, but because he had the potential to use Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Over time using the magic will Invest you, on Scadrial. Most of the power is not coming from, on Roshar the power isn't coming from the person either [he cut himself off, so I assume this is how it works on Scadrial even though he didn't finish his thought] so I'm going to have to back up on that one and say, yes, the Mistborn are as Invested as a Knight Radiant, because in both cases the majority, bulk, of the power is coming from somewhere else, but there is the Spiritweb. Investing the wrong term, but you have all these connections in the Spiritual Realm, so yanking you away from them, or rewriting them is harder.

Questioner

Would they be harder with more Stormlight or metals burning?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes. That would increase the difficulty ratio. For instance, wearing Shardplate is gonna be a great barrier, right, and things like that so yeah. The problem is like, Invested is the wrong term for that, their Spiritweb is connected in different ways.

OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)

 

1 hour ago, therunner said:

So in absolute terms, no, treshold for Mistborn is not 'much higher' than the threshold for Misting.

Well, except it is (last WoB). Snapping invests people. Unsnapped Mistborn would fall into the range of 2-3 BEU and there is a difference between having a potential for being a Mistborn, or a Misting. But Snapped people would be much higher invested because the idea of Snapping is that investiture is filling cracks in their soul, adding to it.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

The Sliding Scale of Allomantic Potential

Noblemen, despite what Spook says in this chapter, are not immune to the mistsickness. The rumor Spook is referencing does have merit, however. You see, since the mists are Snapping people and awakening the Allomantic potential within them, it will affect far fewer noblemen than skaa. Why? Because a lot of the noblemen have already Snapped. They were beaten as children to bring out the powers.

However, that won't stop all of them from being affected by the mistsickness, because the mistsickness is also awakening Allomantic potential that would otherwise be too subtle to be brought out. Pretend there's a sliding scale of Allomantic potential. 100% means you're an Allomancer—in this series, only two people have hit 100%—Vin and Elend. Buried within a lot of people, however, is enough of a touch of Preservation's power to hit, say, 50% on the relative scale of Allomantic power. These people, when beaten and made to pass through something traumatic, awaken to their Allomantic abilities.

There are a lot of people out there, however, with something more like 20% to 30%. These are the people the mists are Snapping—since the mists are, themselves, partially the power of Preservation, they can touch people and increase their Allomantic potential slightly and then bring it to the forefront.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Dec. 29, 2009)

 

Spoiler

PrncRny (paraphrased)

How and when is the type of Misting you become determined? Can you tell what type of Misting you are before you Snap?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It's determined at birth. The cosmere by combining 3 aspects of self. Your physical self, mental self, and spiritual self. The spiritual self is tied to the Investiture of the world that you come from. When an Allomancer snaps, a piece of their soul is broken and some of that power leaks into them, giving them their abilities.

Idaho Falls signing 2014 (Nov. 29, 2014)

 

Spoiler

Herowannabe

So Elend, at the end of Mistborn [Era 1], is going around finding Allomancers the mist had Snapped. How come he didn't find any other Mistborn? Or did he and we just didn't know about it?

Brandon Sanderson

What you have to remember is the mists were looking for a way specifically to deliver information to him, that "I am alive and doing something" but they were also kind of crazy. And so the idea was to make him notice the number 16 so that he would know that there was a plan and that something was prepared for him. Does that make sense?

Herowannabe

Why didn't the mist throw in some Mistborn in that sixteen too?

Brandon Sanderson

Then you would have 17. Or you would have like--  It was the number that was important to what the mists were doing. Plus it is much harder to make someone who wasn't originally-- Like remember what's going on is these are people it is Snapping intentionally who did not-- Like it's Investing them so-- It's either awakening a very little remnant in them or taking people who had-- They wouldn't have been able to be Mistings, if the mists hadn't intervened. Making someone a Mistborn takes way more power.

Firefight release party (Jan. 5, 2015)

 

2 hours ago, therunner said:

Not everything that is hinted at will be possible. E.g. burning Metalminds was hinted at in Era 1, but it turns out to have some rather large limitations (it must be yours or perhaps no-ones).

That's how it was hinted from the beginning, even with the Identity, so Brandon 100% delivered on that foreshadowing. TFE ch 29:

Quote

Sazed frowned. “It’s faint, you say? Like . . . you can see a shadow of the reserve, but can’t access the power itself?”
Vin nodded. “How do you know?”
“That’s what it feels like when you try to use another Feruchemist’s metals, Mistress,” Sazed said, sighing. “I should have suspected this would be the result. You cannot access the power because it does not belong to you.”

Moreover we already have proof in Yumi that you can replace pieces of soul - Breaths - with other types of investiture to perform the art. I don't doubt that there will be limiatations, but Brandon is very open about this possibility being real in Cosmere for any invested art. We know you can grow artificial souls, that's the very same thing that was hinted in TLM.

Spoiler

Questioner

A Spiritweb is composed of a bunch of chunks that are added based on certain circumstances. Could you manufacture Spiritweb patterns out of raw Investiture in such a way that, instead of cutting something from someone and grafting it to someone else, actually manufacture the chunk desired from Investiture and put it on the person?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. They don't know how, but you could. Synthetic meat, synthetic souls, possible.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

 

2 hours ago, therunner said:

The limitations is exactly why I think that is what will be the actual mechanism of democratizing Investiture. Sanderson is rather clear he prefers magic systems with limitations (hence why he made it so Hemalurgy is no longer capable of Compounding).
Not to mention he apparently spent a lot of time figuring out how Medallions work and are made (with several pages of notes just on making them), which would be rather pointless exercise if Medallions were nearly immediately superseded by artificial spikes.

Free Hemalurgy without moral compromise is rather boring, and would interfere with his vision of Scadrial as 'Earth-analogue' with some Invested tech on top.

So even if artifical spikes were possible, I will bet that they will be either restrictive in some way, or far weaker.
After all, Hemalurgy is art of Ruin, so if you avoid Ruin, why should it work as well?

With this I agree, but you won't avoid Ruin. I don't doubt it will be bound by restrictions, however it's still Hemalurgy, it will still hurt your soul when spiking yourself. Why would you grow a soul (which probably would be a difficult process) and hurt yourself, when you can just use a non-invasive medallion, or a primer cube?

[therunner he/him]

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

Most people, not most invested people. Most people in Cosmere do not have access to any invested ability. The spear that made Charred was worth 2000-4000 BEUs of investiture alone, Charred are therefore significantly invested and the same applies to anyone who has access to some kind of invested art (of course numbers will differ but they are significantly more than 2-3 BEUs).

Not exactly.

One, Charred are significantly more powerful than Mistborn. Mistborn not burning metals is nearly the same as regular human, the don't have increased strength or healing, which appears at around ~1000 BEUs. So we can say Mistborn are below that threshold.

People who are in this category are e.g. Elantrians, Returned, Heralds and Yumi, who by themselves are physically improved, not Mistborn or Knights Radiant who need external Investiture to reach that level.

 

Two, Auxiliary directly says that:

Quote

One soul’s worth, even with a shade attached, wouldn’t be enough for us to absorb over a thousand BEUs of Investiture like we did, Aux said. So there must be some other force filling the stone, like Stormlight on Roshar.

which shows that person's soul is much less Invested than that, even when you include a full blown Cognitive Shadow.
(and also that Knight Radiant without Stormlight is also quite likely below thousand BEUs)

Quote

You've cut a very significant part of that WoB, a correction to his previous words - a Mistborn is as invested as a Radiant is, even if he doesn't burn metals - full WoB:

You also ignored the last part of the WoB, which says that it is not necessarily they (Mistborn and Radiants) are Invested, but more Connected differently

Quote

Blightsong

Would it be harder for Jasnah to Soulcast a Knight Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Would it be harder for her to Soulcast a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Investiture resists Investiture. It's harder for her to even Soulcast a person than a rock, right?

Questioner

Is a Mistborn Invested?

Brandon Sanderson

The Mistborn, while they're burning the metal. They are not specifically Invested when they are not burning. When the Investiture becomes active, then yes. Before, no.

Blightsong

So Kelsier, he stayed around longer, not because he was Invested, but because he had the potential to use Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Over time using the magic will Invest you, on Scadrial. Most of the power is not coming from, on Roshar the power isn't coming from the person either [he cut himself off, so I assume this is how it works on Scadrial even though he didn't finish his thought] so I'm going to have to back up on that one and say, yes, the Mistborn are as Invested as a Knight Radiant, because in both cases the majority, bulk, of the power is coming from somewhere else, but there is the Spiritweb. Investing the wrong term, but you have all these connections in the Spiritual Realm, so yanking you away from them, or rewriting them is harder.

Questioner

Would they be harder with more Stormlight or metals burning?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes. That would increase the difficulty ratio. For instance, wearing Shardplate is gonna be a great barrier, right, and things like that so yeah. The problem is like, Invested is the wrong term for that, their Spiritweb is connected in different ways.

OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)

Nomad for example does not seem to be particularly Invested, despite still being bonded to remnant of Spren, which is still quite a lot of Investiture (as Aux can form Shardblade).

Quote

Well, except it is (last WoB). Snapping invests people. Unsnapped Mistborn would fall into the range of 2-3 BEU and there is a difference between having a potential for being a Mistborn, or a Misting. But Snapped people would be much higher invested because the idea of Snapping is that investiture is filling cracks in their soul, adding to it.

I would not use the 'Sliding scale' WoB too qualitatively, since it e.g. says that both Vin and Elend are 100% when we know that Elend was in fact more powerful than Vin.
See e.g. this WoB

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Seventy

The Reason for the Mistsickness

So, it finally comes out. I wonder at this numbers plot, as I think many readers will glaze over it and ignore it. I think others will read into it and figure out what it means very quickly, then feel that the reveal here isn't much of a revelation. Hopefully I'll get a majority in the middle who read the clues, don't know what they mean, but are happily surprised when it comes together. That's a difficult line to walk sometimes.

What is going on here is that the mists are awakening the Allomantic potential inside of people. It's very rough on a person for that to come out, and can cause death. Preservation set this all up before he gave his consciousness to imprison Ruin, so it's not a perfect system. It's like a machine left behind by its creator. The catalyst is the return of the power to the Well of Ascension. As soon as that power becomes full, it sets the mists to begin Snapping those who have the potential for Allomancy buried within them.

Many of these people won't be very strong Allomancers. Their abilities were buried too deeply to have come out without the mists' intervention. Others will have a more typical level of power; they might have Snapped earlier, had they gone through enough anguish to bring the power out.

My idea on this is that Allomantic potential is a little like a supersaturated solution. You can suspend a great deal of something like sugar in a liquid when it is hot, then cool it down and the sugar remains suspended. Drop one bit of sugar in there as a catalyst, however, and the rest will fall out as a precipitate.

Allomancy is the same. It's in there, but it takes a reaction—in this case, physical anguish—to trigger it and bring it out. That's because the Allomantic power comes from the extra bit of Preservation inside of humans, that same extra bit that gives us free will. This bit is trapped between the opposing forces of Preservation and Ruin, and to come out and allow it the power to access metals and draw forth energy, it needs to fight its way through the piece of Ruin that is also there inside.

As has been established, Ruin's control over creatures—and, indeed, an Allomancer's control over them—grows weaker when that creature is going through some extreme emotions. (Like the koloss blood frenzy.) This has to do with the relationship between the Cognitive Realm, the Physical Realm, and the Spiritual Realm—of which I don't have time to speak right now.

Suffice it to say that there are people who have Snapped because of intense joy or other emotions. It just doesn't happen as frequently and is more difficult to control.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (March 30, 2010)

some of the people snapped by Mists were of relatively usual strength, and the general strength level differed in the population. So the Mists are only increasing their power a very small bit to help it to the fore front.

And since Allomancy comes from a small extra bit from Preservation, it stands to reason that it is only a bit of soul, not that Mistborn have ~1000x the size of the soul.
So even after breaking they would be in that range. In addition, different Allomancers are differently strong, suggesting different Investited levels, so it is not even that every Mistborn is equally Invested.

E.g. Wax is very weak Mistborn, and used basically free floating dust, certainly ~1000x less Lerasium than Elend did, so his Investiture levels must be also much lower. So being Mistborn vs Misting is not just question of being more Invested, but also of kind of Invested you are.

So I still maintain that Mistborn are not particularly Invested, and if not in the 2-3 BEU range, than at most in low tens BEU range, and certainly not in ~1000s BEU range.

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

Moreover we already have proof in Yumi that you can replace pieces of soul - Breaths - with other types of investiture to perform the art. I don't doubt that there will be limiatations, but Brandon is very open about this possibility being real in Cosmere for any invested art.

Breaths are not pieces of soul, they are Gaseous Investiture. They are pieces of Investiture attached to a person's physical body, not their soul, like Stormlight or Mists are when breathed in. So of course you can replace them with other type of Investiture, we already knew Vasher is doing exactly that when feeding on Stormlight.

Quote

We know you can grow artificial souls, that's the very same thing that was hinted in TLM.

Growing artificial soul (which seems to require creating full blown sapient entity, like e.g. Nightblood), vs programming a spike from raw Investiture are two different things.

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

With this I agree, but you won't avoid Ruin. I don't doubt it will be bound by restrictions, however it's still Hemalurgy, it will still hurt your soul when spiking yourself.

I'd say you will avoid majority of Ruin, as it is the creation of spike that is the most ruinous, and you will be going around that.
And Brandon is rather free with the fact he considers it to be 'evil' as far as Invested Arts go.

Quote

Why would you grow a soul (which probably would be a difficult process) and hurt yourself, when you can just use a non-invasive medallion, or a primer cube?

Well, for one Medallions are more restrictive than Spikes, and primer cubes are more of a tool than something that grants you as a person, power.

So motivation does exist.
 

Edited June 24 by therunner

[alder24]

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Not exactly.

One, Charred are significantly more powerful than Mistborn. Mistborn not burning metals is nearly the same as regular human,

Again, not true. Per given WoB, Mistborn are as invested as Radiants, and Kaladin at 3rd Ideal was comparable to someone with some Heightenings, per Riino in OB. So at the very low end, Both Mistborn and the 3rd Ideal Radiant are invested with 50 BEUs, just from the fact that they have access to an invested art, which is 16-25 times more than 2-3 BEUs of those normal people from high investiture worlds and 50 times more than Threnodites from Canticle. OB ch 97:

Quote

“How? Impossible. Unless … you’re Invested. What Heightening are you?” He squinted at Kaladin. “No. Something else. Merciful Domi … A Surgebinder? It has begun again?”

TSM ch 23:

Quote

“Yes,” Contemplation said. “But this is useless. It barely charges the sunheart at all—a person could give their entire soul to it, and it would only keep a ship in the air for a short time.”
Because they only have one BEU of Investiture, Auxiliary mused.

The fact that both Radiants and Mistborns are comparable invested is even more evident when comparing the death of Kelsier and Eshonai - both were predicted to last similar amounts of time, while normal people stumbled into CR and disappeared within seconds, sometimes even immediately. This proves that a Mistborn is vastly more invested than a regular human.

4 hours ago, therunner said:

the don't have increased strength or healing, which appears at around ~1000 BEUs. So we can say Mistborn are below that threshold.

People who are in this category are e.g. Elantrians, Returned, Heralds and Yumi, who by themselves are physically improved, not Mistborn or Knights Radiant who need external Investiture to reach that level.

That's still vastly more than 2-3 BEUs you proposed and that's my point - Mistborn and Mistings are more invested than normal people.

4 hours ago, therunner said:

which shows that person's soul is much less Invested than that, even when you include a full blown Cognitive Shadow.
(and also that Knight Radiant without Stormlight is also quite likely below thousand BEUs)

Threnodites aren't Cognitive Shadows YET. This Shade attached to their soul is just a twisted innate investiture, which on its own isn't that invested - worth just 1 BEU. Something is happening when they are turned into Shades that invests them, making them into Cognitive Shadows. 

Spoiler

Questioner

So the Threnodites are described as having a smokey shadow something to their soul; we don't really know what that is. Is it more similar to the black smoke that comes from Awakened objects in Yumi and Nightblood? Or is it more like Midnight Essence in Tress?

Brandon Sanderson

It is more like Breath than it is like either one of those. More like Breath, but something's a little wrong with it

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

In Secret History, Nazh briefly mentioned that there's requirements or conditions to become a Cognitive Shadow. Can you tell us one of those?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, lots of Investiture. Is one way. As a certain person discovered.

Questioner

If that person were to not have entered Preservation's pool, it still would have given the same result?

Brandon Sanderson

If they had not, they would be gone.

Questioner

I wasn't clear. If they had done a different pool, not Preservation's.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, if they had been able to Invest themselves heavily, then they could have stuck around, yes. That wasn't Preservation's pool, that was more a function of--dipping themselves, pulling an Achilles inside of a Shardpool when you are dead, turned out to work. It's not the only way, not everyone on... Threnody, for instance, is heavily Invested.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

Could a Threnody Shade survive on another world?

Brandon Sanderson

Theoretically, yes. But they are highly Invested, and leaving a world where you're highly Invested behind when you have that Investiture is difficult, as Kelsier discovered, and as most spren discover.

Oathbringer Portland signing (Nov. 16, 2017)

Threnodites aren't heavily invested (not everyone), while Shades are, which means something invest them when they are turned into a Shade.

5 hours ago, therunner said:

You also ignored the last part of the WoB, which says that it is not necessarily they (Mistborn and Radiants) are Invested, but more Connected differently

I didn't ignore it - both Allomancy and Radiance come from Connection. A spirit web is made out of both Connections and raw investiture and by increasing one of those things, you get the same effect as being more invested. So having a strong Connection, like the one that provides Allomancy, or a Nahel Bond, manifests in the same way as having a lot of raw investiture, like Breaths. 

5 hours ago, therunner said:

Nomad for example does not seem to be particularly Invested, despite still being bonded to remnant of Spren, which is still quite a lot of Investiture (as Aux can form Shardblade).

There is no Radiant bond between them.

5 hours ago, therunner said:

not that Mistborn have ~1000x the size of the soul.

5 hours ago, therunner said:

and certainly not in ~1000s BEU range.

I didn't propose that Mistborn are 1000 times more invested than normal people, just that they are more invested than 2-3 BEUs. Charred may fall in this range, I don't think we have a direct quote saying how invested they are (they are invested enough to be supernaturally fast and strong), but I specifically said that numbers will differ and I believe Mistborn will be less invested, a few dozens, maybe low hundreds BEUs at best - but nowhere near a 1000 BEUs.

5 hours ago, therunner said:

Breaths are not pieces of soul, they are Gaseous Investiture.

They are innate investiture, which also is gaseous when transferred between people/objects. So yes, Breaths are pieces of a soul.

Spoiler

Luke Beartline

Along the lines of BioChromatic Breath being akin to a person's soul, how would a Shardblade react to someone who does not have any Breath, would it cut them like an inanimate object?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Remember, one of the things with Breath is I consider Breath to be a part of someone's soul, but it is the extra part that the Cosmere has that non-Cosmere doesn't have.  [,,,]

YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021)

 

5 hours ago, therunner said:

Growing artificial soul (which seems to require creating full blown sapient entity, like e.g. Nightblood), vs programming a spike from raw Investiture are two different things.

You don't need to grow an entire body to make an artificial meat, you don't need to create a fully sapient entity to grow an artificial soul, as Brandon directly compared those two together.

5 hours ago, therunner said:

I'd say you will avoid majority of Ruin, as it is the creation of spike that is the most ruinous, and you will be going around that.

While you may avoid harming others, you will still deal a significant harm to your own soul, cracking it and exposing yourself to outside powers to some degree. Hemalurgy is always damaging. 

[Isilel]

On 6/23/2024 at 9:21 PM, alder24 said:

Pure Lerasium will always make you a Mistborn.

 

Do we actually know this? The WoB you quoted doesn't state it - just that to become a Misting of a given allomantic metal, you must use an alloy of it with lerasium and stresses how you need enough lerasium for it to work. Which means that there is a certain threshold beyond which the amount of lerasium would be too low to make an allomancer at all. And given that Preservation's Mists were just lerasium in gas form and that they did turn people into random Mistings, but not Mistborn because their intitial investiture levels weren't high enough, I don't see why the same wouldn't apply to metallic lerasium. IMHO, if Steris inhaled the same amount as Wax, she would have become a random Misting at best, not Mistborn.

 

On 6/23/2024 at 9:53 PM, therunner said:

Hence simple conclusion, Mistborn and Mistings are rather close together in how Invested they are, in Cosmere terms.

 

But we aren't talking cosmere terms, but Scadrian ones. Mistborn are clearly more invested than Mistings, which is why Mist-snapping at the end of Era 1 didn't produce any. How much more? I am not sure. Not 16x more like I initially assumed, I don't think, but probably less. Just enough that some lerasium dust put Wax a toe-length over the threshold.

 

On 6/23/2024 at 9:53 PM, therunner said:

Free Hemalurgy without moral compromise is rather boring, and would interfere with his vision of Scadrial as 'Earth-analogue' with some Invested tech on top.

 

 IMHO, settings where only a few people have powers have been done so, so many times that is has become quite boring. Particularly since we always follow the powered ones and the rest tend to be mooks or secondary characters at best. Which in the Mistborn series means that the main protagonists have been winners of a genetic lottery, who have been pretty much gods among men, 2 times in a row. How very dull. IMHO, Metallic Arts aren't, for the most part, so overpowered that everyone having only one of them would have significantly upended the "Earth-analogue" idea, but it would have allowed for some fresh ideas for how such society might function.

Particularly since the ending of  Era 1 seemed to suggest that allomancy would become far more common, what with 16% of people exposed to the mists getting mist-snapped. But no, it was largely rolled back and Era 2 was more of the same, with the even more rare Twinborn replacing Mistborn and Feruchemists as super-superpowered individuals.

I would have liked it if normal hemalurgy was presented in a more nuanced way, according to the notions outlined in Spook's book, but Sanderson has been consequently insisting that it is wholly evil - not much room for a "moral compromise" there. We didn't even see any hemalurgist Ghostbloods in TLM, which we really should have.

I don't think that synthetic hemalurgy will be "free". It will likely require significant resources and skills to make these spikes. And there may be other restrictions - no more than 1 spike per person working, say. And of course, such spike would still hurt the body and create a hole in the soul. So, something for Ruin. But Sanderson clearly and unambigiously promised us that it is coming, or he wouldn't have it spelled out in TLM. Not in Era 3, except possibly among the Ghostbloods, but I suspect that if he does the Cyberpunk trilogy, then it will be there. Or Era 4.

As to the medallions and other gadgets, this won't replace them, just like being a natural Metalborn doesn't make them any less useful. After all, in Era 3 we will, according to WoBs, follow some Metalborn yet again, who will, presumably, use them. But, clearly, they can't really replace natural abilities, because the protagonists will still posess those. Unpowered people still won't be interesting or capable enough without them to be worthy of being main characters.

 

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

Do we actually know this? The WoB you quoted doesn't state it - just that to become a Misting of a given allomantic metal, you must use an alloy of it with lerasium and stresses how you need enough lerasium for it to work.

If you're not an Allomancer, then pure Lerasium will make you one - that's confirmed because it's not you burning it, it's your body that does it. If you're an Allomancer then Lerasium can have a different effect - we know this from many other WoBs:

Spoiler

Kaimipono

Allomancy is fueled by Preservation's body? How exactly does that work? And how does that interact with Atium—it's fueled by both gods' bodies?

Brandon Sanderson

The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.

Condensed 'essence' of these godly powers can act as super-fuel for Allomancy, Feruchemy, or really any of the powers. The form of that super fuel is important. In liquid form it's most potent, in gas form it's able to fuel Allomancy as if working as a metal. In physical form it is rigid and does one specific thing. In the case of atium, it allows sight into the future. In the case of concentrated Preservation, it gives one a permanent connection to the mists and the powers of creation. (I.e., it makes them an Allomancer.)

So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak—though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists, however, she'd doing just that—using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself—to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips 'troughs' through her body. It's like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

 

Spoiler

17th Shard

If a Mistborn burns lerasium, as in, not just ingests it, what effect would it grant Allomantically?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a RAFO. It would do something, but the thing you've gotta remember is that, when ingesting lerasium for the first time and gaining the powers, your body is actually burning it. Think of lerasium as a metal anyone can burn. Does that make sense? By burning it you gain access to those powers. It rewrites your spiritual DNA, and there are ways to do really cool things with lerasium that I don't see how anyone would know. Were most Mistborn to just burn it, it would rewrite their genetic code to increase their power as an Allomancer.

17th Shard Interview (Oct. 3, 2010)

 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Lerasium overwrites Spiritual DNA. It can do some interesting things, and can overwrite your Spiritual DNA in different ways if you do it right. If a Surgebinder ate lerasium, he would become an Allomancer, but Brandon implied other things could be done.

Alloy of Law 17th Shard Q&A (Nov. 5, 2011)

 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Preservation's Power

All right, so maybe I lied about there only being three magic systems in this book. It comes down to how you term the powers of Preservation and Ruin, who kind of blanket the entire system. There are a lot of things going on here, and—well, the truth is I don't want to mention all of them, for fear of spoiling future books. However, I'll give you a few rules to apply.

First, to these forces, energy and mass are the same thing. So, their power can take physical shape—as Preservation's did in the bead of metal Elend ate. Second, there is a bit of Preservation inside of all the people—and it's this that allows the people to perform Allomancy. It needs to be awakened and stirred to be of use, but when it is, a proper metal can draw forth more of Preservation's power. It's like the metal attunes the bit within the person, allowing it to act as a catalyst to grab more power.

Allomancy is not fueled by metal; it is fueled by Preservation. The metal is the means by which a person can access that fuel, however. If there were another way to access it, then the metal wouldn't be needed.

Preservation's touch on people differs. Some have more, some have less. This doesn't make them better or worse people—indeed, some most touched by Preservation have been among the worst people in the world. As Ruin later points out, there is a difference between being evil and being destructive.

Regardless, if a person can get more Preservation into them, they become better Allomancers. Hence Elend becoming a Mistborn. Like all people, he had the potential within him—it was just too small of a potential to be awakened through normal means. That little jolt of Preservation's body, however, expanded and awakened his Allomancy.

As a tidbit, that was a side effect of what that bead of metal did. It wasn't the main purpose of the bead, and if another Allomancer were to burn it, it would do something else.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Nov. 12, 2009)

 

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

Which means that there is a certain threshold beyond which the amount of lerasium would be too low to make an allomancer at all.

That's what the WoB suggests, but judging from Wax's case this limit must have been pretty insignificant as if even Lerasium dust can make you into a full Mistborn then it doesn't matter. My point was that pure Lerasium on its own won't make you a Misting even if there is a little amount of it, because it's not "programmed" to do it. It doesn't know how to do it. That's why you have to alloy it with base metals to key it to the specific power.

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

And given that Preservation's Mists were just lerasium in gas form and that they did turn people into random Mistings, but not Mistborn because their intitial investiture levels weren't high enough, I don't see why the same wouldn't apply to metallic lerasium.

This wasn't about initial investiture levels - Mists didn't target people who could become full Mistborn as they were not a part of 16. Mists target mainly those too weak for any power to manifest in them and Mists invest them with additional power to bring their ability to the surface. To make someone into a Mistborn Mists would require them to invest people much more. 

The difference in Lerasium and Mists is that Mists were programed to do that autonomously by Preservation, Lerasium is just a mindless piece of metal that can't do anything on its own, that's why you need to alloy it to tell it what power you want to get, otherwise it will just give you everything.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Seventy

The Reason for the Mistsickness

So, it finally comes out. I wonder at this numbers plot, as I think many readers will glaze over it and ignore it. I think others will read into it and figure out what it means very quickly, then feel that the reveal here isn't much of a revelation. Hopefully I'll get a majority in the middle who read the clues, don't know what they mean, but are happily surprised when it comes together. That's a difficult line to walk sometimes.

What is going on here is that the mists are awakening the Allomantic potential inside of people. It's very rough on a person for that to come out, and can cause death. Preservation set this all up before he gave his consciousness to imprison Ruin, so it's not a perfect system. It's like a machine left behind by its creator. The catalyst is the return of the power to the Well of Ascension. As soon as that power becomes full, it sets the mists to begin Snapping those who have the potential for Allomancy buried within them.

Many of these people won't be very strong Allomancers. Their abilities were buried too deeply to have come out without the mists' intervention. Others will have a more typical level of power; they might have Snapped earlier, had they gone through enough anguish to bring the power out.

My idea on this is that Allomantic potential is a little like a supersaturated solution. You can suspend a great deal of something like sugar in a liquid when it is hot, then cool it down and the sugar remains suspended. Drop one bit of sugar in there as a catalyst, however, and the rest will fall out as a precipitate.

Allomancy is the same. It's in there, but it takes a reaction—in this case, physical anguish—to trigger it and bring it out. That's because the Allomantic power comes from the extra bit of Preservation inside of humans, that same extra bit that gives us free will. This bit is trapped between the opposing forces of Preservation and Ruin, and to come out and allow it the power to access metals and draw forth energy, it needs to fight its way through the piece of Ruin that is also there inside.

As has been established, Ruin's control over creatures—and, indeed, an Allomancer's control over them—grows weaker when that creature is going through some extreme emotions. (Like the koloss blood frenzy.) This has to do with the relationship between the Cognitive Realm, the Physical Realm, and the Spiritual Realm—of which I don't have time to speak right now.

Suffice it to say that there are people who have Snapped because of intense joy or other emotions. It just doesn't happen as frequently and is more difficult to control.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (March 30, 2010)

 

3 hours ago, Isilel said:

IMHO, if Steris inhaled the same amount as Wax, she would have become a random Misting at best, not Mistborn.

Highly disagree, she would become a Mistborn of the same strength as Wax (except for steal). It's like in Hemalurgy, it adds to what you already have. The amount added doesn't depend on your soul, but on the amount of Lerasium used. Lerasium consumed by Vin wouldn't give her more strength just because she already was an Allomancer and her soul was invested, she would get the same effect as someone with low potential. Lerasium directly rewrites the spirit web, but unless you alloy it with base metals, it won't make you into a Misting, because pure Lerasium can only create Mistborn.