Effects of Metals pre and post alloy-ing

[MarcieIsForager She/They]

Do you think the components of an alloy influence the effect the alloy has on investiture.

I was just looking at the Allomantic table and found two examples

Copper + Zinc = Bronze

With that example the idea that the component effect influence the alloy effect seem plausible enough:
Rioting + Hiding investiture becoming Soothing concept wise isn't too far off and could cognitively work

silver + Gold = Electrum

Silver (destroys investiture) + gold (shows your own past) conceptually becoming seeing your future doesnt work though

so the question is if its just a polarity reversal or if the cognitive aspect that seems at least plausible for some combos somehow applies
 

[alder24]

28 minutes ago, MarcieIsForager said:

Do you think the components of an alloy influence the effect the alloy has on investiture.

I was just looking at the Allomantic table and found two examples

Copper + Zinc = Bronze

With that example the idea that the component effect influence the alloy effect seem plausible enough:
Rioting + Hiding investiture becoming Soothing concept wise isn't too far off and could cognitively work

silver + Gold = Electrum

Silver (destroys investiture) + gold (shows your own past) conceptually becoming seeing your future doesnt work though

so the question is if its just a polarity reversal or if the cognitive aspect that seems at least plausible for some combos somehow applies
 

No. That doesn't work with all alloys. What effect has carbon in Allomancy? None, you can't burn carbon, it's not even a metal, yet still is just iron and carbon. How about pewter which is tin plus lead? Lead is an Allomantically inert metal, you can't burn it, it has no effect. Nicrosil is an alloy primarily of nickel with chromium and some silicon - three components, two of them can't be burned. For this idea to have any merit, all alloys should be paired with Allomantically viable metals, or at least metals that interact with investiture, which isn't true.

[ChillPenguin]

5 hours ago, MarcieIsForager said:

Do you think the components of an alloy influence the effect the alloy has on investiture.

I was just looking at the Allomantic table and found two examples

Copper + Zinc = Bronze

With that example the idea that the component effect influence the alloy effect seem plausible enough:
Rioting + Hiding investiture becoming Soothing concept wise isn't too far off and could cognitively work

silver + Gold = Electrum

Silver (destroys investiture) + gold (shows your own past) conceptually becoming seeing your future doesnt work though

so the question is if its just a polarity reversal or if the cognitive aspect that seems at least plausible for some combos somehow applies
 

Brandon has talked about the push and pull within investiture in the cosmere, and so with allomancy the pure metal is one of those and the alloy is the other. I don’t know that there’s any mixing recipe going on like you say with base metals. 
 

However, godmetal alloys do seem to take on a flavor of the metal the god metal is alloyed with.

[MarcieIsForager She/They]

14 hours ago, ChillPenguin said:

Brandon has talked about the push and pull within investiture in the cosmere, and so with allomancy the pure metal is one of those and the alloy is the other. I don’t know that there’s any mixing recipe going on like you say with base metals. 
 

However, godmetal alloys do seem to take on a flavor of the metal the god metal is alloyed with.

I really dont wanna sound overdefensive of my theory, what kinda is curious to me specifically about the magic system that have keyed effects

Allomancy
Feruchemy
Hemalurgy
Soulstamps
Aondor

by keyed effects i mean like magic effects keyed to a specific something symbol, object etc.

They seem so influencable

Like kelsier kinda hinted at there being allomacers alloy vs standard alloys and it sounds kinda arbitrary
So to me it kind of sound like there has to be a cognitive component to this.

Its that or its universally perfectly constant which metals do what

Tldr to me its either:
Cross cosmere cognitive perception of metals imparts effect and intent on them

or

Their axial structure or something different fully inherent to the metal creates the effect

Edited Thursday at 11:26 AM by MarcieIsForager

[Treamayne]

21 minutes ago, MarcieIsForager said:

Like kelsier kinda hinted at there being allomacers alloy vs standard alloys and it sounds kinda arbitrary
So to me it kind of sound like there has to be a cognitive component to this.

Thiis is because the Molecular Structure's "shape" the part acting as a key. Allomancer's Metals are teh ones that are pure base metals (without other things mixed in - lowering efficacy) or Alloys that are exactly correct percentages (which also lower efficacy when not exact). When the percentages are off, or metals are not pure (like a bit of Iron Oxide mixed into your Iron) then the sturcture is close enough to do something, but not correct enough to fully funnel the investiture. WoB:

Spoiler

Questioner

The metals used in Allomancy are they naturally occurring on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

They do.

Questioner

And all the alloys as well?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, the magics would...oh, all the alloys in Roshar naturally occurring… The magic of Mistborn is related to the actual metals' structure being the key. So, you can use metals from other worlds, there's no actual power in the metal. The metal is like a password.

Shadows of Self San Jose signing (Oct. 9, 2015)

Hope that helps.

[alder24]

1 hour ago, MarcieIsForager said:

Like kelsier kinda hinted at there being allomacers alloy vs standard alloys and it sounds kinda arbitrary
So to me it kind of sound like there has to be a cognitive component to this.

Its that or its universally perfectly constant which metals do what

Tldr to me its either:
Cross cosmere cognitive perception of metals imparts effect and intent on them

or

Their axial structure or something different fully inherent to the metal creates the effect

Not a cognitive component but a spiritual one, that probably predates the Shattering itself. This spiritual component makes metals special, but not every metal, just some that have specific molecular structure. The molecular structure acts like a shape of an Aon in AonDor - its a filter for investiture that determines what the power does.

Aons, just like metals, don't seem to be influenced by perception and cognition, otherwise the chasm wouldn't cause a total collapse of Elatrians as almost nobody would have known a chasm appeared.

Spoiler

Questioner

Quick question on aluminum. Why does it affect other forms of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

When I was building the cosmere, I just had to build certain themes into it, and metal was one of those. And the metals have kind of a Spiritual integrity, and Spiritual component, that if I can get into Dragonsteel explaining why, you'll get your kind of origins.

Questioner

And that's why, in Warbreaker, metals are different with Awakening, and stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

And even in Roshar, the cages that you're building for fabrials, once you start to figure out how those metals affect it, you'll be like, "Oh wait, that makes sense!" And these are just across the cosmere.

And if you want an in-world answer, it has to do with stuff in Dragonsteel. But really, the answer is, I was building this and I'm like, "I just want this to be a theme. So I'm just going to give this Spiritual component to metals." So it works in Mistborn, and it works all across everything.

LTUE 2020 (Feb. 15, 2020)

 

Spoiler

Lyndsey Luther

Ok, last question. It was really difficult coming up with three questions that haven’t been asked already...

Brandon Sanderson

OK... you’re not going to ask me the “what would you ask me” question?

Lyndsey Luther

Not quite...

Brandon Sanderson

OK good, because I hate that one! (laughs)

Lyndsey Luther

My question is if there’s anything that you’ve never been asked that you would like to talk about?

Brandon Sanderson

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.

Open The Fridge Interview (Nov. 16, 2011)

 

 

Edited Thursday at 12:20 PM by alder24