Two McMillion he/him Posted October 4, 2013 Report Share Posted October 4, 2013 So, we know TLR knew of several metals nobody else did: Aluminum, Durlumin, Electrum, Cadmium, Bendalloy, Chromium, Nicrosil. My question is, why didn't he use any of these during his battle with Vin? Certainly they would have been useful. I mean, TLR could have used a time bubble to start compounding something, for example. I'm sure we can think of other applications. And he certainly had a chance to use, for example, Chromium. He was touching both Vin and Marsh at different points during that fight. One touch, and poof, their metals are gone. It probably wouldn't have changed the outcome of the fight, to be sure- Vin could still have drawn on the mists as she ended up doing and defeated him by the same means- but there's no way TLR could have anticipated that. If he knew about those metals, it seems like he wasn't fighting optimally. How do we explain this? Had Sanderson not thought of the effects of those metals yet? Did he not think he needed them? Mental instability due to Ruin's influence? Second, a question about Ruin. At the end of HoA, Sazed fixes the world using information contained in his coppermind. The thing is, we know Ruin could change the information in a coppermind. Why did Ruin not change Sazed's data? Of course, Ruin wasn't great at seeing the future, but we have confirmation that the information was being used to provide such things as improved farming techniques and better medicine to the Skaa after TLR's fall. Surely that would not have been in keeping with the cause of Ruin. He could have altered the information in Sazed's metalminds so that Sazed's advice would be bad and contribute to human suffering, but he apparently did not. Why not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moogle Posted October 4, 2013 Report Share Posted October 4, 2013 (edited) The metals with the more 'exotic' effects are rather pricey and were not actually able to be mined with the TLR's time period's tech. Even in Alloy times, bendalloy is rare and expensive and Wayne has to rely on the rich Wax to obtain it for him (and even then Wax could only get so much in short order). It was not mined during the Lord Ruler's times (or even known about), or so I'd guess. When he used the Well, he likely could have 'mined' these metals himself. He probably even did for a few metals to get some rather special metalminds that no Feruchemist had, but I doubt he could have used the Well and gotten enough to use for 1023 years with Allomancy. If he did have these special metalminds, Vin never noted them. (I think the theory is that his 'atium' bracers were actually part-Nicrosil as well, and he had Compounded Nicrosil and used raw Investiture instead of metals/other metalminds? Not sure, and he'd have to regularly get more Nicrosil to Compound and restore what he used. Nicrosil was another rare metal, so I think I am misremembering the theory.) And of course, he didn't need them. You called it a 'fight', but to TLR, it was not. Dude had so much Feruchemical gold that he was immortal, he didn't need to bother being fancy. Wasting time touching Vin to get rid of her metals was pointless when she couldn't affect him. As for Ruin, changing Sazed's metalminds so blatantly: Sazed would have realized his farming techniques were liable to cause harm and gotten suspicious at some point, which would have led to the revelation regarding Ruin changing text sooner. Ruin also likely didn't care about them, given he was literally about to destroy the world. Shards aren't omnipotent, and Ruin had to prioritize his time. Edited October 4, 2013 by Moogle 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ete'ni Posted October 4, 2013 Report Share Posted October 4, 2013 Ruin has pretty bad thing with metal. I don't think Ruin could mess with info stored in metalmind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis he/him Posted October 4, 2013 Report Share Posted October 4, 2013 Upvote to Moogle for saying... everything I was about to say, and then some. Much more coherently than I'd prolly be capable of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happyman he/him Posted October 4, 2013 Report Share Posted October 4, 2013 This brings up interesting questions. I have no doubt the Lord Ruler knew about the other metals. On the other hand, every power he made available for himself could potentially get leaked to the people involved in the process, especially if that process included inventing a lot of new technology. Don't think the nobility wouldn't use them if they could get their hands on them? Think they're really so believing as to believe all his propaganda when given enough motivation to doubt it? Keeping the Atium safe was hard enough, and in fact the focus of a lot of what the Lord Ruler actually did. I think there is a more important reason, though. Once the Lord Ruler held preservation, it guided his thinking in subtle ways. Making the other metals available, even just for his own use, would involve an enormous amount of social and technological change. It would rip things apart even while making them better. I don't think Preservation's power could have contemplated something that enormous, and since it was Preservation's power that expanded his mind, he was led by the nose down the path he took. It's not an accident the world changed only very slowly once the Lord Ruler took over. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shardlet he/him Posted October 4, 2013 Report Share Posted October 4, 2013 Ruin has pretty bad thing with metal. I don't think Ruin could mess with info stored in metalmind Afraid not, Aetae. One of the key features of Kwaan's storyline is that his naturally remarkable memory remembered things differently than what the Worldbingers were putting forth from their metalminds. This led him to the conclusion that Alendi was not the Hero of Ages and that they had been deceived and led down the garden path. Add to that, Brandon said in the annotations that Ruin can and did corrupt info stored in metalminds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kadrok she/her Posted October 4, 2013 Report Share Posted October 4, 2013 Some metals are expensive and rare (did he even burn Atium in the fight?), and it isn't like Rashek knew that he was going to be fighting or dying that day, which means it is unlikely he had any of them on him. If he was told by a reliable source "in three days you'll face a horrifying extraterrestrial threat" I have no doubt he would have ingested the other metals, and had some on him, but this end of FE was a completely different situation... boring meetings with the upper management, the execution of an easily squashed rebellion... oh, a Mistborn killed one of my Inquisitors, how droll, I guess I should finish him off... yep, that went quickly... back to the boring meetings I guess. When you have so many advantages already, the constant expense and inconvenience of maintaining rare and expensive metals (not to mention the risk others would discover them) simply isn't practical. It would be like if Professor Farnsworth had to give up one of his doomsday devices because it had an additional expense in maintenance... but he's got several others, so it isn't like there's much of a loss of power. On an unrelated note, I'm not convinced Rashek could have used the well to mine some of the precious metals given that Preservation was metal-blind like Ruin. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moogle Posted October 4, 2013 Report Share Posted October 4, 2013 (edited) On an unrelated note, I'm not convinced Rashek could have used the well to mine some of the precious metals given that Preservation was metal-blind like Ruin. There's certainly evidence that he didn't use the power of the Well to get precious metals, but I'm not sure 'blind' is the right word. Vin was quite able to see metal, it's just so bright that it basically blinds her to it and everything around it. I think TLR might have been able to, if nothing else, look deep underground for patches of brightness, then transport the entire block of earth surrounding the metals up. With his human eyes after the Well ran out, he could have then nabbed the metal. Edited October 4, 2013 by Moogle 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shardlet he/him Posted October 4, 2013 Report Share Posted October 4, 2013 (edited) The rub is, those metals don't exist in metallic form in nature. Pretty much the only actual metals you will find in nature in metallic form in significant quantities are gold, silver, copper, and the platinum group metals. Iron and nickel can also be found mixed together in meteorites. You can rarely find metallic lead in nature and mercury can sometimes be created by lightning striking mercury compounds. Beyond that things get exceedingly rare. Edited October 4, 2013 by Shardlet 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kadrok she/her Posted October 4, 2013 Report Share Posted October 4, 2013 There's certainly evidence that he didn't use the power of the Well to get precious metals, but I'm not sure 'blind' is the right word. Vin was quite able to see metal, it's just so bright that it basically blinds her to it and everything around it. I think TLR might have been able to, if nothing else, look deep underground for patches of brightness, then transport the entire block of earth surrounding the metals up. With his human eyes after the Well ran out, he could have then nabbed the metal. That is hilariously brilliant, and if any of my MAG characters ever get to use the well, I am going to do pretty much that, though with what Shardlet has pointed out, the best I'll probably get is piles and piles of Gold. Which, I imagine, would allow me to fund research into developing the other metals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeiryWriter he/him Posted October 4, 2013 Report Share Posted October 4, 2013 On the whole "why didn't Ruin alter Sazed's copperminds" thing I just think Ruin was focused on other things. Also it is easiest for Ruin to change something at points of transference (such as transcribing something or accessing a coppermind) and when the change is something minor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oudeis he/him Posted October 5, 2013 Report Share Posted October 5, 2013 Re: The point a few people have brought up about "Why didn't Ruin just mess with Sazed's copperminds?" First, he wouldn't necessarily know that doing so would help. Sazed himself didn't understand the reference until the last moment. Second, that part of the prophecy, if Ruin understood it better than the rest of us, only came to pass if Ruin died. I'm pretty sure his "let's ruin the prophecy" plans all centered around avoiding the part where he died. All eggs, one basket, that sort of thing. =D 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galavantes Posted October 6, 2013 Report Share Posted October 6, 2013 Darnam posted exactly what I was going to post haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
name_here Posted October 9, 2013 Report Share Posted October 9, 2013 Did he actually know most of those secret metals? The only ones I can recall him verifiably having were Aluminum, Duralium, and Electrum. The others didn't appear in the cache writings. Granted, he may have intentionally omitted Chromium and Nicrosil, since they could be used against him fairly easily yet would be dubiously useful against Ruin-charged Inquisitors who could simply get a recharge from their patron if drained. Still, there's no evidence of him knowing about the external enhancement or temporal metals, and as mentioned they're painfully difficult to extract. Ruin was probably being strategic with his edits, since tampering with too much would risk giving it away and devalue the edits to the prophecies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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