Mistborn and Perks [WoB]

[Argent he/him]

11 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

I understand what you're saying, and you're right, specifically saying that the cracks of the effect are being placed relative to other cracks is nonsensical. What I was more going for was the fact that they would induce cracking, or some sort of change in some other part of the spiritweb, with too many cracks preventing extraneous changes. That's why I didn't reiterate the "cracks between cracks" idea in my second post on the matter.  I'm curious though, are you just disliking my theory because I said cracks between cracks, or are just disliking the general idea of the cracks of powers causing other changes which result in the effects and the subsequent theory as to why too many powers won't cause effects? If so, I'm interested in an alternative theory on the matter, if you have one.

I suppose my issue was with your original analogy, the concept of between-ness in the Spiritweb. This being said, I don't like your clarified version either, but not necessarily because I find inconsistencies with it. Or, rather, I don't like the way you are phrasing it, focusing too much (in my opinion) on the effects we observe, and not enough on the underlying causes of these dual-power side effects - which I believe to be simply the mixing of Investitures. My takeaway from all the "cracks" WoBs is that there exist conditions which will allow external Investiture to fill, to connect (Connect?) with a person's Spiritweb. I believe it is the mixing of those sources that causes side effects.

Along similar lines, any person with too much power on their hands doesn't experience this is twofold. Some of them, like the Mistborn, don't have a second source of foreign Investiture in their Spiritweb, so there is no weird interaction there, and therefore no side effects. Others, like the Lord Ruler, who do have multiple sources of external Investiture filling in their Spiritweb, probably have so much of it, that any side effects are kind of just swept under the rug, overwhelmed by all the other, more pronounced effects.

So it's not so much that I disagree with your idea, it's that I don't like the way you are approaching it.

[Eki]

1 hour ago, Argent said:

Some of them, like the Mistborn, don't have a second source of foreign Investiture in their Spiritweb, so there is no weird interaction there, and therefore no side effects. Others, like the Lord Ruler, who do have multiple sources of external Investiture filling in their Spiritweb, probably have so much of it, that any side effects are kind of just swept under the rug, overwhelmed by all the other, more pronounced effects.

How about Surgebinders then? The only explanation I can find that fits your theory is that half of the surges are of Honor, and half of Cultivation.

[Yata he/him]

7 minutes ago, Eki said:

How about Surgebinders then? The only explanation I can find that fits your theory is that half of the surges are of Honor, and half of Cultivation.

I checked some months ago, it is impossible to divide the Surges in 5 Honor's Surges and 5 Cultivation's Surges with the Surgebinders' pair

Anyway I don't think the perks's origin come to be to a mix of source of power (but again we have a too little cases to find a real pattern). For hypotesis a Double Misting (like Spool in HoA) would soon or later develop a perk.

In the end I think Brandon may exploit this perk to accomodate most Investiture's Combination to made what the story needs...They are a powerful tools for him in the Cosmere's novels

[Argent he/him]

1 hour ago, Eki said:

How about Surgebinders then? The only explanation I can find that fits your theory is that half of the surges are of Honor, and half of Cultivation.

I've actually been thinking about Surgebinding itself as a mix between Honor and Cultivation. By default. But it's weird there, because the Surges are very much like the fundamental forces, so it's the control over them that's the magic, not the Surges themselves. 

I don't know, folks, I've been trying to wiggle myself out of this thread for a couple of days now, leave me alone

[Argel he/him]

This thread is becoming tl;dr material. Anyway, do we have any proof that the more damaged your spirit-web is the more powerful you can become? That seemed to be an implication of some of the posts on page 2, which struck me as odd. For example, I know Elend cheated by being given the bead of Lerasium, but that still doesn't change that he had more raw power than Vin.

I agree with Argent to a certain extent -- the theories seem to focus on the outcome too much.

Also, the idea that having more powers means the perks would just not be developed doesn't really hold up. For example, if Shallan had a ridiculous number of powers, the implication is that she would never become an artist, and that's why her mnemonic abilities would never develop. Basically, in that theory, the perks are there but just never developed, but there should be exceptions for that. 

Also, Brandon seems to suggest that e.g. if the end-of-WoR Shallan burned a Lerasium bead she would lose her heavily developed mnemonic perk at that point.  If so, then I do not think having more powers just means you never developed the perks -- i.e. the perks are no longer there, not just under-utilized. 

That feels like a purity, quality, and/or capacity type scenario.

[cometaryorbit]

15 hours ago, Yata said:

I think it's impossible (I think we have a WoB but really it's not needed).

Interview: Apr 15th, 2013

Reddit AMA 2013 (Verbatim)

Satsuoni ()

From which stage of development does human embryo on Scadrial gain Hemalurgic potential?

Brandon Sanderson

Conception.

 

11 hours ago, Darkness said:

 

As for "The actual power"... I'm not sure what you mean here.

The spiritweb bit that contains/spiritual DNA that codes for the specific power ("I'm a Thug/Tineye/whatever") as opposed to the "I'm Snapped" crack in the spiritweb.

 

Quote

Do you know why you couldn't just have 2 or 3 Allomantic abilities naturally?

Know, no, but I do have a half baked theory.

I think it's a matter of critical thresholds.

While Allomancy runs in families, specific powers don't seem to; there aren't Thug or Soother lineages. And everybody has the "seeds of the Metallic Arts".  So I'm thinking everybody has some bit of theoretical Allomantic potential of each type. Spiritweb "channels" for each?

But people have different degrees of Preservation in them. Most people don't have enough to Snap as anything (unless maybe the Mists get involved).

Some people have a little more, and when exposed to trauma, one of the "channels" activates. Presumably people are - more or less randomly - just a tiny bit stronger in one potential than the rest, so it activates ... then all the power runs through that channel so nothing else activates.

But if you have more than the Mistborn-threshold, when you Snap, there's so much Preservation bouncing around that everything activates at once. Whatever channel activates first, it can't carry it all, so the Preservation just sloshes around and hits everything.

 

[Darkness he/him]

2 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Interview: Apr 15th, 2013

Reddit AMA 2013 (Verbatim)

Satsuoni ()

From which stage of development does human embryo on Scadrial gain Hemalurgic potential?

Brandon Sanderson

Conception.

 

 

The spiritweb bit that contains/spiritual DNA that codes for the specific power ("I'm a Thug/Tineye/whatever") as opposed to the "I'm Snapped" crack in the spiritweb.

 

Know, no, but I do have a half baked theory.

I think it's a matter of critical thresholds.

While Allomancy runs in families, specific powers don't seem to; there aren't Thug or Soother lineages. And everybody has the "seeds of the Metallic Arts".  So I'm thinking everybody has some bit of theoretical Allomantic potential of each type. Spiritweb "channels" for each?

But people have different degrees of Preservation in them. Most people don't have enough to Snap as anything (unless maybe the Mists get involved).

Some people have a little more, and when exposed to trauma, one of the "channels" activates. Presumably people are - more or less randomly - just a tiny bit stronger in one potential than the rest, so it activates ... then all the power runs through that channel so nothing else activates.

But if you have more than the Mistborn-threshold, when you Snap, there's so much Preservation bouncing around that everything activates at once. Whatever channel activates first, it can't carry it all, so the Preservation just sloshes around and hits everything.

 

That's kind of a fun half-baked theory  I like the mental picture of Fuzz kind of sloshing around in a spirit web haha. But seriously, I do like the critical threshold bit for sure. Not having metal-specific allomantic lineages certainly doesn't help my theory at first glance, but as Argel said... I've probably typed too much already, so I'll keep my musings to myself haha

[Argel he/him]

3 hours ago, Darkness said:

but as Argel said... I've probably typed too much already, so I'll keep my musings to myself haha

That was just my excuse for heavily skimming through it. By all means, write away. You're not even close to topping maxal when it comes to length. 

 

3 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

But people have different degrees of Preservation in them. Most people don't have enough to Snap as anything (unless maybe the Mists get involved).

Doesn't the TLR's manipulation of things complicate things though? For example, like reducing (eliminating) the chance to become a mistborn for the skaa? It complicatges any era 1 discussions a bit.

 

3 hours ago, Darkness said:

I do like the critical threshold bit for sure

That lines up with my thinking as well (capacity).

[Eki]

6 minutes ago, Argel said:

Doesn't the TLR's manipulation of things complicate things though? For example, like reducing (eliminating) the chance to become a mistborn for the skaa? It complicatges any era 1 discussions a bit.

Did he do this though? I just thought nobles were the only ones allowed to breed with the bloodlines of the people who received lerasium. And although there was interbreeding (to the point that the genetic differences were pretty small by the time of era 1), skaa Mistings were ruthlessly hunted, also reducing Allomantic potential.

[Argel he/him]

He modified the Skaa to be hardier to survive the harsher conditions the volcanic ash was causing. So definitely some direct genetic modifications. May not be relevant, tough even "breeding" taints the data. Just saying if you want to talk about perks, Mistborn Era2 probably works better since Sazed is not continuing to manipulate things.

[18th Shard he/him]

I imagine the perks like this:

Imagine a sphere. Each power would be centered on a particular location on the sphere, equally spaced apart, with the investiture it accesses spilling out, sort of like an aura or penumbra around the location. I imagine this Investiture to attract toward each other slightly, like water beads. When two powers are located in the right position, the Investiture from each "leaks" toward each other, deforming the shapes of each power. This deformation, this new shape between powers is the perk. When you have too many powers, they crowd closer together, so that the powers no longer need to deform to meet together, meaning there is no perk.