Timewaster's Guide Archive

hi everyone,


from what we've seen so far of the two physical external metals, iron seems the more useful. the mistborn mostly use iron for metal jumping since  you need a source of metal above you for steel to use for traveling and during the fighting iron is used offensively (to shoot coins) and defensivly (to push away incoming coins), while steel has defensive use only (remember the lurcher mistings with the big shields).
of course there are lots of other ways to fight with the two metals, like pushing/pulling on the armor or weapons of soldiers or barely moving smaller pieces of metal to use in one of the tricks that make the MB fights so interesting, but these are not the main fighting styles   (at least not so much for the mistings, since the mb can use both + they have duralumin they have lots of ways to fight with iron/steel that the mistings cant)    + iron and steel dont differ much on these jobs.
so it seems that steel is the weaker one of the two.
but if im right there should be another use of steelpulling we havent seen yet (at least i think so, im not 100% sure about the kelsier/inquisitor fight at the end of  tfe).
assume a lurcher pulls on a nearby piece of metal (a coin), then makes a step to the side while continuing to pull. the coin would miss the lurcher but because he keeps pulling it wont just fly away but instead start to rotate on an elliptic course around the lurcher. by changing the strenght of the pull or moving while the coin rotates the lurcher could alter the ellipse and the speed of the coin to his preferred form.  since the coins can be pretty fast, a couple of them rotating would provide somewhat of a shield, not so much against arrows or other objects, but against anyone trying to come to a near-distance fight.
in addition, the lurcher can stop pulling on a rotating coin thereby releasing it and shooting it away just like the coinshots can.
while id say that it requires more skill then simply shooting the coins by ironpushing it certainly should be possible for a competent lurcher(or of course the mb).
finally some questions to EUOL because i want to make sure i understand the physics of metal pushing/pulling correct (if theyre not this theory might be crap)
1. as i understand it the "normal" physics  (like gravitation,the mass of the object and most important inertia) are all still applied to a piece of metal thats being pushed/pulled. the only addition is the push/pull, which is a force  along the allomancer-coin trajectory
2. to what exact part of the allomancers body are the metals pushed/pulled, the stomach where the metals are burned? the head? or is the allomancer capable of changing the exact location within his body?

thats it for now, looking forward to responses/critics/additional ideas


feynmanfan

After spending presumably 20 of the last 30 hours living in the final empire while reading MB2, i just want to say THANK YOU BS, for there hasnt been any author whose books could hook me up like yours in years. As many other of your newer fans i come from the WoT community and though i know noone can replace RJ, i am now ( after reading Elantris and the MB1/2) absolutly convinced that youll do the best possible job on AMoL

Now to my questions/deductions. (if this has been posted before or is answered in the annotations i apologise but would be glad for a link)

Seeing the 3/4 circle at the Metal Quick-Chart at TWoA it seems obvious to me that there must be in total 16 Allomantic metals, the last 4 being "metallic" or "allomantic" ( like the other 12 being physical/mental/temporal)
The 13th/14th metal are obviously Aluminium and Duralumin and they effect the way the other Metals are burned and since the metals always come in groups of 4 the last two should be somehow related.
This relationship would be given, if we assume that the yet unnamed metal, that awakens Elends allomantic powers at the end of TWoA, would be the 15th. The 16th then should be the opposite of the 15th, probably destroying the ability to burn allomantic metals.

So far for my deductions, but there still remain many questions(assuming my deductions are correct).

1. Are Aluminium/Duralumin or the 15th/16th the internal/external "metallic" metals ( I know sounds kind of stupid,  BS probably has a proper name for this category but thats the first name coming to my mind)? My feeling here would that Aluminium/Duralumin should be the  external ones since they affect the metals, while the 15th/16 effect the Allomancer, but thats just a guess.

2. Is the effect of the 15th/16th permanent(burn one time-> be Mistborn) or temporal (constant burning needed)?
Given the fact that you can run out of the other metals it would seem to me that a temporal effect would be more logical at first sight. Burning the 15th then would give you the possibility to burn the others (though then  it must be very very slow burning seeing that Elend has been an Allomancer for 2 weeks at the Epilog of TWoA and I just cant see him loosing his Allomantic Powers right at the start of  MB3).
On the other hand that would make the 16th pretty much useless. Why burn the 16th just so you cant burn the others, if you can turn it on/off. If the the effect is permanently the 16th would make more sense, seeing that you can force someone to burn it and give up his/her Mistborn powers ( like Vin was forced to burn Aluminium by the Steel Inquisitors)

3.  Can they be used by everyone?
While it seems that way since the 15th made Elende Mistborn, there is still the possibity the he was sort of a 15th-Misting. Would a possible 16th effect Mistings or just Mistborn.

And finally 4. Am i right about the 16th.
While the effect of the 15th metal is pretty much clear (after all we see the effect at the end of TWoA), my guess on the effect of the 16th is very speculative. It would be the opposite to nr.15 but then it might as well force others to stop using Allomancy or make the Mistborn immune to allomantic powers used by other or some other i effect i havent thought of.

While i guess that most if not all those question will be answered in MB3 i just love to speculate, so  i look forward to answers/discussion.


ps. you might have noticed that english is not my native language so just forgive me for weird language/faults.