Questions!

[JCHancey]

Heyyyy since I was chosen to be a Storm Leader and I met up with FirstRainbowRose at the TSG signing and we thought it would be cool if some people had some questions for me to ask Brandon at the Sam Weller's signing! Post 'em up!

[douglas]

Assume a mad scientist has access to modern medical technology, an unlimited supply of all allomantic metals, and as many willing mistborn test subjects as he needs, and is absolutely determined that this chart titled "Benefits of Being an Allomantic Savant" must be completed.  What would he determine for the metals listed below?  Alternatively, if Sazed were writing such a table down honestly with his full knowledge granted by possession of two Shards, what would he write?

In approximate order by increasing absurdity:
pewter
gold
electrum
duralumin
chromium
nicrosil
atium
malatium
aluminum
lerasium

For aluminum, the mad scientist pokes a feeding tube down the mistborn's throat and pumps in a constant influx of the metal so that the test subject is able to continuously burn it despite constantly using it up.  If necessary a second tube is used to pump out excess water to prevent damage from an overfilled stomach.

Make sure you get to the last four, and especially the last two, even if you have to skip some of the others to fit them in, and present the solution for how an aluminum savant might be created in the first place.

[Patriotic Kaz]

I love it!!!! Also I want to know why he continues to write and what/who influenced him to become a writer.

[sortitus]

In approximate order by increasing absurdity:
pewter

We've already seen a pewter savant, right? I'm pretty sure Vin was one.

gold
electrum

Don't forget cerrobend and cadmium! Of course, the potential for going completely insane is a lot less for pulsers and sliders than augurs and oracles, but people who do everything more and more slowly (as dependency on the metal increases) or quickly would be nuts.

duralumin
chromium
nicrosil
aluminum (moved to be with its group)

Those would be interesting, especially if the user is just a misting.

atium

ULTIMATE COSMIC POWER. Itty-bitty living space.

lerasium

See atium's entry, except they'd develop a dependence on constantly gaining power to burn metals more effectively. If you had anyone mainline lerasium for any amount of time at all, they'd be able to launch themselves out of the atmosphere using the core of the earth.... I'll take an order of infinite lerasium and atium, please.

malatium

And we hit a snag. Brandon said that there are 16 (or 17, he didn't actually say a number) types of malatium, depending on what you alloy atium with. The malatium in the book is made using gold, and Vin sees TLR performing actions from the past. We know what electrum malatiumatium would do (basically atium, but with a larger time gap, and only one possibility shown) if it works the same way as gold malatium, but beyond that, I'm drawing a blank. If your event is before mine, let me know which questions you didn't get to and I'll ask him those.

The most interesting question derived from the metals I can think of is this: What does lerasium malatium do? (Not to mention malatium lerasium. Mistings that can only burn specific kinds of malatium, here we come!) Does the atium just enhance the effects of the lerasium? Of course, I'm kinda confused about how all of the atium alloys but gold and electrum work. If we can get just one more revealed, it will be much easier to crack the code. Lerasium turns someone into a mistborn, so would lerasium malatium make a super-mistborn? Are they even compatible as alloys, or would they destroy each other on contact?

[douglas]

Considering the focus of the tour and signing event I would have asked something about the Wheel of Time, but for any actually interesting questions that would probably just turn into a game of "how many different ways can I get him to say RAFO".  This way he can actually answer the question and we can all laugh at the idea of certain allomantic savants.

aluminum (moved to be with its group)

There's a reason I put in where it was.  An atium savant is rather unlikely without Sazed's assistance, but it would definitely have a useful ability.  An aluminum savant, on the other hand, is an inherently silly idea.  Just not quite as silly as lerasium.

lerasium

See atium's entry, except they'd develop a dependence on constantly gaining power to burn metals more effectively. If you had anyone mainline lerasium for any amount of time at all, they'd be able to launch themselves out of the atmosphere using the core of the earth.... I'll take an order of infinite lerasium and atium, please.

Thinking about it a little more, would a supply of lerasium sufficient to create a savant require so much power to make that it would work out to handing over a significant chunk of Preservation's Shard to the subject?  I'm wondering if the attempt to create a lerasium savant would turn into something like Vin's ascension.

Failing that, I imagine the ability to gain power more efficiently would be overshadowed by the power already gained.  But who cares about that, this is just an exercise in stretching the magic system to find valid but absurd ideas in it to laugh at - while still attempting to get a serious answer in the end, of course.

malatium

And we hit a snag. Brandon said that there are 16 (or 17, he didn't actually say a number) types of malatium, depending on what you alloy atium with. The malatium in the book is made using gold, and Vin sees TLR performing actions from the past.

Do you have a source on that?  I'm fairly sure malatium is the specific name of the atium/gold alloy, and the other alloys of atium have their own names.  I'd ask about them too, but that would be getting a bit too far ahead as we don't even know the base effects or names of those metals yet.

[Czanos]

Was Electrum-Atium mix revealed by Brandon to be similar to vanilla Atium? Because last I heard we just knew that all 16 alloys of Atium provided Mental or Temporal effects. (And the 16 alloys of Lerasium would have Physical or Enhancement effects.)

I also seem to recall Brandon stating once that a single bead of Atium could be utilized to reverse age a person back to childhood (so Marsh could stay alive for a long time after the series.) but that it was beyond the magical understanding of the people at the time. Perhaps an Atium-Cadmium alloy? That could be a question to ask.

Oh, and when is Brandon planning on releasing the rest of the phonetics for the Mistborn language?

Bonus question - If you took the power at the Well of Ascencion and used it all to create Lerasium, how much Lerasium could you make?

[Patriotic Kaz]

Isn't atium that we see in the book actually an electrum atium blend? I thought that was revealed in teh spoilers thread... and a lerasium savant could be like Vin mist-fueled.

[sortitus]

Do you have a source on that?  I'm fairly sure malatium is the specific name of the atium/gold alloy, and the other alloys of atium have their own names.  I'd ask about them too, but that would be getting a bit too far ahead as we don't even know the base effects or names of those metals yet.

I do have a link! The first comment that Brandon responds to on the page gives a little more related info as well.

The thing is, Malatium isn't actually one of the metals--it's one of a lot of different metals that can be constructed using atium and alloying it with things. I can't put all of those other potential metals on the chart, since there would be many of them. Yet leaving out Malatium feels odd too, I realize. I felt this was the best option.

It seems that he's trying to say what you said: Malatium is gold atium. For some reason, when I originally read this, I thought that he meant, "Malatium is any one of a lot of different metals..." or "Malatium is a lot of different metals..." Looking back, it's pretty clear that he meant that malatium is just one of atium's alloys, not that malatium is a blanket term used for any atium alloy.

Was Electrum-Atium mix revealed by Brandon to be similar to vanilla Atium? Because last I heard we just knew that all 16 alloys of Atium provided Mental or Temporal effects. (And the 16 alloys of Lerasium would have Physical or Enhancement effects.)

I thought that all of the Lerasium alloys gave the ability to burn specific metals. I could be wrong... again.

I also seem to recall Brandon stating once that a single bead of Atium could be utilized to reverse age a person back to childhood (so Marsh could stay alive for a long time after the series.) but that it was beyond the magical understanding of the people at the time. Perhaps an Atium-Cadmium alloy? That could be a question to ask.

I hadn't heard that. Cool!

I've been encouraged as a Storm Leader to try to focus the fans on WoT, but I don't remember any instructions for us to keep to WoT when we have our personal time with Brandon.

[douglas]

The reverse aging thing was specifically the result of combining allomancy and feruchemy, using atium's feruchemical ability to restore youth and powering it with the metal itself through allomancy rather than having to store up the power in the usual feruchemical manner.  This is how Rashek lived 1000 years.  It is "beyond the magical understanding of the people" in the sense that only Rashek knew about it, only Sazed figured it out after Rashek died, and Sazed only told a very small number of people and none of them passed the information on.  Marsh happened to be there for Sazed's explanation, and he's been granted both the allomantic and feruchemical abilities of atium through hemalurgy, so he is capable of pulling it off - provided he has enough atium.  Sazed knew him pretty well pre-ascension, though, so Marsh may well be getting supplied with atium directly by the Hero of Ages specifically to keep him alive.

[Czanos]

Hemalurgically, atium steals Allomantic Temporal Powers. But, that seems unlikely, since atium is a god metal. It wouldn't fit in with the rest of the magic system. Did Preservation, in addition to switching Cadmium and Bendalloy for Atium and Malatium, also switch atium's Feruchemical and Hemalurgic powers with Cadmium? Because it seems to me there's not a lot of atium Marsh can use to live for hundreds of years into the next Mistborn trilogy.

Preservation wanted Atium and Malatium to be of use to the people, as he recognized that it would be a very powerful tool--and that using it up could help defeat Ruin.  But he also recognized that sixteen was a mythological important number, and felt it would make the best sign for his followers.  So he took out the most unlikely (difficult to make and use) metals for his sign to his followers.  But that doesn't have much to do with Hemalurgy's use here.
 
Remember that the tables--and the ars Arcanum--are 'in world' creations.  (Or, at least, in-universe.)  The knowledge represented in them is as people understand it, and can always have flaws.  That was the case with having atium on the table in the first place, and that was the case with people (specifically the Inquisitors) trying to figure out what atium did Hemalurgically.
 
Their experiments (very expensive ones) are what determined that atium (which they thought was just one of the sixteen metals) granted the Allomantic Temporal powers.  What they didn't realize is that atium (used correctly) could steal ANY of the powers.  Think of it as a wild card.  With the right knowledge, you could use it to mimic any other spike.  It works far better than other spikes as well.

As for Marsh, he's got a whole bag of atium (taken off of the Kandra who was going to try to sell it.)  So he's all right for quite a while.  A small bead used right can reverse age someone back to their childhood.
 
But this was a little beyond their magical understanding at the time.

From a Barnes and Noble Q&A. To me it sounds more like an alternate power from what The Lord Ruler did.

And Sortitus, you are right, Lerasium alloys do make Mistings, but I seem to recall that while one is actually burning them they bestow additional Physical or Temporal powers.

And I too am interested in Atium-Lerasium alloys. Do they make Atium Mistings? Feruchemists? Have different effects based on composition?

[JCHancey]

Alllll right! so some of the answers I got

For the savants he said that he'd have to look into his notes, he was too submersed in the WoT. He did say that there will be some interesting affects on the human body due to allomancy/feruchemy mixing.

I asked about the tables, he said there will be one for feruchemy where he will reveal ALL of the powers! and that he wants to do one for the ferumancers/allochemy abilities.

I asked about Andonalsium (sorry on spelling, it's late) and he said that for those of us who follow it the Way of Kings will reveal A LOT!

I'll listen through the recording again and see what I can get

[Chaos]

Alllll right! so some of the answers I got

For the savants he said that he'd have to look into his notes, he was too submersed in the WoT. He did say that there will be some interesting affects on the human body due to allomancy/feruchemy mixing.

I asked about the tables, he said there will be one for feruchemy where he will reveal ALL of the powers! and that he wants to do one for the ferumancers/allochemy abilities.

Is "Allochemy" the name he is going with?

[JCHancey]

Is "Allochemy" the name he is going with?

nah just something i put in

[Peter Ahlstrom]

He means that when you have a person with one allomantic power and one feruchemic power, they combine in interesting ways to allow interesting effects. There would eventually be a poster about that.

[Chaos]

That is all kinds of awesome.