Difference between revisions of "Allomancy"

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Metal is not the source of Allomancy's power.{{annotation ref|mb3|chapter=38}} Rather, metal is what is called a [[focus]]--a necessary component to a manifestation of [[Investiture]] (magic system), but not the source of the power itself. When an Allomancer burns a metal, that metal's specific molecular structure acts as a conduit to Preservation, and then the Allomancer is granted an ability corresponding to the metal, hence the metal "focuses" Preservation's power to the user. Each metal is the only way a mortal can access Preservation and the power of creation's power.{{qa ref|727|45}} Afterwards, the metal is vaporized.{{qa ref|618|61}} This is true for the base sixteen Allomantic metals. However, the god metals, lerasium and atium, are the sources of power themselves. Burning atium, being [[Ruin]]'s body, means the Allomancer is not accessing Preservation in any way in that process.{{epigraph ref|mb3|78}}
 
It may be quite unclear that Allomancy is of Preservation. After all, Pushing and Pulling on metals isn’tisn't an effect that "preserves," so to speak. However, it is important to know that saying "Allomancy is of Preservation" has a very specific meaning: the way an Allomancer ''accesses'' the power is of Preservation, but the actual effect of the power is unrelated to Preservation.{{qa ref|622|107}} This is a fundamental difference between Allomancy and Feruchemy. In Feruchemy, its power comes from your own energy, but Allomancy is of Preservation. The act of burning a metal--accessing the power of Preservation--must be in line with the intent of Preservation. So burning a metal needs to "preserve" one's own energy, and so the power must come from the external source of Preservation's body.{{cite}}
 
Allomancy--as well as Feruchemy--has the property that abilities are inherent to the user, and are hardcoded into their Spiritweb.{{book ref|mb4|part=ars}} While other Investitures can take years of practice, Allomancers can use their power the moment they can acquire the correct metals. This comes with the tradeoff that having the trait of Allomancy is something one is born with; a non-Allomancer cannot become an Allomancer (except in the very particular case of burning [[lerasium]], which overwrites one's Spiritual DNA to have the connection to Preservation required to use Allomancy{{qa ref|692|24}}).
Allomancy was not created by Preservation. None of the Metallic Arts were "created" by Preservation and Ruin. Rather, these powers are the natural result of Preservation, Ruin, and Scadrial itself.{{qa ref|727|5}}
 
However, Preservation could still alter Allomancy in certain ways. He changed the rules of Allomancy twice: the first time, he changed the Table of Allomantic Metals to have atium and malatium as external temporal metals, exchanging them with cadmium and bendalloy.{{cite}} This may have had the effect of allowing for the existence of atium Mistings. Ultimately, this was part of Preservation’sPreservation's plan to defeat Ruin: to have atium Mistings that could burn away Ruin’sRuin's body of atium, allowing someone else, who was not influenced as much by the intent of Preservation, to take up its power and destroy Ruin.{{wob ref|8063|270}}
 
The second time Allomancy was changed was after the [[Final Ascension]], when [[Harmony]] was particularly disturbed by the horrors of Snapping, so he altered Snapping to act differently.{{qa ref|704|26}} It is not currently known how Snapping works in the present era.{{qa ref|675|21}} It is also unclear how a Shard can influence manifestations of Investiture in this way, and how much a Shard is allowed to alter the way they operate.
Advanced Allomancy combined with Feruchemy will be the method by which Scadrians will eventually gain faster-than-light travel.{{qa ref|632|2}}
 
It is also possible to use Allomancy in the Cognitive Realm.{{wob ref|date=2017-3-18|1835|Warsaw signing}}
 
If an Allomancer attempts to burn a [[Hemalurgic]] spike, the Allomancer's spiritual DNA will be spliced to that of the person's contained in the spike. The consequences of this are as of yet unknown.{{qa ref|590|26|Burning a Hemalurgic spike would have the effect of splicing your spiritual DNA to that of the person's that is in the spike|date=10 January 2011}}
The metals themselves changed over time. Brandon had been misled by employees of a hobby shop in his childhood that pewter was an alloy of silver, so in the original draft of Mistborn, silver and pewter were paired, and he named silver Mistings Silvereyes. When he realized the factual error, he was forced to change it to tin and Tineye.{{annotation ref|mb1|chapter=23}} Brandon always thought Silvereye sounded much "slicker" than Tineye. And so silver just happened to not have any Allomantic effect in the final form of Allomancy.
 
After the original trilogy and Brandon’sBrandon's reveal that atium and malatium did not belong on the true Table of Allomantic Metals, Brandon chose the true external temporal metal to be cadmium, as it was particularly dangerous and hard to acquire, so it made sense that only Scadrians with the technology after the Final Ascension could discover it.{{cite}} Brandon originally had cadmium's alloy named cerrobend, but that name happened to be copyrighted, so Brandon was forced to change it to the generic word, bendalloy. The error was present on an early version of the Table of Allomantic Metals.
 
== External links ==
Retrieved from "https://coppermind.net/wiki/Allomancy"