Talk:Allomancy

Cut content

Here is stuff cut from the Allomancy article in its current state because it should be in the History section, with significant revision.

Mistborn

Through their ability to burn all known Allomantic metals, the Mistborn are regarded as mythical and are regarded highly by both skaa and noble. During the reign of the Lord Ruler the noble houses' power was determined largely by the number of Mistings and Mistborn at their disposal. During this time, Mistborn wore a tasseled Mistcloak that was more silent than regular clothing, with the tassels loosely attached so they could not be grabbed during combat.

As proven by Vin and Zane, a single Mistborn was enough to kill whole groups of Mistings and small armies. Although the 4 basic metals (Steel, Iron, Tin and Pewter) were enough to accomplish these goals, there are 2 metals that make a Mistborn especially lethal and able to overthrow large armies and destroy buildings.

Duralumin enhances the intensity of the metals that are being burned. Although flaring one's metals accomplishes a similar, smaller effect, duralumin increases the effect of burned metal greatly, at the cost of the full reserve getting burned away at once. Vin is known to be able to destroy buildings and kill armed horsemen by just using a duralumin powered steel push without the real need for a counter weight.

The god metal Atium, when burned, provides a Mistborn with insight into the near future. They are able to flawlessly predict when and where to block and strike. Beside giving the Mistborn a feeling of being 'god like,' because they feel untouchable, it takes far less energy, concentration, and metals to accomplish a task, as they are always executed perfectly when under the influence of atium. Unless negated by another burning atium or electrum, a Mistborn burning atium is nigh unbeatable.

Mistings

As mistings are only able to burn a single metal, they are very specialized in its use. Utilizing coordinated tactics, as well as customized tools and clothing, most mistings operate in groups to rely on and complement each other's abilities.

Coinshots are mostly accompanied by Lurchers to provide the pulling of metals, Smokers to hide their location, and Thugs to do melee fighting. In this regard, a Coinshot can be considered a sniper; they target the enemy as they are physically pushed into a corner by a Thug. The Coinshot can use well-aimed shot coins (or other metal objects) to 'snipe' the target.

Also the combination of Coinshot and Lurcher can be used to disarm the target of any metals they are using.

Okay, so this article is terrible

Really, it is. Snap redirects here, and it isn't even talked about. This article requires a heck of a lot more than a simple run down of each metal.

I mean, we should be interested in the Shardic stuff behind Allomancy (like the Spiritweb stuff!). We should be discussing lore about Snapping, of which there is a lot. Greater care should be taken describing how knowledge of Allomancy evolved from ten metals to more, and the misconception about atium...

The article is long, but still really incomplete for such a well-defined magic system. -- Chaos2651 (talk) 03:19, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Never really thought about that... So you want history and such? The way you've described it sounds awesome to me. It's role in the culture of assassination in the Final Empire and such --Windrunner (talk)

I'd love to do a big edit to it, not sure where to start though guess I'll do another readthrough and trawl of the interview DB --Voidus (talk) 05:40, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Stylistic edits and my disputed content

I have edited the capitalization in this article, as well as numbering, to be consistent with the style guide, though this article manages to offend in many other ways too. This article is an excellent reason why Joe doesn't like referencing book names in articles. It is so bad here in the metal list.

I have added some citation tags for a few things that would warrant citations (like the color of atium) and other minor things. Though, I have a problem with certain things.

1. "If the metals are impure or mixed wrong the Allomancer could become very ill or possibly die. The same severe effects will happen if an Allomancer burns metals other than those listed below" Pretty sure the second sentence is blatantly false. Metals that are not Allomantic have no power, and cannot be burned. However, alloys that aren't quite right still have a reserve of power, it's just burning them makes you sick.

2. I have a problem with classifying lerasium as an internal metal. Atium and lerasium do not receive internal and external classifications on the post-Hero of Ages Table of Allomantic Metals. You can't even make the argument that their alloys follow those classifications. All we know is that atium alloys grant "expanded mental and temporal effects" and lerasium alloys grant "expanded physical and enhancement effects" (facts which are both not present in the article, conveniently). Nothing about internal and external. After all, atium's location in the Hero of Ages Table of Allomantic Metals is wrong anyway, so we should not take that "external" classification seriously. I strongly think that god metals break such convenient classifications, and it is a mistake that this article attempts to classify them.

(Also, we need to add that we do, in fact, know what lerasium's true ability is, though we'll mention that it can alter Spiritual DNA as well. We have quotes on both of these facts) -- Chaos

Making this article suck less

(I'm making a new section to plan out how to make this article suck less, explicitly)

All in all, this article hasn't gone through major revisions since it was pasted from Wikipedia--look at the history! It really shows in this article. It's awful. If you look at Wikipedia's current Allomancy article, it is somehow even worse for trying to explain deep cosmere stuff (and Mistborn Wikia's article was pasted from the same crap that ours was). So, how are we going to make this better?

Currently the article is mostly just a list of abilities, and not even a very good one at that. The individual metal pages, however, actually do a much better job at fully describing the powers of metals. So, my first suggestion is that we simply remove all the crap describing abilities here. Instead we can make a simple table that describes the powers and have links to each metal article, which will go into more detail there. We should also get an image in this article of the final Table of Allomantic Metals. Because seriously.

What we do need to retain from those metal sections is which metals were discovered when, for one. That's important historical information. Maybe we also want a general section about the "rules of Allomancy". Explain how things are grouped in Pushes and Pulls, explain basic rules like you can't Push and Pull on metals in people's bodies, those types of things, and then explain how these rules can be broken. Basically, this article is the overview of all the metals and how they interact. That's the important part, not really the abilities. Otherwise, I'm not seeing much merit in the metal sections that can't just be in its own article. I vote we take the larger perspective in this article.

What else do we need?

In its opening paragraph, we need a better introduction. We need a few sentences explaining how Allomancy worked in the Final Empire. Not too much detail, because we'll go into more detail in just a moment.

From there, we need a History section and a section about Snapping. I feel Snapping should go before History--let's start with basics, like the terminology on burning and Mistings/Mistborn, then Snapping, and then finally go into the very detailed historical section.

The history section should discuss the Classical Era of Scadrial and how Allomancy was very rare. Then explain the complicated relationship of Preservation, mists, and Snapping (so, logically, we do need to discuss Snapping before this section), and how that's the only way you could really get Allomancy back then, and how this mist stuff is really how the legend came about of the first Allomancers coming about "from the mists". That can be section one. Then we have a section on "The Ascension and the Early Final Empire", which discusses the Lord Ruler taking lerasium and giving it to kings to bribe to get the early Final Empire moving. Explain how powerful the Allomancers were back then, mentioning how strong they were vs. kandra and koloss. Then we'll talk about the origins of Mistings. Finally, we will get to "The Late Final Empire Era", or the classic Kelsier-era Allomancy. There is so much that could be discussed here, I don't even know how to describe it all. But I know what probably shouldn't be discussed here: the economics of atium should go in the atium article (and also the Final Empire, when that gets revised). Somewhere in this article (possibly the atium article) we also mention how Allomancy can break the atium geodes in the Pits. Basically, keep facts in this article related to Allomancy, Mistborn, and Mistings.

Oh, and the history section should also discuss the history of which metals were discovered when. The last history section would be "Post-Final Ascension", where it discusses how Miatborn were basically the things of legend, Twinborn, and Compounders (well, actually, we should probably refer to the Lord Ruler's Compounding, his Allomantic abilities, and how he always Soothed and stuff earlier in the history section). As you can see, this history section has a ton of information about Allomancy that is totally lost here. Much more interesting to read that the basic powers...

Then, finally, I think the article should discuss the power chart, Allomantic categorizations (while also mentioning that these are in-world categorizations that aren't totally accurate), and the nuts and bolts of Allomancy, like its rules and how they are broken. Savants could probably logically go here.

Finally, at the very end, I feel we should go into Allomancy in a very cosmere level. I don't think the casual reader of this article needs the hard cosmere stuff up front (about all they might want to know earlier is some basic knowledge of how Allomancy is of Preservation). This cosmere section will be very in-depth. It should describe explicitly how Allomancy is of Preservation, in the context of the Principle of Intent (I know we have a Reddit quote on that). Then, we will describe Realmatically what happens in the process of burning a metal. We'll discuss how the metal gets vaporized, and how its a conduit for more power. We'll describe it in terms of Investiture as the endnote of Alloy of Law has it.

Sorry if this was unclear; I wanted to both give you an outline on what I'm thinking of doing to fix it, as well as give me a few notes on random factoids that I should remember to include. What do you think of this new, theoretical Allomancy article? -- Chaos2651 (talk) 04:53, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually, logically, for the history section to make sense (and to refer to Soothing and such) we should probably have powers stuff first. Also, it amuses me that what I just wrote up for this revised outline was almost half of the current length of the Allomancy article :P Yeah, even if we remove the stupid long power descriptions, this new outline will be even longer, I think. -- Chaos2651 (talk) 04:56, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Is it really the *only* way?

Article says, "Each metal is the only way a mortal can access Preservation and the power of creation ..." That's only true if Vin is not mortal, since she can use Allomancy by burning the mists. Note: see my user name. Nitpicking (talk) 12:58, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

I guess, but Shards can do all sorts of weird exceptions that I don't think are relevant to enumerate when explaining base mechanics. -- Chaos2651 (talk) 18:07, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Name Evolution for Aluminum/Duralumin Mistings

This is more speculation than anything: I'm guessing that "Duralumin gnat" and "Aluminum gnat" will be replaced with much more interesting names, now that allomancy is becoming commoditized after the events of the Bands of Morning. I'm imagining an aluminum misting would have incredibly gainful employment charging up their portion of a combined pewter-aluminum-nicrosil-mind. "Alumiburst?" Similarly, while of much less powerful application, very rich individuals may want to pick up a duralumin-nicrosil-mind for convenience of dumping metal reserves at the end of the day instead of having to burn them. Potentially even more useful for those that have special need to carry a large active reserve of metal during the day yet want to avoid becoming a savant, say for a guard. "Dumper?"

Wajeemba (talk) 05:21, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Wajeemba, that's an interesting theory, though for general discussion not about specific changes to Coppermind articles, you probably want the 17th Shard forums or Discord. As an aside, talk page comments tend to be a little hit-and-miss; responses often won't be as fast as on Discord and not as many of the staff are likely to see them.

--Stargazer (talk) 07:56, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Commoditization of Metalborn Abilities

I think it is definitely worth adding a section to the Allomancy page to talk about Unsealed Metalminds. Links to the Excisor and Feruchemy/Unsealed Metalmind pages/sections within that new section seem appropriate. I believe "the commoditization of allomancy" is mentioned in a Stormlight Ars Arcanum, if I'm recalling correctly? That implies that the practice is starting to become mainstream and not just a technology available to Southern Scadrians.

Seems like this will be a major subject in The Lost Metal, but we can definitely start documenting what we do know now and expand the section out when more is divulged. Not sure if the main bulk of this discussion should occur in the Excisor page, or in a new page.

See also my post in the Feruchemy Talk page of the same topic title.

Wajeemba (talk) 05:43, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Would it be possible to change the style of...

the Allomantic Metals section, the line that says "For more information, see the individual pages for each metal." Due to the quote above it I didn't realize that subtleties with the powers (e.g. Bronze) were better explained until I clicked around extensively. I'm not sure what the best way to go is, looking for brainstorm ideas.

Wajeemba (talk) 06:34, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Wajeemba, yeah, how to handle displaying both a {{quote}} and a {{for}} in succession is something I don't think we've ever been completely satisfied with. I guess for here at least one option might be to move the {{for}} up to the top of the section or to right above the table? Not sure what people would think of that.

--Stargazer (talk) 08:21, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Stargazer, previewing the change with the {{for}} above the table, I do like that and think it addresses the "hard to see it" problem! Definitely open to other people's opinions as well.

--Wajeemba (talk) 08:42, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Quote an excerpt from the God Metal page?

Is there a way to quote a paragraph from another page in the wiki? The below chunk seems particularly well-written, and extremely relevant for the topic of allomancy in general.

"The God Metals are metals formed directly from a Shard and can be made from any Shard.[2] Creating a God Metal without a Shard is extremely difficult, but possible.[3] They can be alloyed with the lesser metals to form sixteen different metals each, though few are known.[4] They can also be alloyed with each other.[5] Besides having an Allomantic, a Feruchemical, and a Hemalurgic property, each God Metal can also do something else.[6] A Mistborn could burn any God Metal,[7] though doing so may require a Connection to the metal's Shard.[8]"

Barring a way to quote another article directly, I would suggest that we pull some of this info into the Allomancy:God Metals section.

Wajeemba, so the first thing I'll mention is that Wikipedia notes there are some copyright/attribution implications for copying with a wiki. Beyond that, some of the information you quote does look relevant to this article (that the God Metals and their alloys have Allomantic properties and whether a Mistborn can burn them are what stand out to me), but the more general information about the nature of God Metals and their relation to Shards or the other Metallic Arts doesn't feel on-point enough for the Allomancy article to me, so I think pulling in the relevant information rather than straight-up copying would be the way to go.

--Stargazer (talk) 08:18, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Stargazer, makes sense to me. Summarizing the relevant portions sounds great! That's good info on quoting within a wiki. To clarify, does the Coppermind use the same licensing scheme as Wikipedia? I guess I should also clarify that by wiki I meant the Coppermind God Metals article, though you may have picked up on that.

--Wajeemba (talk) 08:27, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Wajeemba, yeah, I picked up on that; sorry I should have been clearer that I was still talking about the Coppermind aside from that reference to Wikipedia's policy. Contributions to the Coppermind are released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license which in this respect should be similar to the Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license Wikipedia appears to mostly use, so I imagine basically the same policy would apply (and it seems respectful and not particularly onerous to comply with), though I am not a lawyer.

--Stargazer (talk) 08:38, 14 November 2021 (UTC)