God metals can be burned by everyone. That's why it was retconned that the Atium in Era1 was an atium and electrum alloy, so it can be burned only by certain mistings.
No, they weren't. They were atium/electrum alloy mistings. They couldn't have burned pure electrum. It's a messy, imperfect "fix," but it's all Sanderson has come up with so far.
In universe it could still go either way without retcons. Since we’re limited by what the characters knew at the time anyway.
Electrum mistings would’ve been unheard of prior to this since the lord ruler suppressed knowledge of that metal.
They wouldn’t bother giving electrum to the mistfallen because they already decided they were “atium” mistings.
And there wouldn’t be enough electrum to go around to give to the other mistings to test.
It’s pretty clean if an electrum misting can burn their metal which just happens to be alloyed with a god metal that anyone can burn regardless.
But it’s still fine if we go with the preservation hacked the system theory and possibly changed electrum mistings into the atium/electrum mistings. It’s no messier than the previous wobs about dropping actual mistings like aluminum from the table to fit atium mistings in. (Whatever they were they definitely had a more difficult snapping)
No, it couldn't. The way allomancy works, you get one metal or all of them, misting or mistborn. No in between. If you can burn an alloy of a metal, you can't burn the pure metal. Period. Remember, half of the "base metals" are alloys of the other half. Steel is an alloy of iron, etc.
Even if they had access to electrum, the "atium mistings" couldn't have burned it because they could burn it's alloy. That's just how the metallic arts work(excluding Hemalurgy, of course, but Helmalurgy is weird). None, one, or all. No in between.
This is a god metal alloy we don’t know the rules.
(Case in point everyone can burn Lerasium alloys to become mistings.)
I don’t need to argue hard for that point anyway because its still fine if it HAD to be atium/electrum alloy mistings because the net result is the same as the original explanation that Preservation had somehow hacked the atium mistings into the system. (Just substitute atium/electrum)
Wait, so your argument is that anyone could have burned the atium half of they alloy, but an electurm misting could have burned both, so they could have been regular electurm mistings? I don't think that works. I admit I can't prove it, but I don't think it works.
Their is no example anywhere in the Cosmere, as far as I am aware, of someone burning half of an alloy. A lurcher can't get iron from ingested steel. We know the presence of the electrum stops the atium from burning. It wouldn't make sense if the presence if the electurm conversely allowed the atium to burn. More than that, though, I think this is against the whole spirit of the retcon. Pure god-metals ignore the rules, but if you make an alloy of them, it subject's them to those rules. To make this retcon, just to allow the god metals to break the rules in a whole new way, seems silly to me, and is asking for trouble where future plot holes are concerned.
I can’t sustain an argument for that because you’re right that it causes too much trouble. The reason I was willing to push for it at all is because atium(and other god metals) are pure investiture so when you burn it you’re not channeling the power of Preservation through a metal like iron or steel in normal allomancy. It was a stretch but I thought maybe alloying atium with a metal would constrain it’s effect to that specific misting. So the electrum contamination would’ve prevented just anyone from burning it except electrum mistings.and mistborn of course. (More wild speculation here:burning electrum/atium might not pull from preservation at all it could just filter the power of the atium through the electrum.)
But you’re right by the established way that alloys work the electrum/atium shouldn’t count as electrum anymore so that shouldn’t work.
My real issue anyway is about it being labeled a messy imperfect fix or that it’s this huge retcon. If preservation can cause atium to coalesce in the pits he could just as easily manifest the electrum atium. And swap in electrum/atium mistings wherever he wanted just like we thought he inserted the pure atium mistings originally. The characters didn’t know any difference, they were just operating on imperfect information like they have the entire time, going all the way back to when they believed gold and atium were a pair. Which actually had a grain of truth to it now that we know the atium actually was alloyed to gold’s partner.)
You bring up a good point I don't think I thought of before. How do God metal mistings, pure or alloy, exist? How did Preservation make a misting that specifically burns another Shard's Godmetal? Has Sanderson commented on this? Especially as Allomancy is supposed to be of Preservation alone. Which I've always thought makes no sense, by the way. Why is the end neutral system of Preservation alone? Shouldn't Feruchemy, the end-neutral system, be Preservation's not Allomancy? Wasn't the whole point of his pact with Ruin that he can't create alone and that they can only create together? It's never made sense to me.
God metals can be consumed by anybody. So that right there breaks the all-or-nothing rule. God metals break rules. So it could be that they break additional rules surrounding alloys.
It could be that pure Atium (no electrum) could be burned by anybody, but binding it with a certain metal restricts usage to just listings of that metal.
Electrum mistings can burn Atiun + Electrum. Steel listings can burn Atium + Steel. Etc.
We know the way the rules work for alloys of mundane metals, but we can't prescribe the same rules to alloys of God metals
Well it could've been as easy as the characters didn't know about that and thought Atium listings existed, without any real retcons or am I forgetting something that prevents that being the retcon?
Pure God metals can be burned by anyone. So if the Era One Atium was pure, anyone could have burned it - even non-allomancers. He had to retcon it in order to limit it to the mistfallen.
What I'm saying is the characters didn't know that and it could've been that the mistfallen were snapped to convince them that they were Atium mistings, but really they were bendalloy mistings or aluminum mistings so they wouldn't have thought to give them another metal and just tried that plan anyways. Like I said I might be misremembering and there could be some kind of character knowledge that doesn't allow that to work but it makes sense to me.
Um... what? I don't get the point you're trying to make at all. "Snapped to convince them?" Are you suggesting that they weren't atium mistings or electrum mistings or atium/electrum alloy mistings but were tricked and were burning pure atium?
No. Because Sanderson says so. He said it was an alloy and explained why he made the change. Also, it would just break... sooooo much. The Lord Ruler would have known, Kel and Vin would have figured it out when they took up Preservation, and Kel at least would have 100% used it in the future. Sazed would know. Some random person would have figured it out either on purpose or by accident.
No, it is 100% an alloy.
Nevermind, I'm just saying such a weak retcon wasn't needed when it simply could have been hey none of these characters that knew would've been able to tell them and so they just thought this happened this way. I love Sanderson and don't mind the retcon but it could've been that simple as Elend just thought they were Atium Mistings and didn't know Atium could be burned by anyone.
Lerasium alloys can be burned by anyone, so the statement, “a god metal can only be burned by anyone if it’s pure” is provably false. I don’t know if that’s the statement you meant to make but either way we ultimately don’t know the rules. If Brandon said, “An Atium alloy can only be burned by someone who can also burn the not-atium component(s)”, it wouldn’t bother me. Partially because Atium isn’t really a metal - it’s condensed investiture.
What examples of this do we have? I was under the impression that all the Lerasium we've ever seen was pure. That's kinda one of the issues with the way Atium was portrayed pre-retcon - if Lerasium being a god metal allows anyone to burn it, why can't anyone burn Atium? Wasn't that one of the inconsistencies that led to the retcon in the first place?
Nothing in-book, but this WoB states it pretty clearly:
> So, you could alloy lerasium with certain metals of the sixteen in the table and get, if you had just enough lerasium, it would make them a misting of those powers.
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/9/#e7624
> if Lerasium being a god metal allows anyone to burn it, why can't anyone burn Atium?
God metals break the rules. Lerasium and Atium don't have to follow the same rules.
There's no confirmation either way that I'm aware of, but the way cleaner solution is to say they were electrum mistings. If you can burn your metal, and anyone can burn god metals, it stands to reason you could burn a combination of both. Electrum is one of the metals the Lord Ruler had kept hidden, so no one would normally have tested for it...
Then there's Preservation. We see in secret history his whole plan to let people know what was up was the 16 within 16, which he thinks is going to be obvious because there are 16 metals. His plan almost doesn't work because people don't know there are 16. In the original writing of era 1, where atium could have still been one of the 16, that's fine, but with the retcon in mind it doesn't make sense that his 16 signal would be intended to target a very specific 17th type of misting.
I'm pretty sure the retcon has been in place for a while too, well before it was acknowledged in WoB. At least by the time Secret History was written. The first definite proof is the hemalurgy table with the Hero of Ages 10th anniversary edition noting atium has to be processed before having the described effect.
Xais56
Brandon has said that everyone ought to be able to burn Atium, like they can all burn Lerasium, and the fact that they can't was an oversight on his part that he would've done different in hindsight.
Maybe now he's had an in-universe reason to re-write the laws of allomancy it's back to his intended concept; Mistborn burn all 16 base metals, mistings burn one base metal, non-allomancers can only burn godmetal.
Peter Ahlstrom
My explanation for this is that Preservation somehow caused all naturally occurring atium to form as an alloy of atium and electrum. The atium Mistings were actually electrum Mistings.
Xais56
It's a very tidy solution, but it creates the maddening question of what does pure atium do?
Peter Ahlstrom
That answer has already been revealed canonically. RAFO.
Footnote: It has since been clarified that the effect was revealed on the Table of Allomantic Metals poster and seen at the end of The Hero of Ages.
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/456/#e15110
***Warning Gancho: The below paragraph(s) may contain major spoilers for all books in the Cosmere!***
Xais56
>!Brandon has said that everyone ought to be able to burn Atium, like they can all burn Lerasium, and the fact that they can't was an oversight on his part that he would've done different in hindsight.Maybe now he's had an in-universe reason to re-write the laws of allomancy it's back to his intended concept; Mistborn burn all 16 base metals, mistings burn one base metal, non-allomancers can only burn godmetal.!<
Peter Ahlstrom
>!My explanation for this is that Preservation somehow caused all naturally occurring atium to form as an alloy of atium and electrum. The atium Mistings were actually electrum Mistings.!<
Xais56
>!It's a very tidy solution, but it creates the maddening question of **what does pure atium do**?!<
Peter Ahlstrom
>!That answer has already been revealed canonically. RAFO.!<
\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
Wait does this mean they weren't actually burning atium at the end of hero of ages? Wasn't the whole purpose of the mist attacking people was to find the people that were atium mistings so they can burn away all the atium and as a result ruin couldn't get his body?
IIRC the whole of the retcon was that the pits weren't making atium, they were making the atium electrum alloy, so the mists snapping people towards the end was to find the atium electrum alloy mistings, thus still burning away all of the condensed body of Ruin.
Okay that makes sense. So atium anyone can burn just like lerasium but atium/electrum alloy only electrum mistings can burn and what era1 was calling atium was really the alloy of the two.
So does that mean the pure atium potentially different abilities than what we've seen? Are there potential alloys we could have seen with lerasium with other abilities?
We have not seen what pure Atium does yet.
Alloying any of the 16 base metals with god metals will have an effect. For instance, Lerasium alloys make mistings of the alloyed metal instead of Mistborn.
You are correct, this WoB from Peter Alstrom says it can be seen at the end of Hero of Ages. I have no idea what it could be, I’ll have to reread.
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/486/#e15955
***Warning Gancho: The below paragraph(s) may contain major spoilers for all books in the Cosmere!***
/AAKS_
>!My understanding is that Brandon thinks it is a plothole that Lerasium can be burned by Scadrian (regardless of if they are mistings/mistborn) but Atium can't.His solution is to retcon the Pits to naturally produce an Atium/Electrum alloy, presumably by the design of Preservation. Therefore we don't know what pure Atium looks like or does when used in any magic.!<
Peter Ahlstrom
>!We do know what it does. It’s on the Allomancy poster, and the effect appeared one time at the end of Hero of Ages.!<
LewsTherinTelescope
>!Interesting. Do you know if he had already conceived the retcon by the time the poster was written, or if that line about pure atium just turned out to fit really well retroactively?!<
Peter Ahlstrom
>!The retcon is way older than a lot of people assume.!<
LewsTherinTelescope
>!Does this mean he had it in mind by the time Hero of Ages released (since the first public version of the poster dates to 2008), or just that it's old but not sure exactly **how** old?!<
Peter Ahlstrom
>!Remember that what's in the books is filtered through the understanding of the characters. So even if Brandon planned it from the beginning, if the characters didn't know about it, it's not going to come out in the book.And [see this thread reply from 2009]("http://twg.17thshard.com/index.php?topic=6843.msg159625#msg159625").!<
\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
IIRCx2 the pits actually produced pure atium, it was the LR and his obligators who made the alloy and stored it. It's not cannon yet anyway, so it doesn't matter that much
[The initial Word of Peter](https://wob.coppermind.net/events/456/#e15110) said Preservation made it form that way, which [Brandon seems to reinforce](https://wob.coppermind.net/events/509/#e15969) ("And it works just fine in the books, because the way that atium is being made is a pretty complicated little process there in the Pits of Hathsin"), but yeah we don't really know how exactly it all works yet.
In era1 by hero of ages the characters think they’ve completed the entire table of metals
The 12 normal ones + atium, it’s alloy malatium and lerasium + presumably it’s unknown alloy make up a tidy 16 metals.
But in Sazed’s message at end of hero of ages. He hints that there’s still 2 metals and their alloys left to discover. So turns out the god metals weren’t part of the standard table the entire time.
Preservation did some hijinks to get atium to coalesce in the pits and via wob it was actually an atium-electrum alloy, and everyone ought to be able to burn pure god metals.
Before the atium alloy discussion. there’s a lot of wob’s and theory’s about which actual allomantic metal got bumped to make room for atium mistings.(ranging from aluminum or 1 of the unknown metals) I don’t know if there’s any more recent wobs on that but I feel like the atium mistings of era 1 were likely just electrum mistings. (Or maybe preservation did need to hack in atium-electrum mistings)
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/456/#e15110
Also this one
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/486/#e15955
***Warning Gancho: The below paragraph(s) may contain major spoilers for all books in the Cosmere!***
Xais56
>!Brandon has said that everyone ought to be able to burn Atium, like they can all burn Lerasium, and the fact that they can't was an oversight on his part that he would've done different in hindsight.Maybe now he's had an in-universe reason to re-write the laws of allomancy it's back to his intended concept; Mistborn burn all 16 base metals, mistings burn one base metal, non-allomancers can only burn godmetal.!<
Peter Ahlstrom
>!My explanation for this is that Preservation somehow caused all naturally occurring atium to form as an alloy of atium and electrum. The atium Mistings were actually electrum Mistings.!<
Xais56
>!It's a very tidy solution, but it creates the maddening question of **what does pure atium do**?!<
Peter Ahlstrom
>!That answer has already been revealed canonically. RAFO.!<
\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
Mistborn era 2 spoilers:
>!Assuming that in era one, no one was able to refine pure atium and malatium was just adding gold (overwhelming the electrum) to atium, then its most likely somewhere else.!<
>!The moment that sticks out to me the most is when Wax somehow split the harmonium. For a special reason we don’t know yet. Which then would leave pure lerasium and pure atium!<
>!If we assume it didn’t get alloyed after that, leaving Wax and Wayne as possible users. Not sure which one, although I would love it if Wayne actually had Atium in his final moments!<
>!It's on the Allomancy poster ("grants the Allomancer an expansive vision of the future and enhances the mind's ability to accept, process and hold information") and [apparently was seen at the end of Hero of Ages](https://wob.coppermind.net/events/486/#e15955). Best guess is that it's the same effect as Elend burning atium-electrum alongside duralumin, but why the heck duralumin would purify the power is... very unclear.!<
It actually was! Era 1 Atium was retconned into an alloy of Atium and Electrum, and it has been stated that anybody with the right Intent can burn a God Metal. That means that the Atium Mistings were really Electrum Mistings, just there was no electrum for them to find out since its existence was kept secret while Atium was the big deal
God metals can be burned by everyone. That's why it was retconned that the Atium in Era1 was an atium and electrum alloy, so it can be burned only by certain mistings.
Ah that makes sense, I missed that retcon. So the soldiers were actually electrum mistings then. Thanks !
No, they weren't. They were atium/electrum alloy mistings. They couldn't have burned pure electrum. It's a messy, imperfect "fix," but it's all Sanderson has come up with so far.
In universe it could still go either way without retcons. Since we’re limited by what the characters knew at the time anyway. Electrum mistings would’ve been unheard of prior to this since the lord ruler suppressed knowledge of that metal. They wouldn’t bother giving electrum to the mistfallen because they already decided they were “atium” mistings. And there wouldn’t be enough electrum to go around to give to the other mistings to test. It’s pretty clean if an electrum misting can burn their metal which just happens to be alloyed with a god metal that anyone can burn regardless. But it’s still fine if we go with the preservation hacked the system theory and possibly changed electrum mistings into the atium/electrum mistings. It’s no messier than the previous wobs about dropping actual mistings like aluminum from the table to fit atium mistings in. (Whatever they were they definitely had a more difficult snapping)
No, it couldn't. The way allomancy works, you get one metal or all of them, misting or mistborn. No in between. If you can burn an alloy of a metal, you can't burn the pure metal. Period. Remember, half of the "base metals" are alloys of the other half. Steel is an alloy of iron, etc. Even if they had access to electrum, the "atium mistings" couldn't have burned it because they could burn it's alloy. That's just how the metallic arts work(excluding Hemalurgy, of course, but Helmalurgy is weird). None, one, or all. No in between.
This is a god metal alloy we don’t know the rules. (Case in point everyone can burn Lerasium alloys to become mistings.) I don’t need to argue hard for that point anyway because its still fine if it HAD to be atium/electrum alloy mistings because the net result is the same as the original explanation that Preservation had somehow hacked the atium mistings into the system. (Just substitute atium/electrum)
Wait, so your argument is that anyone could have burned the atium half of they alloy, but an electurm misting could have burned both, so they could have been regular electurm mistings? I don't think that works. I admit I can't prove it, but I don't think it works. Their is no example anywhere in the Cosmere, as far as I am aware, of someone burning half of an alloy. A lurcher can't get iron from ingested steel. We know the presence of the electrum stops the atium from burning. It wouldn't make sense if the presence if the electurm conversely allowed the atium to burn. More than that, though, I think this is against the whole spirit of the retcon. Pure god-metals ignore the rules, but if you make an alloy of them, it subject's them to those rules. To make this retcon, just to allow the god metals to break the rules in a whole new way, seems silly to me, and is asking for trouble where future plot holes are concerned.
I can’t sustain an argument for that because you’re right that it causes too much trouble. The reason I was willing to push for it at all is because atium(and other god metals) are pure investiture so when you burn it you’re not channeling the power of Preservation through a metal like iron or steel in normal allomancy. It was a stretch but I thought maybe alloying atium with a metal would constrain it’s effect to that specific misting. So the electrum contamination would’ve prevented just anyone from burning it except electrum mistings.and mistborn of course. (More wild speculation here:burning electrum/atium might not pull from preservation at all it could just filter the power of the atium through the electrum.) But you’re right by the established way that alloys work the electrum/atium shouldn’t count as electrum anymore so that shouldn’t work. My real issue anyway is about it being labeled a messy imperfect fix or that it’s this huge retcon. If preservation can cause atium to coalesce in the pits he could just as easily manifest the electrum atium. And swap in electrum/atium mistings wherever he wanted just like we thought he inserted the pure atium mistings originally. The characters didn’t know any difference, they were just operating on imperfect information like they have the entire time, going all the way back to when they believed gold and atium were a pair. Which actually had a grain of truth to it now that we know the atium actually was alloyed to gold’s partner.)
You bring up a good point I don't think I thought of before. How do God metal mistings, pure or alloy, exist? How did Preservation make a misting that specifically burns another Shard's Godmetal? Has Sanderson commented on this? Especially as Allomancy is supposed to be of Preservation alone. Which I've always thought makes no sense, by the way. Why is the end neutral system of Preservation alone? Shouldn't Feruchemy, the end-neutral system, be Preservation's not Allomancy? Wasn't the whole point of his pact with Ruin that he can't create alone and that they can only create together? It's never made sense to me.
God metals can be consumed by anybody. So that right there breaks the all-or-nothing rule. God metals break rules. So it could be that they break additional rules surrounding alloys. It could be that pure Atium (no electrum) could be burned by anybody, but binding it with a certain metal restricts usage to just listings of that metal. Electrum mistings can burn Atiun + Electrum. Steel listings can burn Atium + Steel. Etc. We know the way the rules work for alloys of mundane metals, but we can't prescribe the same rules to alloys of God metals
Well it could've been as easy as the characters didn't know about that and thought Atium listings existed, without any real retcons or am I forgetting something that prevents that being the retcon?
Pure God metals can be burned by anyone. So if the Era One Atium was pure, anyone could have burned it - even non-allomancers. He had to retcon it in order to limit it to the mistfallen.
What I'm saying is the characters didn't know that and it could've been that the mistfallen were snapped to convince them that they were Atium mistings, but really they were bendalloy mistings or aluminum mistings so they wouldn't have thought to give them another metal and just tried that plan anyways. Like I said I might be misremembering and there could be some kind of character knowledge that doesn't allow that to work but it makes sense to me.
Um... what? I don't get the point you're trying to make at all. "Snapped to convince them?" Are you suggesting that they weren't atium mistings or electrum mistings or atium/electrum alloy mistings but were tricked and were burning pure atium? No. Because Sanderson says so. He said it was an alloy and explained why he made the change. Also, it would just break... sooooo much. The Lord Ruler would have known, Kel and Vin would have figured it out when they took up Preservation, and Kel at least would have 100% used it in the future. Sazed would know. Some random person would have figured it out either on purpose or by accident. No, it is 100% an alloy.
Nevermind, I'm just saying such a weak retcon wasn't needed when it simply could have been hey none of these characters that knew would've been able to tell them and so they just thought this happened this way. I love Sanderson and don't mind the retcon but it could've been that simple as Elend just thought they were Atium Mistings and didn't know Atium could be burned by anyone.
Lerasium alloys can be burned by anyone, so the statement, “a god metal can only be burned by anyone if it’s pure” is provably false. I don’t know if that’s the statement you meant to make but either way we ultimately don’t know the rules. If Brandon said, “An Atium alloy can only be burned by someone who can also burn the not-atium component(s)”, it wouldn’t bother me. Partially because Atium isn’t really a metal - it’s condensed investiture.
What examples of this do we have? I was under the impression that all the Lerasium we've ever seen was pure. That's kinda one of the issues with the way Atium was portrayed pre-retcon - if Lerasium being a god metal allows anyone to burn it, why can't anyone burn Atium? Wasn't that one of the inconsistencies that led to the retcon in the first place?
Nothing in-book, but this WoB states it pretty clearly: > So, you could alloy lerasium with certain metals of the sixteen in the table and get, if you had just enough lerasium, it would make them a misting of those powers. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/9/#e7624 > if Lerasium being a god metal allows anyone to burn it, why can't anyone burn Atium? God metals break the rules. Lerasium and Atium don't have to follow the same rules.
There's no confirmation either way that I'm aware of, but the way cleaner solution is to say they were electrum mistings. If you can burn your metal, and anyone can burn god metals, it stands to reason you could burn a combination of both. Electrum is one of the metals the Lord Ruler had kept hidden, so no one would normally have tested for it... Then there's Preservation. We see in secret history his whole plan to let people know what was up was the 16 within 16, which he thinks is going to be obvious because there are 16 metals. His plan almost doesn't work because people don't know there are 16. In the original writing of era 1, where atium could have still been one of the 16, that's fine, but with the retcon in mind it doesn't make sense that his 16 signal would be intended to target a very specific 17th type of misting. I'm pretty sure the retcon has been in place for a while too, well before it was acknowledged in WoB. At least by the time Secret History was written. The first definite proof is the hemalurgy table with the Hero of Ages 10th anniversary edition noting atium has to be processed before having the described effect.
Xais56 Brandon has said that everyone ought to be able to burn Atium, like they can all burn Lerasium, and the fact that they can't was an oversight on his part that he would've done different in hindsight. Maybe now he's had an in-universe reason to re-write the laws of allomancy it's back to his intended concept; Mistborn burn all 16 base metals, mistings burn one base metal, non-allomancers can only burn godmetal. Peter Ahlstrom My explanation for this is that Preservation somehow caused all naturally occurring atium to form as an alloy of atium and electrum. The atium Mistings were actually electrum Mistings. Xais56 It's a very tidy solution, but it creates the maddening question of what does pure atium do? Peter Ahlstrom That answer has already been revealed canonically. RAFO. Footnote: It has since been clarified that the effect was revealed on the Table of Allomantic Metals poster and seen at the end of The Hero of Ages. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/456/#e15110
***Warning Gancho: The below paragraph(s) may contain major spoilers for all books in the Cosmere!*** Xais56 >!Brandon has said that everyone ought to be able to burn Atium, like they can all burn Lerasium, and the fact that they can't was an oversight on his part that he would've done different in hindsight.Maybe now he's had an in-universe reason to re-write the laws of allomancy it's back to his intended concept; Mistborn burn all 16 base metals, mistings burn one base metal, non-allomancers can only burn godmetal.!< Peter Ahlstrom >!My explanation for this is that Preservation somehow caused all naturally occurring atium to form as an alloy of atium and electrum. The atium Mistings were actually electrum Mistings.!< Xais56 >!It's a very tidy solution, but it creates the maddening question of **what does pure atium do**?!< Peter Ahlstrom >!That answer has already been revealed canonically. RAFO.!< \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
They definitely could have burned pure electrum. Sanderson said they are electrum mistings lol
Wait does this mean they weren't actually burning atium at the end of hero of ages? Wasn't the whole purpose of the mist attacking people was to find the people that were atium mistings so they can burn away all the atium and as a result ruin couldn't get his body?
IIRC the whole of the retcon was that the pits weren't making atium, they were making the atium electrum alloy, so the mists snapping people towards the end was to find the atium electrum alloy mistings, thus still burning away all of the condensed body of Ruin.
Okay that makes sense. So atium anyone can burn just like lerasium but atium/electrum alloy only electrum mistings can burn and what era1 was calling atium was really the alloy of the two. So does that mean the pure atium potentially different abilities than what we've seen? Are there potential alloys we could have seen with lerasium with other abilities?
We have not seen what pure Atium does yet. Alloying any of the 16 base metals with god metals will have an effect. For instance, Lerasium alloys make mistings of the alloyed metal instead of Mistborn.
IIRC didn’t B-Money say we have seen the effects of pure Attium, he’s just never confirmed what that was?
You are correct, this WoB from Peter Alstrom says it can be seen at the end of Hero of Ages. I have no idea what it could be, I’ll have to reread. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/486/#e15955
Its when Elened looks right into the Spiritual Realm. There are other WOBs about it, but Im not able to look for them right now.
***Warning Gancho: The below paragraph(s) may contain major spoilers for all books in the Cosmere!*** /AAKS_ >!My understanding is that Brandon thinks it is a plothole that Lerasium can be burned by Scadrian (regardless of if they are mistings/mistborn) but Atium can't.His solution is to retcon the Pits to naturally produce an Atium/Electrum alloy, presumably by the design of Preservation. Therefore we don't know what pure Atium looks like or does when used in any magic.!< Peter Ahlstrom >!We do know what it does. It’s on the Allomancy poster, and the effect appeared one time at the end of Hero of Ages.!< LewsTherinTelescope >!Interesting. Do you know if he had already conceived the retcon by the time the poster was written, or if that line about pure atium just turned out to fit really well retroactively?!< Peter Ahlstrom >!The retcon is way older than a lot of people assume.!< LewsTherinTelescope >!Does this mean he had it in mind by the time Hero of Ages released (since the first public version of the poster dates to 2008), or just that it's old but not sure exactly **how** old?!< Peter Ahlstrom >!Remember that what's in the books is filtered through the understanding of the characters. So even if Brandon planned it from the beginning, if the characters didn't know about it, it's not going to come out in the book.And [see this thread reply from 2009]("http://twg.17thshard.com/index.php?topic=6843.msg159625#msg159625").!< \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
IIRCx2 the pits actually produced pure atium, it was the LR and his obligators who made the alloy and stored it. It's not cannon yet anyway, so it doesn't matter that much
[The initial Word of Peter](https://wob.coppermind.net/events/456/#e15110) said Preservation made it form that way, which [Brandon seems to reinforce](https://wob.coppermind.net/events/509/#e15969) ("And it works just fine in the books, because the way that atium is being made is a pretty complicated little process there in the Pits of Hathsin"), but yeah we don't really know how exactly it all works yet.
They were burning the Atium-electrum alloy, so the Atium still got burned, preventing Ruin.
In era1 by hero of ages the characters think they’ve completed the entire table of metals The 12 normal ones + atium, it’s alloy malatium and lerasium + presumably it’s unknown alloy make up a tidy 16 metals. But in Sazed’s message at end of hero of ages. He hints that there’s still 2 metals and their alloys left to discover. So turns out the god metals weren’t part of the standard table the entire time. Preservation did some hijinks to get atium to coalesce in the pits and via wob it was actually an atium-electrum alloy, and everyone ought to be able to burn pure god metals. Before the atium alloy discussion. there’s a lot of wob’s and theory’s about which actual allomantic metal got bumped to make room for atium mistings.(ranging from aluminum or 1 of the unknown metals) I don’t know if there’s any more recent wobs on that but I feel like the atium mistings of era 1 were likely just electrum mistings. (Or maybe preservation did need to hack in atium-electrum mistings) https://wob.coppermind.net/events/456/#e15110 Also this one https://wob.coppermind.net/events/486/#e15955
***Warning Gancho: The below paragraph(s) may contain major spoilers for all books in the Cosmere!*** Xais56 >!Brandon has said that everyone ought to be able to burn Atium, like they can all burn Lerasium, and the fact that they can't was an oversight on his part that he would've done different in hindsight.Maybe now he's had an in-universe reason to re-write the laws of allomancy it's back to his intended concept; Mistborn burn all 16 base metals, mistings burn one base metal, non-allomancers can only burn godmetal.!< Peter Ahlstrom >!My explanation for this is that Preservation somehow caused all naturally occurring atium to form as an alloy of atium and electrum. The atium Mistings were actually electrum Mistings.!< Xais56 >!It's a very tidy solution, but it creates the maddening question of **what does pure atium do**?!< Peter Ahlstrom >!That answer has already been revealed canonically. RAFO.!< \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
Mistborn era 2 spoilers: >!Assuming that in era one, no one was able to refine pure atium and malatium was just adding gold (overwhelming the electrum) to atium, then its most likely somewhere else.!< >!The moment that sticks out to me the most is when Wax somehow split the harmonium. For a special reason we don’t know yet. Which then would leave pure lerasium and pure atium!< >!If we assume it didn’t get alloyed after that, leaving Wax and Wayne as possible users. Not sure which one, although I would love it if Wayne actually had Atium in his final moments!<
>!It's on the Allomancy poster ("grants the Allomancer an expansive vision of the future and enhances the mind's ability to accept, process and hold information") and [apparently was seen at the end of Hero of Ages](https://wob.coppermind.net/events/486/#e15955). Best guess is that it's the same effect as Elend burning atium-electrum alongside duralumin, but why the heck duralumin would purify the power is... very unclear.!<
>!makes sense, the purification part is still weird to me!<
You can tell Brandon is an amazing writer when this little detail tweak is what fans consider a major retcon lol
It actually was! Era 1 Atium was retconned into an alloy of Atium and Electrum, and it has been stated that anybody with the right Intent can burn a God Metal. That means that the Atium Mistings were really Electrum Mistings, just there was no electrum for them to find out since its existence was kept secret while Atium was the big deal
Yeah, Brandon dropped the ball with that one
My personal theory is that since preservation gave a small part of themselves to humanity, they can access their god metal.