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XS-Terrain

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  1. Funny you should mention it! In fact, I joined this very thread mostly just to talk about how guns were being underestimated by previous posters. Here's my original post: We don't know how fast this this rock is going, but we can figure out how fast it would have to be going in order to have the same energy as a bullet. According to Google, the average density of a rock is about 3 g/cm^3, and the volume of the human head is about 3000 cm^3, meaning the rocks probably weighed somewhere around 9kg. According to Wikipedia, the .44 S&W American, a common revolver cartridge during the late 1800s, has a mass of about 13 g with a velocity of about 208 m/s^2. Assuming that energy determines whether or not the Shardplate is cracked, we can use the formula KE = 1/2 * m * v^2 to get 1/2 * 9kg * v^2 = 1/2 * 13g * 208 m/s^2, with v being the velocity the rock needs to achieve in order to equal the energy of the bullet. We get that v needs to be ~7.9 m/s. That's pretty fast for a 9kg rock, and that's only comparing it to a revolver cartridge. With something like a Lee-Enfield with the .303 British at 11 g and 761 m/s, the rock would need to be traveling at ~26.6 m/s. This isn't even considering the fact that a Steelpush, especially with Duralumin, would significantly increase the velocity of the bullet. Now, ultimately, all of this is meaningless because we don't know how fast the rock is traveling at, and we also don't know how much additional protection Living Plate provides. I would hazard to guess, however, that multiple revolver or especially rifle shots without reloading would be more than enough to break Shardplate. Of course, all of this math was made somewhat useless by the fact that there is a WoB talking about guns in relation to Shardplate.
  2. Yes, I do believe your "i'm sorry for posting this" tag was quite accurate. It has been pretty fun to discuss this though lmao, so thanks for posting it anyways lol.
  3. I've refuted these same arguments from you 3 or 4 times now but maybe I just haven't been explaining myself well. I was pretty busy this week so I didn't respond further but I'm off now so here goes. First very important distinction - I'm not sure where you're getting this skill thing from. You've mentioned it in a couple of previous posts, but I never once said that the 4th Ideal Radiants are skilled. Not once. Just to make sure, I just looked back through all of my old posts. At worst, I may have accidentally implied it in this statement. If you took this to mean that I thought the 4th Ideal meant that you were skilled, that was a miscommunication on my part, and I apologize. What I was trying to communicate was that they are "near the pinnacle of the Knights Radiant," and by this I mean that they are the most powerful and most dangerous fighters out of everybody in the Knights Radiant, and that they are a small minority. Therefore, I believe that they should only be fighting the small minority at the top of the Mistborn. This, to me, makes sense. It's only a fair fight if the best of the Radiants fight the best of the Mistborn. Let's select a skilled 4th Ideal Radiant, one comparable to Kaladin in skill. When matching them against a Mistborn, I think they should fight a Lerasium bead Mistborn who has the skill of Vin, and, if we allow guns, the aim of Wax. That's not a buff to the Mistborn, that's a fair fight. If we were talking a 3rd Ideal Radiant, they would be fighting a less powerful or less skilled Mistborn, and so on and so forth. Now onto the subject of guns. As I said above, if we're gonna be fighting the best of the Radiants (and this means in skill, power, or both), the person fighting them should be good with guns. A Shardplate is a pretty big target, and I don't think we've ever gotten a full description of how big Syl is as a shield, so your claim that it would cover up the entire torso is questionable, and even if it were the case, legs are a pretty big and vulnerable target. If you've ever watched competition shooting, targets much smaller than Shardplate-covered legs (although usually moving slower than some Radiants, admittedly), are shot with ease. Obviously this is much more complicated while moving around in a fight, but with all of the size Shardplate seems to provide I doubt that a sharpshooter would have a problem hitting the target. On the subject of moving around, if the fight occurs during the night or otherwise in the dark, the Mistborn also has a far better chance of tracking the Radiant's movement than the Radiant does for the Mistborn. Not only is the Radiant glowing, but the Mistborn can burn Tin, and Shardplate is made of a God Metal alloy from Cultivation and Honor, meaning that it should probably show blue lines connecting to the Mistborn. On the other hand, the Radiant has virtually no ability to track the Mistborn in a dark environment. This makes it exceedingly difficult to chase the Mistborn, much less have a shield always pointed in their direction to block bullets. On the subject of bullets, there are a couple of important points here too. First of all, there was the WoB earlier that stated that the right bullet from Vindication could break Shardplate in a single specialized shot, or 2-3 regular shots. This means that something like a rifle, or a shotgun, should be able to break it in one shot. Also, given that aluminum projectiles suppress Feruchemical gold healing (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/219-words-of-radiance-philadelphia-signing/#e6365) it could have a similar effect on Stormlight healing. Now, I know you've objected to my statements about guns before, so I'll adress those below. See, now this is what I don't get. We have, in fact, covered this a couple of times now, and despite you saying that you're not taking any liberties, you very clearly are. Here's the WoB again for reference. Two or three. Vindication is a revolver. 2-3 bullets on a revolver breaks Shardplate. It's not the most powerful bullet on Scadrial, it's a revolver bullet. The phrase "the right bullet" clearly impies that the previous bullets were not the "right" ones, and are just regular bullets. Even the "right' bullet is just a higher caliber bullet with probably more powder, but still only fired out of a revolver. If it's fired out of a revolver, it's probably less powerful than a rifle cartridge. Once again, you're taking huge liberties with the WoB. You're assuming it means something that it doesn't necessarily mean. That's what "taking liberties" means. I don't read it as implying assassination. I don't think anybody else in this thread read it as implying assassination, although feel free to correct me if any of you did. After all, it very clearly reads as a "fight," as in a street fight or a dirty fight, not as a slitting of the throat at midnight. Back to your most recent reply, I believe that I've already addressed why I believe a Mistborn could pretty easily break plate. Even without guns, it just comes down to a battle of attrition with the Mistborn keeping distance and shooting coins, and from what we've seen, metals last much longer than Stormlight. Other users here have already defended that point pretty well, so I'll just leave that one up to you whether or not you decide to change your mind. As for there being "hundreds if not thousands" of 4th Ideal Radiants at the time of the Recreance, that's very clearly not the case. At Feverstone Keep in Dalinar's vision I believe there were only 300, consisting of 2 Orders. Some of the Orders are stated to have several hundred members, I believe. In total, I doubt that the Knights Radiant numbered more than 3000. Of those, given that Kaladin states that most Radiants never reached the higher ideals, I doubt that the number of 4th Ideals would exceed 1000.
  4. Honestly though, like I stopped responding because everybody just seemed so entrenched in their positions but it's nice to hear a fresh perspective every once in a while. That said, I do still have some questions/objections lol. Overall, I generally agree with your statements, but with some caveats. First of all, because of Kaladin's statement in RoW that most Radiants don't ever reach the 4th or 5th Ideal, I think it is only fair to compare them to a more skilled Mistborn. The best of the Radiants should only be fighting the best of the Mistborn. Secondly, Kelsier and Vin both have pretty diluted bloodlines, so despite their skill, they probably aren't very powerful. Outside of Elend, who was relatively unskilled, we haven't really seen a Mistborn with the full power of a bead of Lerasium. We don't know what the 5th Ideal does yet, but tentatively I would place a theoretical skilled and powerful Mistborn (from early in the Lord Ruler's reign, perhaps) closer to that 5th Ideal area. Thirdly, and this is not so much a problem I have but just something I want to mention, I think that guns would probably make breaking Shardplate a lot easier, so if we're talking about a Lerasium bead Mistborn from Era 2 against an RoW Radiant I would put the Mistborn as pretty far ahead, as I think the gun gives a huge advantage.
  5. This doesn't exactly seem to be a one-to-one comparison, what you've stated seems more comparable to infinite Lerasium + Atium and infinite of the 16 original metals as well as infinite of all 32 (48 if we include Harmonium?) God metal alloys.
  6. I've sided with Mistborn so far, but I've gotta agree with @Ookla The Frustrated here. If we start allowing the use of God metals and various magic from other systems than the combatant's home, the use of some kind of Ruin-Light, presuming that Lights are similar to God metals in that they exist for all Shards, could probably suppress Allomancy (although the details of that are pretty blurry, still not entirely sure how Voidlight specifically suppresses Radiants and Towerlight specifically suppresses the Fused, maybe it has to do with Intent as they're currently fighting each other? In which case Autonomy-Light, assuming that Trell is Autonomy, might be more appropriate?). Aluminum darts probably wouldn't penetrate Shardplate, but aluminum bullets might not be a bad idea, assuming they suppress Radiant healing the same way they suppress Feruchemical gold. EDIT: I wrote this before @Ookla The Frustrated's most recent reply, see below for my response to it.
  7. This is simply wrong, Raysium is a God Metal along the lines of Atium or Lerasium (Rayse, Ati, Leras for the Vessels). Ralkalest is used by Raboniel to refer to aluminum; Ralkalest is also a term used on Sel. Raboniel literally uses each term, Raysium and Ralkalest, to refer to different metals (Raysium being the one in the Fused weapons, Ralkalest being the one for the cage for Lift). Raysium is also golden-white; aluminum is, well, aluminum. You can check the Coppermind pages on this or re-read the book if you're still confused on this. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Aluminum https://coppermind.net/wiki/Raysium
  8. You're taking a lot of liberty here with the WoBs to try and make them conform to your position. Wax does use a specialty weapon, but the specialty of that weapon is that, along with 6 regular bullets, it can also chamber 3 specialty bullets. In the WoB, it's made pretty clear that one of these specialty bullets, fired into the right area, breaks the Shardplate. It's not a stretch to assume from there that his 2-3 bullet estimate then refers to the regular bullets. Regarding the shield, I'm assuming here the spren has some limitation in terms of how big it can be and how thin it could be, as otherwise the Radiant could wrap themselves in the spren and just be completely invulnerable or create a spear of infinite length and stab another planet. The question then becomes "What size is the spren limited to?" From what we've seen, it doesn't seem like Syl ever becomes anything massive that could cover the entire body. Hitting that unconvered area would suffice. Maneurving around the Radiant with various Steelpushes and Ironpulls could also help to expose more area to hit. Regarding the bolt-action, the Lee Enfield that I mentioned was first introduced in the late 1800s IRL, which is similar to the current state of Scadrial. My original post was more to correct a lot of wrong assumptions about the power of guns, than to really compare Mistborn and Radiants. My point was that a gun could pretty easily break Shardplate. Whether our made-up scenario here should give either of the combatants guns or other weapons is another question entirely. My opinion is that, if the Mistborn has a gun and the Radiant doesn't, the Mistborn wins. If neither have a gun, it's much less clear, but I still fall on the side of the Mistborn due to ranged capability. If both have guns, that's where I percieve the Radiant to have the advantage, because their main weakness is range. Regarding mobility, it obviously depends on the Order, as I mentioned earlier. The question I have for you is, how is the Mistborn going to get hit in the first place? None of the Orders, other than the Windrunners and Skybreakers, have even a chace at getting anywhere close to the Mistborn. Even if they do get close, does the Mistborn have Atium? If they do, then they're not gonna get hit no matter what. As for getting through Live Plate, that's once again just a question of "Do they have a gun?" If they do, a couple of shots should be enough. If not, it depends on how fast the Mistborn can get the coins to fly, which is something that we still really don't know. It must be slower than a gun, otherwise Era 2 Coinshots just wouldn't use guns. But it's still gotta be pretty fast, considering that a Steelpush is capable of quickly launching the Mistborn high into the air against gravity, and the coins weigh much less than the body. I mean at this point we're basically arguing semantics. Do you really think that the pinnacle of the Knights Radiant should just be fighting some random Mistborn? Obviously, if we are discussing a 4th Ideal Radiant, they should be fighting the best of the Mistborn. As for Kaladin vs. Vin, you're once again taking huge liberties with the WoB. When Sanderson says out of the battlefield, for some reason you seem to assume that to mean "only in an assassination." But Sanderson says nothing of the sort, nothing that would lead to that kind of assumption. The implication is that, in a dirty fight, no holds barred, no formation or squad tactics or greater strategy to conform to like there would be on a battlefield, Vin wins. There's nothing in there to imply that it would have to be an assassination. Now that Kaladin has Live Plate, it's questionable as to whether Vin would be able to beat him. It's true that Vin was the most skilled of the mistborn. But in terms of strength, she is relatively weak, compared to Elend for example, who had the bead of Lerasium. And Vin didn't have access to all 16 metals. Kaladin is not only the most powerful of the Radiants, but also the most skilled at combat. Vin, with all her limitations, obviously doesn't stand a chance against those odds. Give her all 16 metals, some decent amount of Atium, and a bead of Lerasium, and I would expect her to win. Mistborn get into many fights throughout Era 1, and are far from just assassins. If anything, they are far more experienced with 1v1s than Radiants, whose speciality lies instead in battlefields, squad tactics, and formation combat. The only 1v1s that we really see the Radiants partake in are the Windrunner vs Heavenly Ones fights, and that's a single Order in fights against a single type of Fused. As stated earlier, swords don't mean much when confronted with mobility and ranged capabilities. I mean, yeah, they could raise a barrier, but a Mistborn could also just fly away. Neither results in either combatant dead. I'm assuming here that they actually are seeking to kill each other, rather than just the Mistborn trying to harm the Radiant. You're right about the open environment though, I was thinking more along the lines of "open" meaning "not closed" as in outside in a city, rather than trapped in a room for example. Open is definitely not the right word to describe that though. As for range, that's once again mostly a question of whether the Mistborn has firearms. If they do, there's plently of reason to believe that they would be able to deal significant damage from a range. If not, coming in close with Atium would result in a Mistborn victory as well, as the WoB above states that even an Atium Misting would win against Kaladin unless he flies up and away (and thereby opening himself to ranged attacks). If there's no firearms and no Atium, then it just comes down to a question of how much damage the coins can do, which we don't really know.
  9. I disagree. The gun has little to no impact on the force of the bullet, beyond the length of the barrel and the rifling (Vindication is a revolver, so it doesn't even have an advantage in this department). Rather, the force of the bullet is determined by the explosive powder in the bullet itself. The only thing special about Vindication is the fact that it can chamber special, large caliber hazekiller rounds, and I'm guessing this is what Sanderson meant by the right bullet, the right shot, and in the right moment. A specialized bullet, fired from a revolver, can pierce a weak section of Sharplate. When he says 2 or 3 bullets, I'm guessing he means just regular revolver cartridges, as there's no way Wax gets regular ammo special-made from Ranette. A single specialized bullet from a revolver, or 2-3 regular bullets, is equivalent to 1-2 regular bullets from a rifle. As for the Radiant carrying a gun, I'm currently assuming that they don't have one, as I'm comparing Scadrial at the WoR time period with Roshar during that time period. A bow isn't very useful, as it's much harder to aim than a gun, and is significantly worse for hitting moving targets. That's not even considering the question of how the Radiant would carry the bow around while fighting with a Shardplate, and also the fact that, if the arrowheads are metal, the Mistborn could probably push away the quiver. If the Radiant did have a gun, they would have a much better chance of winning, as range is basically the only weakness of the Radiant. If neither had a gun though, I would still give the advantage to the Mistborn, simply because of range and mobility. Range is a massively important factor in combat. Throughout history, whether it be the Mongol horse archers, the English longbowmen, the gunpowder empires, or modern battle tanks, range has always provided a significant advantage in combat. The same applies for mobility, as the Mongol horse archers, medieval knights and other various forms of light and heavy cavalry, and tanks and aircraft from the Second World War to today have won wars due to maneuverability and speed. In fact, in Second World War dogfights, it was consistently the fighter with better agility that won, not the one with greater firepower. If the enemy can't reach you, it doesn't matter how lethal the Shardblade is, if you can just keep distance using steelpushes and ironpulls and just wear down the Shardplate with coins, eventually you win. Of course, this is dependant on situation as well, as this is not so viable in a confined area. Regarding the skill of the fighter, a 4th Ideal Radiant is near the pinnacle of the Knights Radiant - We've only seen 2 so far, Kaladin and Jasnah, and it's stated multiple times throughout RoW that most Radiants never reach those higher Ideals. It makes sense, then, that we should only have them facing the most skilled of Mistborn - someone with the full power of a Lerasium bead like Elend, with the Allomantic skill of Vin or Kelsier, and the gun skill of Wax. As stated above, I'm not sure that instakill capability is necessary, as against all orders except maybe the Windrunners or Skybreakers, the Mistborn can effectively just not be hit, and simply fly around the Radiant. Without ranged capability, the Radiant is left grounded and essentially useless. Once again, this depends on situation, but in an open environment, the Mistborn has every advantage. @Light In the Darkness had some good ideas in his post as well about what a Mistborn could do.
  10. You may be right about Shardplate being more sturdy. From The Way of Kings, Nevertheless, I doubt that Shardplate would survive the 10 round magazine of a bolt-action rifle like the Lee-Enfield, with a trained Mistborn firing aimed, Steelpushed shots every 2-3 seconds, with likely more force than the rocks that the Parshendi were throwing. EDIT: Thanks @StanLemon for bringing up the WOB, just looked it up and https://wob.coppermind.net/events/385/#e12595
  11. I think there is some underestimation of the power of firearms here. According to the Coppermind page on Shardplate, We don't know how fast this this rock is going, but we can figure out how fast it would have to be going in order to have the same energy as a bullet. According to Google, the average density of a rock is about 3 g/cm^3, and the volume of the human head is about 3000 cm^3, meaning the rocks probably weighed somewhere around 9kg. According to Wikipedia, the .44 S&W American, a common revolver cartridge during the late 1800s, has a mass of about 13 g with a velocity of about 208 m/s^2. Assuming that energy determines whether or not the Shardplate is cracked, we can use the formula KE = 1/2 * m * v^2 to get 1/2 * 9kg * v^2 = 1/2 * 13g * 208 m/s^2, with v being the velocity the rock needs to achieve in order to equal the energy of the bullet. We get that v needs to be ~7.9 m/s. That's pretty fast for a 9kg rock, and that's only comparing it to a revolver cartridge. With something like a Lee-Enfield with the .303 British at 11 g and 761 m/s, the rock would need to be traveling at ~26.6 m/s. This isn't even considering the fact that a Steelpush, especially with Duralumin, would significantly increase the velocity of the bullet. Now, ultimately, all of this is meaningless because we don't know how fast the rock is traveling at, and we also don't know how much additional protection Living Plate provides. I would hazard to guess, however, that multiple revolver or especially rifle shots without reloading would be more than enough to break Shardplate.
  12. The Expanse of the Densities is an area in Shadesmar (the Cognitive Realm) presented in a map in the Way of Kings. It is one of three other Expanses, each of which represents a Shardworld other than Roshar that neighbors it in the Cognitive Realm.
  13. Hey, guess who’s an idiot and forgot to type out my WoBs after uploading the audio? (Spoiler Alert: It’s Me) Anyways, here are some of the questions that I asked and the answers that I got.
  14. I’ll be coming as well; I’ve got a list of questions that I’ve made with my friend, which I’m planning to record and transcribe.
  15. I have a completely different theory. It has been stated by Brandon Sanderson that there was an opposition to Adonalsium, some sort of "Other Force" that created a weapon that caused Adonalsium to split into 16 Shards. However, when we look at where two Shards fight directly, like in the case in which Vin, as Preservation, killed Ati, as Ruin, we see that both Shards "die." Perhaps it is the same with Adonalsium and this "Other Force." Perhaps the weapon that the opposition to Adonalsium created also split that "Other Force" into 16 "Other Shards," as I will call them. Now, let us look at the nature of Bleeder. She wants freedom from Sazed, or Harmony, and that may be another, different opposite to Preservation-Freedom. Instead of preserving things as they are, perhaps Trell, the "Other Shard" counterpart of Preservation wishes to free people and bring change. Also, the worshipers of Trell believe that the stars are holy and are the "Thousand Eyes of Trell," while the Mists, created by Preservation, block the stars from the ordinary eye. Also, Nalt, the main antagonist of Trelagism, may be a counterpart of Ruin, and the believers in Trelagism believe that the Sun is the "Single Eye of Nalt," blocking the stars from the view of the people. This can be linked to Ruin as another opposite, instead of bringing Ruin, Nalt blocks change and prefers things to stay as they are.
  16. I was going to be a coinshot but then decided on seer. This poll was a great idea. Thanks dude!
  17. Logan Lerman could possibly be the young Lord Ruler (from the Atium Mind). Yes, I know we all hate him for the Percy Jackson movies but still, it was the director's fault for those, not his.
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