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QuasarInTheMist

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  1. Thanks for sharing Brandon's comments on the topic! It seems I was a bit off base. But what then do you make of cultivationspren being a part of Surgebinding, which appears to be Honor's magic? That's an interesting connection I think.
  2. Something I've been wondering about since WoK has been about how many magic systems are present on Roshar. In the Mistborn series, we saw three distinct magic systems at play, one of Presersvation (Allomancy), one of Ruin (Hemalurgy), and one of their interaction or balance (Feruchemy). So if Roshar has the influence of three Shards, would this mean one magic system for each independent Shard, one for the three pairwise combinations, and one for all three combined? That would mean a total of seven. I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on this and how many different magic systems we've actually seen so far. We've seen Surgebinding and Voidbringing and have had references to the Old Magic without much detail. In Mistborn we saw users of Hemalurgy (Inquisitors, Koloss, Kandra) long before the magic itself was presented to us. Could there be things we've seen in Stormlight that suggest entire magic systems we haven't yet seen? The only things that immediately comes to mind for me are the Singers and the Aimians. A related thing I noticed with some curiosity is that among the orders of Knights Radiant we see both honorspren and cultivationspren. I've been keeping an eye out for disucssion of this on the board but haven't seen anything. To me this may suggest Surgebinding may be a magic that combines the influence of Honor and Cultivation. Anyway, I'd love to hear some thoughts on these topics and I'm sorry if I'm asking about things that people have already discussed thoroughly.
  3. It's been mentioned a few times on this thread tangentially, but the most powerful "ability" in my opinion would be Hemalurgy. I put "ability" in quotes because it isn't an ability acquired by merit or destiny or genetics or whatnot, but what we know about it suggests there is a science to putting it to use. An expert in this skill would be able to harvest abilities from people on other worlds (albeit with a bit of trial and error), which allows for a large repertoire of magics available to them and likely a "hack" around some of the limitations of planet-specific powers. To throw an idea out there, if my imagined Hemalurgist were to hop to Nalthis, they could spike a Nalthian to take their ability to Awaken (if only Nalthians can Awaken, which I know is contentious - I mean this only as an illustration). Some powers would be surely be harder to steal than others and some may be near-impossible, but I can easily see a villainous world-hopper being a particularly skilled Hemalurgist with a lust for new powers.
  4. Other people have already made comments to this, but viewing the practices of our own culture from the outside reveals we are just the same (if not worse). We enslave and kill billions animals just to eat them, which is unnecessary since we could be eating non-sentient organisms like plants and fungi. Fabrials at least can be used for an extended period of time rather than just a single meal. And I think the humans being the Voidbringers is a clear analogy to the Earth history of colonialism. I'm may write a post on that.
  5. I really like this theory! Of course the numbers work out really well: 9 Unmade, 9 Heralds who broke. As noted here and by others, I don't think each Desolation has to involve the creation of an Unmade for this theory to work. When the same Herald breaks for a second time, perhaps this creates a new Unmade that fuses with one of the others (as some here seem to be suggesting), or perhaps it adds power to their Unmade complement, or perhaps a broken Herald breaking again doesn't affect the Unmade at all. And the idea of breaking taking some aspect of who the Herald is seems to fit with the deeply flawed character we see in the modern-day Heralds. The different levels of consciousness of the various Unmade may reflect which attributes were taken from the Heralds. From some it was a part of their emotional selves, others from a more intellectual aspect. To bring in Realmatics, it could be that the breaking process affected a part of their Cognitive self or their Spiritual self (this may be a stretch, but hey, we don't really have much information to go on). I don't care to weigh in much on which Herald matches with which Unmade, but I would suspect the attributes of the Unmade to reflect aspects of the Heralds taken to excess. Thanks for sharing this, it's a great idea and I've enjoyed pondering it
  6. My opinion on this is that the second nicrosilmind that you create would be "locked" to your identity, but you would be unable to access it without having Investiture coming from the first "unlocked" nicrosilmind, assuming you do not have the Feruchemical ability to use nicrosil. I see it as essentially moving the Investiture from the "unlocked" metalmind into the "locked" one. The second metalmind would essentially be useless after you fill it since you would be unable to tap it. However, if there were to be any exception to the rule of having to be born with the power to use a metalmind or using an "unlocked" nicrosilmind, nicrosil would be the metal to do that. Thinking about the use of nicrosil brings up another question for me. If Investiture is manifested as the ability to use Feruchemy or Allomancy, wouldn't filling a nicrosilmind reduce your ability to use Feruchemy? As you fill at increasing rates, your ability to fill the metalmind would decrease. What would that mean? And what would tapping it do? Increase your ability to use nicrosilminds? Or would it allow you to use the Investiture in other ways? (i.e. other Feruchemical metals or Allomancy)
  7. Great comparison with Superhot! I'd forgotten about that game, but that is pretty spot on with what I'm thinking about Sparkers. And that's another great point you have regarding compounding. Even if the power alone doesn't work as I'm invisioning it to, perhaps that's more in line with zinc compounding. Your3rdShadow, could you remind me where in BoM there was a character tapping zinc? I either missed that while reading or I already forgot it.
  8. A Sparker is a Ferring with the ability to store their mental speed. This is obviously very useful for someone taking a test or something of the sort, but I've been thinking a lot about how useful it would be in a fight. Consider how much quick reactions matter in a fight. How many times would being able to see a quick jab or slash coming and get out of the way would save you? How many openings would dodging or parrying in this way give you? I can't help but think that taping stored mental speed would be immensely useful in a fight. It'd be in the ballpark of atium (thought obviously not on that same level), since you'd be able to see and process a quick attack or subtle movement much faster. Imagine if you were being attacked by someone but the world was slowed down, say four times. You can't move your body any faster that your assailant, but you could see and judge the trajectory of their weapon or fist and move to dodge or intercept the attack. In a sword fight, you ought to be able to block most attacks given rudimentary training. You would be able to see opening much more quickly and exploit them, allowing you to go in for the kill or otherwise hit hard or drop your opponent. I fear I may have interpreted this a bit too similarly to slowing down time, but with it being called "mental speed" I think this is somewhat apt. And perhaps I talk too much about sensory information, which falls into territory covered by tin. Nonetheless, I think increased mental speed would allow faster processing of sensory input, upon which I base most of this argument. And thinking more quickly should allow more deliberate planning of strikes in a hand-to-hand fight. Let me know if you agree, disagree, or have other pertinent thoughts on Sparkers.
  9. Hey, great topic! I've been meaning to consider what's going on with the unexplored Hemalurgy, so I'm glad you brought it up. First of all, some nitpicking. It is the alloys, not the base metals that steal Metallic Arts from people (steel steals Allomancy, iron steals human strength), so those should be flipped in the later half. Secondly, the temporal category (as it has been presented to us) seems to apply only to Allomancy, with cadmium, bendalloy, gold, and electrum being placed in the "hybrid" category of Feruchemical abilities (with the powers breath, energy, health, and determination, respectively). Similarly, the Allomantic enhancement metals correspond to the Feruchemical spiritual powers (chromium-fortune, nicrosil-investiture, aluminum-identity, duralumin-connection). (Source: coppermind feruchemy page) Thus, electrum steals Feruchemical hybrid powers and bendalloy steals Feruchmical spiritual powers. Beyond just nitpicking, I think this can guide our thoughts on the effects of these metal's base metals gold and cadmium, which likely steal human attributes related to the Feruchemical powers gold and chromium steal, since tin steals human senses, copper steals mental fortitude, and so on. Once again, electrum has the capacity to steal the Feruchemical ability to fill/tap breath, energy, health, and determination. Some ideas off the top of my head for what gold could steal: endurance, immunity, resilience (physical or emotional), or something along those lines. Bendalloy steals the spiritual powers: fortune, investiture, identity, and connection. My ad hoc ideas: piety, faith, devotion, empathy (to me, these all sound related to connection). Maybe also luck, self-esteem or otherwise. Sidenote: all the alloy spikes are essentially stealing Investiture, right? Since Investiture on Scadrial manifests as the ability to use the Metallic Arts. Forgive me if I am missing some of the nuance here (and educate me!) Once again, great post and please let me know what you think of my thoughts!
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