Jump to content

HSuperLee

Members
  • Posts

    688
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by HSuperLee

  1. I don't agree with the idea that "power" is a completely neutral concept and morality depends on how it is used. I believe its possible for some powers to be innately good or innately bad. You may be able to use bad powers for a good outcome, and maybe you can even use good powers for a bad outcome, but in the end, some powers have a morality implicitly associated with their use. A deal with the devil is an evil action, even if you sell your soul to heal someone else. I'm not completely convinced that Hemalurgy is an innately evil power, but I do think it is close to being one. The soul is the Cosmere isn't very soul-like, which might be what saves Hemalurgy in the end. If the soul is just another organ, rather than the center of being and the constant miracle, then alteration of the soul is just surgery. As it stands, Hemalurgy is on thin ice in my view, but I'm not ready to completely condemn it. Yet.
  2. No spoilers that I have discovered. They are transcribed on Arcanum. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/528-saythewords/
  3. The way I'm thinking about it is that the soul has various "organs" and one such organ is the allomancy organ. Now, that's definitely an oversimplification, or you wouldn't need different metals to steal different powers, but it helps us consider things. Savantism is when you have had enough investiture flowing through your soul that it leaks out of the power organ and begins to transform other parts of the soul. A spike is very specific, in that it steals a defined portion of the soul. A spike can't steal savantism, because, by definition, that savantism has leaked out to other parts of the soul that wouldn't be targeted by the spike. Hoid is weird because his whole soul is suffused not only with the influence of a Dawnshard, but also by all the powers he's collected, and probably even his age. I think spiking Hoid would actually be a really difficult process as his soul may not even be shaped like a normal human soul anymore. Its possible that however you try to spike him, you'll get something wildly different than you'd expect.
  4. Actually, there's no speculation at all. We have a definite answer to this.
  5. Admittedly, this goes beyond my understanding of physics, but once you break the sound barrier in atmosphere, isn't there some other effect of air resistance that's not affected by friction? I'm not sure how well Abrasion works once you start going beyond sonic speeds. Granted, this wouldn't be an issue at all in space, but if we're talking about practical uses of speed here, nothing short of allomantic FTL is going to be useful for cosmic distances, and I'm pretty sure that eventually you start getting diminishing returns in atmosphere, where you have to put in more and more power for smaller and smaller increases to speed. Yes, you technically get those in space too, but not until you start reaching relativistic speeds.
  6. Well, that quote definitely cinches things. Thanks, @Frustration. The aluminum bullet trick would almost certainly work then, assuming the spore-parasite doesn't have some special way of perceiving such a thing that we just don't know about yet. Additionally, any kind of indirect harm should do the trick, as the spore-parasite shouldn't be able to recognize it.
  7. I like to think Lift's bird will share with her the ability to see spren. If for no other reason than me wanting the bird to be able to see Windle so that they end up competing for Lift's attention.
  8. There is a difference between being invisible and being opaque. Steelsight might not treat aluminum as a movable metal, but its not exactly "blind" to it either. An aluminum sheet would be as visible to an Inquisitor as shadows are to us. Sure, there might not be any light coming off of it for us to see, but we can see it all the same due to the contrast with the lit areas around it. I suspect for other kinds of investiture based perception, a similar effect would apply, where aluminum is obvious due to its opaqueness. That aside (not talking specifically to you anymore, Frus), do we know that the aether in a spore-eater can't use the human senses of their host? Yeah, human senses don't help you intercept a bullet, but they can intercept a blade. And depending on the aether, you might not actually need to see the bullet coming to stop it. I imagine a rosite spore-eater's parasite might see a gun through human senses and just decide to create armor around them until the gun isn't present anymore, regardless of what ammunition is being fired. Though that does make me wonder, do we have any idea how intelligent the aether-parasite is?
  9. Kelsier became invested enough to stick around permanently by jumping into the Well of Ascension before he moved to the Beyond. He's still capable of moving on at any point, he just doesn't want to. But its natural in the Cosmere for people to want to move on after death and the Lord Ruler intentionally chose to, even though he also could have chosen to stick around.
  10. If this was the case, it would have some weird effects. The human respiratory system is CO2 driven, not O2 driven. If your body isn't accumulating CO2, then your autonomic system (the reason you don't have to think about breathing most of the time) isn't going to see a reason to inhale or exhale. Now, this might not be an issue so long as you're tapping. If anything, it might save your life, because you wouldn't reflexively breath in a hazardous environment, and you wouldn't feel like you were holding your breath. But as soon as the you stop tapping, you'd need to intentionally take a breath to restart their normal breathing process. This is all assuming that if your blood is being magically oxygenated, it will be magically de-carbonated so that you aren't just spontaneously generating CO2 out of Investiture.
  11. I mean, any of the Shards could probably kill him in the right circumstances. Personally I'd ask Ruin to do it. If Ruin can't find a way, they'll just delete the planet and solve it that way. Personally I'd love to see a Shard actually manifest a body at some point and do their best Olympian impression, but I don't know how many of them have access to physical godhood as part of their portfolio. It would certainly be quite the spectacle to see Odium or Ruin make a body for themself and try to take on Super Rashek in divinely powered hand-to-hand combat.
  12. I wonder if at some point, technologically speaking, it would be easier to have a layer of some kind of aluminum mesh or netting inside of clothing. Not only would it protect the metalminds, but it would also protect the wearer from most direct magics. Yeah, it would stop coinshots from being able to push or pull, but there are probably designs that could compensate for that. If nothing else, you could have the mesh around the upper arms only and then have metalmind bracers underneath that.
  13. I just need to point out there are two separate conversations going on here. How big is Nightblood's stomach and how big is Nightblood's mouth. Is Nightblood's stomach big enough to hold an entire shardblade? I'd be in disbelief if it wasn't. Is Nightblood's mouth big enough to swallow a shardblade whole? I'd be surprised if it was, but I'm open to the possibility. That is all I am saying. And I'm not trying to undersell Nightblood, I'm trying to hype up shardblades. I think shardblades are one of the most Invested things we've seen in the Cosmere. As far as I understand it, they're basically godmetals. Kaladin described Syl in shardplate form as being like an already full cup, that is my point. Other than exceptions like Nightblood, who seems to be undergoing some of the ballooning experienced by vessels, I think shardblades represent something close to the limit of Investiture able to put into physical materials. In other words, shardblades are dangerous.
  14. Yeah, but Nightblood also couldn't destroy an Honorblade. I realize that Honorblades and shardblades are very different things, but my conclusion from Nightblood nicking an Honorblade yet killing Rayse is that Vessels themselves are substantially less invested than we'd initially presume. As for collapsing a perpendicularity, that, I admit, is quite the feat, but I think its complicated. Nightblood stole investiture faster than the perpendicularity could maintain the portal, which is not the same as draining the total output of the perpendicularity. This is where I hold to the fact that I'm not sure about whether or not Nightblood could eat a shardblade in one move. It wouldn't surprise me if Nightblood could and it wouldn't surprise me if Nightblood couldn't.
  15. I'm not sure Nightblood's stomach is big enough to hold a whole Shardblade at once, but I also am aware that I'm mostly alone in thinking Nightblood's capacity is a lot smaller than most people seem to assume. That said, I have no doubt that Nightblood can hurt and even kill a spren, I'm just not sure Nightblood could do it instantly. It think it would take several strikes. All that said, I agree that fighting Nightblood with a shardblade is not a great idea, but its probably a better idea than trying to fight Nightblood with most non-ballistic weapons.
  16. I should clarify, I wasn't replying to you, alder. Your message appeared while I was typing mine. Sorry about that.
  17. Frus is right on this one. AI may be very useful in fields with definitive answers, but for something like the Sanderfandom, there's too much speculation and interpretation going on for a chinese-room to keep up. WoB's would probably confuse AI to a high degree. Many of them are contradictory, poorly worded, or incomplete. AI outputs are based entirely on the quality and quantity of data. While it may seem like the quantity condition is fulfilled, when we're talking about computers and data, we actually don't have all that much, as far as I understand things. Sure, it might indicate some interesting patterns or correlations we've never seen before, but feeding an AI all of Sanderson's works won't give us a Diagram of Sanderson's writing plans. Heck, I don't think Sanderson himself could give us the future of his writing plans, what with him being a discovery writer and all.
  18. This is a lot more complicated in the Cosmere, where reproduction is more than a biological process. It is also a spiritual process by which new spiritwebs are formed. As a result, we could think of reproduction in the Cosmere as a magic system. The fact humans and singers can create viable hybrid offspring would appear to be more of an outgrowth of the Cosmere's reproductive magic system than a function of biology. This would put it in a similar category to stormlight healing, where even genetics takes a backseat to cognitive and spiritual aspects.
  19. Sorry to burst your bubble, but Sanderson has commented on this: I know that's a lot less exciting and seems kind of cheap, but that is the answer we have been given.
  20. Sharders are definitely biased towards the Elsecaller and Truthwatcher orders. Its not necessarily that Sanderson's books are only read by certain kinds of people so much as only certain kinds of people have the personality type that leads them to joining an online forum to discuss magic, continuity, and theories.
  21. According to the test I align most with the Truthwatchers, which I do not disagree with. But if I had my choice, I would choose to become a Skybreaker (thus my profile picture.) I don't have anything against the Truthwatchers, in fact, I quite like them. But even without knowing the Truthwatcher oaths, I'm probably already following them in my life. Being a Skybreaker would actually help me grow as a person as overcome some of my weaknesses. Being a Truthwatcher would, I suspect, just be me being me, and I would like to become more than I am. Not sure what it says about me that I'd rather bond a spren who is going to challenge me and help me grow as a person rather than one I'd get along with fairly well, but that's my opinion on the matter. Short answer: most likely Truthwatcher, but hoping for Skybreaker, so I answered Truthwatcher on the poll.
  22. I believe that its meant to be a feminized version of Loki/Logi. If you use the Logi name, you can see how that goes Logi -> Logna. Plus Loki has some association with fire, just like Logna, might have been associated with protection of the home, like Logna teaching humans how to bind the landwights, and Loki was considered the sibling of Odin (adopted) just like how Logna is Woden's sibling.
  23. One thing to remember is that we know that not every Inquisitor is the same, but most people did not know that. If they saw an Inquisitor with enhanced pewter do things that no other pewter-arm could do, then people are going to assume Inquisitor's break the normal limits of allomancy. If an Inquisitor had f-gold and people see them heal from what should be a lethal wound, they're going to assume all Inquisitors have impossible healing. Combine this with the fact that the Skaa didn't even know what allomancy was, and it becomes pretty clear how the Inquisitors developed their reputation.
  24. It may be a derivative of Surtr, which, as far as I know, literally means "black." It would explain his connection to the Ragnarok myth that appears in Frugal Wizard.
  25. Perhaps the best way to create lerasium would be to do so for completely scientific purposes. If you wanted to study lerasium you might be able to put yourself in the right mindset. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is not inherently about change. So if one of us got dropped into the cosmere and wanted to study the feruchemical effects of lerasium, we might be able to create it. Now, I do have some fear that if Kel manages to reach a state where he could benefit from lerasium, he would find it relatively easy to create as it wouldn't be a change for him, but rather he would see lerasium as making him more himself, which is to say a mistborn.
×
×
  • Create New...