Heilven

Small correction, while holding stormlight you don't need to breathe, the stormlight powers breathing for you. Most if not all radiants go without radiants go without breathing while holding large amounts of stormlight, because opening your mouth to breathe will cause stormlight to leak out faster. I imagine using stormlight to breathe is probably more efficient than stormlight healing oxygen deprived cells, but that's a total guess on my part. Otherwise I agree with you 100% I have seem some crazy arguments on temperature in space. It's really complicated, because the energy you lose from black body radiation isn't as insubstantial as you would believe. Without being constantly surrounded by warm particles you would start to feel colder. But the side of your body pointed towards the sun would feel noticeably warmer, as there is no air to absorb and redirect the sun's light. All in all astronauts do need insulated suits so that they can warm themselves with body heat, but it's not a major concern and likely wouldn't be one for fused or radiant. Shardplate does likely mitigate all of these issues. Pressurized, will help with insulation, and likely radiation resistant. Doesn't help the fused, but could help a skybreaker. A windrunner might be able to make a bubble of air with adhesion to grab a few people without shardplate, but that's complete speculation. And of course that air would only help with pressure, it wouldn't be breathable for long.

I went the longest time misinterpreting this. I thought it was said in the books that the Fused simply choose not to lash more than once in order to better use voidlight, not that they literally couldn't, but yeah. This WoB basically confirms that: To be fair he doesn't say they only get 1 lashing, just that they are limited, but I don't think the nuance matters at all for this conversation. They cannot accelerate nearly as fast as I suggested, you are completely correct. I don't think this is true though. It's been a minute since I have read RoW and I don't have my copy right now but the coppermind doesn't suggest this. It says that Citing chapter 14 from RoW, where they meet in Kholinar. If they really are considered great builders I would assume that they are perfectly capable of making complex structures. And even if each singer can only access one essence, you could just use multiple singers. Oh this actually brings up a completely different tangent, do the singers recognize the 10 essences? Or do they forgo one (likely ishi)? Anyway I think they could make a ball. I don't understand what you mean by this. I was specifically referring to traveling from Roshar to Braize, I don't have any idea if surgebinding even works for them on Braize. About inventiveness tho, I'm going to try dig up some actual evidence but I'll describe what I mean. I have this idea in my head that one of the reasons humanity was able to survive the desolations for so long was their constant inventiveness, whereas the fused tended to stick to the same strategy every time. Something about their immortality causing them to change very slowly. Alright without a reread I think I won't be able to find evidence for that (if it exists and I'm not just making it up) so that's essentially what I mean by inventiveness. Not that they weren't smart, they are clearly extremely intelligent. More that they aren't daring, so if they try something and it doesn't work, most of them just give up. I imagine Raboniel is likely an exception to this, as she is particularly science minded. We also know that the groups of Fused are divided in a similar way that the radiants are divided, so if one group of fused is against a plan, they likely just wouldn't participate. With that inventiveness however, I think RoW helps to prove my point. Raboniel was probably looking for a way to make anti-light for a couple thousand years and never really came close. Navani got there with help in a few months. Fused seem to just be very in the box thinkers. Oh wait I get what you mean with the first quote. I was responding to this I meant that the opposite is true, they did try it during a Desolation but failed to travel from Roshar to Braize. I apologize, my wording was confusing. Oh but if you will indulge me for just a moment longer, I'm going to do some math. If we assume that the distance from Roshar to Braize is approximately the distance from Earth to Mars (which feels right based on how the rosharan system is set up) then at the shortest the distance is 54.6 million kilometers. With acceleration of .7g, your position is given by s = .35gt^2. You would want to accelerate half the time, then decelerate the other half of the time, so we should consider the time taken to travel 27.3 million kilometers and then double it. So that's 2 * sqrt(27300 million / .35g), which gives a total time of 187042 seconds. Very useful number, right. Anyway that works out to about 50 of our minutes. This is certainly within the correct value by an order of magnitude, which in my opinion makes this method of travel extremely possible. Anyway I spent wayyyy too long on this response instead of making a presentation due tomorrow so I'm going to go do that now EDIT: I went back in and checked the velocities and they are too fast so the calculation isn't valid. However, the relativity will actually make you arrive faster in your perspective, so it's actually better evidence. I might do the relativistic corrections later when I have time

As other people have said I believe the opposite is true. They specifically mention trying and failing. This could easily be explained by: 1. Heavenly ones tend not to perform more than 1 lashing, limiting their speed 2. Healing is weaker, and without adhesion you are taking constant damage due to pressure 3. They aren't inventive. I believe they say that they took a bag of gemstones and attempted to travel to braize, thinking it could be a possibility for escaping between desolations. They likely didn't bring enough voidlight, and died on the way. They then assumed it was impossible, and never tried again. I think it's very possible for them to travel to Braize. Simply use transformation to make a sealed metal ball around the heavenly one, and give them a bunch of voidlight. Much more than usual. Apply a few lashings to the ball, possibly 3, then use voidlight to breath. The pressurized ball will prevent your blood from boiling, and you should absolutely have enough voidlight to make the trip. The main issue is would be bad aim, so maybe install a window or something.

Okay yep, this is definitely true. I think there might be some narrative wiggle room, like you say you would be bullet proof on the extreme ends. So perhaps the more subtle changes would allow for bullets to have a mostly indistinguishable effect. If a bullet goes right through you at normal density, even at twice or 3 times density it should probably still go through you. I think the main issue is with any blunt damage the bullets would do. Like they should still be able to break bones, but not crack them. I'm not sure what exactly the material properties are that make armor good, since generally this isn't something you have to worry about. I assume any part of your body that works to redistribute force would become significantly more effective at higher mass. Obviously this isn't true textually, so I'm essentially trying to reason through what exactly would need to be changed. I almost wonder if it's a spirit web or identity thing. Like the investiture giving you a greater mass knows what it's effect should be, and only really applies that. So when you get shot by a bullet perhaps your identity intentionally makes your body weaker where the bullet is touching since it knows you shouldn't gain an advantage against it. This is extremely hand wavy and experimental but I think it makes a decent amount of sense in universe. It could be a potential understanding of the whole windrunner g-force problem thing too. Your physical body doesn't feel a force, but your identity or perhaps your connection to the planet tells you you should have felt one, and thus you do. We have definitely seen that identity and connection are capable of affecting things in the physical world, so I think this could be a decent understanding. It's certainly very "the magic handles it" but I like having the specific mechanism by which it is handled. It's certainly quite catch-all, but it just feels better to me.

I mean I disagree on points 2 and 3 (but agree to disagree on point 3). If you become more massive because of increased reactions via the higgs field, your density definitely increases. You are correct, density is M/V so density would increase. What I disagree with is that increasing your density must therefore increase your- actually I thought it through and I realized it has a cascading effect. I was going to say that increasing your mass in this way does not increase the electromagnetic bonds holding you together, so a bullet still tears through you just like normal. Wait no I changed my mind again because I actually thought about coloumb's law and it doesn't have anything to do with mass. So I still agree with myself. You have more mass, but the force holding your atoms and molecules together isn't any stronger. So a bullet imparts a smaller relative change in momentum to you, but still tears right through you. Basically you are harder to move (expected) but not harder to cut. Let me know if this doesn't properly track with the standard model, I'm not quite a PhD student in particle physics (Yet. I will be in a couple of years) I have very little understanding of the higgs field to be fair, and from what I know mass is just about the least defined thing we have in physics in relation to its obvious importance.

Except they aren't wearing any metal and are inside of the train. And the negatives are that he could be very easily swept off of his feet, and is more sluggish. Both things that make his fight more difficult with Miles when he uses this exact tactic. I didn't say the underlying mechanics of the cosmere. I said the full mechanics of the cosmere. He did not fully know how acceleration would work in 2018, he still doesn't quite know how iron feruchemy works. It's extremely complicated and the full physics involved requires a theory of quantum gravity, which is something we don't have in the real world. His desire to serve reader expectation does not go above his desire to maintain the rules he has set up. Besides the fact that the underlying mechanics of the cosmere were clearly not fully established, since he has had to retcon atium since then. My point is that it is not only very possible, but explicitly true that he didn't exactly know how a feruchemist punching someone would work, since he says you would have to ask Peter for the numbers in the exact WoB. That was the point I was making by bringing that point up by the way. The higgs field is a perfectly valid scientific explanation to iron feruchemy. The main problem with Iron feruchemy is conservation of energy (Which @alder24 and I have talked about, and he has talked about even more than me) since having a decent answer likely requires something akin to a quantum theory of gravity, as well as the fact that our equations for kinetic and potential energy don't correctly apply to the cosmere. I got this answer from your own quote talking about the issues with F-Iron. This is incoherent. I've asked all of my friends if they understand what you mean by this and I don't want to misconstrue your point, so please rephrase this argument. To me it just looks like a complete non-sequitur.

Uncomfortable situation being significantly heavier than normal. This would make fighting more difficult. It would make him slower, and easier to knock over. Miles takes advantage of this very fact later in the fight. Demonstrably untrue. I don't know how to debate this. This is simply an incorrect fact. Hey look that one was from 2018. So we have an example of him saying that he doesn't have the mechanics fully fleshed out not only in the exact quote you keep using, but in another quote you used from 2018. There are a million examples. He breaks the laws of thermodynamics. He also has to change several laws of physics for the world, those are the arbitrary rules. There are still rules. They just aren't the exact same as ours. They are still quite similar. And finally, on point number 3. First of all, "he just says that a feruchemist doesn't hit with a thousand pounds, meaning that in no scenario does the amount of iron someone is taping affect how hard they hit." What? So he says one thing is true, therefore something completely different is true? What? And for "Mass is not added to punches"

So in the quote you provided he explicitly says that he didn't ignore science, he actually didn't fully understand it in this example. When it comes to speed bubbles you are correct, but this is brought up in universe and clearly has an in world consequence. Brandon Sanderson is explicit in making rules and following them. They don't have to be the same rules as in the real world, but there are rules. Conservation of momentum is explicitly stated to be true in universe, and I would expect it to apply in a situation like on the train. It just so happens that it didn't apply in the way that I assumed it would. The fight with the coinshot was lower stakes, and as I have mentioned time and time again, increasing his weight just to do one punch would have been a bad idea. It is resource intensive and puts him in an uncomfortable situation. Increasing his weight tenfold was clearly not something he does lightly (no pun intended) so he didn't need to do it for the coinshot. You repeatedly ignore my math in stating that you wouldn't get a ton of benefit out of increased mass behind a punch when the consequences are as low as Wax likes them. Playing around with your mass is dangerous, and isn't worth doing in a simple brawl. Maybe if Wayne was an iron ferring he would have figured out a variety of ways to use f-iron in melee combat safely. Again, he doesn't say that you can't. That was the entire point of my post. There are other weird things with F-Iron, but if you state "we don't have all of the information, so you are definitely wrong" then why not throw out the entire argument. If there are no rules, what is the point of the debate? Anyone could say anything. I truly believe that time and time again we have given ample textual evidence and reasoning as towards this facet of Iron Feruchemy. Clearly we cannot solve all of F-Iron, but we are not attempting to. You cannot keep banking on your one argument being that "He stated you can't, so you all are ridiculous for not accepting we are right". He did not state anything of the sort, and that quote was from 12 years ago, back when he had a much smaller grasp on the full mechanics of the cosmere. If you disagree with my translation we can talk about that, but he absolutely does not say that punches from an iron ferring aren't any more powerful than normal. And that's the only argument we are trying to prove, not that you gain ludicrous strength or can vaporize people easily, just that the punch does hit with greater force.

Okay I went back and reread the chapter and this is true. I don't know if this is Sanderson forgetting about conservation of momentum, or if it is him totally understanding it and applying it to the whole train. So when wax increases his weight tenfold, he barely makes an effect of the train's total weight. I have to imagine that both him and the train slow down ever so slightly, but not enough to notice. Otherwise we are just throwing out conservation of momentum here, which Sanderson has been explicit about not doing. Anyway, the point still stands to a certain degree. Increasing his weight to a point where punching becomes effective would still be disastrous. If we assume that he can still move with no reduction in speed (which is almost certainly untrue, but simply wasn't mentioned because him moving like 80% as fast as normal / tiring himself more in order to move isn't important to the scene) he would still need upwards of 100 times his weight to do anything substantial to Miles. Also I explicitly didn't do this. I have an entire paragraph analyzing this quote in my post. I was making a point in saying that we are giving this quote more meaning than it was ever meant to have. He "spoke kinda funny" because it was offhand. We don't have to throw the whole thing out, but basing most of your argument on this quote definitely meaning that you can't punch with extra force using F-Iron is silly. And the amount of strength that you gain when tapping mass is very nebulous, likely on purpose. You don't move half as fast when twice your weight, it just takes more energy to move. You gain some nebulous amount of strength, and the relative amount of energy required to move isn't quite as high as it "should" be. "Energy" here being a stand in for "how much do I tire myself" so not Energy Joules or whatever but the colloquial use of the term. I think a reasonable guess as to how much strength you gain is "enough such that you don't just collapse under your own weight". You definitely feel heavier, so it's not giving you super strength, but it's still there. If you put 75kg on a person they would still be able to move around, so it's not a big deal for increases of mass in the 5~10x range. But in the 1000x range you would certainly see something. I bet when Wax tapped all of his mass all at once in AoL, he wouldn't have been able to walk at all, just remain standing.

Okay are you talking about this WoB? Because the questioner absolutely does not ask if tapping weight lets you punch with more force, first of all. Second of all, he doesn't say that tapping mass doesn't allow you to tap with more force. He says: Which, first of all, doesn't make much sense as a sentence. Likely because it's something he said offhand and we are reading far, far too much into it. Also he explicitly says that he doesn't quite know the math and it needed to get figured out later. Also this was from 12 years ago, before he decided a lot of stuff about F-Iron. Okay, reading into this quote too much though, loosely translated he says "When a feruchemist punches, he doesn't punch with a thousand pounds of force". There are a variety of reasons that this could be true. Tapping mass does make you move slower, and so without pewter it's mostly useless for fighting. If you are twice as heavy, but move at 3/4 speed (for example) you are barely punching any harder than normal (9/16 * 2, or 12.5% harder). This likely compounds with higher masses, meaning that an iron ferring has little use for iron in a combat situation. Also, punching someone twice as hard as normal is not as big of a deal as you are making it out to be. A basic human punches with around 1000N. A trained kickboxer can punch with 5000N. So Sazed tapping mass to make himself 5 times as heavy (which he doesn't have much stored mass for), even if he uses pewter to make himself able to move with the same speeds, only hits as good as a normal person with high end training. In this situations where Wax is in melee combat, he is absolutely not capable of these feats. Liquidating Miles might have been valuable, but would have required him to put himself in a risky situation, if that is something he is even capable of (seeing as gathering the mass required would make him very slow). Also, he couldn't liquidate Miles, only punch a hole through him. Still possibly useful, but now your arm is stuck in a guy who heals almost instantly and feels no pain. He would simply die. And if he tried using mass to help himself in the fight on the train, he would have broken the train. At the very least he would have been thrown backward as his velocity relative to the train rapidly decreased. Changing your mass while moving is a bad idea if everything else is moving too. Besides, Wax is a ranged combatant who never has to think about tapping mass to possibly increase his force, especially when there are a million downsides. All in all, an Iron Ferring is relatively useless during combat, as to see true benefits he would need to succumb to significant downsides. A Fullborn, however, could use the variety of metals he has available to punch with far, far more force than would normally be possible. At the very least it would allow him to conserve some pewter which is useful for many other tasks. Even still, a 5th ideal windrunner can out heal almost anything thrown at him. A windrunner simply has far more investiture available, and all he needs to do is defend himself as best as possible until the fullborn runs out of steel. Once the fullborn isn't moving with any real speed, a windrunner just kills him. It doesn't matter if you can see lightly into your own future if every future leads to your immediate death.

Why would he confirm you gain more force when tapping mass? That's not something anyone has asked him about. And Wax doesn't have a need to punch people 2~3x as hard, he has a gun. Why would he waste mass just to break down a door with a punch? Slamming his entire body into it is significantly more effective. And I seriously doubt the effectivity of an increased mass punch for Wax. You could maybe hit twice to three times as hard, which doesn't matter when you are fighting thugs or anyone with a goldmind. Plus it isn't something he needs to do often, so he never thinks about it. Also yeah, a tackle is a hit from the side. Of course it is the force of the whole body, who cares. Tackling is generally more effective than punching, because there's more mass behind it. The main reason you don't do it is because you end up in a more precarious situation. Tackling someone while tapping mass would also be more effective for the exact same reason that punching someone would be more effective. It's just not very useful to Wax, a primarily ranged combatant with a ton of other methods for fighting someone than using up a valuable resource that takes time to accumulate.

You are really overusing that density quote here. He figured that one out, it's manipulating the higgs field. Your density definitely does increase, you just don't have any extra electromagnetic force holding your body together(Aka, no extra stuff, that stuff just has more mass). If your fist has more mass but you can move it at the same speed, you most certainly can hit harder. But as other people have explained, increasing your mass to a point where you get a meaningful change to your punch energy, but don't fall through the floor/ground, is a very small margin. Plus, it would take a ton of stored weight for one punch. We never see anyone do it because Sazed could always tap pewter, and Wax didn't ever want to be in melee combat to begin with. The issues with Iron feruchemy come from conservation of energy, not from density. This wob is old and he has since fixed the gravity/density problem. Also I think we should be specific about retcons. He has never retconned something to say "that definitely shouldn't have been able to be possible". He has always retconned something as "that person was wrong/didn't know the full picture". So atium/nalatium simply retcons something no one was capable of actually knowing. I also think nalatium is a good retcon and he should keep that for the movies but that's just my thinking. Anyway, he doesn't ever retcon a scene to be incorrect, he very much doesn't want to do that ever. He has only retconned stuff with unreliable narrators.

Yep! Usage is a war crime because it's basically impossible to treat the wound on the field. The bullet should get stuck in the brain, which would impede all healing. I bet stormlight would keep you "alive" for a while until it just gives up and you die. Unless the healing could somehow push the shards out, but that seems unlikely. So in the future, radiants better wear helmets all the time haha

Hmm. Interesting. I was under the impression that metals could be pushed/pulled on because they are a conduit to investiture. So shouldn't something that is allomantically inert not be able to be pushed on at all?

Oh I know, that's why I said I didn't explain this well, but yeah. Basically go somewhere such that the fullborn has to use their metals to reach them, but not out of the fight. Obviously at that point the fullborn just sits and waits. But if the windrunner was like 30ft in the air, then they aren't unreachable. Even then you would probably prefer to be on the ground so that the fullborn is using steel. Stormlight leaks, but to do things on par with a radiant you have to use a hell of a lot more metals, more than you would be able to carry comfortably. Oh and on stealth killing a radiant, I think destroying the brain should work. You would have to be very careful to make sure you actually finish them off, but I imagine destroying the brain should destroy the connection to the physical realm pretty well. Perhaps they could be healed by an outside source, but so would anyone really. I'm not entirely convinced of that, but healing a completely destroyed brain feels too op imo. Oh also I came up with this a while ago but I think an aluminum alloy hollow point bullet to the brain should kill a radiant with basically no cure. Provided you can catch them off guard.