Bronze Allomancy vs. Life Sense

[Trusk'our]

Which is better for detecting investiture? A Seeker burning bronze, or an Awakener holding Breaths?

[StanLemon]

38 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Which is better for detecting investiture? A Seeker burning bronze, or an Awakener holding Breaths?

I'd say Bronze. Life sense as far as we've seen at least only gives someone a generic sense of Investiture which is focusing on detecting living beings. A-Bronze on the other hand can theoretically detect any kinetic Investiture and with training can be interpreted enough to have an understanding of what that Investiture is doing.

[Trusk'our]

2 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

I'd say Bronze. Life sense as far as we've seen at least only gives someone a generic sense of Investiture which is focusing on detecting living beings. A-Bronze on the other hand can theoretically detect any kinetic Investiture and with training can be interpreted enough to have an understanding of what that Investiture is doing.

Definitely true, but Allomantic bronze can only detect kinetic investiture under normal circumstances, while Life Sense can detect non-active investiture.

Not saying you're wrong, I just wanted to point out the advantage that Life Sense has, is all.

[StanLemon]

Just now, Trusk'our said:

Definitely true, but Allomantic bronze can only detect kinetic investiture under normal circumstances, while Life Sense can detect non-active investiture.

Not saying you're wrong, I just wanted to point out the advantage that Life Sense has, is all.

While it's true that Life Sense can detect non-active Investiture it seems to be limited. It's been a little while since I read Warbreaker, so I might be remembering this wrong, but I recall that it was considered safe to hide Breaths in objects without actually Awakening them. I don't think this would work if Life Sense and Aura Perception weren't limited to only detecting Investiture in living things. Albeit, admittedly I recall that information being provided by Denth so it probably needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Also, considering how much we don't know about Awakening and Breaths, there could be a tweak to detect more than living beings like how Bronze can be tweaked to detect more than Allomancy.

[Trusk'our]

Just now, StanLemon said:

While it's true that Life Sense can detect non-active Investiture it seems to be limited. It's been a little while since I read Warbreaker, so I might be remembering this wrong, but I recall that it was considered safe to hide Breaths in objects without actually Awakening them. I don't think this would work if Life Sense and Aura Perception weren't limited to only detecting Investiture in living things. Albeit, admittedly I recall that information being provided by Denth so it probably needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Also, considering how much we don't know about Awakening and Breaths, there could be a tweak to detect more than living beings like how Bronze can be tweaked to detect more than Allomancy.

That's true, I forgot that you can't sense the investiture within Awakened objects or Lifeless (I'm pretty sure you can't, at least). That actually makes sense then, since a Returned can somehow suppress their Divine Breath within themselves and not have it be sensed by Awakeners, which would imply that Life Sense can't actually detect all forms of investiture.