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If you were a fullborn, what would you use your powers for?


MangoBoi101

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8 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

That analogy might indeed hold in Scadrial where emotional allomancy is a known thing, but I'd not really feel comfortable with that logic for Earth if I were the only person with the power. People know sales techniques and charisma exist, they don't know or believe that someone can just directly tweak their emotions. It would be far more powerful in a world where no one knows it's possible.

I think that stems from the idea of having a "Unfair advantage" on people, but in the end, life just isn't fair.  Some people have unfair advantages. I can reach the top shelf of pretty much any store.  My wife can't.  But she can get out of a police ticket a lot easier than I can.  

It's sort of like Adolin saying he has an unfair advantage when it comes to dueling.  He has a large build, so his reach is further.  He's had the best teachers money can buy.  He's a nobleman, so he has time to do nothing but pratice and doesn't have to deworm fields.  And he's naturally talented at it to boot.  Someone famous said that there are thousands upon thousands of mozarts, picassos, and utterly brilliant artists out in the world, but the vast, vast majority of them will never be discovered because they never picked up a paintbrush or tried learning to play the piano.  Adolin has the perfect storm when it comes to Dueling, and much of it just isn't fair.  

But that's life.  That's just how it is.  You use the talents you were given.  If you know your spouse gets anxious and overwhelmed by a dirty bedroom, but because they're overwhelmed they can't summon the energy to clean it, and therefore are always overwhelmed, then you could clean the room for them to relieve their anxiety.  Or, if you were a Soother, you could just ease the Anxidty directly, thus allowing them to clean the room themsleves and overcome that hangup.  

The only area that I sort of agree with you is sex.  While the analogy does potentially hold, as some people are just better at arousing other people than others are, it does feel a little like drugging someone if you're spiking their arousal and dampening their reservations.  Getting a date may be fine, but anything further and I'd feel like I was doing something wrong.  I think the target would need to be aware before I'd use it for those purposes.  Like, informing them you can do this and asking for permission to help them get in the mood if they're the type to always let other emotions and feelings stop them from enjoying themselves.  Which does exist.  Some people just can't get out of their own head enough to let themsleves go, even when they want to.  Having a Soother as a partner would help with that, but I think Consent is a little more necessary in that situation.

8 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Hmmm. Now that on the other hand... setting up something like a "relaxation parlor" for people with anxiety problems, phobias etc. ... that would be good.

I wonder what the bad side effects of being a soothing savant are? Because this might be good to have running pretty much all the time...

I think the effects would be more psychological.  If anyone was a savant, Breeze would have been.  He Soothed everyone he came into contact with.  I know Spook had to flair tin for a year or two before he became a Savant, but Breeze had been Soothing every person he came across for decades.  He had a psychological compulsion to do it.  He could never just let people be.  

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry to bring this up again but I have confirmation that Tasers would be an effective way to capture Fullborn.

Spoiler

ShadowBlaze

If a gold Ferring got electrocuted, would he get paralyzed and/or heal and [react normally]?

Brandon Sanderson

So he gets electrocuted. You're asking does Cosmere healing prevent you from being stunned by a taser?

Huh, what a good question. I'm going to say, and I could contradict this, so this is Word of Brandon canon until I contradict it, you could still stun them with electrical stimulation of muscles, because it's not doing any harm and it's just how muscles normally work. So I think that's a good workaround.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/360/#e10870

 

 

 

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20 hours ago, Frustration said:

Sorry to bring this up again but I have confirmation that Tasers would be an effective way to capture Fullborn.

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ShadowBlaze

If a gold Ferring got electrocuted, would he get paralyzed and/or heal and [react normally]?

Brandon Sanderson

So he gets electrocuted. You're asking does Cosmere healing prevent you from being stunned by a taser?

Huh, what a good question. I'm going to say, and I could contradict this, so this is Word of Brandon canon until I contradict it, you could still stun them with electrical stimulation of muscles, because it's not doing any harm and it's just how muscles normally work. So I think that's a good workaround.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/360/#e10870

 

 

 

Of course, you also have to hit the Fullborn. Which is hard given the massive speed + tin and zinc to avoid ambushes. Electrum and time bubbles wouldn’t hurt either.

But between electrocution, taking metals, aluminum, and outright overwhelming force, even Fullborn shouldn’t get cocky

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The WoB says "Cosmere healing", so probably Radiants too. It would work much better against them - taser probes are metal, so hitting a Fullborn with them (unless you catch them asleep or something) is not going to happen. Even before you get to Feruchemical steel, zinc, etc., just Steelpushing makes hitting a Coinshot/Mistborn/Fullborn with non-aluminum metal projectiles extremely hard.

I have to say I don't entirely like that, but then I find the rules on what counts as healable very confusing. I get that inborn / natural mental conditions that are part of who you are don't get healed, but why can Stormlight heal dementia but not drug addiction? Both are acquired damage, not innate.

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1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

The WoB says "Cosmere healing", so probably Radiants too. It would work much better against them - taser probes are metal, so hitting a Fullborn with them (unless you catch them asleep or something) is not going to happen.

Sorry to double quote, but asleep is highly unlikely. Fullborn have bronze compounding

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10 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I have to say I don't entirely like that, but then I find the rules on what counts as healable very confusing. I get that inborn / natural mental conditions that are part of who you are don't get healed, but why can Stormlight heal dementia but not drug addiction? Both are acquired damage, not innate.

Aluminum is electrically conductive, so as soon as they realize Fullborn can't push it, they will make aluminum tasers. And Aluminum is everywhere now it's just a matter of time.

I also find it confusing what can be healed, and why tasers can't be healed. The normal voltage going through your nerves is in the range of tens of millivolts, while taser voltage is even above 1000V. That's 100000 times greater, it's far from being "normal". While nerves still do conduct electricity like they should. But wasn't stormlight healing lack of oxygen explained in a way that Stormlight is providing/replacing oxygen to your body (it's described like it in books and coppermind but I bet there is a WoB on this which I can't find now)? So how is it that nerves conducting high voltage is normal, because that's what the body normally does, and stormlight provides oxygen (instead of healing damage done by hypoxia) as this is somehow what your body should do? Oxygen isn't part of your body, but electrical signals are. 

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1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Aluminum is electrically conductive, so as soon as they realize Fullborn can't push it, they will make aluminum tasers. And Aluminum is everywhere now it's just a matter of time.

I also find it confusing what can be healed, and why tasers can't be healed. The normal voltage going through your nerves is in the range of tens of millivolts, while taser voltage is even above 1000V. That's 100000 times greater, it's far from being "normal". While nerves still do conduct electricity like they should. But wasn't stormlight healing lack of oxygen explained in a way that Stormlight is providing/replacing oxygen to your body (it's described like it in books and coppermind but I bet there is a WoB on this which I can't find now)? So how is it that nerves conducting high voltage is normal, because that's what the body normally does, and stormlight provides oxygen (instead of healing damage done by hypoxia) as this is somehow what your body should do? Oxygen isn't part of your body, but electrical signals are. 

I always assumed that it just provided the energy that you usually get from respiration, as I did the math, and making oxygen atoms is so incredibly inefficient, that directly providing the energy of all the ATP you produce during respiration was unbelievably easier.

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It’s not that it can’t heal from electrical surges from a taser.  It’s that the taser is causing all your muscles to Bunche up RIGHT NOW.  It’s introducing electricity to force the muscles to clench.  Once it stops, any electrical damage would be healed. In fact, it would heal any electrical damage as it’s happening. But what causes the paralysis is not damage.  It’s just making your muscles clench.  There’s nothing to heal. 
 

Also, this settled the whole “what would happen if x planet invaded earth” debate. None of the healing abilities matter once it’s known that you can just taze them.   Living Plate would help a bit, I imagine, but maybe not. If you can somehow stick the probes on the armor and shunt thousands of bolts into it, it might do something.   Plate is metal and metal does conduct electricity, though I know the plate can protect the user from lightning. 
 

that said, it also grants a huge benefit to Scadrial in these hypotheticals, as they have electricity.  I suppose Painriels would do something similar, but either way it means the all powerful Knights Radiant, who are always held up as this unstoppable force, aren’t all that unstoppable unless they’ve hit the fourth ideal, of which very few do. 
 

I know this isn’t the conversation for that, but it still bares thought.  It’s a simple, mundane counter to “Oh, BuT tHeY cAn HeAl.”

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47 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

But what causes the paralysis is not damage.  It’s just making your muscles clench.  There’s nothing to heal. 

What causes your muscles to clench is 100000 times greater voltage from that which normally goes through your nerves, that's what I was addressing. Everything else (except for damage) is normal.

48 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Also, this settled the whole “what would happen if x planet invaded earth” debate. None of the healing abilities matter once it’s known that you can just taze them.   Living Plate would help a bit, I imagine, but maybe not. If you can somehow stick the probes on the armor and shunt thousands of bolts into it, it might do something.   Plate is metal and metal does conduct electricity, though I know the plate can protect the user from lightning. 

Not really, metal armor could act like a Faraday cage, especially since Shardplate is fully metal, without any cracks and joints. Dead plates were already proven to be lightning resistant so living ones would be for sure taser resistant. You would have to first crack the plate and shoot the probes directly into your body.

However what can be healed is probe wounds - your healing would push probes out of your body, and thus prevent further electrocution. But those probes are quite spiky, designed specifically to be hard to remove, and that can prevent healing from pushing them out - like Shallan when got shot with a bolt in her head, or Nale with an arrow, they had to pull out the arrow by hand.

57 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

that said, it also grants a huge benefit to Scadrial in these hypotheticals, as they have electricity.

They don't have tasers or portable electricity. Maybe in Era 3.

 

I must admit, I like it, despite its flaws. I always found Stormlight healing to be extremely powerful, affecting the story far too much, and if the simple solution is to tase them, it's quite a good weakness.

4 hours ago, Frustration said:

I always assumed that it just provided the energy that you usually get from respiration, as I did the math, and making oxygen atoms is so incredibly inefficient, that directly providing the energy of all the ATP you produce during respiration was unbelievably easier.

I can't prove it, or find it now, but I think there was a WoB confirming healing provides oxygen to your blood/cells, or something like that. I might be wrong, but that's what I think was told.

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6 hours ago, alder24 said:

Not really, metal armor could act like a Faraday cage, especially since Shardplate is fully metal, without any cracks and joints. Dead plates were already proven to be lightning resistant so living ones would be for sure taser resistant. You would have to first crack the plate and shoot the probes directly into your body.

Pretty much

Spoiler

polaristar

So in Words of Radiance, at the end of the book, the singers in their Stormform can summon red lightning and it's revealed Shardplate can neutralize it. I was wondering, can Shardplate neutralize ALL electric discharges or just the "special" kind from Voidlight/voidspren powered from.

And if Shardplate can defend against lightning in general is their a maximum voltage/amperage before it loses effectiveness?

nagewaza

In my mind - the plate likely acts like a Faraday cage - essentially allowing the lightning to never have a path through the user's body (electricity moving through your body is how you get injured). This would assume that Shardplate is conductive.

If they jumped, then likely the lightning would again travel through the outside Shardplate metal and then to ground - again avoiding the human altogether..... That said, small aluminum airplanes have been known to have damage to wings from strikes. In the case of Shardplate, I doubt that thermal shock or melting temperature is an issue for the material.

Brandon Sanderson

This is along the lines of what I was thinking, though I'm not sure I have a maximum volt/amp answer handy.

polaristar

Was basically asking to find out if I can use Shardplate users against Electromaster characters on /r/whowouldwin

Brandon Sanderson

Then I give you an official, "Yes you can."

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/315/#e10969

 

 

 

 

 

 

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

I must admit, I like it, despite its flaws. I always found Stormlight healing to be extremely powerful, affecting the story far too much, and if the simple solution is to tase them, it's quite a good weakness.

I 100% agree.

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

I can't prove it, or find it now, but I think there was a WoB confirming healing provides oxygen to your blood/cells, or something like that. I might be wrong, but that's what I think was told.

Are you perhaps thinking about Cadmium feruchemy?

I just looked at every WoB with 'Oxygen' in it and found nothing, which doesn't mean it isn't there, but I can't find it either.

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8 hours ago, Frustration said:

Are you perhaps thinking about Cadmium feruchemy?

I just looked at every WoB with 'Oxygen' in it and found nothing, which doesn't mean it isn't there, but I can't find it either.

No, it was about Stormlight. I also couldn't find the WoB no matter what words I used. Maybe it was some discussion on the forum and not a WoB. Anyway, it doesn't matter that much, whatever is the mechanism, Stormlight healing doesn't let you suffocate.

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