Magic vs Technology mistborn edition

[+robardin]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

All of that is true. But as I've mentioned in this topic, WW1 technology can't kill a Fullborn. An Army of Mistborn, Mistings and Ferrings (I think there are 20k Metalborn in Era 2), supported by a Fullborn, would wreak havoc in WW1 lines. Fullborn alone can march from Berlin to Paris uninterrupted. They can't stop him. 

Yeah, but that doesn’t mean the Solo Fullborn can actually conquer France.

To borrow the maxim from Stormlight Archives, “Shardbearers can’t hold ground.” Neither can Rashek the Super-Fullborn: he needs the support base of people to form a government behind/under him to form a Final Empire, instead of just Rashek Rampaging As He Will.

[alder24]

Just now, robardin said:

Yeah, but that doesn’t mean the Solo Fullborn can actually conquer France.

To borrow the maxim from Stormlight Archives, “Shardbearers can’t hold ground.” Neither can Rashek the Super-Fullborn: he needs the support base of people to form a government behind/under him to form a Final Empire, instead of just Rashek Rampaging As He Will.

Give him enough time and he will do that - and rule the kingdom full of ashes and skull, nothing else.

WW1 trenches are susceptible to flanking maneuvers. Wherever Fullborn shows up, he will cut deep into enemy's positions, collapsing the whole frontline, outflanking the enemy lines - and Scadrial's army will follow behind him. Trenches will become useless when the enemy is already behind your lines. Tactics of WW1 are just not fitted to fight a Fullborn.

[cometaryorbit]

4 hours ago, robardin said:

Indeed, nothing disrupts steam locomotive rail lines (if they existed) like, oh, moving around land masses and creating enormous Ashmounts out of whatever used to be there…!

We know that he basically formed the core of the final Empire starting with the Empire that Alendi had assembled before going up that mountain with him, convincing ten (all?) “lieutenant kings” under Alendi to serve him instead with a display of Fullborn power and the lure of lerasium beads for them and their descendants to become Mistborn and Allomancers.

So with that plan in mind, he likely shuffled things around to preserve that core Empire more than other areas he intended to conquer.

That would also explain how he could have twiddled humanity into “noble” and “skaa” subgroups while Ascended, but only providing the lerasium beads for Allomancy to founders of the Ten Great Houses afterward: “noble blood” was identified with Allomancy after a couple of hundred years, but initially, the “nobles” were probably just people from that core existing “Empire” he inherited (and expected to garner quick support from), and “skaa” were the people from the other areas to be conquered into the FE.

This seems likely. Rashek started with an established core of an empire, and bribed kings with lerasium; he didn't conquer everything just starting with his own powers.

Also, koloss can apparently eat whatever. Apparently that was what was decisive in his war against Wednegon.

I think he'd ultimately still have won if fighting an intact early 1800s infrastructure, but it would have taken a lot longer (the fact that the last "meaningful combat" was when food shortages from the Deepness were still relevant suggests it only took a few years at most*) and he'd probably have ended up wrecking most of that infrastructure anyway.

*though Rashek conquered Urtan "relatively late in his first century of life"; given how young he was when he went to the Well, that's probably at least 40 years later. I guess he did the big conquests quickly and took time absorbing the little places?

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

Give him enough time and he will do that - and rule the kingdom full of ashes and skull, nothing else.

WW1 trenches are susceptible to flanking maneuvers. Wherever Fullborn shows up, he will cut deep into enemy's positions, collapsing the whole frontline, outflanking the enemy lines - and Scadrial's army will follow behind him. Trenches will become useless when the enemy is already behind your lines. Tactics of WW1 are just not fitted to fight a Fullborn.

A Fullborn might be able to single-handedly destroy the enemy army (or even civilization), but not necessarily prevent the enemy army from destroying his own side first.

Not only because of the sheer time it would take to hunt down every unit of the enemy, but also, battleships standing well offshore and bombarding cities isn't a tactic a Fullborn can automatically counter. The range of a WW1 Dreadnought battleship's main guns is far greater than even a Duralumin Steelpush. If the Fullborn is there he can protect one spot probably (massive compounded Iron for weight, compounded Zinc and/or Steel for reaction time, Allomantic Steel to Push away shells) but only one spot.

-

I say might, because we don't know how effective things like F-Chromium or A-Electrum are at preventing surprises/traps. A large explosion will kill even a Gold Compounder, so a Fullborn invading enemy territory isn't 100% invulnerable if the enemy has had time to prepare.

An electricity trap would also work, but might be harder with WW1 tech.

I don't think we can automatically assume A-Electrum will help much: Vin and Elend didn't know it was usable for anything other than countering A-Atium (despite Vin's exceptional Allomantic intuition), so getting much use out of it might take a level of focus and practice that'd be mostly reserved for a Misting rather than someone with 31 other powers to practice with.

I don't think it's necessarily fair to assume a "generic" Fullborn would have an exceptional level of skill in every metal. They're more than powerful enough without that assumption. I'd expect them to be really good at the most common/straightforward/powerful ones (F-Steel, F-Gold, F-Pewter, likely F-Zinc and F-Iron; A-Pewter, A-Steel/Iron, A-Zinc/Brass), reasonably capable at the other common ones (copper, bronze, etc), and basic ability at the others.

--

Also, what happens when the other side figures out aluminum works against Allomancy? I think a machine gun load of aluminum bullets would probably at least incapacitate a Fullborn. F-gold might keep him alive but not necessarily let him move or function with a completely shot up body, and eventually he'd run out of health (and any charged gold left in his stomach) and die.

Edited May 11, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[therunner]

10 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

An electricity trap would also work, but might be harder with WW1 tech.

Electricity was quite old news by WW1, WW1 is about as as far from comprehensive theory of EM (and many inventions are older than the theory) as iPhone is from invention of integrated circuit.

It is within their capabilities to e.g. electrify a ship so Fullborn cannot land on it, or to create electromagnets strong enough to strip Fullborn of most of his combat metals (so no superspeed for him).

With that in mind, you could design a trap.

[cometaryorbit]

8 hours ago, therunner said:

Electricity was quite old news by WW1, WW1 is about as as far from comprehensive theory of EM (and many inventions are older than the theory) as iPhone is from invention of integrated circuit.

It is within their capabilities to e.g. electrify a ship so Fullborn cannot land on it, or to create electromagnets strong enough to strip Fullborn of most of his combat metals (so no superspeed for him).

With that in mind, you could design a trap.

Oh I know they had electricity, I was thinking about the lack of things like tasers to "weaponize" electricity in a small and easily concealed form.

[therunner]

25 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Oh I know they had electricity, I was thinking about the lack of things like tasers to "weaponize" electricity in a small and easily concealed form.

Ah, apologies for misunderstanding then

I am not sure if small concealed is best bet again Fullborn, I would personally go for large scale effects they cannot easily dodge even with A-Electrum, hence electromagnets to strip them of some metalminds.