Mistborn Adventure Game is out! (Possible Spoilers)

[Satsuoni]

Could you add cats as a playable race, while you are at it ?

[Arcanist Lupus]

Guys, have you noticed this bit in the Bendalloy section?

A physical attack made through the bubble, whether held or thrown, is robbed

of its kinetic energy, often with an audible “pop.”

Could this be what we are looking for when trying to figure the FTL space travel thing?

This statement seems to violate several things from Alloy of Law: first, Wax's "shooting the bullet" scene, and the danger of being shot while inside a cadmium bubble.

[PeterAhlstrom]

Not really. A bullet shot out of a speed bubble IS robbed of kinetic energy—not all of it, but just enough to slow it down to the speed it would have been moving at had it been fired outside the bubble in the first place.

[Arcanist Lupus]

Not really. A bullet shot out of a speed bubble IS robbed of kinetic energy—not all of it, but just enough to slow it down to the speed it would have been moving at had it been fired outside the bubble in the first place.

Does that mean that a bullet shot into a speed bubble gains energy?

[Kurkistan]

Does that mean that a bullet shot into a speed bubble gains energy?

Ding ding ding ding! We have a winner for FTL travel, especially if you reverse this for Cadmium bubbles.

EDIT:

Actually, I missed that Aiken Frosts's post was what started the ball rolling. Give that man a cookie!

Edited December 22, 2011 by Kurkistan

[name_here]

Huh. And here I'd been thinking it simply appeared to lose kinetic energy because of the change in apparent velocity caused by time dilation.

So, does it lose kinetic energy if it gets cancelled out by a Cadmium bubble instead of leaving through the edge? I mean, I suppose that if the bubble drops it loses kinetic energy or otherwise dropping a bubble while moving would cause you to go splat, but bubble interactions are less clear.

[ulyssessword]

Ding ding ding ding! We have a winner for FTL travel, especially if you reverse this for Cadmium bubbles.

EDIT:

Actually, I missed that Aiken Frosts's post was what started the ball rolling. Give that man a cookie!

I can't see how this would work. Let's say that you have a 1 000 000x time compression cadmium bubble (due to being a savant boosted by nicrosil/duralumin?). In order to reach (internal) light speed, you would need a (external) speed of 300 m/s, or slightly slower than a handgun's bullet. This seems quite easy at first glance, but I don't think that there is any way to apply an external force to an internal object, which would be the only way to reach those speeds.

[Kurkistan]

I can't see how this would work. Let's say that you have a 1 000 000x time compression cadmium bubble (due to being a savant boosted by nicrosil/duralumin?). In order to reach (internal) light speed, you would need a (external) speed of 300 m/s, or slightly slower than a handgun's bullet. This seems quite easy at first glance, but I don't think that there is any way to apply an external force to an internal object, which would be the only way to reach those speeds.

I have a rather simple way to apply an external force to an internal object - Tether them together.

My Model #1; assuming anchored cadmium bubbles:

Build a teardrop shaped ship, the vast majority of which can be contained within a cadmium bubble (which we can presumably anchor to the ship somehow), with only the "sharp" part capable of protruding. Make the sharp part, henceforth known as the "engine," retractable/extendable.

Drive use:

1. Start up the cadmium bubble with the engine retracted.
   
2. Extend the engine at a speed of X relative to the rest of the ship until it exits the bubble.
   
3. The part of the ship which pierces the bubble will accelerate relative to the rest of the ship, attempting to reach a speed of X in normal space (or X*(compression factor) from the perspective of the bubble).
   
4. Because the rest of the ship, within the bubble, is (very very very) firmly attached to the engine, the ship within the bubble must necessarily accelerate to match, within the bubble, the speed that the section outside the bubble appears to be traveling.
   
5. The larger part of the engine's energy will go to accelerating the rest of the ship, reducing the engine to speed Y in real space and accelerating the bulk of the ship to Y*(cf) inside the bubble.
   
6. We now have a piece of ship in normal space, traveling at speed Y, towing a cadmium bubble, the contents of which are traveling at speed Y*(cf) within the time compression.
   
7. Retract the engine back into the bubble, necessarily losing some amount of energy as the rest of the ship is forced to accelerate the engine up from Y to Y*(cf). We could detach engines each time and replace with a new one to avoid this energy loss. That is very wasteful, though, so let's not.
   
8. Rinse and repeat.
   

Note: The speeds are all relative to the frame of reference of the ship before it extends the engine each time.

Model #2; cadmium bubbles not anchored to ship:

This one is actually easier, now that I think of it.

Make the ship whatever shape you want, although I would suggest more of a needle shape for the purpose of structural integrity. No moving parts necessart for an engine. The ship does not need to fit within a cadmium bubble, and can be of any size so long as the section affected by the time bubble is symmetrical around a straight line for direction of travel. Impart some measure of velocity to the ship such that the ship will move through any bubbles created.

Drive use:

1. Start up a cadmium bubble along the ship's center-line.
   
2. The section of the ship abutting the bubble will quickly exit the stationary bubble, achieving an internal acceleration effect identical to Model #1, as well as accelerating any part of the ship which is outside of the bubble.
   
3. The rest of the ship, now moving faster, will continue to exit the bubble, accelerating the ship exponentially as more of the ship exits into real space.
   
4. Eventually, the Pulser will exit the bubble, popping it.
   
5. Cast more cadmium bubbles, with your rate of acceleration limited only by how quickly the Pulser (rotating shifts of Pulsers?) can re-cast cadmium bubbles, since the ship will quickly accelerate to what amounts to infinite speeds.
   

Model #2 is actually still a better model than a telescoping "engine" if you can control where cadmium bubbles are anchored. In that case, just move the anchor towards the back of the ship to create acceleration, and towards the front to decelerate.

EDIT:

Braking:

For Model #1, either just turn the ship and use the engine to decelerate or have an entirely separate "anchor" (read: engine on the back) mounted on the back of the ship, making it a diamond instead of a teardrop.

For Model #2, I can only think of using Bendalloy bubbles somehow, since the time bubbles are determined by a frame of reference independent of the ship.

EDIT 2:

Or, to tweak Model #2 so that the entire ship and it's contents needn't be strong enough to sustain such stresses, you could rig an out-runner of some kind to take the brunt of the weirdness while still accelerating the ship.

Perhaps you could design and use only the very ends of the ship to mess with the fabric of space and time using time bubbles, pushing or pulling the main body of the ship along. You could even site an "engine room" in the middle, if you felt like it.

Edited December 23, 2011 by Kurkistan

[ulyssessword]

I have a rather simple way to apply an external force to an internal object - Tether them together.

My thought is that an object is either fully inside of the bubble or fully outside of it. The transition is what deflects bullets, jostles people etc. If objects transitioned at a strictly defined boundary I can't see how they could pass through it without huge amounts of physical damage, either being pulled apart or smashed flat.

Specific issues I see (and how to get around one of them):

1. Cadmium and Bendalloy bubbles must be anchored to a planet. This was from a recently posted set of answers from Brandon.

A thought experiment: what if you walk at a constant speed up to the edge of a cadmium bubble, and swing your arm forward, passing outside? This mirrors your proposed drive (#1), but I'm fairly sure that the person would not go shooting off in the direction that their arm drags them (alternatively, just their arm goes shooting off. It's quite a bit of force.)

2. For every part of the ship that leaves the cadmium bubble and gains (objective) speed, another part enters, losing the same amount.

Another thought experiment: Set up a cadmium bubble across a moving train, large enough to cover one train car. As the first car begins leaving the bubble, it tries to increase in objective speed. At the same time, the second car is entering the bubble, and it is trying to decrease in speed. These two forces are equal, which results in no acceleration.

Furthermore, all of the passengers passing through the bubble would die. The passengers maintain a consistent local velocity, while the train maintains a constant objective velocity. This means that for a train travelling at 30 m/s (objective) through a 10x compressed time bubble, the passengers would have to keep up with a train going 300 m/s (local) while they are inside of the bubble, then slow back down to 30 m/s (local) when they leave. EDIT: your edit 2 avoids this.

Edited December 23, 2011 by ulyssessword

[Kurkistan]

My thought is that an object is either fully inside of the bubble or fully outside of it. The transition is what deflects bullets, jostles people etc. If objects transitioned at a strictly defined boundary I can't see how they could pass through it without huge amounts of physical damage, either being pulled apart or smashed flat.

Specific issues I see (and how to get around one of them):

1. Cadmium and Bendalloy bubbles must be anchored to a planet. This was from a recently posted set of answers from Brandon.

A thought experiment: what if you walk at a constant speed up to the edge of a cadmium bubble, and swing your arm forward, passing outside? This mirrors your proposed drive (#1), but I'm fairly sure that the person would not go shooting off in the direction that their arm drags them (alternatively, just their arm goes shooting off. It's quite a bit of force.)

2. For every part of the ship that leaves the cadmium bubble and gains (objective) speed, another part enters, losing the same amount.

Another thought experiment: Set up a cadmium bubble across a moving train, large enough to cover one train car. As the first car begins leaving the bubble, it tries to increase in objective speed. At the same time, the second car is entering the bubble, and it is trying to decrease in speed. These two forces are equal, which results in no acceleration.

Furthermore, all of the passengers passing through the bubble would die. The passengers maintain a consistent local velocity, while the train maintains a constant objective velocity. This means that for a train travelling at 30 m/s (objective) through a 10x compressed time bubble, the passengers would have to keep up with a train going 300 m/s (local) while they are inside of the bubble, then slow back down to 30 m/s (local) when they leave. EDIT: your edit 2 avoids this.

I'm not so sure about Model #1 now, actually. Is it possible that the energy gained/lost from the engine exiting/entering the bubble would even out completely? I think we still get a win, but I wrote it up the first time around assuming that the entire ship would instantly accelerate to X*(cf) for some reason .

I knew I had an issue with Model #2! I just kept thinking "oh, wait, doesn't that mean that we could also. . ." and adding things on. You're right there: we need to make sure that the amount entering the bubble is less than the amount leaving it. I suppose that my "dedicated drive pods" could ensure that, then.

Edited December 23, 2011 by Kurkistan

[Arcanist Lupus]

Kurkistan, the main problem I have with both your engines is that Brandon has specifically said that Allomancy has FTL built into it, and my understanding of relativistic physics is that that means going from point A to point B without crossing the intervening points. No matter how fast you accelerate, you can't exceed the speed of light via normal travel.

ulyssessword, I agree that an object is either entirely in or entirely out of a bubble. However, what defines an object? Are two rocks tied together 1 object, or three? (2 rocks + 1 rope). If they are three objects, then you still have to deal with interactions between the two "time zones". If they are one object, then what makes them one object? I think that an "object" is defined in the Cognitive Realm, but that's just a theory.

[Chaos]

It's a byproduct of them doubling as game terms. Note that we actually don't capitalize them in cases where we refer to the actual in-world metals (e.g. "He picked up a bar of pewter..."), but rather only when they're addressed as Powers (e.g. "Your Hero can use Iron to..."). We find it really helps when reading the product as a game.

That should about cover it for now. I'm watching the thread and will pop back in if anything comes up.

Have fun, and stay Crafty!

Sure, you focus in on my comment

And yeah, reading it, I see why you did it. I'll get over it (with some minor grumblings, haha). Tis cool.

[Eerongal]

Does that mean that a bullet shot into a speed bubble gains energy?

i dont't know....that idea doesnt sit quite right with me....

At first glance (at a sleepy 2:30 in the morning), this idea appears to break conservation of energy, and usually brandon's works appear to jive pretty nicely with physics, and this wouldn't (unless its burning off matter to add this new energy....which would be bad....VERY bad....).

"Losing" energy is a whole lot easier than gaining energy, for example, the loss from the bullet entering and slowing gives off an audible "pop", so it effectively just burned off its extra energy as sound waves (which are energy).

Just because the effects are equally opposite doesn't necessarily mean the manner in which they are achieved have to be perfectly mirrored as well. The only way i could see the speed bubble GRANTING it energy is if it took it from the speed bubble itself (outside of burning matter that is) which could effectively "burn" off your bubble.

Also, sir-read-a-lot is right that in einstein's model of physics, no matter how much you accelerate you can never reach, let alone surpass, the speed of light via acceleration, you can only get infinitesimally closer, which would be another way that speed bubbles would break physics, which would be incredibly strange that

[CrazyRioter]

Brandon admits in the RPG that he *has* broken physics with some aspects of allomancy and/or feruchemy so.....

[Eerongal]

Brandon admits in the RPG that he *has* broken physics with some aspects of allomancy and/or feruchemy so.....

Don’t forget the laws of physics (at least, the ones we aren’t breaking)!

Are you talking about that quote? I don't know, that doesn't seem to be saying "Yes, these magic systems defy physics" so much as "Remember the normal world rules except for the ones the powers are letting you 'ignore' for game purposes".

I just honestly need convincing with good reasons for it before i'll accept one situation seemingly following physics and the slightly reversed version apparently horribly breaks it. Granted, if peter says that it works that way, then I'll just live it

edit: also, thinking about it a bit more, i don't see this letting you achieve FTL travel, either. Even if it allows you to break physics, accelerating *TO* the speed of light requires *INFINITE* energy, so even assuming you could finagle it to give you infinite energy, you still couldnt go FASTER than light, since you could never have more than INFINITY energy

[Satsuoni]

Are you talking about that quote? I don't know, that doesn't seem to be saying "Yes, these magic systems defy physics" so much as "Remember the normal world rules except for the ones the powers are letting you 'ignore' for game purposes".

I just honestly need convincing with good reasons for it before i'll accept one situation seemingly following physics and the slightly reversed version apparently horribly breaks it. Granted, if peter says that it works that way, then I'll just live it

edit: also, thinking about it a bit more, i don't see this letting you achieve FTL travel, either. Even if it allows you to break physics, accelerating *TO* the speed of light requires *INFINITE* energy, so even assuming you could finagle it to give you infinite energy, you still couldnt go FASTER than light, since you could never have more than INFINITY energy

I still think that it does unspeakable things to spacetime, rather than actually accelerating. You know, preserving local speed while changing global speed, etc. Also, wrong topic, no?

[fyodor]

On a side note, I noticed that there were a few discrepancies in how the Inquisitors were powered vs. the books.

1.The standard inquisitors and Marsh do not appear to have Pewter allomancy.

2.WoA era Marsh has Steel and pewter Feruchemy. I had been under the impression that the Inquisitors only had gold Feruchemy until the end of WoA/beginning of HoA.

[name_here]

They got some Feruchemical powers partway through WoA, then went completely spike-happy by HoA.

[callumke]

On a side note, I noticed that there were a few discrepancies in how the Inquisitors were powered vs. the books.

1.The standard inquisitors and Marsh do not appear to have Pewter allomancy.

2.WoA era Marsh has Steel and pewter Feruchemy. I had been under the impression that the Inquisitors only had gold Feruchemy until the end of WoA/beginning of HoA.

1. I think this is an in-game balance issue. It stops the Inquisitors being to powerful.

2. Standard Inquisitors have this anomaly too. I think this must be an error.

With the above, I think they stopped Inquisitors having pewter allomancy because of their feruchemy. But their feruchemy is wrong. Looking at the inquisitor Vin and Elend kill at the start of the HoA, it has 5 steel spikes and 4 bronze ones (and a pewter one). This would give all the basic 8 allomantic powers, and probably double pewter.

Also, I think it was said somewhere that not all inquisitors have the same spikes. So maybe some have those described in the RPG. But I think Marsh is off.

PS I think it is funny they added Marsh at the start of HoA, not the end. By the end, he is described as having over 20 spikes. I've been trying to count them all, and havn't yet reached 20. That Marsh would be very powerful. Game-breakingly so.

[fyodor]

I noticed the "standard" inquisitors error too, but I just chalked it up to the inquisitors not being tied to a specific time. So they're plausibly HoA era inquisitors.

WRT to the different spikes, I thought that was in reference to the healing spikes and/or Atium. I'm pretty sure that we don't see any inquisitors who are visibly missing Pewter and a bunch are described as having Pewter abilities.

1. I think this is an in-game balance issue. It stops the Inquisitors being to powerful.

2. Standard Inquisitors have this anomaly too. I think this must be an error.

3. I think that there's a quote somewhere implying that Marsh has a bunch of double-powers. The RPG certainly gives him some double allomantic powers. He presumably has the 8 basic allomantic spikes, 8 basic feruchemical spikes, atium, duralumin, and a few double spikes (steel, iron, pewter, etc).

With the above, I think they stopped Inquisitors having pewter allomancy because of their feruchemy. But their feruchemy is wrong. Looking at the inquisitor Vin and Elend kill at the start of the HoA, it has 5 steel spikes and 4 bronze ones (and a pewter one). This would give all the basic 8 allomantic powers, and probably double pewter.

Also, I think it was said somewhere that not all inquisitors have the same spikes. So maybe some have those described in the RPG. But I think Marsh is off.

PS I think it is funny they added Marsh at the start of HoA, not the end. By the end, he is described as having over 20 spikes. I've been trying to count them all, and havn't yet reached 20. That Marsh would be very powerful. Game-breakingly so.

[Eerongal]

I still think that it does unspeakable things to spacetime, rather than actually accelerating. You know, preserving local speed while changing global speed, etc. Also, wrong topic, no?

well, technically that's how you achieve apparent FTL in theory in our modern world. The speed of light changes based on various conditions (like gravity), and when it changes so to does your "max" speed, so in theory if you could sufficiently warp space-time to change the speed of light (significantly, that is), you could technically achieve "FTL" travel. This is actually perfectly "acceptable" under einstein's laws.

Example: Say the speed of light = 1, and you can easily get up 50% the speed of light. Lets say you also can warp space time to make your light speed = 3. In the first scenario, you end up going .5, but when you warp space time, you end up going 1.5, which is faster than the standard light speed, but is still not technically faster than light, since light in your local area is still going faster.

That said, if the bubble is actually messing with how much kinetic energy something has, then that kinda implies that its accelerating/decelerating it...

also: yeah, kinda off topic, but its still fun to discuss

[Kurkistan]

@"You can't exceed light speed" comments. As CrazyRioter pointed out, something simply has to give in order for FTL to be achieved. My "drive pods" provide as much energy as you could ever want. In the real world, this might not be enough, but it's my understanding that all FTL is capable of violating causality and doing other unspeakable things to reality.

well, technically that's how you achieve apparent FTL in theory in our modern world. The speed of light changes based on various conditions (like gravity), and when it changes so to does your "max" speed, so in theory if you could sufficiently warp space-time to change the speed of light (significantly, that is), you could technically achieve "FTL" travel. This is actually perfectly "acceptable" under einstein's laws.

Example: Say the speed of light = 1, and you can easily get up 50% the speed of light. Lets say you also can warp space time to make your light speed = 3. In the first scenario, you end up going .5, but when you warp space time, you end up going 1.5, which is faster than the standard light speed, but is still not technically faster than light, since light in your local area is still going faster.

That said, if the bubble is actually messing with how much kinetic energy something has, then that kinda implies that its accelerating/decelerating it...

also: yeah, kinda off topic, but its still fun to discuss

I like this very much.

I was focusing on providing propulsion, but if you simply kept the entire ship contained within a cadmium bubble at all times (or N overlapping cadmium bubbles, for greater effect), then you could use either conventional propulsion or a smaller version of my drive pod with it's own cadmium bubble, the drive pod always contained within the main bubble, to accelerate infinitely close to light speed within the bubble.

This assumes that we can anchor cadmium bubbles, but if we can, then what an outside observer will see is a cadmium bubble whipping through space at just about c*(cf*N), while the ship within the bubble is only traveling at infinitesimally less than c.

EDIT: Mistake made. Swap in bendalloy bubbles to surround the ship, keep cadmium for the drive pod.

EDIT 1.5: Or swap in bendalloy for the drive pod too and reverse the direction you move it to achieve acceleration/deceleration.

Edited December 24, 2011 by Kurkistan

[Eerongal]

I like this very much.

it's basically the whole "warp bubble" thing you always see in si-fi stuff. However, it hinges on the idea that cadmium would indeed warp space-time (and warp it sufficiently hard enough) to actually affect the speed of light. Which isn't a bad position to take (its certainly a PLAUSIBLE idea. After all, time is all ready warped, why not space?), but isn't certainly something we could just take as "oh yeah, it could certainly do that, no doubt" for a fact

[Kurkistan]

it's basically the whole "warp bubble" thing you always see in si-fi stuff. However, it hinges on the idea that cadmium would indeed warp space-time (and warp it sufficiently hard enough) to actually affect the speed of light. Which isn't a bad position to take (its certainly a PLAUSIBLE idea. After all, time is all ready warped, why not space?), but isn't certainly something we could just take as "oh yeah, it could certainly do that, no doubt" for a fact

Actually, I just realized that I made a rather significant mistake. You need bendalloy bubbles around the ship to achieve this. A cadmium-bubbled ship would actually be traveling at c / (cf*N).

I guess we need to hope that duraluminum/nicrosil can increase bubble sizes, or rely upon very small ships.

Edited December 23, 2011 by Kurkistan

[Eerongal]

I guess we need to hope that duraluminum/nicrosil can increase bubble sizes, or rely upon very small ships.

Or you could just "chain" bubbles together. That is, overlap them on the edges at the same strength to achieve total area coverage.