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Portland Signing 1/16


Windreader

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If you would like to ask a non-cosmere question, here are some I would like to know

 

'What are Oculatory Distortions precisely?'

 

'What's the difference between Prime Talents and normal Talents'

 

'Do you know where each of the main Epic's powers lie on David's scale?'

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Here are my questions:

 

  • What were the names of the other three Outer Cities around Elantris?
     
  • When a Mistborn uses Chromium on a Thug, removing his pewter, does the Mistborn experience a burst of strength? Does he actually "leech" the Thug's pewter into himself?
     
  • If one were to submit a bead of atium to a modern chem lab for analysis, what interesting stuff would they find?
     
  • Can Chromium Leeching be blocked (or at least be weakened) by Copper Allomancy?
     
  • How important is metal in fabrial science?
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  • How important is metal in fabrial science?

 

If I were to ask that question, I would rephrase it to include a scale of some sorts. For example:

  1. Not actually needed
  2. Useful, but on par with other materials
  3. Useful, and preferred over other materials
  4. Mandatory
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I'd honestly be shocked if he managed to answer the Elantris cities question without referring to his notes.

He might remember one or two names, and that would be enough to make me happy. I guess the question can be rephrased into something more useful: "Will the people of Arelon begin to repopulate the three Outer Cities they've previously abandoned? What were the names of those cities?"

 

If I were to ask that question, I would rephrase it to include a scale of some sorts. For example:

  • Not actually needed
  • Useful, but on par with other materials
  • Useful, and preferred over other materials
  • Mandatory

 

That would be helpful, yes. But I'd be fine if the question was asked as is. Making Brandon choose a specific level of usefulness seems RAFO-bait to me.

Edited by skaa
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Is an acceptable Awakening Command "Divide and conquer?" Specifically, if I have a felt human mannequin, died red, and I picture it splitting up and all the bits running around, would said command work? How much breath would it require?

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Ask if a Mistborn who became one by eating a bead of lerasium would burn through metals faster.

 

Why do you think that would be the case? Lerasium-created Mistborn are much stronger than your average Final Empire Mistborn, so he or she can flare their metals for higher gain (and therefore burn through them faster than somebody with a "regular" flare), and their base advantage in strength doesn't come from their faster burn, it comes from a stronger burn - more bang for their buck, so to speak.

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Why do you think that would be the case? Lerasium-created Mistborn are much stronger than your average Final Empire Mistborn, so he or she can flare their metals for higher gain (and therefore burn through them faster than somebody with a "regular" flare), and their base advantage in strength doesn't come from their faster burn, it comes from a stronger burn - more bang for their buck, so to speak.

I realize that now. I meant to edit that post and retract the question, but I forgot. I need to reread the Mistborn Trilogy, obviously.

@Argent

That's my intuition as well, but I can't recall if we have a WoB actually telling us that stronger Allomancer => more bang for the buck.

I couldn't find one either. He is very tight-lipped on lerasium.

Joe: merged, just use the edit button

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That's an excellent question. The precedent of duralumin seems to suggest that a more powerful mistborn does burn through metals faster. Duralumin grants great power, but it does so by burning the metal all at once. Either Elend, as a more powerful mistborn, follows this model, in which case he is stronger due to an ability to burn metals faster than anyone else, or it follows a different model, meaning it could be anything.

 

This feels like the sort of thing he'd have a good chance to answer, and the answer could end up telling us a lot about the fundamental models of allomancy. If he does burn metal faster, that would be strong evidence for the idea that there's only so much "power of preservation" any given physical volume of metal can possibly convey, regardless of the method of accessing that power.

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Ask him what happened in Oregon since Megan hinted in Steelheart that it is now a wastelandSeeing that the signing will be in Portland and we have no back story on what happened in Oregon (other than the one created by our lovely forum-mates), I'd like to see if he could expand on that. 

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That's an excellent question. The precedent of duralumin seems to suggest that a more powerful mistborn does burn through metals faster. Duralumin grants great power, but it does so by burning the metal all at once. Either Elend, as a more powerful mistborn, follows this model, in which case he is stronger due to an ability to burn metals faster than anyone else, or it follows a different model, meaning it could be anything.

 

This feels like the sort of thing he'd have a good chance to answer, and the answer could end up telling us a lot about the fundamental models of allomancy. If he does burn metal faster, that would be strong evidence for the idea that there's only so much "power of preservation" any given physical volume of metal can possibly convey, regardless of the method of accessing that power.

 

Well, Sanderson has said multiple times that Allomancy isn't derived from the metals, but directly from Preservation's power.  The metals are just the "catalyst," if you will. So duralumin burns up all the catalyst, but the power is still there. 

 

From the way Sanderson describes it, I have a picture in my head of a "pipe" between the Allomancer and Preservation, and the metal is the gate on that pipe, determining when (and which) power can be released.  How much power is released is determined by partially by how far you open the gate (i.e. how fast you burn the metal) and also by the width of the pipe.  Burning Lerasium the first time creates a pipe.  Burning Lerasium again makes the pipe wider. But if you burn Lerasium once and then go make, say, 10 or 20 generations of children, the pipe will naturally get a little smaller in each succeeding generation.  

 

As each succeeding generation is born, the pipe will get a little smaller and a little smaller until, eventually, to get the same amount of power an original misborn would get out of a "regular" metal burn, the current generation of mistborn would practically have to use duralumin. (This is where we picked up in the first Mistborn book, I believe.)

 

I think this maps well to the Harmony era, as well, since Sazed would have two reasons for nerfing allomancers.  First, he didn't want anyone to be able to become a new Lord Ruler.  Second, I think he also didn't want people to be able to tap into Preservation's power in nearly as significant a way, since his very nature is now to keep Preservation and Ruin balanced.

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Ask about Felt or WalDo.

Ok, After I read this I saw that one of my colleagues was wearing a red and white horizontally stripped sweater...which made me think that ANYBODY who asks Brandon a question about WalDo, should do so in a Waldo costume...because then maybe he'll think it's funny and actually answer?

LX9201-Adult-Where-s-Waldo-Kit-Small-Med

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Someone did at the last event I went to! Brandon asked if his name actually was Waldo and was sad when the answer was no...
 

Well, Sanderson has said multiple times that Allomancy isn't derived from the metals, but directly from Preservation's power. The metals are just the "catalyst," if you will. So duralumin burns up all the catalyst, but the power is still there.

 

That is pretty much what I said, except that the metal is not, in fact, a catalyst. It's confusing since I think he himself used the word catalyst, but a catalyst would remain unchanged by the reaction. If the metal were a true catalyst, you would never run out of metals. Even a flake of steel in your stomach would let through Preservation's power until it's broken down by your stomach or passed in processes unrelated to allomancy. That's not the case. I believe there's a term for something like this, something that behaves as a catalyst except for the fact that it is, in fact, used up in the chemical reaction, but I can't recall it.

The very phrase "duralumin burns up all the catalyst" should clue you in that it cannot, therefore, be a catalyst.

I'm not sure what point you're bringing up here? You don't directly address my point. I know that it's a connection to Preservation's power, I even mention that it's a connection to Presevation's power, but the fact remains that metal is "used up" to forge that connection, and this gives us two limits. One is how much of the metal you can burn as a function of time, and the other is the total limit of the mass of the metal. The model we have for duralumin shows that when one limit is manipulated, the other reacts accordingly; in order to gain more of Preservation's power as a function of time, you must more rapidly go through as much metal as you have. I believe there's a WoB out there about savantism which also pertains. He basically says that with practice and training, you're able to burn metals at a higher rate, and flare at a higher rate, to get more power. This is essentially what savantism is. Spook gets more power from his tin, but he has to gulp down enormous quantities of it to sustain the burn. More power, more metal.

So, as I propose, the current model for duralumin or savantism is that to gain more power, you need to burn through metal faster. Either lerasium Mistborn follow this model and Elend must burn through metals faster than Vin does, or they really are able to burn metal more efficiently than their successors, which would then give us a third metric by which to measure the power of allomancy, which would be enormously exciting.

Lastly, there's a WoB out there (which I will try to find) saying that Allomancy is like a waterwheel, that the power of Preservation flows to spin the wheel and produce energy but that doesn't diminish the river. Basically, you don't weaken Preservation, no matter how much Allomancy you do.

Edited by Oudeis
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