Jump to content

How to defeat Atium


Fourth of the Knight

Recommended Posts

I think we sort of already know this, 

There's (1) using aluminium. Which we know can't be predicted.

There's (2) brute force, or super speed, or throw grenades around someone such that they couldn't escape the blast, etc. Basically, overwhelm the limits of either the atium's ability or the human's body. 

There's (3) Vin's trick, react to the atium user. 

There's (4) use electrum.

There's (5) catch the atium user unawares, sleeping, or by surprise. Remove the atium from the equation. 

There's a final (6) of using a weapon that gives no visual cue. 

I'd say (7) as well, put the atium burner in a position where burning atium doesn't allow an advantage. We see this with Yomen, he only burns atium after Elend releases him.

On 7/3/2016 at 9:09 PM, king of nowhere said:

would it? A subatomic particle is not in a place, it has a certain probability of being in a certain area; it is nowhere and in many places at the same time. It's not like throwing a dice. If you throw a dice, you get a chaoticaly unpredictable trajectory, but still something that can be calculated with enough computational power. A supercomputer could do it, a shard could do it better. But a subatomic particle could not be predicted that way. If you could see it, it would not leave a neat atium shadow. So I surmise that kind of random would defeat even atium.

Yeah, of  course augmenting your speed with steel is the better method, since your reaction time is so fast you can defeat the atium burner no matter what he does - if effectively counts as checkmating him. But it lacks style.

Another way would be through colorless poison gases or bacteriological weapons, since those give no visual clues and therefore leave no atium shadows.

To weigh in on this; I think the issue here is that for the purposes of atium, a path is set unless someone uses atium, uses a response to the atium (Vin's trick) or burns electrum (also a form of future-sight).

To clarify, under normal circumstances, an atium shadow is not a prediction, it is a fact. If you see someone raise their hand, every time this future will occur, they will raise it. If you see a bullet fly through your chest, you know someone has shot you. 

Now physics isn't my specialty, chemistry is closer, so forgive me hijacking your metaphor, but I'll use halflives instead, but my understanding is that, for instance, in radioactive decay you know that half the radioactive particles will decay in a given unit of time, and half of these will decay in the same amount of time again. You do not know, however, which particles this will be.

If you were to link each atom to a gun, somehow, such that each time an atom decays the gun fires, an atium user could still predict them because they know the future. It doesn't matter that it hasn't happened yet, because it will. So I don't think probability or randomness matter, the only things that do matter are capacity to see the future on the behalf of the opponent, or if the object is realmatically complex (such as aluminium). 

 

 

We even get an idea of this from SA where we know that seeing the future is like watching a mirror breaking, the near can be foreseen to an extent, the very far is a conditional guess, or mere possibility. Atium is the super-near, and thus it's concrete unless countered by an appropriate force.

 

On 7/4/2016 at 6:02 PM, Yata said:

I don't know, to me the random idea can't work.

Atium isn't mind reading where if I made something without thinking of it, my enemy can't avoid it. Atium is (extremely limited) future sight...A Seer may see every shoot with precision a second before it starts. The random factor means nothing in this case. it's like (Very Cosmereless example) if some part of the Seer's mind is in the future and see the attack already shot...then warn the rest of the Mind.

Yes. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Dr. LIFE said:

The atium shadows show all of the possible paths they could take. i'm sure that they must follow one of them. 

I'm pretty sure people only have one atium shadow unless they, themselves, are burning atium or electrum. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, Savanorn said:

I'm pretty sure people only have one atium shadow unless they, themselves, are burning atium or electrum. 

Zane commented that Vin's atium shadow split when she reacted to his reactions of her atium shadow. She wasn't burning atium then. Splitting atium shadows is about reacting to the reactions caused by atium shadows. Normally people without atium can't do this, which is why their shadows remain linear.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Zane commented that Vin's atium shadow split when she reacted to his reactions of her atium shadow. She wasn't burning atium then. Splitting atium shadows is about reacting to the reactions caused by atium shadows. Normally people without atium can't do this, which is why their shadows remain linear.

 

Haha I know that. I covered it above. I just get tired of saying exhaustive stuff like "things only have one atium shadow, unless it's aluminium, then they don't have any at all, and if you also burn electrum or atium there's a heap. Also you can shadowsplit and use someone else's atium burn to respond to their future knowledge to split your shadow."

See, I was responding to Life, as my impression of what he was saying was that people naturally have multiple atium shadows such that any action a person takes must follow one of them.

Whereas we know that to split a shadow, you need to have some future knowledge or reaction.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm talking about that if both people are burning atium, they both must follow one of the atium shadows they are throwing off. So if you can avoid being hit by any of the opposite persons atium shadows you should be safe. As long as you have atium so you can see multiple shadows.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/2/2016 at 2:34 AM, Dr. LIFE said:

I'm talking about that if both people are burning atium, they both must follow one of the atium shadows they are throwing off. So if you can avoid being hit by any of the opposite persons atium shadows you should be safe. As long as you have atium so you can see multiple shadows.

Ahhh. Sorry.

Hrm.

Hrm.

I think you're right, but I'm pretty sure the various atium shadows will change, they will disappear and alter themselves as part of the future feedback effect. Further, I'd guess that at any given time there'd be multiple atium shadows that could touch you, because there are so many things an opponent could do.

But escaping from effective distance would work to keep you safe, for sure.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...
On 10/28/2016 at 3:05 PM, Savanorn said:

I'm pretty sure people only have one atium shadow unless they, themselves, are burning atium or electrum. 

Yes (unless you're Vin and hack the system.) If both Mistborn are burning Atium, then each person will throw off multiple, ever changing Atium shadows. If one Mistborn avoids all of the other's Atium shadows, then he will never be hit by the person himself. The atium shows all possible futures, which means that the one that will happen is still shown. it is difficult to avoid all of them yes, but with enough skill/speed, mental or physical, (preferably both) it is possible to beat atium as long as you also have atium. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/2/2016 at 8:56 PM, asterion137 said:

i would imagine that the best way to kill a seer would be with explosives. Seeing the future doesn't help if no matter how you move you're going to die.

Yes, because atium only lets you look so far into the future - even with a godlike ability to process what you see there, if the ability to escape an deadly event is beyond that time window, it's game over. Like rigging a building full of aluminum shrapnel bombs and luring the Seer/Mistborn deep into its depths.

Oops, it appeared I've contributed to the resurrection of a zombie thread. Sorry! I was right to feel like I'd thought about this topic before :)

Edited by robardin
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Chaos locked this topic
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...