Lord Joped Posted August 7, 2017 Report Share Posted August 7, 2017 I was in a thread and saw someone make a crack about Ruin messing with Ebooks of WoR. This got me thinking... would Ruin be able to modify the data on a hard drive or a solid state disk? My thought is that He would be able to modify a SSD, but not a hard drive. This is because a SSD is made of semiconductors, which would be iffy metals, but a Hard rive would be a solid no, as it is made of metal. Discuss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathrangking Posted August 7, 2017 Report Share Posted August 7, 2017 In principle i suppose that a hard drive could not be effected by ruin because it is something written in metal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taliax Posted August 7, 2017 Report Share Posted August 7, 2017 I guess it depends on how Ruin would go about doing things. If he can just change the appearance of the words on the screen, does that involve metal? If he has to go all the way to the actual data in the hard drive though I would say no, he can't. And there might be so much metal in a computer/iPad/whatever that Ruin couldn't read what's on the screen in the first place. Love this question! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathrangking Posted August 7, 2017 Report Share Posted August 7, 2017 Ruin would hate the modern world with a fiery passion!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weltall Posted August 7, 2017 Report Share Posted August 7, 2017 8 hours ago, Nathrangking said: Ruin would hate the modern world with a fiery passion!! Well why do you think he was so keen on ruining Scadrial before it could get to that point? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathrangking Posted August 7, 2017 Report Share Posted August 7, 2017 I'm not so sure that he would have been keen on Scadrial even if they lived in the stone ages. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hwiles Posted August 9, 2017 Report Share Posted August 9, 2017 (edited) Presumably, anything not literally inscribed in metal can be altered by Ruin's power; for example, he can change the contents of copper minds, despite their being made of metal. Pretty sure he also changes a message Leras' Cognitive Shadow tried to draw in some dust to communicate with Elend at one point, though I can't recall off-hand which book. Since Scadrial's technology is slated to grow and advance with a heavy focus on the metallic arts, I would assume that their advanced fourth-era computers will utilize copper feruchemy, as the information storage density of a coppermind apperas to be at least equal to (and potentially wildly greater than) what the best real-life technology can achieve. In which case, Harmony could totally manipulate and censor their internet... EDIT: Plus, the bandwidth of copper feruchemy is fantastically greater than any currently available or theoretical technology that I'm aware of. Edited August 9, 2017 by hwiles 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cometaryorbit Posted August 14, 2017 Report Share Posted August 14, 2017 I believe Ruin gets to the contents of copperminds while the information is in some kind of Cognitive limbo during storage or transfer. The reason Ruin can't alter stuff written in metal is because it's blindingly bright to the perception of Scadrial's Shards - he can't see what's there precisely enough to alter it. Similarly, TLR's Obligators could work in metal-lined rooms to blind Ruin to what they were doing with the atium geodes - he couldn't see through the walls. So I think as long as the information is in the Physical Realm and the hard drive is made of proper metals (can you Allomantically Push/Pull on metalloids like silicon? Probably not...), Ruin would be blind to it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oversleep Posted August 14, 2017 Report Share Posted August 14, 2017 On 10.08.2017 at 0:41 AM, hwiles said: In which case, Harmony could totally manipulate and censor their internet... And he could troll people on the internet... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathrangking Posted August 14, 2017 Report Share Posted August 14, 2017 3 minutes ago, Oversleep said: And he could troll people on the internet... Though not too much because people need to be able to choose to say what they wish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oversleep Posted August 14, 2017 Report Share Posted August 14, 2017 2 minutes ago, Nathrangking said: Though not too much because people need to be able to choose to say what they wish. I think he could make some exceptions... (source) 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hwiles Posted August 14, 2017 Report Share Posted August 14, 2017 8 hours ago, cometaryorbit said: I believe Ruin gets to the contents of copperminds while the information is in some kind of Cognitive limbo during storage or transfer. The reason Ruin can't alter stuff written in metal is because it's blindingly bright to the perception of Scadrial's Shards - he can't see what's there precisely enough to alter it. Similarly, TLR's Obligators could work in metal-lined rooms to blind Ruin to what they were doing with the atium geodes - he couldn't see through the walls. So I think as long as the information is in the Physical Realm and the hard drive is made of proper metals (can you Allomantically Push/Pull on metalloids like silicon? Probably not...), Ruin would be blind to it. I failed to mention this before, but I believe Sanderson has thus far declined to clarify how Ruin altered people's copperminds. Your proposed method, that Ruin could alter the information while it's being stored into or tapped out of the coppermind is one possibility; and a rather good one at that. Another is that Ruin may have only been able to alter the copperminds of people with hemalurgic spikes; in the pre-Lord Ruler days, I believe keepers were among the people who used hemalurgic earrings to intentionally commune with Ruin as part of their religion. Another possibility is that, since both Ruin and Preservation can directly fuel feruchemy with their Investiture, I'll look for the WoB later, but this has been explicitly stated, he might just be able to screw with copperminds with absolute impunity. Even when Ruin knew precisely what was written on a metal plate, as well as the font size and precise placement of every letter, he couldn't alter it; Sazed made a rubbing of the plate in the basement of the Inquisitor's temple, yet I believe it's stated that the plate remained inaccessible to Ruin's manipulations. I think there's more to this limitation than just an inability to see the writing. You made a good point about the obligators working in a metal box to blind Ruin. If you got a metal PC case you might be able to protect your personal data from Harmony no matter what medium you stored it on. Shielding an entire planet-wide network from Harmony might be possible; granted, he could always use Kandra to manipulate networks the old-fashioned way: by introducing holes in network security or hacking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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