How many atium shadows does a steelrunner have?

[beantheboy12]

So. Think of this. There's a battle going on. An atium misting is dominating a battlefield. After he clears out the area he's standing in, he looks to his left and sees a steel runner's shadow attack him. So he gets ready to swing his weapon at that spot.

Now from the perspective of the steel runner, he's cruising along and is close to the atium misting when he sees that a sword is headed to where he wants to be. This steel runner is not an idiot so he attacks on the other side of the atium misting, as to not be hacked to pieces. 

Now rewind a bit. The atium misting would have seen the steel runner going to the other side and attacks there instead which therefore makes the steel runner attack on the other side. So that means that the steel runner would have two atium shadows and the atium misting would try to attack both of them, but the steel runner would see that and attack from a different angle.

It's like when Vin fought Zane in WoA. She watches Zane's movement to determine the way she attacks. Steel runners can do this too, but much better because they have plenty of time to see it all happen. So therefore, shouldn't a steel runner have dozens of shadows like when atium mistings fight? And shouldn't they be able to beat an atium misting?

[Wandering Investor]

Depends on how fast the steelrunner was moving. A steelrunner moving fast enough would be able to attack before the seer was even aware of the attack. So yes, steelrunners can counter seers. And most everything else too. If the steelrunner was moving slightly slower, then yes, they'd probably produce multiple shadows after adjusting to the movements of the seer, although probably not many shadows, just not enough time before the attack would land. 

A slightly more interesting might be a zinc feruchemist. They can speed up thoughts, in additional to stronger mental capabilities. They would be able to observe the seer moving to counter their blow, and would be able to adjust their attack, splitting the shadow. And since they're not moving as fast as the steelrunner, there is more time for the seer and zinc feruchemist to counter each other again.

[+Invocation]

Theoretically, yes, a Steelrunner could do what Vin did to Zane and react fast enough, but that's presuming they knew that they could do that. If they had F-Zinc, it would work nicely, but generally, the Seer is going to (while still burning atium) be able to counter everything a Steelrunner would do under normal circumstances.

Extensive speed is an exception.

Edit: Ninja'd

Edited January 29, 2019 by Invocation

[beantheboy12]

16 minutes ago, Invocation said:

Theoretically, yes, a Steelrunner could do what Vin did to Zane and react fast enough, but that's presuming they knew that they could do that. If they had F-Zinc, it would work nicely, but generally, the Seer is going to (while still burning atium) be able to counter everything a Steelrunner would do under normal circumstances.

Extensive speed is an exception.

Edit: Ninja'd

 

17 minutes ago, Wandering Investor said:

Depends on how fast the steelrunner was moving. A steelrunner moving fast enough would be able to attack before the seer was even aware of the attack. So yes, steelrunners can counter seers. And most everything else too. If the steelrunner was moving slightly slower, then yes, they'd probably produce multiple shadows after adjusting to the movements of the seer, although probably not many shadows, just not enough time before the attack would land. 

A slightly more interesting might be a zinc feruchemist. They can speed up thoughts, in additional to stronger mental capabilities. They would be able to observe the seer moving to counter their blow, and would be able to adjust their attack, splitting the shadow. And since they're not moving as fast as the steelrunner, there is more time for the seer and zinc feruchemist to counter each other again.

I thought of feruchemical zinc too. But also tin savants. What about those guys? 

[+Invocation]

2 minutes ago, beantheboy12 said:

I thought of feruchemical zinc too. But also tin savants. What about those guys? 

Not a chance against a Steelrunner, especially one with enough speed to break the sound barrier as we've seen before. They'd be on the ground instantly with that and getting shanked by the Steelrunner.

[Wandering Investor]

Just now, beantheboy12 said:

I thought of feruchemical zinc too. But also tin savants. What about those guys?

Tin savantism throws your senses into overdrive, but not necessarily your reaction speed. For example, in Spook's fight he was reacting to attacks extremely well, but his reactions are based on his knowledge of where the attacks are and fighting talent, not enhanced speed. He wouldn't have any better chance of splitting an atium shadow than Vin would have. Maybe even less since he can't burn pewter.

[beantheboy12]

Oh, I was talking about against seers. No chance against steel runners.

[Weltall]

Tin savant versus Seer = One dead savant. Slightly enhanced reaction speed due to those senses isn't going to do anything to split your atium shadow. If you also had A-Pewter and/or F-Zinc and some combat training you could potentially replicate Vin's trick but the increased senses alone aren't going to help much against the guy who can see what you're going to do in the future, including your (slightly quicker than normal) reactions to what the Seer is doing.

Edited January 29, 2019 by Weltall

[+Invocation]

13 minutes ago, beantheboy12 said:

Oh, I was talking about against seers. No chance against steel runners.

Tin Savant loses easily. Not a chance. My bad for misunderstanding, but either way, Bill Nye the Tineye Guy is dead.

[SwordNimiForPresident]

How fast a steel runner is moving should have no bearing on their Atium shadows. The shadows show up a predetermined amount of time before the actual movement and would therefore predict any changes the steelrunner made. IMO the scene with Vin and Zane is a plot hole. If she's waiting to see his attack, then it has already been predetermined that she will react to that attack in a certain way. Atium isn't reading someone's mind to see what they will do, it is predicting the future.

[Wandering Investor]

3 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

How fast a steel runner is moving should have no bearing on their Atium shadows. The shadows show up a predetermined amount of time before the actual movement and would therefore predict any changes the steelrunner made. IMO the scene with Vin and Zane is a plot hole. If she's waiting to see his attack, then it has already been predetermined that she will react to that attack in a certain way. Atium isn't reading someone's mind to see what they will do, it is predicting the future.

The key here is that the future in the cosmere is not set in stone. Seeing the future translates to seeing possibilities of the future. Because atium only looks a short time ahead, it is almost always right, but it can't always correct for changes that take place after the shadow was created.

As for steel runners, yes atium would likely alert the seer to the attack before it happened. But that wouldn't change the result, the seer would just be aware of their death right before it happened. The steel runner could cross a room, stab the seer, and go back to the starting position before the seer could move an inch, let alone to a blocking position.

[SwordNimiForPresident]

33 minutes ago, Wandering Investor said:

The key here is that the future in the cosmere is not set in stone. Seeing the future translates to seeing possibilities of the future. Because atium only looks a short time ahead, it is almost always right, but it can't always correct for changes that take place after the shadow was created.

As for steel runners, yes atium would likely alert the seer to the attack before it happened. But that wouldn't change the result, the seer would just be aware of their death right before it happened. The steel runner could cross a room, stab the seer, and go back to the starting position before the seer could move an inch, let alone to a blocking position.

The future is always set in stone, in any Universe. If someone gains access to Fortune and "changes" something, they were always going to gain access to fortune and make that "change". Cause and effect. They gained access to Fortune because of everything that preceded their gaining Fortune. You can follow this chain of effects back to the root cause. This is more of a philosophical/religious argument though so I'll let it die.

[+Invocation]

5 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

The future is always set in stone, in any Universe. If someone gains access to Fortune and "changes" something, they were always going to gain access to fortune and make that "change". Cause and effect. They gained access to Fortune because of everything that preceded their gaining Fortune. You can follow this chain of effects back to the root cause. This is more of a philosophical/religious argument though so I'll let it die.

I'm not a fan of the linear time theory. Multi-time-line theory is so much more fun.

But yeah, probably not the place to have this debate.

[+ILuvHats]

1 hour ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

The future is always set in stone, in any Universe. If someone gains access to Fortune and "changes" something, they were always going to gain access to fortune and make that "change". Cause and effect. They gained access to Fortune because of everything that preceded their gaining Fortune. You can follow this chain of effects back to the root cause. This is more of a philosophical/religious argument though so I'll let it die.

I’m sorry but I must continue the debate .  

The future could be set in stone in the cosmere, but that doesn’t mean Vin and Zane’s scene is a plot hole.  The way I see fortune/future sight as working is that it gives the user data on the choices a person could make, and an understanding of their personality/psyche/instincts or whatever so that the user can interpret which choices the target is likeliest to make.  Obviously the fortune user isn’t consciously going through this whole process, but I imagine it’s something like this.  So the spiritual realm doesn’t just contain the future that will happen; it contains all possible futures.  That doesn’t mean that one certain future isn’t THE future, the one that has been, is, and always will be the future.  It just means the Spiritual realm contains more then the absolute future.  So for all intents and purposes, the future isn’t set in stone because there’s no way to determine one hundred percent which possibility is THE future.  But there still is a THE future.

Hopefully I don’t sound crazy.  Also, I just realized how many times is used the word “future” but I’m too lazy to edit it.

Edited January 30, 2019 by ILuvHats

[Wandering Investor]

2 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

The future is always set in stone, in any Universe. If someone gains access to Fortune and "changes" something, they were always going to gain access to fortune and make that "change". Cause and effect. They gained access to Fortune because of everything that preceded their gaining Fortune. You can follow this chain of effects back to the root cause. This is more of a philosophical/religious argument though so I'll let it die.

Even if the future of the Cosmere is set in stone, which I don't think is is(but that's hard to prove one way or another), the ability to view the future is not perfect. The seer can tell what the most likely future is short term, but their information is imperfect, and that future can still be incorrect.

[Weltall]

2 hours ago, Wandering Investor said:

Even if the future of the Cosmere is set in stone, which I don't think is is(but that's hard to prove one way or another), the ability to view the future is not perfect. The seer can tell what the most likely future is short term, but their information is imperfect, and that future can still be incorrect.

Case in point, a character (who shall remain nameless because this is the Mistborn forum but I'm sure everyone knows who I mean) in Stormlight Archive sees a particular vision of the future. Every single vision they've had prior to this point has come true. This one... doesn't. Another character makes a conscious decision that's different than the vision showed and as a result the future in that vision never comes to pass. That vision might have been the most likely outcome of all the circumstances leading up to that point but it wasn't set in stone. Brandon has made it very clear that future-sight in the Cosmere is imperfect. Preservation himself tells Kelsier that even at his best it was difficult to tell what was merely likely to happen (meaning that even he couldn't see what would happen with certainty) and he's clearly very good at future-sight.

[Scion of the Mists]

17 hours ago, Wandering Investor said:

Depends on how fast the steelrunner was moving. A steelrunner moving fast enough would be able to attack before the seer was even aware of the attack. So yes, steelrunners can counter seers. And most everything else too. If the steelrunner was moving slightly slower, then yes, they'd probably produce multiple shadows after adjusting to the movements of the seer, although probably not many shadows, just not enough time before the attack would land. 

As @SwordNimiForPresident said, a Seer would be able to see an atium shadow regardless of how fast the Steelrunner is.  Atium shows what's going to happen a set amount of time in the future.  I do agree with the consensus that the Steelrunner reacting to the Seer's actions would allow them to nullify the benefits of atium.  

[Shardlet]

I think the number of shadows produced would be a function of both the steelrunner's speed, skill, and awareness as well as the skill and experience of the seer.  Vin was able to gack Zane because what she did was unheard of and completely unexpected.  Zane was unable to process and react to the second atium shadow because it was so far out of left field.  With the steelrunner and the seer, it seems certain that the runner could observe the initial movement of seer's counter and then change alter the attack. 

What happens next depends on the seer.  Would they react the way Zane did?  I would expect so unless Vin's trick became known to others or the seer had previously experienced someone using this trick or postulated the potential for such a trick to work.  I doubt that someone learning that trick would ever share it with others except in a relationship of extreme trust because surprise is essential for its success.   

In any case, if the seer was able to react the runner's change and reacted accordingly and if the runner had time to make a second change, then a third shadow would appear.

As to the proposed plot hole, I agree that it is a minor hole which would have been readily fixable given our present knowledge of the story.  The multiple shadows of of atium allomancer against atium allomancer is the result of essentially a feedback loop. Essentially potential stacked upon potential.  In the Vin-Zane fight, as I see it, what should have happened was that as soon as Vin reacted to Zane's attack on her future position, her original shadow should have disappeared and a new shadow appeared corresponding with her new move.  As soon as she moved, there was no longer any potential for her original action.  Thus the shadow should have disappeared.  The effect would have been the same.  Zane's confusion would have steel led to hesitation and Vin would still have triumphed.  

That being said, Brandon may have information that we don't have, ...yet, and it may be perfectly fine as written.  Time will tell.  Regardless, with the cosmere as we have it thus far, it seems a relatively minor hole at worst.

[HSuperLee]

So, clearing up what seems to be a minor misunderstanding. Vin's atium shadow didn't split because she reacted to what Zane was doing, it split because Vin used atium to see the future, which interfered with Zane's atium. Now yes, technically Vin did this by proxy, but the point is that for that brief moment, she acted upon future knowledge and created a prophetic loop. Based on this, I do believe a steelrunner would be able to replicate the effect, but I think they would have to know what they were doing. Either way, you can only react as fast as you can react, so atium still looses to massive steel speed.

[goody153]

I think only one but whether a atium burner can react to a steelrunner is another question. 

[+Invocation]

44 minutes ago, goody153 said:

I think only one but whether a atium burner can react to a steelrunner is another question. 

Mentally, I think the Seer would be able to react. Physically, not so much.

[goody153]

1 minute ago, Invocation said:

Mentally, I think the Seer would be able to react. Physically, not so much.

Yeah i had the same thoughts.

Unless the seer activated Atium before the steelrunner even went straight for him (just hit the predictive path as Atium users even dodge before anybody even does the actions ). Or if the steelrunner isn't gunning for the seer and somebody else (if Wax could get hits on Lessie steelrunning into the governor.. i think an Atium burner can do 100% better job). 

[+Invocation]

11 minutes ago, goody153 said:

Yeah i had the same thoughts.

Unless the seer activated Atium before the steelrunner even went straight for him (just hit the predictive path as Atium users even dodge before anybody even does the actions ). Or if the steelrunner isn't gunning for the seer and somebody else (if Wax could get hits on Lessie steelrunning into the governor.. i think an Atium burner can do 100% better job). 

Wax could get hits from nearly point-blank range on a Steelrunner focused on escaping and not dodging. A Seer would have many more difficulties, even discounting the fact that Wax is abnormally gifted with his guns. I don't think anything could save the Seer except a distraction or the Steelrunner's speed drying up.

[goody153]

16 minutes ago, Invocation said:

Wax could get hits from nearly point-blank range on a Steelrunner focused on escaping and not dodging. A Seer would have many more difficulties, even discounting the fact that Wax is abnormally gifted with his guns. I don't think anything could save the Seer except a distraction or the Steelrunner's speed drying up.

It didn't slow the seer down because it was a Kandra. Basically invincible but he definitely got gunshot wounds from just a distance of Wax firing. Atium automatically turns you into a god when it comes to hitting and dodging people (remember how many more times faster and stronger a Koloss can be vs just a atium burner but who is winning is pretty clear). Or how Yomen who has absolutely zero combat training made Vin look like a fool.

Atium doesn't only give you future sight but actually enchances the mind to adapt to it

A seer can definitely hit a steelrunner assuming that steelrunner isn't gunning at him/her probably.

Assuming we aren't talking about Fullborns or anything just steelrunners

Edited February 1, 2019 by goody153

[+Invocation]

2 minutes ago, goody153 said:

It didn't slow the seer down because it was a Kandra. Basically invincible but he definitely got gunshot wounds from just a distance of Wax firing. Atium automatically turns you into a god when it comes to hitting and dodging people (remember how many more times faster and stronger a Koloss can be vs just a atium burner but who is winning is pretty clear). Or how Yomen who has absolutely zero combat training made Vin look like a fool.

Atium doesn't only give you future sight but actually enchances the mind to adapt to it

A seer can definitely hit a steelrunner assuming that steelrunner isn't gunning at him/her probably.

Assuming we aren't talking about Fullborns or anything just steelrunners

I would say all of that hinges on the amount of speed the Steelrunner has stored up. Too much speed used too quickly will overwhelm even the enhancement of atium on anything other than a mental level.