fullborn/radiant

[LordFlea]

On 1/23/2021 at 7:31 AM, Rushu42 said:

I think that either one has a chance. Fullborn are powerful, yes, but the Radiant has plate, which protects them from most forms of Investiture. Plus, the Fullborn isn't even armored. Yes, they'd have gold compounding, but the Radiant also has powerful healing (especially if access to all 10 surges includes the enhanced healing abilities of the Truthwatchers). A Radiant, if they're fast enough, can soulcast the air around a Fullborn's head into metal, or sink into the ground and come up at unexpected moments. What would really be the decider, as has been said earlier, is if the Fullborn could flare chromium and wipe out the Radiant's stormlight. Without that advantage, though, I think they could be fairly evenly matched.

I don't think you understand it fully. A full born has TLR or Elend's strength of Allomancy They could throw up a Bendalloy bubble and use F Zinc to enhance their thinking speed. In less then a blink a Fullborn could use F Steel and Iron to turn themselves into and incredibly fast and heavy projectile. As they approach the Radiant they could tap compounded Pewter and punch the Radiant, obliterating their head. As they do so, flared (even duralumin enhanced chromium) to deplete the Radiant's stormlight.

 

Its not a question of tactics or abilities. Mass and speed is the only real calculation that comes into play. This also doesn't get into other abilities like Fortune, Electrum or even Ettmetal. Honestly its criminal how badly TLR lost to Vin, she wouldn't have had any shot if TLR hadn't been so cavalier.

[Rushu42]

1 hour ago, LordFlea said:

I don't think you understand it fully. A full born has TLR or Elend's strength of Allomancy They could throw up a Bendalloy bubble and use F Zinc to enhance their thinking speed. In less then a blink a Fullborn could use F Steel and Iron to turn themselves into and incredibly fast and heavy projectile. As they approach the Radiant they could tap compounded Pewter and punch the Radiant, obliterating their head. As they do so, flared (even duralumin enhanced chromium) to deplete the Radiant's stormlight.

 

Its not a question of tactics or abilities. Mass and speed is the only real calculation that comes into play. This also doesn't get into other abilities like Fortune, Electrum or even Ettmetal. Honestly its criminal how badly TLR lost to Vin, she wouldn't have had any shot if TLR hadn't been so cavalier.

Okay, yes, I see your point, but a Radiant with 10 surges also has ridiculous potential for damage. We  haven't seen a Radiant's abilities in as much detail as a Fullborn's, is the issue, but even what we do have tells us a lot. I mean, a Radiant can lash themselves at their enemy with (if you have enough stormlight) 50x the strength of gravity, since we're talking about making yourself a projectile. Or they could lash their opponent to the ground until they can't move. And that's just with Gravitation. You could Soulcast the air into flammable gas and ignite it with Division, or for that matter, Soulcast the metal in the room. Or the Fullborn themselves. Plus the Radiant has nearly invincible armor and a massive magical, sentient sword. I mean, I'm just scratching the surface of the possibilities, here! With Illumination, Transportation, Abrasion, etc. it would be nigh upon impossible to keep track of their position on the battlefield, and they have a lot more flexibility in movement without the restrictions of pushing and pulling on metal (assuming the metal survived more than a few seconds in a room with a Soulcaster).

Would it be easy to do any of this? No. And chromium would break a lot of things. But I don't think it'd be the same one-sided fight that appears to be the general consensus.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Rushu42

[Kingsdaughter613]

Just now, Rushu42 said:

Okay, yes, I see your point, but a Radiant with 10 surges also has ridiculous potential for damage. We  haven't seen a Radiant's abilities in as much detail as a Fullborn's, is the issue, but even what we do have tells us a lot. I mean, a Radiant can lash themselves at their enemy with (if you have enough stormlight) 50x the strength of gravity, since we're talking about making yourself a projectile. Or they could lash their opponent to the ground until they can't move. And that's just with Gravitation. You could Soulcast the air into flammable gas and ignite it with Division, or for that matter, Soulcast the metal in the room. Or the Fullborn themselves. Plus the Radiant has nearly invincible armor and a massive magical, sentient sword. I mean, I'm just scratching the surface of the possibilities, here! With Illumination, Transportation, Abrasion, etc. it would be nigh upon impossible to keep track of their position on the battlefield, and they have a lot more flexibility in movement without the restrictions of pushing and pulling on metal (assuming the metal survived more than a few seconds in a room with a Soulcaster). Would it be easy to do any of this? No. And chromium would break a lot of things. But I don't think it'd be the same one-sided fight that appears to be the general consensus.

The problem is that Fullborn can move too fast for a Radiant to effect. That’s basically what it comes down to. Unless the Radiant can match the Fullborn’s speed the Radiant loses.

[Rushu42]

Just now, Kingsdaughter613 said:

The problem is that Fullborn can move too fast for a Radiant to effect. That’s basically what it comes down to. Unless the Radiant can match the Fullborn’s speed the Radiant loses.

Speed doesn't matter if the air is on fire and the Radiant is in the Cognitive Realm. 

[Kingsdaughter613]

Just now, Rushu42 said:

Speed doesn't matter if the air is on fire and the Radiant is in the Cognitive Realm. 

Which, again, requires the Radiant to act BEFORE the Fullborn leeches them. And we’ve seen no evidence that they can.

[Rushu42]

Just now, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Which, again, requires the Radiant to act BEFORE the Fullborn leeches them. And we’ve seen no evidence that they can.

Are we assuming that the Fullborn can already be burning metal before the battle starts? I assumed that they were going in cold, in which case the intitial move would be simultaneous (for a practiced Radiant most surges seem to be basically instantaneous). Listen, I absolutely agree that with a strong enough chromium flare, the Radiant is effectively neutralized, and the Fullborn wins. But if we were hypothetically to ban chromium, the Radiant would have at least an even chance.

[mathiau]

1 minute ago, Rushu42 said:

You could Soulcast [...] the Fullborn themselves.

That one won't work, both A-copper and double-aluminium protect him from being Soulcast.

On the other hand a big enough block of plutonium is an already detonated atomic bomb so if the Radiant can Soulcast while deep enough in Shadesmare to survive such explosion, there's that.

2 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Which, again, requires the Radiant to act BEFORE the Fullborn leeches them. And we’ve seen no evidence that they can.

It's a contact move that shouldn't work on the plate, the Radiant can.

[Rushu42]

Just now, mathiau said:

It's a contact move that shouldn't work on the plate, the Radiant can.

Oh, I forgot that Leeching is a touch effect! In that case, I doubt it'd be possible to leech a Radiant at all. Anyway, you're right that Soulcasting, creatively applied, is OP enough to negate a lot of the Fullborn's advantages.

[Chinkoln]

28 minutes ago, Rushu42 said:

Oh, I forgot that Leeching is a touch effect! In that case, I doubt it'd be possible to leech a Radiant at all. Anyway, you're right that Soulcasting, creatively applied, is OP enough to negate a lot of the Fullborn's advantages.

If the Fullborn superspeeds, punches the Shardplate, then leeches, then the Radiant is neutralized. Soulcasting living things, especially invested ones, is difficult. It would take the Radiant time to soulcast the Fullborn, and from descriptions of Soulcasting in book, materials seem to appear like most in the air. The Fullborn would see this and move out of the way.

I agree that people are downplaying the difficulty of the fight, but the Fullborn will inevitably win.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Chinkoln

[mathiau]

Just now, Chinkoln said:

If the Fullborn superspeeds, punches the Shardplate, then leeches, then the Radiant is neutralized. Soulcasting living things, especially invested ones, is difficult. It would take the Radiant time to soulcast the Fullborn, and from descriptions of Soulcasting in book, materials seem to appear like most in the air. The Fullborn would see this and move out of the way.

Out of the way of a nuclear explosion? Or just of a strong explosion for that matter.

Also wasn't your number of PM with Chaos 3 like, last weak?

[Chinkoln]

1 minute ago, mathiau said:

Out of the way of a nuclear explosion? Or just of a strong explosion for that matter.

Also wasn't your number of PM with Chaos 3 like, last weak?

If they moved fast enough, they could outrun a nuclear explosion. A nuke doesn’t move faster than any other bomb, it is only more destructive. Era 2 proves that time can be altered enough to see a bomb explode. 
Yes, my number of PMs with Chaos was 3 until just a few days ago

[Kingsdaughter613]

53 minutes ago, mathiau said:

That one won't work, both A-copper and double-aluminium protect him from being Soulcast.

On the other hand a big enough block of plutonium is an already detonated atomic bomb so if the Radiant can Soulcast while deep enough in Shadesmare to survive such explosion, there's that.

It's a contact move that shouldn't work on the plate, the Radiant can.

Leeching can work to damage the plate, in theory. Also, plate takes a few seconds to manifest.

Both tapping and burning are as instantaneous as surges.

A Fullborn could survive a nuclear explosion as long as they were constantly healing. Ditto for a Radiant. Also, plutonium on its own is not a bomb, just a radioactive material.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Kingsdaughter613

[mathiau]

3 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Leeching can work to kill the Spren in the plate, in theory. Also, plate takes a few seconds to manifest.

Both tapping and burning are as instantaneous as surges.

A Fullborn could survive a nuclear explosion as long as they were constantly healing. Ditto for a Radiant. Also, plutonium on its own is not a bomb, just a radioactive material.

Assuming the Radiant doesn't start with his plate is a bit like assuming the Fullborn start without his metalmind.

Leeching a Spren will take time, it's just to much investiture.

A nuclear explosion would melt the Fullborn's metalminds, killing them. And yes, if you bring enough plutonium or uranium together and it explodes, it's very inefficient compared to our current methods but it's still how the first nuclear where done.

[Chinkoln]

5 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Assuming the Radiant doesn't start with his plate is a bit like assuming the Fullborn start without his metalmind.

Leeching a Spren will take time, it's just to much investiture.

The plate is a side affect of the power, not the source. If the Radiant gets to start with their plate, then the Fullborn can start the battle with their compounded speed already running.

We don’t know how long it would take to leech a spren, but even if it took time, I think that the instant the power starts getting drained, they will freeze like a deer in the headlights. In Steelheart when Larsoner steals powers, the Epic is frozen by the feeling of losing power, I expect they would react the same way. When Vin burned aluminum she felt empty, and was stunned for a time after losing power.

[Kingsdaughter613]

4 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Assuming the Radiant doesn't start with his plate is a bit like assuming the Fullborn start without his metalmind.

Leeching a Spren will take time, it's just to much investiture.

A nuclear explosion would melt the Fullborn's metalminds, killing them. And yes, if you bring enough plutonium or uranium together and it explodes, it's very inefficient compared to our current methods but it's still how the first nuclear where done.

No, assuming something we can’t discuss here would be equivalent to a Fullborn not having metalminds. Both start with ability, not manifestation.

Either way, even assuming the Radiant knows about nuclear bombs, the Fullborn can still shatter the plate and leech the Radiant before anything can be successfully soulcast.

[StanLemon]

First off, Leeching is near instantaneous. Every instance we've seen it has only taken like a second to leech things. Sure Brandon has said that heavily Invested things might take a couple of seconds but a Radiant by themselves would be leeched in only a second or two. So basically if a Fullborn speeds up and punches a hole through the Plate and leeches the Radiant the fight is over.

Secondly, plutonium alone isn't enough for a nuclear explosion and Division can't cause nuclear blasts so one happening in this fight isn't likely

Even if you started the fight with neither side utilizing Investiture, burning and tapping happen at the speed of thought basically. So as soon as the Fullborn thinks about tapping speed they are already moving faster than anything the Radiant can do. At super high speeds, they just need to walk over, punch off the Radiant's head, fight over. Compounded speed just unbalances the fight too much. If it weren't for that, I would consider it a much closer fight but it's just too powerful of a combat ability

Edited January 27, 2021 by StanLemon

[KSub]

9 hours ago, Chinkoln said:

A fullborn can heal from shardblade wounds, and if the metalminds are COMPLETELY full, they would put up some resistance to the Shardblade. And the Fullborn can theoretically kill the spren.

The Shardplate doesn’t even matter. The Fullborn is almost definitely strong enough to be able to steel Push Shardplate, so with a good anchor (or compounded weight) then they could send the Radiant flying, or they could Pull the Radiant to them and smash their plate with a compounded pewter fist.

I'm not sure that steelpushing would be effective against radiants plate and blade. The blade, at least, is a spren and can just reform. [ROW SPOILER REMOVED BY MODERATOR]

That being said, the fullborn is still going to win.

[StanLemon]

Please refrain from RoW spoilers

[AonEne]

8 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

Please refrain from RoW spoilers

^^ I've removed it, no RoW in the Cosmere forum at this time, thank you.

[mathiau]

5 hours ago, StanLemon said:

Secondly, plutonium alone isn't enough for a nuclear explosion

It factually is.

[Chinkoln]

3 hours ago, mathiau said:

It factually is.

IF the Radiant knows about nukes, and IF they can produce the exact isotope of plutonium or uranium that is needed, and IF they can then use division to split an atom (which we have no evidence of), and IF they can then survive the blast, then MAYBE this could give the Fullborn pause.

Spoiler

Quote

Phantine

At the risk of getting too technical, is there anything besides lack of knowledge preventing a soulcaster from turning some rocks into a bunch of plutonium and exploding?

I know you've got some rules attached to time bubbles to avoid those going nuclear so I wouldn't be surprised if there was something or another.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, Soulcasting isn't fission or fusion. It's a spiritual transformation process, not a physical one, and so you don't have to worry about some of these issues. There IS historical precedent of accidentally setting off fission reactions in the cosmere using the magic, but that was a different process. Soulcasting is actually pretty safe. (Well, on a grand scale.)

You could end up irradiating yourself, though, which wouldn't be very fun.

If you know what you were doing, making plutonium or uranium on Roshar wouldn't be difficult. The problem is more a matter of knowledge, and room for scientific exploration. They're unlikely to make atom bombs for the same reason they haven't made gunpowder. Once they figure out that some substances are important, they can learn to make them with Soulcasting (assuming they have Radiants) but some substances just don't occur naturally--so discovering them in the first place is difficult, and would require more modern scientific process.

Phantine

Okay, just to clarify here (since I'm not sure how up you are on early nuke designs)

A big enough chunk of uranium or plutonium will explode regardless of whether it's in a bomb or not. Early bomb designs just slammed two smaller chunks together so they'd be one big chunk.

For plutonium 'big enough' is about 35 pounds in one place - a chunk somewhere between the size of baseball and volleyball.

If I understand properly, people can soulcast from the cognitive realm into the physical, which implies once we get into a more modern stormlight setting soulcasters will make nuclear submarines look like small potatoes.

Brandon Sanderson

Slamming two chunks together so they became one big chunk seems an understatement, from what I remember. I'm under the impression that you had to use a great deal of explosive force to ram them together in order to set off a viable fission reaction. Doesn't it have to be compressed somewhat in order to react with itself?

I'll admit, it's been a long time since I've looked at this, but I remember glancing it over, and deciding that you'd need more than just soulcasting to get it to happen. Though it's not outside of reason that a soulcaster could learn to create super-dense plutonium. The problem is one of understanding, however.

Just like it's totally possible that we, with our current technology, could figure out some huge breakthrough in science allowing FTL or other incredible discoveries. But we don't have the understanding to pull it off yet.

In a modern setting, however, a lot of these complaints go out the window. Let's just say that this isn't the only reason a modern society that can instantly transmute one substance to another is potentially a very interesting place.

Phantine

You're totally right that everyone currently uses an 'implosion' style compression design. It's a lot more bang for your buck, and you need less radioactive material to work with. They're also a lot safer, because just sitting around they're well below critical mass - without the power-boosting tricks they basically can't go off.

The old "nobody uses these anymore" designs were 'Gun-Type'. Very simple - shoot a uranium bullet into the center of a uranium ring (or vice versa). Inefficient as heck (the Hiroshima bomb only fissioned 1.4% of its uranium), but also super simple to put together.

Despite being simple to build, gun-types were also super unsafe relative to modern implosion devices (among other worries, dropping a gun-type device into the ocean could potentially set it off because of how neutrons react with water). Also, getting the timing perfect on the fissile 'bullet' was a problem, so practically speaking it could only be done with uranium.

After WWII, the only use the US ever had for gun-types was in bunker busters and nuclear artillery (because of course that was a good idea).

Darn, that post turned out longer than I expected it to.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to see you make something really cool out of a post-scarcity transmutropolis setting (especially since the liespren would be in charge of nuclear treaties), and also my roommate just pointed out all the laying out of nuclear bomb details is pointless if they could just make antimatter instead. D'oh.

Brandon Sanderson

This is useful information for me, but my gut says that Rosharans couldn't get this working with their current tech level. That said, the REAL issue (as you mentioned in your original question) is knowledge, not feasibility. They'd have to know how to make the right kind of Uranium or Plutonium--and would need to be able to get this across to a soulcaster in a way that works, then THEY would need to get this across to spren. Cross that hurdle, and I suppose it's not at all implausible to imagine Alethi during Dalinar's era with nukes. I suspect the right kind of fabrial could make a trigger device to match ring and bullet at the right time. Depends on how quickly it needs to be going, though.

Stormlight Three Update #4 (Oct. 19, 2016)

 

 

Edited January 27, 2021 by Chinkoln
I put the quote in a spoiler because it was huge

[StanLemon]

5 hours ago, mathiau said:

It factually is.

Specific force needs to be applied in specific ways still. It doesn't just explode. There are several other factors as well such as shape and pressure. And Division wouldn't help as it can't be used to split atoms

Questioner

The Division Surge: does it actually split atoms or does it split the bonds of molecules?

Brandon Sanderson

It splits the bonds of molecules, it does not split atoms.

Questioner

That would be completely overpowered.

Brandon Sanderson

I have done an atom splitting magic originally in Dragonsteel. And wooow it was overpowered. So really, this is fiddling... You'll see what it does when I use it, but we'll not be splitting atoms. We're not creating nuclear reactio... or fission, so.

[Shob the Voidbringer]

just going to ask some clarifying questions 

1. is the year of preparation preparing for a fight, or just playing with the abilities?

2. are they at all aware of the opponents capabilities?

3. whats the setting of the battle, because if its in a city then the fight may or may not (depending on how fast one of them die) differ from a flat plain

4. could we establish who is holding each ability, because their actions will depend on their personality

5. you don't necessarily have to answer this, but why are we having this conversation, i mean i haven't even read mistborn (but i do know more then the average person who hasn't read it, i lost my no spoiler policy regarding it) and know a full offensive fullborn would destroy said radiant unless the radiant lashed away really fast and developed a strategy

EDIT: actually after thinking a bit i realize that the radiant might have a chance if they can soulcast the fullborn or something, but still, these are questions that need answering

Edited February 1, 2021 by Shob the Voidbringer

[Chinkoln]

46 minutes ago, Shob the Voidbringer said:

just going to ask some clarifying questions 

1. is the year of preparation preparing for a fight, or just playing with the abilities?

2. are they at all aware of the opponents capabilities?

3. whats the setting of the battle, because if its in a city then the fight may or may not (depending on how fast one of them die) differ from a flat plain

4. could we establish who is holding each ability, because their actions will depend on their personality

5. you don't necessarily have to answer this, but why are we having this conversation, i mean i haven't even read mistborn (but i do know more then the average person who hasn't read it, i lost my no spoiler policy regarding it) and know a full offensive fullborn would destroy said radiant unless the radiant lashed away really fast and developed a strategy

EDIT: actually after thinking a bit i realize that the radiant might have a chance if they can soulcast the fullborn or something, but still, these are questions that need answering

1. They have 1 year to practice with abilities, they don't know about the fight yet.

2. They do not know about their opponent's abilities, they only know that it is their job to destroy the opponent.

3. They are on a Shardworld that is neither Roshar nor Scadrial

4. No, a personality would possibly give one person an advantage over the other. We don't want to know which character would beat the other, we want to know whether a fullborn would beat a radiant.

5. We are having the conversation to determine who would win when immensely strong magic systems are pitted against each other. I agree that the only way for the radiant could win is if the radiant soulcasts the fullborn. The only issue is that the Fullborn will be moving at incomprehensible speeds, and they will be highly Invested, which means that the Raidant will have a difficult time soucasting them.

[Shob the Voidbringer]

1 minute ago, Chinkoln said:

1. They have 1 year to practice with abilities, they don't know about the fight yet.

2. They do not know about their opponent's abilities, they only know that it is their job to destroy the opponent.

3. They are on a Shardworld that is neither Roshar nor Scadrial

4. No, a personality would possibly give one person an advantage over the other. We don't want to know which character would beat the other, we want to know whether a fullborn would beat a radiant.

5. We are having the conversation to determine who would win when immensely strong magic systems are pitted against each other. I agree that the only way for the radiant could win is if the radiant soulcasts the fullborn. The only issue is that the Fullborn will be moving at incomprehensible speeds, and they will be highly Invested, which means that the Raidant will have a difficult time soucasting them.

thanks, but for 3 i was wondering if their in a city, or a forest or something, just like generic areas, not what shardworld or planet their on. also, this is a little mind-bloggling because there are to many variables, like the radiant might soulcast something into metal which would be a big mistake