Why doesn't the Godking get more respect?

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

This isn't necessarily geared directly towards Sus but towards the 10th heightening itself.  

I know the answer is most likely just the lack of healing.  

That aside what other powerhouses in the cosmere do you suspect have better kits that literally being able to raise armies, of flesh or stone or even just fabric, with the speed of thought. I know there are potentially some more devastating abilities out there (we haven't seen a ton from Division), but what else can come close to being able to command the very clothing of your enemies to strangulate them and crush them with your mind?  

We saw in TLM that strangulation at least chews through healing quickly.  Add on bone crushing constriction and you have a fairly quick way to sap even healing investiture.  

I don't think we really know range limits of the silent awakening but how do you stop that kind of power?  

There is legitimate counter to the Godking though.  Only fight in an open field and make sure you are fighting in the nude. 

With investiture resisting investiture do you suppose that the 10th heightening is in danger from other direct investiture attacks?  Awakening some armor and nightblood 2.0 could make serious gains to his being able to one shot anyone and survive a whole heck of a lot of punishment regardless of the inability to heal.  

For me the biggest downside is the aura.  I really don't want the world to know if I am a high level heightening. I'm looking always for potential ways to hide it while being able to use awakening.  Part of me thinks copper allomancy is a good start to dampening your aura but how strong in copper would you have to be to truly hide yourself? 

Either way why do you suppose this is slept on in power conversations.  What other op uses am I missing or what glaring weakness am I overlooking?  Of course the breaths cost and the whole no healing thing.  But other than that what would be the downside?  

[alder24]

2 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

That aside what other powerhouses in the cosmere do you suspect have better kits that literally being able to raise armies, of flesh or stone or even just fabric, with the speed of thought

You mean the speed of dead bodies accumulating? To make Lifeless you need dead bodies in good condition, tons of ichor alcohol on top of that.

And the answer is Rashek.

3 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

but what else can come close to being able to command the very clothing of your enemies to strangulate them and crush them with your mind?  

Rashek. He can move faster than Susebron can think. Bondsmith could simply disconnect those Breaths from their command or something like that. Elantrian can survive decapitation, he simply wouldn't care.

4 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

We saw in TLM that strangulation at least chews through healing quickly.  Add on bone crushing constriction and you have a fairly quick way to sap even healing investiture.  

Tap pewter to rip fabrics into pieces. Tap cadmium to breathe. If they don't restrict your arms, summon a Shardblade, or use your knife and just cut it.

5 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I don't think we really know range limits of the silent awakening but how do you stop that kind of power?  

Either be nude, or be faster, or be smarter, or be Bondsmith, or be Elantrian etc.

8 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

With investiture resisting investiture do you suppose that the 10th heightening is in danger from other direct investiture attacks?

What kind of direct investiture attacks? Shardblade? Possibly. Emotional Allomancy no. A normal knife? Definitely will kill you. Not being able to heal is a big deal.

9 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

For me the biggest downside is the aura.  I really don't want the world to know if I am a high level heightening. I'm looking always for potential ways to hide it while being able to use awakening.  Part of me thinks copper allomancy is a good start to dampening your aura but how strong in copper would you have to be to truly hide yourself? 

You can either invest Breaths in your clothes, or in the same way you suppress a Divine Breath.

11 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Either way why do you suppose this is slept on in power conversations.  What other op uses am I missing or what glaring weakness am I overlooking?  Of course the breaths cost and the whole no healing thing.  But other than that what would be the downside?  

Yes and no. Susebron, or better Vasher with 50k Breaths, can do a lot. However comparing him to other top Cosmere powers, like Fullborn, Elantrian, or Bondsmith, it isn't that impressive any more and just can't compete in a fight. 

[Aredor he/him]

10 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

This isn't necessarily geared directly towards Sus but towards the 10th heightening itself.  

I know the answer is most likely just the lack of healing.  

That aside what other powerhouses in the cosmere do you suspect have better kits that literally being able to raise armies, of flesh or stone or even just fabric, with the speed of thought. I know there are potentially some more devastating abilities out there (we haven't seen a ton from Division), but what else can come close to being able to command the very clothing of your enemies to strangulate them and crush them with your mind?  

We saw in TLM that strangulation at least chews through healing quickly.  Add on bone crushing constriction and you have a fairly quick way to sap even healing investiture.  

I don't think we really know range limits of the silent awakening but how do you stop that kind of power?  

There is legitimate counter to the Godking though.  Only fight in an open field and make sure you are fighting in the nude. 

With investiture resisting investiture do you suppose that the 10th heightening is in danger from other direct investiture attacks?  Awakening some armor and nightblood 2.0 could make serious gains to his being able to one shot anyone and survive a whole heck of a lot of punishment regardless of the inability to heal.  

For me the biggest downside is the aura.  I really don't want the world to know if I am a high level heightening. I'm looking always for potential ways to hide it while being able to use awakening.  Part of me thinks copper allomancy is a good start to dampening your aura but how strong in copper would you have to be to truly hide yourself? 

Either way why do you suppose this is slept on in power conversations.  What other op uses am I missing or what glaring weakness am I overlooking?  Of course the breaths cost and the whole no healing thing.  But other than that what would be the downside?  

Well, I have a fun idea of what the godking could do to cause mass destruction : carry a normal sword around. Once he gets threatened, he holds the sword and tells it to "Destroy Evil." He then throws Nightblood 2 into the army / at his opponent, making it look like he just dropped his super powerful weapon. The opponent picks Nightblood up, and because the opponent most likely wants to use Nightblood for "evil" purposes, they get absorbed into him. Doesn't matter if the opponent is an Elantrian, a mistborn, or a Radiant. Nightblood will eat them all. 

Warbreaker Annotations- Nightblood's definition of evil

Quote

What they decided was evil was someone who would try to take the sword and use it for evil purposes, selling it, manipulating and extorting others, that sort of thing. 

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Ookla the Vacant

[therunner he/him]

1 hour ago, Ookla the Vacant said:

Well, I have a fun idea of what the godking could do to cause mass destruction : carry a normal sword around. Once he gets threatened, he holds the sword and tells it to "Destroy Evil." He then throws Nightblood 2 into the army / at his opponent, making it look like he just dropped his super powerful weapon.

You would not create another Nightblood that way, at best you would probably get something like worse version of the sword Azure has.

Endowment was involved in creation of Nightblood, Godking won't replicate that.

[Duxredux he/him]

Part of it is that we haven't really seen an experienced Awakener with the upper Heightenings go all out. We've largely seen them fight relatively ordinary people, including that handicapped fight between Zahel and Kaladin. At the upper Heightenings that's where we start getting conflicts like the Manywar, the Battle of Twilight Falls, and the creation of Kalad's Phantoms. The most dramatic uses of Breath are largely historical and vaguely explained.

Part of this is that Awakening is a much younger and poorly understood art. Rashek had 1000 years in addition to information learned at the Well of Ascension to structure an empire and hone his abilities. Ishar is multiple times Rashek's age and the other Bondsmiths are bonded to ancient Spren with millenia of experience. Susebron is a child compared to all of that experience. Had Vasher chosen to remain God-King and experiment instead of living as a pacifist hobo, maybe he could have gotten closer to their levels, but Nalthis and Awakening both are too young with Nalthis lacking even a fossil record. If you think about it, figuring out Awakening at all requires people learning how to give up their Breath in the first place.  Type III BioChromatic entities which allow for the most experimentation require far more people willing to become a Drab. It makes sense historically why it's behind instinctive Allomancy or Surgebinding that literally had help from Shards in the accessing and utilization of their abilities. Honor gave humanity Honorblades which by itself is a huge advantage in the learning curve.

A large part of it is simple exposure. I know this is a sore topic, @Tamriel Wolfsbaine, but Mistborn has 7 full books and Stormlight has 4 massive installments. Warbreaker has 1. We've seen the Bands of Mourning in use, Ishar fighting Radiants and discussed the Oathpact. We haven't seen that much of Awakening since 2009, just hints and pieces - though Nightblood gets distinct and honorable mention as the only thing not a Shard or Dawnshard to kill a Vessel as far as we've seen.

 

I think it's quite possible that if the understanding of Awakening progresses to the level of the Metallic Arts and Surgebinding it might enter the same limelight, but I don't think Nalthis has been cited as one of the major powers in the space age conflicts. For that matter, the Metallic Arts and the Knights Radiant might be so powerful due to their nature as dual Shard granted abilities allowing for resonances and in-system hacking like Compounding. Nalthis just has Endowment.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Duxredux

[Trusk'our he/him]

19 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

There is legitimate counter to the Godking though.  Only fight in an open field and make sure you are fighting in the nude. 

Or just pull out a gun and shoot them. No Invested healing and not enough physical or mental speed to dodge a well-placed bullet.

I think that there are ways a competent Awakener could avoid or minimize such attacks (as you suggested perhaps some Awakened armor could do that with the right Command but would almost certainly be quite expensive in Breaths and like Nightblood may require additional injections of Investiture to continue functioning, particularly if it needs to repair itself like Shardplate), but not nearly as easily as many other Invested Arts.

So, I don't know that it's not about Awakening being weak or unable to be used effectively in combat, it's just that it isn't as good as many other Invested systems for combat.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

7 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Part of it is that we haven't really seen an experienced Awakener with the upper Heightenings go all out. We've largely seen them fight relatively ordinary people, including that handicapped fight between Zahel and Kaladin. At the upper Heightenings that's where we start getting conflicts like the Manywar, the Battle of Twilight Falls, and the creation of Kalad's Phantoms. The most dramatic uses of Breath are largely historical and vaguely explained.

Part of this is that Awakening is a much younger and poorly understood art. Rashek had 1000 years in addition to information learned at the Well of Ascension to structure an empire and hone his abilities. Ishar is multiple times Rashek's age and the other Bondsmiths are bonded to ancient Spren with millenia of experience. Susebron is a child compared to all of that experience. Had Vasher chosen to remain God-King and experiment instead of living as a pacifist hobo, maybe he could have gotten closer to their levels, but Nalthis and Awakening both are too young with Nalthis lacking even a fossil record. If you think about it, figuring out Awakening at all requires people learning how to give up their Breath in the first place.  Type III BioChromatic entities which allow for the most experimentation require far more people willing to become a Drab. It makes sense historically why it's behind instinctive Allomancy or Surgebinding that literally had help from Shards in the accessing and utilization of their abilities. Honor gave humanity Honorblades which by itself is a huge advantage in the learning curve.

A large part of it is simple exposure. I know this is a sore topic, @Tamriel Wolfsbaine, but Mistborn has 7 full books and Stormlight has 4 massive installments. Warbreaker has 1. We've seen the Bands of Mourning in use, Ishar fighting Radiants and discussed the Oathpact. We haven't seen that much of Awakening since 2009, just hints and pieces - though Nightblood gets distinct and honorable mention as the only thing not a Shard or Dawnshard to kill a Vessel as far as we've seen.

 

I think it's quite possible that if the understanding of Awakening progresses to the level of the Metallic Arts and Surgebinding it might enter the same limelight, but I don't think Nalthis has been cited as one of the major powers in the space age conflicts. For that matter, the Metallic Arts and the Knights Radiant might be so powerful due to their nature as dual Shard granted abilities allowing for resonances and in-system hacking like Compounding. Nalthis just has Endowment.

I think this pretty well says it all. In addition to others points I just need to remember that the end game of The Cosmere is a face off between Roshar and Scadrial. Everyone else, every other book, is ancillary to that goal. 

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

Or just pull out a gun and shoot them. No Invested healing and not enough physical or mental speed to dodge a well-placed bullet.

I think that there are ways a competent Awakener could avoid or minimize such attacks (as you suggested perhaps some Awakened armor could do that with the right Command but would almost certainly be quite expensive in Breaths and like Nightblood may require additional injections of Investiture to continue functioning, particularly if it needs to repair itself like Shardplate), but not nearly as easily as many other Invested Arts.

So, I don't know that it's not about Awakening being weak or unable to be used effectively in combat, it's just that it isn't as good as many other Invested systems for combat.

Yeah without jumping on the healing rant I really think that is what Awakening lacks... the single greatest weapon in The Cosmere is from the system but without insta healing or super speed you cant truly compete with others.  That said, I think Awakening has the greatest scaling potential with other tech. being an ancillary system I think Awakeners will probably have some good access to other systems via the tech. A 10th heightening godking in the future could score some far more modern protection and weaponry to awaken.  And I think the ability to awaken by thought could prove invaluable in the future. 

[Returned]

Not to beat a dead (though not Lifeless!) horse, as the above posts cover the details pretty well, but I also think that there is an element of the nature of Awakening and Breaths.

We've seen some cool things with Awakening, and we certainly don't know even the theoretical limits of what it can accomplish. Nightblood is... minimally competent at fulfilling his Command. What if he had more ability to move and act on his own, had a more achievable and precise Command, and was good at fulfilling that Command? Such an Awakened object might be very difficult to deal with for any Cosmere magic user, depending on how much latitude you want to grant in how powerful and flexible an Awakening can be.

But no matter how cool and flexible the application, there remains a fundamental problem that Awakening involves giving your power away in order to accomplish anything. Breaths take a while to accumulate, and sending a bundle of them off to do their best at following your instructions can be a pretty high-risk situation even if your Command is solid. An Awakened object could stolen or destroyed, for example, leaving you permanently weaker. Other Cosmere magics are both more self-directed (you do what you want with the power that you access when you want to do it) and more direct (you don't have to create an entity that you hope will accomplish what you want in the way you want it accomplished, nor do you have to guard or recover that entity). That's a sharp contrast to needing to have some metals around, or a way to mainline Light.

Awakening is cool, and the passive kit of powers from a solid Heightening has a lot of nice features. But in a serious showdown with other powerful Cosmere dwellers, Awakening requires a lot of risky investment of dear resources in order to, hopefully, indirectly accomplish your goals. And so far the goals we've seen that are very achievable are also kind of modest. I may revise this opinion when we've seen more Awakening in future books, as I think that we're going to see some really impressive things from it. I find it especially noteworthy that most discussion of Awakening focuses on efficiency of Breath use and not what could be done with a lot of Breath, efficiently used or not.

[Duxredux he/him]

11 hours ago, Returned said:

But no matter how cool and flexible the application, there remains a fundamental problem that Awakening involves giving your power away in order to accomplish anything. Breaths take a while to accumulate, and sending a bundle of them off to do their best at following your instructions can be a pretty high-risk situation even if your Command is solid. An Awakened object could stolen or destroyed, for example, leaving you permanently weaker. Other Cosmere magics are both more self-directed (you do what you want with the power that you access when you want to do it) and more direct (you don't have to create an entity that you hope will accomplish what you want in the way you want it accomplished, nor do you have to guard or recover that entity). That's a sharp contrast to needing to have some metals around, or a way to mainline Light.

That's both a pro and a con. By Commanding other objects to do various tasks, once you have instilled the proper Command and visualization, both power and the cognitive load is removed from the Awakener and delegated to the Awakened object. Surveillance, searching for tunnels, fetching keys, distracting guards, catching arrows all of these are possible with Awakening. For most other magic users they have to consciously and constantly exerting their attention to produce the effect they need, be it a Tineye filtering out the mess of sensory overload, a Sand Master looking for hidden red spheres, or a Feruchemist using speed to dodge bullets or catch arrows. This is not the case for the Awakener. An Awakener can be totally engrossed in a task like Vivenna climbing a wall while her cloak catches arrows. This ability to delegate their cognitive load isn't to be dismissed as a sufficiently prepared Awakener can become a mobile army by themselves and not just in fighting power but in being able capture and hold ground, build infrastructure, provide surveillance and security. Not only that, but at the Tenth Heightening, it sure looked like Susebron with absolutely no training was able to instinctively coordinate hundreds if not thousands of Awakened objects with a thought, as I sure didn't see him verbally Command a handkerchief to untie Siri at the end after rescuing her. There's a good chance that AI is in the future of Awakening, which may for even more sophisticated automation. An Awakener, by themselves, might be able to setup and power an entire manufacturing plant using Awakened objects working in sequence. The skill of a upper Heightening Awakener in the future may be determined not just on the strength of their Commands and visualization, but perhaps more importantly on their large scale tactical intelligence. Dalinar has a saying that Shardbearers can't hold ground. Awakeners can, better than nearly any single individual. Yes, it's risky, but exposing the Bondsmith or draining a Steelmind is risky as well. Will this utility decrease as automation becomes more plausible through IRL methods? Perhaps, perhaps not. Material strength also is a factor on the effectiveness of Awakening.

After writing this, I'm concluding that insisting on a 1 v 1 fight against a powerful Awakener is not where the Awakener would shine the best. You don't want your Awakener trying to punch out a Shardbearer, you want them as your civil/mechanical/industrial/army engineer. Assuming the necessary materials were on hand, I'm not sure if a Fullborn could build a city in a day even with F-Steel, but I think a skilled God King might be able to (well, assuming none of the materials require cure times). Another aspect of the lack of respect is that the 17th Shard is very combat focused, including the original post. Props to Dalinar for digging a latrine with his Shards and bucking the trend. 

[alder24]

57 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

An Awakener, by themselves, might be able to setup and power an entire manufacturing plant using Awakened objects working in sequence. The skill of a upper Heightening Awakener in the future may be determined not just on the strength of their Commands and visualization, but perhaps more importantly on their large scale tactical intelligence. Dalinar has a saying that Shardbearers can't hold ground. Awakeners can, better than nearly any single individual. Yes, it's risky, but exposing the Bondsmith or draining a Steelmind is risky as well. Will this utility decrease as automation becomes more plausible through IRL methods? Perhaps, perhaps not. Material strength also is a factor on the effectiveness of Awakening.

After writing this, I'm concluding that insisting on a 1 v 1 fight against a powerful Awakener is not where the Awakener would shine the best. You don't want your Awakener trying to punch out a Shardbearer, you want them as your civil/mechanical/industrial/army engineer. Assuming the necessary materials were on hand, I'm not sure if a Fullborn could build a city in a day even with F-Steel, but I think a skilled God King might be able to (well, assuming none of the materials require cure times). Another aspect of the lack of respect is that the 17th Shard is very combat focused, including the original post. Props to Dalinar for digging a latrine with his Shards and bucking the trend. 

1000% agreed! Awakeners are impressive in direct combat, there is no doubt about it, but that's not their primary role in the army. I've long ago realized that Awakeners play a vastly different role compared to other Invested Art users. Awakeners aren’t frontline soldiers like many Radiants are, they aren’t silent assassins like Mistborns are, they are army engineers - they create machinery that will aid the army in fighting and support its logistics. Instead of spending weeks or months, depleting your treasury and engaging dozens of mathematicians and carpenters on building a single trebuchet, you just need a single Awakener who will Awaken one hundred ropes to toss boulders at enemy fortifications. You want your soldiers to get on walls? Awakened ropes which will lift them on walls in seconds and overwhelm your enemies. Elevated archer positions? Ropes lifting them above enemy walls, with other ropes lifting planks and catching enemy arrows - no need to build a massive siege tower. They can easily Awaken a belt to move a simple mining machine that will dig under enemy walls far faster than miners by hand can. They can shape and modify any battleground to make it favorable to them by preparing traps and obstacles. They can Awaken Lifeless, poisonous scorpions and spiders and send them to silently kill key enemy leaders and officers before the battle begins. Awakeners are necro-engineers, they can fight well, but they shine the most at creating machinery and Lifeless armies.

Edited December 13, 2023 by alder24

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

1 hour ago, Duxredux said:

That's both a pro and a con. By Commanding other objects to do various tasks, once you have instilled the proper Command and visualization, both power and the cognitive load is removed from the Awakener and delegated to the Awakened object. Surveillance, searching for tunnels, fetching keys, distracting guards, catching arrows all of these are possible with Awakening. For most other magic users they have to consciously and constantly exerting their attention to produce the effect they need, be it a Tineye filtering out the mess of sensory overload, a Sand Master looking for hidden red spheres, or a Feruchemist using speed to dodge bullets or catch arrows. This is not the case for the Awakener. An Awakener can be totally engrossed in a task like Vivenna climbing a wall while her cloak catches arrows. This ability to delegate their cognitive load isn't to be dismissed as a sufficiently prepared Awakener can become a mobile army by themselves and not just in fighting power but in being able capture and hold ground, build infrastructure, provide surveillance and security. Not only that, but at the Tenth Heightening, it sure looked like Susebron with absolutely no training was able to instinctively coordinate hundreds if not thousands of Awakened objects with a thought, as I sure didn't see him verbally Command a handkerchief to untie Siri at the end after rescuing her. There's a good chance that AI is in the future of Awakening, which may for even more sophisticated automation. An Awakener, by themselves, might be able to setup and power an entire manufacturing plant using Awakened objects working in sequence. The skill of a upper Heightening Awakener in the future may be determined not just on the strength of their Commands and visualization, but perhaps more importantly on their large scale tactical intelligence. Dalinar has a saying that Shardbearers can't hold ground. Awakeners can, better than nearly any single individual. Yes, it's risky, but exposing the Bondsmith or draining a Steelmind is risky as well. Will this utility decrease as automation becomes more plausible through IRL methods? Perhaps, perhaps not. Material strength also is a factor on the effectiveness of Awakening.

After writing this, I'm concluding that insisting on a 1 v 1 fight against a powerful Awakener is not where the Awakener would shine the best. You don't want your Awakener trying to punch out a Shardbearer, you want them as your civil/mechanical/industrial/army engineer. Assuming the necessary materials were on hand, I'm not sure if a Fullborn could build a city in a day even with F-Steel, but I think a skilled God King might be able to (well, assuming none of the materials require cure times). Another aspect of the lack of respect is that the 17th Shard is very combat focused, including the original post. Props to Dalinar for digging a latrine with his Shards and bucking the trend. 

 

53 minutes ago, alder24 said:

1000% agreed! Awakeners are impressive in direct combat, there is no doubt about it, but that's not their primary role in the army. I've long ago realized that Awakeners play a vastly different role compared to other Invested Art users. Awakeners aren’t frontline soldiers like many Radiants are, they aren’t silent assassins like Mistborns are, they are army engineers - they create machinery that will aid the army in fighting and support its logistics. Instead of spending weeks or months, depleting your treasury and engaging dozens of mathematicians and carpenters on building a single trebuchet, you just need a single Awakener who will Awaken one hundred ropes to toss boulders at enemy fortifications. You want your soldiers to get on walls? Awakened ropes which will lift them on walls in seconds and overwhelm your enemies. Elevated archer positions? Ropes lifting them above enemy walls, with other ropes lifting planks and catching enemy arrows - no need to build a massive siege tower. They can easily Awaken a belt to move a simple mining machine that will dig under enemy walls far faster than miners by hand can. They can shape and modify any battleground to make it favorable to them by preparing traps and obstacles. They can Awaken Lifeless, poisonous scorpions and spiders and send them to silently kill key enemy leaders and officers before the battle begins. Awakeners are necro-engineers, they can fight well, but they shine the most at creating machinery and Lifeless armies.

Thanks guys.  I was sort of thinking along the same lines just last night.  I saw a video on how Isreal's Iron Dome works and I got curious about awakening in the future of the cosmere.  

While it would be a waste of breaths to silently command a rocket to "return to sender" or whatever... I think with even more modern day tech awakening could really really outshine.  

AI was mentioned and I am not entirely sure how much breath could improve upon what we have now but I am sure it could.  

I am curious though... 

What speed and distance do you think the 10th heightening can give commands at?  Does it require line of sight or could you do it based on a video?  Could you command something miles away? Also how fast will it go?  Do you even need a command at 10th heightening or is picturing something in your mind all of the command you need?  You have the visualization and the intent to send your breath out to awaken.  Or do you think you need to think out every word? 

Also. I know the voiceless commands and the ability to awaken something that is metal or stone are locked behind the 10th heightening.  But do you absolutely need to have the 50,000 breaths?  

If a divine breath counts as 2000 and a Returned only needs 1500 to hit the 6th heightening then could you hack that somehow? 

If you were a hemalurgist (I better @Trusk'our at this point too) and you gained access to a divine breath and nicrosil F and A and were somehow able to compound... 

Could you simply multiply the divine breath until you had the equivalent, while tapping of course, of 50,000 breaths worth?  Then even if you only had a few hundred breaths you would still benefit from the bonuses of the 10th heightening as far as voiceless commands and turning everything to white instead of gray no?  

[Trusk'our he/him]

10 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

If you were a hemalurgist (I better @Trusk'our at this point too) and you gained access to a divine breath and nicrosil F and A and were somehow able to compound... 

Could you simply multiply the divine breath until you had the equivalent, while tapping of course, of 50,000 breaths worth?  Then even if you only had a few hundred breaths you would still benefit from the bonuses of the 10th heightening as far as voiceless commands and turning everything to white instead of gray no?  

I honestly don't know. 

Bio-Chromatic Breaths and F-nicrosil (even without Compounding) seems like it very well could turn out busted.

While Awakening isn't too overpowered on its own, if you have the ability to create more or less permanent copied Breaths you can get some ridiculous effects, such as Awakening entire armies of inanimate objects or creating type four Invested entities without breaking a sweat.

It is for this reason alone that I'm hesitant to believe that Compounding Breaths would work this way. It's almost certainly going to end up being limited somehow, or it would be too much of a game changer. Hemalurgic Compounding got nerfed after all, so there is some president for it.

Maybe they'd just be a brief, temporary thing, where Awakening anything with them would quickly expire instead of staying in use for a long time.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

41 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

I honestly don't know. 

Bio-Chromatic Breaths and F-nicrosil (even without Compounding) seems like it very well could turn out busted.

While Awakening isn't too overpowered on its own, if you have the ability to create more or less permanent copied Breaths you can get some ridiculous effects, such as Awakening entire armies of inanimate objects or creating type four Invested entities without breaking a sweat.

It is for this reason alone that I'm hesitant to believe that Compounding Breaths would work this way. It's almost certainly going to end up being limited somehow, or it would be too much of a game changer. Hemalurgic Compounding got nerfed after all, so there is some president for it.

Maybe they'd just be a brief, temporary thing, where Awakening anything with them would quickly expire instead of staying in use for a long time.

Yeah I don't think that compounding breaths to equal a bigger amount of usable breaths to awaken with is a thing.  I just meant that you might be able to compound the innate investiture so much that you artificially reach higher heightenings with the same amount of breath.  

If 1000 breaths are needed to awaken Nightblood I don't think you could turn 1 breath into 10 nightbloods.  I do think you could compound the raw investiture to the point where you have the passive effects of higher heightenings.  

If you had 1000 breaths you couldn't awaken a sword. But if you compounded that investitue to an equivalent level of the 9th heightening then you could spend all of your breaths to awaken a single sword.  Heck you might be able to compound to the 10th heightening and not be able to awaken anything at all because you don't have any actual breaths.  

But it seems that the more invested you are the more natural instinct you have to use that investiture.  So my thought was someone who steals a divine breath could potentially manufacture, through compounding, the 10th heightening regardless of breaths.  This could be really dangerous if they learned how to use other, more available, kinetic investiture to awaken.  I don't think stormlight will last long enough to really stick to an object for days and days.  But this could be a mix match to achieve the Iron Dome type of defense systems.  

Compound to the 10th heightening and then use kinetic investiture to "return to sender" any sort of targeted large scale weaponry (missiles and rockets).  Heck you might be able to hack into other random mechanical systems in the future as well.  How spooky if the flight controls suddenly got taken over by your enemy?  

 

This would probably open up a very real need for anti investiture tech later on... carry some antilight / aluminum / chromium filled primer cubes on every aircraft or whatever.  

But I digress way down the speculation hole.  Just trying to think how relevant awakened tech can be behind a 9th heightening wall if there is no other way to it than 25000 drabs or dead people. 

 

[Treamayne]

56 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

So my thought was someone who steals a divine breath could potentially manufacture, through compounding, the 10th heightening regardless of breaths.

I doubt this is possible. A Divine Breath is a Splinter of Endowment. Compound all you want, Preservation's SR investiture is not going to become a Splinter of Endowment. I doubt it could even become a Splinter or Preservation without the Shard's assistance.

Edit: In fact, I would not be surprised if the compounder lost the Divine Breath by trying that. After all, you would have to store the Divine Breath in a Metal Mind - then burn that Metal Mind. The Nature of Divine Breaths are to return to Endowment when expended - so now you have Compounded Preservation Investiture that is niether Breath nor Divine Breath - and would have to be changed somehow to make it work like Breath again.

Edited December 14, 2023 by Treamayne

[alder24]

13 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

What speed and distance do you think the 10th heightening can give commands at?  Does it require line of sight or could you do it based on a video?  Could you command something miles away? Also how fast will it go?  Do you even need a command at 10th heightening or is picturing something in your mind all of the command you need?  You have the visualization and the intent to send your breath out to awaken.  Or do you think you need to think out every word? 

Cognitive proximity. It's probably like emotional Allomancy.

13 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Also. I know the voiceless commands and the ability to awaken something that is metal or stone are locked behind the 10th heightening.  But do you absolutely need to have the 50,000 breaths?  

You need 50k Breaths, or investiture equivalent to it. 

13 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

If you were a hemalurgist (I better @Trusk'our at this point too) and you gained access to a divine breath and nicrosil F and A and were somehow able to compound... 

It could work, depending on how F-nicrosil and nicrosil compounding works. But it's probably easier to threaten 50000 people to give you their Breaths than to find a Nicroburst and a Soulbearer, while solving the identity contamination problem.