king of nowhere Posted April 28, 2013 Report Share Posted April 28, 2013 While following a totally unrelated line of thoughts, I came upon this conundrum. Suppose an atium burner is walking in a minefield. When he's close to stepping on a mine, he would see the atium shadow of the explosion, and so he could avoid stepping on mines. BUT, if he avoid stepping on mines, he won't see any atium shadow of any explosion. So he won't be able to dodge the mines, so he will step on a mine, but then he'll see the atium shadow, and so on. So, will he be able to see atium shadows of the explosions or not? I think the most likely scenario is that it becomes akin to burning electrum, where you can see what you're going to do and change it. So the atium shadow of the ground will split, showing both the explosion and the lack of explosion, so he will ultimately be able to dodge the mines. Suppose then that someone placed special mines for seers: those mines, when stepped upon, have 1 chance in a hundred of exploding. So, the explosion is actually quite unlikely, the seer may miss it, and you get one chance to kill him. The explosion is totally random, so what will the seer see when he's going to step upon a mine? will he see maybe 99 shadows of the ground undisturbed, and one of the ground eploding? Will that shadow be strong enough, when overlapped by all the others, to let him see the danger? Because I suppose that split shadows will be fainter, otherwise some dozens shadows (like those seen when two atium burners fight) would just blind you. Suppose then a different kind of mine for seers: since atium lets you see one or two seconds in the future, this mine is triggered to explode three seconds after you stepped over it. Since the seer will have walked far enough from the mine to avoid most damage from the explosion, the mine has a shrapnel blast. Now the seer will not be able to avoid those mines, but he'll still see the explosion in time to try to lay on the ground. Atium should let him see the direction of the shrapnel before the explosion, letting him dodge, but the atium shadows of it would be too fast to let the seer dodge the shrapnels. What do you think of this simulation? do you agree with my conclusions or think that the seer should see something different? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted April 28, 2013 Report Share Posted April 28, 2013 Split Atium shadows are a probability but I doubt they'd miss the one that exploded because 1. Explosions are quite large and hard to miss no matter how faint. 2. the other mines not exploding wouldn't change the future for the one that does, so they wouldn't split, it'd be the same as just stepping on it/ not stepping on it.For the time delay explosion, that would actually be a good idea, but the speed of shrapnel is a bit irrelevant to a point, Atium also gives you enhanced mental abilities to deal with the information, so if it's possible to dodge, they'll still dodge it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kroen Posted April 28, 2013 Report Share Posted April 28, 2013 Does atium protect from behind though? I assume so, but how exactly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted April 28, 2013 Report Share Posted April 28, 2013 Well you'd see bits coming out the front of you for one, also Brandon has suggested it might not be limited purely to visual cues of the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Monstrosity Posted April 29, 2013 Report Share Posted April 29, 2013 The title of this topic got cut off to this. "burning atium in a minefield: a digression on atium mecha..." I think an atium mecha would be WAY more interesting. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted April 29, 2013 Report Share Posted April 29, 2013 he title of this topic got cut off to this. "burning atium in a minefield: a digression on atium mecha..." I think an atium mecha would be WAY more interesting. Clearly Brandon was being misleading about Ruin just absorbing all the Atium, this is obviously what would have actually happened and subsequently destroyed Scadrial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarontos he/him Posted April 29, 2013 Report Share Posted April 29, 2013 Pou would probably not see the explosions because from what I can tell you don't see your input into the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts