Ranette on Roshar

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

There's a post on here that grew to massive proportions in a relatively short time, Jasnah v. Kaladin. It basically devolved (or evolved depending) into a conversation of which character could checkmate the other and how.  Ranette, for those who don't remember, is Wax's favorite gunsmith in Mistborn Era 2. The character as a whole is amazing, but the attribute that's germane for this particular discussion is designing weapons to both take advantage of Wax's abilities and negate powered opponent's advantages. The hazekiller round series.

I believe that there will be a hazekiller division focusing on Surgebinders on Roshar at some point. Ranette would be a great resource in this. Imagine her and Navani brainstorming on weapons design. Awesomesauce. So if this meeting were to happen in an alternate Cosmere timeline and Ranette was brought up to speed on Surgebinder abilities, what kind of weapons do you think she'd craft? And bonus question, what sort of spren would she draw?

[ZenBossanova]

I am still waiting to find out what was up with Jasnah and her bandolier. 

[Chromium Compounder]

Explosive rounds could help with Reverse Lashing since they have to maintain contact with the item being lashed.  Wouldn’t really help with basic lashing though.

Edited March 31, 2019 by Chromium Compounder

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

Since none of the surges would let you reflect the bullets back at the shooter (there probably is a way to do this if you're creative enough), you would probably be better off with a fairly conventional approach. You would want something with good penetration in order to break up the plate, and you would want bullets that can dismember an opponent. To that end, I would go for something in the .50 caliber neighborhood, and with a large powder load. Something along the lines of a Browning M2 would probably do the trick. The BMG rounds that it fires can blow people into pieces, and penetrate light vehicle armor. It also has a very long effective range at 1800 meters. It's worth noting that it has been in service since the 1930's and has gone largely unchanged since that time. This means that it wouldn't be to much of a stretch for Rannet to design it.

If we are talking about non crew weapons, I would go for a sniper rifle that fires the same round. Honestly, the farther from the Surgebinder you can be, the better.

If you're going for a side arm, I would probably say a revolver at .44 caliber or larger and a high powder load. The goal being a charge large enough to break their plate and a bullet larger enough to cause an injury that slows them down for a second or two. I would probably focus on neck shots in this scenario, with the goal of decapitating them.

If we're going for Roshar tech, I would go with a balista that fires aluminum coated spears with lots of barbs. You want something that will get stuck in them and that they cant cut out with a Shardblade or soulcasting. I'm not sure if having aluminum stuck in their body would prevent and Elsecaller or Willshaper from transitioning, but if it does all the better.

If future tech is on the table, I would go for the nuclear option every time. Vaporization seems like the surest way of removing a surgebinder from the equation.

Stepping into magical weapons, you could potentially create a fabrial that launches the bullets at much higher velocities, something along the lines of a fabrial rail gun. You could also get creative with the projectile. For example, you could use a heating fabrial, that is hot enough to burn flesh, as the bullet. As long as it breaks the plate and lodges in their flesh, it would probably eat up a lot of Stormlight with the constant need to heal the burning.

Another effective weapon would be aluminum Hemalurgy. If you made something that fired an extremely high volume of aluminum spikes (I'm talking modern gatling gun speeds, so 5000 rounds per second or more) and manned it with someone that constantly intended to make a Hemalurgic spike from each of the rounds, you could potentially yank out their Nahel bond, which should kill them almost instantly given the stream of metal that's being rammed through their torso. (this assumes that ranged Hemalurgy works, I very much hope it does not)

Stepping waaaay out there and bringing Vasher to the table on this Radiant killing council (and just flat out making stuff up myself), you could make an awakened revolver that works something along the lines of a ranged Nightblood. I'm thinking that instead of firing bullets, it fires corrupted Investiture in a sort of plasma state (think: a slug of burning hot liquid Nightblood smoke). It draws the Investiture from the person firing it and consumes part of it in the process. If you fire it without having any Investiture, or without having enough, it uses your soul instead, killing you in the process.

Edited April 1, 2019 by SwordNimiForPresident

[+Invocation]

7 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Stepping waaaay out there and bringing Vasher to the table on this Radiant killing council (and just flat out making stuff up myself), you could make an awakened revolver that works something along the lines of a ranged Nightblood. I'm thinking that instead of firing bullets, it fires corrupted Investiture in a sort of plasma state (think: a slug of burning hot liquid Nightblood smoke). It draws the Investiture from the person firing it and consumes part of it in the process. If you fire it without having any Investiture, or without having enough, it uses your soul instead, killing you in the process.

Building off of this: Nightblood gauss rifle used with gravity and heat fabrials.

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

I should clarify that getting shot by my completely imaginary revolver would smoke you the same way Nightblood does.

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

What about order-specific guns? 

[Wandering Investor]

I'd say there are tree approaches to taking down a radiant with firepower. The aluminium shatter bullet, the highstorm (will the auto language change thing catch that? Edit: no it does not, I'll fix that..) of machine-gun fire, and explosives method.

The aluminium shatter bullet would involve single fire rifle shots of aluminium bullets. The bullet would be designed to shatter upon impact, causing as much damage as possible and covering as much area as possible. The aluminium fragments would seriously disrupt the radiant's ability to heal, potentially fatal depending on where it hit.

The second method and third method are more mundane, and just involving outpacing the radiant's stormlight healing, either via completely overloading the healing factor, or via massive draining of stormlight reserves. Of note, this method will likely be less effective against the tension and progression surges(depending on stormlight usage rates). The machinegun fire in particular may also be countered by the abrasion surge(I'm not sure what the abrasion surge would do against an explosion, may still work). Although I do not think it is possible, perhaps absolutely god-tier use of the gravitation, division, and transportation surges may also counter the bulletstorm.

All three methods can potentially be somewhat countered by any order with the cohesion surge or transformation surge, as they may be capable of creating barriers. Sneak/ambush attacks recommended, and fast retreat options be on standby in case of failure/angry radiant.

Quote on healing and aluminium.

Spoiler

Kurkistan

What would happen if you shot a thug with an aluminum bullet or stabbed him with an aluminum knife?

Brandon Sanderson

Ah, that's a good question. The wound would not be able to heal around the aluminum, but once the aluminum came out and was gone from the system, they would be okay.

Kurkistan

Wait, is that a Bloodmaker, not a Thug?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, you're talking about Thugs?

It would work similarly, but it really wouldn't have a huge effect on them.

Kurkistan

Alright, because Peter was implying that there was some weird aluminum interaction with Thugs.

Brandon Sanderson

What was he thinking of...?

There is some weird interaction but...

Kurkistan

In the wedding scene, Wax thinks they would have aluminum bullets to deal with Thugs, and I was like, "Oh, that's a typo." And Peter was like, "Oh no it's not..."

Brandon Sanderson

No, no. That would just be-- it's like I said: healing it until the bullet is gone, it's just the same as Bloodmakers.

Footnote: Referring to AoL sample chapter commentary.
Words of Radiance Philadelphia signing (March 21, 2014)

Bonus: Ranette's general lack of concern for anything but her work makes me think she'd be a willshaper, or maybe a elsecaller, although I don't think she'd be chosen in the first place.

Edited April 1, 2019 by Wandering Investor
Changed curse wording.

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

1 hour ago, Bigmikey357 said:

What about order-specific guns? 

It's tough to make order specific guns. The real barrier to killing them is their armor and their healing. Their surges are mostly offensive abilities as far as I've seen. The goal would be to kill them without letting them use their surges on you.

Edited April 1, 2019 by SwordNimiForPresident

[Lunamor she/her]

2 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

It's tough to make order specific guns. The real barrier to killing them is their armor and their healing. Their surges are mostly offensive abilities as far as I've seen. The goal would be to kill them without letting them use their surges on you.

Us poor Truthwatchers would probably be vulnerable to anything that can destroy a normal surgebinder without any extra offensive abilities. 

[Karger he/him]

12 minutes ago, Lunamor said:

Us poor Truthwatchers would probably be vulnerable to anything that can destroy a normal surgebinder without any extra offensive abilities. 

A Truthwatcher might be the hardest to kill if my interpretation of their illumination surge is correct and it gives them a wider view of vision thus telling them exactly where every shot is coming from and letting them doge. 

I think the best option with widely available Rosharan tech is barbed knifes or arrows.  Stormlight will heal but you will still have your movement impaired until you pull them out and that takes stormlight.

Shardplate is trickier and I invite everyone to check out the anti shard hammer thread for more on that.

[Scion of the Mists]

Once you have guns, it's not hard to get through Shardplate - it only takes 2-3 shots.  Any sort of semi- (or fully-) automatic weapon should be able to easily nullify it.  The difficult parts are staying alive and dealing with the Radiant's healing ability.  

Other tips for killing Radiants:

• Injuries to the head can disrupt the Radiant's ability to think clearly (shown when Shallan takes a crossbow bolt to the head), likely preventing them from going on the offensive
• As pointed out by @SwordNimiForPresident, another interesting vector of attack (against all Invested beings, really) is aluminum Hemalurgy.  The process of spiking someone is still not fully understood, but an aluminum spike "removes all powers"

[Pathfinder]

The "allomantic grenade" primed with chromium (leecher). Toss at radiant, stormlight goes poof, head shot, dead. Or go Nale's/Rysn's route and bring a pet larkin to eat the stormlight, and then again head shot, or any old shot that could kill a normal person.

[Calderis he/him]

1 hour ago, Scion of the Mists said:

As pointed out by @SwordNimiForPresident, another interesting vector of attack (against all Invested beings, really) is aluminum Hemalurgy.  The process of spiking someone is still not fully understood, but an aluminum spike "removes all powers"

It's still Hemalurgy. You're going to need to know the correct bindpoints, which makes its use as a combat ability much more difficult 

Edited April 1, 2019 by Calderis

[Scion of the Mists]

51 minutes ago, Calderis said:

It's still Hemalurgy. You're going to need to know the correct bindpoints, which makes its use as a combat ability much more difficult 

If I'm remembering the Hemalurgy Shardcast correctly, wasn't there confusion about whether or not bindpoints mattered for the victim vs the recipient?  

 

There's also a fairly recent WoB (last October) that position only matters for the recipient.  It also appears to have been reviewed by Dragonsteel (it doesn't have the "pending review" tag).  

Quote

mithrilnova

Does the positioning of a Hemalurgic spike matter on the donor, the recipient, or both?

Brandon Sanderson

Recipient.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 20, 2018)

[Calderis he/him]

@Scion of the Mists and I still disagree. Otherwise this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

So, since I was doing other things.  Hemalurgy-when you spike, you place the spike in a place that determines which charge the spike gets.  

Kythis

Through the heart seems to pick up universally.

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on where in the heart. It's like acupuncture. This was designed from acupuncture and you get very specific on which nerve you're hitting and things like that

Kythis

So the spike will never pick up more than one power.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, the way they know how to do it.

Footnote: This clarifies two previous questions.
Words of Radiance Omaha signing (March 13, 2014)

 

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

@Calderis @Scion of the Mists My angle on the Hemalurgic aluminum was more about volume rather than accuracy. If you 50,000 pieces of metal through someones chest, the odds that one of them passes through the right spot seems fairly good. Like I said, I hope ranged Hemalurgy (the creation of spikes, not the placement of them) isn't a thing, it would make every idiot with a gun and some aluminum bullets the most powerful guy in the Cosmere.

As for the two WoB you guys linked, they do seems fairly contradictory. This is the problem, I think, with asking the author questions outside the book. Writing the book is a team effort with lots of eyes on all parts of it. With WoB's people are forcing Brandon to spit out cannon stuff on the fly. I tend to take all of them with a grain of salt.

[Scion of the Mists]

The Skyward WoB is both clearer and much more recent, so normally I'd assume that it overrides what Brandon said back in 2014.  But I agree that the ramifications of it don't make much sense.  I mean, you could just poke a Mistborn/Radiant with an aluminum thumb tack and poof - no more magic.  

I think I'm just going to assume that it matters for both people and that something got garbled with the WoB, but it seems like a strange mistake to make, especially given that it was an online WoB, not an in-person during a 5 hour signing line WoB.  

 

@Calderis do Reddit events get the "pending review" tag?  Does the lack of such tags on the Skyward event mean that someone from Dragonsteel actually reviewed the WoBs?  

[Calderis he/him]

1 minute ago, Scion of the Mists said:

@Calderis do Reddit events get the "pending review" tag?  Does the lack of such tags on the Skyward event mean that someone from Dragonsteel actually reviewed the WoBs?  

Currently we have a single event that has been reviewed. No ETA to my knowledge of when or if others will be. 

Sorry I can't provide a better answer. 

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

Unless you're going with the brute force aluminum trumps all solution the problem becomes identification of Order. On Scadrial it's easy. See someone pushing off a coin to fly? Coinshot. Identification is easy so a practiced hazekiller knows the appropriate countermeasures to use. On Roshar you see a guy glowing and flying, is he going to glue you to the ground or set it on fire? Or maybe it's simpler. I forget, when someone is Surgebinding do they glow in their Order's color or is it a general white light? If it's colored that takes a little less effort, though some of those colors are close (garnet vs ruby).

I really think for Ranette to be effective she must do 2 things. One, attract a spren so that she can get a true feel for the magic and 2, incorporate fabrial tech into her designs. Not sure gunpowder's volatility in a super oxygenated world would do more than blow up the wielder. Maybe she'd try to fight fire with fire so to speak, making fabrial guns that mimic surges. How disconcerting would it be if a known Edgedancer carries around a weapon that does Division? She can look an awful lot like a Releaser and deal someone a nasty surprise. Or conversely said Edgedancer can go around impersonating said Dustbringer for clandestine reasons. Either way, introducing a wildcard element into the known capabilities of the Radiants has got to spell an advantage right?

[Pathfinder]

12 minutes ago, Bigmikey357 said:

Unless you're going with the brute force aluminum trumps all solution the problem becomes identification of Order. On Scadrial it's easy. See someone pushing off a coin to fly? Coinshot. Identification is easy so a practiced hazekiller knows the appropriate countermeasures to use. On Roshar you see a guy glowing and flying, is he going to glue you to the ground or set it on fire? Or maybe it's simpler. I forget, when someone is Surgebinding do they glow in their Order's color or is it a general white light? If it's colored that takes a little less effort, though some of those colors are close (garnet vs ruby).

I really think for Ranette to be effective she must do 2 things. One, attract a spren so that she can get a true feel for the magic and 2, incorporate fabrial tech into her designs. Not sure gunpowder's volatility in a super oxygenated world would do more than blow up the wielder. Maybe she'd try to fight fire with fire so to speak, making fabrial guns that mimic surges. How disconcerting would it be if a known Edgedancer carries around a weapon that does Division? She can look an awful lot like a Releaser and deal someone a nasty surprise. Or conversely said Edgedancer can go around impersonating said Dustbringer for clandestine reasons. Either way, introducing a wildcard element into the known capabilities of the Radiants has got to spell an advantage right?

Without armor, the eyes glow the color of the order, and if they do a "super hero landing" or "level up" the glyph associated with their order appears. Otherwise if using shardplate, it does glow the color of their order. 

[Calderis he/him]

30 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

Without armor, the eyes glow the color of the order, and if they do a "super hero landing" or "level up" the glyph associated with their order appears. Otherwise if using shardplate, it does glow the color of their order. 

So far we've only seen the glyph with Windrunners. Based off this WoB, I assume we'll get something similar with Stonewards. 

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

What's with Kaladin being special with his oaths that he explodes with power every time he says it?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

That is a function of Windrunners being very close to Bondsmiths, which has certain effects.

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Would other Windrunners also do that, as well?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yep.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

Szeth got some weird cherry blossom/snowfall effect... And he's the next step away around the wheel. I wonder what the Cultivation side of the wheel has happen, if anything? 

As to the "ranged Hemalurgy" question, personally I don't think it's a thing. I think you need to be touching a spike to use it. The only way I can see a bullet becoming a spike after fired is if a shard is involved to have their metaphorical "hand" on the "spike" 

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

13 minutes ago, Calderis said:

The only way I can see a bullet becoming a spike after fired is if a shard is involved to have their metaphorical "hand" on the "spike" 

*Throws aluminum spike*

"Ruin take the wheel"

Edited April 1, 2019 by SwordNimiForPresident

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

I think anytime aluminum pierces the skin of a magic user it's going to cause problems, but those problems are temporary. Get the spike out and things turn to normal. Hemalurgy, remember, is intent-based too, just like the other Scadrial magics. Surgebinding, you can do things before you know you can do them. See Kaladin. So unless said aluminum gatling gun user forms a connection with each round and intends for any bullet he uses to snatch power away from target it's not likely to work. IIRC Wax has been wounded by an aluminum round before, yet he could still do magic. Am I right?

 

[Pathfinder]

23 hours ago, Calderis said:

So far we've only seen the glyph with Windrunners. Based off this WoB, I assume we'll get something similar with Stonewards. 

Szeth got some weird cherry blossom/snowfall effect... And he's the next step away around the wheel. I wonder what the Cultivation side of the wheel has happen, if anything? 

As to the "ranged Hemalurgy" question, personally I don't think it's a thing. I think you need to be touching a spike to use it. The only way I can see a bullet becoming a spike after fired is if a shard is involved to have their metaphorical "hand" on the "spike" 

Thanks for the WoB regarding the glyph!

Regarding ranged hemalurgy, wasn't there a WoB that said as long as there was the intent to make a spike, and you hit the right spot, you could do so with a bullet? Just because of the accuracy needed it would be a very hard thing to accomplish. I will try and dig for it. 

edit: so far this is frustrating. Haven't found it yet. I really could swear someone asked regarding a bullet and Brandon said it would be really hard because you had to hit the bind point but it was still possible. I will keep trying to find it. 

20 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

I think anytime aluminum pierces the skin of a magic user it's going to cause problems, but those problems are temporary. Get the spike out and things turn to normal. Hemalurgy, remember, is intent-based too, just like the other Scadrial magics. Surgebinding, you can do things before you know you can do them. See Kaladin. So unless said aluminum gatling gun user forms a connection with each round and intends for any bullet he uses to snatch power away from target it's not likely to work. IIRC Wax has been wounded by an aluminum round before, yet he could still do magic. Am I right?

 

That is why I believe an earlier poster mentioned having the bullet fragment into shrapnel. The radiant would have to pick out each individual piece to stop from bleeding out, which would take time. I am not sure it would prevent the surges from being used, but preventing healing, depending on where hit would do a whole lot. There was a thread awhile ago about finding ways to take out the lord ruler. At one point it was concluded if someone possessing technology far more advanced than Scadrial, could have a long range sniper rifle made from the aluminum alloy, with a bullet covered in an aluminum alloy jacket, with "liquid" aluminum in it (and yes we did go through all the trouble of figuring out how possible an aluminum core could or could not be and what percentages would be required to make it work) head shot the lord ruler could kill him because the brain damage could not be healed while the liquid aluminum pervaded his brain. This would result in enough time passing that the lord ruler would potentially be brain dead by the time the aluminum could be removed to heal him. In a radiant's case, a shotgun blast to the face with aluminum shrapnel might do the trick. Aluminum is investiture null and blocks use, but does not negate it unless it is burned, or a chromium user uses it. This was shown by using a aluminum sword run through a corpse that was about to be turned into a returned. Brandon said it would not prevent the person from becoming a returned, but the returned would have a gaping wound where the sword is. So the main use for me for aluminum as a weapon is having it disperse in the body of the radiant, and hit in such a way to hamper the radiant. So shrapnel making removal hard. Or fine coarse dust to the eyes, to prevent vision. Or full encasement to prevent using surges outside of said aluminum box. The main benefit of aluminum bullets on their own is they cannot be affected by surges to prevent them from hitting at all. It is anything else you can do to the bullet to increase the damage, and make the removal harder that is the real threat to the radiants. 

Edited April 2, 2019 by Pathfinder