Scadrian vs. Rosharan magic post RoW

[The Technovore he/him]

Just now, LewsTherinTelescope said:

The fact he's most likely the only one alive probably plays into this too lol. He's the third known one in three-and-a-half centuries.

lol, that's fair, I remembered that he was only 1 of 3, but I couldn't remember if that was "3 living" or "3 ever". I think point still somewhat stands that as a Twinborn he's more skilled than average, almost by virtue of being the MC.

[Frustration he/him]

11 minutes ago, The Technovore said:

Consider that it may be possible that there has been some polarization on both sides? Perhaps you both have overbiased in your positions due to over-debating?

More than likely

Here's how I think it stands in 1 v 1's note any significant number of foes can overcome anyone here

Fullborn

Bondsmith

Steel Halfborn

Steel compounders

Very specific Halfborn: mainly gold

Very specific compounders

All other Knights

Mistborn

Mistings

 

Note Feruchemists and Ferings will generally lose but will have moments to shine

15 minutes ago, The Technovore said:

Also: Me, watching Frustration and Benduluke duel above the skies of the Cosmere.

Glad you enjoy it.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

Just now, The Technovore said:

lol, that's fair, I remembered that he was only 1 of 3, but I couldn't remember if that was "3 living" or "3 ever". I think point still somewhat stands that as a Twinborn he's more skilled than average, almost by virtue of being the MC.

Yeah, he's certainly skilled. But it is a rather small sample size

7 minutes ago, The Technovore said:

would like to add that in Era 2 it's likely that while any one combination is somewhat rare, the sheer amount of magic users would heavily outnumber Rosharan magic users.

Depends how much the orders grow in the next ~10, 20 years until Era 2 happens. Metalborn are actually pretty rare — one in one thousand people are Mistings, and even less than that are Ferrings (and the Terris being insular makes those even lower than they'd otherwise be). This gives us around 5k Allomancers in Elendel, but a decent number of those are probably too young to use their powers well yet (a quick search is showing me around a third of the population was under 18 in the past, though it doesn't stretch back to approximate Era 2 times, nor do we know if Scadrial fits the pattern exactly due to the Catacendre). Some of those can certainly use their abilities (see: Vin), but I imagine the pretty large majority of that percentage can't.

Let's use 15 as the cutoff, and pretend that the 33% is evenly split between the ages (I suspect it wouldn't be, but have no concrete numbers there). Looks like we knock off about a quarter of the Mistings here, so we'll go 3750 or so (likely lower, if Elendel's population count is rounded up).

If we arbitrarily claim Ferrings are half as common as Mistings (I'd guess rarer than that, honestly), we get 5650 Metalborn in Elendel. We don't know what amount of the population Elendel makes up, so we'd have to guesstimate even harder from here, but Metalborn are super duper rare in the South, I imagine Metalborn are rarer when you get out of the big city and further from nobles, so I am going to 100% arbitrarily declare we can double the number, and get about 11,000 Metalborn as a shot-in-the-dark guess.

This is pretty certain to be larger than the orders themselves, but we don't actually know spren populations, and if we're assuming every Metalborn is fully dedicated to the cause, I feel we can assume the same of spren, and squires. Unfortunately, I don't have any idea how to begin guesstimating the size of the orders, but the vast difference in power between the average Radiant and average Misting probably balances things out somewhat (a Coinshot's got no protection against a Blade!). Though apparently some types are more rare than others (Wax is of the more common kinds), so who knows what the distribution there is.

Not accounting for medallions here, though, as we have no clue on those numbers.

 

As for Twinborn, however, those are gonna be absurdly rare, likely less than one of each kind alive at any point. Wax is the third known Crasher in 341 years since the Catacendre, and he remarks that his powers are considered common, which implies less common ones too. So there's probably only a few Compounders alive at any given time, and maybe a couple hundred Twinborn of any kind.

 

Note that obviously all this math is extremely extremely filled with guesswork

(I have no idea if anyone did better math earlier in the thread, as it's over 30 pages.)

[BenduLuke he/him]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

What was unsupported?

With centuries even rececive genes will be removed.

WoB

I misremebered it wasn't identical

  Hide contents

Questioner

We've seen that Metalborn siblings can end up with different powers. What about Metalborn twins?

Brandon Sanderson

Can happen. Most likely, they will have the same power.

RoW Release Party (Nov. 17, 2020)

 

Circumstance?

Where did you get that from?

Stonewards and Bondsmiths can boost their strength, on top of Stormlight and Shardplate

Give me a realistic Scandrian that could win, one compounder every century is not enough to stave off Roshar.

How is Steel more versitile than Gravitation?

Sit in the CR and Soulcast all major threats.

What tactics? Scandrial has no military experience.

Name a book that looks into the scientific ramifications of Scandrian magic, because I have a 1,000+ page one for Roshar.

Have you been paying any attention rather than dogmatically repeating yourself?

Range of abilities, no

zero tactics

Rosharans are replaceable, a Bondsmith, arguably Roshars strongest peice can be replaced in quickly, Fullborn will most likely never be replaced.

Your ideas on genetics are unsupported.

Why quote Brandon when it doesn't support your position? Another unsupported idea.

All Allomancers started with ingesting Lerasium and became full mistborn in the begining with TLR. Their descendants are the allomancers of era 1 and 2. Those are the circumstances.

Oh I don't know Steel can be mixed with many other metals to give a person many other abilities. Of course the other metals can be mixed as well vastly increasing potentially effective combinations. Use your imagination.

I have thousands of pages to reference that imply the vast scientific advantage of Scadrial over most if not all of the Cosmere. That is if you have the imagination and foundation to recognize the implications.

Investiture of any kind affects soul casting so soul casting in a contest is potentially unreliable.

I beg to differ. Scadrial has experience with relatively modern weapons and Roshar is still using Renaissance tactics at best.

I don't think KR's are as interchangeable as you think. who needs a Fullborn. Haven't you noticed most of my proposals are not about them. Target any new radiant and they die quick.

I think it is you who haven't been paying attention. Scadrian's have a much vaster range of abilities compared to Rosharan's, and are already using more modern military tactics. Swords and picket lines vs Guns, Guns win almost every time. And the tactics are vastly different.

@The Technovore I like the oil soul casting, but consider a brass compounder could potentially have dealt with that directly. A chromium compounder might have been in just the right place to stop Jasna in the first place. Look I mainly take the Scadrian side because I don't think the contest is cut and dried even one on one. @Frustration

ranked what he feels is a hierarchy, but even that leaves out many potential combinations. Glad to see Steel twins are ranked high, but that combination might be more potent that full mistborn in many situations. Most people in a contest KR or Mistborn would lack martial experience and would potentially be at a disadvantage. In addition many surges and metalborn powers lack direct martial applications so would lead to other disadvantages. 

6 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Yeah, he's certainly skilled. But it is a rather small sample size

Depends how much the orders grow in the next ~10, 20 years until Era 2 happens. Metalborn are actually pretty rare — one in one thousand people are Mistings, and even less than that are Ferrings (and the Terris being insular makes those even lower than they'd otherwise be). This gives us around 5k Allomancers in Elendel, but a decent number of those are probably too young to use their powers well yet (a quick search is showing me around a third of the population was under 18 in the past, though it doesn't stretch back to approximate Era 2 times, nor do we know if Scadrial fits the pattern exactly due to the Catacendre). Some of those can certainly use their abilities (see: Vin), but I imagine the pretty large majority of that percentage can't.

Let's use 15 as the cutoff, and pretend that the 33% is evenly split between the ages (I suspect it wouldn't be, but have no concrete numbers there). Looks like we knock off about a quarter of the Mistings here, so we'll go 3750 or so (likely lower, if Elendel's population count is rounded up).

If we arbitrarily claim Ferrings are half as common as Mistings (I'd guess rarer than that, honestly), we get 5650 Metalborn in Elendel. We don't know what amount of the population Elendel makes up, so we'd have to guesstimate even harder from here, but Metalborn are super duper rare in the South, I imagine Metalborn are rarer when you get out of the big city and further from nobles, so I am going to 100% arbitrarily declare we can double the number, and get about 11,000 Metalborn as a shot-in-the-dark guess.

This is pretty certain to be larger than the orders themselves, but we don't actually know spren populations, and if we're assuming every Metalborn is fully dedicated to the cause, I feel we can assume the same of spren, and squires. Unfortunately, I don't have any idea how to begin guesstimating the size of the orders, but the vast difference in power between the average Radiant and average Misting probably balances things out somewhat (a Coinshot's got no protection against a Blade!). Though apparently some types are more rare than others (Wax is of the more common kinds), so who knows what the distribution there is.

Not accounting for medallions here, though, as we have no clue on those numbers.

 

As for Twinborn, however, those are gonna be absurdly rare, likely less than one of each kind alive at any point. Wax is the third known Crasher in 341 years since the Catacendre, and he remarks that his powers are considered common, which implies less common ones too. So there's probably only a few Compounders alive at any given time, and maybe a couple hundred Twinborn of any kind.

 

Note that obviously all this math is extremely extremely filled with guesswork

(I have no idea if anyone did better math earlier in the thread, as it's over 30 pages.)

I like the attempt at the math though I don't know how accurate it is either. One thing to consider is that most of the Rosharan advantages don't occur until after the 2nd (gravitation) or 3rd (blade) ideal and the the most significant advantage to date (shard plate) is at 4th ideal of which there are only 2 examples so far. (Kaladin and Jasna). Metal born have full abilities virtually from birth so are potentially more effective with their specific abilities some of which do have highly effective martial applications like steel and pewter. I find it amusing imagining a Chromium compounder in a conflict. Someone who is potentially in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing to defeat anyone, and doing it seemingly by accident. Bink from Xanth, Jackie Chan, Inspector Gaget like character. And if that person had real martial training, Yikes!!!.

[The Technovore he/him]

22 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

~snip~

Now, I don't know why, but I'm under the impression that Harmony is not particularly invested into Scadrial like Odium and Honor are. He is invested, but I believe he's hold back on a lot, likely due to Intent. We saw Preservation's Mists snap a pretty sizable army of Allomancers in an emergency, which implies that Harmony could do the same in a pinch, and likely raise a larger army due to genetic diluting possibly meaning more candidates? Idk, that's pure conjecture, but I think that if Harmony a: wasn't dealing with Autonomy, b: wasn't dealing with conflicting Intents, and c: was motivated to do so, he could likely raise an impressive army of metalborn simply by investing more heavily into humanity, which could easily double that number and tip the scales towards Scadrial's favor.

Also note that there are metalborn in SoScad, but we're told that they're pretty rare. We really don't know a lot about it, but depending on the size and population of SoScad that could increase your shot-in-the-dark number anywhere from 25% to 100%. 

Considering that "almost every living honorspren" amounted to ~2,000 Windrunners during the False Desolation, and we know that there should be some ~10k deadeyes and shards running around Roshar, that means that Roshar definitely not particularly lacking in numbers of its own. You could rely on at least 2,000+ Radiants and up to 6,000+ by the time Era 2 Mistborn runs around, plus the thousands of dead Shards still up for use (if someone in-world can work out what happened to most of them). 

Edit: Note the requirements for both Radiants and Metalborn require some sort of "snapping event". Kaladin's journey from Oath 1 to Oath 3 took less than a year, and then to Oath 4 another year. For Shallan's current spren, she's made it to Truth 4 in about the same time. Dying Radiants traumatize but do not break spren. A spren could choose a new Radiant anywhere from instantly to after a decade, and then that Radiant's journey can take anywhere from 2 to 5 years to get to Oath 4, usually requiring traumatizing combat situations to crack the spirit-web enough for new surges of power. 

A reasonable conclusion of this is that Scadrial likely has a sizable reserve of Metalborn that can be snapped and used in a moment's notice, a sure advantage, however Roshar is objectively able to replentish their Radiants far faster than Scadrial can with Metalborn. New Metalborn have to be born and raised and snapped, a new Radiant simply requires a worthy Rosharan that needs therapy and a couple years. A short campaign favors Scadrial on this factor, a much longer one would favor Roshar on this factor.

Edited February 24, 2021 by The Technovore
clarified "Height of Roshar", added some thoughts

[Frustration he/him]

15 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Your ideas on genetics are unsupported.

Behold my "unsupported" ideas on genetics

Spoiler

Snipexe

Is Allomancy a recessive or dominant gene?

Brandon Sanderson

It doesn't work according to Physical genetics, it works according to Spiritual genetics, and they don't work exactly the same way.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

Finaly found the WoB, sometimes I hate the arcanum

 

15 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Why quote Brandon when it doesn't support your position? Another unsupported idea.

Because I prioritise accuracy over making my argument look better.

16 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Oh I don't know Steel can be mixed with many other metals to give a person many other abilities. Of course the other metals can be mixed as well vastly increasing potentially effective combinations. Use your imagination.

Gravitation can be used on non-metal and with other surges. Use your rationalization.

17 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

I have thousands of pages to reference that imply the vast scientific advantage of Scadrial over most if not all of the Cosmere. That is if you have the imagination and foundation to recognize the implications.

Please show them.

17 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Investiture of any kind affects soul casting so soul casting in a contest is potentially unreliable.

Humans can still be soulcast as can Mistborn, though whether or not it is just when burning is questionable

Spoiler

Blightsong

Would it be harder for Jasnah to Soulcast a Knight Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Would it be harder for her to Soulcast a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Investiture resists Investiture. It's harder for her to even Soulcast a person than a rock, right?

Questioner

Is a Mistborn Invested?

Brandon Sanderson

The Mistborn, while they're burning the metal. They are not specifically Invested when they are not burning. When the Investiture becomes active, then yes. Before, no.

Blightsong

So Kelsier, he stayed around longer, not because he was Invested, but because he had the potential to use Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Over time using the magic will Invest you, on Scadrial. Most of the power is not coming from, on Roshar the power isn't coming from the person either [he cut himself off, so I assume this is how it works on Scadrial even though he didn't finish his thought] so I'm going to have to back up on that one and say, yes, the Mistborn are as Invested as a Knight Radiant, because in both cases the majority, bulk, of the power is coming from somewhere else, but there is the Spiritweb. Investing the wrong term, but you have all these connections in the Spiritual Realm, so yanking you away from them, or rewriting them is harder.

Questioner

Would they be harder with more Stormlight or metals burning?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes. That would increase the difficulty ratio. For instance, wearing Shardplate is gonna be a great barrier, right, and things like that so yeah. The problem is like, Invested is the wrong term for that, their Spiritweb is connected in different ways.

OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)

 

20 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

I beg to differ. Scadrial has experience with relatively modern weapons and Roshar is still using Renaissance tactics at best.

Roshar has a trained armies, Scandrial does not, Roshar has actually fought in war, Scandrial has not. Scandrials foot soldiers have better weapons but they have no idea how to use them.

22 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

I don't think KR's are as interchangeable as you think. who needs a Fullborn. Haven't you noticed most of my proposals are not about them. Target any new radiant and they die quick.

WoK makes it clear that even before the Second Oath Radiants are hard to kill, how easy did Kal go down?

And that was him doing it without trying.

Vin pre Kelsier would never have survived in that situation

23 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

I think it is you who haven't been paying attention. Scadrian's have a much vaster range of abilities compared to Rosharan's, and are already using more modern military tactics. Swords and picket lines vs Guns, Guns win almost every time. And the tactics are vastly different.

No they aren't, they don't have a military, they can't use military tactics. Equipment =/= tactics

25 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

ranked what he feels is a hierarchy, but even that leaves out many potential combinations. Glad to see Steel twins are ranked high, but that combination might be more potent that full mistborn in many situations. Most people in a contest KR or Mistborn would lack martial experience and would potentially be at a disadvantage. In addition many surges and metalborn powers lack direct martial applications so would lead to other disadvantages. 

Most of them are pointless in direct cofrontation.

[The Technovore he/him]

Some applications for Speed Bubbles:
Bendalloy: Cannon-Reload. Cannons and artillery IRL take quite a long time to fire, but set up a tight-knit area for reloading and a Slider can get that thing reloaded in no time. Bit of a problem for unfortunate Rosharan grunt soldiers.

Cadmium Fabrials/Medallions: Develop a fabrial that activates Cadmium's slow-bubble and litter a battlefield with them (if you can get them cheaply). Have an unsuspecting Radiant step on one, and uh-oh spaghetti-o's they're a sitting duck. If a Pulser is skilled enough, brave enough, and foolish enough they can do the same effect close quarters to any Radiant (outside soldiers just need to shoot the Radiant dead before the blade slow-motion-slices the Pulser)

An application for Lightweaving: 

Step 1, kill a Scadrian officer. Step 2, steal their appearance. Step 3, walk into Scadrian base. Step 4, Wipe out command structure with an unexpected Shardblade in their back.

Also note that Raboniel mentions that Windrunners in the past used Gravitation to create homing arrows and Kal could do similar things to redirect Parshendi arrows. It seems likely that if a coinshot can make a steel bubble, a Windrunner or Skybreaker can do the same. Also consider that what coinshots and lurchers can do to metal, Gravitation-Radiants can do to pretty much any investible object.

Also also consider that you don't need to soulcast a human to kill or trap them. Just get that metalborn to sit still long enough and soulcast the air around them to crystal before ramming a shardblade through it.

Also also also consider that we've seen Stormlight healing be very impressive, from healing Kal's spine in the beginning of RoW to healing Shard-dead legs twice, once in WoR and once in RoW. An invested Radiant is almost as durable as Miles. 

Edited February 24, 2021 by The Technovore

[Frustration he/him]

1 minute ago, The Technovore said:

Some applications for Speed Bubbles:
Bendalloy: Cannon-Reload. Cannons and artillery IRL take quite a long time to fire, but set up a tight-knit area for reloading and a Slider can get that thing reloaded in no time. Bit of a problem for unfortunate Rosharan grunt soldiers.

With the exception of how expencive Bendalloy is, that's a good plan.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

Metal born have full abilities virtually from birth

Well yes but it also takes them a pretty long time to reach the age they can do things at.

1 hour ago, The Technovore said:

he could likely raise an impressive army of metalborn simply by investing more heavily into humanity

I feel like allowing Shards to directly intervene and make more magic users is gonna mess with this too much, because then we get to "have Cultivation make an equivalent to Honorblades or something" lol.

1 hour ago, The Technovore said:

Also note that there are metalborn in SoScad, but we're told that they're pretty rare. We really don't know a lot about it, but depending on the size and population of SoScad that could increase your shot-in-the-dark number anywhere from 25% to 100%. 

Yeah, I have zero clue where to begin estimating there.

1 hour ago, The Technovore said:

Considering that "almost every living honorspren" amounted to ~2,000 Windrunners during the False Desolation, and we know that there should be some ~10k deadeyes and shards running around Roshar, that means that Roshar definitely not particularly lacking in numbers of its own. You could rely on at least 2,000+ Radiants and up to 6,000+ by the time Era 2 Mistborn runs around, plus the thousands of dead Shards still up for use (if someone in-world can work out what happened to most of them). 

Hm, interesting point. Didn't think about that. If freeing Ba-Ado-Mishram does fix them, then yeah, that'd be a massive boost.

1 hour ago, The Technovore said:

usually requiring traumatizing combat situations to crack the spirit-web enough for new surges of power. 

Not actually the way it works, btw.

Quote

Cody Skomauski

I've struggled with mental illness my whole life. Reading about your characters like Shallan, Kaladin, and Dalinar, that all have some degree of mental illness, start their path to recovery after forming a Nahel bond is very interesting to me. Is it a requirement for a Knight Radiant to be broken in some way prior to the bond? Where did you get this idea? Or was it just how it turned out?

Brandon Sanderson

...

It is not required in-world. A lot of people, even in-world, think that it is, because it was so common. My kind of external answer to that, even though they don't know this in-world, is that people who have struggled with these kinds of problems are more open to walking the path that one needs to walk to become a Knight Radiant. The two go hand-in-hand, the kind of self-awareness, and the ability to see yourself, to be reflective, just goes hand-in-hand with working on some of these issues. And at the same time, I felt it just worked really well with the themes of the story, the themes that Dalinar has of redemption. And also, I think that the extreme circumstances that a lot of characters put through stories like the ones I write do lead people to have some difficulties, right? Even PTSD, and things like that. There's just a lot that goes hand-in-hand together with this.

...

YouTube Livestream 2 (Jan. 20, 2020)

 

1 hour ago, The Technovore said:

A reasonable conclusion of this is that Scadrial likely has a sizable reserve of Metalborn that can be snapped and used in a moment's notice, a sure advantage, however Roshar is objectively able to replentish their Radiants far faster than Scadrial can with Metalborn. New Metalborn have to be born and raised and snapped, a new Radiant simply requires a worthy Rosharan that needs therapy and a couple years. A short campaign favors Scadrial on this factor, a much longer one would favor Roshar on this factor.

Makes sense.

[BenduLuke he/him]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Behold my "unsupported" ideas on genetics

  Hide contents

Snipexe

Is Allomancy a recessive or dominant gene?

Brandon Sanderson

It doesn't work according to Physical genetics, it works according to Spiritual genetics, and they don't work exactly the same way.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

Finaly found the WoB, sometimes I hate the arcanum

 

Because I prioritise accuracy over making my argument look better.

Gravitation can be used on non-metal and with other surges. Use your rationalization.

Please show them.

Humans can still be soulcast as can Mistborn, though whether or not it is just when burning is questionable

  Reveal hidden contents

Blightsong

Would it be harder for Jasnah to Soulcast a Knight Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Would it be harder for her to Soulcast a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Investiture resists Investiture. It's harder for her to even Soulcast a person than a rock, right?

Questioner

Is a Mistborn Invested?

Brandon Sanderson

The Mistborn, while they're burning the metal. They are not specifically Invested when they are not burning. When the Investiture becomes active, then yes. Before, no.

Blightsong

So Kelsier, he stayed around longer, not because he was Invested, but because he had the potential to use Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Over time using the magic will Invest you, on Scadrial. Most of the power is not coming from, on Roshar the power isn't coming from the person either [he cut himself off, so I assume this is how it works on Scadrial even though he didn't finish his thought] so I'm going to have to back up on that one and say, yes, the Mistborn are as Invested as a Knight Radiant, because in both cases the majority, bulk, of the power is coming from somewhere else, but there is the Spiritweb. Investing the wrong term, but you have all these connections in the Spiritual Realm, so yanking you away from them, or rewriting them is harder.

Questioner

Would they be harder with more Stormlight or metals burning?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes. That would increase the difficulty ratio. For instance, wearing Shardplate is gonna be a great barrier, right, and things like that so yeah. The problem is like, Invested is the wrong term for that, their Spiritweb is connected in different ways.

OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)

 

Roshar has a trained armies, Scandrial does not, Roshar has actually fought in war, Scandrial has not. Scandrials foot soldiers have better weapons but they have no idea how to use them.

WoK makes it clear that even before the Second Oath Radiants are hard to kill, how easy did Kal go down?

And that was him doing it without trying.

Vin pre Kelsier would never have survived in that situation

No they aren't, they don't have a military, they can't use military tactics. Equipment =/= tactics

Most of them are pointless in direct cofrontation.

Regardless of the WOB the books seem to work mostly like regular genetics. Perhaps the difference is that it works more like genetic memory.

Instead of including a quote that contradicted what you said just admitting that you misrepresented the idea would have been sufficient for accuracy.

Just a suggestion on your short hand =/= does not mean not equal. the short had for that is != both mathematically and in programming.

Gravitation requires contact where metal manipulations does not. At least so far. You are right that gravitation is effective on more things so long as you can touch them.

Vin survived many near death situations pre-Kel also without trying or being aware of what she was doing. Not sure how much of either Kal's or Vin's survival is due to plot armor instead of actual abilities.

Just because the stories in era 2 Scadrial don't focus on the military doesn't mean there is none, and clearly there are modern military tactics in era 2 books involving guns and explosives by both the antagonists and protagonists. You make a big assumption when you think that Scadrial has no military's just because the stories are focused on civilians, especially since there are obvious military weapons and tactics.

Most surges are pointless for confrontation as well. Most orders don't even have their most effective surges until later as well. Kal (perhaps the most effective combatant) had limited healing and later reverse lashing in the beginning so would have been dead meat to a coinshot or thug at the time. A seeker would have singled him out as the main threat and eliminated him asap. A tineye marksman could have eliminated him from a distance. And he is one of the best combatants in Roshar so far. Post WoR the opponents likely to challenge him are much fewer. Other orders are not near as martial as his so are even more vulnerable for longer.

@LewsTherinTelescope My point was that virtually having abilities from birth they are likely to be very familiar with their use by the time they enter a conflict. Few Radiants are likely to get into a fight with a child, Nale maybe but he is insane.

@The Technovore I suspect that Shallon could produce anti-voidlight on her own once Navani shows her what it is. Lightweaving does produce light and sound. Pair her with a Bronze compounder and you have a lethal pair against most invested beings.

Edited February 24, 2021 by BenduLuke

[Frustration he/him]

2 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Regardless of the WOB the books seem to work mostly like regular genetics. Perhaps the difference is that it works more like genetic memory.

No it doesn't, if it was a regular recessive gene, you could breed a family of Pure MIstborn.

3 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Instead of including a quote that contradicted what you said just admitting that you misrepresented the idea would have been sufficient for accuracy.

I also like siting my sources and helping others learn.

3 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Just a suggestion on your short hand =/= does not mean not equal. the short had for that is != both mathematically and in programming.

perhapse but I like =/= better.

4 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Gravitation requires contact where metal manipulations does not. At least so far. You are right that gravitation is effective on more things so long as you can touch them.

For a basic lashing, but yes that is a point.

6 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Just because the stories in era 2 Scadrial don't focus on the military doesn't mean there is none, and clearly there are modern military tactics in era 2 books involving guns and explosives by both the antagonists and protagonists. You make a big assumption when you think that Scadrial has no military's just because the stories are focused on civilians, especially since there are obvious military weapons and tactics.

Why would they have a military?

They haven't had a war in over 300 years, having a standing army in those conditions is wierd, and on top of that, not only have we not see the military we have yet to have even so much as a soldier mentioned.

And what tactics?

9 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Most surges are pointless for confrontation as well. Most orders don't even have their most effective surges until later as well. Kal (perhaps the most effective combatant) had limited healing and later reverse lashing in the beginning so would have been dead meat to a coinshot or thug at the time. A seeker would have singled him out as the main threat and eliminated him asap. A tineye marksman could have eliminated him from a distance. And he is one of the best combatants in Roshar so far. Post WoR the opponents likely to challenge him are much fewer. Other orders are not near as martial as his so are even more vulnerable for longer.

Um, no they are.

Adhesion, imobolising you opponent or manipulating Connection.

Gravitation: obvious

Division: obvious

Abrasion: Lift is able to become almost invulnerable with it, as nothing can really connct with her

Progression: hyper advanced healing

Illumination: Obvious

Transformation: Obvious

Cohesion: terrain manipulation

Tension: Boosted strength, manipulation of weapons and other objects

All of them have massive impact on combat,

A- gold not so much

[The Technovore he/him]

I like imagining a Lightweaver disguised as an artillery-crewman just walking up to a big-ol Scadrian howitzer and be like "Hey!"

Howitzer: "I LIKE GOING BOOM!"

Spy: "You like going boom?"
Howitzer: "BOOM!"

Spy: "Going boom is great! I can help you go boom, you know!"
Howitzer: "I can do more BOOM?"

Spy: "Yes! All you need to do is become oil."

Howitzer: "YES! GO BOOM!"

r.i.p. Scadrian Howitzer. r.i.p. Artillery crewmates. r.i.p. anyone else nearby.

I think the effects of emotional allomancy can't be discounted. The ability to sooth or riot Rosharan non-radiant soldiers is a pretty big deal, especially with Mistborn that also have access to Duralumin (or normal Soothers or Rioters with a duralumin medallion) I also think that if Thaidakar and the Ghostbloods work out fabrial mechanics figure out how to combine it with SoScad medallions, they could make a lot of amazing effects that don't require metalborn on the battlefield but can still get their abilities, for example, a Nicrosil grenade that a foot soldier can toss toward some Radiants or Shardbearers with plate to nullify their abilities, or, again, emotional allomancy at range. If they liberally work Hemalurgy into their weapons the Rosharans could be in trouble. Can you imagine the devastating effects of an aluminum or chromium spike-bullet hitting a Radiant? Hitting a Bondsmith? Even if Hemalurgy ends up purely restricted to Scadrial, the prospect of capturing a Radiant, transporting them to Scadrial, and stealing their destiny(? if that is the effect of chromium spikes, it's not confirmed) would be extremely dangerous.

[Frustration he/him]

6 minutes ago, The Technovore said:

I think the effects of emotional allomancy can't be discounted. The ability to sooth or riot Rosharan non-radiant soldiers is a pretty big deal, especially with Mistborn that also have access to Duralumin (or normal Soothers or Rioters with a duralumin medallion)

I wonder if Nergoral would counter that.

6 minutes ago, The Technovore said:

Even if Hemalurgy ends up purely restricted to Scadrial, 

It's not.

[BenduLuke he/him]

22 hours ago, Frustration said:

No it doesn't, if it was a regular recessive gene, you could breed a family of Pure MIstborn.

I also like siting my sources and helping others learn.

perhapse but I like =/= better.

For a basic lashing, but yes that is a point.

Why would they have a military?

They haven't had a war in over 300 years, having a standing army in those conditions is wierd, and on top of that, not only have we not see the military we have yet to have even so much as a soldier mentioned.

And what tactics?

Um, no they are.

Adhesion, imobolising you opponent or manipulating Connection.

Gravitation: obvious

Division: obvious

Abrasion: Lift is able to become almost invulnerable with it, as nothing can really connct with her

Progression: hyper advanced healing

Illumination: Obvious

Transformation: Obvious

Cohesion: terrain manipulation

Tension: Boosted strength, manipulation of weapons and other objects

All of them have massive impact on combat,

A- gold not so much

Breeding for magical abilities is what the Set were trying to do. Getting a full mistborn through breeding would likely take many generations of breeding, but getting specific metal abilities could be accomplished much sooner. The best and quickest results would be by breeding twinborns. Though I did say it might work like genetic memory instead of pure genetics.

Ok sighting sources fair enough. I get that you like =/= but it is a bit confusing and inaccurate, and please, please check your spelling it can be very confusing and distracting.

They would have a military because they live in a culture of city states with shifting alliances. The military tactics evident in the conflicts in era 2 are post civil war tactics which were adopted by the criminal underworld.

Many of those surge uses you mention as obvious have limited effect on other invested beings. Adhesion: Shardplate cannot be stuck in place so mistborn, mistings could probably at least resist it same goes for other surges. Progression is a great after battle skill to return allies, but in direct combat it is too resource and time intensive. Illumination countered by bronze, copper, and aluminum to name a few and does not deal direct damage except perhaps against fused now.  In addition to that most surges don't work at a distance and so are of limited tactical value in a conflict between Scadrians and Rosharans.

22 hours ago, The Technovore said:

I like imagining a Lightweaver disguised as an artillery-crewman just walking up to a big-ol Scadrian howitzer and be like "Hey!"

Howitzer: "I LIKE GOING BOOM!"

Spy: "You like going boom?"
Howitzer: "BOOM!"

Spy: "Going boom is great! I can help you go boom, you know!"
Howitzer: "I can do more BOOM?"

Spy: "Yes! All you need to do is become oil."

Howitzer: "YES! GO BOOM!"

r.i.p. Scadrian Howitzer. r.i.p. Artillery crewmates. r.i.p. anyone else nearby.

I think the effects of emotional allomancy can't be discounted. The ability to sooth or riot Rosharan non-radiant soldiers is a pretty big deal, especially with Mistborn that also have access to Duralumin (or normal Soothers or Rioters with a duralumin medallion) I also think that if Thaidakar and the Ghostbloods work out fabrial mechanics figure out how to combine it with SoScad medallions, they could make a lot of amazing effects that don't require metalborn on the battlefield but can still get their abilities, for example, a Nicrosil grenade that a foot soldier can toss toward some Radiants or Shardbearers with plate to nullify their abilities, or, again, emotional allomancy at range. If they liberally work Hemalurgy into their weapons the Rosharans could be in trouble. Can you imagine the devastating effects of an aluminum or chromium spike-bullet hitting a Radiant? Hitting a Bondsmith? Even if Hemalurgy ends up purely restricted to Scadrial, the prospect of capturing a Radiant, transporting them to Scadrial, and stealing their destiny(? if that is the effect of chromium spikes, it's not confirmed) would be extremely dangerous.

What will be interesting is when we learn how compounding works in reverse such that Feruchemy enhances Allomancy. Tin or Pewter might be the first compound pairs that this will be worked out with. Perhaps Iron too since increasing weight increases attraction and lurchers are about metal attraction.

I still wonder if an Iron compounder could become so dense, massive, heavy that they could be extremely resistant to damage. Iron pulls so strong that they can virtually pull on even shards. Perhaps even becoming massive enough to affect the flow of time around them and certainly massive enough that any exposed metal on the KR bringing them into close combat range. With the proportional strength the ability to overwhelm shard plate and or healing. (broken shard plate drains stormlight fast as does traumatic injury). They could lighten and pull themselves to the KR then become massively heavy crushing and immobilizing the KR. The massive investiture they might have could potentially resist damage from a shard blade just like their metal minds can, and their metal mind could be an entire suit of Iron armor granting additional protection. They might even be like a cross between Magneto and Colosus with much more pulling power, mass, and density.  The real limit to an Iron compounders ability would be how much weight can they really store in their suit of armor. Could they store enough weight to give them the effective weight to volume to have the density of a planet, star, white dwarf, newtron star, or even a black hole. We know that Wax had enough weight stored in just his bands to crash through a solid floor and he wasn't an iron compounder. In my wildest dreams that could be a very dangerous opponent to KR's. They might be able to pull Windrunners and Skybreakers right out of the sky and earth fused right out of the ground.

One other thing I was thinking that the most martially capable order are the Skybreakers with surges of both gravitation and division, both of which have significant martial potential. High ground, mobility and destruction at a distance all in one.

[Frustration he/him]

2 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Breeding for magical abilities is what the Set were trying to do. Getting a full mistborn through breeding would likely take many generations of breeding, but getting specific metal abilities could be accomplished much sooner. The best and quickest results would be by breeding twinborns. Though I did say it might work like genetic memory instead of pure genetics.

If it was possible Era 1 would have done it, and incest is not a storng enough argument not to Hapsburgs are proof of that.

4 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

They would have a military because they live in a culture of city states with shifting alliances. The military tactics evident in the conflicts in era 2 are post civil war tactics which were adopted by the criminal underworld.

City states that more or less function as a confederation, they refer to the possibility of conflict as a Civil War, they don't see other cities as enemies.

Also you keep saying tactics but never give an example, Their underground functions similar to ours of a specific time period doesn't mean that they have a military

6 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Many of those surge uses you mention as obvious have limited effect on other invested beings. Adhesion: Shardplate cannot be stuck in place so mistborn, mistings could probably at least resist it same goes for other surges. Progression is a great after battle skill to return allies, but in direct combat it is too resource and time intensive. Illumination countered by bronze, copper, and aluminum to name a few and does not deal direct damage except perhaps against fused now.  In addition to that most surges don't work at a distance and so are of limited tactical value in a conflict between Scadrians and Rosharans.

Progression gave Renarin a notable healing advantage in OB

Illumination allows you to become a human laser cannon.

The surges that don't work at a distance are the most tactically useable ones, Cohesion,Tension, Transformation and other Terrain altering ones do however.

10 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

I still wonder if an Iron compounder could become so dense, massive, heavy that they could be extremely resistant to damage. Iron pulls so strong that they can virtually pull on even shards.

Weight would increase the strength of the pull, not allowing them to pull on harder to effect objects.

[The Technovore he/him]

@BenduLuke Well, I highly doubt that Iron compounders will be able to effectively bend gravity and time, and I've done the math on that before on this very thread. I believe we have a WoB that even Shards cannot create blackholes (but no word on stars if I'm not wrong). Besides, the localized kinetic damage on the environment or the Iron Compounder would be significant long before anything in physics would start getting bent. (Seriously, the factor of g is so tiny, and g has to be so ridiculously high before it can effect light or time, the Crasher would sink through the stone into the planet's core and burn up before even getting close.) 
 

I actually think there might be potential in Invested Metalminds repelling shards. We see that shardblades and honorblades can't cut each other due to their investiture. I could see an Iron Twinborn compounding their mass to a great degree before filling a new piece of iron armor with all of it, in a way multiplying the Investiture and making it at least shard-resistant. It could be a way of making Scadrian Shardplate--using metalminds instead of stormlight. 

I feel like that would be the best way of an Iron-Compounder resisting damage, because iirc Iron feruchemy is not actually increasing an individual's mass (that would cause so many questions) but is rather manipulating the user's Spiritweb to indicate a higher amount of mass than is actually happening in the PR, causing the PR to believe that the user is heavier/lighter, and consequently more dense/less dense than they are, thus gravity and density effecting them differently. Most of the effects we see of Wax's feruchemy is actually based on density, not gravity. Because of this, even an extremely "heavy" iron compounder is still just as durable as a baseline human, which means that they'll be cut and damaged just as easily, and if iron-pulling too hard, they'd likely crush themselves as well. (Not likely however, the advantage of F-Iron and A-Iron combined is that your increased weight makes you a better ballast against whatever you're pulling, but you need raw A-iron strength (reverse compounding?) to actually increase the force you're exerting on it)

Edited February 25, 2021 by The Technovore
Made a clarifying correction

[BenduLuke he/him]

20 hours ago, Frustration said:

If it was possible Era 1 would have done it, and incest is not a storng enough argument not to Hapsburgs are proof of that.

City states that more or less function as a confederation, they refer to the possibility of conflict as a Civil War, they don't see other cities as enemies.

Also you keep saying tactics but never give an example, Their underground functions similar to ours of a specific time period doesn't mean that they have a military

Progression gave Renarin a notable healing advantage in OB

Illumination allows you to become a human laser cannon.

The surges that don't work at a distance are the most tactically useable ones, Cohesion,Tension, Transformation and other Terrain altering ones do however.

Weight would increase the strength of the pull, not allowing them to pull on harder to effect objects.

TLR would have restricted breeding effective metal born just like Feruchemists.

To me the Vanisher and Set tactics were obviously modern military. I know you have been saying those are underworld tactics but those tactics are inherited military tactics. Even the constable tactics are modern military tactics. Just because the stories don't include a military doesn't mean there isn't one and the military has more advanced tactics than the medievil tactics of Roshar simply because their weapons are far more advanced.

No Renarin's oath level gave him an increased healing ability just like it does with all orders.

Where has illumination been shown to create laser cannons? Who's speculating with minimal support now?

Cohesiion, Transformation, and Tension are also difficult to use against invested things and people. Besides they do as much or more to inhibit their allies than they do their enemies.

20 hours ago, The Technovore said:

@BenduLuke Well, I highly doubt that Iron compounders will be able to effectively bend gravity and time, and I've done the math on that before on this very thread. I believe we have a WoB that even Shards cannot create blackholes (but no word on stars if I'm not wrong). Besides, the localized kinetic damage on the environment or the Iron Compounder would be significant long before anything in physics would start getting bent. (Seriously, the factor of g is so tiny, and g has to be so ridiculously high before it can effect light or time, the Crasher would sink through the stone into the planet's core and burn up before even getting close.) 
 

I actually think there might be potential in Invested Metalminds repelling shards. We see that shardblades and honorblades can't cut each other due to their investiture. I could see an Iron Twinborn compounding their mass to a great degree before filling a new piece of iron armor with all of it, in a way multiplying the Investiture and making it at least shard-resistant. It could be a way of making Scadrian Shardplate--using metalminds instead of stormlight. 

I feel like that would be the best way of an Iron-Compounder resisting damage, because iirc Iron feruchemy is not actually increasing an individual's mass (that would cause so many questions) but is rather manipulating the user's Spiritweb to indicate a higher amount of mass than is actually happening in the PR, causing the PR to believe that the user is heavier/lighter, and consequently more dense/less dense than they are, thus gravity and density effecting them differently. Most of the effects we see of Wax's feruchemy is actually based on density, not gravity. Because of this, even an extremely "heavy" iron compounder is still just as durable as a baseline human, which means that they'll be cut and damaged just as easily, and if iron-pulling too hard, they'd likely crush themselves as well. (Not likely however, the advantage of F-Iron and A-Iron combined is that your increased weight makes you a better ballast against whatever you're pulling, but you need raw A-iron strength (reverse compounding?) to actually increase the force you're exerting on it)

Wax didn't get any larger when he tapped weight, but his density increased. Gravity is all about density (mass/volume) and there is no comment on compounding Iron. Logically if a persons density is high enough in the roughly 5 to 6 ft diameter that they occupy they would exert a measurable increase in gravity. A skimmer might not be able to store enough weight to make a measurable difference, but if one could compound that through allomancy the only limit would be just how much density could be stored in a metal mind. Eventually with enough density they would be resistant to penetration and would have massive strength perhaps even more than could be achieved through pewter compounding. Below I will include the Iron coppermind.

https://coppermind.net/wiki/Iron

Fully Invested metalminds have been said to be able to block shard blades. How much weight do you think you could store in full Iron Body Armor when Wax could store enough weight to crash through a floor with only 1 or 2 Iron arm bands? With some application of Lurcher abilities that armor might be able to operate similar to modern robotic armor. Allomantic pulls are much stronger than muscle power and multiplied by the right levers inside the armor that the Lurcher could pull on alternately would make for allomancy powered armor suits. they could even have projectile launchers installed that are allomancy powered. Some of those same projectiles if they missed could be brought back to hit the KR in the back or to reload. The increased mass would mean being able to absorb massive recoil so the projectiles could be launched at insane speeds.

Iron Feruchemy actually does increase mass it is in the coppermind description. The spirit web is not mentioned. As your calc's showed the amount of mass to make even a little difference is huge, well beyond what has already been shown. Wax had to store weight as he moved around and could only store so much at a time. The scale potential of an Iron compounder is potentially mind blowing. it is density (mass/volume) that they store in the metalmind. With enough tapped density it is logical that their skin and muscle would begin to function like metal and become highly resistant to damage. With enough density they could become resistant to radiation as well. There is the potential that they could become extremely conductive. The number and type of potential abilities an Iron compounder might be able to develop could make them both versatile and dangerous in all kinds of martial situations.

Remember we haven't seen an Iron compounder only vanilla Iron Feruchemy which is end neutral. Compounding is exponential according to harmon x10 postive. 1x to 10x to 100x and so on up to the max storage capacity of the Metal mind. More metal = more capacity. Also remember that F-Iron comes with proportional strength, and in addition one of the limits to metal pushes and pulls is the mass available to you. The more mass you have access to the stronger your pulls can be.

Yes I am radically speculating to the extremes. It is just to fun to extrapolate into the extreme possibilities of this type of compounder given what we do know about it and applying the results consistent with our natural world and its laws.

[Frustration he/him]

48 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

TLR would have restricted breeding effective metal born just like Feruchemists.

You forget the law allowing a noble man to bed anyone he wanted.

48 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

To me the Vanisher and Set tactics were obviously modern military. I know you have been saying those are underworld tactics but those tactics are inherited military tactics. Even the constable tactics are modern military tactics. Just because the stories don't include a military doesn't mean there isn't one and the military has more advanced tactics than the medievil tactics of Roshar simply because their weapons are far more advanced.

What evidence is there for the Underworld inheriting their tactics?

48 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

No Renarin's oath level gave him an increased healing ability just like it does with all orders.

Renarin was Oath three, just like everyone else, and on top of that it says in the text that his healing was better.

48 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Where has illumination been shown to create laser cannons? Who's speculating with minimal support now?

I'm getting tired of you calling information we've had for years 'unsupported' if you can't find the WoB ask me and I'll show it

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

[Discussion of Lightweavers manipulating other forms of electromagnetic radiation]

But the ultimate form (That Brandon said would be too much to be practical both in needed stormlight and application) would be the control of Gamma Radiation. If this could be harnessed, Lightweavers could literally become mini nukes, or death guns. The biggest downside to making Gamma radiation would be the damage the lightweaver would most likely suffer. So gamma radiation is impractical but its a fun thought experiment. 

The best part of this whole speculation was how excited Brandon was about my train of thought. I don't know if anyone had brought up this train of thought before. But he was happy to remind me that things will get pretty interesting when Lightweavers discover lasers and start using them in combat.

Miscellaneous 2016 (July 3, 2016)

That bolding isn't even mine.

 

48 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Cohesiion, Transformation, and Tension are also difficult to use against invested things and people. Besides they do as much or more to inhibit their allies than they do their enemies.

Do you have any idea how important Terrain is? If you can shape the ground any way you choose then you have zero risk of inhibiting yourself.

And why would the ground be invested?

Edited February 26, 2021 by Frustration

[Bejarden he/him]

3 minutes ago, Frustration said:

You forget the law allowing a noble man to bed anyone he wanted.

27 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

You forget the law that says he has to kill the women afterwards so that she doesn’t give birth

[Frustration he/him]

Just now, Bejardin1250 said:

You forget the law that says he has to kill the women afterwards so that she doesn’t give birth

Only if their Skaa.

[Bejarden he/him]

Well the TLR was ok with noble misting

to restrict that would be saying no noble could have any children ever...

It was the skaa mistings he didn’t want 

[The Technovore he/him]

  @Frustration you should show that WoB to the Roshar vs Sel thread and finish off that debate lol.

Also, the whole physical/spiritual DNA is weird and complicated, but in TFE we do see it (being metalborn) largely follow the principles of genetics. Honestly, I think it is mostly genetically related, and Sanderson just mentioned the Spiritual DNA so he could handwave away all the mistakes he made in worldbuilding when he first wrote TFE (wanting it to be genetics-based and realizing later that what he wrote doesn't follow the principles of genetics at all)

Spoiler

I'm pretty confident that in Sazed's chapters in WoA and HoA he talks about the way Iron works and it's not a literal changing of mass/density, because mass and weight are very different. If it's changing mass, then you're saying would be more feasible. Changing weight however is more in line with what I laid out, lying to the planet to affect gravity's affects on him. I'm not around those books right now though so I'll have to post that later.

EDIT: @BenduLuke sigh, alright, just saw the coppermind, that is pretty explicit, so I will give the point to you there, and double-check Alloy of Law and HoA and WoA

Edited February 26, 2021 by The Technovore

[Frustration he/him]

4 minutes ago, Bejardin1250 said:

Well the TLR was ok with noble misting

to restrict that would be saying no noble could have any children ever...

It was the skaa mistings he didn’t want 

But within the Nobility they could have children with whomever they wished, that was my point

[Bejarden he/him]

So your point is allomacers exist?

( I did try to find what you were trying to say but this topic is way to confusing and long)
 

[Frustration he/him]

Just now, Bejardin1250 said:

So your point is allomacers exist?

( I did try to find what you were trying to say but this topic is way to confusing and long)
 

I was saying if Allomancy folloewd normal genetic rules you could breed a family of pure MIstborn, which would have given one house a huge advantage, and the fact that we don't see that prooves that Allomancy doesn't follow normal genetics.