Scadrian vs. Rosharan magic post RoW

Halyo_Alex · March 18, 2021

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Just use bigger gems.

make a ruby the size of the moon

...that's no moon-

Frustration · March 18, 2021

1 minute ago, Halyo_Alex said:

make a ruby the size of the moon

...that's no moon-

It's a space laser

it's too big to be a space laser

therunner · March 18, 2021

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

I do understand those equations and the Wiki equations are why Relativity and Quantum Physics don't mix. There is not such thing as a state of zero energy, zero mass for any physical object in the universe so any thing accelerated through space toward the speed of light does increase in mass. Yes those were simple explainations but they were also accurate as far as they went.

You clearly do not understand them, if you did you would not be making claims you do. Also those equations have nothing to do with quantum physics, and relativity (special one, not general one) and quantum physics do mix quite well, that is what quantum field theory is (and arguments can be made that even general relativity can be taken as effective field theory), and quantum field theories are along with general relativity the best theories of nature we have. So your statement that relativity and quantum physics do not mix is laughable.

I never said anything about zero energy/zero mass states (so I do not understand why are you bringing them up), I was always talking about rest mass/rest energy. For any massive object (i.e. one whose rest mass is non-zero) there is a reference frame where the totality of their energy is just the rest mass (as I have already explained multiple times).

And no, those simple explanations you linked were not accurate, they were overtly simplistic and based on outdated understanding. I see you do not address the sources I have linked at all, and also you completely failed to address my further explanations. So for the last time, mass does not change with velocity, at best it qualitatively changes the gravitational field (in analogy with electromagnetic effects of moving charge), and any of your arguments based on assumption velocity increases mass are wrong.

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

I never said the Skybreaker soulcast someone else did, but even so increasing O2 to cause a massive failure of the gun powder would require a knowledge of chemistry for when someone does try that argument in context. Even using division on the air to cause it to burn after failing on the armor is a stretch and the direct physical attack is far more likely.

Ah, I have misunderstood then, you referenced soul-casting under my quotation, that is why I mentioned it. I do agree that applying division to air might be stretch, that is why I also offered the alternative of ground (also unless the armor covers Thugbearers entire body, they still have other options where to apply division).

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

It is the Ferrring that divides the attributes not the metal used when a metal can contain multiple attributes such as Tin or Nicrosil.

And I have said that I do agree that Nicrosil ferring might be able to store different kinds of investiture into different metalminds. The problem is A-Pewter is one kind of investiture, not multiple kinds of investiture, so they will not be able to split that.

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

The increased resistance to piercing damage is implied as Wax rips through the floor without so much as a scrape on his exposed skin. He is the reason the others avoided that because he cleared the way. Perhaps he even had some of that durability left since he didn't break bones when he landed or Wayne landed on him.

And the increased resistance to damage is directly contested by Wax himself in-story and by Brandon out-of-story as well. Also you do not have lingering ability after you stop tapping feruchemical store, either you have it, or you do not, so lingering durability makes no sense.

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

If you could find the anti-harmony tone you could presumably block feruchemy if all feruchemy operates on the same tone, but not necessarily allomancy or hemalurgy since they are from preservation and ruin respectively and so to be totally countered would need the preservation or ruin tones. That all discounts that each metal has its own unique rhythm indicating that there is not one tone, but a full scale of tones to account for. Stormlight is all at the same tonal value and Voidlight is at another. Lyft was affected not because they were corrupting stormlight but were corrupting the Sybling who operates on Sybling light (a combination of stormlight and lifelight), but she would likely have been unaffected by the device that nullified Kal since she operates on Lifelight. Venli will probaly need anti-warlight to be fully nullified.

Ruin and Preservation are no more, and are now intermingled into a new shard, Harmony. All metallic arts are now powered by this new shard Harmony, ergo to block all metallic arts you need only anti-Harmony suppressor.

Different applications of stormlight (illusions, soulcasting, lashings) do have different tones, that is why alerter spren did not react to Shallan but did quite violently to Kaladin (also because illusions are not so "loud"). We do not know why Lift was not fully affected (as she could not use only Abrasion), and corruption of Sibling most likely has nothing to with that, as Sibling was not active prior to that (and lost ability to create Sibling light before bonding with Navani). Venli does not use warlight (at this moment), she can just power her abilities both with stormlight and with voidlight.

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Counting on Rosharan Fabrials may be premature now that Navani knows it may be ethically bad to imprison Spren so may have to start from scratch to find a more ethically viable way to accomplish the same "tech".

But all the knowledge they amassed (effects of metals, mechanics of fabrial function, using of tones and rhythms) will not vanish, so all of that can still be used if necessary and greatly hasten development of more ethical fabrials. Or she will just convince Sibling that using non-sapiant spren for some time in fabrials is okay and they will mostly continue as now.

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

The Skybreaker never actually hit the armor with their shardblade, they struck the hardened rifle. The agent had feruchemical strenth, speed, healing, resiliance, reflexes, resistance, and alertness from storing alchemical pewter into their metalminds over a period of time as the traveled to Roshar. That would be enough to match and exceed any physical ability a KR might have with potentially some to spare and could be replenished by burning or flaring more pewter for a relatively short period of time thus the protagonist. (Protagonists always get plot armor).

Okay, even if the Skybreaker never hit the armor, they still have weight (shardplate ~600kg + 70kg Skybreaker) and potentially strength advantage (depending on how much is Thugbearer willing to deplete for one encounter) so from a simple consideration of momentums involved they would still most likely throw Thugbearer back (also, you are neglecting the fact that living blades can shapeshift). Pewter only doubles the users strength (or triples when flared), so to match the shardplate strength (~20 times the normal man at minimum) they would used up quite a lot of it, as to tap faster then storing is less efficient the further you try to push it. Also A-Pewter is a singular kind of investiture so indivisible into separate attributes. And the agents does not have feruchemical attributes, at most they have pewter attributes compressed from tapping them faster from nicrosil mind.

Also if both applied maximum strength, I think the aluminum alloy bayonet would break first (we have no examples of shardblades breaking), which would be extremely bad for the Thugbearer.

Also, if you assume the Thugbearer has plot armor of course they will win.

11 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Ok so spanreeds are potentially ansibles but at the moment the distances they are used at is so small to make no difference.

They are not potentially ansibles they are ansibles right now. Its just that on a single continent there is not much difference between light speed, and instantaneous transfer. But the second they get of planet, they have tech to instantly communicate with their agents, and way to mass produce these devices (even Ghostbloods have to rely on enslaved Seons for such communications).

11 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Even if there is not gap to allow the helmet to move (That seems unlikely) the Aluminum incendiary round would create one and might even eliminate the armor entirely in at least the region it strikes while burning into the flesh beneath the burning metal pierced armor. Consider burning aluminum neutralizes investiture, and anything or anyone pierced by aluminum loses investiture, and Incendiary aluminum containing rounds do both and are hot enough to cause massive and perhaps explosive injury.

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

I can see I wasn't clear about what I said about aluminum. the incendiary aluminum bullets don't just touch the shardplate. Even if the bullet itself doesn't penetrate directly the high temperatures of the incendiary chemicals do and those same chemicals also produce temperatures to ignite the aluminum. So the armor, and the knight are pierced by the aluminum and it is burning as well. Both being pierced by aluminum (hemalugically removes all investiture) and burning aluminum (alchemically neutralizes investiture) would be both disabling and potentially deadly to a KR. To make sure decapitation through a produced gap in the armor with an aluminum alloy blade would finish the job.

The gap is not there (shapeshifting + multiple interlocking layers + they can eventually be made airtight, and it is mentioned in the book that there is no gap).

Incendiary bullets generally are bad at armor penetration, and the ones you proposed are made of relatively light and soft metals, so would be even worse. And per WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100/#e3561) shardplates will resist bullets quite well (and that is deadplate, not living one). To break a single section (and remember there are multiple layers, so breaking one section does not get you to person beneath), would take Wax a coinshot at least 2-3 bullets in general circumstances per this WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/385/#e12595), and again that is deadplate, while our Skybreaker has living plate.

To go into more detail, the incendiary bullets you proposed over at coinshot lasers topic, were made from Potassium->Magnesium->Aluminum (going outside in) with some metal jacket on top. In this thread you seem to imply that aluminum would be on the outside (to negate armor investiture), so we can take it as Aluminum layer -> Potassium -> Magnesium->Aluminum.

Outside layer of aluminum would need to be some alloy, as pure aluminum is not hard enough to not get stripped immediately on contact (Mosh hardness 2.75), and I will assume that this alloy still has aluminum investiture negating properties (which is not given). This layer would be around ~0.5mm (based on usual bullet composition), and we know that thin aluminum would still get cut by shardblade, so shardplate is also harder than aluminum (same or similar godmetal alloys), so this outer layer would get stripped away on contact, or at best stripped as it partially penetrates one layer.

Next we have potassium. Potassium is incredibly soft (Mosh hardness 0.4) so it will just splash itself on the armor, after the outer layer is gone. Its autoignition temperature on air is ~500K which is not achieved, so it will not start burning. If it did, it would burn with temp ~1100 K, which would be sufficient to ignite magnesium.

If somehow the potassium ignited (maybe by adding small capsule with drop of water to the bullet?), the magnesium would ignite as well. However as it is also very soft (Mohs hardness 1.0-2.5) it would also not penetrate further in (the layers of shardplate they are in contact with are now again fully magical, as the outer layer aluminum was stripped when penetrating/partially penetrating the first layer. The magnesium burns at most at 3000K which is enough to ignite the final aluminum layer, which will burn at similar temperature.

Now while aluminum negates investiture in direct contact, only some of its alloys do the same (example Duralumin, which does not negate investiture effects even though it is 90% aluminum), and we do not know if chemical compounds of aluminum retain that quality (I would say they do not, for the most part). This would mean that when aluminum starts burning, it stops being effective at stopping the magical component of shardplates, actually lowering the effectiveness of the bullets.

We have established that due to comparative softness of the bullets composition it would not be able to mechanically penetrate the shardplate, even disregarding WoB on this topic. That means the only way for the bullet to get to Radiant would be to melt the armor to get in. Sadly we do not have melting points of godmetals, but this WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/181/#e3797) hints that it would be probably pretty high (in the other question on this topic he started instead talking about distilling godmetals from mists). Tungsten has the highest melting point of ordinary metals at ~3400K, so I will assume that godmetal would be comparable. No metal in the bulllet burns with this temperature, so the armor would not be melted. In addition, usual 9mm bullet composed of lead weighs ~8g, the bullet proposed is made from materials which are at least 5 times lighter, so equal sized bullet would be ~1.6 grams. Even if the entire mass was aluminum/magnessium, and even if melting point of shardplate was lower than 3000K, the amount of heat produced from burning 1.6 gram of aluminum would not be enough to melt more than a few grams of the armor at best. Since shardplate weight around 600Kg, this would not even make a dent.

In conclusion, the bullet would not do much most likely, at best temporarily and partially disabling one layer of one section of the plate. So no penetration -> no decapition, and our Thugbearer now faces 4th oath Skybreaker with no way to counter them and lost time assuming the bullet would disable them. And finally two points:

1) To remove investiture with aluminum requires intent (so our supertrained and equipped Thugbearer would also need to be trained in hemalurgy to take advantage of that) and it requires pure aluminum, so the burning effect would screw that up.

2) Allomantically burning aluminum removes investiture reserves, it is an active allomatic ability. Just setting it on fire does nothing at all, investiture wise.

Edited March 18, 2021 by therunner
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The Technovore · March 18, 2021

@therunner you deserve more upvotes than I have the power to give

BenduLuke · March 18, 2021

20 hours ago, Frustration said:

First off only the sheilds and the canes have been used by actual Hazekillers.

Second off, both were used by non-Hazekillers so I don't see why that makes Hazekillers so specialised.

Cars where made in the late nineteenth century, and Roshar already has aircraft so I don't see your point, Fabrials are what we have to judge Roshar by, not their earth tech.

Coming into contact with Aluminum will not turn off Shardplates durability.

Roshar will continue to develop fabrials whatever the Sibling thinks, it's not slavery, you can't inslave a cow, you can't enslave oil, that just doesn't make sense.

It doesn't matter whether the Hazekiller Tech was shown being used by Hazekillers it is still Hazekiller tech or for better definition anti-investiture tech. It is the training that makes Hazekillers so specialized and because of them the armaments that give regular people a chance to challenge invested individuals.

Does shardplates durability extend to extremely high temperature burning metal? It may not be piercing by force but by hot burning metal and aluminum once either burning or piercing does negate all investiture so in that region the armor will likely come apart exposing the KR to burning aluminum inside their body which will likely neutralize all the stormlight in the KR.

Enslaving Spren is like performing animal testing not like domesticating cows.

10 hours ago, therunner said:

You clearly do not understand them, if you did you would not be making claims you do. Also those equations have nothing to do with quantum physics, and relativity (special one, not general one) and quantum physics do mix quite well, that is what quantum field theory is (and arguments can be made that even general relativity can be taken as effective field theory), and quantum field theories are along with general relativity the best theories of nature we have. So your statement that relativity and quantum physics do not mix is laughable.

I never said anything about zero energy/zero mass states (so I do not understand why are you bringing them up), I was always talking about rest mass/rest energy. For any massive object (i.e. one whose rest mass is non-zero) there is a reference frame where the totality of their energy is just the rest mass (as I have already explained multiple times).

And no, those simple explanations you linked were not accurate, they were overtly simplistic and based on outdated understanding. I see you do not address the sources I have linked at all, and also you completely failed to address my further explanations. So for the last time, mass does not change with velocity, at best it qualitatively changes the gravitational field (in analogy with electromagnetic effects of moving charge), and any of your arguments based on assumption velocity increases mass are wrong.

Ah, I have misunderstood then, you referenced soul-casting under my quotation, that is why I mentioned it. I do agree that applying division to air might be stretch, that is why I also offered the alternative of ground (also unless the armor covers Thugbearers entire body, they still have other options where to apply division).

And I have said that I do agree that Nicrosil ferring might be able to store different kinds of investiture into different metalminds. The problem is A-Pewter is one kind of investiture, not multiple kinds of investiture, so they will not be able to split that.

And the increased resistance to damage is directly contested by Wax himself in-story and by Brandon out-of-story as well. Also you do not have lingering ability after you stop tapping feruchemical store, either you have it, or you do not, so lingering durability makes no sense.

Ruin and Preservation are no more, and are now intermingled into a new shard, Harmony. All metallic arts are now powered by this new shard Harmony, ergo to block all metallic arts you need only anti-Harmony suppressor.

Different applications of stormlight (illusions, soulcasting, lashings) do have different tones, that is why alerter spren did not react to Shallan but did quite violently to Kaladin (also because illusions are not so "loud"). We do not know why Lift was not fully affected (as she could not use only Abrasion), and corruption of Sibling most likely has nothing to with that, as Sibling was not active prior to that (and lost ability to create Sibling light before bonding with Navani). Venli does not use warlight (at this moment), she can just power her abilities both with stormlight and with voidlight.

But all the knowledge they amassed (effects of metals, mechanics of fabrial function, using of tones and rhythms) will not vanish, so all of that can still be used if necessary and greatly hasten development of more ethical fabrials. Or she will just convince Sibling that using non-sapiant spren for some time in fabrials is okay and they will mostly continue as now.

Okay, even if the Skybreaker never hit the armor, they still have weight (shardplate ~600kg + 70kg Skybreaker) and potentially strength advantage (depending on how much is Thugbearer willing to deplete for one encounter) so from a simple consideration of momentums involved they would still most likely throw Thugbearer back (also, you are neglecting the fact that living blades can shapeshift). Pewter only doubles the users strength (or triples when flared), so to match the shardplate strength (~20 times the normal man at minimum) they would used up quite a lot of it, as to tap faster then storing is less efficient the further you try to push it. Also A-Pewter is a singular kind of investiture so indivisible into separate attributes. And the agents does not have feruchemical attributes, at most they have pewter attributes compressed from tapping them faster from nicrosil mind.

Also if both applied maximum strength, I think the aluminum alloy bayonet would break first (we have no examples of shardblades breaking), which would be extremely bad for the Thugbearer.

Also, if you assume the Thugbearer has plot armor of course they will win.

They are not potentially ansibles they are ansibles right now. Its just that on a single continent there is not much difference between light speed, and instantaneous transfer. But the second they get of planet, they have tech to instantly communicate with their agents, and way to mass produce these devices (even Ghostbloods have to rely on enslaved Seons for such communications).

The gap is not there (shapeshifting + multiple interlocking layers + they can eventually be made airtight, and it is mentioned in the book that there is no gap).

Incendiary bullets generally are bad at armor penetration, and the ones you proposed are made of relatively light and soft metals, so would be even worse. And per WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100/#e3561) shardplates will resist bullets quite well (and that is deadplate, not living one). To break a single section (and remember there are multiple layers, so breaking one section does not get you to person beneath), would take Wax a coinshot at least 2-3 bullets in general circumstances per this WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/385/#e12595), and again that is deadplate, while our Skybreaker has living plate.

To go into more detail, the incendiary bullets you proposed over at coinshot lasers topic, were made from Potassium->Magnesium->Aluminum (going outside in) with some metal jacket on top. In this thread you seem to imply that aluminum would be on the outside (to negate armor investiture), so we can take it as Aluminum layer -> Potassium -> Magnesium->Aluminum.

Outside layer of aluminum would need to be some alloy, as pure aluminum is not hard enough to not get stripped immediately on contact (Mosh hardness 2.75), and I will assume that this alloy still has aluminum investiture negating properties (which is not given). This layer would be around ~0.5mm (based on usual bullet composition), and we know that thin aluminum would still get cut by shardblade, so shardplate is also harder than aluminum (same or similar godmetal alloys), so this outer layer would get stripped away on contact, or at best stripped as it partially penetrates one layer.

Next we have potassium. Potassium is incredibly soft (Mosh hardness 0.4) so it will just splash itself on the armor, after the outer layer is gone. Its autoignition temperature on air is ~500K which is not achieved, so it will not start burning. If it did, it would burn with temp ~1100 K, which would be sufficient to ignite magnesium.

If somehow the potassium ignited (maybe by adding small capsule with drop of water to the bullet?), the magnesium would ignite as well. However as it is also very soft (Mohs hardness 1.0-2.5) it would also not penetrate further in (the layers of shardplate they are in contact with are now again fully magical, as the outer layer aluminum was stripped when penetrating/partially penetrating the first layer. The magnesium burns at most at 3000K which is enough to ignite the final aluminum layer, which will burn at similar temperature.

Now while aluminum negates investiture in direct contact, only some of its alloys do the same (example Duralumin, which does not negate investiture effects even though it is 90% aluminum), and we do not know if chemical compounds of aluminum retain that quality (I would say they do not, for the most part). This would mean that when aluminum starts burning, it stops being effective at stopping the magical component of shardplates, actually lowering the effectiveness of the bullets.

We have established that due to comparative softness of the bullets composition it would not be able to mechanically penetrate the shardplate, even disregarding WoB on this topic. That means the only way for the bullet to get to Radiant would be to melt the armor to get in. Sadly we do not have melting points of godmetals, but this WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/181/#e3797) hints that it would be probably pretty high (in the other question on this topic he started instead talking about distilling godmetals from mists). Tungsten has the highest melting point of ordinary metals at ~3400K, so I will assume that godmetal would be comparable. No metal in the bulllet burns with this temperature, so the armor would not be melted. In addition, usual 9mm bullet composed of lead weighs ~8g, the bullet proposed is made from materials which are at least 5 times lighter, so equal sized bullet would be ~1.6 grams. Even if the entire mass was aluminum/magnessium, and even if melting point of shardplate was lower than 3000K, the amount of heat produced from burning 1.6 gram of aluminum would not be enough to melt more than a few grams of the armor at best. Since shardplate weight around 600Kg, this would not even make a dent.

In conclusion, the bullet would not do much most likely, at best temporarily and partially disabling one layer of one section of the plate. So no penetration -> no decapition, and our Thugbearer now faces 4th oath Skybreaker with no way to counter them and lost time assuming the bullet would disable them. And finally two points:

1) To remove investiture with aluminum requires intent (so our supertrained and equipped Thugbearer would also need to be trained in hemalurgy to take advantage of that) and it requires pure aluminum, so the burning effect would screw that up.

2) Allomantically burning aluminum removes investiture reserves, it is an active allomatic ability. Just setting it on fire does nothing at all, investiture wise.

I gave you an article from Berkley physics. I didn't respond to your wikipedia article directly because it supported what I told you. Here is another article from wikipedia since that seems to be your trusted source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_special_relativity

Mass does increase with velocity (Speed in a direction) because energy increases as velocity increases and as energy increases mass increases, the speed of light certainly doesn't change.

Still a person with a big pointy sword will most likely default to the sword if his more complicated division attack fails. Aluminum is light enough that it could cover the whole body either as plates, scales or fine chain or all of the above. It could even be as layers of thin fiber wires woven together with durable fabrics.

What burning pewter does is invest several physically based abilities which depending on the feruchemical metal could be stored individually just like burning tin invests all senses at once but a tin ferirng compounder splits those invested senses into individual metal minds. Nicrosil seems to literally be able to store any kind of investiture so pewter invested abilities could theoretically be split into separate metal minds by the Soulbearer.

What Wax and Brandon say about Iron-F and durability and what happened as Wax crashed through the floor contradict. That is easily explained by Wax not tapping weight significant enough to recognize any noticeable change and so far Brandon hasn't used an Iron ferring who could do that. Wax at regular durability and weight still used steel pushes to slow his fall and minimize impact.

What do you mean incendiary shells are great at piercing armor they melt right through. Armor piercing rounds used on Tanks often have an incendiary component.

When I was in Highschool my chemistry teacher pulled out pellets of pure potassium from its oil bath and once exposed to air it ignited almost imediately. We used pure K pellets to ignite Mg which burned through 2 inch steel plate and lit the water in the liter beaker on fire before finally cooling enough to be doused. It also cracked the beaker. The Mg would ignite the Al. Yes Al alloy would likely be the jacket and might crack on impact with shardplate. Exposure to air and the heat friction would ignite the K which in turn ignites the Mg then both the Al Jacket and Al core which then burns through the armor and the person beneath. Scadrian's would use aluminum because they know it counters investiture. It can't be detected allamantically or deflected and effectively disables overt investiture it comes in contact with. They know it disrupts speed bubbles, healing, emotional manipulation, copper clouds and can totally neutralize allomantic metals so can speculate that it will likely effect other forms of investiture. I expect that in the future the police will use aluminum restraints on people in case they have some form of metalborn ability to negate it. Even a pewter arm restrained by aluminum handcuffs would likely cut his wrists while trying to break them and lose all the pewter in his system.

One of the properties of aluminum is that when it burns it neutralizes investiture. However your points are good. We don't know what temperatures Shardplate can withstand in small areas. If aluminum acts differently with allomantic burning than just regular burning then it would depend entirely on the point heat resistance of the plate. If burning is burning then the stormlight cohesion would be lost perhaps in the entire plate and it might lose all durability exposing the Skybreaker. I can't say the scenario I presented would happen how I framed it only that it potentially might. Aluminum is actually never entirely pure since it oxidizes in 2 seconds when exposed to air.

this whole topic is speculation based on loose examples and rules. Some abilities have substantial documentation, but most are much more open to interpretation. the point was to present a situation where the Scadrian would likely out "gun" the Rosharan one on one since most people seem locked into the idea that there is no way one on one a Scadrian has a chance in a head on confrontation. I just don't buy that.

Oh the Mg demonstration the water didn't put it out it burned out. It still burned for a good 10 seconds and it certainly didn't have even the volume of a .22 bullet.

Duralumin burning might cause a stormlight flash wiping stormlight explosively in the armor and KR and its penetration removes both connecton and identity so again destructive to the KR.

Edited March 18, 2021 by BenduLuke

The Technovore · March 19, 2021

Alright, I've been silent for a while on this issue, because therunner seemed to have it handled, but at this point I can't anymore. @BenduLuke.

Quote

I gave you an article from Berkley physics. I didn't respond to your wikipedia article directly because it supported what I told you. Here is another article from wikipedia since that seems to be your trusted source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_special_relativity

Mass does increase with velocity (Speed in a direction) because energy increases as velocity increases and as energy increases mass increases, the speed of light certainly doesn't change.

NO. Alright? No.

From THAT source.

Quote

The relativistic mass is the sum total quantity of energy in a body or system...

ALSO from that source:

Quote

Relativistic mass and rest mass are both traditional concepts in physics, but the relativistic mass corresponds to the total energy.

Okay? m(rel) in those equations indicates the total energy of the object or system, the second equation in that article describes that at negligible speeds the energy of a particle is not much more than that inherent to the particle itself, but expands toward infinity as v becomes closer to c. E=m(rel)c^2 describes the fact that the inherent resting mass of an object actually adds to the total available energy in a system.

Secondly, we don't even need to get into the specifics of these equations because of the Conservation of Mass, Energy, and Momentum laws. If accelerating an object causes the mass of an object to increase, where is the mass coming from? Is it coming from the energy? Because that would slow it down very quickly, but in your reading of these equations the loss of velocity would mean the loss of mass. Where is the mass going? Where is the energy going? It makes no sense. The increased energy of a particle moving at relativistic speeds is coming from the velocity itself, that velocity decreases due to friction against other particles and spacetime.

Quote

In general, for isolated systems and single observers, relativistic mass is conserved (each observer sees it constant over time), but is not invariant (that is, different observers see different values). Invariant mass, however, is both conserved and invariant (all single observers see the same value, which does not change over time).

The relativistic mass corresponds to the energy, so conservation of energy automatically means that relativistic mass is conserved for any given observer and inertial frame. However, this quantity, like the total energy of a particle, is not invariant. This means that, even though it is conserved for any observer during a reaction, its absolute value will change with the frame of the observer, and for different observers in different frames.

Invariant mass is defined as rest mass, and is used in Newton's second law (Force=Mass*Acceleration)

Can we be done with this and go back to magic arguing now?

Edited March 19, 2021 by The Technovore

Frustration · March 19, 2021

17 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Does shardplates durability extend to extremely high temperature burning metal? It may not be piercing by force but by hot burning metal and aluminum once either burning or piercing does negate all investiture so in that region the armor will likely come apart exposing the KR to burning aluminum inside their body which will likely neutralize all the stormlight in the KR.

Shardplate is entirly immune to lightning, so I don't think temperature is a problem
Allomantic burning is not igniting something in a chemical reaction, it is forceibly deconstructing the metal by turning it into a conduit to the Spiritual realm, so igniting aluminum will not have your desired effect
Hemalurgy requires peircing a specific location, on a living body, you can't just stab a random metalmind and destroy it's storage, so that won't work either

17 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Enslaving Spren is like performing animal testing not like domesticating cows.

I don't see a diference, that's like saying I enslave my microwave when I reheat my pizza.

17 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

What Wax and Brandon say about Iron-F and durability and what happened as Wax crashed through the floor contradict. That is easily explained by Wax not tapping weight significant enough to recognize any noticeable change and so far Brandon hasn't used an Iron ferring who could do that. Wax at regular durability and weight still used steel pushes to slow his fall and minimize impact.

The cosmere also follows the Rule of Cool, if pure physics applied Vin and Elend would be thrown around any time they tried to use a Koloss sword.

17 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Duralumin burning might cause a stormlight flash wiping stormlight explosively in the armor and KR and its penetration removes both connecton and identity so again destructive to the KR.

Once again setting it on fire isn't going to work,

and Hemalurgy is very precice specific regions of the heart have different effects.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Frustration

**LewsTherinTelescope** · March 19, 2021

18 hours ago, therunner said:

Ruin and Preservation are no more, and are now intermingled into a new shard, Harmony.

Ruin and Preservation definitely both still exist. Some WoBs on this:

They are not fully combined.
He holds two Shards that are at odds with each other.
There are fifteen Vessels, but still are sixteen Shards (he corrects himself to point out that there's even fewer Vessels than that, due to some Shards being unheld).
Sazed's Shards do not cancel out, but rather both remain and tug at him.

+Oltux72 · March 19, 2021

55 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Ruin and Preservation definitely both still exist. Some WoBs on this:

OK, that raises a question. Hamony has a metal. Does that mean that other types of Investiture also have metals? Is there are a Towerium(Turrium?), Vitarium and Warium(Bellium?)? If you can turn Spren into metal, can you turn Breath into metal? A Shade?

therunner · March 19, 2021

10 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

I gave you an article from Berkley physics. I didn't respond to your wikipedia article directly because it supported what I told you. Here is another article from wikipedia since that seems to be your trusted source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_special_relativity

Mass does increase with velocity (Speed in a direction) because energy increases as velocity increases and as energy increases mass increases, the speed of light certainly doesn't change.

The article hosted on Berkley site is from 1996 and is targeted at high-schoolers/high school teachers. Oh, and it also says this about "mass increase" (paraphrased a bit):

"True relative to observer measures velocity. For person moving right along with the object, they will not observe any change in mass."

So it is dependent on observer, and that is one of reasons for why it is not a good physical concept (either as inertial mass, or as a gravitational source) I already addressed.

You did not react to my examples on what it would do in gravity at all. Also it is a bit funny that you link a wikipedia article I myself linked on a page 39 of this thread. And if you bothered to read it, you would see that it does not support what you are saying, as @The Technovore already pointed out (thank you for that). But just for sake of completeness, please read the section History of the relativistic mass concept of the wikipedia article you linked, which address the issues of the concept. As an example:

" The concept of "relativistic mass" is subject to misunderstanding. That's why we don't use it. First, it applies the name mass – belonging to the magnitude of a 4-vector – to a very different concept, the time component of a 4-vector. Second, it makes increase of energy of an object with velocity or momentum appear to be connected with some change in internal structure of the object. In reality, the increase of energy with velocity originates not in the object but in the geometric properties of spacetime itself. " (quoted from https://books.google.cz/books?id=PDA8YcvMc_QC&q=ouch!+"relativistic+mass"&redir_esc=y , pg 248-249).

So to close up, relativistic mass is and outdated concept born first from misunderstanding the equation and meaning of the terms (it was a cutting edge theory at the time, so that is understandable) and it is maintained through combination of popularity of "simple" equations like E=mc^2 in pop culture and outdated high-school textbooks. Ultimately, while moving objects do gain energy (through relation E^2 = m^2c^4 + p^2c^2) this does not change their mass at all (as mass is invariant characterizing given object, and on level of elementary particles it is one of the invariant charges).

6 hours ago, The Technovore said:

Can we be done with this and go back to magic arguing now?

I support this motion.

10 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Still a person with a big pointy sword will most likely default to the sword if his more complicated division attack fails. Aluminum is light enough that it could cover the whole body either as plates, scales or fine chain or all of the above. It could even be as layers of thin fiber wires woven together with durable fabrics.

Maybe they would prefer club to a sword due to their cultural background, you do not know they would prefer sword, you just assume that. Also you still did not address the weight difference, which will be quite important if they clash weapons, even without strength parity.

If the aluminum is thin enough it might get smashed/cut through by shardblade anyway, as even when you negate magical properties it is still quite sharp and heavy. The thin fibers would be even worse idea for stopping shardblades, as those would definitely get cut.

10 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

What burning pewter does is invest several physically based abilities which depending on the feruchemical metal could be stored individually just like burning tin invests all senses at once but a tin ferirng compounder splits those invested senses into individual metal minds. Nicrosil seems to literally be able to store any kind of investiture so pewter invested abilities could theoretically be split into separate metal minds by the Soulbearer.

No, it invests you with A-pewter coded investiture, that is it. This investiture has multiple physical effects (stormlight also has multiple effects, but is indivisible), but the investiture causing them is singular. Metals work as keys (analog to Aons on Sel) that when allomantically burned create conduit to spiritual realm, through which Preservation investiture flows to user. That investiture is shaped by the key (in this case metal) to achieve particular effect (in this case A-pewter effects), but it is still just one kind of investiture.

As far as we know, nicrosil can store static investiture (pieces of spiritweb) and potentially maybe kinetic investiture (although that might require some hacks/work). Nicrosil does not allow user to split or shape investiture. It is like if the nicrosil ferring had different colors beads stuck in their soul. They can choose which color goes where (i.e. different kinds of investiture go to different metalminds) but it cannot split purple bead into red bead and a blue bead (splitting A-pewter investiture into different abilities).

10 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

What Wax and Brandon say about Iron-F and durability and what happened as Wax crashed through the floor contradict. That is easily explained by Wax not tapping weight significant enough to recognize any noticeable change and so far Brandon hasn't used an Iron ferring who could do that. Wax at regular durability and weight still used steel pushes to slow his fall and minimize impact.

I do not think they contradict, there are other options (maybe the floor was partly eaten through by beatles and was softer than you would expect, maybe his clothing was sturdy enough, maybe he got lucky). As long as there are other more obvious (to me) explanations that do not contradict characters in story and the author, I will lean in their direction. Maybe in future something will show the increased resistance to damage (as WoB are not necessarily binding) but until such time, I will go with in-world experiences and author word.

10 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

What do you mean incendiary shells are great at piercing armor they melt right through. Armor piercing rounds used on Tanks often have an incendiary component.

The armor piercing capabilities of such shells come from their shape (sharper nose), weight (to not lose much momentum when hitting armor) and hardness (to not splash uselessly against armor). They might also contain shaped charges inside them to assist with the destruction of armor, but even with these (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-explosive_anti-tank) the effect is not due to thermal work done. Also these rounds are generally much larger/longer than the armor they are designed to penetrate.

10 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

When I was in Highschool my chemistry teacher pulled out pellets of pure potassium from its oil bath and once exposed to air it ignited almost imediately. We used pure K pellets to ignite Mg which burned through 2 inch steel plate and lit the water in the liter beaker on fire before finally cooling enough to be doused. It also cracked the beaker. The Mg would ignite the Al. Yes Al alloy would likely be the jacket and might crack on impact with shardplate. Exposure to air and the heat friction would ignite the K which in turn ignites the Mg then both the Al Jacket and Al core which then burns through the armor and the person beneath.

Here is a video on potassium (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANH-v-jd9PQ) as you can see on air it does nothing much, with water however it does ignite immediately. When spread more thin to create larger reaction surface it does combust, but it barely burns through a bunch of napkins so effect on armor would be non-existent (and that was a lot more than 1.8 grams), and even larger amount did nothing at all to the small iron ladle.

Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dJww7TcpX8) we have homemade thermite with aluminum experiments. It fails to burn through even 1/8 inch steel, and the amount of thermite was 300 grams. Note that iron thermite burns at ~3100 K so comparable to burn temperature of your bullet contents, so 300grams burning at ~3000K failed to melt through 1/8 inches of steel -> your 2 gram bullet would not even scratch the surface of the shardplate. In this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trb3v-7ptjg) from Mythbusters they did manage to burn through 3 steel plates (they seem to be again 1/8 inches thick), but they used up a few kilograms to do that, so this has no effect on argument above.

To make a more quantitative argument, shardplate weight ~600 kg=6*10^5 grams, human skin has surface area around 2m^2. If we assume the shardplate is 2cm thick (you will see why shortly), we get density 6*10^5/(4*10^4) = 15 g/cm^3, this is almost twice as much as steel, and closer to tungsten or uranium. (If I assumed the usual medieval armor thickness at ~2mm, the density would be ridiculous at 150g per cm^3, however the mass that would need to be melted would remain the same, only its volume would change)

So a 9mm incendiary bullet would need to displace/melt hole at minimum pi*(9mm)^2*2cm = 5 cm^3, and the amount of shardplate there would weigh 75 grams. Steel has specific heat of ~0.5 J/g*C so we can start with this. The amount of heat necessary to heat this small part of shardplate to its melting point (assumed here to be 3000 K) from room temperature (~300 K) would be 75*2700*0.5 = 101.25 kJ. Energy content of iron thermite is 4 kJ/g, so even if the bullet has magically more than twice that at 10 kJ/g it would still barely at best heat up a 1/4 of the required amount to melting point. I neglected the heat of fusion here, as it would give correction of the order ~10 kJ, so it would qualitatively make no difference. I also neglected that metals are generally excellent heat conductors, so the amount of energy necessary would grow, but it would most likely remain on the same order of magnitude.

To summarize single incendiary bullet of usual weight will not burn through shardplate, even when made of stuff that is chemically more energetic than in our world, it simply does not provide enough energy to melt even a smallest hole in the armor.

11 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

One of the properties of aluminum is that when it burns it neutralizes investiture. However your points are good. We don't know what temperatures Shardplate can withstand in small areas. If aluminum acts differently with allomantic burning than just regular burning then it would depend entirely on the point heat resistance of the plate. If burning is burning then the stormlight cohesion would be lost perhaps in the entire plate and it might lose all durability exposing the Skybreaker. I can't say the scenario I presented would happen how I framed it only that it potentially might. Aluminum is actually never entirely pure since it oxidizes in 2 seconds when exposed to air.

Aluminum neutralized investiture when burned allomatically, i.e. when used as allomantic metal inside allomancer, not when you set it on fire. From Coppermind article on allomantic effect of aluminum

" An aluminum Misting is known as an Aluminum Gnat. Burning aluminum causes the body to instantly metabolize its metal reserves without any other effect^. As such, an Aluminum Gnat gains no useable powers from their Allomancy, however, it can be used to negate effects of other Investiture such as Withering. Only Allomantically relevant metals can be burned away."

Allomantic burning has nothing whatsoever to do with regular burning (i.e. exothermic oxidation), it is a magical ability to use metal as a conduit to spiritual realm to access investiture and achieve some effect, and the metal is consumed in the process. If any allomantic metal could be just set on fire to do their effect then metalborn are completely superfluous.

Good point on the quick oxidation of aluminum, that would either imply that aluminum oxide has the same investiture negating properties, or that since only surface layer oxidizes and below it is still pure aluminum that the effects of aluminum extend a short range from its volume (maybe a few mm?).

11 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

this whole topic is speculation based on loose examples and rules. Some abilities have substantial documentation, but most are much more open to interpretation. the point was to present a situation where the Scadrian would likely out "gun" the Rosharan one on one since most people seem locked into the idea that there is no way one on one a Scadrian has a chance in a head on confrontation. I just don't buy that.

I do not mind speculation, but when you start bringing in real world phenomena and completely neglect the actual scales of energy involved, than it is no longer speculation but just misleading. If you also misrepresent actual abilities we have information on (allomantic burning vs regular burning) that is again no longer speculation, but just wrong and not how it works. And when you presented a situation where Scadrian would win, I countered and presented arguments for why it would not play out like that. I also do not think that Scadrian has no chance one-on-one, just that in head-on battle they do not have chance against 4th oath Radiant (outside of Fullborn, some compounders and maybe mistborn with one well chosen medallion to allow compounding). I think Scadrians best chance would be to catch Radiant unaware (i.e. supersonic aluminum incendiary bullet to the head, or two) but since we now know that living plate is always "there" even this might be complicated.

11 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Oh the Mg demonstration the water didn't put it out it burned out. It still burned for a good 10 seconds and it certainly didn't have even the volume of a .22 bullet.

Here is some magnesium demonstration (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErJS78AnO80) just put in water does not do much, with steam it does a bit better. Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIBCcW1Zp8w) we can see that when set on fire before submerging it then reacts a lot better, but it still does not even crack the glass, or evaporate any larger amounts of water. Also volume is not the relevant quantity, mass is. The .22 bullet has volume ~1cm^3 (casing just contains propellant, so we do not include that) so that is 1.7 grams of magnesium or 2.8 grams of aluminum (and that would not include any outer shell or anything, so just a small dab of magnessium/aluminum), so my calculation from above still holds: The bullet would not have anywhere near enough energy to melt even a small bullet shaped hole in shardplate.

12 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Duralumin burning might cause a stormlight flash wiping stormlight explosively in the armor and KR and its penetration removes both connecton and identity so again destructive to the KR.

Burning=/= allomantic burning, so even if it penetrated it would do nothing at all to stormlight. Also hemallurgy requires both intent (so again thugbearer would need to be quite educated) and precise bind points to steal the abilities/attributes, you cannot just shoot it anywhere

3 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Ruin and Preservation definitely both still exist. Some WoBs on this:

They are not fully combined.

He holds two Shards that are at odds with each other.

There are fifteen Vessels, but still are sixteen Shards (he corrects himself to point out that there's even fewer Vessels than that, due to some Shards being unheld).

Sazed's Shards do not cancel out, but rather both remain and tug at him.

Thanks for these WoBs, I was not aware of them/forgot them. In my claim that metallic arts are now powered by Harmony and not by Ruin/Preservation I was working from following information:

Sazed when killed would drop Harmony, as the shards of Ruin and Preservation are now intermingled.
There is now only Harmonium, and it seems that neither Atium nor Lerasium are no longer naturally produced (although Lost Metal might provide more information on this).

In light of those WoBs you linked I now dont know what to think. I can still see it going either way (ie. allomantic arts powered by only Harmony, so only one anti-tone is necessary, or two anti-tones to block both Ruin and Preservation). Ultimately blocking at least allomancy with just Preservation blocker would inhibit most offensive abilities, so it might be enough to provide some edge in battles.

**LewsTherinTelescope** · March 19, 2021

7 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Towerium(Turrium?)

Shardblades and Shardplate, perhaps?

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Sazed when killed would drop Harmony, as the shards of Ruin and Preservation are now intermingled.

Yeah, this is the big one that a lot of people see, and draw the pretty logical conclusion off of. My guess is that, while the Shards are melding together somewhat, it's more just tying threads together, they do still exist separately but are made into a larger whole as well.

4 hours ago, therunner said:

There is now only Harmonium, and it seems that neither Atium nor Lerasium are no longer naturally produced (although Lost Metal might provide more information on this).

Honestly, I'm curious where lerasium comes from in the first place. We know Rashek did not create it, nor was it placed there for him, but rather he had to get it, but that could be anywhere from "it generated at the bottom of the pool and he had to bend down" to "there's a whole lerasium mine across the world". (Also curious where ettmetal comes from.)

4 hours ago, therunner said:

In light of those WoBs you linked I now dont know what to think. I can still see it going either way (ie. allomantic arts powered by only Harmony, so only one anti-tone is necessary, or two anti-tones to block both Ruin and Preservation). Ultimately blocking at least allomancy with just Preservation blocker would inhibit most offensive abilities, so it might be enough to provide some edge in battles.

Yeah, I'd guess -Preservation would be enough for Allomancy, though you'd need both for Feruchemy. Not sure if being inside metal would shield Hemalurgic spikes from -Ruin or not, I'd lean probably would, but worth a shot.

Bejarden · March 19, 2021

Just to get a clear consensus on this as I can’t understand a single thing @BenduLuke says or @therunner

in a single one on one fight who would win

And in a protracted war who would win

And please don’t bring college level physics into it

therunner · March 19, 2021

1 hour ago, Bejardin1250 said:

Just to get a clear consensus on this as I can’t understand a single thing @BenduLuke says or @therunner

in a single one on one fight who would win

And in a protracted war who would win

And please don’t bring college level physics into it

I assume "Hard to say" is not good answer?

Protracted war (united Era 2 Scadrial vs post RoW united Roshard) I have no idea, Roshar has greater offensive capabilities (Radiants, Fused) but they have difficulty getting those off-world. On the other hand, Scadrial can mass-produce weapons beyond what Roshar currently has and would wreak havoc on rank-and-file (i.e. noninvested) Rosharan troops. Scadrial also has no easy access to Cognitive realm and that is currently the only one to travel between the systems, so Roshar has mobility advantage (with Oathgates, known location of at least one shardpool + Elsecallers and Willshapers). I think that if Roshar could mobilize quickly and get their heavy hitters off-world, they might hurt Scadrial pretty bad, but due to mass production advantages currently on Scadrial they would not be able to hold territory (remember what Dalinar says, Shards cannot hold ground) and would get eventually pushed back. After this all bets are off, as Scadrial would now have better experience in warfare, but Rosharans would have most likely copied some mass-production and tech tricks.

One on one, 4th oath Radiant has better defense (shardplate) and offense (shardblade) than anything Scadrial can offer short of Fullborn. Some compounders have better defense (gold, steel), some have good offense (pewter, maybe chromium), but none have both at once, in my opinion.

Even mistborn with atium and aluminum daggers would have a hard time (while shardplate has eye slit it can retract, as it did for Adolin in battle in tWoR) as they have no way of quickly disabling the Radiant, whereas Radiant has strength, weight and endurance advantage (contingent on enough stormlight, just as Mistborn will be dependent on metal reserves) and needs to only hit given limb once to completely disable it. Also since shardplates interferes with the use of outside investiture (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/181-stormlight-three-update-4/#e3830, specified for lashing but it would most likely work on any outside investiture) Rioting/Soothing would be completely useless when the shardplate is on. Chromium (leeching) might provide them with some ways to counter Radiant advantages, but it requires touch first and getting into reach of shardbearer is pretty much suicide (atium might help there, but it burns really fast). Mistborn with atium and some medallion (f-steel would be my choice) would have better chance, but it would still be risky proposition. If I was a mistborn I would burn atium or at least electrum to make sure I do not get killed and can avoid attacks, would try to damage the helmet with Iron/Steel to open them up to Rioting/Soothing and eventual killing attack with aluminum daggers/aluminum bullets to the head. Of course, if it was Elsecaller and they soulcasted air around to oil and then set it on fire, I would be screwed if they soulcasted large enough area.

Full feruchemist might have a chance, if they had large enough stores of speed, strength, weight, health and maybe fortune (depending on what it does). They would need to try to blitz the Radiant and shatter the helmet and the head before they have a chance to cut them with shardblade.

We could them start equipping our metalborn with some armor made out of some cheaper metalminds to provide better defense from shardblades, but this would come at a cost of lower speed, endurance and dexterity compared to unarmored person (and Shardplated Radiant would be even better in these depertments). Conversely, we could equip Radiant with some fabrials (like Kaladin was in RoW) to compensate.

Ultimately, just look at the discussion, most people do not discuss how could Radiant potentially hurt metalborn, those are obvious and the only defense they have is not getting hit (or be gold compounder), but to get a way for metalborn to kill radiant requires much more thought. To me this clearly shows that Radiant with shardplate is the more powerful, as no one is scratching their head trying to figure out how could they kill metalborn, but everyone is trying to figure out a way metalborn could even have a chance of harming 4th oath Radiant.

Of course, all this is my opinion and others will most likely disagree

Edited March 19, 2021 by therunner

therunner · March 19, 2021

I again apologize for double posting, forgot to reply to @LewsTherinTelescope. (btw, is there a way to insert a quote when editing a post?)

1 hour ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Yeah, I'd guess -Preservation would be enough for Allomancy, though you'd need both for Feruchemy. Not sure if being inside metal would shield Hemalurgic spikes from -Ruin or not, I'd lean probably would, but worth a shot.

I do agree that already existing Hemalurgic constructs and people with spikes would not be effected, but in the suppresed area you could not make any new spikes. I think the Feruchemy would be at least partially blocked? Similar to what was happening with Lift in RoW, maybe it would be more difficult to tap/store with lower returns (i.e. store at 50% strength for 1 hour, but in metalmind you would have only 125% for one hour), but it is hard to say.

Frustration · March 19, 2021

2 minutes ago, therunner said:

I again apologize for double posting, forgot to reply to @LewsTherinTelescope. (btw, is there a way to insert a quote when editing a post?)

Unforunantly not one that I know, I just @ them and put what they said in a quote box.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Frustration

BenduLuke · March 19, 2021

12 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

OK, that raises a question. Hamony has a metal. Does that mean that other types of Investiture also have metals? Is there are a Towerium(Turrium?), Vitarium and Warium(Bellium?)? If you can turn Spren into metal, can you turn Breath into metal? A Shade?

Each of the shards seems to have a metal named after the host of the shards power. (Lerasium-Leris, Atium was Ruin's metal, Trellium-Trell(what ever shard that is) and there is indication of other God metals as yet unnamed but referenced generally in the coppermind. Ettmetal is Harmony's metal and is an alloy of Atium and Lerasium.

4 hours ago, Bejardin1250 said:

Just to get a clear consensus on this as I can’t understand a single thing @BenduLuke says or @therunner

in a single one on one fight who would win

And in a protracted war who would win

And please don’t bring college level physics into it

@therunner Has made a decent response posted below on the potential conflict. In a bruteforce one on one fight between a Knight Radiant and a Metalborn it seems as if the Radiant has the advantage out of the gate. It requires more creativity to see how a metalborn might have the advantage, but their advantage is in versatility of their combined abilities. In addition Scadrial as was stated has an industrialized civilization which further increases the array, power, and versatility of a metalborn opponent to take into account both in a one on one fight and an all out war. So in a one on one fight it is my opinion that it depends on the metalborn and their armaments who actually has the advantage since Radiant advantages are static and all but identical with only minor variations. In an all out war the versatility, technology, and industrialization of Scadrial at the current state gives Scadrial the definite advantage.

Where the runner and I seem to be in contradiction is that we disagree on some of the potentially extreme examples I have presented as actually possible.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

I assume "Hard to say" is not good answer?

Protracted war (united Era 2 Scadrial vs post RoW united Roshard) I have no idea, Roshar has greater offensive capabilities (Radiants, Fused) but they have difficulty getting those off-world. On the other hand, Scadrial can mass-produce weapons beyond what Roshar currently has and would wreak havoc on rank-and-file (i.e. noninvested) Rosharan troops. Scadrial also has no easy access to Cognitive realm and that is currently the only one to travel between the systems, so Roshar has mobility advantage (with Oathgates, known location of at least one shardpool + Elsecallers and Willshapers). I think that if Roshar could mobilize quickly and get their heavy hitters off-world, they might hurt Scadrial pretty bad, but due to mass production advantages currently on Scadrial they would not be able to hold territory (remember what Dalinar says, Shards cannot hold ground) and would get eventually pushed back. After this all bets are off, as Scadrial would now have better experience in warfare, but Rosharans would have most likely copied some mass-production and tech tricks.

One on one, 4th oath Radiant has better defense (shardplate) and offense (shardblade) than anything Scadrial can offer short of Fullborn. Some compounders have better defense (gold, steel), some have good offense (pewter, maybe chromium), but none have both at once, in my opinion.

Even mistborn with atium and aluminum daggers would have a hard time (while shardplate has eye slit it can retract, as it did for Adolin in battle in tWoR) as they have no way of quickly disabling the Radiant, whereas Radiant has strength, weight and endurance advantage (contingent on enough stormlight, just as Mistborn will be dependent on metal reserves) and needs to only hit given limb once to completely disable it. Also since shardplates interferes with the use of outside investiture (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/181-stormlight-three-update-4/#e3830, specified for lashing but it would most likely work on any outside investiture) Rioting/Soothing would be completely useless when the shardplate is on. Chromium (leeching) might provide them with some ways to counter Radiant advantages, but it requires touch first and getting into reach of shardbearer is pretty much suicide (atium might help there, but it burns really fast). Mistborn with atium and some medallion (f-steel would be my choice) would have better chance, but it would still be risky proposition. If I was a mistborn I would burn atium or at least electrum to make sure I do not get killed and can avoid attacks, would try to damage the helmet with Iron/Steel to open them up to Rioting/Soothing and eventual killing attack with aluminum daggers/aluminum bullets to the head. Of course, if it was Elsecaller and they soulcasted air around to oil and then set it on fire, I would be screwed if they soulcasted large enough area.

Full feruchemist might have a chance, if they had large enough stores of speed, strength, weight, health and maybe fortune (depending on what it does). They would need to try to blitz the Radiant and shatter the helmet and the head before they have a chance to cut them with shardblade.

We could them start equipping our metalborn with some armor made out of some cheaper metalminds to provide better defense from shardblades, but this would come at a cost of lower speed, endurance and dexterity compared to unarmored person (and Shardplated Radiant would be even better in these depertments). Conversely, we could equip Radiant with some fabrials (like Kaladin was in RoW) to compensate.

Ultimately, just look at the discussion, most people do not discuss how could Radiant potentially hurt metalborn, those are obvious and the only defense they have is not getting hit (or be gold compounder), but to get a way for metalborn to kill radiant requires much more thought. To me this clearly shows that Radiant with shardplate is the more powerful, as no one is scratching their head trying to figure out how could they kill metalborn, but everyone is trying to figure out a way metalborn could even have a chance of harming 4th oath Radiant.

Of course, all this is my opinion and others will most likely disagree

Good summary. I do disagree with some of it.

Just to be clear a steelrunner would be moving faster than the observer, and potentially much faster especially if they could find a way to shield from air friction and wind. Velocity always includes gravity since by definition velocity is absolute speed in a direction. Gravity is simply accelleration toward the planet or what ever and would always an accounted for vector in velocity. In this case the observer and the steelrunner would share that vector so it would be relatively null. Thus an increase in velocity in any other vector would increase mass though not usually measurable at newtonian scales.

Atium at the current period is a non starter as it does not appear to be available anymore in any quantity. (Harmony changed the allamantic rules slightly such that it appears that atuim and lerasium and their alloys were replaced by ettmetal).

Most radiants don't have acces to living shards and all shards have a limit to the amount of damage they can take. Dead shards can reach that limit with mundane force applied and lose stormlight with impacts and or damage. Living plate could be considered more resiliant so long as the stormlight lasts but just like surges damage will eventually overwhelm their store of stormlight and they will fail.

@frustration responded that Shardplate can insulate against lightning, but they are metal and potentially very conductive to electicity that does not imply they are equally resistant to burning metal especially if that metal while burning could theoretically nullify investiture. The coppermind does not differentiate between allomantic burning and burning metal. burning aluminum and aluminum penetrating an invested system nullifies investiture. I realize that if the two are different in fact that the idea doesn't work however at this point burning is burning. In both cases the metal is consumed by some combustible reaction called burning. The description of this reaction allomantically is like a fire or heat inside them as we might expect in a metal burning.

What projectiles would you use against shardplate, because we know it isn't indestructable and can be destroyed through mundane force applied by a human being.

I would bet that an Iron compounder in full Iron plate could demolish any Radiant one on one and toe to toe. The iron armor itself would be a metalmind with insane storage capacity (Wax wears metal bracers and was able to store enough weight to equal the mass of a building). Being a metalmind it would be shardblade resistant. Any metal on the Radiants person would give the Iron compounder a means to drag the Radiant back again and again for punishment. With tapped weight comes increased strength (muscle, structural, and allomantic). With practice and some finesse the Iron armor would behave like powered armor the Iron compounder. He would also be able to operate devastating projectile weapons capable of devastating damage and wield heavy melee weapons capable of shattering shardplate.

If you think about it a steel compounder would be capable of demolishing most radiants before they could even react. Steel armor would give them wind and friction resistance shielding them from the effects of more extreme velocities than usual. They themselves could hurl projectiles at velocities that could pierce plate. Even 4th ideal radiants would be almost defenseless against this opponent. Even soft projectiles traveling fast enough can pierce much harder targets like straw though trees or telephone poles. In this case the Radiants only chance would be if their healing lasted long enough and was effective enough under constant catastrophic damage or they got very lucky (plot armor).

I get that you don't think the specific ideas I present are realistic to the Cosmere, but the concepts behind them are. Perhaps instead of criticizing me where you think my ideas are unrealistic present more realistic ideas based on the concept I seem to be trying to present. Such as pewter enhaced reflexes and increased physical accuracy might enable the Agent to take advantage of a possible opening in the Skybreakers eye slit with alluminum rounds. Or as the Skybreaker charges the Agent uses Feruchemically tapped pewter strength, speed, and reflexes to smash a huge nearby boulder into his faceplate stunning him while he is smashed into the rocky ground senseless the armor disolves and the Skybreaker is stabbed through the heart with the aluminum bayonet. It really doesn't matter if the Thugbearer needs to store the pewter enhanced abilities together or separately, he would still be unequalled physically while tapping it. Being able to split the enhanced abilities like tineye abilities can be split by a windwhisper gives a little more flexibility. We know that Feruchemists can store multiple abilities at the same time, and that Nicrosil can store virtually any kind of investiture so logically a soulbearer fering would be able to split the invested abilities of invested metals. The soulbearer could split tineye abilities as well. Tin and Pewter seem to be the only allomantic metals that contain related internal abilities that could be split unless you could split the metal sense from Iron or Steel from the pull and push. Windwhispers could store that metal sense to be tapped at need.

Twinborn actually have more potential in my opinion than Misborn or Feruchemists. I think most people underestimate the potential of metalborn and overestimate radiants since few ever look past the surface of the abilities. At this point we have 2 or 3 individuals who are at 4th ideal and indications that reaching it are extra ordinary so in most contests living shardplate will never be an issue and dead shardplate is a disadvantage to a radiant. There is likely at least one person on Scadrial with any combination twin abilities at any given time and almost any combination does have a military application that could be exploited for an advantage especially in the more advanced industrialized society. I seem to be one of the only ones who makes an effort to find ways scadrial trumps roshar

Try on a Highly trained leachbearer (Chromium-A/Nicrosil-F) stores wiping investiture. Radiant shows up all glowwy and suddenly stormlight, and armor is gone. They are startled and get shot in the head by fast drawing gunslinger twinborn before they are close enough to use their shardblade. Windrunner or Skybreaker might fall out of the Sky as they get shot. Edgedancers might end up splattering all over the ground because of a loss of slickness while running as they get shot. No stormlight, no living shardplate if they are even 4th ideal, odds are they are not.

Frustration · March 19, 2021

24 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Each of the shards seems to have a metal named after the host of the shards power. (Lerasium-Leris, Atium was Ruin's metal, Trellium-Trell(what ever shard that is) and there is indication of other God metals as yet unnamed but referenced generally in the coppermind. Ettmetal is Harmony's metal and is an alloy of Atium and Lerasium.

Harmonium is not an alloy of Lerasium and Atium

24 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

@frustration responded that Shardplate can insulate against lightning, but they are metal and potentially very conductive to electicity that does not imply they are equally resistant to burning metal especially if that metal while burning could theoretically nullify investiture. The coppermind does not differentiate between allomantic burning and burning metal. burning aluminum and aluminum penetrating an invested system nullifies investiture. I realize that if the two are different in fact that the idea doesn't work however at this point burning is burning. In both cases the metal is consumed by some combustible reaction called burning. The description of this reaction allomantically is like a fire or heat inside them as we might expect in a metal burning.

That isn't how it works.

just because it is called burning doesn't mean that burnng it would produce those effects, they have the tech to do it, if Scandrial could synthesise Allomantic magic they would.

And just piercing isn't enough to innitiate Hemalurgy

27 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

I would bet that an Iron compounder in full Iron plate could demolish any Radiant one on one and toe to toe. The iron armor itself would be a metalmind with insane storage capacity (Wax wears metal bracers and was able to store enough weight to equal the mass of a building). Being a metalmind it would be shardblade resistant. Any metal on the Radiants person would give the Iron compounder a means to drag the Radiant back again and again for punishment. With tapped weight comes increased strength (muscle, structural, and allomantic). With practice and some finesse the Iron armor would behave like powered armor the Iron compounder. He would also be able to operate devastating projectile weapons capable of devastating damage and wield heavy melee weapons capable of shattering shardplate.

If they have armor that is resistant to cutting then they would use Maces, or Hammers, and would kill them with blunt force trama.

30 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

I get that you don't think the specific ideas I present are realistic to the Cosmere, but the concepts behind them are. Perhaps instead of criticizing me where you think my ideas are unrealistic present more realistic ideas based on the concept I seem to be trying to present. Such as pewter enhaced reflexes and increased physical accuracy might enable the Agent to take advantage of a possible opening in the Skybreakers eye slit with alluminum rounds. Or as the Skybreaker charges the Agent uses Feruchemically tapped pewter strength, speed, and reflexes to smash a huge nearby boulder into his faceplate stunning him while he is smashed into the rocky ground senseless the armor disolves and the Skybreaker is stabbed through the heart with the aluminum bayonet. It really doesn't matter if the Thugbearer needs to store the pewter enhanced abilities together or separately, he would still be unequalled physically while tapping it. Being able to split the enhanced abilities like tineye abilities can be split by a windwhisper gives a little more flexibility. We know that Feruchemists can store multiple abilities at the same time, and that Nicrosil can store virtually any kind of investiture so logically a soulbearer fering would be able to split the invested abilities of invested metals. The soulbearer could split tineye abilities as well. Tin and Pewter seem to be the only allomantic metals that contain related internal abilities that could be split unless you could split the metal sense from Iron or Steel from the pull and push. Windwhispers could store that metal sense to be tapped at need.

Radiant Armor is always on unless broken, or lended to someone else.

This is a debate not a group project I'm not going to argue your case for you, but I'm more than happy to point out what's wrong with it.

And getting to Shardplate levels of power would require an unreasonable amount of time on your agent's part to be equal for a few seconds.

33 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Most radiants don't have acces to living shards and all shards have a limit to the amount of damage they can take. Dead shards can reach that limit with mundane force applied and lose stormlight with impacts and or damage. Living plate could be considered more resiliant so long as the stormlight lasts but just like surges damage will eventually overwhelm their store of stormlight and they will fail.

Most Radiants now, we know for a fact that hundreds had plate in the past, so it isn't that rare of an oath level.

35 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Twinborn actually have more potential in my opinion than Misborn or Feruchemists. I think most people underestimate the potential of metalborn and overestimate radiants since few ever look past the surface of the abilities. At this point we have 2 or 3 individuals who are at 4th ideal and indications that reaching it are extra ordinary so in most contests living shardplate will never be an issue and dead shardplate is a disadvantage to a radiant. There is likely at least one person on Scadrial with any combination twin abilities at any given time and almost any combination does have a military application that could be exploited for an advantage especially in the more advanced industrialized society. I seem to be one of the only ones who makes an effort to find ways scadrial trumps roshar

There are fewer individuals that match any particular Twinborn combination than there are with plate. There have been about three crashers ever, but there have been hundreds of plated Radiants simultaniously.

We aren't trying to give Scadrial the egde because we realise that any reach we give Scadrial has to be given to Roshar as well and they will remain on top.

37 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Try on a Highly trained leachbearer (Chromium-A/Nicrosil-F) stores wiping investiture. Radiant shows up all glowwy and suddenly stormlight, and armor is gone. They are startled and get shot in the head by fast drawing gunslinger twinborn before they are close enough to use their shardblade. Windrunner or Skybreaker might fall out of the Sky as they get shot. Edgedancers might end up splattering all over the ground because of a loss of slickness while running as they get shot. No stormlight, no living shardplate if they are even 4th ideal, odds are they are not.

Chromium requires contact so you will be within Shardblade range before they are within Leeching range

BenduLuke · March 19, 2021

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Harmonium is not an alloy of Lerasium and Atium

That isn't how it works.

just because it is called burning doesn't mean that burnng it would produce those effects, they have the tech to do it, if Scandrial could synthesise Allomantic magic they would.

And just piercing isn't enough to innitiate Hemalurgy

If they have armor that is resistant to cutting then they would use Maces, or Hammers, and would kill them with blunt force trama.

Radiant Armor is always on unless broken, or lended to someone else.

This is a debate not a group project I'm not going to argue your case for you, but I'm more than happy to point out what's wrong with it.

And getting to Shardplate levels of power would require an unreasonable amount of time on your agent's part to be equal for a few seconds.

Most Radiants now, we know for a fact that hundreds had plate in the past, so it isn't that rare of an oath level.

There are fewer individuals that match any particular Twinborn combination than there are with plate. There have been about three crashers ever, but there have been hundreds of plated Radiants simultaniously.

We aren't trying to give Scadrial the egde because we realise that any reach we give Scadrial has to be given to Roshar as well and they will remain on top.

Chromium requires contact so you will be within Shardblade range before they are within Leeching range

Ettmetal is an alloy in that it is produced by the Juxtoposition between Preservation and Ruin in Harmony that replaced Lerasium and Atium After Harmony ascended. It may not be a metallurgical alloy though.

How does burning work?

We don't know that's not how it works. Burning means burning and there have been no qualifiers to the word in the Arcanum.

Almost no Radiants use anything but swords that seems to be the default. Shard hammers, or what ever invested armor is still resistant to the damage. Iron is pretty resistant as it is as well.

Who says Radiant armor remains when the Knight goes unconscious? Is that just your biased speculation?

I didn't ask you to argue my case but from my perspective your critiques are just your speculation and usually equally unrealistic but biased toward Roshar. I wonder if you don't come up with potentially realistic situations between a Rosharan and Scadrian because you fear someone will critique it. In other words you seem to only be able to parrot generalities very open to interpretation.

You are way overestimating Radiants and their physical abilities in comparison to Metalborn abilities. In this case I think it is your bias that causes your blindness.

There are few individuals who have anywhere near the martial capabilities of a Kaladin or Dalinar or their degree of surge control. So what if there have only been 3 crashers ever we are only talking about perhaps 300 years so 1 per generation, but that is only 1 twin combination among thousands which could be available at any given time. Just like some Radiants there are combinations which all but unbeatable.

The potential advantages are very different between Scadrial and Roshar so we cannot say either always has an advantage. IMHO Scadrial has more advantages than Roshar in more situations combat and otherwise. To me it is obvious. When comparing Scadrial to Roshar you are comparing Bruce Lee to Andre the Giant and personally I wouldn't be sure of either winning in every situation.

So they neutralize the shardblade the shardplate, the stormlight and shoot the Radiant in the face. It is in the Leecher description that they can neutralize invested weapons. Shardblade range means leecher range. Only a highly skilled 4th ideal radiant has a chance of surviving this encounter with the highly trained twinborn.

Frustration · March 20, 2021

15 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

How does burning work?

Well first off it has to be in an allomancers body

Spoiler

Matthew Grady

Does a metal need to be swallowed to be burned? Or can it be injected or snorted?

Brandon Sanderson

It could be either of those two things. Yes. Basically, metal into the body in any way is going to work, generally. There's nothing magical about the stomach, even though it works the best when we talk about it. It's just more intermixing the nature of the metal with your soul in the cosmere, your Spiritual entity, is what gives them that ability.

YouTube Livestream 10 (June 18, 2020)

Second off it is completly destroyed so it's not a chemical reaction as you imply

Spoiler

zebobes

Since Allomancy is powered by burning metal, isn't Scadrial going to eventually start running out of metal?

Hmmm... is that why there's a space trilogy? They have to mine asteroids and other planets for their metal?

Brandon Sanderson

It could happen. However, it's not really a danger with the current population of Allomancers. There just aren't enough of them.

Footnote: This contradicts other exchanges where Brandon states that burned metals return to the planet.
17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 28, 2012)

Questioner

Aluminum, when you burn aluminum, does it actually destroy the metals or just take away their power?

Brandon Sanderson

It destroys the metals.

Questioner

Same with chromium?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Questioner

So it actually gets rid of the metals?

Brandon Sanderson

It actually trans-- It does a-- matter, energy, investiture are the same things in the cosmere. You have some sort of transfer happening relating to those things.

Questioner

The question sort of relates to metal poisoning--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, you would not get metal poisoning after that.

Calamity Seattle signing (Feb. 17, 2016)

15 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Almost no Radiants use anything but swords that seems to be the default. Shard hammers, or what ever invested armor is still resistant to the damage. Iron is pretty resistant as it is as well.

when you weapon will destroy anything that doesn't matter but given that Shad M. Brooks is Brandon's Historical consultant they would know how basic medival weapons work and when they find an armor that resists them they will use historical weapons used to counter armor.

15 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Who says Radiant armor remains when the Knight goes unconscious? Is that just your biased speculation?

You have an unforunate habit of accusing me of what you are doing.

Quote

"Kaladin stepped up beside Rlain and rested his hand on his shoulder. Rlain couldn't feel the Plate, though it was apparently Always there-invisible, but ready when needed." -RoW page 1189

15 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

I didn't ask you to argue my case but from my perspective your critiques are just your speculation and usually equally unrealistic but biased toward Roshar. I wonder if you don't come up with potentially realistic situations between a Rosharan and Scadrian because you fear someone will critique it. In other words you seem to only be able to parrot generalities very open to interpretation.

I did right here,

I even mentioned afterwards that you didn't reply to it here

15 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

You are way overestimating Radiants and their physical abilities in comparison to Metalborn abilities. In this case I think it is your bias that causes your blindness..

Insults are not a valid argument even if they where true, which is not the case.

The heaviest thing we see a Mistborn move is a Koloss blade, the heaviest thing we see plate lift is holding off a chasmfiend, a creature about 1080 feet tall. and that was dead plate.

15 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

There are few individuals who have anywhere near the martial capabilities of a Kaladin or Dalinar or their degree of surge control. So what if there have only been 3 crashers ever we are only talking about perhaps 300 years so 1 per generation, but that is only 1 twin combination among thousands which could be available at any given time. Just like some Radiants there are combinations which all but unbeatable.

I fail to see what martial capability has to do with it, the most trained swordsman in the world, would most likely lose to a toddler in plate, the arguement is about numbers and we know from the amount of plate see in books, and the amount seen in visions that hundreds of Radiant reached the fourth oath, so it isn't a one in a thoushand thing.

And Windrunners were known for their skill with weapons historically, and Stonewards were not far behind them, they will be fairly to extremely competent with their weapons, thought the other orders will vary.

15 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

So they neutralize the shardblade the shardplate, the stormlight and shoot the Radiant in the face. It is in the Leecher description that they can neutralize invested weapons. Shardblade range means leecher range. Only a highly skilled 4th ideal radiant has a chance of surviving this encounter with the highly trained twinborn.

No it doesn't a leecher's range is their arm, a Radiant has their arm plus a seven foot one hit kill death weapon, and that doesn't even take into account that they could kill with surges, or with bows or countless other ways.

Edited March 20, 2021 by Frustration

apepi · March 20, 2021

So I was thinking of fabrials and how they are similar to Allomancy a little bit(and feruchemy). And we saw Kaladin using the glove and it was effective.

Could we see like an ~~ironman~~, err fabrialman? Someone with a bunch of fabrials to the point they are similar in power to a radiant/allomancer/feruchemist? I think it would be awesome.

Frustration · March 20, 2021

11 minutes ago, apepi said:

So I was thinking of fabrials and how they are similar to Allomancy a little bit(and feruchemy). And we saw Kaladin using the glove and it was effective.

Could we see like an ~~ironman~~, err fabrialman? Someone with a bunch of fabrials to the point they are similar in power to a radiant/allomancer/feruchemist? I think it would be awesome.

That is something that will most likely occur

Ixthos · March 20, 2021

On 3/17/2021 at 9:33 PM, Oltux72 said:

Spren are made out of Investiture. Whether it can still be called Light is a question of definition. They are affected by antilight. So yes, they'd presumably react to leeching like a feruchemical store.

But you are making the argument that Leechers and supressor fabrials are different. Stormlight and Spren in gems behave differently. For one, the Stormlight leaks out. Secondly is always active Investiture. If you inhale Stormlight, you will feel the effects. In fact it will heal you whether you want it to or not.

My argument isn't that Leechers adn suppressors are different, but that they are the same or work in similar manners. I'm not following the rest of the objection though, I'm afraid? My main point is that Leeching can't be a method to kill spren, or to disrupt the investiture that constitutes them, or else Raboniel or Khriss wouldn't be surprised about anti-investiture.

On 3/17/2021 at 9:33 PM, Oltux72 said:

In that case Roshar would have been pumped full with Investiture for millenia. That hypothesis has tremendous problems.

I disagree. Sunlight falls on the Earth, but the Earth isn't saturated with sunlight. Some radiates into space, but I also think, with Stormlight, that Stormlight also is partially absorbed into the gemhearts nearby, or exists as a low background level. Also, remember that once Stormlight is used it goes back to the Spiritual Realm or is changed into energy, like when Surgebinding is used - the Stormlight is used up, but not just evaporating. A third possibility is that the Highstorms also sweep up ambiant Stormlight and recycle it, so not all Stormlight is new, some might be condensed from previously dissipated stormlight.

So, possibilities:

low level background
- radiates out into the space around the Rosharan system
- background investiture slowly absorbed into gemhearts
  - Stormlight converts to other energy when used by gemheart or as a surge
- Highstorms recycle investiture, drawing up background

Bigmikey357 · March 20, 2021

I got a scenario where a non-Mistborn metal user can beat and kill a surgebinder one on one. Get a Leecher with an aluminum knife. Come upon the guy unsuspecting. Jump on his back and start leeching while simultaneously stabbing with the knife. Hold on for dear life until the guy dies.

I've said it before and I'll say so again. As powerful as the various types of Metallic Arts users are, their talents are best suited for covert killing. Nobody except a Fullborn has any business trying to go head up against any Radiant above oath 3. A 4th Ideal of any order is going to be nearly impossible for the Metallic Arts user to take out. The Mistborn is versatile and kinda durable but cannot heal. A Full Feruchemist can do a lot of things including healing, but those attributes have to be husbanded because they take a lot of time to refuel. Any prolonged battle looks worse and worse for the Feruchemist. Twinborn like Wax and Wayne aren't exactly common and of the myriad amount of combinations only a few are going to be of any real use in combat against a Radiant. Guns help quite a bit but are going to be of little utility in a 1 v 1 magical duel against Radiants. Only compounders, and that of certain kinds of metals at that, are going to do you much good. Steel, Gold, maybe brass (the one that stores heat) can have any tangible use against most Radiants.

The margins get better when we talk about Scadrial vs Roshar. Until we can get Stormlight off world the battle has to take place on Roshar. Anyone Scadrial sends would not only be Cosmere aware but would have much better intel on the enemy and local conditions than Roshar does. The Tech gap is pretty wide, although not as wide as some other posters would suggest. The military strategy gap favors Roshar, plus they are fighting on the defense and have rapid troop movement so that's problematic. And Roshar is set up to jump their technological progress by leaps and bounds cause of the greatest group project up at Urithiru. Scadrial would slaughter any open field army with their guns but they'll have to take any fortresses by subterfuge. And any Radiants taking the field will have to be hit at distance else they touch down and kill a couple hundred people at a time.

I know there are more than a few of you who want to give Scadrial every advantage and deny Roshar even the stuff they excel at just to give the Metallic Arts users a victory or so it seems. Crazy thing is Radiants aren't invincible and there are definitely some things even a misting can do to take out a Radiant. But all I see in what people propose is the Scadrian, against all odds and sense, go into the teeth of all the Radiants strengths and come out the other side not only victorious but mostly unscathed. They mostly ignore the greatest advantages of the Metallic Arts in order to get into a pissing match with Surgebinders. They do this despite the fact that they don't even do this when facing their most powerful metalborn. If a hazekiller squad tried to go head up against Mistborn in the same manner as people propose Metallic Arts users fight Radiants then they'd never succeed. In my opinion the very best way to kill a Radiant would be to neutralize them before they know they are in any danger. If that first cannot be achieved then the next best way is to keep hitting them from distance and wear them down. Anything after that lowers your survivability exponentially so you would have to do it like the Parshendi did it, throw a bunch of bodies at the problem and expect most of them to die. A different mix of Allomancers and/or Feruchemists tailored to each Order of Knights.

therunner · March 20, 2021

14 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

@therunner Has made a decent response posted below on the potential conflict. In a bruteforce one on one fight between a Knight Radiant and a Metalborn it seems as if the Radiant has the advantage out of the gate. It requires more creativity to see how a metalborn might have the advantage, but their advantage is in versatility of their combined abilities. In addition Scadrial as was stated has an industrialized civilization which further increases the array, power, and versatility of a metalborn opponent to take into account both in a one on one fight and an all out war. So in a one on one fight it is my opinion that it depends on the metalborn and their armaments who actually has the advantage since Radiant advantages are static and all but identical with only minor variations. In an all out war the versatility, technology, and industrialization of Scadrial at the current state gives Scadrial the definite advantage.

Radiants could also have access to fabrials, and those are not static and are in fact quite quickly and actively being developed. So we can for example equip our radiants with painrials on gauntlets and stuff some regrowth fabrials inside plate (when they figure out a way to produce them).

14 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Just to be clear a steelrunner would be moving faster than the observer, and potentially much faster especially if they could find a way to shield from air friction and wind. Velocity always includes gravity since by definition velocity is absolute speed in a direction. Gravity is simply accelleration toward the planet or what ever and would always an accounted for vector in velocity. In this case the observer and the steelrunner would share that vector so it would be relatively null. Thus an increase in velocity in any other vector would increase mass though not usually measurable at newtonian scales.

I do agree that steelrunner would be able to defend themselves so long as they keep moving. I am not sure if I agree that they could steel push with any greater strength then any one else, so on that I disagree. Also steelrunner would be still limited by the accumulated heat from friction of his shielding materials + escape velocities (if they were moving on a flat terrain, and they were moving with 11 km/s, after moving 1 km they would be 15 cm above ground, as the gravitational acceleration would not have enough time to drag them back to ground (as the ground curved away))

Also there is no such thing as absolute velocity, all motion is relative. You clearly do not understand the physics involved, examples just from the paragraph:

Velocity has nothing to do with gravity, it is a vector then encodes relative speed and direction relative to some frame of reference
Gravity is not "simply acceleration towards planet or whatever", it is an interaction between any object with energy/pressure, sourced by energy-stress tensor, and its effects are due to geometry of spacetime. (space tell mass how to move, mass tells space how to curve)
Any gravitational effects due to velocity are supressed by 1/c^2, and steelrunner would turn into plasma long before they would achieve speeds necessary (unless they were in a vacuum).
Observer and steelrunner do not share the same frame of reference, although they do roughly share experienced gravitational acceleration
And for what feels like the hundredth time, velocity does not increase mass. (from the frame of reference of steelrunner he has no mass increase, but everything around him does, and vice versa for observer at relative rest...because motion is relative)

Since your understanding of physics is clearly lacking, do not be surprised when your conclusion which depend on them are being repeatedly refuted.

14 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Atium at the current period is a non starter as it does not appear to be available anymore in any quantity. (Harmony changed the allamantic rules slightly such that it appears that atuim and lerasium and their alloys were replaced by ettmetal).

I mentioned atium because there are still some leftovers (Marsh and his bag), and as a godmetal mistborn should be able to burn it. Question, can even mistings burn godmetals, or can they burn only lerasium and the metal they were born with?

14 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Most radiants don't have acces to living shards and all shards have a limit to the amount of damage they can take. Dead shards can reach that limit with mundane force applied and lose stormlight with impacts and or damage. Living plate could be considered more resiliant so long as the stormlight lasts but just like surges damage will eventually overwhelm their store of stormlight and they will fail.

@frustration responded that Shardplate can insulate against lightning, but they are metal and potentially very conductive to electicity that does not imply they are equally resistant to burning metal especially if that metal while burning could theoretically nullify investiture. The coppermind does not differentiate between allomantic burning and burning metal. burning aluminum and aluminum penetrating an invested system nullifies investiture. I realize that if the two are different in fact that the idea doesn't work however at this point burning is burning. In both cases the metal is consumed by some combustible reaction called burning. The description of this reaction allomantically is like a fire or heat inside them as we might expect in a metal burning.

Historically (as @Frustration said) there were hundreds of Radiants with plate. Breaking of deadplate with mundane means can still take 10s of minutes of sustained attack, also maybe living plate can be actively repaired not only by stormlight but also by attracting more of the correct spren? If so, that would me major advantage.

I addressed (with numbers!) just how resistant shardplate should roughly be to heat, it is a lot. Allomantic burning is not the same as chemical burning, and the allomancers need to burn the metals inside their bodies to achieve effects. The coppermind mind does differentiate, the term "burning" is just metaphorical (https://coppermind.net/wiki/Allomancy , 3rd paragraph in the Mechanics section) :

" When using their powers, many Allomancers describe a warm feeling in the stomach, hence the term "burning metal"."

14 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

What projectiles would you use against shardplate, because we know it isn't indestructable and can be destroyed through mundane force applied by a human being.

Tungsten, or iridium bullets (hardest metals). Uranium/plutonium might also be a good idea, because if lodged in it might make the shardplate radiactive at least temporarily.

14 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

I would bet that an Iron compounder in full Iron plate could demolish any Radiant one on one and toe to toe. The iron armor itself would be a metalmind with insane storage capacity (Wax wears metal bracers and was able to store enough weight to equal the mass of a building). Being a metalmind it would be shardblade resistant. Any metal on the Radiants person would give the Iron compounder a means to drag the Radiant back again and again for punishment. With tapped weight comes increased strength (muscle, structural, and allomantic). With practice and some finesse the Iron armor would behave like powered armor the Iron compounder. He would also be able to operate devastating projectile weapons capable of devastating damage and wield heavy melee weapons capable of shattering shardplate.

Even Bands of Mourning, the most invested metal object ever did not have enough investiture to match shardblades/shardplates. Any armor your compounder would have would most likely be less invested than they are, and so would at best be as effective as maybe half-shards, most likely less so.

If the radiant had armor they would not be able to push/pull on metals on their person (as shardplate resists investiture and acts as shield). Tapped weight does not increase strength (again neither Wax nor anyone else ever mentioned such application, and Terris have been experimenting with such abilities for millenia).

I would agree with stronger pulls, but that is only because of them being a better anchor, they could still not pull heavily invested items. The armor would not behave like powered armor, it does not impart neither increased strength nor agility or endurence. In fact it would actively worse that, so Iron compounder would tire faster, because they are lugging 20-30 Kg of armor around, and would make them sitting duck for any long range attacks.

14 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

If you think about it a steel compounder would be capable of demolishing most radiants before they could even react. Steel armor would give them wind and friction resistance shielding them from the effects of more extreme velocities than usual. They themselves could hurl projectiles at velocities that could pierce plate. Even 4th ideal radiants would be almost defenseless against this opponent. Even soft projectiles traveling fast enough can pierce much harder targets like straw though trees or telephone poles. In this case the Radiants only chance would be if their healing lasted long enough and was effective enough under constant catastrophic damage or they got very lucky (plot armor).

You do have a point here, I neglected their offensive capabilities. So this would bump them up in my estimate. Still due to air friction they would not be able to move faster than Mach 20 (nothing we can build now can survive that), and unless equipped with heat medallions to store their excess heat they could not move much faster than Mach 1 (at Mach 2 their shielding would heat up to 120 degrees safely killing them after a few minutes). They might be able to sustain quicker bursts, but only for short time periods before they would need their armor to cool off.

EDIT: However Radiant with transportation would easily evade them, and those with abrasion could stop them from moving. Also steel grants physical speed, not mental speed so they would be limited by their reflexes and reaction time, greatly limiting their potential (unless they have Required Secondary Powers, however since mental speed is separate attribute I do not think they do.)

14 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Such as pewter enhaced reflexes and increased physical accuracy might enable the Agent to take advantage of a possible opening in the Skybreakers eye slit with alluminum rounds. Or as the Skybreaker charges the Agent uses Feruchemically tapped pewter strength, speed, and reflexes to smash a huge nearby boulder into his faceplate stunning him while he is smashed into the rocky ground senseless the armor disolves and the Skybreaker is stabbed through the heart with the aluminum bayonet. It really doesn't matter if the Thugbearer needs to store the pewter enhanced abilities together or separately, he would still be unequalled physically while tapping it.

If pewterarms had such improved aim I am sure Wax would mention it, as far as I can see they have in no way improved accuracy (outside of improvments imparted by better balance). Also hitting a head is very hard, and hitting eye slit would be even harder and Radiant sure as hell is not standing still as this is happening, but sure if they could pull it off than that would be very bad for the Radiant

If Thug punched a rock, their arm would break and now they are a bit paralyzed from the pain because they just shattered every bone in their hand (rocks are hard). Also why would the armor dissolve? It is always on per RoW, and if you could negate it by being smashed to rock it would be pretty dumb, since one of their usual opponents are Thunderclasts, which are made of rock.

They would be unequaled in strength and dexterity if they were tapping fast enough, and since they cannot compound they would waste quite a bit of their stores to match Radiant in plate for a few moments (although those moments could prove crucial).

14 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Being able to split the enhanced abilities like tineye abilities can be split by a windwhisper gives a little more flexibility. We know that Feruchemists can store multiple abilities at the same time, and that Nicrosil can store virtually any kind of investiture so logically a soulbearer fering would be able to split the invested abilities of invested metals. The soulbearer could split tineye abilities as well. Tin and Pewter seem to be the only allomantic metals that contain related internal abilities that could be split unless you could split the metal sense from Iron or Steel from the pull and push. Windwhispers could store that metal sense to be tapped at need.

F-Tin allows splitting, and F-nicrosil allows to store different investiture in different minds. A-pewter is one kind of investiture and so cannot be split. While windshiperer could store metal sense, they could just see metal, not push them.

14 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Twinborn actually have more potential in my opinion than Misborn or Feruchemists. I think most people underestimate the potential of metalborn and overestimate radiants since few ever look past the surface of the abilities. At this point we have 2 or 3 individuals who are at 4th ideal and indications that reaching it are extra ordinary so in most contests living shardplate will never be an issue and dead shardplate is a disadvantage to a radiant. There is likely at least one person on Scadrial with any combination twin abilities at any given time and almost any combination does have a military application that could be exploited for an advantage especially in the more advanced industrialized society. I seem to be one of the only ones who makes an effort to find ways scadrial trumps roshar

While some twinborn (compounders) have more potential, most do not, and any twinborn are exceedingly rare (1 in ~10000 if we are being generous, so specific kinds are 1 in 2 million), so there will be only few with given ability combination. Also in desolation there were hundreds of oath four radiants, so they are much more common than any particular twinborn kind.

You are not the only to make the effort, you just push scadrians far beyond what has been shown or confirmed they can do to just give them a fighting chance against run-of-the-mill 4th oath Radiant.

14 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Try on a Highly trained leachbearer (Chromium-A/Nicrosil-F) stores wiping investiture. Radiant shows up all glowwy and suddenly stormlight, and armor is gone. They are startled and get shot in the head by fast drawing gunslinger twinborn before they are close enough to use their shardblade. Windrunner or Skybreaker might fall out of the Sky as they get shot. Edgedancers might end up splattering all over the ground because of a loss of slickness while running as they get shot. No stormlight, no living shardplate if they are even 4th ideal, odds are they are not.

Leeching requires physical contact, Radiant has superior reach, strength, speed and dexterity and cuts them down before they can make contact. Also leeching is not instantenous, so it would take some time for them to leach stormlight, but first they would have to take some time to disrupt the shardplate and in that time they would be killed (if the Radiant let them come that close).

To quickly go over the second post

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Ettmetal is an alloy in that it is produced by the Juxtoposition between Preservation and Ruin in Harmony that replaced Lerasium and Atium After Harmony ascended. It may not be a metallurgical alloy though.

Ettmetal is not alloy but new metal.

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

How does burning work?

We don't know that's not how it works. Burning means burning and there have been no qualifiers to the word in the Arcanum.

I already explained allomantic burning (and it is on coppermind).

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Almost no Radiants use anything but swords that seems to be the default. Shard hammers, or what ever invested armor is still resistant to the damage. Iron is pretty resistant as it is as well.

Default does not mean it is the only thing they use (eg. Kaladin and spear). Iron is not more resistant to shardblades/shardwhatever than anything else outside of other invested materials/aluminum.

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Who says Radiant armor remains when the Knight goes unconscious? Is that just your biased speculation?

Armor does goes away when user is knocked unconscious is pretty useless armor + to knock them unconscious you would first need to overcome the armor (and as Dalinar show, deadplate can survive fall of ~hundred meters with the user okay).

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

I wonder if you don't come up with potentially realistic situations between a Rosharan and Scadrian because you fear someone will critique it. In other words you seem to only be able to parrot generalities very open to interpretation.

Personal attacks are not nice.

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

You are way overestimating Radiants and their physical abilities in comparison to Metalborn abilities. In this case I think it is your bias that causes your blindness.

In my opinion you heavily overestimate metalborn (outside of compounders where we have few concrete datapoints) and extrapolate outside of any reasonable conclusion, also again personal attacks are not nice.

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

There are few individuals who have anywhere near the martial capabilities of a Kaladin or Dalinar or their degree of surge control. So what if there have only been 3 crashers ever we are only talking about perhaps 300 years so 1 per generation, but that is only 1 twin combination among thousands which could be available at any given time. Just like some Radiants there are combinations which all but unbeatable.

To stand in shardplate and use shardblade/shardweapon does not require that much training if you are going against effectively unarmored opponent. If there is only 1-10 twinborn in generation that can have a chance to counter 4th oath radiant, they are the only weapon scadrial has against tens to hundreds of such Radiants, and that is a problem for Scadrial no matter how you slice it.

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

So they neutralize the shardblade the shardplate, the stormlight and shoot the Radiant in the face. It is in the Leecher description that they can neutralize invested weapons. Shardblade range means leecher range. Only a highly skilled 4th ideal radiant has a chance of surviving this encounter with the highly trained twinborn.

Again leeching takes time and touch, shardblades are longer than any arm -> they will lose that arm before they can react, or you know, Radiant will use lashing from a distance. All Radiant has to do is keep the opponent further than 2-3 meters away which they can easily do since their are faster, stronger and have more endurance. In fact, in this fight even 2th oath Radiant would have chance if they have a way to attack from range or a way to evade touch (so any with either, Gravitation/Transformation/Transportation/Abrasion/Illumination).

13 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

The potential advantages are very different between Scadrial and Roshar so we cannot say either always has an advantage. IMHO Scadrial has more advantages than Roshar in more situations combat and otherwise. To me it is obvious. When comparing Scadrial to Roshar you are comparing Bruce Lee to Andre the Giant and personally I wouldn't be sure of either winning in every situation.

It is more Andre the Giant with speed and reflexes of Mike Tyson vs Bruce Lee.

3 hours ago, Ixthos said:

My argument isn't that Leechers adn suppressors are different, but that they are the same or work in similar manners. I'm not following the rest of the objection though, I'm afraid? My main point is that Leeching can't be a method to kill spren, or to disrupt the investiture that constitutes them, or else Raboniel or Khriss wouldn't be surprised about anti-investiture.

I think the difference is that while Leeching actively removes/substracts investiture while suppressors passively block access to investiture/spiritual realm. I think that while the leecher could kill spren, it would take quite a while as they would have to remove almost all their investiture (and they have a lot of it). I also think that Khriss was less surprised about killing spren, but more by existence of anti-investiture in general.

Edited March 20, 2021 by therunner
Counter to steel, question about steel

IAmTheStick · March 20, 2021

I doubt we'll see another fullborn. Probably twinborns at the most here on out, and a radiant will probably beat a twinborn pretty easily, I think. A full feruchemist? Ehhhh pretty even match I would say. Depends on the radiant. Full mistborn? An even closer match, only a very skilled radiant could beat a mistborn. A mistborn AND a feruchemist? Well, that's just a little bit broken.

Scadrian vs. Rosharan magic post RoW

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