Chaos

opening the doors.

did the Dor

No, I think that is still an important element. I think surging qualifies (barely). Electrical surges do have a connotation of destruction. It's kind of a stretch, but we sometimes think of metalminds as batteries, so an electrical implication seems pretty good in my mind.

How have I not seen this thread until now? Preposterous. Ellen, how much math have you had? You can understand a lot of physics without math, certainly, but for certain topics, like quantum mechanics, it becomes critical. A lot of the mysterious, non-intuitive stuff falls out very naturally from the math. I'll have to look into where else you can learn more. I can't say I know off the top of my head, considering I'm currently doing physics in college I've heard it is very good, but I haven't read it. Though, I should make a disclaimer that string theory is not experimentally verified in any way, shape, or form. They just as well could be really tiny cows down there. It's really applied philosophy at this point. That doesn't make it a fruitless endeavor (because if they can come if up with an experimental prediction and we could test it, that'd be awesome), but don't take things too seriously there. Better, in my opinion, to look into things that we know to be actually true.

Makes sense. Though, to play devil's advocate, this might give you motivation to produce more (Plus, when you're on the email list, it's totally up to you which weeks you submit. There's no harm.)

Yeah, he doesn't like it. He said that when a person takes up a Shard, they become the Shard. There's no distinction in his mind. I asked him if there was a term for Shardholder, specifically, and he didn't. Also, from a recent interview, he said that Harmony is a Shard, in the way that a king of two countries is still a king. See my post above on why I think this is a very minor issue. I may feel differently if the term is used like Surging later, but if they are "Surges" as a noun, I think we can tell them apart. My problem with condense is that it lacks oomph. I don't know about you, but I haven't felt a great deal of power from condensed milk or condensation...

That's true. On the other hand though, this would be more of a 17th Shard site convention than anything else. (After all, we use Shardholder and Brandon doesn't like that term. However, it is important for some theorizing.) So considering all the members on here are smart, awesome (and attractive, I'm sure) people, I think they can understand the connotation. Plus, Surge seems to be capitalized, so that will help with the distinction. It's massively different than saying, "oh, this Compounding is different from compounding attributes, due to capitalization!" haha. So vast improvement, and not much downside.

I wasn't on board with most of the suggestions thus far, but I really like surge. It has that same water connotation, feels strong and evocative, while still being descriptive as to what's happening with the metalmind. Strongest contender so far, in my opinion.

I know right? The species puzzle is confusing, and depends on how you define them. For my purposes at least, they are much more human than kandra or koloss, so they definitely slide more on the human side of the spectrum. Of course, if an Inquisitor had a child, that child wouldn't be an Inquisitor itself, so it wouldn't be "truly" perpetuating the Inquisitor race.

Yes, I'm well aware of that, but they can indeed reproduce through normal human methods. My point still stands.

I don't know about that. I don't really consider Inquisitors to be a separate race. Yes, I know Sazed considers them a separate race. but in that same line, he says that you could consider an Allomantic savant as no longer human. But come on, regardless of Spook's powers, he was a human. Warped by power, I suppose. There's a scale of warping on the imaginary Humanity Continuum, and while Spook and Inquisitors are further away from human, they seem human to me. After all, Inquisitors can procreate like regular humans. It's a fuzzy line. It may be somewhat a futile effort to try to think too hard about the distinctions of species. It's a question biologists always discuss, because there's many different ways to define what a species is. But come now. Inquisitors have neither blue skin nor translucent skin. Human enough for me

Hey Wrim! I think you might just be our first member who joined before reading some of Brandon's stuff. That's very cool you were attracted here anyways! I'm excited. Have you looked into Reading Excuses, by chance? My usual standby when introducing people to Brandon (depending on how much fantasy background they have) is Warbreaker, but I see you didn't need much convincing there I don't think it matters too much whether you use American or British English, though when in doubt, American English is a safe bet. Some people may be thrown off with "aluminium" and "honour". But for the most part, our members are astute and intelligent. They aren't going to get in a fit over something like that. Though, if you edit the Coppermind Wiki, it becomes more important to consistently use American English. As for your English, it's very good! The only grammar thing I noticed was some peculiar capitalization, like "Season", "System Icons", and "Mechanical Keyboard". I honestly wasn't too perturbed by them, but I just mention it because you asked

I very much like this. One problem is that the amount of spikes in an Inquisitor actually varies. It's usually between nine and eleven spikes. For example, the Inquisitor Vin and Elend kill in the beginning of Hero of Ages had nine spikes. (I don't have the book near, so it could have been ten, but I distinctly remember that it wasn't eleven and it threw me off initially.)

@Tangletalon - Don't worry abut it. @Tritlo - Yup!

Can I change the thread to "Feruchemical flaring" instead of "burning"? Inkthinker is right--tap corresponds to burning. This would be more specific.

I just thought of something else: often compress is used with respect to bendalloy and cadmium. That could get confusing there. EDIT: I do agree, Kurkistan, that accumulate sounds pretty dang inactive.

I'm not totally sold (a better word might exist), but I have no objection to synthesize. It sounds good, at least. EDIT: I guess my problem with compression is that it isn't intuitive to a reader about what is actually happening. The right word should evoke a sense that you're grabbing more power, and compress doesn't work well enough. EDIT 2: (You guys post fast) Aggregate at least evokes that right sense, but definitely sounds worse. Accumulate has a certain ring to it. It evokes that you're grabbing more power, and is actually fairly descriptive in that you are accumulating more Feruchemical energy than normally possible. EDIT 3: That said, I'm not totally sold on "accumulate," but it feels more right, at least.

I like your intent with that and the rationale behind it, but it doesn't roll off the tongue too well to say you're compressing Feruchemy.

Muwhaha See, I didn't steal everything; that was a superb description of that... compounding, which I didn't think about correctly. I very much like how you described that. Kudos. And I agree--we desperately need a different word than "compounding". I don't care if it's only a fan-made convention for 17th Shard, but I'm certain some new member will misinterpret it if they join and they read about two different compoundings. (I mean, jeeze, look at how many threads there are on Compounding so far.) My thesaurus search leads me this potential possibilities: magnifying, intensifying, augmenting. I'm up for better suggestions, though.

This is awesome, DomainWalker. I really like it. Can't wait to see the new and improved version!

Welcome to the site! Good to have you here As for the Seventeenth Shard thing, well, Brandon did suggest we use this name for his fansite, because the Seventeen Shard are an organization of worldhoppers, that move from Shardworld to Shardworld. We talk about it a bit on the About page. So, yeah, the Seventeenth Shard is actually an in-world thing. Isn't that awesome? It's actually mentioned in the Way of Kings epigraphs, in part two. So what Brandon is saying is that the Ars Arcanum was written by a worldhopper, which is pretty obvious if you know that Sel is the planet of Elantris He'd have to be a worldhopper. A further note: I'm trying to make it convention here that "Seventeenth Shard" refers to the organization inside the books, while "17th Shard" refers to this fansite. They are subtly different, because obviously joining this site doesn't make you a character in Brandon's books (sadly :/). The guy on Tor.com doesn't use that distinction, so that could be part of the confusion.

which the Dor

Maybe, but I don't think so. Those Allomantic spikes are hardwiring a very specific trait into someone's Spiritweb. Yes, normally Allomancy would require enough Preservation, but I think Hemalurgy is cheating around that fact. I'd think that if you used one spike for the Blessing (rather than two, which is apparently pretty important), then you'd get a very childlike kandra. EDIT: I also edited the topic title for spelling. Hope you don't mind.

Well, if you want to be super technical about it, this compounding of Feruchemy wouldn't be of Ruin. I think that it has more to do with how the Spiritual power moves inside you. Hemalurgy reduces that Spiritual energy when spikes decay, Allomancy preserves your own Preservation inside you, so it instead draws from elsewhere. Feruchemy doesn't destroy the Ruin or Preservation inside you, so I'd think it is still End-Neutral. I also agree with the efficiency thing. Seems reasonable that if you were a "stronger" Feruchemist, you'd get less of the diminishing returns effect. You're more efficient scuttling your power through time, so to speak.