Kurkistan

We've had some fairly intense debates on the topic, but I think it's been settled (someone yell at me if I'm wrong, it's been a while) that weight affects both how much raw power you can output and, as you say, who gets thrown around at the end of the day. When Vin pushes a coin with 1 Newton of Force, she is pushed back as well. It's just that the coin is much less massive. At no point do you have an Allomancer simply "not moving": instead, the force exerted on them is simply minimal. So yes, an elephant will be able to Push and Pull a man in armor around without budging more than half an inch. Now as to how the elephant gets that much power, that's down (IIRC) to both Allomantic strength and the actual weight of the Allomancer. They're essentially "throwing their weight around", so a Vin who wasn't uber-awesome would be able to throw around fundamentally less power than an equally powerful Allomancer who's weight went into the hundreds. Put each of them up against a wall and have a "coin race" and weak!Vin's would be slower. Thus, increasing your weight (via eating or Feruchemy), besides making you more immovable, also has the effect of increasing the amount of brute power available to Iron and Steel Allomancy. He wouldn't need quite much preparation: Recall that TLR can compound every metal. A few hours or days of compounding Iron would do it. He also wouldn't have needed to tap strength, since all Feruchemy protects its user from the direct effects of tapping: brass ferrings don't burn to death and iron ferrings aren't crushed under their own weight. You might have an issue with breaking the Earth's crust, though. . . -There's a quote on this, though I can't find it just now. I'm having the hardest times finding quotes today, but, in general, you can rest easy with the knowledge that "there are A LOT of things that [TLR] knew that aren’t known to a lot of people." I would hazard that Bendalloy and Cadmium do allow for "faster" and "slower" feruchemical storage, but, again, your ideas, while interesting, aren't really necessary for TLR in particular, or any Compounder. Compounding a metal makes it end-positive, and is power-generating and fast enough that you don't really need to set aside a few days in an extra-dimensional bubble to do it properly. Overall, your thoughts on TLR are interesting, but in the specific context of the MAG, I would caution you a bit: so far as I know, conventional wisdom says that if TLR actually tries to kill or capture you, you die or end up in chains. A thousand year old, expert-savant-Lerasium-Twinawesome--especially in a world that doesn't know anything about compounding and probably doesn't know anything about feruchemy either--is simply impossible to overcome. EDIT: Welcome to the forums, by the way!

We're not sure about aluminum bullets, IIRC, and the fact that light isn't affected is the result of a deliberate and entirely authorial alloying of Handwavium with Cadmium and Bendalloy. As for speed gradients: no. Take a moment to consider what calculus tells you about adding up infinitesimal accelerations as each atom of an object accelerates relative to the rest of the bullet. Also, Brandon has said on several occasions that objects are either entirely inside or entirely outside of speed bubbles.

Ah, thanks. I think we already had enough links in the FAQ thread, but your additional info will be nice if anyone wants to follow the attribution trail down the rabbit hole to your initial post.

Care to share that quote with the class, Phantom? Chaos is on stickying, but I think he has a lot of stuff on his plate.

September 24th, though.

Nice. The Lerasium question essentially tells us that no Mistborn were harmed during the filming of these books, while leaving open the door to an alloy with Atium for Feruchemy (though apparently Hoid may have had Feruchemy before the Mistborn trilogy...) or using it as a metalmind or something. The answer to the Dalinar question is interesting because it implies that Dalinar isn't "going anywhere" when he has his visions: there are theories that he's been person-napped into another of the Realms, but Brandon's answer seems to say it's all happening in his (normal and normally located) mind.

I'm fairly sure it's both, but thickness is the real kicker. There's an illustration about Lines of Forbiddance that has this to say: "Lines of Forbiddance have strength based on how straight the line is. Their stability is based on the material they are drawn upon, and the height their force wall extends is based on the width of the line." ("Line Strengths" illustration before Ch 18) Fitch also specifies that only a "well drawn" Line of Forbiddance can stop a cannonball. So I'm guessing straightness works in conjunction with width, but width is what you really need at the end of the day. Joel even mentions the importance of width when he's going on his "why are pretty chalklings better!?" rant. And they already use the equivalent of sidewalk chalk, so far as I know. They can't go too big because they need to be able to handle it delicately enough to draw chalklings and arcs. Thoiugh I suppose the truly committed Rithmatist could carry multiple pieces for different kinds of work simultaneously... EDIT: That quote also casts some doubt on my own interpretation of force wall height. "Strength" could well mean that the force wall is of uniform strength all the way up until it stops, or that it has a known gradient based on straightness, but always stops at the same point based on thickness.

Perhaps. You do have to account for variable strength as well, though. Myself, I'm inclined to believe that there is no definite "height" to the barrier a Line of Forbiddance creates, but instead a lessening of effect the farther you go from the base. The effect is described as a repulsive field, so I'd guess that, the wider the line, the stronger the "base" strength of the field, which strength weakens as you get farther and farther from the line. So you might be able to put your hand through a barrier 10 feet up while still feeling some resistance, but feel nothing at 20 feet. A grain of sand lightly tossed at the field, though, might need to get 30 feet up before it could get through. And some poor microscopic particle with no velocity might need to go 100 feet up before it could get through. You could work such variable strength into a more geometric model, though: it could well be that the force required to get through any given Line of Forbiddance at an given height is governed by such angles.

Thanks for the quotes, Phantom. Given them, I think we might have been looking to make Lurchers a bit more expansive in their bullet-pulling than they really are. At the very least, I doubt that any Lurcher bothers to try and make a bullet hit his chest plate that isn't already about to hit some other part of his body. The Lurcher doesn't really have to do much work here to deflect the bullets towards his chest. Recall that all Pulls are towards you center of mass (the plate, in this case) and Wax was at a fair distance aiming at Pull's face. It doesn't take much to change the angle by a few degrees and make the bullet impact your chest instead.

Cool, I was just trying to gauge exactly how awesome I am. That seems somewhat plausible, but I was talking about Tanavast affecting what "Honor" is on a bit more of a permanent, higher level. The Shardholder gets to interpret their Shard's intent, to a certain degree, so Tanavast's own opinions and dispositions would determine how the Shard "Honor" and its offshoots would define Honor. If I am wrong, though, and definitions of Honor are all generated "on the ground" by collections of people, Tanavast still might have a bit of a say because he's (presumably) responsible for the Heralds and thus, indirectly, the Radiants. I don't particularly like the idea of the Shard Honor subliminally influencing people's individual opinions and thoughts, though. I know the "papa Shard" of a planet's humans has some small effect on their dispositions, but still. . . So far as attraction goes, that actually raises a very interesting question: Can perceptions affect who draws "dumb" spren? Say that a man has a reputation for cowardice, but is relatively calm on the eve of battle. On a fear scale of 1-10, he's at about a 3 while his comrades around him are at a 5, but all of his comrades are used to him being the most fearful, and so perceive him as being much more afraid than he is, much more afraid than they are. Where will the fearspren go in this case? I think they might very well go to the brave coward. So far as different "perceptions" of Honor for each Order goes, I was trying to go there, but I'll leave it be for the moment.

Sounds reasonable enough. Out of narcissistic curiosity, is your mention of "manifestations of a strong concept that 'bleeds through' from the cognitive realm to the physical realm" a reference to my own theory, or did you arrive at it independently? I would give some small amount of weight to the perceptions of the individual. It probably comes down to Cognitive aspects, which are rightly affected both by how you view yourself and by how others view you. So a Kaladin who did not see himself as particularly honorable, but was held in high regard by others, would still have a Cognitive aspect that stank of honorableness. I would be wary of relying entirely on subjective perceptions of what it is to be honorable, though. I would hazard that Tanavast had a fair amount of influence over the "Form" of honor on Roshar, and that that Form is more rigid than other more "free floating" concepts like Intoxication or Creation. Some proper type of perception is probably necessary to "ring a bell" with that Form, but I think it's more a matter of establishing a correspondence between Kaladin and the Windrunners' version of honor than it is creating a new definition of honor out of whole cloth, not even on a population-wide scale.

Yes, the third interview if you follow my link. That's what my second paragraph is talking about.

By my understanding, that's not compatible with what Brandon does, at least not for the big epics. As you know, he writes "through lines" where he writes from one character's POV through the whole book, so that he doesn't lose their voice. One of the linked interviews has Brandon saying that he'll write characters together if they're all in the same place, but, in the context of everything else that says, I think his answer was more about the events that involve several POV-worthy characters being written once from the perspective of one of them, rather than writing multiple POV's on a single event simultaneously. So, by my understanding, Dalinar will be there for the fight scene, and his stuff (including reactions and dialouge) will be written in, but his POV will only be written during his through line.

Thanks Phantom, I had forgotten. I see three options: 1) Brandon lied/misspoke in the most recent reading (unlikely) 2) Brandon is jumping around, chronologically, while writing Dalinar (which I doubt somewhat, given my understanding of his writing habits) and "Dalinar's first scene in the book" is purely a statement of chronology rather than writing order. For all I know, though, Brandon's "through lines" consist only of only writing one character at a time, rather than writing those characters from start to finish with no chronological deviations. 3) The morse-scene was from another character's perspective--Adolin or Kaladin, almost certainly. Maybe Navani. Though it does seem to be a rather intimate conversation, so I would guess Kaladin, to preserve the "one on one" feel of the conversation (bodyguards are invisible, obviously). This does raise the question of why Amaram's isn't dead by the end of the scene, though. . . Anything else come to mind?

That's a good insight, Jc. At 2,500 words a day (though he's probably going a bit faster towards the end here) that still leaves us at less than 50 pages of Dalinar POV's. That doesn't really sound right to me, though, since i got the impression that he was a bit more active in this book. Maybe we get a lot of third-person focus on him from Kaladin, Adolin, and others? We don't really need to know his internal just now, since we're pretty firm on where he stands and how he'll react to various situations at this point (what with taking an entire book to nail that down in WoK).

*Tries to figure out what happens September 1st*

The Shards only coming in to give the juice doesn't seem plausible because there are a finite number of spren in any given area: fear spren are attracted to the most fearful, even if everyone in the group is afraid enough that they would normally attract one, if alone. On top of that, there would be little reason to distinguish between Cultivation and Honor, Cultivation, and Honor as the source of different spren if all that any of them needed was raw power. The lack of spren in Shinovar (most likely) tells us that they need Stormlight to be visible, at the least, and Stormlight seems to be rather uniform in its composition, so it seems that Cultivation and Honor's diversified influence on different spren can only be expressed in terms of those sprens' innate composition, rather than their fuel source. As to your second paragraph: That's an intriguing idea, and might even be a workable and interesting system, but I don't think it's what we see in "actuality." Glory, Death, Intoxication, Creation, and Logic (and many more like them) all have their own spren, and are all rather abstract entities. Yes, Glory is founded in actions and behaviors in the Physical Realm, but it really is all a matter of (Cognitive) perception, when you get down to it. Same with Beauty. This suggests that spren could just sit pretty in only the Cognitive and Spiritual and still be perfectly perceivable.

An aspect of their Forms? I doubt that, since they are supposed to be "of" Honor and/or Cultivation (depending on the Spren) and are Honory-enough to serve as "release valves" for his power after Tanavast dies. That demands some degree of independence.

Ah, you're right, I hadn't considered that we weren't sure how many Orders actually had Plate. P.S. It's been long enough (by the terms of the bet) for you to change your Member Title, btw.

What an excellent warning, Rubix! What does the mocking consist of, if I may ask?: "Neener-neener I've got the shiny now"? "Sorry (not), but it's for the greater good"? "Behold as I use the power of the Moon Scepter to conquer the world!"?

Nice to see the old thread back in action, I'm glad some more people like it. I agree with Agrooster that spren may well give us some deep insights into Realmatics. Once again, I may or may not have posted a thread or two about Forms in particular, if anyone is interested. So far as perceptions go, I think Leuthie is on the right track. It's up in the air, since Brandon RAFO'd it, but spren may well be vampires not be "in" the Physical Realm properly, and might only be "seen" by people as a consequence of their Cognitive presence. I do think that spren of various kinds are actually actively attracted to events and locations, though, rather than being ever-present but simply unseen. A man who hasn't the least reason to be afraid or suspect infection can still see Fear- and Rot-spren gathering about another. Obviously there are some exceptions (Death, Ale), but I think that spren are at the very least simply empowered or enlivened by local conditions into becoming visible to properly attuned individuals, rather than being present in their full glory at all times but simply unseen. Btw, some new information on spren: "Spren are created by the perceptions of men." That's in line with what we know/theorize so far, but I just thought all the evidence should be in one place.

That would be nice, Mi'ch. It's not exactly a Dragonsteel-level spoiler, so you could just put up a "THE FOLLOWING PERTAINS TO A (CANON) DELETED SCENE IN THE EMPEROR'S SOUL REMOVED FOR REASONS OF PACING" banner and summarize for us.

The armor is probably just a new Order and the "radio" is almost certainly the Radiant talking to her spren. It might be interesting to see if Dalinar connects the dots at some point about the leader of his personal guard holding conversations with no one. . .

I doubt it, though there's a slim glimmer of hope at the end of a very long tunnel, depending on how exactly the Southerners go about "mechanically" using Allomancy. Such an effect isn't really necessary, though, given that people are not, in fact, "knocked backwards" when impacted by a bullet. It's a gun, not a cannon. Mythbusters had a whole episode about this: if the bullet was strong enough to actually knock someone backwards, it would a) knock the shooter back just as much, if not a bit more and b.) break the shooters hand, arm, and body in the process as the gun did it's level best to kill them on the recoil. So we can just say a Lurcher braces himself a bit to avoid being staggered and call it a day.

Sorry K, no way to escape your punishment now: ()