Kurkistan

Actually, I just realized that I made a rather significant mistake. You need bendalloy bubbles around the ship to achieve this. A cadmium-bubbled ship would actually be traveling at c / (cf*N). I guess we need to hope that duraluminum/nicrosil can increase bubble sizes, or rely upon very small ships.

@"You can't exceed light speed" comments. As CrazyRioter pointed out, something simply has to give in order for FTL to be achieved. My "drive pods" provide as much energy as you could ever want. In the real world, this might not be enough, but it's my understanding that all FTL is capable of violating causality and doing other unspeakable things to reality. I like this very much. I was focusing on providing propulsion, but if you simply kept the entire ship contained within a cadmium bubble at all times (or N overlapping cadmium bubbles, for greater effect), then you could use either conventional propulsion or a smaller version of my drive pod with it's own cadmium bubble, the drive pod always contained within the main bubble, to accelerate infinitely close to light speed within the bubble. This assumes that we can anchor cadmium bubbles, but if we can, then what an outside observer will see is a cadmium bubble whipping through space at just about c*(cf*N), while the ship within the bubble is only traveling at infinitesimally less than c. EDIT: Mistake made. Swap in bendalloy bubbles to surround the ship, keep cadmium for the drive pod. EDIT 1.5: Or swap in bendalloy for the drive pod too and reverse the direction you move it to achieve acceleration/deceleration.

I'm not so sure about Model #1 now, actually. Is it possible that the energy gained/lost from the engine exiting/entering the bubble would even out completely? I think we still get a win, but I wrote it up the first time around assuming that the entire ship would instantly accelerate to X*(cf) for some reason . I knew I had an issue with Model #2! I just kept thinking "oh, wait, doesn't that mean that we could also. . ." and adding things on. You're right there: we need to make sure that the amount entering the bubble is less than the amount leaving it. I suppose that my "dedicated drive pods" could ensure that, then.

Could someone who isn't me take a look at this FTL theory? Either I'm well on the way to solving mistborn-FTL or I'm going crazy.

I have a rather simple way to apply an external force to an internal object - Tether them together. My Model #1; assuming anchored cadmium bubbles: Build a teardrop shaped ship, the vast majority of which can be contained within a cadmium bubble (which we can presumably anchor to the ship somehow), with only the "sharp" part capable of protruding. Make the sharp part, henceforth known as the "engine," retractable/extendable. Drive use: Start up the cadmium bubble with the engine retracted. Extend the engine at a speed of X relative to the rest of the ship until it exits the bubble. The part of the ship which pierces the bubble will accelerate relative to the rest of the ship, attempting to reach a speed of X in normal space (or X*(compression factor) from the perspective of the bubble). Because the rest of the ship, within the bubble, is (very very very) firmly attached to the engine, the ship within the bubble must necessarily accelerate to match, within the bubble, the speed that the section outside the bubble appears to be traveling. The larger part of the engine's energy will go to accelerating the rest of the ship, reducing the engine to speed Y in real space and accelerating the bulk of the ship to Y*(cf) inside the bubble. We now have a piece of ship in normal space, traveling at speed Y, towing a cadmium bubble, the contents of which are traveling at speed Y*(cf) within the time compression. Retract the engine back into the bubble, necessarily losing some amount of energy as the rest of the ship is forced to accelerate the engine up from Y to Y*(cf). We could detach engines each time and replace with a new one to avoid this energy loss. That is very wasteful, though, so let's not. Rinse and repeat. Note: The speeds are all relative to the frame of reference of the ship before it extends the engine each time. Model #2; cadmium bubbles not anchored to ship: This one is actually easier, now that I think of it. Make the ship whatever shape you want, although I would suggest more of a needle shape for the purpose of structural integrity. No moving parts necessart for an engine. The ship does not need to fit within a cadmium bubble, and can be of any size so long as the section affected by the time bubble is symmetrical around a straight line for direction of travel. Impart some measure of velocity to the ship such that the ship will move through any bubbles created. Drive use: Start up a cadmium bubble along the ship's center-line. The section of the ship abutting the bubble will quickly exit the stationary bubble, achieving an internal acceleration effect identical to Model #1, as well as accelerating any part of the ship which is outside of the bubble. The rest of the ship, now moving faster, will continue to exit the bubble, accelerating the ship exponentially as more of the ship exits into real space. Eventually, the Pulser will exit the bubble, popping it. Cast more cadmium bubbles, with your rate of acceleration limited only by how quickly the Pulser (rotating shifts of Pulsers?) can re-cast cadmium bubbles, since the ship will quickly accelerate to what amounts to infinite speeds. Model #2 is actually still a better model than a telescoping "engine" if you can control where cadmium bubbles are anchored. In that case, just move the anchor towards the back of the ship to create acceleration, and towards the front to decelerate. EDIT: Braking: For Model #1, either just turn the ship and use the engine to decelerate or have an entirely separate "anchor" (read: engine on the back) mounted on the back of the ship, making it a diamond instead of a teardrop. For Model #2, I can only think of using Bendalloy bubbles somehow, since the time bubbles are determined by a frame of reference independent of the ship. EDIT 2: Or, to tweak Model #2 so that the entire ship and it's contents needn't be strong enough to sustain such stresses, you could rig an out-runner of some kind to take the brunt of the weirdness while still accelerating the ship. Perhaps you could design and use only the very ends of the ship to mess with the fabric of space and time using time bubbles, pushing or pulling the main body of the ship along. You could even site an "engine room" in the middle, if you felt like it.

I don't have my copy, but can somebody check the Elend vs Marsh fight scene in HoA to check how it was described?

Ding ding ding ding! We have a winner for FTL travel, especially if you reverse this for Cadmium bubbles. EDIT: Actually, I missed that Aiken Frosts's post was what started the ball rolling. Give that man a cookie!

1) I can't recall any attribute in Feruchemy which does not have exactly opposite effects for storing/tapping, actually, and the idea that you get back what you put in is pretty much there from the get-go. 2) You're right there, that "proportional" doesn't mean 1 to 1. However, I must disagree about your "3:4" argument, or any meaningful "x:y" proportion. Note in this post how Wax is "moon walking" at 1/2 weight. This would suggest that, even if your proportion exists, it is still small enough that Wax factors in the weight of his clothing when considering how hard it is to walk. If the proportion is that small, then I don't see a x100 Wax having enough excess strength to lift his arms, which is basically the entire justification for any argument suggesting increased strength from Iron Feruchemy. I'm going to go with fyodor here and call it a mistake.

Yes, there were female inquisitors. I doubt that they would pick a potentially unwilling candidate, though, assuming that Wax's sister is not in cahoots with the Set. Number 23

First of all, an increase in strength while tapping weight without a proportional decrease in strength while storing would be highly atypical for Feruchemy. It's my understanding that the "increase in strength" that stops Wax's body from becoming jam when he taps weight is entirely structural, and could be feasibly mirrored by a proportional decrease in structural strength when storing. Or it could be the case that Iron Feruchemy simply locks your constituent parts into the relative positions that they normally occupy, as I assume in this post. Also, we have seen that strength does not increase proportionally when tapping weight. These two posts discussing Sazed in the thread I linked to show that quite clearly.

No, actually. This is discussed ad nauseum here, but to summarize: We've seen Sazed's limbs feeling heavier and harder to move when he taps weight, and Wax stays at 75% in order to be "lighter on his feet," neither or which would be the case if strength was stored/tapped along with weight.

Assuming that Atium mistings were a wholesale substitutes for Cadmium mistings in the original trilogy, then there wouldn't be any anymore. I can't recall the exact quote, but it's my understanding that mist-snapping brings out the fundamental Preservation that is in everyone, but that only nobles with Lerasium in their bloodlines have close enough to the surface to access through normal snapping. So everyone is a potential misting, if the mists snap them, but Preservation deliberately left 15/16 unsnapped so as to give a sign that there was a purpose behind the mist sickness.

To be more specific, Preservation apparently got rid of Cadmium/Bendalloy in favor of Atium/Malatium for the auto-snapping mists. My knowledge on this is incomplete, but it's also my impression that regularly snapped Atium/Malatium mistings also replaced Pulsers/Sliders in the original trilogy.

Perhaps the first part is the case, but I doubt that "random and improbable events that do not work for or against the Ferring" counts as being "more lucky."

Thanks for catching me there. I got a bit too enthusiastic about trying to fix the apparent inconsistency in that scene.

That's very harsh, Aiken. Dyring specified that he was stating his personal preferences, and everyone has a right to voice their opinions. There's no need to go around calling anyone "egotistical." I'm personally a bit "meh" about graphic novels, and would prefer that Brandon stick with pure text, but I would almost certainly read an AoL graphic novel, just because.

Nice theory. It might also go to explain why Wax could lift his guns above his head while tapping weight during the wedding fight. I certainly like the idea of Harmony fueling pewter Allomancy through the mists more than the mists just magically (yes, I recognize the irony) invigorating him.

Yes there is. Link EDIT: That same answer also includes the answer to the "why are there Atium Mistings?" question that we've all been asking: Preservation changed Allomancy so that Atium/Malatium had Mistings, substituting them for Cadmium and Bendalloy. This at least as far as the auto-snapping mists went. It makes sense for regular Mistings too, though.

Very well then. *Throws in towel* I acknowledge that Iron/Steel Allomancy, while preserving momentum, still introduce energy into the world. And that's all she wrote.

This may be my imperfect grasp of physics rearing its ugly head again, but doesn't the fact that two perfectly identical amounts of energy are heading in perfectly opposite directions mean that the energy of the system hasn't changed from when neither object had any momentum?

Ah, thank you for the correction: Positive kinetic energy which just so happens to be heading in the opposite direction. Am I wrong to say that that this is balanced?

Wikipedia definition of kinetic energy: "The speed, and thus the kinetic energy of a single object is frame-dependent (relative): it can take any non-negative value, by choosing a suitable inertial frame of reference." In this case, you are choosing the frame of reference of the Allomancer, where the only thing with kinetic energy in the Allomancer-target system is the target. This is an inaccurate representation, though, since in reality the Allomancer has also gained energy. On a planet-based frame of reference, where the Allomancer-target system had 0 kinetic energy before the Push/Pull, we will see that the negative kinetic energy gained by the Allomancer (if "positive" is the direction that the target is relative to the Allomancer) when that Allomancer Pushes on a target completely offsets the positive kinetic energy of the target after the Push. Same for a Pull, only reversed. The chemical energy in someone's muscles is "the entropy normally present in transfers of energy" which I said that Allomancy is replacing in this case. It doesn't truly add any energy to the system, and is simply wasted. As I noted in my "Explanation for apparent gains in energy using Pushes/Pulls," you do not gain energy when considering the entire system, including Scadrial. The reaction energy is dumped off into the ground, which is slightly disinclined to move most of the time. I may well have ventured slightly too far into the realm of cool-sounding in my use of "inertia" instead of the more easily understood "momentum". Despite this, my understanding is that inertia is essentially the same as momentum, just looked at from the frame of reference of the inertia-laden object instead of the planet. Yeah, Iron Feruchemy just cheats. It's a dirty cheater. It adds and subtracts mass, and therefore inertia/momentum, to the Allomancer willy-nilly, so we do see a gain in energy. Unless my physics teacher did me a graver disservice than I was aware of, Conservation of Energy and Conservation of Momentum are exactly the same thing. Momentum, i.e. kinetic energy, is simply another, specific form of energy. If you conserve momentum, then you're conserving energy. When we see imperfect transfers of momentum, such as in inelastic collisions, the "lost" kinetic energy is transformed into another type of energy. At least that's my understanding coming into this. Stolen from a random website:

EDIT: I'm kind of wrong. And stupid, also. Momentum is conserved, not energy. I got a bit too big for my britches so far as what "energy" meant. If you read the rest like I'm arguing for conservation of momentum, then it sounds much smarter (and also is probably true). --- I've failed to hijack two different threads using a series of posts about my pet theory that Iron/Steel Allomancy do not introduce any energy into the world, and that the power gained from the "End-Positive" aspect of Allomancy for these powers can be chalked up to avoiding the entropy normally present in transfers of energy. I decided to just go the whole nine yards and create a separate thread, since my dastardly plans have so far failed me. Enjoy. I was going to re-cast my arguments, but it turns out that I'm already pretty darned eloquent, so I'll just copy-paste from the above links and edit out unnecessary tidbits: :P/>/> Initial Argument: I have always understood Steelpushes and Ironpulls to be straight action-reaction events between the Allomancer and the target, exactly the same as if they had physically pushed/pulled on that target. In fact, as far as I've seen, they are actually preserve the energy of the Allomancer-target system. Therefore, it would function in space identically to a system where astronauts have exceptionally long arms that can only grip non-aluminum-alloyed metal. My mental model is such that Allomancers imparts some measure of their inertia to their target, that inertia either heading in the exact direction of the target (from the center of gravity of the Allomancer) for a Push or in the exact opposite direction of the target for a Pull. The duration (proportional to the strength) of the Push/Pull determines the amount of inertia imparted. When the object is anchored such that it cannot move, the Allomancer simply keeps imparting their inertia up to and including the point where he/she can actually perceive the effects. They can achieve special effects with anchors because the object in question remains "in range" of the Allomancer, and can serve as an "interia-sink" as far as the frame of reference of the Allomancer goes. Similar to the space-walk example, this is the same effect that you could see with someone who had infinitely long arms in a world without anchors. To Illustrate: 50 Kg Coinshot/Lurcher, situated to East of target 5 Kg target, unanchored, at rest relative to the Allomancer Coinshot: To impart 10 Km/hr of West velocity to the target, the Coinshot will impart 1 Km/hr of East velocity to themselves. To impart 20 Km/hr of West velocity to the target, the Coinshot will impart 2 Km/hr of East velocity to themselves. Lurcher: To impart 10 Km/hr of East velocity to the target, the Coinshot will impart 2 Km/hr of West velocity to themselves. etc. Illustration of why Pushing coins results in no perceptible loss of inertia for the Allomancer: A U.S. Quarter weighs 5.670 g, while a 110 pound person weighs 50 Kg, aka 50,000 g. 5.67/50000 = 0.0001134 = %0.01134. If you accelerate a Quarter to 1,225.044 Km/hr (speed of sound at sea level on Earth), you will create an opposite reaction of 1,225.044 Km/hr * .0001134 on the Allomancer. That's 0.13891999 Km/hr of velocity for the Allomancer. I'm pretty sure that an Allomancer could just not notice that, and/or lean slightly against it. Explanation for apparent gains in energy using Pushes/Pulls Looking at this again, you can actually generate power for all intents and purposes as long as you consider changes in Scadrial's inertia to be externalities, and simply look at the Allomancer-target system. You can simply dump the inertia from the opposite reaction into the planet and have what looks like a perpetual motion machine going fairly easily. TL;DR: Pushes and Pulls are more than just "heavier than you, you move; lighter than you, it moves." Some interesting things can happen here, especially in SPACE!

Ah, I see what you mean. Yes, I do remember this interview now, but I guess I let it slip my mind while writing my response. I'm actually of the opinion that the Feruchemical charge does not so much "overwrite" the Allomantic potential of the metal as offer an alternative fuel source, once again going back to Vin's discussion with Sazed in FE. I think that an allomancer could choose whether to "burn" the Feruchemical aspect of the metalmind or simply access it's Allomantic attributes. This is besides the point though, because whether or not burning a nicrosil-mind Allomantically is an the option, we still have the case where a Double Nicrosil twinborn could simply choose not to access the Allomantic aspect of his metalmind. We have two cases then: either, as you suggested, the Investiture stored in the nicrosil-mind and gained from compounding is released as generalized Investiture and can possibly go completely unused, which would be bad, or we go with a slightly modified version of my explanation. What if the Investiture gained from nicrosil-compounding short-circuits the short-circuit for compounding? Perhaps the Investiture "tapped" by compounding sees the Allomantic-nicrosil "gateway" before it sees the changes made to it for it to become a Feruchemical-nicrosil one. Any other explanation for why raw Investiture can't run rampant when compounding would be appreciated.

Ah, I wasn't aware that Brandon had made a statement to that effect. Do you have a link to the interview, or could you quote the relevant section? I would like to see exactly what he said to make sure that that aspect of my theory has been properly torpedoed. This is the first time I can recall seeing "limited vs ongoing" used as terminology, but from what I understand you to be saying I would probably say. . . ongoing (?).