Kurkistan

Which way you translate it is based upon context, so our context is simply such as to indicate that the cat's would most definitely be the ones doing the ruling. I don't think it's that big of a deal, but I'll check with my person to see if throwing in a location to be ruled will make it less open to interpretation. EDIT: I just got what =^<*>.<|>^= means. Well made.

We're just changing our group tags for now, so you could be "Shard of Cheesy Assassins, Cat Inquisitor," "Shard of Cheesy Assassins, Caton of Inquisition," or go whole hog and be just "Cat Inquisitor." As for mind-transfer: Thank you for volunteering to be our first victim test subject contributor in the grand endeavour of imparting human-level or above intelligence upon felines!

Welcome! Don't worry too much: If you see a member of the Caton, it's already far too late to do anything about what happens next. . .

Latin translation of "Let the Cats Reign" just in, hot off the brain of a Classics major. "Feles Regirent" *I will now paraphrase the clarifications of a greater mind than mine* -It's subjunctive, so could technically mean "May they rule the cats." This can't be avoided, sadly. -It is also a bit vague in that it could mean either "let" or "may." What does everyone think of Feles Regirent as the official motto of the Caton of Inquisition? @Cuaiir That's showing initiative! It's mind like yours that will propel us into a bright new age of feline domination! Nice work on "Catquisitor," also: I didn't like the taste of it when I was first trying to come up with names, but it's starting to grow on me.

And this is a problem why? *Muwhahaha*

I can't seem to get it to work. It won't be that big of a problem if spikes can get very small. I am apparently very bad at finding quotes to support my beliefs, but I am under the impression that just about any size of metal can serve as a full Hemalurgic spike. Vin's earring would be the smallest we've seen so far.

Preservation stuck 16s in when he set the Mists to "autosnap" mode, but the 16 metals for Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy were there from the get-go, I think. It was my impression that Preservation either had to choose 16 or simply chose it for symmetry when he set up the Mists.

Actually, 10 being "the Number" for Roshar while 16 is the Number for Scadrial would mesh beautifully with the theory of the Shardworlds shaping the magic systems upon them. All (2) of the shards on Scadrial and all (3) of their magic systems were bound by the same "16 rule" and the same 16 metals, so it would make sense for Roshar's magic systems to similarly correspond to a "10 rule," perhaps with a similar limit of 10 in another, as yet unknown, way.

Or an Inquisi-Cat only dies one time when becoming an Inquisitor, leaving 8 (half of 16?! It's a sign!) lives left during which to paint the world red. There are some nice ones here.

Thanks for creating some space there. It's much more readable now. The future is indeed limitless. Actually, I just remembered that I know a Latin major. I'll get back to you within a day on an authentic translation. Fair enough. An excellent strategy. Thank you very much. =^.^=

Nothing will! *Evil laugh*

Excellent! Spreading the word of the Caton ought to be our first priority! Might I suggest that you add a bit more line-spacing to the OP, though? It's a bit intimidating right now. *Sincerely wishes that there was a cat-smiley* Also, I'm not sure about bringing in Roshar/Nalthis at this juncture. It creates some fairly hefty spoilers for a relatively small gain. Our Cat Inquisitors are awesome enough with just Scadrial's magic systems to draw upon! Overall, thanks for creating this thread. I'm glad we don't have to hijack the Feruchemy thread just to get our message out anymore. As to our motto, does anyone know Latin, or someone who does? Our new motto of "Let the cats reign" might have a bit more gravitas in italicized Latin. P.S. On the motto: I'm fine with "Let the cats reign," although it might be a bit more democratic to open the floor for voting.

I see. We shall have to evaluate whether or not he possesses the necessary qualities to lead our prestigious institution boldly into the future. Thank you kindly.

I am unsure as to who this "Mister" is, but perhaps it should not be the "Canton of Cats," but instead the Caton of Inquisition!

That must be one of the more disturbing AWESOME things I've heard in a while... Assuming there would be 1 for sentience, 1 for each of the 16 allomantic powers, and 1 for each of the 16 feruchemical powers, that would be 33 spikes... in a CAT... I fixed that for you. EDIT: Actually, I love the idea of a Cat Inquisition so much that I will join that noble organization. New title/avatar incoming!

Well this is all very reassuring.

I might wander over there, although I'm not sure of my ability to engage properly in a text-only setting. I fear that I would quickly hurl myself off the precipice into the territory of poorly-written fan fiction.

I am happy to amuse you. I'll keep my eye out for a forum-based game.

Following my usual pattern, I lurked here on and off until a theory so ludicrous that it demanded expression forced me to register in order to post it (Are the Shattered Plains Troy? No, they're not). I tend to lurk around a lot before pouncing on unsuspecting threads with massive posts, and look forward to a prosperous future in that regard. My first Sanderson book was Mistborn, which I stumbled upon quite randomly. I've since greedily read all of his books, and have managed to convert several of the people unfortunate enough to be within my range into his following. I read the WoT before Sanderson, but started reading him before the big WoT announcement, about the time that Hero of Ages was released. I despair at being able to find anyone to play the upcoming Mistborn RPG with, but I am also exceptionally paranoid about posting personal information/my location on the internet, which presents a bit of a self-manufactured conundrum for me. P.S. Does anyone have thoughts on my signature? I'm ambivalent about it myself.

Continuing Cosmere/Mistborn/Warbreaker spoilers:

I am quite thoroughly looking forward to Tuesday. I had to go back all of the way to July at Amazon in order to track my package, at which point I realized how much/long I have been anticipating this. Mods: You may close this topic at your whim. Sorry for costing you the time, but true exuberance cannot be adequately contained. P.S. I am also sorry about the ellipsis in the title. I tend to overuse those when excited.

I agree that it's still possible for the Old Magic to be completely Cultivation, but the evidence isn't definitively in favor of it. We have three examples of the Old Magic so far (wiki, although it doesn't have Av's brother): Dalinar: Request: Unknown Reward/Curse (which is ambiguous): Irretrievably lost all memory of his wife. Curse/Reward (inverse of other): Unknown. -In the interlude "Baxil," Av discussed his father and brother going to the Nightwatcher: Av's Father: Request: Asked for a way to keep his family alive through famine. Reward: Received a valuable bolt of cloth, enough to support his family when it was sold. Curse: Saw the world upside down, acclimated quickly. No long term ill-effects. Av's Brother: Request: Unknown, presumably "shallow." Reward: Unknown Curse: Lost feeling in both hands. The example I want to focus in on is Av's Father. It is only a single data point, but a very interesting one. We also don't have enough data on Dalinar, and Av's Brother could easily be an example of Rosharian "Darwin Awards," as it were. Av's Father made a moderate, altruistic request, got a sufficient reward, and was basically given a non-punishment. We see that absolutely no benefit on either end of the scale is derived from flipping someone's perception of the world. It had essentially no effect either way, neither improving nor "weeding" Av's Father, essentially serving as a token "curse" to keep with the rules. The "pruning" interests of Cultivation are in no way served by this curse, which begs the question of why it was applied at all. The unnecessary application of a curse strongly suggests that the Old Magic is essentially deterministic. It follows that the curses negative effect is directly proportional to the "size" of the reward. The essential modesty of Av's Father's request mean a very small reward and a proportionally small curse. Assuming this proportionality, why would a magic of Cultivation be so punitive, so arbitrary in it's pruning? It could still be the case that Cultivation is simply being expressed imperfectly through this magic system, but a Cultivation/Odium fusion also becomes more tenable. If the Old Magic is a fusion of Cultivation and Odium, then it would make sense that Odium's influence would result in as large a curse as possible, limited only by the "size" of the reward. Any magic system which combined the desire to spur growth with pure hatred would result in such a mix, each wish yielding a certain "power" output which is of both Cultivation and Odium. Thus, the size of the wish demands a certain amount of influence from Cultivation, which also lets in a proportional amount of influence from Odium. Presumably, someone who came to the Nightwatcher and asked to be cursed as their "request" would be "rewarded" with a curse from Odium and "cursed" with a proportional reward from Cultivation. This is all very theoretical, and we need much more data (as in more than one person with a full set of request/reward/curse. . .) before coming to definite conclusions about proportionality, but I find this model (although I am biased) to be persuasive. P.S. Would someone with a copy of the book handy mind going on the Wiki and adding in Av's brother as a user of the Old Magic, with the correct details? The current table is incomplete.

While I do like the idea that different magic systems can be mapped out exactly from Shard interactions (as well as the world that the Shards are on), I'm not sure if your application of this theory in the particular sense. First though, some possible evidence for your general theory: Spoilers for Mistborn Add in the different worlds and you get all possible interactions. As to the numbers, it works out to 2^n-1 for each world, 2^16-1 for all shards on one world, and w*(2^16-1) for all worlds, where 'w' is the number of worlds in the cosmere. Now on to criticism: An alternative exists for Shardweilding being completely separate from Shardbearing, besides the obvious answer of them just being two names for the same thing. We know that Shardplate in Dalinar's visions is different: covered with glowing glyphs and possibly more powerful. This could simply be an interaction with Surgebinding, but that also raises the question of why the Windrunners in Dalinar's vision wore plate while Szeth, who shares their abilities (although exactly how is up in the air, so this point might not apply), is incapable of Surgebinding while in Shardplate. Therefore, Shardweilding may be the "unlocking" of Shardplate's true power, with Shardplate simply being used on the "basic" settings in the present day, its wearers ignorant or unworthy of the entirety of its powers. As to the Old Magic, I was actually surprised when you suggested Honor/Odium for it. As I was reading that section, I mentally ticked in "Cultivation/Odium" before I got to the end. Arguments can still be made for the Old Magic coming completely from Cultivation (pruning to encourage growth and all of that. . .), but I think a Cultivation/Odium pairing would also work, with the two's powers "compromising" to provide a benefit (Cultivation) while also adding an unnecessary cost (Odium).

^Ok, thank you for replying so promptly.

Ah. Sorry about that. It's not a huge mistake, at least, like saying that Koloss are all secretly unicorns or something. Out of curiosity, how are these things normally resolved? Will the next Ars Arcanum have a special note? Will Brandon issue a public apology for the vast, vast wrong he has done to the entire human race and pledge to buy back all copies of AoL in order to reissue another edition correcting the mistake? Or would the world at large be best served to just assume that Kelsier's description is correct, with future editions of the Ars Arcanum silently correcting the discrepancy?