Fifth of Daybreak

First of all, if you wouldn't mind editing your post to include a spoiler tag, this is in the general forum and not the sub forum. Thanks I don't think its a matter of the bind points, but as you said, a matter of efficacy. Drugs work in similar ways, you give a 12 yr old x amount of morphine and it barely touches the pain for a broken ankle, you give morphine to a 425 pound guy and it puts him to sleep (I've seen both these instances.) That being said, hemoglobin is just my best guess as to a binding point, as it is the binding site for many other chemicals-oxygen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide. But it doesn't necessarily have to be where it binds to, the main idea behind the theory is that it is transported by the blood through the body. As far as the frost is concerned, I completely agree with Tempus on this point, he found a good number of flaws in my logic, and while it can ignore some components for magical reasons, to base a small part of the concept in real world phycics, and then ignore the rest of it just doesn't add up. I think the theories being discussed here have a much higher probability of being correct: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/8775-magic-fuel/

So we know that it's difficult to impossible to awaken something that wasn't, at some point living. How does this apply to soulcast bodies on Roshar? Would an awakener be able to reproduce Kalad's Phantoms on Roshar without having to use bones as a focus in the statue, since, before the soulcasting, the body had been alive?

Hmmm, unless I'm misunderstanding you, the idea that this isn't feasible is based off a few false assumptions about the cardiovascular system. So let's start with your initial aspects: The average human has a resting heart rate(HR) of 70 bpm, and an average stroke volume(SV) of 70ml, with an average blood volume of 5 liters. Cardiac output(CO) is measured as HR*SV=CO. So we have on average, a cardiac output of 4900ml/min to start. That means the entirety of the normal volume of blood is pumped through the heart in one min, and that's at rest. Woah, woah, woah! Tweaking those numbers is the entire way the heart functions and compensates for outside forces! You can't just dismiss the entire compensatory mechanism the body has for adjusting cardiac output! Let's say you get a little excited, the adrenaline is surging, and your heart rate increases to 120, which really isn' t that great an increase. Without changing your SV, already the CO is increased to 8400 ml/min. That's a 59% increase, which definitely does gain us something. This is even without increasing the stroke volume, which you completely ignored as a potential variable. Under normal conditions, generally we expect the heart rate can get up to 180 before it is pumping too fast to be effective. Again, not counting for any difference in stroke volume, we see a CO of 12.6 liters. That means your moving double the amount of blood in a normal persons body in one minute already. SV is controlled by the strength of the heart's contraction, and the amount of blood filling the heart, which at rest is nowhere near its potental. The strength of the contraction is actually about 50% during an at rest contraction. Frank-Starling's law states that SV of the heart increases in response to a larger volume of blood filling the heart, so, stormlight expansion of the heart only serves to increase SV. The one limiting factor increasing the stroke volume is the elasticity of the heart, basically that if you overfill the heart, you damage its ability to contract, like overinflating a balloon and wearing out the side of the wall. With Stormlight, that damage can be healed as it happens, causing an even higher threshold to SV. But when you include the difference to SV as well, it becomes even more marked a difference. A normal person vigorously exercising can potentially have a cardiac output 7 times higher than at rest. They are transporting 35 liters of blood through the body in 1 minute, which would mean the volume of blood is transporte through the body in 8.57 seconds. What's the surgebinder using the Stormlight for? Are they just using it for increased physical prowess? This would need the least stormlight, and you would not need to use all the stormlight in the blood, so it could recirculate. Is it healing? This is going to use the Stormlight up faster. It it being poured into a shield as quickly as possible? How much stormlight did they inhale? You make a lot of assumptions about this without taking into account other variables. There's a huge amount of variables that you aren't accounting for, starting from the very beginning where you completely ignored the vital role SV has on changing CO. A normal person who has been exercising as hard as Kaladin had, could transport their entire blood volume through their body in 10s easily, and again, that's from left ventricle to left ventricle. So that's 5s approximately from left ventricle to the furthest capilaries in the body before entering the venous system on its way back to the heart. A normal person already meets the criteria you present, without actually involving any extra abilities given by stormlight, as it would take less than 5s to reach the hands, where the stormlight is being directed. Tempus has already beaten that theory about it causing the temperature changes, but there's nothing to say that stormlight could still be compressed in the spheres, and then decompresses as it moves through the body, which still makes the most sense to me. Source:http://www.biosbcc.net/doohan/sample/htm/COandMAPhtm.htm

Plot twist. Ialai joins camp Kholinar and seduces Adolin. After the ten year break, we find out they are seperated because she finds out he killed her ex. Adolin grows an epic beard, and Hoid teaches him how to play guitar. He then bonds with the listeners through the sweet sadness of his music. That's when he runs into an old friend, Eshonai.

I did overstate the case on Shardplate, it wouldn't be an easy victory against shardplate, it would definitely depend on having to change into another weapon after an initial assualt. Also, that's not my friend haha, just a video on the internet that showed what someone skilled could do. He's not bad for light shows, but as far as martial arts goes, He wouldn't be worth much. I was just commenting that the skill doesn't seem to be as incredibly tough as its being made out to be. I think you might want to try throwing a blade horizontally next time you're out practicing, that would work against all the balance of the weapon. The whole point of the 'dance' is to create a motion that makes it easier to dodge. I don't like putting myself into these scenarios because by all means I'm not a weapons expert in the slightest, but there's a reason Adolin doesn't practice throwing the shardblade until he thought it was a useful skill. The spear would be easier to throw accurately, but that's even easier to dodge. You you have a six foot blade of death, but the range on the rope dart is can be just as long. I think if you're going to use a throwing weapon, you're definitely going the wrong route. By even proposing the spear or sword as the main throwing weapon, you're ignoring weapons that were designed to be thrown that would also be harder to dodge. At that point the difference is just the rope.

Well...that's kind of the whole point of the thread.

I'm not saying it would be effective in the hands of someone who didn't know how to use it, you put a weapon in an untrained hand, no matter how devastating, the battle is already half over before it starts. With that said, I see a good amount of flaws in your logic. There's a lot of momentum in that rope. So you charge, you're running straight for the person who throws the rope dart at you, at the end a blade that can cut through anything. You use your spear to block the rope, and duck as the blade comes around...the first time. So now you've had to come to a dead stop, and you're watching the dart wrap around the spear. Meanwhile, I'm already planted, pulling on my end of the rope, which I've got wrapped around my arms to give better leverage. You've got two options, lose the spear, or risk getting pulled off balance while the dart continues to swing. Lets say you do manage to stand your grand. You try to pull me off balance, but I've been centered and yanking already, so that doesn't work. Now, you try to throw the spead...which is wrapped in a rope dart. I yank on the rope, the spear changes directions and misses. Now you're disarmed. Now let's assume, that, in fact, you are much larger than me (I am disinclined to believe that, I'm a tall burly fat guy,) and you manage to get a good yank in that could throw off my balance. I let go of the rope, which dismisses, and is now back in my hands, swinging, ready to throw again, you had to let go of your spear in order to get a good hold on the rope, at least one that could challenge my own, and you're facing the exact same problem you were just in. That's because they are the easiest to train large amounts of people in. I think the fact the the rope dart isn't predictable is what makes it the most deadly. Because so few people are exposed to those kinds of motions, they won't be able to anticipate how it moves when you block it. The fact that it's a shardweapon really solves most of the problems it had as a weapon. It will ignore armor, and one hit can end the fight. The spren can also compensate for any mistakes that you make, and not cause any harm to the wielder. The rope is a means to convey velocity into the dart, and to disarm the opponent, while providing the erratic movement that's hard to predict. Combining the ability of the rope to tangle with weapons, horses, legs, etc, to be dismissed and resummoned immediately by itself is insanely powerful. I guess it all comes down to your assumption that it wouldn't be a skilled warrior using it, but if we assume that the people wielding these weapons don't have the skill necessary to fully utilize them, it really wouldn't be much of a discussion. (Also, I've recently had a friend start practicing the rope dart as a performance art (the dart is an LED) and he's gotten remarkably better in just a short time.) I don't know about you, but I'd be more scared of this guy running at me knowing it was a shardblade on the end of the rope than someone with a shardspear:

Most likely the greatshells. They create gemhearts after all.

Welcome back to "Survivor Roshar." This week, we see if our contestants truly are prepared for their first highstorm in the wild.

The applications of feruchemy in my life are boundless. I work in EMS, and I'm constantly wishing I was a Feruchemist. Your patient is 600 pounds? Tap all that strength you've been storing while driving the ambulance around. Your patient smells worse than they look? Store smell, no more uaing Vicks on your lips hoping to mask it. Your patient is circling the drain and needs everything now? Tap speed, now you've got an IV with fluids running and the patient is packaged for transport. Take that 10 minute scene time. Tired of not being able to sleep in the day when you have time and then running all night during 24 hour shifts? Store wakefulness while at the station, tap it on calls. Problem solved bro. See a traumatizing accident? Put that memory in your coppermind. Need to pass your national registry test? No issues, I've got all my books stored. Want to finish the food you just spent an hpur making? Tap luck so a call doesn't come in. Don't want to get picked on during training? Store identity so they pick someone else. Dealing with nursing home staff? Store mental acuity so you're both on the same level and you don't tell them how stupid they are costing you your job. (Generalization, not all nursing home staff are incompetent.) The applications are endless for my job. *sigh*

My big question about the dowser is how did Megan know enough about the device to trigger give the illusion of a false negative. I doubt that it's as simple as a screen that says "epic" or "Non-epic." It seems to me that she would have needed to have some knowledge of the display prior to being tested to create the false negative.

I think that just depends on which part of the body the stormlight is in. If it is in the lungs the pressure is building too quickly, then it would have a hard time leaving the body without breathing it out, and could cause barotrauma relatively quickly.

It sounds like you've beaten that part of my theory quite soundly, and I can only offer hand waving to further defend my position. Well done! Thanks for correcting me. Edit: For the sake of the rest of the theory, I do want to clarify one thing. Stormlight was already in a pressurized state inside of the spheres, the depressurizing would come transition from the sphere to the lungs, lungs to the blood, blood to the outside world. I wasn't suggesting that the stormlight become more pressurized because it is breathed in. I do think it's a safe assumption that the stormlight in a sphere is a 'condensed' stormlight, as the larger gemstones in spheres seem to hold larger amounts of stormlight in relation to the smaller spheres that is incongruous with the size difference. Also, the cut gemstones could be more effective becuase their shape can more effectively hold the pressurized stormlight.

I know only 14 people have cast their vote, but I figured I'd post the battle scene anyways, as their is no clear winner from the narratives perspective at this point. I took some liberty with the suggestion to upgrade the Whitespine, and I think it plays well. Here is the next installment of "The Ballad of Roshone's Revenge."

The blood takes one minute to fully circulate throughout the whole body when at rest. With this being said, a normal drug (oxygen) being administered through inhalation takes approximately 30 seconds to go through the entire arterial system and diffuse through the arterioles, into the capillaries, into the venules, and then start its trip back to the heart. When not at rest, the heart rate can easily be double that, so we're looking at about 15 seconds from inhalation to action time. But with what I'm suggesting, the body become way more adept at moving blood. As soon as the stormlight hits the lungs and the blood stream it causes massive dilation of the blood vessels with no drop in blood pressure, and the stormlight expands to fill the space. Considering the effect stormlight has on reflexes, I'd have to assume it has a sympathomimetic effect, meaning it mimics the effect of the sympathetic nervous system, having a positive chronotrohpic effect on the heart (it increases the rate and force of contractions of the heart.) After the lungs, the heart is the first thing that the stormlight hits, immediately increasing cardiac output. Cardiac output measured as a function of stroke volume times heart rate, and both are increased. So the stormight hits the heart, already having increased the amount of blood being pumped, now increasing the heart rate and force by which the blood is being pumped. This further decreased the time it takes from inhalation to action, as instead of halving the time by only increasing the heart rate, we've also increased the stroke volume. I'm also not arguing that the exponential decline doesn't happen, but I'm not entirely sure what it is you're referencing in my post that doesn't account for it.

I still think that a rope dart has an advanatge in this situation, given the training to use it correctly Rope dart vs Shardblade (spear)- Without full plate, the battle is definitely in favor of the rope dart. The shardblade is going to have a hard time blocking the rope dart, as it will connect with the chain/rope, which will then pivot, and continue on its flight path towards the shardbearer-dead. Or, if they manage to dodge with the parry, the wielder of the rope dart then has a great deal of leverage to pull the shardblade or spear out or their hands. On a normal shardbearer that's game over, it poofs to mist, the rope dart is free of the weapon and able to resume its attack. Rope dart vs Shardplate only- I think this is a better match up, but the speed and force with which the rope dart can be launched by a surgebinder would be devastating, and hard to account for. Again, the conventional weapon will be no help in blocking, especially since the surgebinder can easily use it to disarm them, then recall the weapon back to their hands after it was tangled, immediately putting momentum back into it to go on the offensive again. A few hits to the head and the match is over. Rope dart vs full shardbearer-I truly think this is a worse match up than without a shardblade. As soon as their disarmed, the battle is going to go very poorly for them, and the aggressor is going to keep a lot of pressure on the sword arm as they continue to attempt to resummon it. I may or may not have been caught up in the moment and talking out of my behind. I think the only way to combat that would be to have instantaneous weapon control yourself.

First off, I don't believe I understand the study as thoroughly as I would like to, so you'll have to bear with any false assumptions that I have. You bring up a lot of fair points, but some of them I have contention with, the first of which the basic comparison to rapid depressurization of a liquid. Stormlight seems to be the gaseous from of investiture, much in the same way that the mists were on Scadrial, while the shardpools are the liquid form. If it was in a liquid form, I doubt that surgebinders would still breathe it in as the way of accessing the magic. Experiments have been done with highly oxygenated liquids to try and attempt 'liquid breathing.' The idea behind it was that any oxygen rich liquid could be used as a substitute for regular breathing, which could have a variety of applications. What they found wasn't a physiological problem, but a psychological one (I don't have a particular source for this, just remembering the discussion from medic class.) During tests on mice, the problem wasn't lack of oxygen reaching the cells, but the stress of having liquid in your lungs. I'd assume that there'd be a similar sort of psychological block that would cause great distress in a surgebinder if the investiture was liquid sitting in the lungs. This being said, I'm not sure how that changes the temperature transfer from the rapid expansion of the gas. But along with this, its hard to make assumptions about exactly how much the temperature would change because we're missing key bits of information, such as how much temperature change the stormlight goes through as it expands. We do know however, that it takes less energy to change the temperature of air than it does to change the temperature of water or blood. Looking at that study, I also noticed that it was focused on depressurization from a single point in a pressurized container. Again, I'm not sure how this would change the effects, but is some instances, the surgebinder is releasing stormlight from all points of his/her body simultaneously. (I'd need specific references to the scenes in which frost occurs to further comment on how this affects each particular occurrence.) As for the blood freezing before any outside temperature change could occur, you're ruling out one very important fact-humans generate heat, a lot of it. The average human at rest can maintain a stable body temperature while completely nude at a 25°C, more if they are active. This is definitely one byproduct that the stormlight can't stop from occurring during energy creation in the cells. Being that Stormlight is a super metabolic fuel that is causing the tissues to work beyond the normal capacity, there is going to be massive amounts of heat being generated inside of a surgebinders body, most likely more heat than the body could withstand normally, and the body already can produce huge amounts of heat on its own. With this being said, I'm almost more convinced that this is how stormlight has to work in order to maintain homeostasis. Most reactors need some sort of cooling system, and while the vasodilation would create avenues for the heat to escape naturally, it wouldn't be enough to compensate. Having the stormlight work as a coolant system wide can explain why we don't have surgebinder popsicles every time they surgebind, while still allowing for my explanation of frost as a byproduct stormlight expansion. One thing that would definitely be of use to this conversation is whether or not the frost is universal across all 'stormlight containers.' For instance, if we could find out what the temperature is of something that Kaladin infused with Stormlight before, during, and immediately after its been infused, we could make a more definitive hypothesis.

Let me clarify, I wasn't trying to suggest that the overclocking is causing the healing factor, but rather, the healing factor allows that to happen. For instance, there are known instances where bodybuilders have pushed their bodies beyond the limits of what's physically possible. They've achieved enough muscle mass, that they pick up so much weight it breaks their bones. The healing factor is preventing that from happening. The cells and muscles are allowed to work beyond their normal physical capacity, to the point of injuring themselves, but show no damage from it because it's already been healed. As to the spoiler, I think that's a very reasonable assumption. Magic could work as a pressure system universally. Especially considering the difference between that use of investiture, and the normal use on Scadrial I would love to have that information! I think that the amount of oxygen would stay fairly the same, unless I'm wrong about the assumption that there's no waste from metabolizing stormlight. That would make the real problem not lack of oxygen, as the time between exhaling and inhaling is minimal, but rather the toxic washout from the built up CO2. We're going to need End Tidal CO2 measurements as well!

A quick nod to Moogle for getting me to start thinking on this to come up with what I believe is a good base understanding for how stormlight works throughout the body. It is going to be a bit medically intensive, but I want to get this hashed out on paper the forums before I forget stop caring. So, here's a list of what we know about Stormlight: Stormlight is breathed in. Stormlight replaces the need to breathe/intake oxygen. Stormlight decreases faster if you breathe regularly/talk. Stormlight acts as a healing agent/stimuli. Stormlight feels like a highstorm raging inside. Stormlight enhances normal human abilites from strength to reflexes. Stormlight leaves you feeling drained. Stormlight can create a shock like state in the surgebinder. Stormlight can be dangerous to hold too much of. Stormlight can be addictive (it seems to be mostly psychological, but the symptoms of stormlight shock could also be a manifestation of some sort of withdrawl theoretically.l Stormlight gives a sense of euphoria. (Possible causes-added effects extra oxygenation, stormlight mimicking the effects of neurotransmitters suchs as dopamine or seratonin. Could also be part of the addiciton process, especially if its only a mental addiction and not physical.) I'll edit the list as I remember more things, along with things you guys found that I missed correct me on. We'll start at breathing it in. The stormlight travels through the upper airways and into the lungs. There's too much stormlight to be immediately absorbed, so there's approximately 500ml of airspace filled with X amount of stormlight, centered in the lungs. (This explains why sometimes the books describe it as a highstorm in the chest.) This stormlight is immediately available to be carried by the red blood cells flowing through the pulmonary artery through the heart and to the rest of the body. Inhalation is one of the fastest methods of entering the body. Even intravenous has to flow from the body to the heart, then to the lungs, then back to the heart, before being sent to the rest of the body (which is already a quick process.) So anyways, he stormlight hits the alveoli and diffuses across into the red blood cells, where its carried to the rest of the body. Now, Stormlight can be held for quite some time, so it has to be something of a metabolic superagent, if you will. It creates a perfect environment and fuel to be used by cells in the body. This seems as stark a contrast when looking at anaerobic to aerobic environments, as when comparing an aerobic environment to a stormlight environment. No waste is created and needs to be expelled, and there's actually extra energy being made, allowing the cells to 'overclock' themselves, especially combining in the healing factor, the muscles and tissues can work themselves to the point of being damaged, and be instantly healed. Eventually, all the stormlight in the blood is depostied, and the blood returns to the heart from the veins with no waste products to exhange in the lungs. But there's a great need for the body to get as much stormlight from the lungs into the body as possible. This is because of the rule that generally speaking, substances tend to go from areas of high concentration, to areas of low concentration. With this being said, and the remarkable nature of the abilities given by stormlight, I think it is able to bond to hemoglobin much more effectively than oxygen. This can be explained by compression of stormlight. The stormilght from spheres seem to far exceed the size. This is because stormlight is in an incredibly dense, pressurized container-the sphere. Because of the amount of pressure, the same amount of stormlight is compressed into the much smaller space. When it's inhaled, it decompresses a little bit, to fill the lungs, and then decompresses even more to fill the blood. In response to this, the body dilates the blood vessels, doubling or tripling the amount of space available in cardiovascular system, which the stormlight proceeds to fill. Pouring stormlight out into something, is finally allowing it to decompress fully, which is what causes the frost effect, similar to gas tanks getting cold after they are used. (Another nod to Moogle.) (It seems I was very wrong on that part.) So after the stormlight is exhausted, the person usually feels drained, and depending on how quickly they used the stormlight, they get symptoms of shock. This is because using up the stormlight that quickly doesn't give the body enough time to respond and constrict the blood vessels. As soon as that extra stormlight is gone, you've got the same amount of blood in three times the amount of space, causing what's called distributive shock, or, in this case, Stormlight Shock. As for the dangers of holding too much stormlight, that goes back to the pressurization. It's a lot like inflating a balloon with a bottle of compressed helium. It can expand too quickly and pop the container. If you allow so much stormlight into your body, you basically are allowing it to expand past the capabilities that your body can withstand. Eventually, you could theoretically hold enough stormlight to cause lung damage, burst blood vessels, etc. The kind of system wide damage which could easily eat up a ton of stormlight fixing in order to keep yourself alive. (This is similar in nature to the 'bends' where a diver goes deep into the ocean, where there's more pressure. The nitrogen compresses, and bonds more readily to the blood cells. Then if they surface too fast, the nitrogen expands quickly and causes nitrogen bubbles in the blood stream.) That was a mouthful fingerful. Edit 2017: Supporting book passages Stormlight in the blood Stormlight in the lungs: Moogle's post: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/8775-magic-fuel/#entry140899

Upvote for the pun!

Most of those symptoms are from the massive head trauma of getting punched in the face by a shardbearer. Gavilar gives him the ol' suckerpunch and breaks his jaw, causing the slurred speech and blurry vision, and most likely the mental confusion. In a collision to the head, there's what's called a coup-countercoup injury, where basically, the brain bounces of the front and back of the skull as a result of the sudden acceleration or deceleration. This causes concussions on two side of the head, if not a head bleed. I'd definitely only attribute the weakness/inability to stand to the stormlight shock, the rest is Gavilar's fault. The flashback is definitely some form of PTSD. I definitely wouldn't classify Kaladin as altered. From what I've seen in the field, he probably had a blood pressure in the high 90's systolic. Enough to impair him physically, but not much mentally. I just don't see any evidence of hypothermia that isn't better explained by the shock. Maybe poor decision making, in jumping off the bridge, but that's 100% normal Kaladin anyways. His skin definitely wouldn't be clammy with hypothermia either.

I got the opposite impression, that it was harder because it was dead. He had to get the right mental command to get the dead spren to understand what was required of it. Syl reacts to Kaladin's battle tactics incredibly well, and I'd be more surprised to find out that a dead spren would have an advantage over a live one, such as being able to be thrown.

I think it more has to do with the parallel between the intent in Honor and Preservation than with the ideals. Both shards are kind of geared toward this concept, with Kaladin being of Honor, and Vin being of Preservation.

We have the precedent of Adolin throwing his Shardblade. As for shardbows, I personally think that they could become a shardarrow, but not the bow itself. So, as long as you had a bow, you could probably have an infinite number of shardarrows.

So, given that the spren can change their shape and form, I thought it might be fun to try and decide on what sort of weapon might be the most devastating in battle. Personally, I think some sort of Shardic Rope dart in a skilled hand would be about unstoppable, even if it's only the tip that could go through someone. The sheer flexibility of the rope dart, and the difficulty you face trying to block one, already makes it a difficult weapon to face off against, but add in the 'cuts through anything' effect, and you have yourself one heck of a game changer on a crowded battle field. Any other thoughts on weapons made way more scary by spren?