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And this is the real Crux of the matter, I think. Dalinar cannot just go about Dispensing Justice as he sees fit, no matter how tactically sound it may seem his position of authority is not stable enough for that. He'd have to think very carefully before he tried it within his own sphere of influence, let alone moving against another nation's leader. Currently his greatest political rival is his own Blackthorn reputation, and that needs to be defeated before the rest of his coalition is going to follow his lead with anything less than extreme skepticism.

Should work, and would be a cool application. You'd want to inscribe the Aon on the inside surface if possible, so that it cannot take physical damage and have the symbol broken.

Chromium was first refined in a pure form in 1797 by heating the oxide ore in a charcoal oven; Electricity made it easier and faster only, not unlike aluminum. Silicon (part of Nicrosil) was first refined in its pure form in 1823, not 1907. A scientific awareness of Heavy Metal Poisoning came about around the same time for us (mid 19th century), primarily due to fact that they were actually experimenting with these metals. For Scadrial Im betting that a fear of Heavy Metal poisoning couldnt be a factor in keeping them from experimenting, said fear would have emerged as a result of that experimentation.

That's true but for what it's worth that is only the radiant part of the heat transfer, the temperature change will have separate effects on the convective/conductive sides which will generally dominate for personal heat. Nah, we have a WOB that all (standard) feruchemy (and brass specifically) protects the user from the effects of the feruchemy itself just not to the actual physics overall. So Brass arent immune to thermal damage from actual fire or ice, but they cannot give themselves hypo- or Hyperthermia by using their metalminds even though their body temperature changes more than normal, in the same way that Iron feruchemy prevents them from being crushed under their own weight but doesnt make them stronger or more durable in any other regard. As far as the methods to use the metalmind to avoid/mitigate environmental damage, I think both methods would theoretically work, though I think the Lowering to avoid Heat damage would be easier to pull off in-world that raising it. Im operating under the assumption that the metalmind is storing away thermal energy the way iron stores (higg's field quantum) mass. By that, you could resist heat by attempting to match your surface temperature to the environment so there is no thermal difference to drive the transfer, but doing so would require you to pretty perfectly match the flowrates, and it any twitch of movement is going to change the convection and so change the amount of heat you'd need to release; also you'd eventually run out of stored thermal energy. I think going cold by filling the metalmind, and so providing a cold sink that takes the thermal away before it builds up to damaging levels, would be a far less delicate and more forgiving a method; with the added benefit of not requiring prepared stores of investiture.

I dont have any really strong theories on the final shape of things, other than a general doubt that we;'ll still see Hoid as the Good Guy when it's all over. I also doubt that Odium/Rayse will be the big bad of things, I suspect he's a shill and patsy for Autonomy and likely shards we havent met. I do think that the two biggest Chekhov's Guns are 1)Nightblood and 2)The fact that the Metallic Arts that Leras and Ati created can (uniquely in the cosmere?) Invest Aluminum.

Oh, ok I see the political issue now. Thought unless we have reason to believe the Skaze are a unified force, I dont see why there could be rival groups working against each other (and the WOB about their innate greed and hunger for power, I would expect a certain amount of in-fighting. Do they "Animate Bodies" or do they Possess the Living? Coppermind says the latter, which is what I was basing most of this idea on. My thought was that Seons bond similarly to Spren, and Skaze are another breed of Seon/spren that should presumably be capable of something similar. But given their characterization I could easily see them turning that bond into a hostile Domination instead of a loyal advisor role like seons (there's precedent for this in the Fused). From there it just seemed like the Svrakiss fit pretty well for a myth of Dominating Skaze that take human hosts.

Double Post, Sorry

Im not confusing them, Im theorizing that they are the same thing. Or at least that myths and folklore of the Scrakiss are rooted in actual Skaze.

I suspect that she didnt herself have a detailed and/or intellectualized definition of Evil, but instead just had a subconscious, Visceral reaction to things that she felt were Evil, and that it was that Subconscious and Visceral discomfort that Nightblood is inciting in people when he Tests them. Arguably, Yes, depending on how you framed it. Which is my point, if Nightblood has the potential to interpret his command on his own, there are a lot of very narrow and incomplete definitions of Evil that he could be talked into adopting.

I am curious how much Nightblood's own evolving opinion could make a difference. For example, you could probably make the argument to him that corrupted Spren are evil by virtue of having been corrupted from their original/true selves. Taken further and darker, what would happen if you convinced him a whole shardworld (like say one created whole by a pair of Shards violating the Shard's agreement of non-intervention) is inherently Evil by virtue of being created Gods in defiance of such a Godpact? By Heraldic Logic the Gods are the top of the Authority food chain, obeying or defying them could be a reasonable definition of Good & Evil.

Yes, tapping or filling a Brass metalmind physically changes your body temperature. You can, for example, start filling it to physically become colder, then you will be resistant (but not immune) to hot environs. And like Iron ferrings not crushing themselves with their increased mass, Brass does grant a certain amount of thermal resistance compared to regular people, and they can do more by carefully regulating their metalmind usage, but Brass does not offer general immunity. As far as I can tell, there is no way for a Ferring to focus the heat to any single location, I dont think you could make a flamethrower any more than a Cadmium Gasper could create wind effects. That being said, you could probably pull it off with a bit of Harmonium (and ingenuity) since you could use that to externalize the Feruchemy effect. For what it's worth there is quite some debate and no conclusion as to what a Brass Twinborn might look like, or if they could survive the sort or heat flair they might see via chromium attack, for example.

I dont think you could use it to avoid Poison, either you'd absorb the good nutrition and just accomplish concentrating the Poison out from the diluting food, or you'd store both and get poisoned when you tap it (though I think that less likely). The Two quesitons I have on Bendalloy that would change things are 1) do you have to digest the food before you can store it? I other words does it convert your stomach contents or your actual blood sugar, fat reserves, etc? 2) Does it require you to have a balanced diet or would any valid food be converted into Investiture then provide complet nutrition when it's tapped? If the former is true, your body would have to deal with the poison (or not) before bendalloy got involved at all. If the latter is true, it would already be doing a lot of filtering of the actual food contents and the poison's nature would not be maintained.

That's reasonable, and a good catch about the Lord Ruler's rumored perfect memory. But Id still be curious how it works at the practical level. Does it give him multiple copies of his memories so that he can combat the nomral degradation of accessing a Coppermind? Does it impart an indellible Super memory that never degrades (ala the Sight in the Dresden Files)? Would it give them a memory they have to access like a coppermind, but a perfectly detailed one that you can rewind and manipulate like a hologram (I Love this trope when I see it)? If he "never Forgets a Face" I lean toward the Indelible Super memory explanation, on the basis that just having mro detailed memories in the coppermind wouldnt help you access all that data passively to check a face against the memories, it would need to be a passive effect/change on him mind or memory. In fact, on that front I could see the argument that TLR could have been using a combination of Copper, Zinc, and maybe even a bit of Bronze and Tin to help with the spot check. TLR is all kinds of Cheaty

I personally think it's going to be more than that: It's not just "I cant Save Everyone", rather it will be "Sometimes Im Not supposed to even Try". It's not about accepting eventual Failure, it's about accepting that you cant always get involved, that you sometimes have to let things happen and/or let others have their own struggles.

Hmm, by description they sound like possessing spirits. Maybe this is an MO of Skaze, they bond humans like Seons, maybe even Need to, but they Dominate their bonded mate rather than Devoting to them. Or maybe they are people who, due to the influence of Dominion, were unusually Connected to the Physical Realm (or at least have a lower bar for becoming a Cognitive Shadow by that process)? These are fun. @Thanatos Do Vax Next

Ah, fair enough. I was viewing it from the other direction, thinking the Heralds in particular were different and/or more stapled to the location for their own reasons. Specifically, their Braize travel and reincarnation cycle makes me think they arent using their own "real" body the way Returned do. Also, Stormlight overall being more tied to the ecosystem than other places, and the heralds themselves being part of a Trap very specifically intended to hold things to the system. But even if those are factors for the Heralds it sounds like the problem is more fundamental.

Indeed, I fully expect any functional Metallic Arts Space-suits (or Deep Sea Diver suits, for that matter) to utilize Bendalloy, Cadmium, and Brass at a minimum.

On Kelsier being stuck, the time we saw him he'd entered the CR as a spirit and been stalled there with Preservation's Investiture. But now that he has a physical body again, would be be similarly bound or would the fact that he'd been stapled to a Body let him travel more like the Returned are apparently able?

Really? I missed that entirely. It kills my entire point on the face of it then: Vasher told Nightblood they'd killed Shashara "just like [they] killed Arsteel", and per Jewels there was no blackness around his wounds.

Hemalurgy. Spike in enough Mental capacity and maybe Identity to let them qualify as a Vessel. Then Kill a Vessel... Does a Larkin count as a Chull (both Rosharan land-crustaceans)? For that you could probably just chuck one into the Dor and wait for the thing to grow into a crustacean Kaiju.

What @Extesian said. Further, while I found several WOB's that are more ambiguous, this one at least indicates he's keeping full Back-To-The-Future Time travel out of the cosmere entirely

Oh I entirely agree, he's "digested" that and any other Investiture he's taken since his creation and made it part of his own Self. Though I think the same could be said for the initial breaths that created him as much as for the Breaths, Stormlight, and 'souls' he's absorbed since then. Vasher says they both (him and Nightblood) killed her, so unless he stabbed her with the sheathed sword I think Nightblood would have had to be unleashed.

You definitely have to store food and water separately (not entirely clear on why oxygen requires a whole other metal, call it Scadrial perception I guess). Im not sure how much of the rest of the diet would shift, though given the standard Intent mechanics I think you'd need a certain amount of nutritionist education before you'd know enough to split them in any meaningful way. My (wildly speculative) idea on that one was that since you were filling it with Allomantic End-Positive Investiture instead of your own, you wouldnt have to loose the memories (seemed like Preservation's investiture should be amenable to that, on a philosophic level). On top of the idea that some of these might have effects that are a little more qualitatively different, the way flairing atium tips over from shadows to a full-on Vision. Granted that has more direct realmic explanation, and a god-metal, so it might be inapplicable. @Calderis Out of curiosity, what's you current guess?

On a purely technical side, we know Nightblood has a Divine Breath in there because he's been used to kill at least one Returned (Shashara).

OK, I know this question has been RAFO'd more than once because it's a Compounding question, so Im more curious what people's current thoughts on it are since we won't have a definitive answer. The only particularly relevant WOB I found was This One that says Compounding Copper would "do some things", as compared to Aluminum Identity that wouldnt give you much. Normally compounding works because you are "hacking" the two systems together, you are able to make the external Investiture from Preservation (via the metal burning) to resonate and behave the way feruchemy treats/stores it. But unlike every other metal, the investiture that copper stores is specific and unique, they are actual memories that were specifically chosen for storage, degrade when removed, etc. rather than just some commodity energy like Heat or Breath. So if you used compounding to fill a coppermind, what memories would you find in there? Would it just duplicate the original feruchemical memory over and over, givng you multiple copies (would be helpful to counter the degradation)? Would it be the same memory but clarified and "perfected" because it was exposed to a direct conduit to the Spiritual Realm? Rather than just that specific memory, might it make a detailed imprint of your entire intellect (the way comic books love to do whenever somebody wants to make an AI)? Or would it just be investiture that you couldnt recover because the memory "files" that they store are all blank? Thoughts? This seems like an issue unique to Copper, since none of the others store anything as specific with the investiture. Unless Bendalloy is storing the specific nutrients that are being eaten? Does a Subsumer still need to eat a balanced diet, or does it fulfill all their various nutritional needs once its gone through a Pure Investiture stage? If a Subsumer eats nothing but potatoes will they need vitamin supplements?