Quantus

I always see an endless stream of Dream Casting threads where they argue who would be the absolute Best choice in all the world and history for any given role. This is not that. Instead, each person will post a Cast picture of some existing emsemble, and the next poster will decide which Cosmere Character each actor could best play. Poster's choice whether it's a shotgun list or restricted to a particular book/story cast. So for example, if somebody were to post this: The answer would be: (from left to right) Taravangian, Adolin, Shallan-as-Veil, Sigzil, Eshonai, Jasnah. Make sense?

I dont think I'd be able to get much actual range on the glove safely, for the same reasons I've (mostly) abandoned my Jacob's Ladder Fork-Sword: the distance for the arc to jump back around the hilt & protective glove to me is generally shorter than the range I'd be getting out of it. That's the general idea behind the second-stage devices like a baton. The glove will act as a fist-stage transformer and feed a larger but also simpler second stage compressor stack, but the danger end can be a couple extra feet away from me. As far as I can tell chaining these in a serial configuration wont work. With these crystals the voltage produced is directly related to the physical/mechanical stresses in them, so attempting to operate them outside their design range will quickly crack them. My general plan at this point is to use several in parallel to increase the total current available, then use some other second stage process to step up the voltage from there. I'm also looking at inverting half of it so I can get double the voltage differential. The idea would be that the index finger is held at high positive voltage, the pinky at high negative voltage, and the thumb would be the ground point. The current state of this, and the design challenge I need to dig into, is that the above driver circuit i bought wont work well for my purposes, at least not without a lot more complex driver circuit and some IC's which I was hoping to avoid for purely thematic reasons. So I need to design my own, but it needs to be resonant (able to follow frequency changes as the arcs jump around) and Im not sure yet how to pull that off with a PZT short of working up a well-protected feedback link from the HV output.

Very true. In the latter case it would be pretty difficult, the Lord Ruler only ever managed to invent three Hemalurgic creatures, and he'd Ascended once. One the other hand, working with animals removes most of the cultural limitations on experimentation (as compared to humans), so it could happen.

All Hail The Diagram...

The earliest known elevator was built by Archimedes in 236 BC, but "doesnt require manpower" might be harder to pin down. Once you have the basic mechanism, the power can be Man/Self power, Slave-power, animal power, and/or whatever known Milling power source they had in the area (hydraulic/water wheel, wind, etc) to rewind/recharge/reset them. For a long time they were more or less just Pulley systems until the Screw Drive in the late 1700's brought them closer to modern elevator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevator#Pre-industrial_era

I dont think that would be an issue since changes to the spiritweb can cause massive physical changes, as seen with the original Koloss. The harder but surmountable part, I think, would be the fact that you are trying to splice a chunk of Non-Human Spiritweb into a Human one, and we dont really know how compatible the two are. So while Im quite sure you could use Hemalurgy to make Animal Spikes (ie multiply Horse Intelligence with Horse sacrifices, ditto physical attributes, etc), Sspiking non-human bits into a Human spiritweb is going to be more way complicated (if also possible. If you can spike Singer things into a human, you should be able to cross any racial lines with the right Knowledge. The only hard 'No' I can imagine would be if animal Spiritweb chunks cannot be supported by a sapient being's ambient Investiture level, and vice versa, on the logic that it could be like temperature ranges for plants, needing the compatible ecosystem, etc. As with most theoretical Hemalurgy, the likely the answer is that it's technically possible but would require lifetimes of research/experimentation or Shardic help to work out the actual Bind Points.

In my fictional experience the biggest difference between Teleportation and Portals is that Teleportation tends to have more absolute limits on how much can be carried along with the Teleporter. It becomes a more in-world limit depending on various flavors, but being Self-Only or Carry-weight limited or volume/mass/arbitrary measurement etc. OR else they start teleporting whole armies just by holding hands (assuming they even need physical contact). Portals become more powerful depending on the edge danger (ie Do They Cut?), by the speed they can be raised/lowered, and by the location restrictions. A portal that can pop up superfast anywhere is an absolute killer because that person stays a half-mile away from the battlefield and opens portals Above the enemy to rain down arrow volleys, hot oil, big rocks, etc. at will. One that is slow to open and requires a ground anchor (or even a prepared structure/Circle as a focus) are useful but less devastating. A portal that can be moved AND cuts along its edges is a dimensional scoop that can dismember anything in it's path (ie Deathgates in WoT).

"Thousands" Setting aside the individuals we know of, there are there Ghostbloods, the Ire, Silverlight, and the whole trans-planetary commerce system around Nalthis complete with caravans and actual Customs to go through.

Double Tin. Feruchemical storing mitigates the downsides of A-Tin, and they each have their own distinct uses.

Indeed I think they could, up to a point at least. As far as I know you cannot Re-Charge a spike or otherwise ReUse/ReInvest a Spike, so they'd still be one Spike per Donor. And there is a practical limit to number of spikes that any single person can have before their spirit frays and needs a Linchpin spike like the Inquisitors. However a large family could collect enough that every member has a couple spike multipliers, making quite a reputation all on it's own. But personally I think people tend to wildly underestimate the other, non-Magic traits that Hemalurgy can steal (and thus multiply). Imagine the business Empire that could be built by a clan that had accumulated all it's Ancestors' "mental fortitude, memory, and intelligence" in a collection of Copper Spikes! Or the Juggernaut tribe were every member has the Physical Strength of Four because they all get Iron Spikes (the Koloss tribes are quite disdainful of these "pretty-boys", I would assume)

The latter. It's going to feature various forms of World-hopping and cultural interaction. It's goin to be the "crossover novels" and "Cosmere all-world Mashup", and more or less the finale of the Cosmere itself, being released after we've gotten the Dragonsteel prequel that will explain so much. EDIT: on the POV question, Im guessing it will have more Stormlight-like POV's and size, given that it's intended to deliver the finale to the whole Cosmere, and I have to think that would be harder with more restricted POV options.

No, it's been getting steadily more Invested over time.

No, assuming you worked out the required Connections to get another Shard's godmetal to work in the Metallic Arts, you would have to get the investiture to actually manifest in the physical realm as a Godmetal to engage the Allomantic mechanisms and burn it. Practically speaking, it would be a lot easier to do with broken pieces of Shardplate that can be regenerated, compared to the Blades that dont typically take any damage or have normal mechanisms to repair. That being said, it is technically possible to fuel Allomancy directly from the Mists, rather than metals, so non-standard sources of Investiture can substitute int he right circumstances. Various WOB's mention that it would take some effort to convert the Investiture before Stormlight could be used to fuel Allomancy, for example, and that getting Allomancy is one of the harder systems to fuel with other Investiture.

An Aluminum Spike, when planted with Intent in a Hemalurgic Binding Point, will "Remove all Powers". This means that in theory any Misting, Ferring, Twinborn, Spike-fiend, etc could in theory have all their supernatural powers Removed/Suppressed with an Aluminum Earring, which I imagine would become standard issue in scadiral's version of a Supermax Prison.

I will forgive you all for not yet coming to recognize the Genius and hidden depths of Wayne.

Pretty sure by the time it gets to Era4, when they will have had contact with most if not all the other planets/cultures, Hemalurgy is going to be viewed as Spiritual Surgery. It will be a scientific pursuit, one that is seen as distasteful when practiced (who actually enjoys those surgery documentaries?) but is considered a benevolent and beneficial practice in general, even if Frankenstein tales exist. Socially, I could also easily see Hemalurgy being used to facilitate a Magical Inheritance tradition, with dying members choosing to willingly spike out whatever trait they value in themselves and want to pass on (since lots of things cannot be passed via medallions). And practically, I expect Spikes of Aluminum to be the main way to incarcerate Powered individuals. Beyond that I could see a gross blackmarket for "spirit-mods", with spikes being seen as the violent but "cheap" alternative to the Medallion hoards the aristocratic families have amassed.

The Bond would have been possible in theory because the underlying realmics should be the same. As far as we know nobody back then figured such a thing out, but Connection is a cosmere-wide thing so we could be wring. That being said, we've been told that a) Adonalsium would have actively prevented spren from granting surges, and b) any spren that did exist would have been reassigned to their closest Shard.

Under normal circumstances I think the original owner of the Breath would be the determining factor, which would be whatever native Nalthian lost their breath. I could see that being over-ridden if the Kandra had a particularly strong attachment to a non-humanoid form (dog, horse, dragon etc) it might override the original Identity of what a living being looks like. But especially with a shapeshifter race, I'd generally expect them to have less firm attachment to a given form. Hmm, chasing the idea: it would actually probably depends on a couple things that I can see. If it's just mental image, Id say the kandra would have more flexibility than most. If, on the other hand, it has to do with some resonance to the breath itself (the whole organic, voodoo doll efficiency mechanic) then the originator (the naltian native) might have imprinted the form when it was created (ir gestation, Im assuming). But it really gets interesting if you start to consider what happens if Nalthis gets a non-humanoid population that is sapient enough to be born with Breaths, like a kandra, dragon, maybe a Ryshadium (as the only non-shapeshifter of this quick list).

While era1 had one of the most beautiful and compelling endings Ive ever read, Era 2 is just plain more Fun to read throughout, and more likely to make me want to reread it. Era 1 is thematically much darker and more bleak, compared to the Steampunk western romp of Era 2. And Era 2 has Wayne.

True, and admittedly the faster the Steelrunner can move, the less I envision the Seer's escape being related to their own physical capabilities and the more I see it moving into the realm of setting up the perfect situational dominos's to escape (in the vein of what's shown in Deadpool 2 or that Nic Cage flick Next). And at the end of the day those are situational, so Im taking it on faith a bit that some esoteric escape will exist in the realm of possibility, which wont always be the case. I think that puts it into the Toss-up realm where the party most favored by Destiny/Plot will prevail.

Fair enough, though in that case the explanation is that bring herself into the "having your own precognitive knowledge to confuse his", along with a Heavy dose of Plot Power since the whole scene was intended as a nod to Mistborn Prime where it apparently worked better:

I guess Im saying that I dont think that is actually possible. Even if the Steelrunner starts a half-mile away and charges in at superspeed, he cannot outrun his own Atium Shadows that would warn the Seer of his eventual arrival in time for them to avoid the attack. Aside from beginning things before the Seer starts burning Atium, there simply isnt a way to actually compress the encounter into a short enough timespan for the physical movement limitations of the Seer. So long as they are burning Atium they will have always seen you coming in time to identify a timeline/shadow path to avoid your attack and gotten on the correct temporal train to make it happen (which may be a simple physical move or a far more esoteric; with the sort of massive Atium stores descried in this scenario the Seer could probably arrange for you to trip and kill yourself Final Destination-style by tripping on a rake they left in the yard a week prior. To beat Atium you have to attack before they start burning (or really close to it), after they run out of atium, using Aluminum objects that Seer's are blind to, or using some other precog power that confuses the Aitum precognition.

I disagree, for two realmic reasons and one thematic one. 1) I think Speed Compounding (ie infinite Ferichemical Speed) still has upper limits because like all Feruchemy it doesnt provide protection against things outside it's direct effect. In the case of Steel it will let them take steps without crushing the ground from the forces required for their superspeed accelerations, but I think they'd still face classic Speedster limit of "How can you survive hitting a bug at bullet speeds?" given that and the similar fact that tapping weight doesnt increase your bone density or ability to withstand comparable but external weights/forces. 2)Atuim Precognition expands the mind's capabilities to process all the additional information, and this is sourced directly in the Spritiual realm rather than logic or anything less immune to Free Will and such sources of Error, and doesnt have to wait for decisions to be made to manifest a timeline shadow. So it's not just a matter of the atium-burner seeing what the Steelrunner is about to do but not being able to react in time. So long as the target was burning Atium, they'd see any and all possible outcomes that would bring the Steelrunner into their timeline, and show them precisely where to be to avoid whatever danger comes at them. So by the time the Steelrunner starts moving the Seer could be standing in the right spot for the steelrunner to slip on a puddle, or have a bird fly in between them as the knife is thrown, or something. The only way I see for the Steelrunner to beat the Seer is to get them before they start Burning, at which point they are not defeating atium, they are ambushing a temporarily mundane person. Or they could set some physically inescapable trap, but either way the Steel Compounding isnt what makes it possible. Thematic Reason: Atium is a Godmetal, which are supposed to be superior to the base metals. I dont think Atium would loos such a direct functional contest unless the Steelrunner also brought the Protagonist Power of Plot to the table. But that's meta-logic.

Nope. Not all have relevant Numbers, and some Numbers are more relevant to the Planet/System than to a specific Shard. Ten is significant to the Rosharan system, and thus at least two Shards. Sixteen is relevant everywhere, though that magic Number seems to have been Preserved in Allomancy and Feruchemy (but notably not Hemalurgy).

In general, being overly Invested will make it difficult to leave the Shardwrold in question. There's a really good example of this in Secret History (where somebody walks up against the border/limit. Breaths are a bit of an exception in that they are innately less binding than most Investiture due to the nature of Endowment being more fundamentally about not having strings attached. Honor, on the other hand, is all about Binding and Oaths and whatnot which puts Stormlight on the other end of the spectrum being more constrictive.