killersquirrel59

Do we have any evidence for this? It's an interesting idea, that aluminum has null properties to other forms of Investiture, not only in relation to Allomancy.

Ah. My mistake. I thought you could not Lurch yourself. Still, my vote holds. The rest of my case is compelling enough for me unless presented with new evidence.

The intended experiment was to see if they could awaken metal. Let's not forget this. They weren't intending to create a sentient sword in the first place. Vasher notes how surprised both he and Shashara were that Nightblood acquired sentience in the way it did. Let's keep that in mind when we examine the command "Destroy Evil". The commands Vasher usually gives are very general. "Hold Things," and "Grip Things," are some common examples. Simple and direct commands are favoured. Given those ideas, one would expect "Destroy Things," to be a quite reasonable command for a sword. We see a rope with the command "Hold things" go after whatever Vasher or Vivenna throws it at. In the same way we could expect an Awakened sword with the Command "Destroy Things" to stab and slice the entity it was directed against. Therefore, the "Destroy" part of the command seems perfectly valid. Now we get to the specific command to destroy "Evil". We find ourselves in a bit of a moral quandry asking "what is evil?" Well our answers don't matter. Because once again let us remember that Nightblood was never intended to be sentient. The interpretation would not be for it to make itself, but rather the intention of its wielder. Telling it "Destroy Evil" rather than simply "Destroy Things" is really a safeguard for the experiment since Shashara and Vasher would likely never see themselves or their allies as "Evil" thus preventing a stray thought or mistaken command from sending Nightblood to destroy those they cared about. This wasn't the Scholars setting the purpose of an avenging god weapon. This was the equivalent of scientists using redundant radiation shielding. Just another safeguard. Taken in that light, the fact that Nightblood was never intended to be sentient, I believe that "Destroy Evil" was a perfectly viable command and rather clever scientific thinking.

It's a tough call but I have to go with the advantage granted by the Warder bond. To assume Tam would win or even that they would tie overcoming that advantage would be to assume that Tam is orders of magnitude better than Lan, who let's not forget has spent his entire life fighting along the Blight, while Tam has spent the last 20 years as a Shepherd.

The potent hydrochloric acid produced by the stomach is contained within a single organ specifically designed to produce and contain it. There are several rather serious medical conditions that result in that potent acid escaping that containment and causing a great deal of damage to the other organs, possibly ending in death or serious trauma. Kandra excrete this acid from their entire bodies as they absorb their food directly. We don't. You're comparing apples to penguins and making my point for me rather nicely.

Szeth's bond to his Honourblade was broken, but he also was just saved as part of becoming a Skybreaker. This may form a true Nahel bond of his own with a spren as normal, allowing him to channel Stormlight again. It is also quite possible that Nightblood was imbued as a new Honourblade, however that will be difficult to confirm or contradict since we do not know how they are made or even truly what they are. We do have confirmation at least that such double investiture of an item is at least possible though. What are you talking about? Szeth uses his Honourblade all the time in combat. He doesn't usually fight fair with it, dueling blade to blade but he certainly draws it and attacks ruthlessly. Vasher's style would not at all fit him. It also wouldn't fit his personality in my opinion. The whole reason Szeth was chosen for the Skybreakers was because of his dedication to justice and his penitent attitude. I think he'd see any cost associated with wielding Nightblood as the price of being a champion of justice, not as something to be avoided.

Sorry all. I am still here. After consideration I'm leaning strongly at Wilson. We know (and so would a Set-infiltrating Kandra) that he already has at least one spike and possibly more, thus only adding to potential power of a new host. He cannot Lurch himself, thus making him the best possible target by being the only one who can't be saved by a timely Lurch. That combined with the fact that anyone accumulating spikes just makes for a juicy Kandra target both for power and camouflage. Plus in particular taking the Lurching power away from us would be highly beneficial to them and let them assassinate us with far greater ease.

Not necessarily conflicting. Scadrial is the only planet we've seen thus far with two diametrically opposed Shards. Preservation needing to imbue mankind with his essence for sentience could have been due to his need to overcome Ruin's power and allow him to create. Seeing how Ruin and Vin interacted while she held the Preservation, this could very easily be the form that the bargain between Leras and Ati took. Perhaps that bargain wasn't so much something actually agreed on as much as Preservation simply putting more power into this creation than Ruin was willing to risk countering, thus letting Ruin know that in the long run he would have more power and thus be able to destroy unopposed.

I think you are referencing Cadmium Feruchemy which stores breath. This is literal breath and is indeed quite different than invested Breath from Warbreaker. However the OP is talking about Nicrosil Feruchemy which stores Investiture, noted as storing a raw form of Investiture that can act as a sort of power transformer between types of Investiture energy.

In the end it doesn't matter really though. While it is an easy trap to fall into to basically take an existing culture from earth and give it a new name and some superficial differences calling it good (looking at you George R.R. Martin and the Ironborn), Brandon doesn't seem to fall for that trap very often. Whatever their initial inspiration and physical appearance, I'm sure that Brandon now has a full Herdazian culture pack somewhere in his notes that is independent of any earth culture.

Interesting idea. I'd say probably since the material of the stamp doesn't seem to be relevant. Soulstone is just very easy to carve. The Investiture is in the symbology not the physical stamp. Not really sure why you'd want to but it makes sense that you could.

There is a big difference between the assertion that "cognitive trumps everything" and "the cognitive realm exists and does what it is supposed to". I fall in the second category whereas you seem to fall into the category of plug your ears, shut your eyes, hum loudly and ignore Realmatics because it's too strange and weird. Well, you're going to have a difficult time here without accepting that the Cognitive indeed does have an influence on how things interact in the various worlds. And here is the WoB you requested noting that how an object views itself is what determines bubble occupancy.

Well Nightblood clearly can continue to exist without draining investiture constantly as he is still quite conscious and annoying when Vivenna finds him after Vasher loses him. I'd suspect then that Nightblood only drains Investiture to power its special abilities, not its awakened nature. Therefore, if a Drab were to draw him I'd say that he would simply be unable to use his weird black smoke ability but would still be an annoying talking sword. EDIT: This also creates some interesting questions for Stones Unhallowed about...

Except that in this case it is how the object sees itself. Does the bomb consider the thing sending that signal as part of itself or as an outside force? It isn't belief shapes reality, it is a specific feature of speed bubbles to account for an object always being entirely in or out of the bubble. We have a WoB stating clearly that an object cannot ever be partially in or out of a speed bubble and the way of determining that is based on the object's presence in the Cognitive realm. If the signal device were connected by a wire to the bomb there would be no question that it is part of the bomb and thus would be counted inside the speed bubble.

Here utterly agreed. I have never bought the argument that Kandra have human-style organs or other bodily systems. It seems incredibly incongruous with their ability to change themselves as well as to absorb and digest food with their entire bodies. If their whole body exudes an acid strong enough to dissolve and digest meat, then it would certainly damage their own internal organs if they were there. Granted they could have incredibly thick protective layers around those organs but it seems far more likely that they simply don't have and don't need them.

Right. I'm wondering whether cognitively such a device would be considered part of the bomb since it is viewed as intrinsic to the bomb's nature in the world as you describe. If it would be considered part of the bomb then that opens up a giant pandora's box of items not physically connected suddenly being affected by speed bubbles that their other part is put into.

Of course then we run into very awkward realmatic questions asking if whether or not, cognitively speaking, such a signal device would be considered part of the bomb.

I guess if you could set it up to perceive relative time based on a received signal from outside it could work. Basically a repeating signal at a steady interval with a code to detonate if the interval significantly speeds up or slows down.

Uggh...I like still having teeth too much to try horneater food.

Since an object is always entirely in or out of a speed bubble there would be no temporary disruption to sense since, from the bomb's perspective, nothing is changing.

EDIT: Kobold King Ninja!

Oh I know the goggles are more of a longshot and a more difficult thing, but I think there are enough fans to muster a reasonable demand. I know I for one would leap to buy a set. Store could also probably contract with some of the colour contact people to make Rosharan contacts for both light and darkeyes in a bit more vibrant ways than are normally done to get the glow effect right. Temporary Parshendi tattoos as well perhaps? Some kind of premade mold you could apply to your face and then only need to fill in gaps with makeup? I know there would be a market for at least temporary Bridge 4 Glyph tattoos.

Don't be so quick to dismiss this. The idea is hardly disproved even if a few details might be off. What he's saying here is that with the Blood focus of Ruin, that the metal spikes are far more likely due to the association of the powers being stolen than of Hemalurgy itself. We know that Hemalurgy can potentially steal other traits on other worlds but don't know how. Would perhaps a gemstone spike on Roshar not be appropriate? In that case, the common focus between both situations is Blood, not Metal. Hemalurgy is still of Ruin even if it is practiced off of Scadrial without metal necessarily involved.

I do agree that we should have standardized terms for this discussion. These terms are now included in the first post. Good idea. Given that some theories I've read include voluntary self-spiking, I want to avoid the use of the term "victim" or anything else that implies force or lack of consent. As such I've assigned the terms Hemalurgist, Beneficiary, and Donor as noted above. I don't remember the exact quotes but I do remember what you are talking about now. You are correct. That supporting evidence does not apply. Law #4 is no longer applies as there is no direct evidence to confirm it. Changed to reflect that.

I've seen this come up in many threads but have yet to see a thread devoted specifically to the topic so it seemed appropriate to start one. The question here is, what exactly do we know about the process of Hemalurgic decay? Take particular note of any apparent contradictions as they likely mean a gap in knowledge where we can start to speculate. Below are the points that we know. This is only what is actually evidenced in the books or confirmed in a WoB, not dealing with theories on the subject (we'll get to those). For the sake of this discussion we should have some standardized terms. The terms to be used (so we all know what we are talking about) will be as follows: Hemalurgist: The one performing the act of spiking Donor: The one whose power or attribute is being taken Host (Changed from Beneficiary): The one who is being spiked and thus gaining the trait Hemalurgic Construct: A creature like a Koloss or Kandra who has gained or lost traits through Hemalurgy that are not directly connected with the powers or attributes granted by the spikes. Note that Inquisitors are not in this category as we have no direct evidence that they have any effects from Hemalurgy other than the direct powers of the spikes themselves. Laws of Hemalurgic Decay A spike left outside of a body loses charge at an indeterminate rate for an indeterminate amount of time to an indeterminate minimum. Inquisitors took great pains (as well as inflicting great pains) as they made spikes to ensure they spent as little time outside a body as possible. Spikes can be reused. When as spike is reused it is also important to get it back into a body as quickly as possible (as seen by Human rushing to make a new Koloss as quickly as he could with the spike1). A spike kept in a body intermittently will still maintain some degree of a charge (Vin's and Wax's earrings), though what degree of charge is indeterminate. Spikes may be divided, separate pieces maintaining some charge, but a lesser amount each. This process heightens Hemalurgic decay in some indeterminate way. Please note any other laws/evidence I have missed and this list will be updated. Similarly note anything you think I have misphrased or misrepresented and with appropriate evidence the list will be altered. Remember this list is for provable, verifiable facts, not extrapolations and theories. Now the list was not really the intended subject of this thread, but it is a good starting point. The issues of the earrings have plagued us for far too long and it is time we put our collective obsessive minds to work on trying to figure out hemalurgic decay. Maybe it will come to nothing as we simply don't have enough information yet to make a definite conclusion on, or maybe we'll find that nugget buried somewhere that cracks this all wide open. Below I'll keep updated a synopsis of each possible theory based on our list of laws that seems to explain all of our gathered evidence. As long as a theory remains sound it keeps its place on the list. I'll use a series of codes to indicate usefulness of said theory. Since I'm starting and organizing this discussion the categories are at my discretion and opinion though if anyone disagrees with a categorization make your case and I can probably be persuaded. Plain Text = Possible theory, takes all points into account and has not been fundamentally disproved but cannot really be proved either. Strikethrough = Debunked theory, disproven via direct undeniable evidence. Italics = Unlikely or tenuous theory. Technically possible but unlikely due to other known factors. Bold = Highly likely theory. Takes all points into account and elegantly explains the inconsistencies. Blue = Wild stab in the dark. Theory technically possible but not really based on presented evidence. Pink = Mocking. 17th Sharders taking the piss as we are often wont to do. The first theory presented is one of mine for this, but I'm ready to admit it doesn't really belong as anything but plain text by my codes. Possible Extrapolations from the Laws of Hemalurgic Decay Spikes continually lose charge at a relatively quick rate whenever they are outside a body. The decay rate is constant but exponentially decreasing (basically a half-life, though not necessarily based on a factor of 2) to some bounded minimum charge. This minimum is some factor of the original charge placed in the spike, not an absolute. Spikes lose charge quickly until they are first attuned to a Host, at which point they stop losing charge even while not actually in the Host anymore. (Attributed to Outis, full theory link here) Please join in this discussion. It's long since time we got organized on this one. If this format works out, it might also be something to try for other head-scratchers that plague us all. Footnotes 1. Supporting evidence debunked. Law #4 changed to Wild Stab in the Dark due to lack of supporting evidence.