Stark

I wonder, if this theory is correct, would Adolin's pre-duel ritual of talking to the blade have anything to do with his revival. Seeing as dueling is a massive part of who he is, we could see him talking often enough to start forming a bond with it. Syl has mentioned that you cannot truly kill a Spren, as they are embodied ideas, and her own "Resurrection" supports this. While he may not fit the Edgedancer ideal, and may not be forming a Nahel bond with the Spren of his blade, he may be creating a bond with it by talking to it before every duel as an old friend and not a tool. Also worth noting is that he has not named his blade, that we know of, leaving it open for the Spren's identity to re-assert itself more easily. I really like this theory.

One could argue that the Doctor is too, having been a warrior, and being responsible for the destruction of numerous foes. Yet violence is always a disparaged and avoided recourse. I think we have a WoB somewhere that Hoid is incapable of hurting living things, though it is not clear whether that is by choice or an imposed restriction. Based on the Kelsier interaction, and a few comments made on Roshar, it does seem like it is an imposed restriction... And re: Keliser, well, hasn't he always been a bit of an exception to the rules?

Yup. But this may actually fit better than "Q". Especially seeing as the Cognitive realm could conceivably be bigger on the inside. And Allomancy, like the sonic scre-driver, does not work so well on wood. Other than the time travel, you could make a really solid case for Hoid being a Doctor analogue. And viewing the Cosmere events from Hoid's perspective could be seen as quite episodic. And he is in (almost) every episode so far...

Yes, I suppose that is the inevitable conclusion to this idea. And I suppose that it is conceivable that in the future Scadrial could begin to be referred to as Skaro. All we need now is a timeless space traveler, who is irreverent and likes to observe key moments in History, to combat them. But e must be able to take many forms and have an aversion to violence. Oh. Hi there Hoid. When did you become the Doctor?

Final thought for the mech-assisted Kandra. BOM Spoiler mixed with the thought:

I'd forgotten about this completely. But I was thinking of taking it a step further, rather than just using an inert framework. Having a Kandra use a fully, or partially mechanized frame that they could control internally. They could give themselves all kinds of neat boosts, hydraulically assisted musculature for one. On top of all the neat weapons they could hide. I have this vision of the Kandra becoming an amalgamation of our contemporary cyborgs: The terminators, the borg, the augmented from Ghost in the Shell, Except with the distinct advantage of being able to shed their skeleton's at need. Especially if Allomancy cannot touch metal within them, Kandra could become quite terrifying in the Sci-Fi era.

A little late here, but I fully expect some sort of cyborg thing to go on in Sci-Fi era Mistborn. Not with the humans, but with the Kandra. We already know they are not limited to using bones, but have used carved wood or crystal skeletons. I have this vision of the T-800 Kandra, bristling with hidden weapons...

I just got it to go for Vasher, though first it wanted to say I was thinking of Haplo.

Not sure if this has been asked yet, but here is a silly little question: How bad an idea is it to store Feruchemical Fortune, Health, Mental speed and Age at the same time? It seems to me that making yourself temporarily old, frail, and unlucky with a diminished ability to respond to stimulus could be a really, really bad idea.

Very succinct answers to my almost endless ramblings. You get an upvote! For the most part, I have no issue suspending my disbelief and just rolling with the magic, when it is well crafted. And Brandon's magic is usually extremely well crafted. I just also enjoy thinking of the "what if"s and "how"s. But your point about the Cognitive image of your being affecting what is considered you is a fantastic answer that covers many possibilities.

Another interesting couple of questions (to me, at least) I have regarding Feruchemical iron is: At what point is a mass considered part of the Feruchemist's mass for the purpose of reduction? There was a WoB quoted earlier in this thread, that indicated that no matter how low Wax reduced his Mass, his bracers mass remained unchanged. I would assume that extends to his gear and clothing as well - his guns don't lose mass when he is storing, and running around in full plate mail would negate many of the benefits to mass reduction. So elements outside of his person are unaffected. But what about what he has consumed? From a biological perspective, anything in your Gastro-Intestinal tract is considered to be outside your system. It is only once the nutrients have been absorbed by your small intestine that they are considered to be inside your system. Would the food and drink he has consumed, and is in the process of digesting, be affected by an alteration to his mass, as it can be perceived as being outside of his biological system? Or, for that matter, the bits of steel he has consumed for pushing? Or, if we want to get into six-year old humour, biological waste that has not yet been eliminated? If those (admittedly small) chunks of mass are not included in his iron mass reductions, that could provide non-negligible, unalterable masses anchoring him down. (And ludicrous dialogue options for Wayne regarding the importance of pooping regularly for Wax... ugh.) As a counter point, however, we have seen that metal inside a person, whether via piercing, implantation, hemalurgic spike, or in a stomach, cannot be easily manipulated by Allomantic pushes/or pulls. One of the best recent examples of this is Miles stabbing his knife into his arm on the train top battle in Alloy of Law to prevent Wax from disarming him. Which would imply that once a material has entered the Gastro-Intestinal tract, it is considered as part of you for the purposes of Allomancy, and I assume Feruchemy. (So no poop dialogue from Wayne. Yay). So it is conceivable that metal in your stomach, or elsewhere, would have it's mass would be reduced by the same percentage as the rest of you if Feruchemical iron was being used. That, if true, of course leads to another couple of questions: At what point is an item considered to be inside/part of you? (IE: something in your mouth vs. in your stomach) And, if Wax's Iron Bracers were piercing him or implanted somehow, would they be affected by his mass reductions as well? My final question before I stop for now, after some preface: Both Saze and Wax referred to their mass reductions by fractions. They would reduce there mass by half, or a quarter, or they would triple their mass for a few seconds. They never (that I can remember) refer to the amount of mass they reduced or added by absolute values. Do Feruchemical iron mass adjustments work by fraction/pecentage, or by absolutes? To clarify, here is a hypothetical situation: I had a non-altered mass of 200kg, and stored my mass at 50% for a month, essentially leaving me at 100kg for that time period. I then realize that even with the Feruchemy, it is not healthy for me to be that massively overweight, and undergo a strict weightloss regimine, reducing my mass to a healthier 100kg. Once my weight loss is complete, the i find the need to tap my iron reserves. Do I have one month's worth of 100kg extra I can add (iron stores absolutes), or do I have one month's worth of 50kg extra I can add (iron stores percentages)? This can apply to any storage of a physical/mental attribute - strength, sight, health, speed, acuity. It is far more interesting to me if Feruchemy stores absolute values rather than percentages. That could allow a blind Feruchemist to see using sight they had stored before they lost their sight, or someone experiencing dementia to think clearly again. Or, as we have seen, a Feruchemist in poor health to recapture health from an earlier time when they were much healthier, but has little use for health stored while already sick/injured (which leads me to believe that absolute values are stored). Feruchemy storing absolute values also fits with it being an end neutral art - no waste. Quick summary of my questions to discuss: Does iron affect the mass of items withing a feruchemist's/ferring's GI tract? If yes, When is something considered as being inside the ferruchemist/ferring? Would this affect metalmind's piercing the feruchemist/ferring, or are they still as resistant to magic as other invested items? Does Feruchemy store absolute values of traits, or percentages?

The way I look at this is that magic breaks real world physics rules, while creating loopholes for the Laws of Physics to work with.. But, it has it's own Laws that it follows. With Feruchemy, we all have our base statistics, our mass, health, mental acuity, physical speed and physical strength that function at a given level over the time that is our lives. Strength, speed, acuity, and even eyesight tend to have a lot of variability over the course of our lives, and do not make for fantastic examples. So I'm going to ignore compounding for the moment, and looking at Atium feruchemy to start. You can store youth and look older, or tap it and look older. But on the whole, the amount of youth and age you have is set. You have from birth to death in a linear progression. Feruchemy allows you to mess with the r2 of that line, by placing outliers on either side of the curve of age vs time. A 20 yr old can spend 4 days at 40 to get 1 day at 5, or four days at 10, etc, etc. But while this screws up the r2, the best fit line that goes through these points still should be identical to the line that would have been without Feruchemy. If I apply this chart view to Iron Feruchemy, and assume an individual of 100kg +/- day to day fluctuations, you can account for density. Wax spends a lot of time at a lower mass (50-75kg) storing that mass. He tends to use up that mass in explosive bursts of extreme mass to make incredible pushes, or break through floors. But overall, his average mass, that fits the curve is the linear line that would have been without Feruchemy, is still 100kg. I don't thinkI'm explaining it very well, but my theory is that real world Physics does not interact with his current mass for the purpose of density and other mass based calculations. It interacts with his best fit line. For your standard, non-iron ferring, the best fit line and data points line up perfectly with an r2=1. For Wax, with his r2=0.25, or some such, his density, force, kinetic energy, momentum, etc are all based off the best fit line that remains at his average, while his actual mass fluctuates wildly all over the place. Or, over 21 arbitrary time units, he keeps his mass at 50kg for 15au, and 75kg for 6au. Then, he needs increased to increase his mass drastically, drains the entire metalmind, and spends 1au at 1000kg. His average mass over those 22au is still his standard 100kg. Feruchemy spoofs the physics, so that it always applies to that base 100kg, while the actual varies. This can be pseudo-scienced to working because a Feruchemist is limited to what they are born with, so they must always respect their baseline average. Which is why a naturally blind Feruchemist cannot make themselves see by storing sight. No matter how much nothing you store, you will never get something. Compounding, and those lovely little medallions from the south, ruin all of this, of course. But that is how I apply the magic to the physics in my head, in any case. I have no idea if this actually makes sense, my math and physics are a good 15 years rusty with disuse.

I looked through the forums to see if this was brought up anywhere else, and did no see anything. Apologies if I am re-treading old ground. I am currently re-reading Elantris, and I noticed that it has a very specific timeline. A number of Cosmere stories have timelines, and Deadlines, there would be far less urgency without them. WoR had the Count down on the walls. Kelsier'sand Denth's plans had nebulous timelines to accomplish their goals (about a year each). But as far as I can tell, only the books that take place on Sel, Elantris and The Emperor's Soul, have very specific timelines. Deadlines that are set, and Bad Things will happen if they are not met. (Yes, White Sand has a deadline to, but the consequence does not seem as dire as in these two) Hrathren has three months to prepare Arelon before it is destroyed. He interprets this as having three months to accomplish a full conversion of the nobility, or Wyrn will invade and destroy. (For you number counters out there, the Duladel republic fell six months after he arrived, 2x3 months) Shai was given the three months of the mourning period to craft a new soul for the Emperor, or she would be executed. Both had 90 day absolute deadlines. It could be coincidence. Or it could not. Assuming Brandon very carefully crafts his worlds, and little is left to chance in the Cosmere, what do you think the relevance of 90 is on Sel?

My interpretation of all this is that Hemalurgy works on all Cosmere worlds, but differently, as the nature of investiture is different. We "see" things working differently on Roshar for Vasher and Nightblood, as the planet's Investiture system is different. And we know that learning how to Spike someone is not limited to Scadrial, but the use of metal spikes is limited to the Scadrian's spirit-web, where there were 16 different metals that could each steal different attributes. So my question is, if you want to Spike someone from another planet to steal their abilities, would you need to used materials that store Investiture from their planet, so that the Spirit web matches? IE: Could you use a ruby (or any of the other 9 gem types) spike on Roshar to steal Rosharan investiture and surges? An Endowed, but not awakened, object on Nalthis?

Didn't Harmony offer Wax a right-hand vs left-hand, red pill vs blue pill type of decision? Take my left hand offer and go on to the great beyond, take my right hand offer and return? Which sounds very similar to the offer Lightsong was offered. Sorry, I am at work and cannot go hunting for the exact passage right now, but I got the impression both Shards offered the mortal in question a choice, return or don't, and facilitated the decision by giving some details. The big differences I see is the presence of the Bands, and Wax being only slightly dead, still in the Szeth-rescued-by-Naze-not-fully-departed-yet state, where as Lightsong was fully dead. Or am I way off base and trying to see parallels where there are none?

Okay, you have Sel, Nalthis and Roshar Stick sightings. But what about Scadrial? Do we know of any event where Vin, Kelsier, Elend, Wax, Wayne or Marasi used Stick to help learn about any of the metallic arts? And Taldain? In either Prose version or Graphic novel version of White Sand? I'd love to see this be an actual thing of Brandon's, a little inside joke type easter-egg.

I'm now curious about the parallels between Wax and the returned. As @Darkness pointed out, Lightsong was given an offer to return by Endowment after he saw how bad things could become. And the indicated Return condition, or at least the condition theorized by the priests to attract Endowment's attention, was a heroic death. Similarly, Wax came to a near death state in BoM, and met Harmony, who gave him a chance to Return, or pass on. Yet Wax does not need a constant source of investiture to remain alive, and is clearly not a Returned. The most immediate thing that comes to mind is that Wax did it himself using the healing stored in the Bands, and he was not fully dead, just mostly dead. So, ignoring the Bands, what is the difference between what Endowment does and what Harmony did? And yes, I realize the absurdity of ignoring one of the Cosmere's most powerful artifacts to date in this equation...

I guess, if I wanted to stretch the limits of believability, and set ridiculosity to full, I could point out that it is possible that all the Smedry's end up living together in one massive house, to better contain them, still allowing her to be married to another Smedry, but that seems like it may be stretching a little too far, even for Alcatraz. I concede to @Meandbooks, they have a point.

What I find fascinating is that the skin tones of the people there are opposite of what we see on Earth. The Daysiders who live in the desert are all pale skinned, where as the Darksiders all have darker skin tones. It brings all kinds of interesting questions about the science of the planet. -What kind of Star do they orbit that emits little to know UV radiation, leaving the Daysiders with low Melanin counts? What faces the Darkside that causes such a high Melanin count in the absence of light?

I'd just like to point out that there is no mention of which Smedry Bastille marries.. While yes, it seems like that is where it is leading, but it would not be the first time Brandon upended our expectations. All we know is that, at some point, she marries a Smedry, and continues to interact with Alcatraz. But, as she is a Cristallin Knight, it is conceivable that she married someone not Alcatraz, and is still his friend and occasional protector. Unlikely, but stranger things have happened, right? And it feels like it would be the perfect Alcatraz twist:"Oh, so you thought just because it was Alcatraz's autobiography that I would marry him in the end?"

Iron eyed santa? Can't be that bed....

I am ridiculously interested! Can never say no to more of Brandon's awesomeness.