IvoryRoad

Okay. When an allomancer burns iron or steel, he/she can push or pull on a metal source. The force is directed straight through the allomancer's center of gravity. This we know. But how does this principle apply to anchors? The center of gravity is a single point in the metal source, right? Allomantic indicator lines (let's call them AILs), I would imagine, connect the allomancer's center of gravity with the anchor's, giving them a visual frame of reference to know where they're going to fly when they burn. The AILs are always described as straight lines, never wedge-like or any other shape. Some are thicker, indicative of the anchor's strength, but I don't think they ever get super wide - this is a detail that Brandon would mention, I think. Essentially, the sum of these facts is that a single push or a pull against one given anchor should have only ONE possible direction of motion, along the vector denoted by the AIL. A principle like this is easy to ignore, since with small anchors, there's never enough distance between the anchor's center of gravity and its boundaries to be noticable. Coins and window latches will all move basically the same. The confusion I have is when a longer anchor comes into play. Think of a spire on Kredik Shaw. Vin and the Inquisitors use them as anchors many times in the trilogy, both for pushing and pulling. But, despite their larger size compared to a coin or latch, shouldn't the metal spire only have one center of gravity to push or pull against? I could imagine a long line of points along the spire's "axis" of gravity, straight up the middle, but the result of this would be an AIL that begins at the allomancer's COG and expands in a wedge shape, a continuous triangle, from the top of the spire to the bottom. Come to think of it, though, in the universe, all planets are round. A spire or elongated object, given time, will eventually collapse inward, until its shape roughly reflects an equal gravitational pull from all angles toward one COG. So how can an allomancer pull him/herself to the top of a spire, or to any point they please, when there is only one COG to interact with? The idea crops up again, somewhat, in AoL, when Wax pushes himself along the rail lines. He describes his actions as a "continuous" push behind him - but against what COG? I suppose a railway track is actually a bunch of linked pieces of metal, not a continuous chunk, and Wax could simply be pushing against individual pieces of the rail. Regardless of the explanation for the incident in AoL, this leads us to an interesting thought experiment: Imagine a really long cylinder of metal laying on flat ground. Say five miles long. It is continuous - that is, there are no seams or individual parts to the cylinder. An allomancer in the exact center pushes himself along the pole, from the COG. At what point - if any - will the allomancer stop moving? Can he push on a point that is not the COG? If he was at the end of the cylinder, out of range of the central COG, could he allomantically interact with the cylinder at all? This would be rather contradictory, IMO. I'm open to anyone with a better understanding of physics or allomancy than I to submit a possible solution to my confusion. Sorry if the post seems a little bit rambling; I had some thoughts in the middle of writing them down.

Some of you may have heard of this, or even played it, but for those who have not, I think that every person in the world should make an effort to play this game: Make sure to watch with headphones in the dark. Now, go buy it (I think it's still discounted) and play the entire thing with headphones in the dark. The only way I've been able to make any kind of progress is by playing with a couple friends over Skype, but it's honestly been, for all the terror and un-manly behavior, one of the finest gaming experiences I've ever had. DO IT. Heck, if you can get past the Cellar Archives, I applaud you already. Just know that much worse is coming.

Dumping a crapton of energy out of your metalminds, and having a BLAST while doing it.

DISCLAIMER: The flamethrower suggestion was just a bit tongue-in-cheek. Try not to bite my head off. And the spikes themselves don't need to be magnetic... just the platform they're affixed to. If you wanted them to be useful for hemalurgy, you'd just construct them of the necessary metals (but this would admittedly render them useless against coinshots/lurchers, since they'd easily detect them). Come on, people. I'm trying to be over-the-top. Stop diffusing me, dangit! Strength compounders really wouldn't be much trouble, provided you've got a nice marksman like Wax. Shoot him in the brain and drop him quick. Though, it might be difficult to keep your cool while watching a ten-foot-wide hulk lurch through the walls at you.

We rich noble types need not worry about napalm ruining our nice furniture. We simply buy new stuff. Any way you slice it, gold compounders are almost as annoying to kill as Wax's ability to shoot Miles' gun away, over and over. I think the best you can hope for with a gold compounder, unless you've got a battle-axe or something is to neutralize them. I propose the floor-spikes... Sharpened fiberglass or plastic, or aluminum if you're rich like me, set pointing upward in a wide array over a certain area of floor. Activate the reversed polarity electro magnet (now with REPULSING action) to shoot them up through the specially prepared decoy floor, and impale the bloodmaker, hopefully immobilizing him and making it REALLY tough to heal himself, on account of the dirty great spikes poking up through his legs and chest. Gruesome, but effective, with the bonus of being really expensive. Heck, you might even be able to use them for hemalurgy afterward. Dang it, WHY must everyone INSIST on denying me my flamethrowers? I just wanna have a bit of fun. Let's not forget their practicality against door-to-door salesmen. It's only a matter of time before they begin corrupting the modernized Scadrial.

Or you could just set them on fire. Fire works great for pretty much everything.

I say again, misting. lol And even so, it's all about consistency. How long can one gold compounder keep tapping/burning massive amounts of healing to constantly mend his melting face? I think when we consider their power, we tend to forget that they are only as powerful as their metal reserves. Not to mention it'd be rather disorienting to keep getting blinded by liquid fire. EDIT: I just remembered that Ranette said she was working on a hazekiller round for Bloodmakers, but it wasn't finished yet. Doubtful it could be effective against a compounder, but I'm quite interested to see what she comes up with.

I think a pump-pressurized flamethrower could clear a room of coinshots, lurchers, tineyes, and pewterarms quite easily. I submit this as my defensive weapon of choice. As for building defenses into my mansion, I think an absurdly powerful electromagnet beneath select parts of the floor would do nicely. Just imagine it: a misting with fresh metal reserves strolling confidently through the household. Then SLAP I hit the button and the metals in his belly are either ripped clean out or yank him through the floor. Either way, he is at my mercy. Then I send in my specialized crack team of hazekillers, all of whom wear cool-looking plastic helmets(aluminum-lined, of course) with black jumpsuits, and are armed with shoulder-mounted flamethrowers and aluminum rotary guns. No, they need a more menacing name. How about HAZESLAYERS? Or the MISTING MASSACRE-ERS. I have yet to see the misting who can stand the might of a fully pressurized stream of flaming napalm in the face.

Although my vote was persuaded to move to Surge, I note with some pride that Overtap is currently placed second. Haha!

I believe Wayne used this exact tactic to heal himself after the butler tried to blow them up in AoL. Supposedly it's a much more efficient use of the power, if a bit time-consuming. Which is why you don't see Bloodmakers doing it in the heat of battle. If we could, I recommend moving this discussion to another topic, since the main subject is past.

All I could keep thinking of was the Princess Bride. "Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." *they fight for a bit* "Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." *they fight some more, and someone gets stabbed* "Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." "Stop SAYING that!"

I don't necessarily disagree with you... just a thought. Simply "Overtap" would work just fine. Just thought it was a cool concept. I do think, though, that the modifier system allows for greater flexibility and ease of specification with fewer words. Just a matter of a few keyboard taps, I guess. I still don't think that we as a reader base have a very clear idea of what, exactly, a Surge is, and until we do I don't feel like we should play with the term. Why leave ourselves open to any possibility of confusion at all? Nitpicking here, but we actually have no idea what Voidbinding entails either. I can't see Brandon turning "void" into a verb - just seems too inelegant - but "surge" could very well become verbed. In any case, what this argument is really about is you liking your verb better than mine, and vice versa. Your reasoning, however, is quite good. I feel that overtap would be more specifically useful, and practical, but surge does seem more like a "magical" term. I will support "Surge" as the official verb, but if Brandon ends up using it later in the Stormlight Archive, I will demand at least a cookie or something.

That's another advantage of the modifier + tap system. It's a simple verb, usable in the same sense as basic "tap", and it's quick to type out.

For Well of Ascension, yes... But, for most of HoA I was rather annoyed at Sazed. He just spent so much time moping about. I understood why and all, but it just made for a very unsympathetic character. Even when he starts doing things, it's always with the caveat that he still doesn't really care anymore. Once again, I get the reasons, but it just annoyed me. I don't like it when favorite characters show weakness. I just have a penchant for those awesome moments. I feel like every one of Brandon's books has three or four scenes/moments that just NEED to be painted or filmed. Like Vin crushing Kredik Shaw. Man, I need to see that.

Let's have a geek-fest. What moments in the trilogy and/or AoL were your absolute favorites? I shall begin. The Final Empire Favorite moment absolutely has to be when the crew looks out at the city and sees clumps of torchlight illuminating the mists. When they realize that Kelsier's genius plan actually worked - man! Chills. The Well of Ascension Sazed's fight with Marsh. No contest. When the rings that Marsh Pushes into him are actually his metalminds, and he heals himself... Then Marsh tells him, "You're not a warrior," or something to that effect. Sazed replies: "Neither, I think, are you." GOOSEBUMPS. This was where I first realized how amazing Feruchemists were. The Hero of Ages When Marsh notes Vin's earring being a Hemalurgic spike and he rips it out... I just remember a sudden wave of comprehension smashing down on me. Suddenly, everything fell into place... I had to put the book down and do a bit of walking around to ease the happy stress. Then I plopped down and read the rest of the book. Honorable mention: the atium army. 'Nuff said. The Alloy of Law This wasn't exactly a central plot twist, but I thought that when Wax Overtaps his Ironmind and lands on the train, crumpling the metal in a crater around him... Then he flips a casing at the surprised Miles before Pushing him off the train... "Goodbye." Wax's most awesome moment in the book.

Didn't Steris mention something about a Zinc counselor when she first met with Wax? Rioters also seem to be involved in depression treatment/therapy.

I think that whatever excuses you can offer up, overlapping words between worlds of the Cosmere is just asking for trouble. Let's face it - Brandon's got a LOT of redefined verbs in his canon. No need to make things difficult for when Surgebinding becomes more prominent in future SA books. Of the suggestions thus far, I like Over-tap the best, but I think if you cut the hyphen it's a bit more elegant. Overtap just sounds more... fluid. No pun intended. This is sort of what I was thinking, with the base word being modified by the word you slide in before "tap". E.g.: Doubletap = Twice normal strength Tripletap = Triple normal strength, with implied diminishing returns Overtap = Anything over that, leading up to Draining as described in the book. Semitap or Undertap or even Halftap = Really slow withdrawal to minimize loss of power. Most economical, you know? Hey! Eco-tap! The only problem I forsee with this system is that it really opens the door for innumerable low-class jokes.

Hundredlives? I assumed that was just a nickname he earned in the Roughs. Unless there was another name, casually mentioned, and I'm just suffering from memory failure. Your guess is as good as mine. Don't know if we'll ever find out, it doesn't strike me as a vital plot point. lol

Eh... just looked at the thread. Too much jargon for my english artsy brain. I do like your explanation, though. Much more visually-oriented. Thanks. lol /thread, everybody!

Never even crossed my mind, but nicely spotted!. Now that you mention it, didn't Hasting kill them off while they tried to flee the city or something similar? I suppose it's not too much of a stretch to say that a few may have escaped being slaughtered (though their likelihood of regaining noble status is slim, at best). Heck, none of the skaa had last names during the Final Empire, so maybe a lucky skaa family just picked a name that they liked and grew into a completely separate noble house. Or maybe Brandon just messed up. But I doubt it - that's not really something he does.

Okay, now that Alloy of Law is out, I am extremely confused about the nature of weight feruchemy. The question I have is: What, exactly, is being stored in or tapped from an ironmind? The way I see it, there are really only two possibilities: - Mass: I was inclined to think that this was the answer, since I definitely remember specific wording from WoA's Sazed-Marsh fight specifying that he grew more dense. Yet, we see that in Alloy of Law, this is directly contradicted. Waxillium notes, rather specifically, that the opposite is true: that he does not grow more dense, because bullets can still pierce his body. Either Harmony changed this between the books or one of them is just wrong. - Gravitational susceptibility: this was the only other thing I could come up with, since I seem to remember from basic physics that an object's weight is determined by gravity, not by mass. But this is actually contrary to both books, since increased gravity also increases the speed at which an object falls, and both Sazed and Waxillium exploit this fact. So what is going on? Wax says his strength increases proportionally to his weight so he doesn't crush himself, but I don't even want to think about the complications that arise from that. Any ideas? o_O

I don't know if I would classify Trellism as a "major" religion. It sounds rather fringe, actually, since it seems to have motivated Miles to implement his plan and ideology. It also, notably, appears to be nothing like the version discussed in the original trilogy (It was all about stars, and Sazed used their accurate charts to position Scadrial correctly in the Cosmere). It's a lot more violent sounding. And there's red involved, or something along those lines. Bet we'll see more of it, if not in a direct sequel to Alloy, in future trilogies.

I love you.

I was amused at several moments, but I didn't really laugh out loud until they got to High Imperial. I about died laughing there. In general, I'm just very fond of Wax and Wayne's interplay of banter and insults. Reminds me a lot of my best friend and I. We get quite creative.

How DARE you suggest that your fanhood is greater than mine. Wait, he signed your recipe? Perhaps it had proper instructions for baywrap preparation. Can you remember anything from it? I'm itching to try me some baywraps. On an unrelated note, I'm curious if anyone here has ever had a lucid dream. I think I started to have one the other day, but I quickly lost control. I was running through some sort of hallway-maybe being chased-when I suddenly thought, "this has got to be a dream". Immediately, the world got sort of swimmy (is that a word? lol) and lopsided. It was really hard to stay standing up. I remembered that in lucid dreams, you can create anything you want. Like an idiot, I didn't immediately try to give myself Mistborn powers, but instead tried to imagine my girlfriend into existence. Nothing happened, and at some point I fell out of awareness again. It was really surreal.