Deus Ex Biotica

If a bendalloy misting set up a speed bubble around a mechanical pump (or anything else automated), could they increase its output 20x? Will they gain huge demand at factories looking to boost short term production?

If it costs a huge amount to have this boost for only five minutes? It must be cheaper to just build a second factory.

Ever since Electrum was introduced, it was my theory that all the Inquisitors used Electrum instead of Atium. This changed, of course, once Ruin began controlling them directly.

Even for the Lord Ruler, it is much easier and safer to use the metal which (1) nobody else knows in Allomantic, and thus its movements are watched less closely, and (2) would not let an Inquisitor have a chance to defeat you if they caught you without any Atium/Electrum after somehow slipping your control.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

That still requires the bubble to move with the ship, right?

I am not convinced that it follows that Metallic Arts could impart power to non-living things just because other magics systems (admittedly, all the ones we know of) can. The Metallic Arts tend to mimic biology (Allomancy mimics metabolism, Hemalurgy mimics grafting, and Feruchemy just lets you store up the attributed of life), and all their uses which we have seen so far flow directly from a living entity which possesses them. Sure, it would be possible to go beyond that (and I am certain that, in spite of my misgivings, Brandon Sanderson could make such an expansion of the magic awesome), but it would step outside of everything we have ever known or seen of Allomancy, and probably involve copious speculation on whether the cognitive aspects of inanimate objects have Spiritwebs¹, what exactly "Investure" has to do with the unique "Preservation-ness" inherent in humanity², Or just outright stepping outside anything we have a lead on beyond the name³.

Looking back at that paragraph, I see it might sound awfully rude - it isn't meant to be. I love peeking in at that kind of speculation, but it's hard to make solid conclusions, or try to guess the scientific workability, when it's founded in things we don't really know.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

¹: If they did, of course, one could spike a metal ship just the same as they might my whale.

²: Put another way, could a sufficiently large metalmind filled with Investure by a Keeper who was operating at 0% Identity eventually become a sentient being in and of itself, and one with enough of a tie to Harmony to learn the Metallic Arts?

³: Like, say, "A ship made from Sazedium."

Having seen the quality of the Dresden graphic novels for adapting a well-described fantasy book to that format, combined with the amazing Mistborn art we've seen from Inkthinker, I think a Mistborn graphic novel is a no-brainer, at least for a one-off side story.

To be fair, Wayne is still a sneaky Bloodmaker, and even a fraction of a second of Sliding can be useful.

But, yes, I am very pleased to have an answer to infamous Train Problem.

Depending on what Investure is, they might be able to become Mistborn.

I seriously hope this is not the case. The man in the machine has to be the second least satisfying ending, second only to dream endings. If man in the machine is a punch to the kidney, dream endings have to be the place they sent the Radiants when there aren't any desolations.

Things like The Matrix and Tron are deeply ingrained enough in me, I don't see the similarities. If it was all a dream, nothing actually mattered (unless you could have died for real in the dream, or dreaming is another universe, or something, but that doesn't count).

But the computer is just another location. Sentient beings fighting and dying in a computer means no more or less to me than them fighting and dying on Earth, Scadrial, or the head of a pin. If everything is real in the context of the story, what's the difference?

-- Deus Ex Biotica

I think you're missing something here. The energy the Mistborn are using comes from the iron or steel. The allomancer isn't tired by Steelpushing any more than we are tired when driving a car.

Exactly. The energy comes from the Iron/Steel, or rather, from Preservation. Thus, these Arts must still be End-Positive.

Agreed. Even as you describe, the energy to push on those things has to come from somewhere, even if it still follows the laws of motion. I expect that if a Thug shoves you, "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" still applies.

Even a very strong person is unlikely to be able to perform constant chin-ups for hours, but that is exactly what Mistborn do when they travel with Pushes and Pulls - repeatedly lift their own weight by exerting forces on objects which they cannot move, and using the reaction to propel themselves, occasionally resting in a semi-controlled fall. And Mistborn never even describe the process as being tiring.

Sure, it could be their use of Pewter... except that Wax doesn't find it tiring, either. And Kelsier, at least, was cautious enough to not burn Pewter constantly, though Vin wasn't.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

A plan to breed Mistings is honestly a bit small potatoes for Marsh... but the possibility of Hemalurgy being reborn is a very real threat to the world.

Hey, now. He's 475 years old, he needs a few hobbies.

I like to assume that he takes cues from Ben Grimm, and hangs out with blond artists. And, sometimes, Soothes the heck out of some old lady's Suspicion, then plays cribbage and crochets with her. He also writes scathing letters to the editors of random newspapers, like an immortal grim reaper Ben Franklin.

Still, every now and again, he has to unearth a conspiracy or defeat an army, to remind himself of the glory days.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

P.S. But, yes, it would be a little anticlimactic if Wax's original theory were totally correct. I had considered that maybe the Set know about the Kandra, and are trying to force them to show themselves, so they can capture one.

Not necessarily.

For example, while Wax is spiked, he doesn't gain power, but he does get led towards certain courses of action... by Sazed, acting like you'd expect Sazed to act. I am not sure that Spiking with things other than Attributes and Spiritual Feruchemy alter your metal stability, ther than letting Harmony/Ruin talk to you.

That is why I said that "internal" works better. If the family is far away, the only way for him to deal with threat would be to teleport there (using quantum tunneling effects), or something like that. Hm.

Well, anyways, what would happen to the Fortune Compounder that taps a lifetime's worth of luck in a few minutes? And starts, for example, randomly beating on the keyboard (while hoping to write a book)? Could he then go like "What? While typing randomly I have exactly duplicated the Amol 2 months before release? Lucky!"

... or maybe, while typing randomly, he breaks all his fingers, but in the hospital, gets set up for life with a rich heiress who falls in love with him? Or the keyboard breaks, but the pieces set into motion a chain of dominoes he never sees, but it ends up curing cancer?

How obvious is Luck? How directed is it? How focused on short and long-term effects?

No idea. I wonder if the RPG has guidelines, but I suspect it just has Fortune manipulating dice rolls.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

Interestingly, that implies that if you fill Identity at 100%, any other Keeper could then use the Metalmind with that Identity at full effect, to use all your other Metalminds.

That said, I can see someone with no Identity tricking the system - just like burning your own Metals tricks the soul of Preservation into compounding. It depends on how Inditity works - if checks that you ARE the right person, or that you AREN'T anyone else. The latter is quite trickable.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

I am surprised by this - not because it seems too fast, but because Brandon Sanderson has announced the intention to write several more Alloy of Law books. Since they will probably have time to end their own plot, such a short span is an interesting choice.

I choose to assume it was AROS (recalled as "Andolsium" due to glitches), and Hoid is upgrading to Haiku (hence all his literary references). Normal system wars are boring!

-- Deus Ex Biotica

Exactly.

The game has a minimal level it cares to track, but the "real world" is more variable, and can go down to negligible amounts.

@Chaos: While your points are valid (especially the secondary canon status of the RPG in general), it's not a perfect system even assuming I'm correct in how I view it. Diminishing returns: two "charges" of weight become one of general investiture, which boosts when he taps age. He has to store age to have it to boost with Nicrosil in the first place, and he can't tap while storing. Eventually, I'd guess that gold and pewter wouldn't be enough to keep him alive at such an advanced age, though at what point that would be, I haven't any idea.

But this raises an amusing question on its own. Can he burn things for Allomancy while filling Investure? If he can, then Bob's his uncle, since he can burn Metalminds for all the benefits of tapping, breaking the system even further. If he cannot, then there's nothing to save him, and he still dies the moment he returns to his full age.

I suppose it's possible that he could burn things for Allomancy, but would not get sneaky Feruchemy bonuses during that time, but that's still pretty dire: he can't get Health from gold, so all he'd have to save him is Pewter, pitted against 1,024+ years of age. That seems... a little unlikely, but possible, I suppose.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

Maybe. On the other hand, that earring is only a tiny fraction of the spike, which I imagine would reduce things further.

After all, if that didn't bypass the minimum, then you could use a huge spike to steal a very weak Allomantic power,then divide that spike into dozens of smaller ones. They all have a minimum amount of power they can give, so if you put them all in yourself, power has been gained. And Hemalurgy doesn't do that.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

Sounds like a good recipe for a mad scientist to me. Maybe if you got some Emotional Fortitude to counteract it...

Unless that causes you to get bits of the donor's emotions...

Really, I should stop reading this thread, to preserve the surprise when I do get my copy.

Time will tell if I, myself, have the Mental Fortitude for that, however.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

Good point, actually...

I had considered Nalthis to be related to the User Interface pretty directly due to how Commands work, but I guess every part of a computer works by obeying specific commands, and in Nalthis, power is determined, quite literally, by your ppi and fidelity. Graphics, it is!

Thank Harmony you didn't have those references when you did the cover, Inkthinker - I don't believe my poor mind could handle it being any more awesome.

At the Alloy release, Isaac said that the triangular symbols are a Terris thing. So, if the Allomantic symbols evoke "Imperial" culture, and Feruchemy evokes Terris, I don't think I want to know what Hemalurgic symbols look like.

That's a good point - it wld be the Ministry codifying it, so they would probably really odd to people who are used to seeing with Light, rather than metal lines.

And there's new Feruchemical symbols for the metals. They are triangular, as Isaac has said before. So cool. I wonder what Hemalurgic symbols could possibly even be...

I assume they would involve a grid shape, evoking Bind Points associated with the metal's use.

This came to me as I was contemplating a few oddly-specific details of the various Cosmere worlds.

First, and famously, the number 16 shows up in a lot of places. Speaking of numbers, we know that the Well of Ascension refills not every 1000 years, but every 1024, which is an amusingly specific number to get. And then, there are the focuses of the different Shards: metal, language, commands, and electrical charge trapped in crystalline structures. Suddenly, it hit me.

I saw the true face of the Cosmere:

It is a massive, malfunctioning, computer.

What really likes to work in base sixteen (hexadecimal)? Programmers. Where have I seen the number 1024? Kibibytes. After that, putting the rest together became trivial: Andolsium was a supercomputer, but with a wide variety of different non-compatible security programs installed on it at once. They all recognized the others as attacks, and quarantined each other, resulting in a random but harsh partition of the system. Roshar got one of the solid-state memory devices (electricity stored in silicone - I assume that the files on this driver included a report on crustacean biology, and a description of an epic fantasy world in which the Heralds fought the Voidbringers, which is why confused remmants of those two things for the backdrop of events there), but managed to short out the nearest capacitor, leaving it vulnerable to power surges. Awakening is the old user interface, but without sanitized inputs. Sel seems to have a lot of the CPU, given that it has several languages for accessing its system. And Scadrial is the RAM and a bunch of wiring, given that metal is power, but the even the security programs can alter things once they are in the metal. I cannot wait until we see the Shardworld which got the Graphics power - I'm sure it shall be epic!

But how could a computer get so dramatically confused? It would need to be broken quite strangely. This was my second breakthrough - the computer belongs to Alcatraz! And what, I hear you ask, is the rationale for Hoid? That's someone hired to sort out the glitches, but who is getting increasingly testy and snarky, because it's so hard to fix things Alcatraz has broken.

Personally, I find everything much clearer now.

-- Deus Ex Biotica