Djarskublar

I know a guy.

Some blades are smaller than others in the first place. I never claimed anything about 6 foot Blades specifically. Dead Blades always (?) manifest the maximum size they can, or at least a large portion of it. Living Blades can hold themselves back to make a smaller, more useful object. I think Spool gave a solid explanation of the mechanic. Oh, that's what you meant? I know that. You said faster though, which has nothing to do with what they can/can't do. Spren require certain traits/outlooks, while Honorblades don't. Presumably they don't need to because the Heralds 'should' act Honorably regardless. On the other hand, I see nothing to indicate that an Honorblade allows you to surgebind with greater speed than a sprenblade, which is what your word choice implied to me. No no no. I'm saying that the Honorblades can do more, and they don't need or want to do it efficiently. Early cars weren't efficient because they didn't need to be. If oil hadn't been as plentiful, I'm sure they would have been more conservative with their designs. There was no reason to make the Honorblades more efficient. If anything, having them be less efficient is actually an advantage. If they have to draw in more power, they are more Invested, and harder to affect with other Investitures. Radiants benefit from efficiency because the power they have access to is limited. If you have a limited resource, you conserve it (if you're smart). The Heralds aren't limited, so it wasn't a factor for them. Yup. This exactly.

Actually, the reason they are smaller sometimes is because they aren't manifesting fully in the physical realm. It's not all of their power when they are a fork. Size still matters. The Honorblades are far more powerful than sprenblades, we just haven't seen them in all their glory. Just wait until Taln starts using his. The Honorblades apparently provided the Heralds with a direct Connection to Honor, so they didn't need to breathe Light, they just obtained power and used it. Also, the Heralds had other abilities besides their two surges, but we don't know if they are inherent to them, or if they are provided by the Honorblades either. Honorblades are less efficient, not less powerful. They didn't need efficiency when power was never a problem. One misconception people have is that different powers are more 'powerful' than others, so they must use more Investiture. That's simply not the case. Powerful Aons use significantly less power than a powerful Stamp, even though the Aon is probably flashier. The power level is related to the type of effect and the efficiency in obtaining it, not flashiness. In that regard, sprenblades are more efficient, but less powerful. And what do you mean by no checks in place = faster? I don't see what you are trying to say there.

Ugh... the level of accuracy of people's comments kinda dropped since I last looked here, except for Mr. Connects, fortunately. To the first bit, a lot actually... Think of metalminds. Their size determines how much can be stored in them. As for 1k breaths, it's a lot, but there are many things that are more, I would guess. If we say that a Divine Breath is an average sized splinter, and intelligent spren are average sized splinters, then Shardblades are worth approximately 2k breaths (yes, that is a really... imprecise estimate, but I stand by the idea that Blades are more than 1k Breaths). Also, you say Honorblades, but those aren't spren. You probably meant Shardblades. Maybe I'm just reading the sentence wrong. Regardless, Honorblades are probably more Invested than Shardblades, but not necessarily by a lot. As for the small Blade, that would be the Honorblade Szeth ran around with. As to Nightblood's 'powerlevel,' 1k Breaths is a substantial portion of power, so it would make a difference, even if it is smaller than a spren (by about half, according to my estimate). My point is that Blades are too Invested to affect pretty much period. 1k breaths would be enough to do a lot of stuff, just not this. So you are essentially right, your wording was just a little strange to me. I've seen this suggested before, but I don't think the two points follow each other. I think he might be absorbing more Investiture, but I don't think him overfilling is the reason he is leaking, otherwise Vasher likely would have noted at some point that he didn't do that initially. The reason he leaks is because of the mechanic of him stealing and then 'corrupting' the Investiture he takes. And all a Hemalurgic spike does is attach bits of your soul to a piece of metal... Filling an Invested object is exactly what you are doing with breath. Ehh... While this may be true, I would guess that Nightblood can't move because it's not a flexible material. Steel is too stiff for it to move like a piece of cloth or a straw doll. You do bring up an interesting point, but I'm gonna take it with a large grain of salt. As an aside, I want to correct a fundamental misunderstanding that may be present in some that read this thread. Dead sprenblades aren't any less Invested than live ones, their minds are just broken a bit. Also, it should be possible to remove a spren from Roshar, it just isn't necessarily easy. If you are bonded to it, though, that should make it easier.

I highly doubt Nightblood is an ex-Shardblade. The main reason is this: I don't think you could stuff a thousand breaths into something that can't even properly hold the additional small amount of Investiture that is in a spike. Sorry to burst your bubble. I mean, I guess it might be theoretically possible to get the Investiture to stick to a Shardblade, but... 1k breaths isn't reasonable. And beyond that, Shashara probably wouldn't even know enough about stuffing in extra Investiture to get it to work as a spike, let alone awaken it. My personal bet is that another Shard interfered with the awakening. There were other Shards actively watching the events of WoA, at least in the alternate ending, so I could see them directly intervening in something as interesting as this. Or maybe someone in the CR messed with it from there as it was being awakened. I don't know, but your scenario is the least likely of the possibilities I have seen and considered. Other than that quote, it would have been an excellent idea. Actually, Nightblood is, as @Confused referenced, possibly the most Invested thing other than full Shards in existence. It's got a lot more than just 1k breaths.

I think it depends on the spike used. If it's in the body, it should be encased in blood, so it shouldn't decay until you remove it. If you take the dead body and ram the spike through it into the new person, there shouldn't be any loss in the spike, or very little. It would depend on if the spike loses some charge simply because its bearer died, which I could see being a thing, but I doubt. Who said we asked nicely?

Welcome to the Shard. On that note, Kel is a Cognitive Shadow now, so does he age with his new body? He wouldn't pass Beyond if his body died, so does it matter? My guess is that he doesn't age any more, but if he does, he can 'just' get a new body every few decades.

I have always thought this topic was a little ridiculous. I mean, with all the debate, it should be clear that there are a lot of factors, and there is no clear winner. In the end, it will come down to the skill of the generals and the fortunes of war. Even if one side has a decent advantage, that holds true. My opinion is that it's a pretty fair fight. On the other hand, if we allow for Hemalurgy, just spike all of your Allomancers, then whenever one of your new Hemalurgists dies, just stick the spike in someone else. That is game changing. Surgebinders are irreplaceable. Spikes are very re-placeable.

Maybe you could get a multi-spike by using something like an exploding caltrop... if that makes any sense. Surgically insert an Atium ball into a mistborn's heart, spikes extend from the ball and hit a bunch of bind points, extract the spike from the now dead person, and surgically insert it into the recipient. I'm not sure how you would get the spike to be one piece of metal and still spike properly, but... maybe?

I think you could reinforce the attribute in a spike, but it won't be efficient. So spike 2 coinshots with 2 spikes, have 75% strength in each spike. Spike 2 coinshots with one spike, get 125% in the spike. I bet it's harder to fit more in, and less would get properly ripped off. Besides that, you would have the Identities attached to the powers interfering with one another, so that will probably make it less efficient as well. As for using a single atium spike for multiple powers, I doubt it. The Investitures would interfere with each other too much. You could maybe get 2 or 3, but nothing like a fullborn.

Saying that they would have to type it out made me think of something! If/when they develop normal computers, will an Elantrian be able to describe certain parameters for an Aon, and have that Aon appear on screen, and then activate it? Like, input 'I want an Aon Tia that will send me this far in this direction,' and the computer would draw it. I guess Aons made of pixels should work.

To add some important questions to what @The One Who Connects has here about Aons, here are some of mine. Most of them are about stuff waaay more advanced than anything we have seen in book. Can you make a 'linchpin' Aon that activates multiple different Aons? (Very similar to a stamp that has plates with the real stamp on it, but they are brought together by one smaller stamp.) Can you make an Aon activate other Aons only if certain conditions are met? Assuming this is true, you can make logic gates. Can you make Aons that won't turn off until an Elantrian deactivates them, or at least ones that work for a ridiculously long time? If so, can you make Aons that can be manipulated mechanically, but still remain functional? I.e. can an Elantrian activate an Aon, leave it active, and have a non-Elantrian do something with it? Can a non-Elantrian easily change the conditions relevant to the function of a given Aon? So, given a sufficiently complex Aon, could a non-Elantrian use button/switches that have relevance to an Aon to change the outcome of an Aon? (The goal here is to see if it's possible for non-Elantrians to make use of Aons under certain conditions, like operating AonDor powered machinery.) Does Aon Daa follow some sort of projectile physics, or is it more like a laser? How practical would it be to mount massive Aon Daa 'cannons' on the walls of Elantris? How powerful could you make them before they become impractical? Would their large size make them less precise (assuming you have proper sighting techniques)? Is there a cooldown for activating engraved Aons? I.e. can you make an Aon Daa machine gun? If so, do cooldowns vary by Aon, by size, and/or by distance from Elantris? (An anti-aircraft quad-cannon Daa blaster would be so cool) Can you set an Aon to produce its effect repeatedly at certain intervals until some condition is met? Effectively while() and for() loops for Aons. Can you make Aons that are effectively transistors? Assuming this is true, and assuming you can make logic gate Aons, how difficult would it be to make an AonDor computer with sufficient industrialization? How small and densely packed can you make the transistors and still have them work? How would information transfer speeds of an advanced AonDor computer compare with our modern computers? Basically, would AonDor computers be storming amazing, or complete chull dung? Can you modify Aons to originate from another Aon? If so, and if 'linchpin' Aons are a thing, can you carry around a pack of Aons and use a 'staff of wizardry' where there are activation linchpin Aons all over it, and they are all tied to an Aon on the top of the staff to provide a vector for the spells? Would you actually need to carry around the pack, or could you leave the actual Aons in a vault somewhere, and just take the activator staff with you? How far away can you go before it won't activate properly or weaken the effect? Would this be a potential workaround for off-planet AonDor? How useful would stencils be for AonDor? Could a non-Elantrian make the stencil, and then an Elantrian use it to make effective Aons? if an Elantrian is operating machinery that stamps Aons onto something, would those Aons function once activated? If an Elantrian made the stamp, could a non-Elantrian operate that machinery and still make usable Aons? How far removed from the creation of an Aon can an Elantrian be, going into the future with industrialization? If you can make a computer via Aons, would it be possible to make them usable by non-Elantrians? If you engraved some Aons onto a sword and then Awakened it, what effect would activating those Aons have? Could you use this to make Nightblood-like objects more 'human'? Can you reverse the effect of Aon Tia to make something similar to the Oathgates of Urithiru? That was a lot more questions than I was expecting. Some of them are very similar in scope and form, but they have different connotations, so he may be more inclined to answer some but not others. I want to push the limit on what Elantrians/Aons will be able to do in the future. TL;DR Aons are the most powerful magic. Period.

Umm... necro from almost a year ago? Why? Second, Kal isn't that tough, he is a dime a dozen Knight with more talent for combat than most. There are a ton of ways to beat him. First of which is to run away until he runs out of power. He won't be dangerous until he gets Plate, and even then he still won't be that amazing. Someone holding the Bands would beat him in a moment. And a well prepared Elantrian can't be beaten. They can touch pre-existing Aons to activate them, which means they can use on demand spells of any type with the right preparations. An Elantrian on their home turf with even a couple minutes to prepare is a force not to be ignored by anybody.

Another important Hemalurgy question would be if you can spike more than one power out of someone if you spike all of them simultaneously. It's not like spiking is an insta-kill afaik, it's supposed to be... messy... so I could see it being possible. I will add the caveat that you may not be able to spike out multiple allomantic powers from a Mistborn, but you would be able to spike both abilities out of a twinborn.

After having considered this problem several times, iron twinborn or steel/iron is objectively the best. Steel/steel is tough to beat, but with the right mass manipulations, it can be done. Everything else is small time, even gold/gold. With the sheer unpredictability and versatility of manipulating conservation of momentum mid-flight, mixed with iron or steel allomantic manipulation, you are a serious force to be reckoned with. IMO, Feruchemical iron is the strongest metallic art. Allomantic iron only serves to make it stronger with compounding, and steel is better than iron for general purpose stuff. I would probably prefer iron/iron because you can manipulate your mass to let you fly like a coinshot anyway, just make yourself super light and pull yourself past your airborne horseshoe, then return to normal and pull it back up past you, and step three: profit. Other than that, gold/gold would be my second choice because then I can get up to interesting Hemalurgy shenanigans

Much better wording now. I have thought of that Hemalurgy question before, but I got shouted down a little bit. The heart is supposed to be a universal bindpoint iirc, but we don't know if it just has a ton of bindpoints all over, or if it really is one universal point. If it is one point, then what you propose is more likely to be possible. The spike being able to grant different powers based on where you put it would almost certainly work, assuming you can get 'one' spike with multiple charges. It is really only the 'multiple powers at once' that is up for debate.

I would say something along the lines of "is the Herald's insanity caused at least in part by them abandoning the Oathpact, or were they effects of some separate cause." You could potentially ask a similar follow up about Honor's demise. And to actually contribute a question: what happens to any resonance you have when you tap the Bands? At that point, you have whole lot of powers, so would it muddle your resonance? I can see three potential answers. 1. Your resonance is unaffected. 2. You lose access to the resonance while tapping. 3. Tapping for a long period of time will eventually muddy the resonance, and how fast it would return when you stop tapping would depend.

I would bet there is. I think of the Shattering as a plate falling and breaking. When a plate breaks, even if there are 16 near perfect pieces, there will at least be some rock dust or something. As for the Heralds' insanity, your wording is not a good idea. I feel like they were already mostly insane from the torture, and they just finished breaking over the next 4500 years. They abandoned the Oathpact because of their insanity, so yes, the Oathpact is related to their insanity.

I feel like Chaos would be a more direct opposite to Preservation, rather than Cultivation. I think Ruin and Cultivation are more opposite, though it has been described as a triangle of opposites. I'm not terribly attached to the idea that the Shards need to fit into quadrants like that. I think Preservation set up the magic that way so that the people would have an easier time figuring out the 16 connection. Just because there are also 16 Shards doesn't mean they have to fit into categories in the same way at all. It just restricts the potential variety of Shards. As for indifference, I can see why you would think of that, but my views of God make that seem ludicrous. Not to bash your views, of course. I can see where you are coming from, it's just not something I can agree with. Beyond that, I'm certain that Brandon's views on the subject are much closer to mine than yours. I could see him setting it up more like your views anyway, but I think it is less likely.

No WoB that I'm aware of, it's just completely obvious. She and her friend tried to kill her only daughter because of her abilities. The other secret societies wouldn't try to kill her out of hand like that. The Ghostbloods would try to use her, as we see them try in WoR. The Sons of Honor would be overjoyed that there is a Radiant running around, presumably meaning a desolation is coming and the Heralds are returning. The Diagramists would at the very least observe her for a while first, and try to find out more about her power, then decide to try to manipulate her like the Ghostbloods would, or kill her to maintain their plans. Regardless, it wouldn't have happened the way it did if she were with the Diagram. That only leaves the Skybreakers unaccounted for, and it fits their MO perfectly. They kill Radiants simply because they are Radiants as well as what that could potentially mean. His mother was talking to the other man about how she is has the powers, and so they decide to kill her. I see no reason to doubt that she was a Skybreaker minion. Based on how stickler they are about keeping to a code, killing Shallan could have dramatically improved her standing in the ranks, since she decided to stick to the code of killing Radiants even when her own daughter is one. So beyond whatever zealotry she may have had for the order, there is also the potential for selfish motives as well. All that means that Helaran could have very realistic motives for killing the Skybreakers, or at least bringing them to justice for their murders (wouldn't that be ironic ). All in all, I think it is a distinct possibility that he would want to kill them, rather than join them. He also probably had some contacts with the Ghostbloods because of his father, even if his father didn't like it. I wouldn't be surprised if he had sought out the Ghostbloods for resources in his quest for vengeance. I still admit that it is only a possibility, and not even necessarily the most likely one. It is just something that needs to be at least mentioned when this topic is brought up.

Nah, that doesn't sound like something on that scale. It's more like Ruin destroys, Chaos lets random stuff happen and doesn't involve itself except to sow, well, chaos (a decent candidate for the survival shard, I think), Cultivation makes things grow, and Preservation is stasis. That's the sliding scale I'm seeing. We have a Shard for destruction and cultivation-- willed and directed change of certain types. We also have a Shard that specifically tries to avoid change. So I could totally see a Shard that complements Preservation more directly as constant, random change. I could also see an argument that Chaos drifts too close to Ruin, but I dunno either way of course.

I feel like their may be another Shard on the Ruin, Preservation, Cultivation scale. Chaos would make for an interesting Shard. It could supplant some of the less interesting possibilities like Indifference, which I was totally indifferent to. It would be the Shard of letting things take their course randomly.

Well my personal theory is that Helaran actually wanted to kill the Skybreakers, since his mother was their adherent and basically destroyed their family. When Mraize says he was seeking them out, he doesn't say it was to join them. Maybe he was seeking them out the same way Nale was seeking out surgebinders. On the other hand, if he was looking to join them, there is one thing I don't see mentioned very often. Skybreaking doesn't occur in a vacuum. I think it is highly unlikely that the group 'The Skybreakers' is solely comprised of Nale and (proto-)Radiants. They have to have some support structure and/or source of funds. While they can get support from various levels of government, I wouldn't want to rely on that if I were them, especially since this is clearly a group that has been around a while. Besides that, his mother was apparently part of their group and wasn't a Radiant as far as we know. All that means that he may have been a member of the organization, just not a Radiant. If he wasn't trying to kill them, this is my bet. Also, that moment when you realize Shallan killed both of her parents, is now at least somewhat attracted to the man who probably killed her brother, and has abandoned her brothers to their fate. Real nice girl. (I do agree with those particular choices, but it's amusing anyway.)

Realize that before you two, the last post was in February of last year. On that note, both of you suggested things that we have been over before. Hot wiring may be easier for him, but we don't know his motive for collecting powers. My personal opinion is that he wants to be a one man army, and being a mistborn lightweaving awakener, along with other abilities we don't know about, puts him well on his way to achieving that.

Also as a mormon, I don't think you should read much into it. He is taking ideas from all kinds of sources from Carl Jung to Korean art. He deliberately structures the writing to avoid looking to support one religion or another for a variety of reasons. It expands his potential audience somewhat, it allows the reader to think what they will of the God Beyond, and it gives him more variety to work with, just to name a few.