rabidhexley

This is the oddest discussion to me lol. Inter-humanoid species dating is like totally standard stuff for speculative fiction. What if Rlain was an Elf instead? Would that be okay? Elves aren't human either. Is romancing Asari crew members in Mass Effect gross? Singers are just another take on the huge library of humanoid fantasy/sci-fi races. Is it just weird because they have shells?

Is there a reason you have this preference? I'd like it if he was something new. The hard limits on surge access are potentially gone now, and he could have additional abilities on top of Windrunning due to the evolution of Syl (godspren evolved from an honorspren). I would also like Kaladin to still have Windrunning just because the wind and skies seemed to be very important to him and Syl and they have strong ties to them, so it'd feel kinda of weird for him to lose gravitation, but him just being a Windrunner after the hints about Syl would be disappointing. Edit: His honorspear is also a brand-new thing. So it'd be a little lame if it was just a spear version of Jezrien's sword. Though perhaps he's a bondsmith that also has windrunning from the honorspear.

This is an important point, given that he's a spren. The name "Blackthorn" has a very specific connotation on Roshar.

The problem with this is that the Radiants evidently never took over the world in the past. They were leaders and ran things during the desolations. But even up to the Recreance when the Radiants had internal strife, the fact of the Oaths seemed to create a degree of self-selection against the types of folks who would create a superpowered ruling class. You have to "join the club" to get your powers. And anyone can potentially join the club because spren can bond by choice, so there's downward pressure on Radiant powers becoming exclusive (in the sense of societal/hierarchical stratification). And it's not even that all Radiants were good guys, it's just that for them to create organized oppression, the spren and other Radiants would have to be okay with it. A Radiant ruling-class is tough because the spren may very well just start bonding the underclass instead and you end up with a stalemate of power or some kind of civil war/rebellion. So there's a lot of natural pressure to prevent Radiant powers from becoming a dominating force in politics due to the requirements of the Oaths and how the distribution of powers can't be controlled, you can't prevent the underclass or your political opponents from getting Radiant powers, so you might as well ignore them for the purpose of political organization outside of the Radiant Orders themselves. Doing otherwise is just asking for instability. And the rise fabrials and other technology, as well as things like the Unoathed harkens on the democratization of Might. What you're talking about more accurately happened on Scadrial with allomancy being concentrated in the ruling class until the elimination of full mistborn and ferruchemists as well as modern weaponry and a broader distribution of allomantic abilities pushing this down, and now there's the technological democratization of metalborn abilities on the way. On Roshar it did happen with Shardbearers being completely contained in the ruling class. Shareblades and plate are essentially magic powers selected by might is right, and gave so much of a power advantage only those who ruled tended to have them. And it was fine if a member of the underclass occasionally got shards because it was rare and could be contained. That isn't the case for Radiant bonds.

I feel like funnily the goal is create any other combination that would also result in "Harmony". Harmony could also be described as Equilibrium, which is why it's so hard to act, why do anything when things are perfectly balanced? I'm also surprised people are putting Odium with Devotion. I feel like Odium + Devotion would synergistically manifest as "Obsession". Odium + Mercy or even Odium + Whimsy feel like stronger candidates to control Odium to me. Mercy because it sounds like it aligns with the drive let things go, the drive to have mercy dampening the drive to act on passion and hate. Whimsy because it feels like a general lack of overwhelming emotional drive, something whimsical wouldn't be passionate or thoughtful enough to hate. I'm unsure about Odium + Reason, because you can often find very good reasons to hate something if you really try. Which could manifest as something akin to Malice, calculated cruelty. Ironically, this combination would likely be one of the worst-case scenarios to give Taravangian as he would likely be very good at justifying his motivations to Reason's intent.

I think a point that was kind of glossed over is that Retribution went into hiding shortly after the challenge. It was pointed out that he could do very little in terms of direct meddling on Roshar because he doesn't want to draw the attention of the other Shards. I think this is a very important point, because in any other circumstance Odium would have been able to hang around perpetuating strife on Roshar, and furthering his plans and gathering his forces for the war on the Cosmere. If Retribution wasn't freed but still locked onto Roshar as Odium, he could still act freely on Roshar because he wouldn't be a present threat to the rest of the Cosmere. By making him into Retribution, Dalinar didn't just buy time and get the rest of the Shards to finally have motivation to address the threat, but delayed Odium's abilities to directly act on his short-term plans for Roshar. If Dalinar didn't ascend, it's as everyone said, Odium would have managed to generate strife and eventually build up his forces anyways. If Dalinar held onto the Shard, it would have been the same since they would be left in the same stalemate scenario Tanavast was in. The best-case scenarios would be Dalinar destroying Odium, screw the consequences. Or settling in for a crappy 1000 years while Odium orchestrates a remote/proxy war. The whole problem with Odium as far as the rest of the Shards go is that he's only a potential threat. Even in executing a remote war he's not really a direct threat on the other shards. Even if just Odium himself was freed the other Shards likely would have hesitated to address him until it was too late. Even Dalinar threatening to release Odium or give Honor to him wouldn't do the trick since Taravangian is patient and could just counter-negotiate and convince them to kick the can further down the road ("I'll just stay here for another 1000 years, tee hee, don't worry about it.") By creating Retribution, Dalinar put Taravangian into the situation of being a clear and present danger that can absolutely not be ignored or pushed onto someone else. And the time bubble gives the rest of the Cosmere a massive edge in being able to prepare for anything Taravangian might be able to cook-up on Roshar. Now despite things being bad in the near-term, Retribution isn't able to directly begin his plans because he isn't ready to take on the rest of the Cosmere, and something might actually be done about him on a timescale that doesn't span millennia.

The thing about Shardplate is that it seems to function less like conventional armor and more like a nigh-impenetrable energy shield with HP. It's pretty difficult to straight-up shatter a well-craft piece of armor with hammers, it bends and warps, whereas Shardplate seems to be pretty vulnerable to repeated heavy blows even from non-superpowered hits, literally disintegrating after enough hits. The advantage is that the protection of Shardplate is nearly absolute until in breaks, whereas many attacks will have literally no effect on plate armor, but could still be dangerous to the wearer. So it's more accurate to think of it like an energy shield (that also provides physical enhancements) than regular armor. You're almost completely safe until it breaks, but when it breaks it breaks, and it can be worn down by repeated hits. It's pretty unclear how long it would hold up against bullets, but I do think heavy fire would indeed be a threat, and high caliber fire could likely shatter a piece in close to one hit, though would likely protect against that hit. 1v1 I think Mistborn armed with aluminum weaponry aren't completely outclassed. Just from the power of bendalloy, pewter, and that they can use duralumin for mental attacks and potential one-hit kills. Duralumin Steel push spray to break armor. Vin literally made a dude's head explode with a duralumin-boosted pewter hit. Healing-factor that. They would need to be good though, and most Mistborn aren't necessarily on that level. If we're only talking about the abilities of Rosharans today. The more time goes on, the more of a potential edge Scadrians will begin to develop against them. But Rosharans very clearly have the strongest standard invested prior to becoming Cosmere-aware. (with the exception of Elantrians, who seem to have the closest thing to freeform spellcasting in the Cosmere, but are balanced by their geographic limits and requiring Dor) There are a few key advantages Rosharan invested have: universal healing-factor, plate (for some), true flight (for some), Soulcasting, and Elsecalling. The last two in particular being pretty hard counters. Not getting into Bondsmithing. They have other strong abilities, but those are the key ones that give them a particular edge in my eyes. Long-term I forsee Scadrians eventually being able to develop Shock troops with numerous metallic abilities on-demand. It's just a matter of time. Superspeed and Gold compounding, leaching, bendalloy bubbles (freeze time and line up attacks), duralumin pushes and mind-blasts. Once you get to the point where you can almost freely allocate metallic abilities, Scadrians get pretty dangerous. Imagine a squad of elite troops that can each temporarily grant themselves Fullborn abilities. (I'm calling this as a thing in at least sci-fi Mistborn, if not sooner). Rosharan invested (except for maybe Heralds from what we've seen) don't currently have direct counters for superspeed (Lift was underestimated) or time-based hacks, and can't freely allocate surges. The problem for Scadrians is that one can't assume Roshar will stand still either.

I think the main point about the portrayal of Dalinar as the Blackthorn specifically is simply that he "Gets" war and combat, like on an intrinsic, almost supernatural level. Have him be born into any time period and teach him about the way war is waged and he will excel as long as he lives long enough to learn. The way he waged war may not apply in the modern age, but I think the message insofar as what Rayse and Taravangian both identified is that his inherent talent can be adapted to any dynamic involving battle. He's not a politician or grand strategist, but he's the guy you send in when you simply want to win, which is how Gavilar used him during his rise. Whether or not what was shown on screen makes you believe that? That's a different matter. But I do think that is what the story has been trying to say.

Indeed. So far as we know Dor is the only abundant source of completely unkeyed kinetic Investiture currently shown onscreen, due to being the raw, free-floating Investiture of a dead shard in the Cognitive realm. Though it seems likely Sunhearts also store unkeyed investiture due to being the result of a reaction rather then from a keyed source of investiture like Stormlight. And it's definitely kinetic due to how it seems to have similar base-effects to Stormlight. Though I'm sure in that time period there are multiple known means of generating/gathering unkeyed kinetic investiture. Due to the efforts of the Ghostbloods it seems somewhat evident that in that time period Scadrial is fairly strapped for kinetic investiture. There have been hints that removing the Connection from Rosharan Light is possible, likely meaning it can be made to function as unkeyed, kinetic investiture. But the main point is that Stormlight is kinetic investiture in a physical state. I think you're correct in that there isn't any good way of using the metallic arts to retrieve raw, kinetic investiture from the spiritual realm. The problem with Ferruchemy/Allomancy is that they don't create kinetic investiture except transiently, it's either immediately consumed or immediately converted into a non-kinetic state. A metalmind is a static, keyed invested object a metalborn specifically can use to directly fuel their arts. A mistborn/steel misting can burn a steelmind and boost it with Preservations investiture for extra speed, but that's an Allomancy/Ferruchemy-specific hack, they're not retrieving raw investiture from the metalmind, they're retrieving speed-boosting power directly into their body and enhancing it with Preservation. And an allomancer can burn metal to pull keyed Preservation investiture directly into their body, but it's immediately being consumed to fuel their arts, it never exists in the physical realm in a kinetic state. Stormlight is special because while it's keyed, it (was) also renewable, kinetic, exists physically, and can be stored in it's kinetic state. This is what separates it from metalminds or even something like breaths, which while at least transferable, invest objects and souls directly. An infused gemstone isn't an invested object, it's a container. And that's why folks holding kinetic investiture can literally feel it in their body, unlike the metallic arts or breath which only create specific powers or enhance the soul. Though the other problem Stormlight has relative to Dor is that it can't inherently be pulled into the body without an invested ability (Radiant/Fused powers), but that also may be a surmountable problem, and at least becoming Radiant is theoretically possible for anyone.

This is similar my personal thought. The shattering of that oath had widespread cataclysmic effects on the underlying investiture of Roshar, and literally caused the shard to spit out its vessel. My working personal hypothesis on the underlying theory is that Honor basically served as the anchor Connection for spren on Roshar. When spren bond with a Radiant they're primary Connection becomes with the Radiant through the bond. Unbonded spren still have an inherent Connection to Honor, so they're safe, but either because of the betrayal or lack of a vessel, there is nothing actively maintaining that Connection. The breaking of oaths seems like it's traumatic in any case, but when Honor was still in place the spren could naturally recover from the process. With the betrayal of Mishram and death of Tanavast, the underlying connection to oaths and Honor became damaged, preventing the spren from being able to recover from the process on their own. This is also the clue as to how Maya was able to begin healing by forming a Connection to Adolin. The problem with deadeyes is that they lack Connection due to the death of Honor, they are Connection-less balls of Investiture, deathless but unable to heal. By reforging Connection they are able to begin healing. Now that the betrayal of Mishram has been righted (and because in a way Honor is "whole" again), the deadeyes are now able to recover from broken oaths again. I feel like there is a some sort of parallel between what happened to the deadeyes and what happened to the Elantrians during the incomplete Shaod. Elantrians seem to be born by people forming a Connection to the land, but were similarly messed up by that Connection becoming harmed. They didn't lose their minds (immediately), but Elantrians aren't entirely composed of Investiture and have physical brains. But the whole "turn into a zombie version of yourself" seems somewhat similar.

It doesn't seem so much that Representative Government specifically is inevitable, but some sort of self-repairing distribution of power, whether that be a democracy, republic, oligarchy, meritocratic bureaucracy (like Azir), etc. will eventually come into place. Systems where power can naturally transition between hands rather than being reliant on the grasp of specific individuals/families. Absolute monarchy or a static noble ruling-class requires there to be harsh limits on social mobility. But as the underclass begins to gain some means of social mobility and autonomy from the ruling-class, the system will naturally want to change into a form that allows for it. That isn't necessarily a democracy or representative government, though. It isn't so much that these systems are absolutely more stable or resilient to collapse, so much as they're a natural result of certain underlying conditions. In the case of Jasnah, she wants to begin moving in that direction because she knows that in giving the underclass (darkeyes and slaves) agency, the current system will begin crack under the pressure and likely eventually fall to a rebellion that institutes a distributed system of power anyways. And Jasnah has the benefit of living in a world/universe that already has representations of non-nobility based systems, and lives in a time where outside events are causing sweeping changes in the status-quo to be the norm.

I loved the book on the whole, but I agree about the ending. My main criticism of the book is that the epilogue felt incomplete, given how things ended I almost feel like the Epilogue should have been a novella unto itself, letting us see how things end up for every character in the immediate aftermath and months following the challenge. Like OP said, despite this being the end of an arc the ending felt like more of a cliffhanger than any of the first 4 books, which despite not ending the story, all had a very strong, conclusive feel to them. The ending itself didn't feel rushed or anything, but given how much was upended the curtains closed way to quickly. Even though this is technically the halfway point of the story, we should have been left with a much stronger feeling of knowing where everything landed, even if we don't know where they are going. I think the point that Retribution is in hiding should have been better emphasized, and we should know how strong his direct influence on Roshar now. We should have ended with a better idea of the state of the various nations and their relationship to one another. We didn't even get a teaser for post-Winds Lift. It's not so much the hanging plot threads, those are fine, but the fact that we now know the least about the present state of the world at large since the first book. The entire status quo has been upended, and I feel like we should have been able to end this book with a very strong feeling of how things are ending up prior to the time jump. The fact that we know a time jump is coming is mystery enough alone to create intrigue for the next arc without obscuring so much about the actual conclusion of book 5.

Pretty much. I actually think the deconstruction of Jasnah's moral character was a good move, but it should have served as the means to break her down before playing on Fen's fears. It shouldn't have swung the debate because it was a losing argument, Jasnah is obviously more trustworthy than Taravangian, contract or not. There are few people that can less trustworthy than Taravangian, and it seems plainly obvious that a being of his capability could find a means of making Fen regret whatever terms they came to. What breaking down Jasnah's moral framework does do is draw into question her unassailable competence, as so much of her image is based on the impression of having a supernatural level of raw capability and eternal rightness. This opens Fen up to doubting that her allies are really on the right track, if they can really stand up against something like Odium, that their path is really the right one given their situation. Allowing Fen to then fall to arguments playing on her fears, as Jasnah can no longer portray the image of an immovable bulwark. "What is the right move Jasnah, do you even know?" feels like a stronger chink in the armor than "Yes, Jasnah totally would betray her allies in this situation even though that's inconsistent with what she's done thus far." I think the main problem structurally is that Sanderson really wanted to end the chapter on Jasnah's darkest hour, as that was the most important moment for her character. But in doing so really made Fen look like a chump and a traitor.

Stormlight naturally evaporates directly from the physical/cognitive back into Honor's investiture in the spiritual realm. Honor/Retribution probably couldn't tell you where in the world an aluminum-enclosed infused gem is located, but they can still retrieve the investiture and would be aware of its existence. Aluminum blocks spatial relationships between things and physical interactions of investiture, in the physical and cognitive realm (which both have spatial and physical aspects). The spiritual realm is non-local, aluminum doesn't stop connections directly to it. The inside of an aluminum box is still everywhere in the spiritual realm. But similarly, because the spiritual realm is non-local, it can't be used to physically locate things. The WoB about stormlight evaporating from gemstones or people holding is that it isn't just floating off into the air, once it no longer has a container it is being pulled directly back into the spiritual realm. So aluminum has no effect on this process. A radiant couldn't pull on stormlight from a gemstone in an aluminum box from outside, but stormlight leaked into an aluminum box will still return to the spiritual realm (into the investiture of Honor). An aluminum box can hide something's physical location from a Shard or invested detection, because their spatial relationship to it is being blocked in the physical and cognitive (they can't "see" it in the physical sense), or stop the movement of investiture from one location to another (protecting against shard cuts). But it doesn't block their spiritual connections. That's why powers and magic still work inside of an aluminum-lined room as long as they aren't reliant on physical proximity to an object or entity in the physical or cognitive realm. As such, a Shard can directly pull it back ignoring aluminum because their Investiture exists across all three realms, and stormlight is able to directly move between realms as that is what it naturally does. Retribution sucked it straight back to its home in the spiritual. On that same note a flawless gemstone wouldn't stop Retribution from retrieving it in the same way that Radiants and faprials can still move stormlight from a flawless gemstone. Flawless gemstones aren't locked, they just have a perfect seal preventing investiture from leaking out. They can contain investiture (stormlight, spren/fused/heralds, and perhaps other beings composed of investiture), but they don't utterly prevent access.

Just got to this discussion since the debate bothered me. My personal problem wasn't with Jasnah, who was defeated in the exact way that made sense for her character. My personal problem was with how the discussion framed Fen. The debate framed Fen's point-of-view as a moral one, she trusted in her allies. Jasnah was already established as incredible pragmatic, Fen had already decided to side with Dalinar- the Blackthorn -and trusted that people could change. In the course of the entire conflict, Jasnah and Dalinar had indeed proved to be trustworthy allies. They opened with the pragmatic arguments, and Fen shot them down. I do think that flipping Fen could have made sense. But given her character in made more sense to play on her fears for her people, building them up to a breaking point where she saw no other way out, backing her into a corner. But those arguments were downplayed in favor of the points about utilitarianism. I know the sequence was more about Jasnah, but the way Fen was swayed just made her seem dumb and inconsistent. So it felt very incongruous for the debate to seemingly pivot on questions of Jasnah's moral character. From Fen's POV, Jasnah has questionable moral character....and? Fen has already decided to side with the Blackthorn, and they have done nothing to earn her distrust. Regardless of Jasnah's mixed words, the things she has actually done, pushing for equality, freeing slaves, using the Oathgates to assist their allies economically, putting herself in personal danger in defense of Theylenah, she was established as trustworthy. Except Jasnah literally wouldn't, because she has already had the opportunity to do so multiple times. And Fen should be aware of this. Alethkar has literally the most skin in the game of the entire coalition, and the most to gain in siding with Odium. (this was the one point in the debate where I had a problem with Jasnah's character, she should have known this point, she and Alethkar have sacrificed a great deal in the name of opposing Odium.) Even the question about Dalinar's contract with Odium doesn't hold water. I mean obviously he singled out Alethkar, it was literally in enemy hands and he was trying to free his people. If they were truly self-serving, Jasnah and Dalinar had literally every opportunity to sell their allies out to Odium. If they were self-serving why would they choose to continue opposing Odium at every turn, they could have just negotiated for their own safety and called it a day. Arguably Alethkar above all others got the first seat at the table in terms of having a chance to sell out the other kingdoms for their own safety, while continuously sacrificing the safety of their own people in the name of continuing to oppose him. With their own ruling family constantly putting themselves on the front-lines in battles in defense of ally territory at the expense of defending their own. The only reason Fen is getting an opportunity to negotiate to betray her allies at all is because Jasnah specifically rules one of the only kingdoms Odium absolutely knows won't turn against their allies. While Taravangian is conniving, a traitor, and could easily be described as unapologetically evil, he killed thousands, betrayed them, and argues from the perspective of being in the right for doing so. And... Odium is the literal God of hate. And has established that he plans on bringing war to the entire universe. Regardless of whatever contract they hash out, Fen is putting herself and future of her people into the hands of the established antithesis to morality. It makes no sense for any question of Jasnah's moral character to win out against the simple facts on display. So in the making of that argument, it feels pretty weird for Fen to then literally commit the ultimate betrayal to her allies who bled and fought by her side. If she fell to fear it would have made more sense to me, not to the idea that her allies aren't trustworthy.

This is one of those complaints I hear from others that I don't personally have a problem with either. The idea that there should have been more personal consequences to Adolin killing Sadeas. I think Adolin being punished by the narrative would have gone against the point of that moment. Was murdering him in a hallway the "right" thing to do? /shrug. But Sadeas being resolved by someone finally deciding to just stop continuously eating his crap is fitting in my opinion.

The hypothetical is actually about a Skimmer (Iron Ferring only), and how they could possibly use weight manipulation in order to super jump. No steel push to save them on the way down unfortunately.

In this case I'm just imagining it as the metalmind absorbing the mass and taking whatever mass-relevant properties it was experiencing (position, gravity, acceleration, velocity, momentum, etc.) along with it. The properties aren't being stored like the weight, but are being absorbed into the spiritual realm since they were acting upon the weight. They don't get applied to whatever mass/weight is being left behind. But when you tap the metalmind, you're adding mass to the physical world and so existing real-world physical properties such as momentum need to be spread out to accommodate it. Like if you grabbed a 5 lb drone hovering in the air mid-flight, you need to now accelerate the extra mass. But if you launched with that same drone in your hands from the beginning, dropping it won't speed you up. Basically freuchemy is treating the weight like an actual physical thing being added or removed.

Maybe risky because you're still experiencing gravitational acceleration regardless of mass. You're cutting instantaneous velocity, but not acceleration due to gravity. And even though your body is magically enhanced, if you don't manage to correctly time cutting your speed to almost nothing close enough to the ground to avoid coming in hot you're dealing with a lot of momentum your body needs to arrest. I guess you could just ramp up tapping the metalmind as you approach the ground though. Momentum in downward free fall is something that I don't think was considered in any case lol

Indeed. There may be confounding factors and raw limits at the high end, but he's literally crushed a building, which would generally count out force as a general limitation. In terms of flying like a rocket/bullet, it does seem that if he was flying through the air at multiplied (or even just normal) weight, and suddenly dropped, conservation of momentum should send him flying. But we've never had confirmation of this, and I think Wax would use this if he could. He could get to the top of skyscrapers by just using a normal Steel push and dropping his weight mid-flight to speed up. I think that tapping weight effects speed since the existing momentum has to be applied to the additional weight, but maybe when storing weight the excess momentum is sheered off along with the mass. Sort of like holding onto a rock when it's launched from a catapult, you drop the rock and you don't speed up because that extra momentum leaves with the rock. The whatever extra momentum was held by that extra weight leaves along with it. I think this is the case because you wouldn't even need to be a Crasher for some stupid conservation of momentum weight-storing feats. A basic Iron Ferring could literally just jump at normal weight, immediately drop their weight to a feather, and launch into the air. Landing would be problematic, but too late to worry about that now.

Seems to explain most principles and feats (crushing buildings, stopping trains, spoiled tomato, etc.) fairly cleanly. And it works in a magical sense in my eyes. Steel & Iron are just trying to accelerate your body to and from objects, and don't care how much you weigh. Fortunately/unfortunately, the rest of the world- and the objects you're pulling/pushing on -care very much about your weight, and you end up with the whacky stuff Coinshots, Crashers, and Duralumin pushes are capable of.

This seems fairly accurate. In my mind it's always kind of been like F = MA (on the allomancer) given an allomantic push in a frictionless vacuum against an infinitely heavy anchor. Where M = Mass of the Allomancer, A = How fast the allomancer accelerates away and is dependent on how hard the allomancer is pushing (stronger allomancer's can accelerate more), and the final force F (the actual output force of a given Push) is just dependent on the previous variables. So in this formula Acceleration basically serves as a drop-in variable for "Allomantic Strength", assuming they're pushing as hard as they can. The acceleration achieved (by the allomancer) by the allomantic push doesn't care about the mass of the allomancer, and the Force of the push is entirely dependent on the Mass and Acceleration. Take two Mistborn of exactly equal strength, but one weighs twice as much as the other, they can both accelerate a roughly equal amount if they push equally hard. So, due to their greater mass, the heavier allomancer is capable of higher force pushes. If the lighter allomancer was stronger than the heavier one (such as Vin v Kelsier), they're able to apply a higher degree of allomantic acceleration, and thus force. It's just important to note that Pushing isn't apply force, it's applying acceleration. I think for this reason you could more accurately characterize Steel/Iron Allomancy as magically applying Acceleration to your body, not force. If it was force Wax would be able to drop his weight to near zero, push, and fly like a literal bullet (and at the same time wouldn't be able to pull off feats like stopping a train). But his weight doesn't effect his ability to accelerate his own body (that's always the same), just other objects. Duralumin pushes allow instantaneous pushes with incredible acceleration, but the math is still the same. In terms of anchor mass, I think it only matters in terms of the quality and effective range. The limit is 100% bodily-acceleration (however much that is depending on the "strength" of the Push) regardless of the mass of the anchor, as the anchor moves away from the allomancer you start dropping below 100% until they can't apply any acceleration to the object. At close range even low mass objects like coins work for near 100% acceleration, but fall off more quickly. The maximum height you can hover over a given anchor is the distance at which you can apply 9.8 m/s^2 of bodily-acceleration (in Earth gravity). Bigger anchor, greater distance, but never more than 100% acceleration. For Iron apply all of this just in reverse, bodily-acceleration towards the anchor, all rules apply the same. Heavier allomancers can pull with greater force due to applying more mass to the acceleration.

I mean physical contact with the contiguous metal object in question. Your Spirit is mapped to the current "ideal shape" of your body. So I'm not sure if trickery involving temporary physical changes would work, even if you're physically bonded to an object your skin is still your skin as identified by your spirit. Stormlight for instance needs to be inside your actual body to work, which is why the ground trick works, because even though your body is physically extended your spirit still needs the source to be present where it's actually mapped in the Physical realm. The stormlight is flowing to "fill your (phsyical) body", but your spirit no longer has access to it for the purpose of performing magic. Even though the planet is physically part of your body. Your spirit still only considers your actual body to be your body when it comes to magical effects like access to discrete investiture like a metalmind or allomantic metal to burn.

That is up for question as well, though. You may just be bound to the ground, like the ground immediately around you, not necessarily the planet as a whole. This would still allow the Stormlight trick to work, the surrounding ground is a much bigger container than your body, but it definitely ain't the planet. Even just on a Physical level forging a physical Connection to the entire planet even temporarily would probably be a pretty massive working. Possible, but far from easy. I'm also unsure about the notion on the level of your Spiritweb and how metalminds work. A hemalurgic spike works by piercing your soul via it's mapping on your body. And metalminds work by being in contact with or within the "bounds" of your bodily spirit. I think just being physically connected to the ground wouldn't make any metal contained in the ground valid. The ground is valid as part of your physical body in terms of physical mass and position, but it's not an actual extension of your spirt allowing you to connect to metals. Your Spirit doesn't change shape very easily, and having your body temporarily extended in the Physical realm wouldn't be enough to change this. Edit: Same reason the Surgebinder can't use the Stormlight flowing into the ground, essentially. Same would apply for Allomancy. It needs to be "within" your Spiritweb, so to speak, so just your 'actual' body. Otherwise you could burn Duralumin and consume all of the metal in a planet if it was pure enough. The Iron Pull to literally end all Iron Pulls.

Gotta remember the change is only temporary though. You'd need a contiguous metalmind big enough to contain a continuous flow long enough to have orbital effects due to the significance of the mass change. Do we know about how Steel metalminds effect momentum? Cause they could have the same problem. Even if you could fill at an incredibly fast rate you'd just be going from metalmind to metalmind, filling them instantly and having no lasting effects on the planet. That is unless you could get a solid pole fused with the mantle or something lol to give you a sufficiently large metalmind.