DrakeMarshall

In regard to tapping zinc not substituting knowledge... You can totally derive equations mid-test. Memorization is a rather poor substitute for understanding the underlying concepts. But anyway, I would actually contend that in many serious subjects, if you would have access to a computer in real life, you will have access to it in a test. The trick is that you don't really want unrestricted internet access, hence why TI is in business manufacturing computers that don't have networking capabilities...

Neat! I can practice my horneater watching one of those! I'll swap them for a solid aluminum spearhead I found on this statue...

Have you by any chance read the second trilogy?

Tests and athletics, that is. I think a pewterarm, coinshot, or steelrunner could really cause problems with the sports we have. Unless you were to design a sport that deliberately involved certain types of magic users But the philosophical question is... Is it really an unfair advantage for someone with feruchemical zinc to use it during a test? I mean, it isn't like they are using a loophole. They will literally have access to the same abilities in real life. So allowing them to use it gives you an accurate reflection of their abilities, which, after all, is the point of a test, no? Is it technically fair? Well no. People are all born with different talents. But it isn't cheating in the traditional sense of the word...

Here's a question for an old thread... How would a modern academic system react to people with copper feruchemy?

So... You are claiming that Vivenna bonded to the nightwatcher? Also wouldn't this make here a radiant? Anyway, you've outcrazied them all I think. Well done.

Hm... How would she manage to grant people boons though?

Well... The only thing we are pretty sure about is that nothing in the three realms can interact with the great beyond. Now... If it is symmetric... Then nobody in the afterlife can interact with the three realms either. Mind you... In a different threat about the beyond, I noted that various realms are not necessarily symmetric in how one can interact from them. So I wouldn't say that this answers the question. So... I don't think we can know. Unless SH gets a sequel where Kelsier goes there and tries it.

In all fairness... One can't always claim that hemalurgy lacks subtlety. But this doesn't really change the fact that it is a far more invasive method of spiritual alteration and is vastly more likely to be vulnerable. Essence stamps only work if they are pretty believable alternate histories, so they aren't twisting your soul out of shape or putting holes in it too much. I imagine that alternate magic systems could theoretically create an individual similarly vulnerable to mind control, but soul forging is unlikely to produce such an effect...

A few random questions that we probably don't have any answers to, but still fun to ask. We have good reason to believe that a copper cloud would effect other forms of magic from scadrial ones... So what would duraluminum burning do to these? For that matter, what would duraluminum burning do to something like feruchemy, which has no constraint for rate of use anyway? Something along similar lines... Could you use emotional allomancy to mind control somebody who was currently essence stamped? Could you store something like stormlight or biochromatic breath in a nicrosilmind? For the breath that's pretty useless since you can store it in practically anything, but for the stormlight, maybe that would let you store it in a way that keeps it from slowly fading over time. Or would the nicrosilmind perhaps be able to alter the strength of a nahel bond instead...? That seems to paralell what nicrosil did for allomancy in BoM except the connection was to preservation and not a splinter of honor. What happens if there's a highstorm in sub-zero temperature? Does it create a huge snow/hail storm? Does rosharian climate ever even reach sub-zero?

Well, on Roshar it sort of is because there are spren But I believe that you would be most able to see the other two realms from within the cognitive realm. This is because the cognitive realm is about, well, perceptions. How things are viewed. Unless there was a realm that nobody ever thought anything about, that never thought anything about itself, and in essence had no real meaning, you should be able to see it in the cognitive realm. There is no such reason to be able to view other realms from the physical realm. The physical realm is... Well... The tangible aspects of things. Many things in other realms are inherently intangible, so the physical realm is probably not as good at viewing other realms as the cognitive realm is. This is evidenced by the fact that people in the cognitive realm have always been able to perceive some altered version of the physical realm, but rarely have purely cognitive things been visible in the physical realm (except for aforementioned spren, which I believe appear by the power of shards). The spiritual realm... Well we don't really know enough about the spiritual realm to say if you would be likely to see the other two realms from it. The spiritual realm is about absolute truth, so technically, given that the other two realms are incontrovertibly existent, one might be able to perceive them on some level within the spiritual realm. But that is just speculation. TL;DR: I don't think that being able to see realms is symmetric. You might be able to see the physical realm from within the cognitive realm better than you could see the cognitive realm from within the physical realm.

I'll just put this in a spoiler tab just in case, since I'm still talking about SH...

Well it sort of stands to reason that you are most able to see the other two realms from the cognitive realm... The cognitive realm is all about how you see things, after all. Also, SH spoiler: So anyway, the cognitive realm is closely linked to the physical, because people perceive things in the physical realm the most. The spiritual realm is perceived more distantly but is still quite universal, so it's cognitive shadow (a manifestation of how people see the spiritual realm) could well be a sun in the cognitive realm.

Hm... Yes, the spiritual realm makes sense. I don't remember where, but somebody once metaphorically described the three realms as the spiritual realm being the sun, the cognitive being the sky the sunbeam passes through, and the physical being the ground that gets illuminated, thus tangibly manifesting the other two. So it wouldn't be surprising if the actual sun in the cognitive realm is actually the spiritual realm.

I would suppose identity to be cognitive as well, but I sort of remember seeing a WoB a while back that confirmed it to be a spiritual thing. I can try and hunt it up but I'm not sure where I had seen it. Still, for now this quote from emperor's soul might be pertinent: " All things exist in three Realms, Gaotona. Physical, Cognitive, Spiritual. The Physical is what we feel, what is before us. The Cognitive is how an object is viewed and how it views itself. The Spiritual Realm contains an object’s soul— its essence— as well as the ways it is connected to the things and people around it."

Hm... Actually, the fact that living things appear as fire might be a product of those sparks of life. In which case the "sun" in shadesmar is either a cognitive manifestation of the afterlife or a cognitive manifestation of some shard-related issues. I feel like the afterlife would be either in the spiritual realm or just plain outside of the three classical realms, but it could be the cognitive understanding of the afterlife. How people view it and such. Edit: Oh also another interesting thing now that I have read that excerpt with Jasnah... Does soulcasting while fully in the cognitive realm seem like an extraordinarily powerful ability to anyone else? A regular person would be utterly helpless... Many types of magic users would probably be helpless to, for that matter. I bet a coppercloud would protect against that kind of attack though.

Hm... Is that affinity for chicken a major part of your identity? Does it define you? If so... Than maybe you could steal it. Also... What if you did make a koloss with five spikes? What if you made a normal koloss and then gave it an extra spike made of copper? Because then it might have about normal mental capacity again...

Yes... It is sort of "psychometric" I feel... But that is definitely qualitative information. Quite probably it is related to an object's identity, which is spiritual in nature. So a tineye with the third heightening would be able to have ultra-sharp senses that pick up anything, and the ability to understand what they are seeing to an extremely high degree of subtlety. The combination would probably serve to make somebody supernaturally observant.

I think an augur would definitely be better at soul forging.

Interesting thought... Yes the sun definitely has to be something. One possible alternative... Invested things also glow in the cognitive realm... So rather than being all the souls of the dead, it could be all the "sparks of life" of the living. Just a thought.

Well a major part of his bracers were atium, which is why he was able to be ageless by compounding... That means if they were hemalurgic spikes they could have spiked any attribute. BoM spoiler:

Or you could just use that strand of string as a really deadly garotte... But that's more in the realm of weapons again But anyway if somebody once was able to make a bowstring from a spren, that means that the manifestation of the spren doesn't have to be inflexible. Strings are flexible.

I think that the effects of magic are not so consistent, but note that the source/focus of them always is. This sort of makes sense, because once you have released the raw investiture of a shard, it isn't bound to behave a certain way; it can do anything the user wants it to, but there are different ways to access the power in the first place (which appear to be determined by planet). All Sel powers come from symbols that correspond to geography. All Scadrial powers come from a set of metals/alloys of the correct composition. All nalthis powers appear to be centered on vocal commands. Rosharian powers... That's more difficult. Gemstones? No, those just store the power. Stormlight? Well that's the raw investiture itself, not a means of tapping it. Oaths. Rosharian powers so far as we have seen are all accessed by means of swearing oaths, and more importantly keeping the oaths. That is interesting... Because unlike the others, which seem arbitrary, swearing an oath actually seems to be related to the intent of honor.

Pretty sure Taravangian is formally part of the diagramists, his own group... I believe the sons of honor is a secret society that is at odds with the diagramists.

"I am a stick." Would you rather have a highstorm hit where you are in the world (taking into account that people on earth would not be prepared for weather like that) or have ash falls start occurring?