cometaryorbit

I don't think physical things in a normal human without Invested Arts acting on them are Spiritual based. I don't think Hemalurgic Iron takes away a natural flow of Investiture from the Spiritual Realm that's supporting the victim's strength and transfers it to the recipient. I think Hemalurgy, instead, alters the spiritweb or Spiritual DNA - which is like the "description" of or "code for" a person on the Spiritual level. That change then cascades down and has Physical effects. So I don't think some kind of energy flow has been transferred from four victims to a koloss. Instead, the "code" for being X strong is transferred - and hacking in four extra versions of that code in a violent way warps the spiritweb, kind of like extreme savantism, so a koloss isn't just "a 5x strong human". They get weird extra effects like turning blue, skin that doesn't match their size, and continuing to grow past human limits. The koloss doesn't have to eat as many calories as you'd expect, so it presumably is getting some Spiritual boost. But I don't think the initial humans did. The change isn't that straightforward.

I'd be amazed if they couldn't, given the level of control they have over their bodies, especially with what we see in Era 2. Their nervous systems are pretty changeable.

That's a good point. Normal people (who aren't trained runners) max out at more like 8 to 12 mph, so that's at least an x5 factor (12 mph ~ 20 km/h). The canon's actually changed on this. AoL originally had Wayne say he can compress 2 minutes into 15 seconds with a nugget of bendalloy (so, an x8 factor). This was removed in the leather-bound (presumably to match the bullet and explosion scenes), but when SoS was written, it might still have been considered valid. So Bleeder matching bendalloy time compression doesn't necessarily argue for a speed factor higher than x8. I'll agree there. Even a x1.5 acceleration is a very significant advantage, and a decisive one if the opponents are otherwise equally matched. But not IMO all that decisive if they aren't equally matched otherwise. A 1.5x acceleration wouldn't let an untrained person beat a trained one. Probably even x2 or x3 wouldn't. Muscle memory is a lot faster than "thinking". (I don't think "speed of thought" is necessarily all that relevant in a fight between trained people, though with no RL experience, I could certainly be way wrong.) And I think the natural difference between human reaction times is wider than 1.5x, so a naturally slow person with a 1.5x acceleration wouldn't be faster than a naturally fast person. Kandra don't automatically have better reaction time, but they get to redesign their bodies. So she could have given herself better reaction time. And since the bendalloy bubble comparison is an issue, I don't think Bleeder is necessarily moving faster than say x8-x10 normal at any point. We know from Vin wiyh the spikeway in TFE that Allomantic Iron/Steel flight with good anchors is "twice as fast as a galloping horse" (probably about 60 mph, since these aren't super specialized modern racehorses which can hit 40mph), so Wax and Bleeder's chase could easily be freeway speeds of say 60-80mph (Wax has the ability to change his weight, so he'll probably be a bit faster than Vin despite his lesser Allomantic strength and lack of Ironpulling, given the variety of anchors Elendel offers).

I think the people who would become Vessels were likely a key part of the process. I don't think it was four people with Dawnshards and thirteen spectators standing around who happened to grab a Shard when Adonalsium Shattered. Khriss says in SH that the original sixteen ripped Adonalsium apart, and Dawnshard uses similar phrasing - I imagine that as meaning that the actual Shattering process was based on attaching part of Adonalsium to each of the sixteen. I'm sure there was much more to the entire events, but I think the 17 were the only ones directly involved in the actual mechanics of the Shattering itself (as opposed to preparation, or any other conflicts in the lead-up to it or the aftermath). I think the aftermath was extremely destructive, given that Yolen is apparently mostly lost and has a very small current population. The entire red Starbelt/Scar/Taln's Scar might be a wound from the Shattering.

Yeah, I think the Awakened soldiers in Tress are definitely parallel to the Phantoms. Autonomy's army could be, or they could be live people in some kind of other-magic-system Shardplate (the way Nightblood and Vivenna's Blade are other-magic-system Shardblades).

This is a really interesting theory, and there's definitely something very special about the Bands. They're not just "a medallion with 32 powers" or "32 medallions forged together". The discrete nature of medallion Investiture vs the Bands' Investiture "running low" definitely shows they're different things. The discrete thing is interesting in itself. WoB compares it to a coppermind's memories, which are also discrete... but if you tap a coppermind and then break contact with it, the memory stays in your head. You have to actively store again to put the memory back into the coppermind. Medallions don't work like that. You can't just tap the power and drop the Medallion and now be a permanent Brass Ferring or whatever. Anyway, something's different about the Bands. I don't know if it's Mist or storing Kinetic Investiture of the powers rather than the Innate Investiture (like storing Steelpushing vs the ability to Steelpush), but something. I don't think it's really a tension. Kelsier was involved but did not actually create them himself (he didn't have the powers to do so anyway, which is probably why that was RAFOd). I think Kelsier did the design with his Sliver-derived expanded mind and knowledge, Spook provided the Allomancy powers, and someone else did the Feruchemy.

I don't think we really know how much freedom kandra have, or exactly what Paalm broke that made Sazed willing to control her. They might be required to follow Harmony's orders, or maybe he'd only take control if they use their shapeshifting powers to commit major crimes like Paalm did. Harmony does talk about his Intent being basically free will, so it might be the latter. And he doesn't seem to control the koloss. I definitely don't think that if a kandra wanted to "retire", neither working for Harmony nor against him, he'd take control and stop that.

Yeah I think bronze and copper would work while iron and steel wouldn't, because the emotional Allomancy works through the bubble because it's a Cognitive effect:

Vin apparently does it without duralumin in HoA ch 3, but only against one koloss. "And so, she burned brass and Pushed on the emotions of one of the smaller creatures. At first, it resisted. She shoved harder. And, finally, something broke within the creature and he became hers." As for numbers, unfortunately it's mostly very vague... The army in HoA ch 3 (~2000 soldiers) "He burned brass and Pushed on their emotions, Soothing away their fear. An Allomancer couldn’t control minds—not human minds, at least—but he could encourage some emotions while discouraging others. Again, Vin said that Elend was able to affect far more people than should have been possible." Ball scene in HoA chapter 32 (no number given) "Other Allomancers—Breeze, or even Vin—would have had trouble Soothing an entire room at once. For Elend, with his inordinate power, it barely took any attention." Koloss control quotes (TL;DR: 36,000 koloss)

Well, Pewter Allomancy gives not just a speed boost but also a lot of extra precision/grace/dexterity - someone using Pewter Allomancy (if they start at average speed) might not be much if any faster than an Olympic runner, but they can use that speed much more effectively. So I think a F-Steel user moving twice as fast as the A-Pewter user might be a fairly even match... but yeah x5 normal might be pushing it, especially if Pewter is more like x1.5 speed + super endurance rather than really a big speed boost.

Well, Elend with Pewter was able to match raw strength with a giant koloss, whereas normal pewter allomancy is about x2 normal human strength, x3 flaring. I think matching strength with a 11-12' koloss is much more than x4-x6 normal human strength. Elend's Soothing also seems to be more than double what Breeze can manage, possibly vastly more - he might be Rioting courage for the entire army (tens of thousands?) when Demoux is taken by the Mists. He is definitely far stronger in Soothing both from the battle at the beginning of HoA and the ball scene in Fadrex. (He can also control tens of thousands of koloss, but that doesn't seem to scale the same way as Soothing humans. Still, I think his greater strength is probably why he rather than Vin hold nearly all the koloss.) I don't know what learning to pierce copperclouds means. It seems to be a simple matter of power. Vin certainly didn't have to learn how to do it.

Yeah, the obvious ways are Investiture drain (Leeching grenades, Nightblood, maybe larkins); Soulcasting; and an explosion/fire large and hot enough to melt the goldminds off.

Yeah, I agree, lerasium strength is probably significantly more than x2.

I don't think TLR had lerasium metalminds, because Vin and Elend got the atium from his bracers after his death - presumably they'd have checked the other metalminds left on his body. But experimenting with lerasium alloys in Allomancy could have used some up. There could be a kandra somewhere with a Lerasium Blessing. ReLuur's pewter Blessing suggests TLR might have experimented with the kandra. Its being taken offworld by worldhoppers also makes sense.

It would work like a spren bond, but grant powers? I'm not sure - Nightblood doesn't give extra Surgebinding-like powers to Szeth. (I think Nightblood does give the wielder increased strength, though.)

Well, it's weird, because the SoScads survived somehow, and they didn't have the ash adaptations. Now maybe volcanic clouds just kept the overall planetary temperature low enough that they could survive, without there being a lot of ash in their area... but still, then, why bother with the ash adaptations vs just putting everyone on the south pole? I'm skeptical you could actually make it work with RL physics with a sun intensity high enough to ignite wood (I don't think volcanoes could make *that* much of a difference, especially as Scadrians can still see the sun so the reflective cloud layer isn't *that* thick). Rashek also missed a trick by not putting the habitable areas on a Tibet-like plateau. You could get significant extra cooling that way.

To be fair, the Southern Scadrians did survive, so it's possible that Rashek's big changes in the North were an overreaction. Habitable zones are a long-term (astronomical time scale) thing. Venus is well outside the inner boundary of the habitable zone, but if Earth was magically pushed to Venus' orbit, our oceans wouldn't boil immediately - the process would probably take vastly more than 1024 years (likely millions). If current Earth had Venus's solar energy input, the average temperature would be in the 90s F - high latitudes would be quite habitable. Over a very long time span, the oceans would slowly be lost, water vapor would increase the greenhouse effect, and you'd end up with a superheated totally uninhabitable planet. But that's a *really* long time scale. Scadrial in TLR's time might be even closer to its sun than Venus, because the sun intensity we see at the end of HoA seems too high. Venus gets about x2 Earth's (at the top of the atmosphere, before the effects of reflective clouds).

I don't think someone could become a savant instantly by tapping a nicrosilmind, at least not on any plausible level - the Bands are an absurdly powerful metalmind (so full that Wax can't even see lines to it, whereas ordinary metalminds can be Pushed, just with somewhat more difficulty) and neither Wax nor Marasi got any side effects from using the Bands. Savantism is more about stretching one's limits with the power over a long time span, basically becoming dependent on it, almost an addiction - it transforms the person on both physical and spiritual levels. If instant savantism is possible, it would either be something totally crazy like taking in a vast quantity of Mists, or direct Shardic intervention (if Sazed fixed Spook's savantism, maybe he could break someone else's soul to make them a savant). But I'm not sure if that "instant" process would really be exactly the same thing. If someone holds the power of the Well of Ascension, that brief burst of ridiculous power leaves permanent effects on the holder - but they're called a Sliver, not a savant. Taking in a vast quantity of Mists (or hypothetically like a nicrosilmind the size of an ocean liner with an absurd amount of Investiture in it) might have Sliver-like effects.

I'm not sure if gemheart damage would be definite death to a normal singer the way it is to a Fused (the Fused is basically a spren in the gemheart, except it's an invasive fatal possession rather than the normal spren-singer mutualistic symbiotic bond), but it'd definitely be very bad - the singer would lose their form (except maybe dullform) at the very least. Though an injury that deep would likely be life threatening anyway even if it didn't hit the gemheart, given that the gemheart of a singer is inside its sternum. A broken gemheart would kill the larger greatshells (like a chasmfiend) since they need the spren bond to keep from being crushed by their own weight. The function of a gemheart is to hold Stormlight and a bonded spren - a singer in mateform has a lifespren in their gemheart, a singer in workform has a gravitationspren in their gemheart, etc. Apparently they also resonate with Roshar's tones, from the WoB @alder24 posted above. A couple other gemheart WoBs Gemhearts are derived from minerals in the crem in Rosharan rain, and even small creatures without visible gems use similar chemistry: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/402/#e13335 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/88/#e756 (Syl's comment about "the heart of a beetle, so tiny yet powerful" might relate to these proto-gemhearts/not-quite-gemhearts?) Gemhearts are exceptionally chemically pure, more so than gems we'd mine on earth of "the same type" (like emeralds https://wob.coppermind.net/events/218/#e6625

Assuming the planet can't be put back exactly right, I think it'd be better to go too-cold than too-hot. It'd be way easier to adapt humans to an atmosphere somewhat richer in greenhouse gases than to Rashek's ash world. (If I could mess with the atmosphere at a molecular/atomic level, it might be possible to get away with no changes to humans at all, by creating relatively low toxicity, very strong greenhouse gases that are stable for 1000+ years ... like SF6.) There's way more outward room for error in the habitable zone than inward room (Mars is possibly technically in the habitable zone, it's just too small to remain habitable, possibly). I think that level of precision ought to be manageable.

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking with the "arms race" - the Fused developing Surges, early Surgebinders developing slowly into full Radiants, etc. If they'd jumped straight from 10 Heralds + normal soldiers to 1000 Radiants in Plate, it'd have been super one-sided.

Taldain Dayside sun is probably the best bet (least dependent on others or limited resources) if it has enough density to work.

Yeah, TLR being evil doesn't necessarily mean he was incompetent. The skaa being super oppressed was something he specifically designed into his empire (the HoA epigraphs talk about how he combined elements of the cultures he conquered to create his imperial system, and took the oppression of the skaa from the Canzi slavery system). That's malice, not incompetence. OTOH the real unforced error with the skaa was the genetic split. It was dumb to make genetic changes that would just disappear over time anyway. That was both evil and foolish. But he was also very young (likely 18-25 range) at the time and from a pretty low education background. -- Re: density, density is literally defined as mass divided by volume. So saying it changes mass but not density is technically incoherent. What Brandon means, though, is that super high mass doesn't make Wax bulletproof. The problem is that the impact-depth issue for bullet penetration is a result of conservation of momentum. So if his mass changes, this will change. Particle physics won't get around this, I don't think (though I'm not a physicist) - bullets are macroscopic, so I don't see why it matters how much of Wax's mass comes from Higgs field vs binding energy. What *would* perhaps work - but be very strange- is if it's a Cognitive-object-definition thing: Wax's mass, when Wax is considered as a single entity, changes but for things affecting only individual little bits of him (like a bullet pushing flesh out of the way) there's no change. -- Re the punch issue: I think what is meant is that while iron Feruchemy keeps you from *crushing* yourself (structural strength), you don't gain the strength to *move* as well at high mass (no muscular strength). So if you punch someone at x5 weight, your fist is moving 1/5 as fast, so it has the same momentum (and actually less kinetic energy) as a normal punch. Dropping your fist or tackling someone, though (as Sazed did in HoA) does work, because that isn't all added by your own strength- gravity is helping.

That actually implies a lot of loss. Let's say Wax is 180lb. He stores 25% of his weight most of the time... say 45lb. A year's storage 12 hours a day is about 15.8 million seconds. If he tapped it all in 2 seconds he'd weigh about 180,000 tons. I think 1000 tons is easily enough to be "heavier than a building" and break through a floor - even a few hundred tons would be more than enough - so that scene is compatible with something like 99.5% loss. If I believe Google telling me that houses are usually something like 40-80 tons, even 100-200 tons could qualify - so this could even be 99.9% loss. (It might have been only "months" of storage not a year plus, but still, 99% loss or more...) It's hard to measure Gold Health. For those attributes that are easily measurable, there's very few cases of clearly operating at very high multipliers. Sazed's super strength and weight at the end of WoA doesn't have to be more than x30; I think the largest koloss are no stronger than that with the most positive assumptions (assuming their Hemalurgic strength increases with square cube law) and they might be more like x10 strength. Telescopic/binocular sight can be x10, maybe a bit more (x10 is quite good binoculars). Even Bleeder's speed in SoS I don't think has to be more than 100mph, which is possible at x10. Marasi speed with Bands is probably over x100 (if she can run 10mph, a little over 100x puts her past the speed of sound) but the Bands are a special case. - There are much worse problems with F-iron physics than punching, though. Wax at say x20 weight should be near immune to aluminum bullets and much less vulnerable to regular bullets - flesh denser than lead means the bullets can't make deep holes. A high speed projectile has to push the material of the target out of the way to make a hole, and by conservation of momentum how much it can move is very dependent on its mass. "Newton's impact depth approximation" says that the depth of the hole a high speed projectile makes is based on the difference in density of projectile and target - so an aluminum bullet (x2.5 denser than flesh, roughly) could make a hole with a depth 2.5 times it's own length, while a lead bullet (about x12) could make a hole with a depth 12 times its own length. That's why depleted uranium (much denser than lead) is used against tank armor.

I think they're more central than that. Pearls are basically a side effect, the clam doesn't need the pearl. For something like a chasmfiend, the gemheart is critical to its survival (necessary for lightening its weight) I think. Singers need their gemheart to make their forms work. The process to create gemhearts might be similar to making pearls, though, at least in a sense that it might be a different use of the carapace-making process the way pearls are similar to mollusk shells. it's probably somewhat different since I doubt chasmfiend carapace is made of beryl (emerald is a form of beryl). But the general "depositing minerals" setup might be similar. There might also be Investiture involved in getting the gemhearts to end up as one big gem quality crystal rather than an aggregation of tiny ones.