cometaryorbit

The WoB says "Cosmere healing", so probably Radiants too. It would work much better against them - taser probes are metal, so hitting a Fullborn with them (unless you catch them asleep or something) is not going to happen. Even before you get to Feruchemical steel, zinc, etc., just Steelpushing makes hitting a Coinshot/Mistborn/Fullborn with non-aluminum metal projectiles extremely hard. I have to say I don't entirely like that, but then I find the rules on what counts as healable very confusing. I get that inborn / natural mental conditions that are part of who you are don't get healed, but why can Stormlight heal dementia but not drug addiction? Both are acquired damage, not innate.

I think it really is just that Honorblade bonds are much weaker so the Investiture isn't infusing the person nearly as completely. It's not really bonding with the soul in a way that can change it. Though maybe it also matters that Radiant's spiritweb is merging with the spren's, so the Investiture has a reference for what the soul should look like from the spren. Though (Mistborn WoBs)

That is probably what is happening, yeah - most of the energy going into other Realms. (Although there's also the possibility that that WOB is some kind of a mistake, because a matter antimatter explosion is absolutely a "significant effect" so why would the answer be "mostly a no"?)

Bleeder could indeed communicate with Wax. However, there's the deep Connection (since she was formerly Lessie) there to confuse matters. Wax and Telsin also presumably have a significant Connection, but from what Harmony says it seems like by default/by design trellium spikes would let you talk to Telsin-in-the-process-of-becoming-Trell.

Well, I think it's a fanon term, and I'm not even sure everyone necessarily has the same thing in mind for what they mean by it. But I think the basis for it is this: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/246/#e5494 I was for a while very skeptical about this being a real thing/correctly interpreted*. But TLM showing that an alternate power source can boost Allomancy beyond the Allomancer's natural Allomantic strength does make it more plausible. I also found this WoB which at least confirms that something like that exists: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/2/#e2625 Though the comparison to Southern Scadrian Metallic Arts tech is strange. If it means it uses nicrosil just like medallions... well, ok, but why did TLR have that? TLR shouldn't have had access to nicrosil - he knew about it, but probably TFE tech couldn't make it, and anyway they didn't find any unknown metals on TLR's body. *because this is a paraphrased WoB, and it says Brandon "implied" it rather than outright stated it - it's also very old so subject to possible mechanics changes in the writing of Era 2. And also because powering an end-positive system drawing on an unlimited source with an end-neutral system didn't seem to make sense/be useful. And also because of the nicrosil issue.

I think it still does, at least the Set thought they were limited to 3 spikes for this reason in BoM. (Though trellium spikes may not count in that number.) But now you simply can't gain powers from more than 4 spikes.

I think the pure atium effect is the same as the (impure)atium+duralumin effect that Elend got in HoA - "an expansive vision", not just shadows of a second or two in the future. As for malatium, I don't think (impure)atium counts as "a godmetal" for the purpose of weird physical properties like non-meltability. The Investiture is still there, but it's less ... active, or actualized? ... in the physical component. So I think (impure)atium could be alloyed with gold using early 1800s level metallurgical techniques just as easily as platinum could - which is (impure)atium's physical inspiration. The other, less likely, possibility is that since (impure)atium is pure atium+gold+silver you make malatium by heating it to a point where the silver separates out and you're left with pure atium+gold = malatium. I doubt that, though, because WoB is that (impure)atium is "very slightly impure" so there probably isn't enough gold. (Though Allomantic alloying percentages don't have to be huge - duralumin is 4% copper and steel in RL is generally <2% carbon).

Do we know if that happens? If the seas are quite deep, I'd expect the effect of rain not to be nearly that dramatic at the bottom (the spikes would break up and be slowed by falling through lots of unactivated spores, so they'd reach the seafloor as slow moving spikes scattered over a large area, not as a single massive block). @HSuperLee is right - there's life down there, Xisis is studying it. So the conditions there are presumably survivable for some life forms.

I am not sure that storing A-pewter strength in F-pewter, or A-pewter health in F-gold, or A-tin senses in F-tin, is really what people have meant in the past by "reverse compounding". That term (which I think is a fanon one) seems to mean what TLR did to get the Allomantic strength he displayed (Soothing hundreds of thousands of people) when his "essential Allomantic strength" was the same as Elend's. The A-tin storing in F-tin or A-pewter storing in F-gold trick just gives you more senses or health, not more Allomantic strength. Before TLM I couldn't even see what powering Allomancy with Feruchemy could mean, since Allomancy's end-positive and fueled from an unlimited source (Preservation). It didn't seem like adding a new power source would help (it does with Feruchemy since Feruchemy is end-neutral). But we see in TLM that liquid Investiture allows Mistings to use their Allomancy at much greater than usual strength. That kind of surprises me - I'd thought Allomantic strength's upper limit was set by the Allomancer, since Preservation is an unlimited source - but I suppose if the Allomancer's Physical body is taking in liquid Investiture, then their Spiritual ability to draw from Preservation isn't relevant. So given that Allomantic strength isn't a limit if you have a new power source, "powering Allomancy with Feruchemy" could genuinely be useful since the peak rate of draw is much higher in Feruchemy (it would be kind of like duralumin's Allomantic boost but more controllable). The problem is that no metalmind seems to store "Allomantic strength" as such. Even nicrosil in medallions stores discrete powers, not a 'pool' of strength. But the Bands do seem to have a pool of strength, since Wax says their Investiture stores are "running low" - so maybe there are two ways to use f-Nicrosil. The other question is whether there's a way to "hack" the system to store a coppercloud instead of memories in a coppermind, or an Ironpull instead of weight in an ironmind.

I think if you store A-pewter strength in a pewter metalmind, you only store the muscular strength (since that's what F-pewter does), not the increased balance/grace/dexterity, movement speed, tirelessness, or physical toughness/health that A-pewter also grants. But I think that an A-pewter / F-gold Twinborn could store more health per time unit while burning pewter (since their health is increased = they have more to store), and an A-pewter / F-steel Twinborn could store more physical speed. I think this is why Sazed says to Vin that besides memory, Feruchemy mostly just does the same things as pewter and tin Allomancy: pewter's effects overlap with at least three and maybe five of the ten metals known then (pewter has some tirelessness effect, though it's dangerous, and also seems to improve your temperature tolerance; it's said in WoA that Ham wearing his usual vest in cold weather is a clear sign he's a Thug). Not sure about "reverse compounding". I don't think storing A-pewter strength in F-pewter is quite the same thing, or at least I'd think an extra step is needed (IMO burning a pewtermind charged with A-pewter-derived strength would still only give muscular strength, not extra Allomantic strength/power in pewter Allomancy).

Something is very weird there, because while gases are low density, they aren't *that* low. Hydrogen, the least dense gas, is 0.09 grams per liter (90 milligrams per liter) at standard conditions. So 1 cubic centimeter of hydrogen would be 90 micrograms. Converted to energy with an equal mass of antihydrogen (180 micrograms total), that's: 1.8 x 10^-7 kg * (3 x 10^8 m/s * 3 x 10^8 m/s) = ~1.6 x 10^10 joules or ~3.8 tons of TNT equivalent. That would have done orders of magnitude more damage than what we see. Even if the amount of Light is more like a cubic millimeter... 3.8 kg of TNT is way too much. And if Light was as dense as air, you'd get more than 10 times as much energy. Matter antimatter reactions are *ridiculously* energetic. There can't be even a nanogram of mass equivalent being converted into energy in the Physical Realm in an anti-Voidlight/Fused reaction, or Raboniel would have blown up when stabbing her daughter, and Navani would have blown up when stabbing Raboniel.

Yeah, in Era 1 people didn't know duralumin Mistings existed (it appears that Vin and Elend still thought Mistings were basic-8-metals-only up until very late in HoA, because at first Elend thinks Yomen burning atium proves he's a Mistborn, only later realizing that the lack of those Mistings must have been another of TLR's lies about Allomancy). So none of the noble houses tested for duralumin mistings, so there were no known duralumin mistings for Inquisitors to spike. In Era 2, with sixteen metals known, they can test for all metals if they want.

I had the same question. Kandra can definitely starve to death, it's one of the ways they were executed in Era 1 (along with acid). Though it might take far longer than we'd expect, depending on how much they can alter their metabolism - some reptiles can go months between meals. But he could quite possibly have abilities other than just being a kandra, either "internally" or through something like a medallion (a bendalloy medallion would probably solve the food/water issue). He might also have silver in his body. If I were a kandra on that planet, I'd put silver deposits in my skin, the way that can happen when a human drinks too much colloidal silver. Also, kandra we see in Era 2 - especially MeLaan - seem far more capable than in Era 1, they've learned a lot with more freedom to experiment. Tress is way later than Era 2, Ulaam's capabilities might be way beyond what we've seen so far. We don't know what a kandra with a SF-tech-era understanding of biochemistry could do. Could they get around the no-bone limitations by making super strong polymers? Could they give themselves carbon nanotube weave skin so Crimson spikes couldn't pierce them? Ulaam might be able to move through spores far faster than we'd at first assume. He might breathe by creating a huge number of gas exchange openings smaller than an individual spore, so no spores can enter, rather than a few large openings like our nostrils and mouth.

I think the old Dragonsteel was pre-Shattering (was going to lead up to the Shattering), so the Shattering couldn't have created the Plains which already existed at the beginning of Dragonsteel.

Do lightspren/Reachers recognize the name lightspren? Are Cryptics the only one that don't have a commonly used -spren name? I don't think "liespren" is commonly used even by non-Cryptics, and actually I don't think Jasnah meant that "liespren" was a proper name for Cryptics. I think it was something she was using to explain what they were to Shallan since every other spren type Shallan would know about is named <thing they're attracted to>-spren and Cryptics tend to be attracted to people lying to themselves. Doesn't she say something like 'you can call them liespren' or something else a bit less definitive? The <whatever>spren naming convention does seem to be used differently, and inconsistently, for sapient spren though. Honorspren are attracted to honorable people (by their definition), but the others either don't fit the "attracted to X" scheme at all (highspren, ashspren) or only metaphorically/symbolically (cultivationspren, inkspren). Honor/cultivationspren are presumably named after the Shards primarily, anyway. Others seem named based on their appearance (highspren being sky like, ashspren being burning). The Nightwatcher has no obvious connection to either night or watching.

Yeah, I think it's purely on-Lumar trade being discussed. I think Riina is there specifically because Lumar is one of the most backwater/least cosmere-politics important worlds out there. She wanted a place where she could do whatever she wanted - not a totally uninhabited place, just a place where the local people couldn't resist. She could play her games with real people. That's why she was unhappy to learn Xisis was there.

Shardplate + high Ideal Stormligt healing is just too impressive, Kaladin likely wins pretty near 100% of the time vs Mistborn Wax. Wax's only chance would be to have 2 guns, one heavy with a Duralumin Steelpush to blow up the Shardplate, then one with aluminum bullets to bypass healing. However... below 4th ideal, one major caveat to that WoB ... that likely means a Mistborn with era 1 technology, as that's what we'd seen up to that point and the re-appearance of Mistborn in TLM would have been a major spoiler. Guns with aluminum bullets are going to make Stormlight healing vastly less effective. And Wax's firearm skill is good enough that I don't think Gravitation flight could avoid being hit. That was probably mostly against normal mortals. For many if not most Desolations there were no Radiants. He was probably smart enough not to tangle with a Herald. And it's not clear if the first (proto-)Radiants immediately had their full powers (was Shardplate original? It doesn't seem a natural result of mimicking the Honorblades). He probably only faced Radiants a couple times.

I think a vast amount of knowledge was lost on Roshar at and around the Recreance. The loss of Urithiru as a travel/trade hub and the loss of its libraries just before, the destruction of the False Desolation, the Recreance itself and the loss of contact with intelligent spren, the deaths of most former Radiants and many other deaths in the bloody conflicts over Shardblades just afterward... I think this was effectively a collapse of civilization for at least most of Roshar. Likely not as bad as a full Desolation, but probably more complete than, say, the fall of the Roman Empire on Earth (because Roshar's all one continent and was all culturally connected by Urithiru and the Radiants -- there were no areas unaffected, the way China and Mesoamerica were untouched by the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.) Scadrial was early-1800s tech, with steam but pre-railroad, at the time of Alendi. They've only really advanced about 100 years, or a bit less, from that at the time of Era 2, but in addition to what TLR suppressed they had to build from zero in terms of physical infrastructure after the Catacendre (though knowledge was preserved). Also, the Basin population is quite tiny for an industrial society even currently, and was much smaller in early post-Catacendre times... there were just a lot fewer minds working on ideas, and everyone was close together, making it easier for wrong ideas to become accepted and limit progress. Another factor limiting a lot of Cosmere planets' advancement is going to be limited resources. @lacrossedeamonis right that many worlds may lack fossil fuels, and it seems to go a lot farther than that. Lumar and First of the Sun (and apparently the other inhabited worlds in its system) are basically worlds of islands, thus likely have either limited quantities of or outright inability to access many metal/mineral resources... they might also lack critical biological materials used in our technological history, like (natural) rubber. Lumar may not use zephyr aether spores instead of gunpowder just because they're better or safer - there's no guarantee they have access to good sulfur deposits. They might also have the same low-population issue of Era 2 Scadrial since their habitable area is likely relatively small. Roshar likely also has poor access to many metals and mineral resources due to its very weird geology (that's fixable with Soulcasting, of course, but access to that was pretty limited and constrained by ritual until very recently). Nalthis is an oddity, it seems well set up for advancement... but its known history is all quite recent, and the area that Hallandren seems to know about/have trade with appears weirdly small given their technological and economic level. I'm not sure if it was recently settled by humans (Roshar style), or if some kind of disaster occurred there, or if the continent is quite small and the Idris/Hallandren civilization just isn't interested in events before their rise, or what. The appearance of Returned ~600 years before Warbreaker is strange; was Endowment not around till then? I also wonder about Taldain being cut off for a while stopping or greatly slowing its tech advancement. We didn't need contact with other planets to develop our tech, and I think the point they're at before being cut off is enough for their science/tech revolution to be self sustaining (as opposed to, say, how Greco-Roman civilization invented steam engines but never did anything with them). So Taldain's resources may be more limited than we'd at first think - is there a map of Darkside in the Omnibus? I can see Dayside being super limited because of the geology being poor for mining and the biology likely lacking a lot of resources, but if Darkside is more Earthlike... but is it? On the other hand, we only really have one example in RL. We don't really know what makes a tech revolution take off like 1600+ or stagnate like Greco-Roman civilization.

The anti-Investiture explosion we see in RoW is pretty small scale, and even that seems to be only because it was under pressure - stabbing Raboniel with an antiVoidlight dagger didn't blow up Navani. So "normal" anti-Investiture/Investiture reactions (if there's such a thing as "normal") probably won't cause large destructive explosions. Still, there will probably be some version of it eventually. (Maybe raysium/anti-raysium bombs... the solid form is likely far more Investiture-dense than Light or a soul/spren... or perhaps annihilating anti-Light with a Cognitive entity like Raboniel or Phendorana might make most of the energy released go into the Cognitive, whereas a reaction of Physical metal and anti-metal would create a more fully Physical explosion.) I think that Wit quote might be talking about the Surge of Division (possibly mechanically used or boosted), though.

Relative Order strengths: IMO it really depends on the conditions of the fight, and probably also the Ideal level - some orders like Skybreakers don't get both Surges until 3rd ideal, but others like Windrunners do. Also, what powers are most effective will likely change based on whether the opponent has Plate or not - specific attack powers (like Division or ranged Soulcasting) are probably less useful against opponents in Plate. Even Bondsmiths, while they're clearly "the most powerful" Order in a broader sense, aren't necessarily the Order that would win a "cage match". I'd argue that Elsecallers are the most dangerous Order in a lot of cross-Cosmere fights because of ranged Soulcasting, but Radiants holding a lot of Stormlight for a fight like this, and especially Radiants in living Plate, aren't really vulnerable to that. Lightweavers are very powerful with prep time but not necessarily all that strong in a no prep close fight. And we've seen very little of Dustbringers or Stonewards, which are both supposed to be pretty combative Orders. We also really don't know how effective Transportation is for Physical Realm mobility when used by a Radiant; it might not work the same as the Fused version. The orders that might lose out in a no prep close fight are probably Lightweavers, Truthwatchers (though Renarin's surviving a thunderclast crush is impressive), and maybe Elsecallers/Willshapers (depending on how quickly they can use Transportation in the Physical Realm, and whether being chased off to the Cognitive but unharmed counts as a loss). The Edgedancer power set also doesn't seem to be all that combat focused, but supposedly historical Edgedancers were feared warriors. Re Surgebinding and physics: I don't think the massive object is *actually* created - in the Spiritual Realm or otherwise - thus no gravitational effects on spacetime (or Cognitive spacetime equivalent). The Lashing-object only "exists" to the thing or person Lashed. It's more like a faked up Connection ("spiritual gravitational bond") to an object that doesn't *actually* exist (objectively, to anyone/anything else). IMO Surgebinding is basically reality editing, and that's why some people (like Nikli) talk about other magic systems as "Surgebinding", and why Odium talked about other Shards attacking Roshar when they discovered the greater power of the Surges. It's most obvious and terrifying for an Unchained Bondsmith, but I think all Surges basically work this way. Syl says natural laws are basically just an agreement between friends ... and the terms of that agreement can be altered. Gravitation is temporarily redefining an object's or person's normally felt force of gravity to instead be "accelerate toward <this direction> at <Lashing strength>". Abrasion is "my coefficient of friction is now 0". Soulcasting is "this rock is now smoke", and then the Physical molecules and atoms are forced to adjust to correspond to the higher level Spiritual and Cognitive change. Cohesion seems to be about weakening intermolecular bonds/forces, and Tension about strengthening them. And so on (with Progression and Transportation being imo the least "physics based").

That WoB might suggest it's not fully pole to pole. It's "very wide, enormous" and certainly at least covers the latitude range of the Roshar (super)continent, but might not be at the poles themselves - or even most of the Northern Hemisphere.

They don't have access to as much as they want, generally. They're limited by mass of metal and burn rate. Even when flaring, the Investiture-over-time (equivalent of "power" in physics) is not very high. Sure, metal is very easy to get compared to Breath or Feruchemical charge, at least the common metals. But it's still a limiting factor, especially given that it usually needs to be swallowed (yeah, metal inside the body in other ways can theoretically be burned, but sticking tons of metal into someone's flesh is generally unhealthy) and the Investiture to metal ratio doesn't seem that high. Now, there's exceptions to those statements - godmetals presumably have a higher Investiture to metal ratio, ultra strong Allomancy gets more Investiture per mass of metal and a higher burn rate, and duralumin overcomes the burn rate limit. But the vast majority of Allomancers don't have access to godmetals, duralumin, or the Bands or Elend/TLR level strength. (When atium was available only electrum Mistings or Mistborn could use it, and duralumin is Mistborn-only too.)

Hmm, I disagree there. I don't think Odium is bound to *what Dalinar expected*, I think he's bound to what he actually agreed to. I think T-Odium is still bound by Rayse-Odium's Intent *as expressed in the words of the deal* (that is, I don't think he can necessarily play wording games as such). But I do think he can do things that don't directly contradict the deal (in words or the Intent expressed in its words) but do subvert it in some way (including possibly the broader lower-case intent of settling the war with this contest). Taravangian is smarter than Rayse, and less transformed by the Shard. He can think of things Rayse couldn't. If Rayse explicitly Intended to exclude a tactic (even if it wasn't spelled out in words) then I think Taravangian doing that would break the deal. But if Rayse never considered and rejected a possibility, and it's not excluded by the words, then T might not be bound. I also think reinterpreting it passively is very different from intentionally treating it differently, unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "passively". If Taravangian's different mindset and background sees the bargain as meaning something slightly different than Rayse did, I don't think that's *intentionally* changing it. And there *are* terms in the deal that can be ambiguous- "unharmed by either side" especially. That sounds like it means that a champion being harmed by their own side's forces would void it, but is that really what's meant? If so, voiding it would be super easy. Also, what counts as harm? Does only physical harm count, or would emotional trauma qualify? Would physical pain with no lasting physical effects (eg Navani's pain-knife) count? I think, say, Kaladin would consider trauma to count but most other Alethi wouldn't. I don't know where T would fall. But if Rayse saw it one way and T saw it the other, that's not intentionally changing the deal, that's just honestly differing interpretations of the same words. Also, does Taravangian know Rayse's exact Intent, or only what was said? If Rayse didn't intend to allow harming your own champion to void the contest, but worded it that way because he was dumb or sloppy, would T necessarily know that? EDIT: One reason I expect the deal to be voided in some way or broken is the 10-day time span. I can't really see all of the book taking place in just 10 days, given everything outside the contest it seems set up to cover (Szeth's crusade against the Stone Shamans, Kaladin chasing Ishar, Adolin and Shallan chasing BAM and healing Maya).

The people Shallan has gotten killed was due to inexperience, which is still her fault in a sense, but probably true of any major political or military leader, if less directly so (there's going to be some people in their area of control whose deaths they could have prevented) - and pretty excusable in Shallan's case given how she was thrown into things. Certainly if Jasnah was OK with Elhokar... As for her qualifications to be a Radiant, Lightweavers are Cultivation side of the chart not Honor side, and Cryptics are attracted to lies. There's no general rule that Radiants have to be good people or honest people - their behavioral limits are Order-specific and even individual spren/Radiant relationship specific. Nale has killed a ton of people under super sketchy legal justifications. Skybreakers and Dustbringers are actively fighting for Odium. I think the First Ideal is broader than the Honor-side meaning of it we get from Kaladin and Dalinar (IMO, "journey before destination" can mean "personal growth is the point" for Cultivation-side orders, it doesn't always mean "the end doesn't justify the means"). Also, I don't think Jasnah really trusts anyone, but mistrust won't keep her from working with someone who is an useful resource. She certainly understands spying and deception (Jasnah hired assassins). Yeah, and as of the end of RoW she's definitively turned against the Ghostbloods. I don't think anything she's done in between isn't believable as part of spying.

I'm not sure if Preservation's example proves anything either way. Odium isn't literally physically incapable of breaking his word, but doing so would make him vulnerable to being killed by Cultivation. Preservation *did* die as a result of what he did - mostly at the time of imprisoning Ruin, and finally 100% dead once Ruin escaped. So Preservation might have been just as bound as Odium is ... simply willing to sacrifice himself, unlike Odium. I do think what is "keeping an oath" is Intent based. Yes, Radiant oaths are essentially Honor based, but Intent and Command are broader cosmere mechanics. I think the reason breaking an oath would make a "hole" in Odium is because his power would now be committed to two opposite Intents (or maybe an Intent - to break the oath - opposing a Command - the oath itself). So if Taravangian sees the world differently from Rayse (and I'm sure he does) he might interpret the oath differently. IMO that's not exactly the same thing as looking for loopholes per se. I think the reason T is bound by Rayse's deal is because they're both Odium. The deal is tied to the power of the Shard itself, not the Vessel. The Stormfather in OB says something to the effect of "Odium is a force like gravity or the movement of time. These things cannot break their own rules. Neither can he." It's Odium itself that is bound to the oath, and its power will compel T. He could break it, sure - even Rayse could, and T could surely do so more easily as he's a new Vessel - but the power would still be affected and make him vulnerable.