cometaryorbit

I took that as meaning that the 4 Dawnshards were held by 1 person, combined into "the weapon", during the Shattering - and were broken back into 4 in the process.

Hmmm. That is a very good point. I think it depends. Most Mistborn, I think we're told, don't generally use bronze since they have copper on most of the time (Marsh complains in TFE that Vin is already picking up the Mistborn attitude that bronze is useless). I'd expect the illusions to give off different pulses than the actual Lightweaver, but most Mistborn might not get that. I doubt illusions would just vanish in a coppercloud, if nothing else because Roshar magic tends to be high Investiture and copperclouds can be pierced by superior power. Gold only gives visions of yourself, no help here. But yeah, lack of iron/steel lines would confirm which was the real Lightweaver if they had any non-Shardblade metal on them. Electrum would also help if we're assuming a Mistborn trained with it enough to use it for more than just anti-atium - they'd see the real Lightweaver stab them with a Shardblade in time to know that one was real. Hmm, that's probably enough to change my vote on this - if illusions won't work, the Lightweaver has no way to get into range and so the Mistborn will eventually run them out of Stormlight with coins (assuming that their steel lasts longer, but while steel is relatively fast-burning they only really Push in short bursts; in practice we never see people run out except for duralumin or other extreme situations). The Mistborn still can't afford to mess up, but that probably is enough to give them a slight advantage - at least if they're either trained in using iron/steel lines for spatial awareness, trained in electrum, or using bronze rather than copper.

Yeah, this wouldn't work for several reasons: - Wayne didn't have any health left stored after the big fall. The tiny amount he could store in the time available wouldn't be remotely close to enough (burning a goldmind with only a tiny amount of charge only gives health briefly, then goes back to Gold Allomancy effect). - He probably did not have enough gold for that, even if he'd had his regular goldminds charged normally. Being near the center of an explosion this big is far more destructive than the mot extreme things we've seen Gold Compounding heal: Miles' point blank shotgun blast and stick of dynamite, and TLR's (possibly exaggerated) decapitation and burning building. - Even in decapitation, goldminds remained attached to the larger portion of TLR's body. Being completely blown apart by a large explosion would separate the goldminds from the largest remaining body portion, so healing would stop. Even unlimited storage wouldn't save a Gold Compounder from that. Powerful as Gold Compounding is, it has very definite limits. Even TLR couldn't survive conditions that would melt off his goldminds or explosions that would blow off his arms (thus separating his goldminds from his body). It wasn't, technically, a *nuclear* explosion - but multiple tons of extra strong/Investiture-boosted chemical explosion is likely getting into the yield range of the largest thermobaric bombs or the smaller tactical nuclear weapons (both in the tens of tons of TNT range).

I'm pretty sure you can use pewter and similar "on/flare/off" metals at pretty much full effectiveness immediately. Iron and steel are trickier, granted, but what Kelsier says about his own training when teaching Vin suggests that the city wall jump on your first day, while probably more extreme than what your average noble Mistborn would go through, is feasible. It's not super relevant for this thread, though, since the Lightweaver probably doesn't need combat Soulcasting. Illusions intelligently used would probably let them get into range and one good Shardblade hit kills the Mistborn- pewter won't save them from that. Now if it was a Mistborn 2 months after Snapping vs a 2nd ideal Lightweaver, that would be totally different, and much more likely to go the other way.

Yeah, we've seen various future-sight mechanics in the Cosmere so far and while some are very powerful they all have limits. Even Shardic future sight can be messed up by other future sight users. Also, it's inherently imperfect by nature due to multiple possibilities, as Preservation and Kelsier in SH tell us. "Fortune" seems to be gut-instinct/intuitive future sight. It's not going to be as powerful as the full Spiritual Realm vision we've seen (Shardic future sight, Kelsier's Preservation-assisted vision, duralumin+atium burn). Feruchemy is inherently internal. Chromium "Fortune" isn't general probability manipulation. It's "luck" only in the "lucky guess" sense, not the broader sense.

I'd argue that Elend was at least 5x normal strength and probably more than 6-7x, based on pewter and directly matching strength with a giant (11' iirc) koloss. Per WoB, normal strength pewter is double strength at normal burn/triple flared. A normal, basic koloss is 5' tall and has the strength of five people, minus a small amount of Hemalurgic decay... so say 4.75x or so. If koloss strength scales normally with size (square cube law) then a 10' koloss will be about 19x normal human strength (4.75x4); an 11' koloss about 23x (4.75x4.84). Now it might not scale quite that extremely, since a larger koloss doesn't have more spikes... but they are far more heavily built than human, so it'd surely be more than the 9-10x or so you'd get assuming only the base human strength increases with size (say at 10' tall: x4 for size + x4.75 for spikes = x8.75). So even an imo fairly conservative intermediate value of x15 would mean Elend is at least x5 stronger than normal pewter use.

It's not just that Bleeder had crossed a line morally; it seems that the kandra had some actual bargain/contract/agreement with Harmony that Bleeder broke.

I think the squire bond with Bridge 4 had been forming for much, much more than a week. I don't think the time it takes Kaladin is literally all learning, I think the bond is building. It wasn't just atium, there were pewter and I think steel and iron mistings recently Mist snapped in the defense of Fadrex City.

Vin only had really used brass and pewter before, she did the city wall jump on her literal first day with iron/steel. But she's exceptionally intuitive with Allomancy, so I wouldn't use her as an example... but Kelsier said he was.taught the same way. Kelsier's 3 months in in 11th metal, sure, but that's way sooner than Kaladin's time from first beginning to bond Syl to being able to fly in WoR. Skilled use of Allomancy takes time (though 2 years is enough for Kelsier to hit what's apparently about the peak of non-savant power, I think WoK and WoR cover more time than that and Kaladin's clearly not peaked by end of WoR) but basic uses of many powers are possible day-of-knowing-you-have-it. The Mist snapped Mistings in HoA show that.

I think not just how the books are written, I think Allomancy is just flat out easier to learn/more intuitive - I don't know if that's inherent difficulty of Surgebinding or due to slow development/deepening of the Nahel bond (maybe the latter, as Moash could fly with an Honorblade really fast). Radiant-style Surgebinding, at least, takes a long time to learn/develop. Some Allomantic powers are very easy to learn because they're basically "on, flare, or off"* (copper, pewter, tin, atium definitely... we haven't seen basic use of chromium but it probably is the same) or just simple modifiers of other powers (duralumin and likely nicrosil). It's iron/steel and zinc/brass that really seem to require training ... and even there, while we should probably exclude Vin as an extra-special case with unusual Allomantic intuition, Kelsier has skill with iron/steel near the peak of what is possible short of savantism (he's doing non center of mass Pushes/Pulls) 2 years after Snapping. (Kelsier also killed a noble Mistborn 3 months after Snapping...) And I think there are iron and steel, as well as pewter, Mistings fighting in the defense of Urteau the day they learn they've Snapped, just like the atium mistings at the Homeland. *Not that there isn't skill with e.g. tin - Spook makes it clear there is - but you can get the basic effect super easily. I think basic use of time bubbles is similar, it seems Marasi in AoL didn't really practice with her power as she was embarrassed of it. -- Despite all that, even if a 3rd ideal Lightweaver can't Soulcast in combat (and they may well not be able to) with illusions they can likely win *with time to prepare*. It's more 1st/2nd ideals that will be in deep trouble due to slow learning/development of Surge use.

The big advantage iron/steel have is ranged Pushing/Pulling- Gravitation requires the user to touch something to Lash it. The big advantage Gravitation has is that it can affect non-metals. It takes really exceptional skill (Vin with horseshoes) to get true flight, as opposed to a series of super jumps with coins, out of iron/steel outside of a metal rich (e.g. urban) environment.

Hmm, depends. Preservation is likely the best fit for my personality. I am very much a set in my ways person who likes routine and stability. Preservation can be pretty stifling (as stasis, not allowing positive change) though. So while I think I'd want one like Cultivation or Invention, I think I'd actually be better at holding Preservation. Hybrid, Preservation+Invention... keep the best of the past while exploring new possibilities. I think that combo would pretty much remove the bad side of Preservation. I'd like to think I wouldn't take up a Shard (especially not a single Shard which are all dangerous). But I don't know if I would necessarily say no if I were actually offered vast power and immortality... though the loss of self that can happen means its arguably not really *me* immortal any more. I definitely wouldn't take a destructive/aggressive Shard like Ruin or Odium - certainly not after seeing what happened to Ati. But Preservation, Invention, Cultivation, Endowment, or (possibly) Mercy (though Sazed says Mercy worries him...) would be real temptations. Hmm - Kelsier's experience in SH suggests you can voluntarily give up a Shard. If that's the case I guess I could pick up a Shard, do a lot of good in a brief burst (like Sazed at the end of HoA), but then hand off the Shard before it made me inhuman... But repeatedly changing hands would lead to a very unstable world...

Momentum matters for impact depth. The projectile has to physically push flesh (or whatever the target is made of) out of the way to make a hole. Conservation of momentum means that even with incredible kinetic energy a projectile can only make so deep a hole. Density matters for this, which is why bullets tend to be made of dense metals. However, this pretty much rules out copper coins as effective weapons (unless they hit side-on) using real physics. This makes comparative debates tricky because Mistborn get an extra advantage that their powers shouldn't otherwise give them. Their cross section area is worse than even balls, much less modern bullets, and copper is much less dense than lead. I don't think a coin could rapidly kill a normal human unless it hit a *very specific* spot - like crushing the windpipe - short of truly extreme speeds (hypersonic+, where kinetic energy is so high it causes explosions, which work differently). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_depth

I feel like the Skybreaker should win, because Division is I think supposed to be an extremely destructive combat Surge, but we've seen very little of it. I'm not sure it's touch limited, because Amaram ignites the air around his sword in OB, but it might not be usable against Shardplate. (Does living Plate fully seal, so if the Radiant is bathed in flame their lungs won't be burned?) So I think it comes down to whether Division is usable as a ranged attack against someone in Plate. If so, the Skybreaker probably wins; if not, the Windrunner probably has the advantage, but it's likely close enough that individual skill will decide - both have flight, Blade, Plate, and Stormlight healing.

Yeah, I don't think anti-investiture exists "naturally", it's only created artificially.

I think they're forming a bond, but not identical to a normal Radiant bond, so I don't think Adolin will become an Edgedancer - at least not a conventional one. His personality fits, but I think the bond is doing something different. A regular Radiant bond gives the spren fuller access to the Physical and gives the Radiant Surgebinding and the ability to take in Stormlight. Maya is (when a Blade) already in the Physical; what she needs is her Cognitive sapience back. I'd think the original part of Maya that was torn out when her bond broke would be gone (it would have died with the original Radiant). That hole would have to be filled with something. BAM may be relevant, but Maya has already regained the ability to speak (some), so something else is happening. I'm thinking Adolin's spiritweb/soul/mind is somehow filling the hole in Maya, in the way a Radiant bond fills a human's "cracked soul" with Investiture. I think what comes out won't be identical to the Mayalaran that existed before. With her memories, but with some of Adolin included.

Dalinar is my favorite (to read about). I'd rather have a conversation with Jasnah or Navani though.

I'm actually not sure the combined Shard would be War. The Light is called Warlight, but Honor's is Stormlight and Cultivation has Lifelight.

Yeah, by default lines are center of mass to center of mass, but that can be changed- like Kelsier pushing on specific parts of a metal bar to spin it.

AFAIK we don't... I just don't think we can assume they exist at the same time as White Sand, because Era 2 is likely a thousand+ years later, right?

Yeah their inability to make bone/hair (slowly) is really unexplainable if their shapechanging is purely biological.

I'm not sure that the Men of Gold and Red really belong in the same entry as White Sand era Taldain. Even if they were definitely from Taldain (and I think that's very likely, but that WoB suggests they might not be 100% local) there's an enormous time gap - it would be like combining Alendi era Scadrial, era 1 Scadrial and era 2 Scadrial.

Well, to be fair, heavy weapons will break Shardplate and outrange Shardblades. Scadrial as of TLM probably isn't quite there (for personal scale weapons- I think they have a Maxim/Gatling type gun) but they're not that far away from building something like a bazooka. Even though Telsin couldn't get her rockets to the range needed, what she did have is probably beyond the rocket technology of our 1910s. Before the 1930s/WW2 rockets were strictly very short range. However, there had been basically no interest in rockets until it started up again in the 20s, and that was basically on the hobby/lone maverick level (Goddard, Oberth etc) with no real resources behind it until the immediate run up to WW2. So the technology might have been capable of more. Anyway, unless all Telsin's plans and so on were completely destroyed, I'd imagine Scadrial would be ahead on rocket tech - especially as Kelsier hints in the epilogue that he'll be pushing Physical space travel.

I think the correspondence is imperfect. Halfway through Tress when Ulaam made the comment about primal elements, I fully expected the aethers to be 10 Essences + 2 special ones (Midnight and something). Especially since Zephyr is the name of the air Essence and emerald is the gemstone matching Pulp/plant Essence. But on that basis I was expecting Crimson to make fire. Blood would also fit. But I don't think spikes fit any Essence super well, especially since Roseite is already crystalline. Unless Spark (fire) =Sunlight, Lucentia (crystal)= Roseite, Talus (stone)=Crimson? I don't know, still doesn't feel like a good fit.

I kind of feel like Sazed needs an increase/positive change Shard. Preservation is stasis, Ruin is entropy/decay. Cultivation or Invention might help... or might just make it even more impossible to act.