cometaryorbit

I kind of feel like it actually should be "Knights of Working Title"

My argument is that Allomancers don't glow, or have other obvious manifestations like BioChromatic aura, precisely because they don't really hold Investiture within themselves - it just goes straight from Preservation in the Spiritual Realm and is shaped into the effect immediately. They also don't have "passive" benefits like Stormlight physical enhancement or Heightenings or Elantrians' boosts. Marasi did emit mists, but I think she was still only getting the actual powers, not extra "passive" benefits. Sure, if he reforged the Connection, that would have needed Stormlight - but who knows how much Investiture this kind of stuff actually takes. I still tend to think that Bondsmiths aren't so much insanely powerful in the "quantity of Investiture" sense*, as they are using meta-powers that can kind of invalidate/bypass others' powers (like being Connected to the ground so that Stormlight healing heals the ground itself). A qualitative difference, not a quantitative one. *At least originally - Dalinar post-Shattering of Honor may get access to much of Honor's power. But I think Melishi during the False Desolation, and Ishar in ROW, have the limiters on their Surges removed but don't get access to significant-fraction-of-a-Shard power.

Even if my ideas are right, they'd definitely still glow when holding Light/Investiture for physical enhancement, healing, etc. But if they just go from "not holding any Light" to "using Investiture direct from Honor to power Surge X" they might not go through a stage where the Investiture is held within the Herald - just as TLR or Marasi using the Bands don't glow. The power goes straight from the Shard or metalmind to the effect, and isn't ever held as Light within the person. Oh Ishar was using tons of power, sure, but if he can still draw from (what was once) Honor...

I'm not convinced that a Herald using the direct Investiture draw from Honor to power a Surge would necessarily glow - the Herald might not be "holding" the Investiture in the way a regular Radiant holds Stormlight. It might be more like Allomancy, the power going straight through from the Spiritual to the effect. Bondsmiths are unrestricted by Intent, yeah. I'm not arguing that any random spren can make a Bondsmith, clearly they can't. The system of (KR-style) Surgebinding requires specific types of spren for specific Surge pairs/Orders. But I do think that if you understood medallions/fabrials/magitech at a really high level, a device to give you Bondsmith powers wouldn't necessarily contain more Investiture than one to give you any other Order's powers. (Though using the Surges at extreme levels - Binder of Gods stuff vs speaking languages or fixing statues- would likely need more Investiture as 'fuel' than anything a Windrunner or Stoneward could do.) Also, we don't know what the upper end of Duralumin Feruchemy/Compounding can do. All we've seen is speaking languages, which is also a Bondsmith power, but I think there's more to it.

Maybe it's some Bondsmith Connection or Spiritual Realm thing making Ishar's powers work like they did pre Splintering of Honor (time is less relevant in the Spiritual). And I totally agree that Bondsmiths are crazy powerful. But I don't think that's all Investiture in the Bondsmith Radiant or Ishar's Honorblade. Although, I do think Bondsmiths aren't necessarily using/manipulating as much Investiture as all that - nowhere near Shard levels. They're scary even to Shards because they manipulate fundamental Spiritual mechanisms that all magic, even Shards, rely on. Even a Shard needs Connection to interact with people in most ways.

Hmm, ok... though the HoA epigraphs imply that atium is different since it's all-Ruin whereas random rocks on Scadrial are half Ruin, half Preservation. Though I don't know how that would apply to one-Shard worlds like Taldain or Nalthis (though, maybe those Shards didn't create those planets? But still, if raysium exists, there's probably a theoretical edglium or bavadinium that would be distinct from any random matter made by those Shards...) I remain unconvinced that the impressiveness of an end-positive power (fueled by external Investiture) is related to how Invested the thing is that gives you that power. Bondsmiths only come from the three largest spren, true, but then Honor was specifically interested in limiting Surgebinding. *Ishar* may be able to use his powers without Stormlight, but I think that's a Herald plus Honorblade thing, not a pure Honorblade thing. If Lirin picked up Ishar's Honorblade, I think he'd need to inhale Stormlight.

Does gravity work on seons? I mean, they float... are they using a force to counter gravity, or are they just not pulled down?

I don't see the difference between "make iron out of Investiture" and "convert Investiture to iron". Either way he starts with X amount of Investiture and ends with Y mass of iron. How do we know Ishar's Honorblade is necessarily more Invested, vs just granting more impressive/useful powers? The Surges themselves are powered by Stormlight, not by Investiture in the spren or Honorblade - otherwise Szeth in WOK wouldn't need to inhale Stormlight. I don't think a Pewter Misting is necessarily more Invested than a Gold Misting, though the power is way more useful.

Hmm, yeah, Ishar is a good point. Probably more influential than Hoid.

Sure... but the Spren is a Splinter in and of itself. Atium isn't. And I'm not saying it affects the level of Investiture exactly, so much as whether that Investiture is "active". I mean, investiture can be converted into matter or energy, but if Harmony created a block of iron out of Investiture I don't think it would be any harder to Push or Pull on or Soulcast than regular iron (all matter on Scadrial might have been created that way originally?) I don't think a full metalmind has more mass than an empty one - the Investiture is kind of in another Realm (which is why Ruin's metal blindness didn't prevent him from changing the contents of copperminds - the Investiture isn't really within the metal, just linked/keyed to it). So the Investiture stored using a metalmind makes it count as Invested, but the Investiture equivalent of its physical mass doesn't. So I don't think there is a necessary relationship between the Investiture level of a completely full metalmind and the Investiture level of the same mass of godmetal. (Which is why, IMO, you can use godmetals in Feruchemy/Hemalurgy at all - they don't count as "already 100% full" since the investiture is stored in a different way). I doubt they're exactly equal. If anything, the Honorblades are possibly less Invested - they're not sapient Splinters, and they are at least sometimes smaller. Now the Honorblades give Surgebinding powers and a dead-blade doesn't, but that involves drawing in extra Investiture (Stormlight). And anyway that dead-blade would have given Surgebinding back when it was a live Radiant spren.

Like a rocket exhaust, holding them up directly - so they're not even in orbit really, just hovering? In RL that wouldn't be nearly close to enough, but if the aether moons are some kind of mostly-not-Physical "matter" like seons so their real mass is miniscule, maybe.

I disagree, but don't think this is provable yet. I think that atium (as we see it in Era 1, slightly alloyed or whatever) certainly *acts* less Invested - it's Pushed and Pulled, etc. So it can probably be Soulcast - that is better at dealing with investiture interference than Pushes and Pulls, after all. I read that WoB as "the Bands are slightly less Invested than the threshold to qualify as a Shardblade" - Shardblade isn't a single Investiture level. I don't think they are that close to a spren blade. I think, from Brandon's E=MC^2 and thermodynamics analogies, there has to be a consistent conversion factor between Investiture and the mass of its solid form. I think that would imply a spren manifesting smaller than its full Shardblade form isn't 100% in the Physical Realm.

Yeah, apparently... but it was still made from power Preservation stole/separated from Ruin and set up to accumulate in the Pits. And that Era 1 impure/alloyed atium is what TLR was using for his metalminds. (If anything, that would probably make it less Invested and more easily Soulcast than refined/pure atium.)

Oh yeah, with no prior knowledge (so no idea to target the metalminds) Fullborn would win. Assuming *equal* good knowledge on both sides, though, I'm not sure that there is anything TLR could do to protect against soulcasting a metalmind (or Bondsmith connection stealing tricks???) - coating them in aluminum might block his own ability to use them. It also matters if the Fullborn is beyond max normal age like TLR, or not. TLR died without his metalminds- a say 40 year old Fullborn would lose whatever attribute was in that particular metalmind, but wouldn't be taken out of the fight completely, they'd still be a Mistborn plus all the remaining feruchemical attributes.

Atium in Era 1 is specifically disconnected from Ruin (intentionally so by Preservation, stealing a part of his power) though it is also his essence. It's basically a severed body part. Spren and Honor are a bit different case, since Honor made some of them willingly, but then was Splintered. I would argue they are separated now (post Splintering) but weren't before. (At least for Honorspren that were willingly created by Honor... pre-Shattering Spren of Adonalsium that were kind-of 'of Honor' post Shattering, who knows.) TLR's atium minds are so small that I just don't think they are that Invested even if they were at 100%.

I don't think we can assume that to be true, Shardblades are actual spren manifested, not sure that is quite the same as a chunk of atium 'disconnected' from Ruin. But even if it is true, a Shardblade is still going to have way more total Investiture since it is vastly larger. A ridiculously big sword vs. a pair of thin bracelets (which may not even be 100% metalmind - Vin says in WoA they turned out to have not that much atium when they broke them up and sold them, so they might have been just beads of atium set in a bracelet of another metal). Re: quickly killing a Radiant- I disagree that Radiants' Stormlight healing works that way. I think being full of Stormlight is going to keep you alive for at least a few seconds from basically anything that doesn't block/drain/destroy/etc Investiture (larkin, aluminum or raysium weapon, anti-Light, etc.) ... the Stormlight has to be used up first. Even if TLR is moving at Bands of Mourning sonic-boom speed, I don't think it would kill Jasnah before she could finish Soulcasting. (Though potentially she'd run out of Light and die of her wounds right afterward.)

Kelsier if he qualifies ... he briefly held a Shard, but mostly just as an interim custodian ... his most notable activities - setting up the skaa rebellion and Survivorism to overthrow the Final Empire, saving South Scadrial from freezing & giving them medallions, creating the Bands (apparently), and founding the Ghostbloods (I guess) - were done as a mortal or cognitive shadow. If he's disqualified by briefly holding a Shard, then Hoid. But that's so far (as of RoW/BoM). Khriss is more of a scholar than a meddler, but if stuff she discovers or invents ends up being critical to the Cosmere's future... Similarly Vasher could end up being more critical depending on how the Roshar/Nalthis connections turn out, etc.

Quite possible, I think we rarely see metalminds that are actually 100% full, but it probably does mean 'at the usual level of fullness at which Feruchemists carry them around'. TLR's atiumminds are specifically fairly small, so I do think they should totally be Soulcastable (Depending on the time that would take, of course, TLR might be able to react with compounded speed. OTOH, a Stormlight filled Radiant won't be killed with one hit even with F-Pewter strength... more and more, I'm thinking Jasnah could actually have defeated TLR *if* she knew of his metalmind dependency.)

It does seem possible that Elantris was found abandoned by the Aonic people because the original Elantrians had moved to the Cognitive and become the Ire. But the Ire are Elantrians (though with less glow due to being off Sel, I think) while the Iriali are normal humans. So I don't think they are directly related. I doubt the Iriali are from Sel.

True in many cases, but the one on Soulcasting a metalmind specifically says that a regular Rosharan soulcaster can do that. Which really isn't surprising, since a metalmind is probably less Invested than a human soul* and we've seen Jasnah soulcast humans. *Steelpushing on metalminds is noticeably harder (per Wax), but possible. Wax is good, with resonance and maybe a bit of savant stuff going on, but he's also Era 2 Misting strength. Vin (who was unusually strong for an Era 1 Mistborn, though not full lerasium Mistborn strength) couldn't even see lines to metals inside the body (without burning mists).

Hmm. That is super weird. I think that would require an active force keeping it that way - a RL geostationary orbit is equatorial. There are non-equatorial geosynchronous (orbital period = one day) orbits, but they don't stay continuously over one point on the Earth's surface.

True, but I mean, do seons cast shadows? They are visible to everyone, I think, not selectively like some Rosharan spren. I don't think we know enough about the rules for Cognitive entities 'shadowed on the Physical' to rule out the possibility of a core-aether-moon really blocking light but having a mass/density vastly lower than we'd expect for a regular Physical matter solid.

Ah, ok, I was thinking of the moons expelling the spores actively (out of their own gravity wells), like the moons were giant plants, rather than the spores being pulled off by gravity. Oh, yeah, that would work. Or maybe the moons (maybe the original 'core' aethers?) are largely Cognitive entities visible on the Physical but with little mass/solidity, like seons and some spren?

Yeah. If they are in an actual geosynchronous orbit, though, that does set what the altitude can be. We can't know exactly, since we don't know the mass or day length of Tress's planet, but from Arcanum Unbounded it looks like the habitable planets in the Cosmere are generally reasonably close to Earth size and properties (Sel is like 1.5x size, Roshar is 0.7x gravity, but we don't see like Jupiter sized or Pluto sized habitable planets). For Earth, geosynchronous orbit is a bit less than 1/10 the distance to our Moon (~23,000 miles vs about 250,000 miles) so that could be seen as "oppressively low" especially if they are large moons. (Mars' inner moon, Phobos, is actually below synchronous orbit altitude for Mars - but it's a tiny moon. Interestingly, like Roshar's moons, its orbit is not stable over the lifetime of the Solar System - IIRC it would be expected to decay in 20-50 million years.)

Hmm, good point. I guess F-Gold Healing is really more limited than I'd assumed.