cometaryorbit

Elend in HOA was relatively inexperienced (he'd had a year by the beginning of the book, but he was busy trying to hold an empire together) - though this might be somewhat exaggerated as we see this mentioned in Vin's POV, and she's an incredible "natural talent" at Allomancy. But I think Elend was genuinely maxed-out on "raw power" - it's just that we really don't see enough comparisons to have a good idea what that means. He's got more raw power (though less skill) than Vin, and Vin is clearly stronger than "normal" Allomancers of her era (see the training scene with Ham in WoA where Vin does a pewter-jump, etc.) - probably due to absorbing small bits of mist early on, according to Sazed's epilogue epigraph in HOA. Elend definitely doesn't seem to be operating on "Bands of Mourning" / Vin burning mists level Not necessarily. Control seems to be a "threshold" thing; in WoA Vin gets no effect until she breaks through and gets total control. So a Lerasium Mistborn is above that threshold without Duralumin, while a modern one isn't. But that threshold could be only like 10% above where Vin is without Duralumin. Well... depends on the Inquisitor. Your average Inquisitor, who was a Misting beforehand, is going to be slightly weaker than a Mistborn (due to hemalurgic decay) in every metal except their original Misting ability - but most of them have feruchemical gold so people think they are basically immortal. Only a former-Mistborn Inquisitor, or a multi-spiked one like Marsh in HOA, is generally stronger than a natural Mistborn. I really doubt it. Duralumin burns minutes' worth of metal in maybe a second or two (Vin hears a couple of heartbeats IIRC) so that's probably more like a 100x increase in power. I agree with @Karger that Lerasium vs Normal is probably more like 2x, equivalent to being spiked plus natural ability (or a bit better due to the lack of Hemalurgic Decay).

I think they have human Spiritual aspects already, or rather basically human modified by Hemalurgy - mistwraiths are humans with a "Cognitive blockage", and Hemalurgy kind of bypasses that blockage to create kandra. The part of a person that goes Beyond appears to be the Cognitive, not the Spiritual. It's interesting to note that in Secret History dead koloss appear as humans in the Cognitive Realm.

That's possible too, at least for bones (assuming they don't eat the living cells and soft-tissue inside the bones). But I think if they ate a whole person (except bones) they would get the cells that produce the hair and nails.

Excluding out-of-world explanations (like "when Mistborn was first written there wasn't quite so much of a team of experts looking at the books before publication"), I think the limits are likely Realmatic, not biological. Because yeah, things like bone and hair are ultimately derived from "soft" tissues. We know they can grow tendons and stuff, that's connective tissue... there really is no line on the cellular level that makes sense. If Kandra can get the blood right, fix Marasi, adjust their own immune systems ... there really shouldn't be much limit on what they can do besides processes that would require high temperatures or pressures. (So no growing steel body parts, but spider silk, poison dart frog poison, anything that can be made by any living creature or any room-temperature organic chemistry ought to be viable if they knew how.) On the other hand... there is that bit about mistwraiths being humans with a Cognitive blockage. Kandra are kind of a "half" fix to that, using Hemalurgy to "bypass" the blockage. So I think there may be a Cognitive or Spiritual (from the Hemalurgy) limit of some sort that prevents them from completely replicating humans. On another other hand, even without the Realmatics, if a kandra really imitated a person perfectly down to the molecular level, it would then effectively be human... it would have to be distinguishable from human, at some level, to keep the shape-changing ability, immortality/super-longevity, etc. So who knows...

Crem isn't necessarily "picked up" at all, it could be produced as solids within the Highstorm itself, either by a direct Investiture process similar to Shardblades "condensing from mist", or some kind of Stormfather-aided chemical process. Even in the real world, atmospheric reactions can produce solid particles. For example sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides react in cloud droplets to produce sulfuric/nitric acids which then react with ammonia to produce ammonium sulfate/ammonium nitrate particles. This is much more common now due to pollution, but there are natural sources of all these chemicals as well (volcanoes emit sulfur oxides, lightning and fires turn nitrogen and oxygen in air into nitrogen oxides, nitrogen-fixing bacteria produce ammonia, etc.)

I would imagine if they replicated a human body exactly, all the hormones and such would work on their own. I mean, a real human doesn't need to control the process consciously or know how it works, so if all the soft tissue is 100% identical to a human's... The only problems, I'd imagine, would be if there is any interaction with bone marrow or anything. As Dreamer points out, even Brandon hasn't completely decided kandra limits; we probably won't have a final answer until Era 3 books come out. But some of the things kandra have been observed doing in the Era 2 books, IMO, kind of lean toward them being able to do total imitation at the molecular level (otherwise, Marasi's immune system would probably have rejected MeLaan's patch). But this does kind of lead to narrative problems, as then a kandra with months to spend on it could grow bones (by first growing the cells that produce bones), and for that matter (once their scientific knowledge advances far enough) could become almost unlimited biotech factories,,,

Yeah Pewter can clearly let you recover from things not just quicker, but outright better, (not just same final result happening faster), than normal human healing. Pewter burners can recover from wounds that would be outright fatal otherwise (see Elend at the end of WOA) - but not wounds that are quickly fatal; a cut throat can't be fixed. (Even though that is not actually "more" damage than Elend's gut wound.) The limit is whether the Allomancer dies before the fixed rate of Pewter healing can fix the wound that would kill them, IMO. Yeah. As a general rule, Allomancy has a fixed "upper limit" on rate, Feruchemy doesn't. A Pewter Feruchemist can (briefly) attain far greater strength than a Thug or even a Lerasium Mistborn flaring Pewter, a Steel Feruchemist can reach ridiculous speeds, etc. I'm not sure the ability to re-grow limbs (in Gold Feruchemy) is particularly informative as to the underlying mechanism (and whether it's different from Pewter Allomancy). It might just be a matter of the healing rate being fast enough to act before scarring and similar "normal" healing processes close off the blood vessels, etc. Why humans can't re-grow limbs in the real world (while some simpler animals can re-grow equivalent major body parts, starfish for example) is IIRC not 100% understood, though it likely has to do with preventing cancers etc. from "unlimited" cell growth. And while no human can re-grow an entire limb, smaller parts (such as fingertips) can be regenerated by some people, but not others. So there is not a bright line between "normal human healing" and "regeneration". There is active research into treatments to improve wound healing by 'unlocking' these limited 'regenerative' capabilities at least some humans have...

Ah hmmm good point. I wonder if there is a way to use an enormous (1000+ Breath equivalent) Feruchemical charge to "hack" the power-destruction Aluminum Hemalurgy effect into something more like a Nightblood Realmatic-destruction effect? Scadrian magics aren't as "flexible" as Nalthian Commands, much less Selish "programming", so maybe not, but it would be cool.

Parshmen seem much worse off than Drabs. IIRC Drabs have lost a part of their Innate Investiture. It does affect emotions and such, as well as weakening their immune system, etc., but Drabs function in society (many Hallandren inhabitants gave up their Breaths as children and have lived their whole adult lives as Drabs). They don't have the lack of will and "inactivated" personalities parshmen show. Of course, humans don't have the inherent changeability and spren-bond dependence of the singer/listener species.

I agree that Aluminum Hemalurgy (not aluminumminds - feruchemy) does not do the same thing as Nightblood. I was just saying that the specific Spiritual-cutting effect we see on Roshar isn't necessary to qualify as a "Shardblade", since Nightblood's effect is different. I agree that being highly Invested by itself doesn't give any destructive effect. It should, however, let the object block a Shardblade (more like a half-shard shield). My suggestion was that an Aluminummind that was hugely Invested by Compounding (just a bit less than the maximum for a sword-sized object, not totally "full", to allow "room" for the Hemalurgic charge) would block a Shardblade. The Aluminum Hemalurgy (not Feruchemy) was then added to give the "power destruction effect".

With Compounding, why not? Heavily Invested items can block a Shardblade, so I think the real question is - what gives a (Rosharan) Shardblade its power to cut on the Spiritual Realm? I think there's more to it than just quantity of Investiture - Nightblood has a somewhat different effect (still multi-Realm, but not the same) despite being an attempt to replicate a Rosharan Shardblade. So if a Compounder put 1,000 Breaths equivalent of Investiture into a blade, and did nothing else, I think it would block (Rosharan) Shardblades, but not cut like one, itself. However -- we know Nightblood is considered a Shardblade, and it has a somewhat different effect. Aluminum Hemalurgy apparently destroys powers rather than stealing them. Could this be the source of a Scadrian "other-Realm destruction" effect? Get an aluminum sword, have an Aluminum Compounder Twinborn make it into a metalmind just short of being "too full" to be usable as a Hemalurgic spike, then get both the benefits of high Investiture and the power-destruction effect?

Well, sure. But the Bands are spearhead-sized; necessarily, at 100% charge, they would hold much less Investiture than a Nightblood-size sword. Nightblood is "metal infused with investiture", yet it is far more Invested than a Rosharan Shardblade. I don't think being "pure Investiture" is actually a distinction. Matter/energy/investiture are all interconvertible in the Cosmere, like matter and energy in the real world. Ultimately I think everything in the Cosmere is "pure investiture" in that sense - 1 gram of matter is equivalent to a certain fixed amount of Investiture, just as it's equivalent to 9 x 10^13 joules of energy. Note that Nightblood is unnaturally heavy... Possibly his mass is actually increased by the mass-equivalent of the energy he contains. I think the really relevant difference between Shardblades, Lerasium, Atium, etc. and normal matter is accessibility of Investiture. (Like the electrical charge in a battery, vs. the far greater but inaccessible energy locked up in its mass.) Shardblades, Atium, Lerasium etc. are tied to their respective worlds' magic (Spren bonds on Roshar, Metallic Arts on Scadrial) and thus do "supernatural" things that ordinary rocks and water don't.

Yeah, I agree that was the point of Spensa returning to save Starsight... If she saw all of them as all-bad she would just have let the delver eat them. OTOH, I guess there is a difference between the worth of individuals (who may or may not have a say in their government) and the question of whether the Superiority government has any redeeming value. But from Defending Elysium it's pretty clear that it has been a happy shiny facade on top of tyranny for centuries, since before humans got off-Earth. There doesn't really seem to be much hope for And as for total war as an alternative... dunno. In an universe with basically instantaneous FTL it seems like it would always be easy just to go somewhere else, find new worlds. But the implication is that humanity "lost" thoroughly enough that the Superiority actually believes the human threat is essentially over. You'd think that there would be colonies somewhere out way beyond the Superiority's known range that would not have been involved in the war at all. But maybe there are and they will show up in the next book...

I really doubt Aluminum Feruchemy just automatically fails like that... I think the resistance thing gets overstated. Aluminum is a valid Allomantic metal too; not a very useful one, but it does destroy other metals (and potentially other external influences), not just itself. That is an Invested effect. - I would think it's likely that the total amount of Investiture you could put into a given mass of metal is the same whether you do it by Hemalurgy or Feruchemy or something else. (Though Nightblood might be an exception, he's weird. As a sapient being of his own right, I think he might be a different case than a "dead spren" Shardblade, not just powered by investiture passively present in his metal.) Most hemalurgic spikes are nowhere near "full", especially the big Inquisitor ones. Vin's tiny earring was able to hold almost a full Seeker's ability, as she was effectively double power. I think if a large sword was actually fully Hemalurgically (or Feruchemically) charged, it would be as Invested as a Shardblade. But several pounds of metal would be a ton of charge, maybe hundreds of people, even a few thousand... One of the HOA epigraphs says that koloss spikes got stronger as they were re-used, but hit an upper limit. But these were far, far smaller than a sword (IIRC they're described as nails).

I originally mentally pictured the Shardblades as being crystalline rather than metal (like the Crystal Swords in Diablo 2)... maybe because of the importance of gems? I was surprised when I finally noticed that Shallan's drawings made them look basically like normal swords, though large (I read the books on Kindle so the pictures were maybe not as immediately prominent as in the hardback book). The Plate in my head looks more "gonzo" than it's probably really supposed to look (though Shallan's drawings aren't in color), super brightly painted with the gems being hugely obvious blazing light sources.

Allomantic pewter enhancement is really pretty small (a couple times normal strength, not dozens), so I don't think it would lead to regrowing limbs and such even if it works by the same principle as feruchemical gold - that involves burning through days or weeks of storage in seconds or minutes. As for a speed cap being the limit, though - Vin fails to burn out the unconsciousness drug in Yomen's storage cavern (HOA) using Duralumin-Pewter. I'd think gold feruchemy could probably do that, and with Duralumin involved, speed probably isn't the limiting factor in this case. Now maybe Vin just didn't have enough pewter left... but it might genuinely be a more limited form of healing.

For Elend, the questionable one to me is the Jastes bit, because Elend isn't actually king or emperor at that point... so it's not clear what authority he actually has to execute anyone. OTOH, this is a situation of total chaos where the government that has existed for 1,000 years - the only government anyone has any real knowledge of, beyond ancient history preserved by the Keepers - has broken down. So any question of legal authority is verrrry tentative here. It's really a more unresolved situation than anything we have in the modern day. In our age, even in 'failed states' there are principles of international law that theoretically apply even if not honored in practice. But the people of Scadrial have no such concept because there have been no other nations for centuries, all law came down from the Lord Ruler, and now he's gone. - Vin and Cett's men... I don't think I would agree that that is definitely wrong. Questionable and probably poorly considered, yes, clearly wrong, no. They are soldiers of a force besieging the city, after all. It's questionable because there is a sort of truce in effect, yeah, but it seems to be a truce that everybody involved understands could break down at any moment, there is no formal treaty. Vin feels guilty about it -- as I understand it -- primarily because the conflict was so one-sided, her opponents had no real chance, not because she broke any "law of war" or other understood rule of conduct.

I think that is an answer that doesn't say as much as it seems, though. I mean, even Ruin isn't gone, as such, just now part of a greater whole. Investiture can't really be destroyed, so Odium's power has to survive in some form, doesn't it?

Maybe, but not necessarily, depends on what that WOB is referring to. If he means "the cosmere" as the entire universe, our universe doesn't really have a center either. If "the cosmere" means specifically the set of Shardworlds and their associated stars, systems, etc., it's probably a cluster within a larger system of some sort (part of a galaxy, or orbiting a galaxy, or whatever), so the orbits might be normal, just the orbital center (supermassive black hole or whatever) is really far away and has nothing to do with the actual Cosmere/Shardworld areas.

I didn't mean the fish thing to be permanent, just to disappear for a long time so that anyone who is looking for them gives up. Then come out of the water and take a human form and identity in the Southern Islands or Farmost/Remote Dominance where there is less oversight. (And I was talking about kandra who had already committed a crime that would get them imprisoned forever, so the retirement thing wouldn't really be an option at that point.) Thing is, we only see the Central Dominance, per WOB the Skaa/Noble relationship is a lot different in some parts of the Outer Dominances, some places skaa can own land and so on. TLR keeps much more control in the Inner Dominances. And a kandra would presumably want to go somewhere far from the center because Inquisitors are largely in Luthadel. I don't think it means that, the main characters wouldn't have known if some random thief they met once was actually a kandra. Sure there weren't any in Kelsier's crew except OreSeur, but in any case, a kandra who decided to hide in the criminal underworld wouldn't pick Luthadel - too many Inquisitors. They'd go for Urteau or Tremredare or Fadrex or something, which we don't see anything of until the Post-TLR collapse is well advanced.

I figured the Shardworlds were all relatively close to each other (in cosmic/galactic terms) because the Shards all started in the same place, on Yolen. There might well be a black hole at the center of the cosmere's galaxy (I think most galaxies are supposed to have one, in our universe?) but it might not be anywhere near the Shardworlds.

Khriss does say "the actual battle took place in the vast space between planets", yes. I'm not entirely sure what that even means, though, since Shards (except Devotion/Dominion post-Splintering) are primarily Spiritual Realm entities. The Spiritual Realm is location independent. If a Shard is Invested in a planet, it's obviously associated with that particular planet - but that doesn't seem to apply here... Anyway, that battle was not the final Splintering of Ambition. Ambition's mortal wound could have been some form of infusing Hatred into Ambition, which took effect later (and elsewhere), perhaps?

Also, killing humans is against the First Contract, killing other kandra is technically not - as TenSoon points out. Eh... I actually can't see how any kandra that just ran away and hid could ever be caught, either by other kandra or Inquisitors, except by really extreme bad luck. TenSoon-as-OreSeur talks about Mistborn being able to find them, but how? Throwing really powerful emotional Allomancy around everywhere on the off chance you hit a kandra doesn't really sound practical. Inquisitorsight could spot them, but there are maybe three dozen Inquisitors in the entire empire at most (IIRC, per WOB - Kelsier estimates 20 total in the first book). The chances that a kandra living in some out-of-the-way place would ever see an Inquisitor, even in a thousand years, are pretty low. (And I'm not sure Inquisitors would automatically spot kandra "in passing", though. If they were closely looking at the person yeah, but if the kandra is just one person in a crowd hundreds of feet away, I doubt a Blessing would automatically stand out as different from jewelry, coins, or whatever.) Either Inquisitorsight or extra-powerful emotional Allomancy would only really be useful if you were trying to pick out a kandra from a relatively small set of suspects. But a kandra who was just hiding, as opposed to carrying out a contract, would presumably pick a place to live where they'd never be around a Mistborn or Inquisitor. I mean, if TLR told an Inquisitor, "a kandra went rogue, go catch them", how would they even start? Could be anyone of tens of millions of people, or some animal (a kandra who was really paranoid could hide as a fish for a few decades, until any kandra or Inquisitors hunting them assumed they were dead...)

Definitely not. Spanreeds are already technically FTL communication, it just isn't noticeable since the distances are only a few thousand miles at most, so far. And you can effectively travel between solar systems FTL by worldhopping using the Cognitive Realm... not really the same thing, but you still end up traveling light years in days or weeks.

I am not sure that the balance enhancements from pewter are a proprioception thing. It's also described as improved "grace" etc (in HoA scenes when people are looking at Spook and wondering if he's really become a Thug). I figured it was an effect of improved speed and "dexterity", making little corrections to keep your balance more quickly and more precisely. This seems to be on the subconscious level though so there probably isn't any way to know short of a WOB.