cometaryorbit

It's hard to know what's going on with savantism since there may be some level of soft retcon. It looks like bronze/copper savantism being subtle is still canon: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/472/#e14917 but most are relatively extreme. Wax was intended to be a savant of the A-steel/F-iron resonance, but that may not be the case in current canon, and even if so might not be identical to plain A-steel savantism. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/36/#e1563 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/309/#e8115 I agree that a common disadvantage of all savantism - besides the specific effects - is a kind of addiction to the metal (or whatever power is being used). Stormlight Archive: It's also worth noting that though regular Feruchemy doesn't really produce savants, Compounding does, and both TLR and Miles were Compounding savants: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/402/#e13393

Yeah. One invulnerable superhero/supervillain can't necessarily win a large-scale war. Even a Fullborn can only be in one place at a time. Also, Scadrial pre-Deepness was early 1800s tech; the Deepness-driven chaos might have destroyed most of that infrastructure before TLR's conquests really got going.

I think it's slightly- all Allomancy enhanced the mind to some degree: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/270/#e7551

Yeah, it just doesn't quite work with physics. What I think is meant is that it just changes mass directly - Wax doesn't have less or more atoms or molecules in his body when he stores or taps weight. AFAIK (which is limited) most of the mass of people or everyday objects- or anything else made of atoms - doesn't actually come from the Higgs field. The mass of fundamental particles like electrons and quarks does, but most of an atom's mass - from what I've read - is really the result of energy in the protons and neutrons.

It's also not kandra-specific, humans can use trellium spikes too. I think Hemalurgy is usually a bit of a conflict. Human attribute spikes used on Scadrians, like those used to make kandra or koloss, steal a bit of Preservation - with Ruin's system. Is a koloss Invested by Preservation, Ruin, or both? The four extra spiritweb bits are pieces of Preservation, but it's Ruin's Invested Art...

I don't think an Avatar can be stolen as such (because it isn't "cut off from the direct control and self-identity of the Shard", Autonomy could prevent that) but killing an existing Avatar could possibly be taken by Autonomy as proving your worthiness to replace that Avatar.

I agree. TLM is meant to set up Mistborn existing again for future Eras.

Not necessarily. A kandra copying human DNA does not have to mean that it loses its own DNA in the process. That depends on how kandra mimicry fundamentally works. It is possible that it works like RL horizontal gene transfer, eg bacterial transformation - DNA taken in from the environment (in this case, what the kandra eats) is added to the cell in addition to the cell's pre-existing DNA. This would allow a kandra to replicate human proteins exactly (since it has the exact genes for those proteins) without losing its own DNA in the process. But if this is how it works, it wouldn't necessarily make the kandra interfertile with humans. It would have to have a way to ensure only the human DNA ended up in the gametes during the meiosis process, which seems way more complex ... but maybe an ability they need if they can pass an early 20th century tech blood test, unless kandra blood is that similar to human blood. - Honestly, kandra biology strikes me as possibly needing a soft retcon or at least a clarification. With the things we've seen them do in Era 2, it frankly makes no sense they can't make bones, much less hair (those things are produced from living cells) - especially since MeLaan is specifically described as making tendons, which are collagen based connective tissue like the organic component of bone. I think kandra shapeshifting is intended to be entirely Physical, but as of right now the no bone/hair rule feels more like a Cognitive limitation.

20,000 koloss? Hmmm. I'd say the Radiants eventually lose (but can easily escape if they're willing to retreat before running out of Light) if the koloss are directly controlled, but probably win if they're not. I don't think Shallan can do her full Battle of Thaylen Field super illusion army without the perpendicularity, and Jasnah's Soulcasting scale is probably also limited. She can totally Soulcast people normally (as we see in WoK) but it's hard and likely Light-expensive. On the other hand, Plate is awesome and koloss have no defense against Shardblades & probably won't even try to dodge. So Jasnah and Kaladin will kill a ton of koloss extremely quickly, and non-controlled koloss will have their morale break. But if the koloss are controlled... koloss are strong enough that their Plate will be taking real damage, so they'll be burning through Light fixing it. I don't think they could actually kill 20,000 this way. As of RoW Jasnah doesn't have the knowledge to Soulcast explosives or whatever, which could theoretically be decisive.

I agree the thread should be moved, but

Yeah, that's what it comes down to. If they can imitate the DNA, then it should work. If they can't then it won't. I feel like they should be able to copy DNA because we know they can copy very specific proteins (MeLaan's tissue graft to Marasi)...

Yeah, I think Fortune is a more limited thing than directly seeing the Spiritual Realm (what Elend does with his duralumin+atium burn, or the vision Fuzz-Preservation gives Kelsier). I think it's understood as "luck" because it's like an instinct or gut feeling that happens to work out. I think it's like the part of Allomantic atium that makes you move instinctively even if you didn't notice the atium shadow coming.

I don't think that voice is Harmony's, since it's "awed". I think that is just Wax's thoughts... though admittedly voices like that in the Mistborn series are suspicious. I don't think Wax is seeing into the Cognitive in the way that Shallan or Venli or Kaza in Stormlight do with the Transformation or Transportation Surges. We know what the Scadrian Cognitive looks like - a world of mist - and Wax isn't seeing that. Looking into the Spiritual Realm is something else again. Either it's Cognitive-mediated like the visions in Stormlight or it's future sight like atium or it's the full vision of possibilities that Preservation gives Kelsier or Elend gets by burning duralumin and atium. That's not what Wax is doing either. What he is seeing is Investiture in Physical people and objects ("the radiance inside of each person and thing"). Or possibly both Investiture and energy; there's a WoB that the strongest levels of steelsight would let you see things like fundamental forces, so the radiance in the objects (vs people's souls) might be more energy than Investiture. I don't think this would let him see beings that have no presence in the Physical. I don't think there is really a "just look into the Cognitive" power in the Metallic Arts. Elend got the full vision of possibilities, but that's a very different thing ... and a pretty unique situation.

Catching up: I think low weight would also help you jump, like jumping on the Moon - though at exceptionally low weight you might have air resistance issues. I think we don't know enough to really speculate usefully on any Twinborn's resonance, but what I'd like it to be is the ability to Leech someone else's coppermind and transfer the memories to your own. Name: Brain Drain (lol). Maybe Scadrians would call the combo Mindleech? A-Steel and F-Zinc: I love the name "Trickshot"! This is probably one of the more powerful combos that isn't one of the obviously broken ones (like double gold or double steel). It's not quite up there with A-pewter/F-steel or A-pewter/F-gold, but still. We see Sazed using F-zinc to predict Marsh's Push/Pull trajectory in their WoA fight; an experienced Coinshot could probably push this pretty far. Maybe even to react to individual bullets. Two time powers, cool. Yeah, this is a super awesome support Twinborn for the Elendel military - or any group with Mistings. Name suggestion: Everburst. Yeah, Resonances have to be pretty subtle because after four books we still aren't sure of either Wax's or Wayne's! OK, Wax's was presumably supposed to be the steel bubble and that became a generic Coinshot thing when Brandon decided against his "resonance savant" thing, but still... And Wayne's lack of any clues is weird. I really don't know whether Twinborn Resonances are supposed to be straightforward mechanical things (which I feel fits the Metallic Arts better) or more symbolic like the Stormlight ones

. Hmmm. I wasn't thinking the refugees were "a significant portion", I was thinking things were far worse. Kind of like HoA, yes... but that wasn't a 70% death rate, it was >99.8% at least in the North (Final Empire population was on the order of 100 million; 1/5 of the Originators were Terris and we know there were 40,000 Terris partway through HoA ... minus however many died before the Catacendre. So 200,000 max.) The Ashyn refugees arrived with ash around them and actually burned, both them and their livestock. To me that sounds like they barely escaped - it doesnt sound like they had a lot of time to set it up (and WoB makes it sound like it was one super big Elsecalling). So I doubt they had 100 million, or even 10 million, people all nicely lined up for one big Elsecalling. Also, Shinovar is large. 1.4 million square kilometers according to https://www.17thshard.com/forum/blogs/entry/634-roshar-physical-characteristics-and-areas/ . And it's not just large, it's vastly more suitable to humans than the rest of Roshar. The rest of Roshar is not very attractive to expand into. This is another reason this feels like more than one generation to me - humans would need time to learn how to live in non-Shinovar Roshar before they could effectively invade it. If humans just swept over the continent starting from an Earthlike environment, they'd just get destroyed by the weather in Eastern Roshar. I think it can't have been one big invasion but a much slower process. I actually kind of think the invasion wasn't the initiating incident at all - the characters in OB just assume that because they are all concerned with the coalition and so the Alethi history of invasions is front and center in all their minds. I think it's much more likely that the 'spren/singer betrayal' happened first, the singers turned to Odium in response to that, humans chose Honor or vice versa in response to that, and the human invasion of Roshar was actually part of a Honor/Odium proxy conflict (and that the supercontinent of Roshar was probably actually settled by humans over a pretty long time, maybe even centuries, after the imprisonment of the Fused had destroyed the singers' cohesion - giving humans time to learn how to build and farm and survive in Eastern Roshar.)

Oh, I definitely agree that cadmium Feruchemy oxygenates the bloodstream. I just think the mechanism might be more like "restoring the body to an oxygenated state" than "storing individual O2 molecules into the Spiritual Realm then tapping them out". It might oxygenate the hemoglobin directly, for that matter...

Yeah, exactly. I just don't think it's possible for a Compounder to achieve using metalminds small enough to wear or carry.

Mistborn TLM Spoilers: I'm now thinking that the Heralds were Avatars of Honor before they became Cognitive Shadows. (Original post updated, to put the whole theory in one place)

I agree that the events seem like they'd take more than one generation. It seems like the Ashynite refugees arrived in pretty bad shape, and Shinovar is large. Occupying and using its resources enough for expansion beyond to make sense doesn't sound like a one-generation thing. Exploration, sure; actual settlement or conquest is another matter. Plus, the spren had to get familiar with humans and start preferring them to singers. Also, the Oathpact didn't start immediately upon the human-singer war: in OB Ch 38, the Stormfather says that it was because humans couldn't defeat the Fused being repeatedly reborn. So it had to be after the initial war, after the dead singers from that war became the Fused, and after the continuing Fused conflict went on long enough for it to become clear that humanity couldn't win the war unless something drastic changed. Finally, the Oathpact was supposed to be permanent (no cyclical Desolations), so what were the Honorblades intended for?

That is an extremely good point. Awakening has only been known for about 400 years as of Warbreaker, so how do they know that it's literal agelessness as opposed to "age 1 year for every 500 years that pass"? Vivenna with maybe 800ish? Breaths is already said to be almost ageless.

I tend to think that while theoretically enough Investiture in a metalmind could create a perpendicularity, in practice its not really likely. The Bands are less Invested than a Shardblade, and they're both larger (mass) than most metalminds and so full they don't show any steel-lines. I'd think that even a large steel sword 100% full would only be as Invested as a Shardblade (which is god metal) or less. Liquid Investiture is super powerful, and it takes a whole pool of that to make a perpendicularity. So I think this would require a metalmind significantly larger than a person, and ridiculous amounts of Compounding to fill it. If you had a ship made of Allomantic steel, and a Steel Compounder, maybe...

It could be an air pressure thing; Spook in HoA says his Tin Savant senses (including feeling air pressure from incoming attacks) act almost like atium.

To kill a 4th+ Ideal Radiant pretty much requires either some form of 'Leeching' (A-Chromium, Stormlight-drain fabrial, larkin, Nightblood, etc), Anti-Light, or running them out of Stormlight. A Gold Compounder is similar, but a bit more vulnerable since they're dependent on physical metalminds (though implanting their metalminds in the body decreases that vulnerability). For TLR-Skybreaker, short of Anti-Light, the enemy would have to run him out of, or Leech away, both the F-Gold Health reserve and the Stormlight (melting/vaporizing/blasting apart metalminds with extreme heat or powerful explosions would work for the F-Gold but not the Stormlight). I don't think an Elantrian is necessarily a clear win. They can do pretty much anything, sure, so I'm sure they can replicate Leeching, but it takes preparation. An Elantrian who has spent a ton of time specifically planning to take on TLR-Skybreaker, probably; but without that, not so much. They wouldn't have time to do much AonDor; Elantrian healing is much worse than Radiant, so an Elantrian can't really survive an attack from TLR-Skybreaker. Unmade ... I think you might get a fight with no resolution. Neither Allomancy/Feruchemy nor Skybreaking inherently have a way to travel to the Cognitive Realm, but TLR is probably immune to most of the Unmade's abilities. I'm not sure all of them even have a way to kill a regular person in the Physical Realm. - Moelach's Death Rattles rely on someone already dying, they don't really harm anyone. - Nergaoul's Thrill and Ashertmarn's "revel" are basically Emotional Allomancy. Once he notices his emotions are being messed with, he burns copper: TLR's super-strong Copper Allomancy should make him immune, and copper is so slow-burning he can just leave it on forever. - Sja-anat corrupts/Enlightens spren, but it seems to be voluntary on the part of sapient Radiant spren, so she can't just zap TLR-Skybreaker's highspren; even if she could, and it disrupted his Radiant powers, she's probably not equipped to kill a Lerasium Mistborn Full Compounder, even if she's capable of Physically killing people personally like Re-Shephir is. -Re-Shephir might actually have a chance if she can just endlessly produce Midnight Essence. It can damage Plate, so it can wear through TLR's healing. -Yelig-Nar with a suitably powerful host seems like he should be absurdly powerful, but his performance doesn't really live up to that. He doesn't seem to have effective healing. Maybe if his host has a good healing power separately from Yelig-nar, though, he'd be a threat to TLR-Skybreaker. - We don't know enough about the others' powers. - Susebron Awakening... IDK. This would only work with special materials available, I think; normal wood/cloth/etc just won't be strong enough to restrain Shardplate.

I don't really think you could do it with an actually empty spike though? If its empty it's just a piece of metal not a Hemalurgic spike. For what Kelsier is doing it may not matter what the spike stole, but I think it still needs to be a Hemalurgic spike Invested with something.

Hmm, ok. I guess I always misread that part as the coins cutting into the koloss, not literally passing through their bodies. Coins fully passing through koloss bodies is super weird because they shouldn't have enough momentum to do that - once metal is in the body it can't be Pushed further.