alder24

I've found nothing about the size of the coppercloud, but maybe a skilled Smoker would be able to shield others from emotional allomancy.

Intimidation factor. Rule of cool. Like WoB said, they were so blunt that they were unable to cut like normal swords. The smaller blade with the handle is as long as Kollos is tall to his mouth (I measured). The Koloss is 200 px tall, sword with handle is 180 px long, without 140 px and 20 px wide. That means the blade alone is 70% of Koloss' height. For 5ft Koloss (152 cm), the blade would be 100 cm long. The blade is 10% as wide as Koloss high, so that's 15 cm for 5ft Koloss The big Koloss proportions are greater, 300 px tall Koloss and blade is 48 px wide, 212 px long (without handle), still 70% proportion. So if the smaller Kollos is 5tf tall, the larger is half as high, so 7.5ft tall (228 cm). The blade is 160 cm long, and 36.5 cm wide. And that's only 7.5 ft tall Koloss. Vin and Elend fought with 13 ft Koloss, with much larger swords. if 70% proportion is still applied, then his sword's blade would be 277 cm long. Enormous. Assuming width of 16% of Koloss height (like with 7.5 tall one), the blade is 63 cm wide. With 2 cm of thickness, it would weigh 275 kg! I doubt 2 cm thick metal of that mass wouldn't just break in half on impact. And we're going back to the topic how strong were Koloss - 5x stronger, or more because of their muscle mass. I don't know. I've just done math on the sword. It's about balance. Swinging 40 kg of metal, 1.5 meters away from your center of gravity, even if you weigh 200kg, would push you out of balance with every swing. That's not manageable in a fight.

Considering that Obligators were always present at every noble gathering, and were the legal witness to every trivial contract made between nobles, many nobles from lesser houses would consider this a great improvement in their position, giving them more power than mere lesser noble. And being a Misting/Mistborn might be even known to increase your status among obligators, encouraging more Misting to join the Ministry. I tend to disagree. Keep in mind, there were like 9 Great Noble Houses in TFE, accounting only for a small percentage of all nobility. Most nobles were of lesser houses, some aligned with great houses, but most were just independent, working on their own. For many of them, becoming an obligator would be an improvement in their social status and would bring more power not only to the individual, but also to the whole house. Going back to the Commonwealth - there were only around 80 magnats houses, the richest of the richest noble houses, most were far poorer than them. 20% of nobles didn't have any land, 40% were possessing a part of a village or few households in a village, 23% were engaged in trade activity. Only 17% of Commonwealth's nobles did not have to farm the land or work themselves, including those 80 magnat houses. For most nobles (like the one from TFE prologue) becoming an obligator would be a great increase in social position, that could lead to the increase in power of your house. Just like with clergy in our world. Where is that 800 number comming from? 4500/8 = 562 across whole empire. Most of them would be in Central Dominance, which leave pleanty of Mistings for Ministry to gain. And that's from the year 300, not 1000. Yes, but we're still talking about the early ages of the Empire, not during the times of Vin. Allomancy was much stronger in genes, and that's why I assumed the number 1:19, because later it would drop to a lower proportion, as Allomantic genes would become weaker. This is the only number we have about the proportion of Mistborn to Misting to go with. I know it’s not perfect, and likely it was lower, but that’s all we got. I agree.

If it's 10%, then the number of Allomancers is either lower (less than 0.1% which I assumed) or there is a lot of Mistings (3x my number, ~4500) but the percentage of Mistborn is lower instead (less than 1:19 which I assumed). Or the numbers are the same, and the maximum number of Mistborn would be around 260. Which I think is a lot. But that's in the early centuries (3rd), where there were more Allomancers than during Vin times, like TenSoon said, so it still is reasonable. But then is the 10% mentioned by Brandon the number of all nobility + obligators? Obligators were only from noble houses, and I was counting without them. If yes, many of those mistings would be Obligators, and we know they were used. Depending on the nobility and the Ministry, you might get something closer to 5% nobles + 5% obligators, which is not unreasonable to assume that many nobles would join religious organization, like what was happening in Europe. Yes but there was no slavery in the Commonwealth. TFE society is far closer to Russian serfdom, where in 1857 37.8% were serfs, around 18% were non-peasants. But this is early industrial society. Is there historically a society almost fully enslaved like TFE? I'm not familiar with anything like this. Yes, but we're counting at the beginning of TFE, so it was still important at that time. So there might be fewer than 10% nobles, but greater than 5%. I disagree, there were a lot of shops and workshops like this. But they would be still far less numerous than normal skaa (like 10-20% of skaa in Luthadel, including their workers)

Yes, I agree. But this is not a real life sword. This is a fantasy sword. It doesn't work by normal rules. Especially when that sword is made for ultra strong monsters. Real life swords are very thin. Yes. But once again, this is not the case. There are no sharp edges in the Koloss blade, it's blunt, wedge-like shape, but with no sharp edge. Because the sword is made for smashing, not cutting, it has to be thicker, otherwise it would bend and break on impact. Normal swords are already very bendy, and if you have a sword that wide, the sheer weight of that iron would bend it even more, so it has to be thicker to prevent this from happening. There is also no pommel or hilt for counterweight, therefore the blade is very top heavy, which again, forces it to be much thicker than normal swords. Keep in mind, I'm not accounting for a wedge-like shape, nor its handle (which would be an additional weight). 20-50 kg is my range of estimates for Koloss 5 ft tall. Depending on the number, the biggest koloss might have ~50 kg swords, or greater. But I tend towards the minimum side rather than maximum. It's not a sword. It's a bar of iron. It does make sense to make them as heavy as possible as a sheer amount of blunt force would crush their opponent and break through every parry. Only for that reason. Official artworks made by Ben McSweeney: Of course, these are only artworks, but still the blades are very wide and long, and the second one looks very thick as well. WoB:

1:10? Where did you get that number? 10% of Scadrial was nobles? That doesn't check out at all. Especially when you mention Rashek changing the fertility rate. Many skaa in Luthadel were of "middle" class, like Clubs, craftsmen, who would be able to read.

Handspan (the maximum distance between the tips of the thumb and little finger, taken as the basis of a measurement equal to 9 inches) is on average around 23 cm in the adult male hand. My small hands are like ~18 cm alone. So 20 cm for width is a good assumption. I also think that thickness must be greater than the average sword - this is not an average real life sword, it was constantly said that the blade is not sharp, that it's just a club of metal striking with a blunt force. When Elend fought with Koloss in WoA his sword was described as "a thick, almost club-like sword" (translation) So I stand by 2 cm thickness, which is not that much for a bar of iron. For a sword 150 cm, 20 cm wide and 2 cm thick, it would weigh 47 kg. The sword Elend picked up form a small 5 ft Koloss, was described (translation) "he grabbed the creature's greatsword and rested it on his shoulder. It was so heavy that Elend could hardly carry it, and he certainly would not have been able to swing it." 10 kg is not something people struggle to carry. In HoA ch 3 Vin picked up a sword from the ground that was her size (likely from a large Koloss she was fighting at that time), but later she fought with 13 ft tall Koloss, who had a sword so large that even with Pewter she wouldn't be able to parry it. In HoA ch 51 Elend with flared pewter was able to be as strong (or stronger) as a Koloss twice his size. I don't have an English Era 1 trilogy so I can't provide precise quotes. 10 kg seems too little to me. People can easily lift that, they can lift much more that 10 kg, they can lift their own weight. Elend was barely able to carry a Koloss sword in WoA.

Did you forget that there is a peculiar Well on Scadrial that every 1024 years makes a person into a god that can MOVE THE ENTIRE PLANET or change people's genetics without a struggle? That's not regular perpendicularity. Plus a big hole full of Atium. They're equal. But Preservation sacrificed his mind to trap Ruin's mind in the Well, he splintered part of Ruin's power and hid it as Atium, and he coated the entire Final Empire (or maybe even the world) in Mist. Preservation gave a lot of his power away. So I would argue that in the case of raw power sitting on the surface of the planet, Scadrial has it more than Roshar. But this power is largely inaccessible to people, so Roshar makes it easier to gain investiture. And Roshar has lots of spren. In the end both might have similar amounts of investiture running around. But it's not the amount of power that Shard has that determines how powerful it is, it's the amount of power Shard's mind can access at once.

Wild guess, normally combining investiture makes their rhythms work in harmony, corruption might just slam two rhythms together which would make them disharmonious. Or corruption involves only one investiture, it doesn't mix investiture at all, instead you manipulate the existing investiture to shift its rhythm towards other rhythm - e.g. shifting rhythm of Honor towards Odium's rhythm, which would not change investiture of Honor into Odium's, but it will change it enough for Odium to be able to influence it.

Vin had to burn pewter to even lift that sword. That's not how wielding a sword works. Zweihander, the biggest sword, weighs 4 kg. That's not a lot, you might think, but good luck swinging a sword that heavy for several hours. It also helps that it's well balanced with its center of mass close to its hilt. But that's paling in comparison to a Koloss sword. I tried to do some math to determine how much a Koloss sword would weigh, but that's hard as there are barely any numbers on that. Assuming that sword has around 8.5 feet, but cutting 1.5 feet for a handle (so blade has 213.36 cm), 30 cm wide and 2 cm thick, and iron density of 7.86 g/cm3 (as why would you waste steel for that), Koloss blade of that size would have weight of around 100 kg. Which is a lot. But that would be reasonable if Vin had to burn pewter to even lift it up. But because this sword is very, very, very impossibly top heavy, it can be lighter and people would still struggle to even pick it up, so making it only 20 cm wide would change the weight of the sword to around 67 kg. Now how strong would Koloss have to be to wield a sword that weighs 67-100 kg? A lot. But they are not using the sword with any skill, they are just using brute force and its weight and nothing else. With this math I don't think that Koloss that are only 4x stronger than a person would be able to effectively swing a sword for long periods of time as that would be extremely exhausting. Not to mention Vin with Pewter (who because of her skill could be stronger then normal 2x boost). Of course, dimensions can be smaller, making this sword lighter and people would still be unable to pick it up and use it because of where its center of mass is located, but a lighter sword would make it more reasonable for Koloss 4x the strength of man to use it during the entire battle. Because Elend didn't know any of this at that time. He only knew Koloss were stronger, and had rage attacks, nothing more. He didn't know they were made by Hemalurgy, that spikes were granting them strength of 4 people. He observes them during his visit and bet his life on the fact that those who attacked first are usually the one who win (despite the fact that the one attack he witnessed ended the other way around). He was lucky. That's it. And to make it clear, I don't have an opinion of Koloss' strength. Older ones are for sure stronger than younger ones, but I doubt the difference is that drastic. I tend to agree that Koloss are 4x stronger and that's it, but I find it reasonable to assume that their size is a contributing factor and they can be even 10x stronger. Koloss sword mass points towards the second option in my opinion.

You do need to know in case of Feruchemy. Allomancy is easier to figure out, especially in case of people that are already a Misting, or know what to expect.

No, the WoB isn't about investiture density, but about potency, about what can this form of investiture do. Solid form being less potent doesn't mean it's less dense, it means it can't do as many things as other forms. As it's explained in the WoB, solid form can do only one, very specific thing. It makes no sense for a solid bar of metal to be the least dense state of investiture. Investiture is like energy, and matter IS energy. In what state is matter the densest? In the solid state. The same goes with investiture.

That's true, Allomantic spikes would be mostly useless, as the amount of power gained by them with compounding would be almost nothing, be a Misting getting corresponding Feruchemical metal would not care for extremely low power in that spike. It would give him the ability to compound with his normal Misting power, and he only needs to store a little bit (even if most of the attribute is lost when stored) to kickstart compounding, and then have all feruchemical attribute fueled by his Allomancy, fully going around the limitation imposed by 400 years of hemalurgic decay. Unless hemalurgic decay cases feruchemy to also lose power when metalmind is tapped or even more power is lost to diminishing returns, which would made it, well, useless, Unless those spikes were properly shielded in blood and meat, to minimize hemalurgic decay, then they can still be useful. Which I doubt Kandra would do.

I don't agree. We've never seen Wax using the hemalurgic power of his earrings at all, and a single inquisitor spike would be split into dozens of earrings or more, reducing the power of a single earring to almost nothing. Moreover Wax wasn't even aware that those earrings are pre-Catacendre inquisitor spikes. Those spikes were in the hands of Kandra, as that was where Wax got them from twice. I highly doubt every Pathian would have spikes from inquisitors, as there would be millions of them, where there were around 20 inquisitors, there is no way for everyone to have an earring out of inquisitors, most were likely from koloss spikes, as Ruin accumulated more than 300000 koloss, more than enough to create millions of Pathian earrings. Or most of the earrings were non-hemalurgic, which would explain why Wax got his from Kandra specifically, as most of Pathians would have a simple metal instead bought from a store or passed down by a family member. Not to mention intent. For them to use the power of an earring they would have to know what power there is, and because there are around 30 possibilities, people would not be able to figure out which power they have. The chances for a Misting/Ferring getting a spike with corresponding power, which would allow him compounding, is very low and not possible at all if Kandra alone were distributing inquisitor spikes because they would ensure nobody would be able to compound.

If spikes that were made pre-Catacendre allows compounding, then all old inquisitor spikes would be insanely pricy, as anyone who has a matching pair could compound now.

This is an option, but I wouldn't call it reverse compounding. This very likely can be related to reverse compounding, but likely normal compounding would be required first. The WoB you quoted is about nicrosil in medallions but we know from Wax that nicrosil in the Bands is running out of attribute, and compounding was required to fill it up again. That's how normal Feruchemical nicrosil might work. And storing Allomantic attributes in nicrosilmind, and compounding it might make it stronger for certain period of time. I highly doubt you could just wish for the attribute in metalmind to become something else. There are too many restrictions in Feruchemy, and every attribute in metalmind has its own tone, changing it just like that is not possible. SA spoilers If you manage to change it, you would end up with investiture that normally should be in nicrosilmind, but is in steelmind instead. I don't think you need to change the investiture in metalmind. Maybe with proper intent you can overwrite normal compounding and use investiture in metalminds as a different type of filter, that's strengthen your Allomancy instead. I do think that this option might be close to the truth, you need to somehow use investiture in metalmind to provide more Allomantic power, but how, that’s too hard to tell. That's expand option 3, which does seem to make some sense. However, like in option 3, you now have an attribute in a zincmind that should be stored in nicrosilmind. But what you propose is kinetic Allomantic investiture being stored, not innate (part of your soul that provides you Allomantic ability). This might be the way around it that would make it work. Normal nicrosil compounding can explain how Rashek's Allomancy was so strong, as well as the Bands, but I don't think that's reverse compounding, as that's just compounding. So there must be another way to truly get reverse compounding, without simply compounding nicrosil. Maybe more accessible to twinborns and Inquisitors, your 3rd and 4th ideas might be close to it, somehow tricking your metalminds to store attribute like in nicrosilmind, and burn it/tap it, which gives you additional power. However I worry that this might not work at all. If there is a different type of investiture in a metalmind, then it might be fully inaccessible to you, and burning it would not give you any power, per these WoBs This WoB might suggest that even if investiture in a metalminds was inaccessible by tapping, because it isn't right type of investiture, when being burnt, you would get that investiture back (investiture won't get lost), and if that's Allomantic kinetic investiture (like steel push in a steelmind) your own steel push would get stronger than normally, by the amount of kinetic investiture released during burning that metalmind. Don't focus too much on Marsh. In most cases he was the closest Ruin had, like the closest to Fadrex, to Goradel etc, that's why Ruin used him. Marsh, like other Inquisitors, was simply doing many other duties during the whole HoA, he wasn't that important, he was just a tool that was the closest for Ruin to use. Yes, Marsh got the most spikes of all Inquisitors, but that doesn't really mean that he was the main Inquisitor, maybe that's because Ruin saw in his future vision that Marsh will be important in defeating Vin and Elend, and that's why he gave them so many spikes? Or maybe Marsh was the first one to get all those spikes and rest were soon to follow him as well, but they couldn't simply find enough Mistborn/Feruchemist? Also I don't think Ruin would be worried about Marsh loyalty, Marsh was under full Ruin's control, and he get out of this only because Ruin was pushed away by Kelsier at the right moment, something that can't be repeated after Ruin's victory. You're welcome. Nice work on exploring this idea.

Welcome to the Shard: It is already canon, but it isn't mentioned at all in books yet. The justification for it is that people in world just doesn't know it yet, and you are reading this from their perspective. But behind the scenes we know that Atium they are talking about is an alloy of Atium and electrum, and pure Atium is a god metal that nobody used for now, but has similar effects to Atium-electrum alloy. Every time poeple in books are talking about Atium, they're talking about Atium-electrum alloy. WoBs on this:

I... "borrowed" it

No, he touched the sheets. Read Stormlight finally

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That's not what I said. Sentiency provides the ability to cut in all 3 realms, but the investiture makes it resistant to being cut. The sentiency might not provide any additional resistance at all. So an Awakened sword type 4 with 1000 Breaths might resist a Shardblade cut in the same way that a sword that just holds 1000 Breaths without any command. But only the Awakened sword can cut in 3 realms. 1000 Breaths is a lot. It might be comparable to a Shardblade and could fully resist it. Rules of Awakening. You can't Awaken something that's already Awakened, and putting Breaths into something is a bit Awakening. And Investiture resists investiture. Unless you want to heal the damage, like in the case of giving Lifeless another Breath, you won't just put Breaths into an already Awakened object. But again, this whole topic is pure speculation at this point. There are no answers to those questions now. Awakening relies heavily on mental image. If Vasher imagined whole sheets doing their thing, cutting them across would break that mental image and newly cut pieces of sheets won't be fitting that image (different shape etc). Some might still try to do it, as like in the WoB I posted it was said "The level of damage will determine just how well it can continue" - being cut in half by a Shardblade is a pretty big damage. But I believe most of Breaths would still be intact. Unlikely, his BioChromatic aura would be very visible, but maybe he would be able to suppress it. I was doubtful at first but I found the WoB saying that you can suppress your Breaths like a Divine Breath. However he can just whisper commands, and what's more important, Commands must be spoken in a native language, Kaladin would not be able to understand him.

We have only 3 examples of a Shardblade: Honorblades, which are self-aware pieces of god metal. Shardblades, which are sentient splinters pulled into PR Type 4 Awakened entities, which are sentient objects. We also know that Seons and Skaze can become a Shardblade, if they find a way to be pulled into PR. as they are category 2, sentient splinters. There are no other examples that can cut in all 3 realms. This very much makes me think that what makes Shardblade a Shardblade is sentiency, or at least some form of self-awareness like in the case of Honorblades. That's what allows them to cut. Which does make a lot of sense. In the RoW, Kaladin vs Vasher duel, Vasher told Kaladin to dull his blade, and Syl followed it by changing her sharpness. This further supports the idea that it's spren conscious decision to cut, and because they're so invested, they have to cut in all 3 realms at once. In case of Awakened constructs, sentiency might allow them to cut, but they don't have that kind of control over it like spren, because they are programmed by Command, Nightblood is sometimes referred to as robot-spren, which would very much explain why he won't be able to decide to by "dull", as robot can't act against his programming. Lesser spren are far less invested than a Radiant spren, they aren't sentient so they can't cut, and most importantly, they have no Nahel Bond like Radiant spren, which anchors them in the PR. They are pulled into it by Radiant, and that bond isn't as strong as Nahel Bond. Because spren can still be damaged in CR, spren pulled into PR will become susceptible to physical damage. A single plate spren isn't as invested as Radiant spren, and if he got hit by a Shardblade, it causes him damage, shaking his bond with the PR, until it breaks apart, and plate fragment gets shattered. But that can be overcome with Stormlight, like in CR Notum got healed by it, lesser spren being fed by Stormlight makes them heal the damage, and remain anchored to the PR. Shardblade do break, but not in normal conditions, as there is no object that is more invested than Radiant spren. But in contact with Nightblood, Honorblade got chipped off, which permanently damaged it. Nightblood is the only known entity that is more invested than a Shardblade. Which makes me speculate that if a Shardblade was hit by an object far more invested than them (not a Nightblood), it could act like a Shardplate, and their physical form might get disrupted so much that spren would retreat into normal, more cognitive form. I don't think a Shardblade would get chipped off like in contact with Nightblood, but spren will at least retreat from a physical form. Even if a Shardblade cuts in half a blade only invested by 1000 Breaths (which I doubt, this is too much invested and would be comparable to a Shardblade), Breaths won't get destroyed. Few of them might, but a loss of 1 or 10 isn't that much. Remember, Breath contains quite a lot of investiture. That's what I think. The investment level defines how well it resists a Shardblade, while sentience makes it cut in all 3 realms. And because Spren are more cognitive entities, only sometimes drawn into Physical Realm, and Breaths exist more in Physical Realm, a Shardplate made out of Breaths to a similar level of investment might be a bit more resilient to Shardblade cuts than lesser spren. But it will still get damaged by it. Keep in mind, that this is mostly speculation on my part, it's hard to say what are the real reasons why Shardplates and Shardblades work the way they are.

No, Wayne compressed time nearly to the speed of light, Steelrunner can't run that fast as the atmosphere would just burn him to ashes. F-steel is limited by air resistance, and even with help of F-brass to store the excess heat, the atmosphere would still stop him, as with those speeds it would act like a solid wall with every step he would take. At best he could run several times the speed of sound, far too slow to do what Wayne did.

Szeth and the sword will be back in Oathbringer, with some answers. Szeth's afterimage is a thing, if you want to know why he is that, here is a WoB, with no spoilers, that answers this question:

No, I don't believe that Hoid was prepared for that. Hoid was genuinely surprised and frightened by Odium not being held by Rayse and got outsmarted. But the damage done to Hoid's Breaths can be seen and was seen by Hoid during that time, he just hasn't connected the dots yet.