Aethling

We already know that a shardholder has the ability to get to the other shardworlds. That has been explictly stated in the books. We already know that one person or entity can hold more than one shard. Harmony is a definate example of this. We already know that one shardholder can kill another. Again, explicitly stated in the books That leads me to come up with two main questions: 1. Why didn't the shardkiller pick up the shards once he had managed to kill the holder. That would have been a step toward reuniting the shards, and it would have increased his power significantly. 2. What is preventing Harmony from embarking on a mission to collect the vacant shards in order to battle the killer. Harmony could also team up with other active shardholders. If this has already been discussed, I am sorry for the retread.

Different shards should be better at doing certain things than others. We already know some shards are prohibted from doing certain things just by their nature. Even in if they all have some of the same basic powers, it would not be odd that they had differing levels of abilities inside those powers. Actually, I would find it more odd if they did not have differing levels of abilities even on the common powers. If they were all exactly the same, there would be no need for different shards or different personalities for the shards, and we all know Ruin and Preservation had widely different personalities, goals, and methods. Harmony, though encompassing both, still has its own personality and goals.

One of the good thing about a flame thrower or thermite grenade would be you do not have to get a direct hit on the person like you would with a bullet or any type of projectile weapon. The immense amount of heat given off would effectively cook the person inside the bubble. I am no engineer, so I do not know anything about thermodynamics, but wouldn't heat penetrate much more quickly through the bubble? You start getting effects as soon as it comes in contact with the time dilation. Once the stream managed to breach the bubble, you would have a very hot substance burning very close to the allomancer. If the person dropped the bubble, the fire/heat would hit them almost immediately just like it would a normal person. Grenades could be even more effective against a time distortion bubble as you could tune their fuses to take into account the time dilation of going through the bubble. If you figure a 20:1 distortion, set it for a one minute fuse and throw it, by the time it gets through the bubble, it should explode almost instantly. Imagine the ballroom fight with one of the baddies using a grenade or flamethrower. Wayne would almost certainly have been killed. A submachine gun would be fairly effective also. It would have been extremely hard for Wayne to dodge 2-300 rounds coming through the bubble. Fortunately, submachine guns are a few years outside the timeline for Alloy, though semi-autos should be getting fairly close.

Well, the bendalloy bubble could see the grenade coming, but there wouldn't be much he could do about it without dropping the bubble since the bubbles are stationary. One of the problems mentioned in alloy is that they are pretty vulnerable until a new bubble gets up, and it takes time for that.

Thermite would be a good bubble buster. It gets hot enough to melt through concrete. Imagine that thrown into a narrow bubble. It would be charbroiled allomancer time. Of course, you could probably do the same thing using a flamethower for much less cost. Molotov cocktail type thrown weapon. Napalm grenade. Fire seems to be a good way to end the fight rarely quickly. Flashbang device should still be partially effective. Even the best bubbles should not be faster than light. The bang part might not work well, but the flash should disorient one enough. If you want to go highly illegal, as in warcrimes trial, phosphorous rounds would cook a pewterarm from the inside. You could use tracer rounds to adjust for the deflection coming into the bubble. Unfortunately, we do not yet know if the deflection is constant or if it is completely random. Best case, it would be constant and make it like trying to hit a target at the bottom of a pond or pool. Worst case, volume of fire spray and pray. I have always thought hollowpoints filled with liquid mercury would be particularly sadistic, but as mercury is a metal it might not work well against coinshots or lurchers. Bullets loaded with a biohazard or chemical weapon might be useful against those that can compound health. Hitting someone with a round that does physical damage as well as carries a nerve agent would be particularly nasty against a compounder. Sodium rounds would probably never be practical, but imagine something like raw sodium inside a body. Even something so old fashion that it is ancient like quicklime might make a good weapon. Make a capsule type projectile loaded with quicklime. just contact with blood could start someone boiling from the inside, and the more you try to wash it out, the worse it could get. even a koloss might have trouble with a few explosive rounds hitting vital organs.

I was thinking more anti-allomancer weapons. Even if you would be firing from inside a bubble, I don't see the firerate causing too many of the bullets to hit each other. Even the best modern shooters rarely shoot the same hole twice. I just thought about gas grenades too. Throw a gas grenade inside a bubble and see what happens. You could so any number of lethal or non-lethal gasses that would be available at the rough advancement of Alloy. Imagine a teargas, mustard gas, or sarin grenade thrown against or out of a bubble. Thermite would probably be able to be made in Alloy as well, but the aluminum composition would make it extremely expensive.

If you have massive numbers of projectiles, you don't really have to worry about the deflection from the bubble. Shotgun pellets are meant to disperse. Add some small bb like objects to an explosive device and you would have hundreds or projectiles flying. One of them is bound to hit something. Even a primitive machine gun would be effective against most allomancers. Gatlin guns would be perfect for the timeframe in Alloy, and it shouldn't be too far away from semi-auto pistols either. I don't know the throughput of a gatlin gun right off the top, but figure 2-300 rounds per minute should kill even a koloss-blooded pewter arm. Specialized shotgun shells could knock a mistborn, coinshot, or lurcher right out of the air. It is hard to pick something specifically for each type of allomancer because it is fairly easy for another class to offset it. A coinshot can shoot metal all he wants, but another coinshot or lurcher can easily push or pull it away. Pewter would be most suited to special weapons to me because you do not lose much by making the weapons out of allomantically inert materials without the cost being much of a factor. Anyone can be trained to operate a gun. Specialized allomantic ammo is already being developed in Alloy. Combine large caliber allomantically neutral ammo with a weapon capable of shooting 14-15 shots without stopping, and you have something that would take down most allomancers without much trouble. Figure in an allomantically neutral gatlin gun or the like, and not much could withstand. What mistborn, lurcher, or coinshot is going to want to be flying through the air facing what is in effect primitive anti-aircraft fire. With high volume fire, the accuracy of each invdividual shot goes down, but who cares when you have 2-300 shots or more in the air at the same time.

Anything a coinshot or lurcher could do could be offset by another coinshot or lurcher present. It would be extremely hard to stop a spear coming at you launched by a pewterarm or a duralumin enhanced mistborn. As for the expense of ceramics, the way aluminum rarity is told, ceramics would probably be much less expensive to produce. Afterall, dirt is pretty easy to find. Throw in the fact that ceramics would be allomantically neutral, and their increased expense over other materials could be easily justified. They may not be cheap, but even relatively primitive societies have developed ceramics to some extent. You can make many different types of weapons from the material as well, knives, spears, darts, etc. A sword would probably not be very feasible, but ceramic knives are known to be sharper than metal ones and keep their edges longer, or at least that is the hype.

You coud use ceramics for the grenades. Some ceramics can be just as strong as metals. Ceramic guns and knives would work wonders too. You don't have to worry about metal rarity.

Compound bows probably aren't too far out of the timeline for Alloy. Tip them with non-metalic heads or aluminum points and you would have a seriously deadly bow for a pewter arm. They would make a good stealth weapon as they are very quiet. The issue would be finding wood shafts strong enough for the arrows. Grenades would be good for pretty much any class. Make them out of ceramics with tiny pebbles, shards of glass, or pottery bbs and you would have a semi-ranged, timed weapon capable of taking out large numbers. Atlatls, I think that is close to how it is spelled, for pewterarms. Launch spears several hundred or more yards from extremely basic materials. I recently saw some metallic darts in a ammo supply catalog. Imagine a few hundred razor sharp darts flying through the air. They would be good against an army becaue even if they were deflected, it would still cause massive casualties.

Aren't the used as part of the currency as well. I always pictured them as uncut regular gems. That would enable them to be used for anything that is gem derived, currency included. My impression of the economy is that the king winds up taking most of the gemhearts for soulcasting, taxes, and tribute. I could swear Dalinar says as such somewhere.

He hid the phantoms well enough that by the time the time of Warbreaker, they were just a myth. I thought that he stated at one point he just did not trust people with that kind of power. He didn't give the GK the code until after the other lifeless were already on their way to wipeout Siri's homeland, so that fits in with them not being used for bad. He could still return and demand the codes back, but he probably won't. The treasury of breath is why the GK had their tongues cut out. That was the a very effective way to prevent them from being used and he does not have to carry them around and risk them being lost if he dies. The aura would also have caused quite a bit of a stir and made him a target walking around the different kingdoms. Look at it like Polgara's personal account with the kingdom of Sendaria. She put it aside for safekeeping and it provided a way for the government to justify its power. Anytime she wanted it, she could make a withdrawal, which she does multiple times.

Didn't Cadsuane pretty much admit that most of her mystique is false? She has managed to capture her share of false dragons though.

I am still betting it will actually come out sometime in mid-december. That way they can get the Christmas spirit orders.

Maybe you have to take into account the different forms of soulcasting. Jasnah has the ability to do it without the device, but others have to use the device to do it. There could be a difference between the two.

I have always pictured them as something similiar to what early Christians and Jews put around their doors as symbols of faith. There may not be any definate form for them other than general shapes which may vary depending on the household. Sometimes you just have to envision stuff in your mind's eye, that allows everyone to be able to take different stuff out of the same novel.

I don't think she is ever told that they are unaffected by allomancy, but I could be mistaken there. I think what she was told is that they are unable to perform any allomancy. The situation is explained fairly well later on in the book. Pay attention to it because it becomes important in book 3.

Well, I feel that Egwene did a fundamental shift when Sanderson took over. It may just be me on that one though. I really started wishing for her to get spanked once she was just out of Two Rivers and decided to abandon her feelings for Rand. The outrigger and prequel novels would be a nice little continuation, but they are hardly necessary. Eventually, you get to just exploiting the legacy without adding much to the universe. Sanderson has done a remarkable job of finishing out the main storyline. As long as he finishes it up by wrapping up most of the loose ends, I feel that the characters should be laid to rest. They have all been through so much for their ages. Sanderson is busy with his own work now. Adding another author for the prequels and outriggers just would not seem right at this point. Robocop one was a decent movie, but can we really say the same about Robocop 3? One of the things I dislike most about the series is that major characters just disappear for books at a time. When was the last time we actually saw Rhuarc on stage? He was a major character for several books, but then just disappeared. Perin, Mat, and Avi have all basically disappeared for at least one book. It has been a while since I read through them, but didn't Rand effectively disappear for one book? To me this is equal to SLA2 not mentioning Kaladin or Dalinar at all. Goodkind basically left Richard out of Pillars of Creation, and to most people that is the worst book. Eddings restricted some of the original companions in the Mallorean, but at least they did make several appearances.

Do we really know that Hoid has actually lived longer than anyone normally does? If he is able to skip planets, he might also be traveling through time as well.

Not just any allomancer or mistborn can do it. Once you get a tad farther, it explains out fairly well. It is a continuing them in the next book as well.

She did investigate each member of the crew for allomantic abilities. Kandra can be affected by emotional allomancy, that is how she eventually discovers the traitor. Without a mistborn the method is dead by the times of AoL though.

As good as the series is, you have to eventually say enough is enough. Wrap up the loose ends in AMOL and then include little extras in the WoT encyclopedia as a fitting end. Garion was a good character through 12 books. Flute was great in 6. Richard is still going, but eventually he will reach the end of his cycle (some think he already has with the new style.) As long as it is wrapped up neatly with no cliffhangers or major questions remaining, Rand, Avi, Mat, and Perin deserve a rest. Still, I would not mind seeing Egwene getting spanked for a few more books.

I think we have seen all of the base allomantic table by now. Aren't most of the heavy metals on our periodic table highly poisonous? I know I would not want to take a shaving of Plutonium or Uranium regardless of the possible allomantic value. It might be one heck of a ride, but it would cut way down on life expectancy.

Well, I think what Sazed says at the end of series pretty much kills the idea that there are more than 16 not counting alloys of the god metals. By the end of the series they already know of 14. He tells Spook there are two more. Sixteen meant so much to the lore of the stories. Expanding it out to include any possible multiples of 16 may be stretching things a bit. Also, it would lose the square of a square balance too. I didn't really pay attention to the chart at the end of Alloy, but have we even seen these additional god metal alloys yet? Atium is all but a legend and we have only seen a single bead of Lerasium. Someone has mentioned metal hydrogen before. Yes, it is possible, but the cost and technology to make it would make Atium appear to be as common as water in the Pacific.

The Mistborn trilogy box set has been in the $15 range on Amazon for probably a year or more. Amazon's normal answer is that they do not set the prices for ebooks, those are set by the publishing company. I do not know if that is the truth of the matter or not, but I have seen hardcovers of books list for less than the ebook version. Stuff like that is just crazy (I would normally say a word that has a nickname for a donkey in it.) But then, you have to like the hardheadedness of companies that continue to stand by a broken business model like ebooks selling for more than printed books.