Inquisitor #5

Ah, I think your choice of terminology tripped me up. What you were saying sounded to me like claiming that the Dor is a different thing in AonDor and Dakhor, or that AonDor is powered by the Dor and Dakhor isn't. If I'm understanding you you say Surge/Void/Life where I'd say Expression of Surge, or something like that; eg, Voidish expression for what Renarin does. Is this correct? Oh, I like that as a concept, though as you point out, it's an odd stipulation, especially considering that the Dawnsingers were apparently forbidden proper Surgebinding, per the Eila Stele. So it'd be odd if Honor and Cultivation only enforced a "no Bondsmithing" rule on Odium. Interesting, I've never thought about it like that. I still do find it odd that Rayse threatens to reclaim what keeps Turash around but doesn't actually do so when Leshwi leaves his side. Is Rayse just bluffing with no contingency? Honestly, the Fused are built so badly for someone who wants them to be reliant on him. He should have gone the Endowment route, make them reliant on a periodic infusion of Investiture to keep them in line. Isn't that specifically because he's made a tunnel (the Everstorm) allowing them access to Roshar regardless of his continuing action? Then again, why can't he reclaim that Investiture? Hmm, fair. I could definitely see them reusing an existing mechanism that's already known to staple Investiture to a planet. It's also possible that the Oathpact, being Bondsmith shenanigans, might work by strengthening an existing connection, think Kelsier in Secret History, he can't go too far out because of his Connection to Scadrial. What if by enhancing and/or warping the Connection the Fused have to Odium, the metaphorical leash is pulled short, catapulting their souls to Braize? At least as long as the Heralds maintain it. Hmm, I'm not sure if I believe this, though it does solve a Connection problem by letting the Fused exist within the Everstorm, which is a fraction of the Barrier Storm. I like it. OK, yeah, I'll give that a strong maybe, I was not considering that, though I'd still put it in the "juiced up" category. I just want to point out (sorry, incoming nitpick) that this is not a Death Rattle, but a quote from the Poem of Ista, which rather throws off your interpretation, sorry. ¤_¤

Yeah, I personally have a theory that there's nothing stopping Odium from granting Adhesion (both because Envoyform clearly uses Connection and because if he's hacking an existing system, that is Surgebinding, it makes more sense to just take it wholecloth instead of making alterations to it) but that Rayse might have been afraid of the capabilities of someone with Adhesion. Odium also seems to have a hard time reclaiming his Investiture once granted, yes, he threatens Turash with taking back that which gives him persistent life, but he seems unwilling or incapable of taking it from Leshwi, instead telling her that she'll be tortured and not reborn again, IIRC. So someone with Bondsmith-y abilities might be able to do things with Odium's power that Odium can't easily undo. Did he? A Bondsmith did, yes, but was it Ishar? By this WoB, Bondsmithing can be used much like Lightweaving, as a generic term for a category of ability and the general gist of Honor seems to have a lot to do with Connection and binding things so some of the references to "a Bondsmith" might be about Tanavast, not Ishar. I'm far more willing to believe that a functional god could make people immortal, tether their souls to a specific place, etc. than just a guy++ or at least that if Ishar did it he was being supercharged by Honor when he did it, à la late HoA Vin/Elend and Ruin/Marsh. Also, the Oathpact is doing nothing to any Shard, it's the mechanism by which the Heralds locked away the Fused, separate from the trapping of Odium in the system. And no, I don't find it believable that one dude could impose that kind of thing on ten entire categories of being, not without some serious help, like that of a local Shard who likes rules, or even two local Shards one that likes rules and one that likes personal growth. Now, him being able to manipulate the Oathpact once it's in place I have no problem with and I'm fully willing to believe that I might have forgotten/missed actual confirmation that Ishar created the Oathpact, but I'd not take Ishar's word for it, because that man has said a lot of words that are in serious doubt because of being bleeding insane. Oral histories thousands of years old, presumably featuring no information from actual Radiants. I find myself doubting how much truth about the Radiant experience they could have contained. Why would they have a detail related to the internal experience of Radiance? Why? We have no evidence of religious practice or even religiosity among the Listeners. The only religious references are to the Fused and Odium, neither of which seem to be revered, but rather avoided. Odium is also referenced as King of the gods, so by that token wouldn't Venli's preconcieved notion of a divine voice have been malen? Ah, thank you. Is this not just Connection making her a native speaker, essentially? Same as Dalinar does, though without the (apparent) requirement of physical contact. She gains the ability not not just speak but also think in the target language. (Which isn't that hard to do, I'm currently thinking in English even though it's not my native tongue, though the Connection shenanigans presumably work even deeper and more instinctually than that.) Yes, but can these still be mapped to the Surges? Luckspren are clearly related to gravity in some way, being presumed to be the Platespren of Skybreakers (the Gravitation primary order) as well as being what allow Greatshells to, well, Greatshell without square-cubing themselves and at least around the Greatshells they can excert some influence, as we see with Rysn apparently being slowed as she falls. This relationship also holds for windspren being the Windrunner Platespren and being known to stick things together. The Singer forms are presumably a form of Progression built into their biology, presumably a specialised expression of Growth, with the spren not serving to give the Form its ability, but mostly as a key to guide the Growth, a bit like a specific metal gives nature to Preservation's power or a specific Aon affects the expression of the Dor. So, Growth in the manner of gravitationspren gives Workform. Now, Forms of Power seem a bit weird here, but they might be using both the Singer biology system (to make the Form) and the more general creature bonding spren system (to access a Surge in some manner.) I will freely admit that fabrials are harder to explain, but that might just be because we don't know enough yet. In any case, attractors and repellers could concievably be an expression of Gravitation, if a darn weird and specific one. Cojoined fabrials might work off expressions of Tension or Adhesion? Painrials miiiight work off Illumination. Oh, and Purelake fish might just have had something about them permanently altered from having spent their life bonded to a spren, just like I don't think it's a stretch that there might be spottable differences between an Aviar and a bird of the same species having not become an Aviar, post mortem. And yet these powers can? If Radiant bonds can express power that the spren can cannot express themselves why is it a stretch to assume that other bonds might allow this too? ¤_¤

It is? Then I must have misunderstood you. My understanding was that you thought that Surgebinding manipulated Surges, Voidbinding manipulated "Voids," etc. and that these are wholly separate things, rather than different expressions of the same thing. I might have gotten confused by terminology here, saying eg that Renarin has the Void of Illumination makes it sound like he's not got an expression of the Surge of Illumination but a wholly separate analogous ability. ¤_¤

I never said they were, I just said that people hearing a voice accept their oaths is an established thing that I see no reason for us to doubt. Doubt. I'm not sure if I'm willing to accept that he personally had/has the power to do that. I'm willing to accept it being Ishar's idea implemented by Tanavast though. Yes, how is that relevant to people hearing their oaths being accepted? Yes, and? Are you saying that Venli, with no known preconcieved notions of how the oaths work, on account of how her people have never before been picked to be Radiants, was expecting a divine voice to speak to her, thereby causing it to happen? I'm sorry, I can't figure out what you mean. Would you mind explaining? Why can they do this? Because they've bonded the right kind of spren. I see no contradiction here. The Unkalaki are apparently able to form temporary bonds that do things like increase their strength, the various shellbeasts, ryshadium and the Purelake fish form symbiotic relationships with spren and the singer forms are accessed by bonding spren. I'd say the common thread here is physical being bonded to spren, so they go in the same category. Mind, Forms of Power have two systems going on, first the physical being/spren relation, facilitating the actual form, and second, what I interpret as limited/specialised access to a Surge (Envoyform getting the highly specific language part of Connection, an expression of Adhesion, Stormform getting what I assume to be a limited form of Division, splitting bonds, ionisation, somewhere around there), facilitated by the nature of the form. ¤_¤

Ohhh, let me come in to stir the pot. I don't believe that there can be such a thing as Lives/Lifes and probably not Voids. My personal interpretation (which I find also makes things very simple) is that Surgebinding, Voidbinding, Khriss' theorised "Thirdbinding," Fabrials, the Forms of Power/Regals and the general fauna with a bit of magic are all expressions of the ten forces that rosharans label Surges. Now, before anyone pounces on me, wielding Renarin like a club, I'm not contending that there's nothing different between Renarin's Illumination and, say, Shallan's Illumination, I just believe that they are both expressions of the Surge of Illumination. I'm personally in the camp of "Renarin's powers sure seem to express in a Spiritual direction," as there's no reason to mention the Even More Perfect Adolin(TM) unless this is somehow relevant and, well, you've seen what his Illumination does. I also think that this can be seen by implication on the so-called Voidbinding chart, the basic design is obviously borrowed from the Surgebinding/Radiant chart, including the basic design of the Surge glyphs, but they are rotated weirdly, almost like they represent a "twisted" version of something familiar, from the in-world artist's point of view. And that is my entry into the "is the chart itself just art or is the border just art" falling square into camp border is art. Now, an answer to the initial premise of the thread, I'd say that there's an argument to be made for Adhesion being Odium's truest Surge. It is after all the Surge of Pressure and Vacuum. What is a vacuum? An emptiness, a nothing, a Void you might say. Do I personally believe this? No. But the argument can nontheless be made. Um, source? Spiritual Adhesion? 1. This could be a reference to the ashynite refugees using some poetic language. 2. I fail to see how setting yourself on fire is a beneficial power to have. By that same token Kaladin hearing Dalinar for his Fourth is unreliable from his point of view, people hearing voices accept their oaths is an established thing, why doubt it now? Seeing as they all fall under the category of "creature bonding spren," wholeheartedly agree. ¤_¤

Could it be because this 1) aligns with Rayse's stated goal, 2) is not a known goal of Koravari (not that there are a lot of those)? Maybe? Also, pointing out that it sounds like cultivating is a bit reductionistic to me, Cultivation doesn't hold a monopoly on cultivating things, that's like saying that only Invention is ever allowed to have new ideas. ¤_¤

Source on that? I can't remember anything implying that progressing the bond has any impact on things that happened outside the bond. We also don't know if there is more to fix than the Sibling losing Honor's tone (besides the whole broken oaths make deadeyes problem, but that's not unique to the Sibling). ¤_¤

Huh, must have missed that, neato. I'll conceed that point then. ¤_¤

Really? Bolding mine. That seems to pretty clearly be about the state of things before sealing Mishram, on account of how it literally says "before BAM was trapped." And I argue that a: it is unrealistic that no Windrunner has ever broken oath, which should have left honorspren unable to bond and thus possibly surviving the Recreance, and b: that all the premises the theory hinges on can not be true simultaneously. This gets into if we think the visions are accurate re-creations of historical events or realistic dramatisations and I'd argue that the visions do not have to be historically accurate and might instead be historical fiction aimed at getting the right feel and message across. ¤_¤

Unrealistic that no Windrunner, since the inception of the Knights Radiant, had ever broken oath. The way I understood the OP the claim was that breaking oath would permanently damage a spren in such a way that they could never bond again, this being the purpose of the Recreance. Thus if a Windrunner has ever broken oath before the Recreance, all honorspren can't have been bonded, because any whose Radiant broke oath would have damaged them so that they couldn't have been bonded and I find it unrealistic that no Windrunner since the start of the Radiants until the sealing of Mishram had broken oath. I'm also not sure about the statement of the timescale between the sealing and the Recreance, but this is super foggy and not relevant to my point. ¤_¤

Well, then none could have been damaged by previous oathbreak, as posited in the OP and I think it unrealistic that none of the Windrumners had ever broken oath before then. ¤_¤

I doubt it. Arguable, also ill-defined. No argument there. From what we're told the Sibling manifested as metal and crystal, I don't think they're stuck and definitely not inside a gem, as that would presumably have made them unable to manifest in the physical. Eh? Being unable to hear Honor's tone doesn't seem to be a wound on the Sibling themself and might be related to Odium's tone becoming one of the Pure Tones of Roshar. I also can't recall that that is something we know about Mishram. When is that said of Mishram? The Sibling is wary of humans specufically, I believe. Seeing as the Sibling says "I lost the rhythm of my Light that day" when discussing the sealing of Mishram, I'd say there's a causal relationship there. Is that something we know to even be possible? What examples are there of multi-part spren? Unlikely, as the Sibling calls Odium's tone a false one, which I personally interpret as being true historically, up until the False Desolation. Towerlight is also a known thing to Raboniel, who can't have interacted with it post sealing of Mishram before the True Desolation. Also, why does Mishram supply Voidlight during the False Desolation, but we don't see the Sibling making Life- or Stormlight? Highly unlikely, as it has been explained that the ashynites didn't actually worship Odium and Rayse has been highly unwilling to Invest and I doubt that a world gets a Pure Tone of a Shard that isn't pretty heavily invested there. I'm not sure I'm willing to grant Ishar spontaneous spren creation powers. Btw, amazing thread title. ¤_¤

Yeah, I was just explaining my reasoning because I was misunderstood as talking about Windrunners breaking oath between the sealing and the formal Recreance when I was actually talking about Windrunners breaking oath at any point prior to the Recreance. That is a fair interpretation, though I'm not sure how willing I am to think that spren can be irrevocably altered forever so easily. ¤_¤

Ah, but that's not what I'm saying at all. Working from the idea that the Recreance would damage the spren to the point that they couldn't form another bond, as posited in the original post, I then concluded that that kind of damage should be the normal consequence for oathbreaking, assuming the original post to be true, as I don't think there's a mechanical difference in what happened to the spren between a single oathbreaking and mass oathbreaking. My conclusion is then that if oathbreaking damages a spren enough that they can't form a new bond, there should have been more survivors among the honorspren, as I don't think that no Windrunner has broken oath between the inception of the Radiants and the Recreance, meaning that there should have been unbonded adult honorspren at the time of the Recreance. Therefore my stance was that the premises laid out in the original post can't be true, as by my interpretation there should have been survivors in that case. ¤_¤

You are aware that Shardblades are essentially whiffle-bats, right? A Blade has a volume in excess of a regular longsword (typical western two-handed sword), but a lower mass, with a longsword having a mass of ~1.5 kgs, and Blades being noticably lighter, so maybe between ~.5 and ~1 kgs, though those are by no means canon numbers for the Blade, just my own speculation. Really? Looking at these war hammers you might see that they taper to a point both from the sides and from top and bottom, in a way quite unlike most edges, giving you a metal spike. While these daggers generally look quite flat. Now, this makes sense, the thicker the metal the harder it is to deform, and a thin steel blade bends quite easily, I could get out one of my swords and just move my hand back and forth to make the blade wobble a bit. So if you have an implement that you want to impact plate armour at high speeds, you'll want it to be sturdier that a thin knife so that it doesn't bend and break as easily. Which is specifically why I said assumi g impact at the toe, where the contact area is smaller. Otherwise look at Adolin's heel kick, where the impact should be focused at the sharp angle of the heel. I wonder what led you to that conclusion, I believe I cited the text extensively when I made my case for Plate durability, and what you mention happens in the text, so I have no problem with it. It also seems that damage builds up with Plate, if you read the same chapter in which Sadeas is down on the ground being pummeled Dalinar notes that the hits he takes leave slight cracks as they're bouncing off, so of course extended pummeling could break Plate, just like, say, machine guns could. I just find it highly unlikely that you'll get through Plate with just a few bullets, unless you were incredibly accurate and managed to hit a moving target in almost exactly the same spot each time. And how do you explain Plate not suffering catastrophic failure if it's so fragile? I should maybe have phrased that more precisely, why are they not using weapons that are designed to rip open armour, like war hammers and becs de corbain? The shanay-im are obviously acting a bit like airborne shock cavalry, so their lances make sense, but why aren't singers at large equipped with anti-armour type weapons? ¤_¤

Ehh. I'd say that being able to see the likely future of everything around you might well be described as "expansive." Every tendril of mist, every flake of ash, every person, they all produce a future shadow, even those you can't see, IIRC, you get shadows of objects that have not yet entered your field of view, like arrows shot at your back. And on top of that your cognition is enhanced to be able to use this information (which may well include Spiritual shenanigans, bringing you closer to your perfect understanding). All in all it's a rather impressive effect, even if it doesn't permanently change you. Compare to electrum only letting you see your future and immediately becoming a garbled mess because it runs into the futuresight vs futuresight problem. I don't think that's true, the impression I got was not that electrum was an unknown metal (did no-one for a thousand years independently try to alloy silver and gold?) just that the canon of allomancy as it were was there are these eight metals that come in related pairs and these two off to the side that stand on their own and are weird and also burning a metal that's not one of these ten will kill you. My impression is basically that Vin being fed an unknown metal and then surviving the end of Final Empire with this knowledge has the resources to find that actually, what we knew for a thousand years wasn't true, and testing alloys of known metals is safe-ish, so let's see if we can find what pairs with gold. Electrum isn't talked about like a new discovery, IIRC, and I also find it implausible that the alloy itself would have been unknown, it's just that we didn't know it did allomancy, just like aluminium was a known metal (they got it from plundered noble silverware after all), they just didn't know it was an allomantic metal. ¤_¤

All that stress is borne by, IIRC, hundreds of gems, not two. Because the work done to move the small gem is also being used to move the large gem, the same amount of force is acting on them and you claim that you can also add force from one to the other, creating a feedback loop. No more work is done from the small gem moving, it moves further because it's less massive. You are letting it pull another part of itself further than there is energy to move that part. In my opinion it can not excert the force necessary to pull the larger one, it needs external energy to sustain itself, and I've seen nothing indicating that energy is added, just distributed. Of course I'm focussed on the real world physics, I have no reason to think that, barring the obvious transfer of energy, anything here doesn't follow real physical laws. I suppose that's the crux of why it wouldn't work to me, I can't, with my current understanding, accept that all the statements for can be true. And I'll have to respectfully disagree, I don't find it cool, I just find it improbable, sorry. I think you can do a lot of fun and funky things with cojoiners with isolated planes, being able to aggregate and distribute mechanical energy for one thing, but and infinite energy feedback loop does not sit right with me and does not work with my understanding of the cosmere. I assume that we could talk this out for pages and pages without convincing eachother. So my final statement is I think it impossible until WoB or book says otherwise. In short, respectfully disagree, fabrial mechanics are both fun and funky. ¤_¤

I keep using pulleys because that's exactly what the so-called force multiplication reads like to me, it's a way of exchanging work for distance and distance for work. But then you need it to do enough work to overcome that resistance, and I think that even if they can take the stress of that the gems will rip out of their housings. I can't see that, that implies that the Stormlight is providing the energy by which it moves, which does not seem to be how cojoiners work. A standard 1:1 cojoiner has you doing the work of moving 2 + decay units of mass, assuming a construction like a spanreed, where both sides are attached to roughly the same thing. A multiplied, say, 1:5 cojoiner should have you doing the work of moving 6 + decay units of mass, just distributed unequally, proportionate to the gems. In either case no energy is added to the system, just distributed. So the proposed perpetual motion device somehow gets more energy put into it to allow the mass of the smaller gem to be used to tug the mass of the larger one along, which I don't think happens. We have no evidence of energy being added to the system, just distributed. To move the device something has to break, the gems, the cage or the tether, I can see no other options. And if you modified a bike to do that you'd break a chain or something, no? @The Technovore, thanks for your imput, my physics were never super high level and are out of practice. Fair ¤_¤

Pistons aren't inherently tied to electricity, they should be able to have a hydraulic society with access to infinite energy. Thanks for explaining. Is there a functional difference between doing that and just having a guy stepping on to and off of said piston, besides being more time and labour efficient? And should someone stepping off not be more efficient for the raising of the piston, as there's no additional weight, rather than practically no additional weight? Each time the same amount of work should enter the system, no? And in any case, are you not using more energy to raise the piston than you gain by lowering it? A single lowering should always get you roughly the same amount of work, as it only lowers a set amount, and you lose some energy as heat due to friction. To raise it again you need to do as much work as it takes to raise the mass of the piston and a fraction of the mass of the person on top and you lose energy to friction again. You need to do the same work to raise an object as lowering the same object the same distance creates, and you will only get a set amount of work out of a piston, the only change is how fast said work is, and you lose energy to friction each time. You still need the device to both be light enough to be propelled by the Highstorm in Shinovar, which is described as something like the barest hint of a breeze, yet sturdy enough to survive the fury of the storm in eastern Roshar, not to mention any time the Highstorm meets the Everstorm. OK, you have the smaller gem towing the larger one, correct? Then whenever the larger gem moves one unit the smaller moves five units, moving the larger five units, the smaller 25 units, etc? In this scenario, tension builds up until either a gem is ripped free or shatters against the material as neither gem or whatever you have linking them physically as infinite durability. You also have nothing introducing energy into the system, the physical work required to move the gems remains the same, where does the energy to move the large gem four additional units distance come from? It's entirely possible that unless you can overcome the resistance of the linking material, thus destroying the device, it will just freeze in midair, as the physical link is being held taut between two points moving apart. I can't grant infinite energy without already having infinte energy, in this case infinitely durable materials and infinite thrust to start the device. How do you syphon off anything? The relative distances are absolute, no matter how much extra work you end up putting on one end the relationship between the movement of the main gems won't change. To me it reads as though you are saying that if you could hook a pulley into itself so that work performed by the pulley causes the pulley to work and it also increases the speed of that work exponentially and I hope you understand why that looks utterly preposterous to me. Now, I don't mean to say that you can't cheat (traditional) physics in the cosmere, see my idea of a Stormlight-powered steam-turbine for that, but I don't think that Brandon can allow for infinite energy, he seems to be sticking very much to the whole "energy cannot be created or destroyed" thing, with investiture just being another form of energy, and your device is clearly creating energy. My current position is that your device is theoretically buildable, but will either freeze when the gems try to pull apart or that the tether breaks, unless you have infinitely durable materials and infinite energy to put against the resistance of the infinitely durable materials. If it can make standard cojoiners treat any direction as down (Tomor's glove) then I see no reason why that shouldn't be true of reversers. ¤_¤ PS. I'm really sorry if I come off as hostile, as that is not at all my intent.

How and if so why doesn't the Basin run on it? I'm assuming that this is one object with two gems mounted on it, which would tear itself apart from trying to move at two non-uniform speeds. If it's two decices the motion should stop once they line up past Shinovar, as the highstorm should be spent, windwise, at that point. The problem isn't providing investiture, it's physical motion. To me it seems that you can't make one gem move the other by the motion induced in it by moving the other any more than you can levitate by pulling on your hair. -Rhythm of War, chapter 42 My impression here is that Raboniel is startled and retreats into the corridor, not that she is pushed away, but I can see that interpretation too. Hmm, I'd forgotten about that. Ah, I misunderstood then. I'm not sure how much the gooey human centre is going to compromise a glass ball several metres thick (seemingly reaching from the pillar to the corridor and at least being thick enough that you can safely hack away at it with a Blade, giving a radius in excess of 2 metres). In any case you still have the pesky "people generally need to breathe"-problem, if all the air from your skin out turns to glass there's not gonna be a lot of breathing happening. It'd also be unusable in formation, unless you fancy turning yourself and all your mates into modern art instead of a squad of soldiers. Yeah, that's entirely fair, force propagation would be yet another problem. Ah, I was imagining someone with no armour, basically just a uniform. I can't really remember what the Alethi gear is like, but the Radiants seem to just trust in their healing rather than using personal protection. ¤_¤

I'm not prepared to accept that they can break physics like this, Navani talks about having to find a way around the stress on a gem just to make the stationary floating platforms. My assumption is that such a device would break from the gems trying to move at different speeds and one ripping free of the housing or the gems just cracking from the stress. Every fiber of my being feels that this is wrong, just like you can't make yourself run faster by pushing yourself. In any case moving both gems takes the combined effort and the force multiplication is essentially a pulley, you can exchange distance for work (move large gem short distance to move small gem long distance) or work for distance (move small gem long distance to move large gem short distance) and I think if free energy was possible by attaching a pulley to a pulley we'd have figured that out by now. I'd categorise it the same as, using aluminium, isolating the planes on a reverser, making both sides "reverse" in the same direction (should be possible) and pointing them up, having them fall into the sky because that way's "down" for both of them and there's no surface to stop the fall. -Rhythm of War, chapter 61 -Rhythm of War, chapter 49 The first quote makes more sense to me if the shield is turning the air from the pillar to the edge of its influence to glass, a solid sphere, rather than hollow, otherwise it should be possible to smash through it, and once you can do that you can get inside, if you cannonball through. Also keep in mind that it was installed in an effort to make the Sibling trust humans, humans who had access to Plate, which should be able to smadh through in one motion. Thus I think that the shield turning all air within its area of influence into glass makes more sense, as well as being the simpler thing to do. It should be easier to indiscriminately affect all of something in an area than a specific part of something within the same area. Which is why I'm saying that a personal version would encase you in glass, just as it encases the crystal pillar in glass. I'm not against more precise versions being used as half-Plate or even as armour for vehichles, but the only version we know of at present, to me reads as indiscriminately affecting everything of of whatever it's meant to affect within its area of influence. I don't think any of those would be much fun at bullet speeds either, just saying. ¤_¤

I'm gonna go ahead and assume that those aren't possible, personally. Why not? It's a solid sphere of glass, I don't think handheld weapons are going to be much use. Now, as I detailed above, I don't think it'd make for good personal protection, unless you fancy being a well protected corpse. I like this idea, seems like the same kind of thinking as my de-bulleting application. I had not considered mounting it on a vehicle, I still think that you have to deal with the problem of being encased in a glass orb, either you're stuck inside something in submarine-like conditions, or the air inside also turns to glass, which is a more immediate problem. Another potential application for such devices would be as doors in chokepoints, instant blast doors, enemy redirectors and the like. ¤_¤

That's interesting, because both in WoK when Dalinar makes a show of how much he loves Elhokar (by beating him up) and WoR in the disadvantage duel it's noted that moving in Plate with a broken breasplate is possible, just very difficult. It might have to do with the gem placements, IIRC there are gems in the boots and under the breastplate, so the legs might still retain some function, even if the main nexus of the Plate is gone, along with losing most/all the enhancement benefit. Ah, thanks for the fact-check! Shield? Oh, the "force field?" I'd hazard a yes. My interpretation is that this is a Bondsmith fabrial (or Bondsmith-Lightweaver/Elsecaller fabrial), I interpret Bondsmiths as being able to secondarily manipulate all the Surges, via Adhesion, with one expression of this being the Dalinar-Shallan Google Earth, err, Roshar. The shield device is described as a constant soulcasting, or soulcasting halfway, I believe and is stated to be convincing the air around the pillar that it's glass, and we see that even if you break off a chunk of glass the air that fills the hole becomes glass. The air-to-glass function is presumably why it's made with sapphire (zephyr polestone, clear gas) and has glass orbs attached (serving as a model to the device, "make more of this") and this construction implies to me that such a device can be built to turn any essence into anything that can be stuck in the "glass"-slot. Now, the device seems very energy efficient, lasting through the occupation, until the final node is destroyed, from a single infusion, IIRC. However, I'd say that using it for personal protection has one major flaw, assuming the design at the tower, and that is that people generally don't do so well when encased in glass. You'd be immobile and oxygen deprived, unless you managed to make a device that created a bubble rather than a solid orb. I could see a version that acts on the essence of foil (metal) instead, as that would presumably create a zone where non-aluminium bullets would simply puff away into something significantly less nasty, especially if you can do essence-essence conversion and just turn them into air or smoke within the area of effect. I could also see such devices taking the role of grenades in rosharan warfare, charitably neutralising any metal not investiture-resistant/immune, neutralising both guns and unconsumed metal reserves, non-charitably encasing areas in glass. And if we assume that the human investiture barrier can be overcome by such a device, then we could have such things as flesh-to-glass, though I'm not sure I'm willing to grant Roshar that one at present. If investiture barriers can be overcome such devices could also possibly neutralise medallions and regular metalminds. Small quibble that I forgot to adress when this was fresh, unless feruchemical powers behave differently from allomantic powers in medallions, duplication needs to be possible unless every southerner is born a brass ferring, and I'm not prepared to grant that storing mechanics would differ between attributes within the same metal. ¤_¤

Yeah, that sounds fair, possibly lowballing it honestly, IIRC we have mentions of horses collapsing and getting their spines broken by people in Plate, which makes me think less "can do, with strain" and more "immediate failure," implying weight in excess of ~300 kgs. Oh, I definitely meant that it would be thicker if the material was lighter, I believe I made reference to increased bulk in another post, maybe I forgot to, sorry if that didn't come across. We know it's possible, if difficult, to move in Plate with a shattered breastplate, it's just noted as being very difficult, though that might of course be due to the arms and legs maintaining a boosted performance level, assuming the Plate still has power, rather than Plate being light enough to work with under human power. I suppose this line of reasoning isn't going to be terribly more productive at this stage, as we don't have clear evidence of which properties of Plate stem from the material and which stem from the enhancement effects. ¤_¤

That's entirely fair and I'm not contesting that Plate is hecka heavy, it might just be deceptively light for its size, and losing the enhanced strength would inherently make it feel heavier on your body, no? But yeah, I could see this going either way. Yeah, I don't mean to imply that crack = hole all the way through in every case. I wanted to include this out of a desire for intellectual honesty, I found evidence counter to my position while researching and it would have felt wrong to not include. Oh, I wholeheartedly agree. I could see Wax doing it as a once off trick shot, a bit like the bullet-bullet headshot in Alloy, though nowhere near as impossible. And in the case Radiants you of course have to contend with the fact that even if you make the shot, the person inside the armour heals. ¤_¤