Voidus

I don't think that was a question, we're not allowing any backwards time travel in the RP right now (Except for a very brief, limited burst from two Epics who worked in concert but that's probably not going to happen again either)

How on earth do you brag about either of those? I have suffered through some bouts of depression and I wouldn't want to have it again or really talk about it much at all except to give advice to others suffering from it.

?

That's ok, we can spike that out first.

It again reveals a line extending in both directions, anyone on that line could be the murderer. And I suggested pushing a nail out of a wall rather than shooting a coin through it. So? They entered a room, along with 50 other people. Anyone in that room, or the room behind them, or the room behind that, or the room in front of them (Since there's little way to tell whether it was a lurcher or coinshot, the line extends in both directions) could be the killer. I've never had magic powers that could grasp the nail perfectly, the main difficulty in pulling a nail out is getting a grip on it, I've never needed to use anything even remotely approaching my full weight to pull a nail. Pull it out while you're 10 miles away, then, without touching it, continue pulling it til you're in the right area, not pull it from 10 miles away. In a modern city? There would be thousands of reliable anchors, plenty of which (Those along the line of probable killer) would tell you absolutely nothing. Most of which would have been subjected to plenty of stress anyway, from general wear, as well as other Allomancers. There's absolutely no way you could tell that the stress on a metal was caused by one particular incident. The weight of one person wouldn't even warp most kinds of metal, especially not those used in heavy construction since they're designed to withstand the weight of hundreds of people. No it doesn't, people can make mistaken assumptions but the DNA meant exactly what it said, that that piece of organic matter belongs to that person.

No, that was my point, you don't need a clear line between shooter and victim, if the victim is standing on one side of a wall the coinshot can be standing on the other side of the wall with a crowd of 500 people between them and still be able to push the nail in the wall through the person on the other side. A skilled lurcher can manipulate how strongly they pull on something, apply a low level force on a nail for long enough and you can still pull it free. Or pull a nail from a building 10 miles away with anchors then keep pulling it towards you until it's in a good position to murder someone. Or as I mentioned use something directly behind you as an anchor (And on that point, there's no feasible way to examine the stress on every piece of metal in the vicinity, and even if you could it's not going to give you a good direction, plus given how common allomancers are almost all of those metals will have been used as an anchor by someone at some point anyway. Investigative techniques are flawed, DNA isn't going to convict someone 100% of the time, and not all DNA is useful, but it's one of the most reliable, consistent techniques we possess. DNA of a suspect under the fingernails of a victim is a pretty good sign that that person attacked the victim. DNA can place someone at a scene when all else fails, not even eyewitness testimony is as reliable. Fingerprints are flawed, camera footage can't see everything, but DNA doesn't lie.

We had to exhume a few bodies to find any, but it was worth it. We keep pets at our organization and their food bills were just getting astronomical. Kill cancer? Huh. Never thought of that, we just stole its replicating abilities and gave them to a chasmfiend.

Coinshots don't need a clear line between themselves and the target, just between the weapon and the target, same as a Lurcher. You don't need to use any anchors at all, and if you did the easiest anchor would be one directly behind you, which would not narrow it down at all. DNA isn't foolproof but it's the closest thing we have, due to how our crimes are commited (Generally in solitude, so that there are no witnesses) establishing that someone was there means they either committed or witnessed the murder, so yeah pretty close to foolproof. Get DNA off of a murder weapon and you have a very strong case.

We're a scientific organizations, spikes delivered by gold nanoparticles are common enough in the Alleys.

*Perks up* So does this mean you're interested in cookes?

We also have a cookie that contains the ability of certain bacteria in the final empire to eat ash to survive if you'd prefer?

The geometry is only going to be precise enough for an approximate location, and then only enough to establish a line, not a point. Anyone along that line could be the culprit and hiding in a crowd would be pretty easy. Yes being in a crowd means you'd still be a suspect but other than that what evidence could there possibly be? That you are a coinshot/lurcher? That's circumstantial. That you had motive? Almost impossible to ascertain for an entire crowd and again circumstantial at best. No but they're far more solid evidence than anything else, DNA in particular. If you can prove that somebody was at the scene when they said they weren't then that's a solid start. But a lurcher/coinshot doesn't care if they're directly at the scene, they're not doing anything that's obvious, there's no way to link an individual to the crime. All you can possibly do is place your suspect at the scene, but the terrifying thing is that unlike say a gun, an assasination with Allomancy can be performed in the middle of a crowd with no problems. Sure your lurcher suspect may have been at the scene but so were 80 other people, they have no reason to act suspiciously, no reason to flee the scene, no reason to do anything at all. And there might not even be an obvious trajectory, wait til the target is at a train station then pull on some loose change in their pocket to yank/shove them in front of the train. No way to prove that that was deliberate homicide in any way.

Yeah I obviously don't intend to just leave her capable of that but there are some cool but less apocalypse ushering uses that I wouldn't mind being able to play with. So I'm trying to think of what the best caveat would be. I think your idea of limiting maximum speed is probably a good one, either that or change her power to affect speed rather than momentum but then I can't call them the 'momentum twins' Anything specific? I'll have a quick look but I don't know of any recent OOC stuff.

Well the Dor itself is probably the closest thing to pure Investiture in a large enough source which is undirected. Which brings up another question, has the Dor gained sentience? My instinct on that would be that it hasn't due to all the WoB on it. Well that was one of my thoughts but then if you think about it an Aon is essentially the same thing as a Command, just the Selish variant of it.

I'd need to do some maths to be sure but she wouldn't need to use it on individual atoms, more like if she just concentrated on the area between two fingers, might not be at fusion levels then but it would still do some bad things. Impact just imparts momentum, her sister MV is the one who steals it. But yeah, that's one of the reasons I state that she's one of my most OP Epics. Also: Stormgate posted this at the end of his post, moving here so everyone can see it and to keep OOC stuff out of the RP thread.

That's generally my solution, the problem is with how her powers did work that it's practically impossible, I've already had her pushing continuously outwards from her body and I think I mentioned that that includes air, and since air is gaseous that means it has to work at an atomic level. I could alter her ability so it effects entire objects rather than just the surface that touches her but then I run into the aforementioned problem of shifting the earths orbit and I'd have to retcon certain scenes, like the fight with Deathwish and also the scene where she became corrupted.

In the Mistborn threads someone posed the question of why the Atium cache never became sentient despite being a large piece of Investiture without a governing mind, I was about to say it was for the same reason that Elantris isn't sentient but then I realized that we don't actually know that. Certainly the city probably has a cognitive aspect much like the almighty Stick does, but it is also a huge repository of Investiture, probably on par at least with Nightblood, couldn't it have similarly gained sentience? As an Aon it has something quite akin to a command as well, we're not entirely sure what exactly Aon Rao does, but the best translation we have is 'spirit' something that could potentially be conceived as being a sentient force of some kind. Just some random musings I had, anyone have any thoughts?

I think Yata hit it on the head, it's probably because it's been forced into physical form, it's in the physical realm, not the cognitive or spiritual realms.

That was another thing I was interested in, could you prove allomancy through genetic testing? Otherwise it would be possible for someone to just never reveal their abilities. And if you could would you be able to test for specific powers?

So the release of SoS and now some chapters from Bands of Mourning have got me thinking about how Wax, as a lawman would cope in todays society, where to convict someone of a crime you need significantly more evidence than was historically required. We have advanced techniques for identifying DNA, matching fingerprints and detecting gunshot residue. So how would you go about proving in todays society that someone had magically pulled a nearby nail into someone's sternum? Allomancers don't have to be anywhere near the actual instrument of murder, they leave no trace, exhibit no obvious signs and could quite easily conceal themselves in a crowd. So how would you catch a Lurcher or Coinshot assassin?

Hast is for someone else in the second person. (Thou hast slain a dragon) Sorry, grew up with two Shakespearean actors for parents.

We have an Epic with super-reading abilities among us.

Like for example, the Mistborn Trilogy, the world of which is almost entirely based around the magic.

I would dearly love to see you now attempt to follow a cooking instructional video. Now add three egg-yolks. But with more Dragon-slaying.

Welcome back! We'll see you in a few months when you've finished reading everything