king of nowhere

WOn't work. Theory of relativity says that your mass is equal to M0/(1-(v^2/c^2)), where M0 is your mass at rest, v^2 is the square of your speed, and c^2 is the square of the speed of light. So, as long as your speed is much slower than that of the light, (v^2/c^2) approximates to zero, and your mass is your resting mass divided by 1, i.e. your resting mass. as you speed approaches that of light, (v^2/c^2) approaches 1, and you mass becomes divided by something approaching zero. you get close to infinite mass. As you get to light speed, you have infinite wheight. as good as your feruchemy can be, you cannot drain ALL of your wheight. Even if you manage to wheight one millionth of a billionth of your normal mass, it's still infinity once you're close to light speed. Plus, you can't make ALL the ship into a metalmind. you need food and air in it, and some parts like the rokets or the computers need be of different composition. Now that I think about it, the fuel wouldd keep his wheight too. Still, it is a great way to save energy by reducing the mass of the ship, but you can't go over the speed of light. Also keep in mind that light speed is damnation fast and takes a long way to achieve anyway. For example, if you accelerate at 1 g, starting from still, and ingoring all relativistic effects, you need one year to reach light speed, and another year to decelerate to stop after that. So, no matter how fast your ship can go, you still need years of travel just to accelerate and decelerate, if you want your passengers to retain their shapes and not to end up as a mixed organic sludge on the ship's back. No, to achieve practical FTL, you need to tinker with time and space, otherwise the impracticality of it all will make it, well, impractical. It's just that science fiction writers normally have no sense of scale and don't think of these problems. Readers consider them acceptable breaks from reality. But I have faith that sanderson has thought things through. he never let me down on that aspect before, and I'd be surprised if he did so now

I love this one! OOn the other hand, if you do it wrong, the container may try to go collect things to contain. And now we know how to replicate the Luggage (if you don't get the reference, you haven't read enough Pratchett books). ULTIMATE. CHEATING. EVER. And, given the rarity of atium, definitely useless enough. On monday morning fill your goldmind, then claim ill and stay home from work. Note: I'm calling this useless because the only way to make it work would be to hide the fact that you are a gold feruchemist. But then, you'll surely gain much more money by revealing that you are a gold feruchemist and getting a job with that. If you are a gold feruchemist, get spiked hemalurgically to lose the ability. That way, you'll be able to avoid work when ill. You're not allowed to be ill during worktime as a gold feruchemist otherwise, because it is supposed yopu should always keep some charge in your metalminds. But that's so unfair: because of your cursed feruchemy, you're the only one who's supposed to be ill only during the weekends! Forge yourself to be allergic to the kinds of food you don't like, so you have a good excuse to not eat them (I suppose the drawbacks will far outwheight the benefits anyway). Store all your memories into a coppermind. At this point, you don't remember anymore what a coppermind is (or what is copper, for that matter), much less how to get the memories out.

Or maybe no one tried to tap a large enough power through a sufficiently thin metalmind to notice any resistance. Maybe there would be a noticeable resistive effect if the contact between the bodyy and the feruchemist was on a very small area. intersting thought.

Good point. I don't really know about metal corrosion inside human body, but it is true that most metal will corrode as there are enough reactive chemicals to attack them. Gold would resist, and most other noble metals, but many allomanticc metals, like iron and steel, or tin or zinc, would corrode. not sure about copper. There are chemical reatment that would prevent this, but they would all involve covering those metals with a layer of something else that will prevent furether oxidation. And since you must touch metals to access their feruchemy, I think that kind of treatment would prevent you from tapping them, even if the layer is only a few tens of atoms thick. But the process of degradation should be slow enough that all you had to do to fix it would be getting new metalminds every few years, so it still could be feasible. On the other hand, if inquisitors spikes did not corrode, maybe invested metal is chemically resistant. That could be a neat trick in the construction field: you have a feruchemist fill a small amount of power into a large metal structure and you achieve cheap corrosion resistance.

Then shallan would draw syl and think it is an evil spirit and mistrust kaladin for that, and kaladin will think dalinar has his own schemes and will interfere with them just to spite him, navani will try to manipulate dalinr into doing something else, elokhar will not trust any of them and will exile them all, and no character will ever talk openly to each other, and if they talk they will always come to the wrong conclusions andd think they cannot trust each other... I liked the wheel of time, but really, I so wanted to kick all the main characters for being such dumbasses. However, it on't appear to be sanderson's writing style. I guess kalandin's power will be revealed to most other main characters, if not on book 2, no later than book 3.

The way I picture it, ati slowly realizess he's changing. HE understands the ultimate result of it. at this point he's already partially changed, but there's still enough of the old ati to fight it. So he tries to plan something. Well, I don't see ruin capability of seeing the future as a real problem. You don't have to see the future to be a devious cunning schemer. The original plan after all wasn't that complicated: ati could have thought something like this All tthis do not require any particular divine power from ati to be conceived.

I disagree with the feasibility of tattoo metalmind. the metals contained in the ink, as far as I know, are metal ions, possibly bound in complexes to other organic molecules. there's plenty of metal ions that will give intersting colors that way. there's a demonstration for students where you take some copper salts and change their color in a half dozen ways just by replacing the ligands. But for feruchemy? you need metallic metal. an aggregate of metal atoms bound reciprocally by a metallic bond. And bulk metal is no good for color. gold is yellow, copper is red, every other metal on the table is grey, white, silvery, or a variation on the theme. Maybe osmium has a bluish tone, not sure, but it's not feruchemical anyway. A possibility to make it work is to use nanoparticles. However, nanoparticles have properties that are sort of midway between bulk metal and isolated atoms. Not sure if they would be good enough for feruchemy. But even if they were, they are nasty little buggers to work with. Trust me, I did my master thesis on them.They have a tendency to aggregate. They have several chemical properties that would not be suitable for the task. And they probably cause cancer if they reach the blood or penetrate the living tissue. So, I think the easiest way is still to embed some splinter of metal in your body. if they are small and in the right place, they are not a healt hazard. After all, we put microchips under the skin of animals, and it's perfectly safe.

In that case, I pity the poor doomed fool who dared to challenge her. I am quite certain Shallan will be drawn into a "duel" of drawing exactly once. But, on the topic of syl, I think it's highly likely that she would be able to draw her. THe only way I can think this may not work is if one needs to be honorable to see an honorspren (unless it wants to be seen). In that case, shallan is far from honorable. She don't appear to be a bad person, but decent people will commit bad stuff as long as they can rationalize it into not being bad. shallan killed her father, stole a shardblade, stole a soulcaster with the purpose of using it for a scam. She had good reasons all the times, but it is possible she won't be able to see syl, even with her memory. I wonder if kaladin will try to keep the secret or will admit it. Then I imagine the possibility of szeth coming in to kill dalinar. I think it would be quite amusing, in a "what the hell" fashion. there's this group of seemingly helpless targets: 3 women, 1 common guard, one retired ex-shardbeared without shards; adolin would be the only one szeth would expect to be vaguely dangerous, but he would have no time to put on his armor, and he would probably die before having the time to summon his sword. Then one of the girls pop out a shardblade, the other start soulcasting stuff, navani probably carries around some device useful for such an occasionnote, the common guard is actually a windrunner, adolin is probably the best shardbearer duelist in alethkar and would likely be a challenge to szeth by himself, and dalinar has probably some kind of latent power too, and what better time to start manifesting it? I would really love to see szeth face then. Maybe we could get a depiction of it in the cover of the book ? note: why scientist in fiction are such badasses and in real life are mostly helpless nerds? I mean, I am a chemist, and I would know plenty of ways to poison somebody or make stuff explode, but I don't carry any dangerous compound on me for self defence. Even if I did, if someone pointed a gun at me, and i poisoned him, he would still have all the time to kill me before the poison start working. And if I managed to survive, there's a good chance i got poisoned myself too, since i would be close and wouldn't have the time to don protective gear. Life just has no respect for the narrative conventions

I don't know, the description about thoughts being slower and having to focus on them may as well apply to being drunk. I doubt being drunk is related to zinc feruchemy (although it would be nice if we got a way to get back all the mental power we lose during drunkennes) or the old magic. On the other hand, all magic systems in the cosmere are vaguely related, so no surprise if there are some similarities

I'm pretty sure it is just a quotation not related to cosmere. I mean, the concept that hate unites a people (against the common enemy) much better than devotion (to an ideal or anything) is a well established fact of human pshycology.

guys, if you want to discuss harmony and hemalurgy, you should open a new thread, instead of hyjacking this one

I had this idea in my head for a while, but I never posted it because I don't think there's any way, save for word of god, to prove or disprove it. We know from "the letter" that ati was a good and charitable person before he took the shard Ruin. We also know that the shard warps the mind of the holder to fit its intent, but it takes time. So ati, a good person, took some time to become evil while holding ruin. And during all that time, he would at some point realize that he would become Ruin, and there would be nothing he could do about it. So, what if he struck his deal with preservation knowing fully well that preservation would betray him, and hoping for it? What if he had reasoned a way to put himself in a position where, even after the intent of his shard took over his will, preservation would eventually win? I don't really have any hard evidence for it, but there's no evidence against it either. And it would fit in the story. I mean, ruin has shown enough scheming capability, he would not be surprised by preservation trapping him, unless ati had managed to sabotage his own shard. Thoughts?

She's definiitely too stiff. I mean, if you ask her about herself, she offers to send you her autobiography??? But I recognize that she don't appear to be a bad person.

on a side note, are we sure fifth heightening grants agelessness? The only people with it we've seen are returned. If it indeed granted it, it would seem strange to me that there were no rich people around with enough breath to live forever. a breath cost enough to maintain a poor family for a year. 3000 breaths therefore should be within reach of the richer people in the city

I think it would only stop the aging process, but tlr would remain the same age, i.e 1000 years old. it was said that he needed more atium every year to tap enough youth to keep himself young, and having enough breath would have avoided this. he wouldn't need incremental amounts. But I don't think he'd have gotten younger. otherwise, it should be possible to get younger by tapping atium, freezing that by getting the fifth heightening, stop tapping the atium, then give the breath away, and you would have just gotten younger. On the other hand, breath do give you functional immortality, so it is possible it would work. at least until the lord ruler accidentally said "my life to your, my breath becomes yours" in casual conversation, then he'd better have his metalminds really close Buit I think the whole discussion is moot, because I doubt a scadrian would be able to receive breath. From what I know of realmatic theory, you need the proper spiritual dna to access the magic system of a planet

I think a lurcher has much more control over his pulling than you give him credit for. A lurcher cannot just pull any bullet. And he cannot pull a bullet once it already fired, they move too fast. he has to be ready to pull while the bullet is still to be fired. this means that the lurcher must be prepared for it, must see the gun and the intent to shoot. So the lurcher will appproximately see where the bullets are fired, and he will know how much his pulling can affect them. If he see a gun pointed to himself, he can pull on the plate. If he sees a gun pointed to an ally away from himm, he can pull and be sure he won't deviate the bullet enough too hit him. If he sees a gun pointed close to him, he avoid pulling. Keep also in mind that bullets are much faster than metalpulling. in the original trilogy, people could see the coins they fired, and could react to them. Sometimes people could dodge the coins, or bring up a shield. You can't do this with bullets. So, when a lurcher pull on a bullet, the acceleration he imparts will sum itself to the speed of the bullet, as per the laws of physics, and will result in a minor deviation. if the gun is pointed ten meters away from the lurcher, there's no way he's going to get hit by his pulling. A good combat lurchers has to be aware of all this when he decides whether to pull or not. And of course he must have good reflexes, to start pulling before the gun is fired. That would make a lurcher quite useless on a large scale battle, where there are way more opponents to keep track than is possible. But as long as you fight a handful of opponents, it's reasonable. It also means that a combat lurcher is not just any lurcher, but must be highly skilled and trained in what he does. Which fits with the story. If any lurcher could do this, then they would have sent much more than push and pull against wax. push and pull weren't the only allomancers in their payroll, they were the only ones good enough to fight.

I don't find anything really strange here. pull is able to wear a relatively small armor. say, one square foot. because it's so small, he can wear a thick one (say, one inch. enough to be virtually immune to handguns and rifles) without getting too much wheight. I also suppose he's wearing a LOT of padding under that plate, to cushion the impacts. Now, there's always the chance of a bullet missing the plate, since pulling like that is not a sure thing. in fact, we see wax shooting pull hoping one bullet will miss the shield. It means the chance is not negligible (however, for story reasons, it could not happen). And yes, it certainly is dangerous, and being a coinshot work better to deflect bullets. but you can't choose your power, and being lurcher is better than nothing. I think the best chance to take a lurcher would be to aim to miss him. a shoot to him would get pulled to the shield, but a shoot a bit farther away may easily be pulled on some exposed flesh.

I don't think a plate would be any stronger than usual during a highstorm. at most it would be slightly stronger. On the other hand, I think attacking with shardbearers during a storm would be a good trick. The plate's wheight would stabilize the bearer agianst the wind, and would protect him from the rocks tossed around. But regular troops? they would be swept aside by the winds, and hurt by the weather. Basically, the shardbearers would still fight at full effectiveness, while regular troops could not fight at all. The only precaution is to retreat well before the end of the storm, because when the storm ends the shardbearers would be left without the protection of the army and thus vulnerable to being swarmed.

the way I understand it, the push of a coinshot has a maximum speed of propagation. Otherwise, a duraluminium-enhanced push should send a coin fast enough that it would melt for the attrition with the air, but we don't see it happen. So, I suppose it is just like accelerating a bullet with gunpowder: if the powder explodes with a certain speed, you cannot accelerate a bullet faster than that, no matter how much powder you use. And since people have been shown to be able to react to coins pushed against them, we have to assume that they are slower than bullets. So pushign a bullet shouldn't accelerate it, even if it would grant it more penetration power on impact, as the push would then "catch up" with the bullet and grant extra momentum. I think Wax did it once in AoL prologue, to perforate a wooden cover

I think harmony, being a god, can just make marsh younger without needing atium or compounding.

ii assumed melting a metalmind would dissolve the effect. I was planning to get a food metalmind and eat all i can without getting fat because i can store the nutrition in the metalmind instead, but now i can't recycle the metalmind just by melting it. I would have to buy a new one. aww. Another question: if a feruchemist die, do his old untapped stores stay there? Like, forever? And as long as they are there, no other feruchemist can store anything on that metal piece because it's already used?

i think jedy precognition would cease to work when confronted against atium, since atium would sense precognition and precoognition would change to react to atium. So they should counter each other, just like 2 atium burners

It was from New Spring, when moiraine was asking lan to become her warder pimp. It makes sense if you think about it: she's a pretty woman, and while she acts prude, chairienins have shown they can be very disinibited in the right circumstances, so she fits well for the job. But she needs a strong men to protect her, or the other pimps would beat her to prevent her from making cuncurrence to their own girls. So asking Lan is a reasonable choice for her Now I can't shake off of my head an image of Lan dueling with the sword to decide which girl will stand under the best streetlight. As I write this, the image just expanded: his opponent is rand, and he's trying to place Elayne in the contended spot. Sorry to go off topic like that, but I keep having flashes in my head where i see those silly scenes and then I roll on the floor laughing for a while before calming myself. If someone were to see me repeatedly burst out laughing for no apparent reason like that, they would probably think I'm mad. EDIT: that image keeps growing in my head and I can't stop it! Now it's like I'm reading that duel from a book, and all the swordforms have been renamed to fit the situation (I won't write them there: this is a forum where language is supposed to be kept reasonably clean). And then Lan is quoting "a condom is lighter than a feather, boobs are heavier than a mountain" I don't have yet a good response from Rand, and I hope I can fall asleep before one pops up. I'm trying to sleep, but that stuff keep showing up in my head and keeps me awake! EDIT 2: Ok, new expansion: Rand is saying "the dragon reborn supports Trakand in the Succession for the spot under the streetlight" while elayne insists that she want to gain the chance of luring clients under that streetlight on her own right. Meanwhile an embassy of elaida is trying to persuade them to join the red ajah so she won't have to pay a percentage to a men. And I got a few sword forms that I can write here. The duel goes like "Rand attacked with Whipping The Submissive, which he turned in midstroke to Exibitionist In The Park. Lan parried with Voyeur At The Window and counterattacked with Haggling For The Price..."

the idea that shardblades do get cracked but also repairs themselves too quickly to see would explain. However, we have no evidence in all of roshar of anything magic not needing stormlight to be powered. shardbaldes self repairing without a source of energy would be strange. Offtopic, but it makes me think that roshar needs a way to preserve stormlight through the weeping if they want to develop an advanced and widespread magitek. Think what would happen to our society if for a couple weeks per year all electrical devices ceased to work. In fact, now that I think about it, the simple fact that blades work without stormlight makes them different from anything else, even plates. Maybe they really ARE splinters or something related. Which would also explain why they don't break.

The official explanation as to why plate resist them is that plate is invested. However, plate is heavily damaged by shardblades, while in a duel bladdes can keep clashing against each other without getting a dent. If we were to assume the investiture in each blade cancels receprocally, they would just behave like normal steel blades. And real steel blades, when subjected to the kind of fencing we see in movies (and that adolin uses when dueling), will quickly chip and dent and eventually crack. The shardblades don't get a single scratch. How can that be?