king of nowhere

Well, their cells can replicate other animal cells, so they can become different animals. I don't think their cells could replicate inanimate matter. they could, however, be pretty good at mimetism; for example, a kandra could eat a chamaleon to learn to make color-changing cells, andd then he could replicate a sofa, using the springs as a sort of skeleton, and some sort of cell that has a similar consistency to the real stuff. However, it would not be the real thing, and it woul not work as well. In particular they could not replicate any rigid part.

When I never believed any kind of conspiracy theory (at least not one involving more than a few dozen people) on account of them being too big to be kept secret, too crazy to have a chance of working, and having goals that aren't worth the effort anyway, and yet I suddenly feel the urge to buy a small boat and cross the pacific a few times (using only the sun, the stars and a mechanic clock for orientation, so I can't be misdirected) just to check if there happen to be a new continent that doesn't figure on hushlander maps.

I also want to note that the main criticism on the diagram is not from a moral standpoint. if it really was the best way to save humanity, many people would accept it. desperate times call for desperate solutions. There is also an intersting parallelism to Rand and the wheel of time; Rand united the world under himself much like T is doing, restoring order from anarchy. the main difference is that instead of the diagram there were the prophecies, and much of the strife wasn't caused willingly by rand but rather happened by accident or by itself. the main criticism to the diagram is that 1) humankind is much likely to survive anyway; after all, it survived 99 desolations before. 2) there are many group of people trying to save the world and several of them look like they have a decent chance of success 3) the diagram is most likely to hamper those other attempts, and then fail cause Mr. T is not smart enough to keep it updated. or because one of those other factions will destroy T in their own attempt to help. Or because even supersmart T was not smart enough to do it properly the first time. Or because he missed some vital information. Or because something completely random and unpredictable will happen. there are just too many things that can go wrong. That's why I put so much stretch on fanatism. If T wasn't fanatically devoted to the diagram, he would probably realize that if the radiants are returned, several of them are flocking under dalinar, and dalinar has succesfully united alethkar (all things that were low probability scenarios, so probably supersmart T consider unlikely that all of those would happen together and didn't plan much for it), then he should probably cooperate with him, instead of trying to bring him down. Unfortunately, in his pow chapter Taravangian made clear he is absolutely devoted to the diagram. he said something about not beliving in god anymore, but having a godlike worship for his supersmart self and the work he did that day. I don't think a change of mind is likely.

Oh, T is really selfless. He is a good person trying to do his best to save the world, doing what he think he must. Also hitler, as far as I know, was trying to help the people. At the very least, most of those who followed him did. And also the inquisition was trying to save the infidel's souls by converting them through torture; still better than going to hell for being heretic right? We generally prefer to think that evildoers are evil, but most of them are actually well-intentioned. Good intentions do not translate to good results. In fact, I'd go as far as say that most of the greatest crimes in human histories were made by well-intentioned people. evil people will generally just do small scale selfish evil. plus, evil people can be threatened, corrupted, reasoned with. if an evil person has a gun on you, you can give your wallet, you can call for help, you can tell him the police will give him lots of troubles. on the other hand, if a good person has a gun on you, and think you must die, you will die. he will not be corrupted, not be swayed, he will not care about going to jail. That's why I always say that there's nothing more dangerous than a good, but fanatic person. Someone who is ready to kill people for a perceived greater good and that cannot be resoned with. He won't back down in front of difficulties. He won't shy away at personal risk or cost. when he sees that millions will diie, he will mourn them, but will keep on his track. If you defeat him, he will find a way to try again. And his vision has a force that can persuade other people to join him; something that an evil fanatical person lacks. So, Mr T is a selfless, well-intentioned, good person. He also fanatically believes in the diagram. The combination of those two factors make him much, much more dangerous than any simple ruthless warlord bent on conquest like sadeas was.

Well, my intention wasn't being condescending, or disrespectful, and I still don't perceive my post as such upon rereading it. On the other hand, I felt offended by your initial statement, when you said that we were talking of shallan as if she didn't have a say in the matter. To me, it was clear that we weren't. I felt like you pointed to me (and a few others) and called me a horribly sexist person. All for a phrase that to me had a perfectly normal meaning but you were reading in a different way. I specifically added the part about backwards people to say "yes, if you heard some lowlife thugs or convicted rapists talk that way, they probably mean it in that sense, and you would have good reasons to take offence from it; do you want to imply that we are such people?". As I said, I don't like when people interpret what I say in the worst manner and use it against me. Especially for sexism. All my friends agree that I'm caring and helpful, so being implied a sexist is a bit of a berserker button for me. so I felt the need to explain - in detail - why it wasn't a sexist remark and wasn't to be read as such. I knew I'd be most likely downvoted for it, but I felt I had to say it neverheless. Now, I'm realizing as I write this that I'm guilty of the same misbehaviour I attributed to you: take your statement in the worst possible way (i.e. reading a complain about a turn of phrase you didn't like as an accusation of sexism) and get offended by it. For this I apologize. I apologize also for derailing the thread, it wasn't my intention (EDIT: that was actually sheer stupidity on my part. I fully expected that my post would be followed by one or two clarification of intent, and nothing more. Should have realized that people feel strongly about anything regarding sexism and would want to add their voice. The only excuse I can make is that it was 4 am in my timeline when i posted and my capability to predict the outcome of my actions wasn't at its best). I will say no more about the subject, to avoid further derailment.

it's just a figure of speech. it simply means that kaladin will let adolin approach first, and will eventually try himself only if adolin fails. but "letting adolin have dibs" is shorter and easier to say. it sounds better. it is better at conveying the idea. We all know that shallan will have the last say over who will get her (note that the "get her" may suggest someone becoming the owner of shallan, but again, it's just a figure of speech), or if she prefers to remain single, or if she want to form an open marriage and propose adolin that they go to a swinger club (I'd like to see that just to see how adolin would react ). So it's like shallan is the slice of pizza, but someone must ask her permission to eat her first. or she may even decide to ask someone to eat her. basically, there's no reason to get offended over a metaphora. It's like when someone say "I'm so hungry I'd eat a whole cow", no one replies "that would give you fatal indigestion problems; I recommend at least removing the bones", because everyone understands that it's a metaphora. In the same way, when someone mentions "calling dibs" on a girl, no one should reply "the girl has a say in it" cause everyone should take that for granted. YEs, I know that in the world there are unfortunately still backward people thinking that the girl don't have any say, but I take for granted that none of the people I speak with will be one of those; if I suspected otherwise, I would change my acquaintances immediately. Sorry for the rant, I am a strong advocate of making colorful speeches as opposed to political correctness. I believe if someone make a statement that is open to interpretations, use the best interpretation until proven otherwise. I believe that my interlocutors are enlightened people until proven otherwise, and I expect the same courtesy.

What, so few people here actually like playing with children? I would use atium feruchemy to go back to their age. then I could have a fair wrestling match with them. Or, I would put metal belts on them and bring them to climb trees, acting as their safety net. Or I could riot their curiosity and explain science to them.

yes, nothing special. sound is a wave, and the vibrations on the surface will tend to move the dust towards specific points and patterns. brandon quoted a real phisical phenomenon. one that is much less exoteric than it appears.

the wind itself wasn't dangerous. what almost kiled kaladin in book 1 were the rocks and debris thrown around by the storm. oh, and being repeatedly slammed against the barrack wall. So, once the stormwall is passed, there are less debris around to hit you, and he never have to worry about slamming on the wall in the first place. plus, the higher you go, the less stuff can hit you: a strong wind can blow a small rock up a few meters, but the rock will eventually settle on the ground. only the finest material can last in the air long enough to reach someone flying, and those aren't very dangerous. Plus, of course, kaladin knew exactly how to use stormlight and was constantly healing himself from a variety of minor cuts and bruises, most likely.

For some magic you just need a patch, for others you have to install an emulator. all relevant downloads are available at sww.hoidsecretlair.wh/becomegodlike/addmagics/downloads (that's the shadesmar wide web)

I'm quite pessimistic on that. in my experience, D&D designers strive for simplicity and clear-cut choices, so that people can play the kick-the-door style and exterminate whole tribes of sapient beings without worrying about the morality of the fact because they are labeled as "always evil". and brandon don't write that kind of stuff normally. he prefer to have more genuine conflict. on the other hand, maybe things moved from my days (i'm still referring to the 3.0 monster manual where virtually every creature had a big neon sign spelling "kill me" or "i'm here to help" over their heads)

Store luck all the time, perpetually, especially when doing important things, never using it, only in the hope that girls will feel simpathy for your miseries.

Holy.... I don't know if I should upvote you for the skill required, or downvote you because you're really too fixated with this ... and I certainly have no ground on calling anyone nerd. On the other hand, I'm doing a PhD in chemistry of nucleic acids, and until two weeks ago (when I started studying for an exam) I didn't even remember the structures of three of the four bases of DNA and was perfectly happy with it... while I suddenly felt a spike of alarm at realizing I didn't remember the name of the shardholder of cultivation, and went immediately to look it on the coppermind. Only to find out it is unknown yet.

T is using good strategies to usurp trones, but he's causing the death of many human soldier, which would be useful against the voidbringers. he almost caused the death of two radiants, which are humankind's best hope. he is hindering everyone else's efforts. Now, if T was always super-smart, or at least reliably often, that may work. but he was smart enough to write the diagram only once. all that followed rely on speculations over speculated speculation based on theories inferred from hints on speculations on incomplete data. There's just no way it can work. As a researcher, I see it all the time. You start speculating on the data you have, and yoru conclusions are almost always wrong, until you're already more than halfway towards completing the project. Even then, if your initial speculation is correct, doing further speculation on that is almost never going to work, and the further levels of speculation you add, the lower the chances to be correct. the diagram has been mostly correct for five years, and that would be enough for me to go kneel in front of supersmart T and execute his every order, even the clearly suicidal ones, on the certainty that he knows better than me. But that man don't exist anymore, and the diagram is slowly failing to keep up. can they adapt it to the alethi finding urithiru? is it still worth trying to destroy the alethi to let T reign, or dalinar has enough of a chance now that is better to work with him? What I'd have done, as hoser says, is "first, do no harm". I'd have offered my full cooperation to someone else who is working towards saving mankind. It don't matter if thrree groups of good guys have the perfect plan to save the world, if they are all going to kill each other because they were spanners in the reed of someone else's plan. between the ghostbloods, the kholin and mr T, that's exactly what's happening now.

I don't have the book with me, so i can't go for counterquotes, but you're probably right. I'm probably being influenced by how myself would react to shallan. In particular about the "being dreamy" part you describe, much of that (welll, except some of the more lovesick parts) is how react to girls I'm specially fond of. there's 7-8 of them at the moment, so I doubt I have a crush on all of them. Plus, I react the same way to cats and children. I'm just a very warm person, once my protective instincs get properly triggered. And sometimes I forget most people are not like me. Anyway, if kaladin has a crush on shalllan, I'd go back to my first argument, that it is caused more by their circumstances in the chasm than by real affinity between them, that shallan fits much better with adolin, and if shalladin comes to being it won't be an happy couple and won't last long.

Good job, you make a persuasive argument and i think you are right. here is a +1

I agree on the treeshold part. mr T had a godlike intelligence that day, and his predictions are surprisingly accurate. However, I don't trust the diagram. Even with his scary intelligence, T could not predict everything. especially from incomplete informations. there's bound to be minor errors in the diagram, and those errors will compound with time, until the point the diagram will have nothing to do with reality. probably we're at that point right now: the alethi were never supposed to find urithiru, or to become united. The diagram is already more harmful than good: it almost got dalinar and kaladin killed, just because they could become competition. and i'm pretty sure jah keved - the whole world, for that matter - would have survived better the desolation without a civil war. I would not be surprised if he was influenced by odium and subtly manipulated, in fact.

shouldn't it be the opposite? if you were a feruchemist, you could get depressed by storing determination. But since you are not a feruchemist, you don't get depressed. Yeah. I am to the point where the first thing I think of when someone mention depression is storing determination.

WEll done, indoctrinated subject fellow reader. You may want to order the other 8 books already, so you won't have to wait once you finish the 6th.

as for the remaining scholar, that will be covered in the second warbreaker book. we have no idea what will happen, or if yesteel will die. we know jewel will go to jesteel asking to restore more sentience on her lifeless (which was made with the body of arsteel), hoping to resurrect him. so, depending on that success, there may be 2 to none of the five scholars still around, plus vasher, by the time of the SA.

Well, he was never described as a poor duelist in warbreaker. he was shown to be excellent with a sword many times. He only was a poor duelist compared to arsteel or denth. who also were 300 years old and practiced duels regularly. and despite being weaker than denth, and despite having suffered a night of torture, he could still hold his own, offering a protracted resistance before being defeated. and we see a bit of how good denth was. So, he's still an exceptionally good swordsman, even if there are some better than him. It would be like saying adolin is a lousy swordsman because szeth curbstomped him. As for what he's doing on roshar, chaos answered. As for his bigger plans, we don't know them. I think he joined the ardentia because it lets him pursue research, grants him access to information, and let him considerable freedom of movement. Then, maybe he don't have any great plan at the moment, he's just living by the day until he find something important. But it's highly unlikely he would have turned up to be the instructor of kaladin and adolin just by coincidence. he probably has an inkling of what's happening with the desolation, and his way of dealing with it was to train the next generation of good guys. Yeah, make me wonder why he didn't do it personally. I'm pretty sure by using stomrlight as breath he could have defeated the listener army by himself. Or why hoid don't get more involved.

I think if you introduce too many new words people will make confusion.

yeah, maybe the captcha only activates until you reach 10, or 50, posts. at this point you are considered reliable and not buggered anymore.

also would be of little use cause it would lock the plate. But true, it is difficult becauuse they are invested objects, same reason that let them resist shardblades. I always assumed, instead, that protection from lightning came from the armo behaving like a faraday's cage.

I really don't think his father has anything to do with it. and anyway, he wasn't killed by a handgun. when steelheart punched him, he was already deadly wounded. the bullet merely ended his suffering. I think many people here simply don't realize how right david is. a handgun really has very poor accuracy compared to a rifle. it takes a real champion to hit a man at 50 meters with a pistol (standing still, and with time to aim), while pretty much everyone can do it with a rifle, and it takes only little training to double that distance. My father was in the military and is quite expert in guns, and he never cease stressing how unreliable handguns are in real life every time the argument turns up. so, david has a point. of course, handguns are much faster to pull out, and much handier in close quarters, so they have their advantages. I think it has more to do with david being a perfectionist. he wants a job well done, he want everything taken into account, so he instinctively dislikes something as unreliable as trying to hit with a handgun. I feel exactly the same when, playing civilization, i refuse to take chances in combat, attacking only when i have a big enough advantage that i am sure to win. I always say, this is a game of strategy, if you want to have random chances decide the outcome go play dice. I believe david would say something similar about shooting.