Nepene

While I don't know how accurate their perspective is, the people of Hallendren certainly believe that the divine breaths and the returned have an intent. They give all their gods intents and titles. The sort of language they use to describe them sounds very spiritual. If we knew more about divine breaths we might find they could be classified into categories like spren.

Thanks. I'll spin a possible scenario, for, back then, Dominion and Devotion were very good friends, lovers perhaps, and they were planning to merge. They encouraged Keshu to spread the word of unity. This cognitive effect partially merged the power of the shards. Did they see themselves as one and encourage Keshu, or did Keshu see them as one and cause them to fall in love? What is the difference? Anyway, it happened, the Dor formed, a union of their power. Odium was worried they would combine and so did whatever to splinter them. Perhaps he encouraged Korath and Dereth to support their shards (an entirely reasonable and moral action) which perhaps would make it easier to splinter them. This encouraged the Shards to fight as their followers started to fight. Dominion and Devotion merged in unfortunate ways and fought. They were splintered by Odium. Due to the splintering and the partial merging they are not easy to reconstitute. Only if all of mankind forgets about Devotion (or vice versa with Dominion) and the shards are allowed to full separate can they be reconstituted. "Then, with all mankind united under Wyrn's rule, Jaddeth could rise from His throne beneath the earth and reign in glorious majesty." Or at least, that is one way to do it.

You mention how Sazed is a controlling entity, intermingling the shards. http://coppermind.net/wiki/Shu-Keseg Maybe Keshu managed to do something similar as well.

You can see that if you step forward you'll die, but you don't know how you'll die, so you don't know what course of action you should take to avoid dying. Atium lets you see everything, electrum has a much more limited perspective. You can use electrum defensively, but it's harder to do and less expansive.

Because it is stressful and tiring having a contentious discussion with emotions running high, especially when the person you are downvoting is in a bad enough mood to do something that deserves a downvote. The other person does not have to be as adult as you are. Plus, it's a matter of record that most people don't explain their voting patterns. Would you prefer if the rep system was not anonymous?

The main effort of leaving a comment is the potential risk of a fight or debate. That's likely why the rep system is anonymous- you can say how a post makes you feel without getting into a potentially awkward debate. You can speak freely. That does have the side effect of discouraging you explaining why you disliked the post, as you can easily express your disapproval or approval without explaining anything. As such I'd enjoy a feature that allowed you to preserve your anonymity and explain why you were downvoting.

The various tales of allomancy here make me uncertain if there are equal and opposite reactions in it. They seem to imply that weight can directly increase the force of your push. Friction may not be the only concern. Wax certainly regularly implies that weight is increasing the force of his pushes. Edit. Ohh. Yes, if you were able to throw a coin with enough force, it would overcome friction and make you move. But she wasn't moving it at a massive speed. She was moving it a visible speed, enough that she could focus on continuing to push it. Hence the weirdness. http://easycalculation.com/physics/classical-physics/newtons-second-law.php E.g. moving a 10g coin with 4000 N would move it at an acceleration of 400000 m/s. You don't need much force to move it at an absurd speed. I know of the friction immobilizing you. I was wondering more why Vin accelerated when her coin hit the wall- the coin would be pushing back with some degree of force even when it was flying away from her through the air. If you are expelling a mass which is connected to you away at acceleration x does it matter whether this mass collides with a solid surface? There will be some increase in acceleration when it collides with the surface, since it stops, but does pushing a coin away against a solid accelerate you more than pushing it away against air? If so, how much more force? That is the physics thing I am trying to understand. I agree. I can also stand on tiptoes and keep my balance. Or I can lose my balance. It depends on how fast I throw my arm out, how good my feet position is.

With intro topics- those who are best at socializing and being interesting with new people get rep, those who see that forum. I'd definitely support some system like Eerongal's where new users could get some easy rep quickly by doing some minor tasks. If you, or whoever does the site stuff for this site saw a plugin like that, would you try it out? For me, and many others, posting is far too much effort so we just leave an upvote or a downvote and vanish.

I would prefer some slightly more explained system. Perhaps have a wheel of a few options for upvoting and downvoting so you could downvote a post for specific reasons. You'd know if someone disagreed with your tone, or your grammar, or your factual accuracy. And a return to the old system of more detailed reports of rep would be good. As it is, the voting system doesn't really give you a great idea of what people's issue is with you. The difficulty of viewing your vote total has definitely made me less careful in here than on reddit. Sometimes in the future, when more upgrades are done perhaps. I understand it would be a lot of work now. Perhaps for newbies it would be good if they had some small buffer of reputation initially, perhaps 2-3, so they could make some mistakes without being called lame. You are quite sensitive when you first come here, it's good to have a small boost.

Alfie walked towards the building. A massive spike hung across the entrance. Iron, like those that an inquisitor might wear. It was dripping with what he assumed was red paint. It was very overt. From within he could hear sounds- those of people drinking, partying, having a merry time. He was very cute at the time. He'd seen how some people reacted with an adorable cat nearby. He'd got more than one meal that way. Would more than one person follow him out? He hung by at the side and waited for someone to walk in. A heavy set man with a thick beard came by, swinging his arms like the thick sacks of meat that they were. Alfie came in behind him, walking in lock step, and then ran right through his feet into the bar. The man tripped and swore at him. He tapped more connection and purred at the man to calm him down. He felt very close to everyone here. They were all sad at the recent death, over other gangs. He wanted to help them. No, that was the connection speaking. He had to do his mission. He bit down on his tongue, tasting blood. He slowly regained control. He walked up to the bloodmaker, continued tapping connection, and mewed at him pointedly. The man seemed to look at him strangely. He wasn't using zinc or brass allomancy. Did he recognize him from the assault? He kept tapping only a small amount of connection. He tugged on the man's trousers, looked at the door pointedly. He scratched the floor in the direction of the door. Was there a place he could escape? He burnt steel and looked around? A seeker, just sitting casually there, drinking, chatting... he shut off all his metals, ignoring the nausea he felt in his stomach whenever he stopped talking to his future self. He'd deal. He was burning no metals at all now.

You can avoid that by putting one hand around your neck, and standing on one foot. See if pushing at a constant muscle speed makes you fall over faster when against a wall or against the air. If you push into the air you will also move away as your arm is moving away from your centre of mass. If you push at a similar speed you won't move noticeably faster or slower when you push against the wall or air. Edit. If your arms are accelerating in force, if you slam them against a wall, then when your arms stop all that motion will be transmitted to your body as well.

That is very much a violation of physics, and is a clear example of how the magic works differently from the real world. In our world, the force of a push is equal to the force you put into it. The weight of the object you push isn't relevant (unless gravity is doing something) and your weight is irrelevant, though it can make it easier or harder to push. It's weird intuitively. If I push a coin against the wall with my hand I don't suddenly fly back when my hand hits the wall. But that's how allomancy works. It seems most of the power of pushes comes from anchoring, from weight given the quotes. If you increase your weight you can draw more power for your push. I wonder if it's related to the cognitive realm. Does a coin see itself as part of a wall if you push the coin against it? So the equation for how allomancy works might be something like force of push= (allomantic strength*amount of steel tapped* your weight)/distance^x force of recoil= (allomantic strength*amount of steel tapped* your weight)/distance^x. You don't have equal and opposite reactions. It's more like a spiritual weight vs weight contest. As such, you couldn't get into space with coin pushes. Pushing a coin isn't enough to make you fly (as Vin found out). The force of your pushes increases when you anchor the coin, and that is enough to make you fly. Edit. Allomancy exercises. Try standing on tip toes on one foot and extending one arm. You should notice you fall away in the direction opposite to the movement of your arm. Try doing this against a wall. If you keep your speed constant, do you fall any faster? Does the weight of what you push against matter?

Alfie nodded approvingly. "An expensive bait. It will do excellently. He'll have to reach down and pull it out, and when he does he'll be open to attack. You can leap on him and knock him out with your pewter. I'll try to riot his curiosity and desire for wealth so he focuses only on the treasure." Alfie then started walking towards the bar entrance, tapping a little connection to boost his natural charisma. "Is that everything?" OOC He looked at the building with his steel eye. What does it look like inside? If it is not dangerous he would go inside. If there was a bronze burner he'd stop burning metals, if there was a copper burner he'd avoid using emotional allomancy. If Satsu had some concern he would wait and hear it.

If Odium is trying to prevent Shards merging that is valuable information of itself, and I would be happy to learn of it. If he is not acting to prevent shards from merging but is vaguely worried I'd also like to know that. Mr Kill and splinter could be interested in preventing the reformation of Adonalsium, for whatever reason. This could be related to that. He could also have some personal relationship with Ati and Leras.

It could be that what Odium is doing on Scadrial is nothing, but that would be a rather boring answer. It's implied by the phrasing that Odium feared that the Shards would merge sometime before they merged. I don't know whether this is a specific fear about Harmony or about all shards, but either way, I think it would be worthwhile asking Brandon a question next AMA. Odium does seem like the big bad.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1ced7z/iamstilla_novelist_named_brandon_sanderson_ama/c9l29rz?context=3 Excellent question. The shards are now intermingled, and would take effort to split apart. He would drop Harmony. (This is what Odium feared would happen, by the way.) Interesting to read in light of https://twitter.com/BrandSanderson/status/294190258680115201 @wilde4fitness Odium has his fingers in a LOT of things. #torchat What is Odium doing in Scadrial?

Alfie followed Satsu through the streets, the light prickling on his skin. He drew less stares now, and from the odd person, a more hateful glance. He was very beautiful- he knew this from the way humans had reacted around him. But some people were very racist against people of his persuasion. Beauty made it harder to hate. He could see why they wouldn't like him as much now. He didn't like himself that much at the moment. Eventually they reached the destination. Satsu explained his plan. Alfie listened eargerly, and then looked over the alleyway with his tineye, every inch visible. "It would be easier to lead him in if there was some sort of object for him to find. A piece of chromium, a vial. Gold. Bait. Something to lead him to at the end of the alley. Everything should seem natural whenever you do it with one of the emotional powers so you don't have to push them too hard. Do you have anything like that? It should also distract him for a second or two, giving you a chance to get him." He looked into the bar with his steel eye, looking for anyone with bronze in their chest, anyone who he recognized, anything especially dangerous.

"I do have limited connection, but I have a lot of it. Connection is easy enough to store- it doesn't hurt you like storing health- and you can store a lot of it. Then you can easily become twice as charismatic for short periods of time. If you tap massive amounts of connection you could burn through it pretty fast, but as long as you avoid compounding you can use it for a long, long time. Most social interactions take a minute or two, but I have hours worth of connection stored. A lot of people use feruchemy in a different way. They store massive amounts of charge in there and then they get in a bad situation and have to waste huge amounts of power compounding their feruchemy again and again. But with connection you can use a little of it to protect yourself and leave yourself much safer." He had been thinking about this a lot, and had experimented before with zinc and brass. He stored all of his connection "You're way more visible if you look bad. People don't like you as much and they judge your actions more. Most of being stealthy isn't about not being seen, it's about misdirection, about not drawing their attention. People are going to see you, hear you. Just don't let it happen too often, don't look offensive from a distance." He released a little bit of connection, still storing most of it. "I can store when I am with you, as long as we're not talking much."

Welcome here. I hope you can lose many more hours and never regret one.

Q: Why does Denth's hair change color in moments of high emotions? A: Because he has the royal locks in addition to a divine breath. Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1ced7z/iamstilla_novelist_named_brandon_sanderson_ama/c9hh5j1?context=3 Canonicity: Word of Brandon.

He looked at the metals. They felt... painful. Every allomantic metal looked distinctive to him, some special sheen, but these broken metals seemed to be almost right but wrong. Like a cat trying to hide an illness. Everything seemed ok on the surface but you could see at times flashes of something darker, of death. So you had to shun the disease bearer or die. "Do you think we can poison the bloodmakers? I doubt they will be storing health during any battle. I can see and hear the difference, regardless." Alfie thanked Satsu for the jars of metal and restocked his metals. It felt good to feel them weigh down his stomach. "I am happy to go to the bar to capture him. Perhaps a friend could lead him to a backalley." Alfie briefly tapped his connection to a high level, punctuating his point. "I think capturing the bloodmaker should be the top priority. It's a very powerful spike. Once we have it... well, there's not much they can do against you if you're tapping huge amounts of health."

The missing part might be the Southern Continent's technomagic. A lot of these things might be easier if they were all put in a golem of some sort especially if they found another source of power than humans. I would imagine that the use of feruchemy, like aluminium identity magic, might be able to help you visualize the bubbles correctly.

What is creation? God is in everything, and everything is in god, as per Spinoza. Everything is made of the powers of creation. So what would be the ultimate enemy of God? Something that could destroy the powers of creation permanently, destroy the soul, destroy things on a spiritual level. The more a mind consists of true and good ideas, the more it is aligned with the intent of God, the more of it remains. The only thing that could kill a god is something that could poison its mind, make it decay as the body does. Make it rot. That's my theory.

You're welcome. You have my upvote.

I did see Harmony in the chat room asking if anything cool had happened in the ama. I imagine there's some interest among people for a condensed form of it. Any reason why we should hold off?