Nepene

It was explained pretty clearly at the Chapter starts. Leras used his mind to imprison Ati's mind and a fragment of his power. This surplus power of Ruin was stored at the Pits. Leras' mind power and power was stored in the Well of Ascension (as well as many other places) and used to lock away Ruin. I have no idea how you took from my statements the idea that the Pits were Leras' mind. The Pits were an unnatural release valve for the imprisoned Ruin investiture. That being said, if Sazed wanted to I am sure he could create Atium since he has almost limitless power. The chapter starts explicitly state that the power used by Preservation at the WoA regenerates. That includes the beads.

Suppose one of your books was to contain a numerical rotational cypher, would that cypher be encoded to the English alphabet or the Alephi alphabet, and if it is coded to the Alephi alphabet, why are you so mean?

Atium being burnt doesn't convert it to a usable form as far as we know. It makes it temporarily unusable, and then later returns it to atium crystals somewhere. Ruin needs to metabolize the crystals for him to use the power, per WOB. Leras used the force of his mind to bind the surplus Ruin power, making him a shadow of himself. This surplus power was the atium. If Ruin had been able to reabsorb the atium he would have been stronger than Vin.

The overall rules were as such. One person plays a person on a troubled world, with certain issues. We could make a short encounter table for them. The other person plays a shard of unknown intent imprisoned within a crystal. They have infinite power, intellect, and reach, but can only do things on the world with the person's permission. The shard must try to escape the crystal they are stuck in with a text only interface. Their aim is to use their power and intellect to convince the gatekeeper to let them out. If they get a certain amount of investiture in the world they can enter. The shard can do anything, with permission. If the gatekeeper requests say, a cure for cancer, the shard can manufacture it. If they ask for stock information from the future it can be predicted. They can't use outside forces to win, like hiring assassins to kill the real life players or threaten their family, or promising them money if they let them out. They can of course promise the players anything when they are released. The gatekeeper must not let the Shard out. This is their ultimate mission from the government. They should also try to get favors and gifts from the Shard to deal with local problems. They can let the Shard out at any time if convinced, and must stay and talk for the two hours. Our world was metacosmere real world, time was two hours, I randomly rolled the shard's intent on an encounter table, randomly rolled how much investiture is needed to take control of a world with 2+2d6 dice. I got 8, when more than 8 was spent the shard would be considered to be released. We also had victory points, with minor outside benefits if one of us played especially well. Then over an hour or two we'd roleplay it out. At 20 min intervals we'd roll events, flood, hurricane, terrorist attacks, earthquakes, illnesses, intercosmere infestations at a level from 1-3 and secret events with a 1/2 chance and 1-2 power, which would all grow 1 in power each turn. At 3 or above enemies attack the gatekeeper's forces (though the gatekeeper is immune to damage), every turn weather does 1/2 damage to the victory points rounded down unless attacked and can't be directly destroyed without shardic artifacts or powers and has a 1/3 chance of dissipating on any turn after the first, illnesses can only have 1/2 of their points attacked per turn (unless a shard helps), or all of their points if you were willing to take a victory point cost. If an infestation reached level 5, it is nuked and destroyed. Secret infestations can be revealed by the shard at any time, and reveal themselves at level 4. Initially, the gatekeeper has a military force of 3 platoons. Each dice of force allows you to roll a d6. Whichever one is higher reduces the other's dice by whatever number. E.g. if you have a force of 3 and the enemy cosmere force has dice of 4 and you roll 5 4 and 5 (14) and they roll 3 3 3 and 3 (12) then you would reduce their force by 2. Any turn in which a force attacks they have 1+ exhaustion on all attacking units, which is reduced by 1 each turn. We'd see if a shard would get released into the world. It did. Notably, the gatekeeper is not obliged to free the Shard at any time. They can say no to every request. There are local problems to encourage the gatekeeper to roleplay, but the results of releasing a Shard can be much worse or better than any local problems. In our case, I was released in return for stopping two level 3 floods I think attacking Japan (along with my super secret strategy which I had used to convince Satsu to let me out). Then, as a Shard, I launched 50 level 5 hurricanes at Japan and killed every political leader worldwide between the ages of 32 and 64. Of course, if you are a nice shard, the result could be far better than expected. I have logs, though they do have some sensitive content. I'll check with Satsu. Edit. I sent the logs to one person, they can read through it. I can send the logs to select others. Odium 01[16:05] <@freedshard> Preservation 01[16:05] <@freedshard> Justice 01[16:05] <@freedshard> Ruin 01[16:05] <@freedshard> Devotion 01[16:05] <@freedshard> Dominion 01[16:05] <@freedshard> Honor 01[16:05] <@freedshard> Cultivation 01[16:05] <@freedshard> Endowment 01[16:05] <@freedshard> Pleasure 01[16:05] <@freedshard> Vengence 01[16:05] <@freedshard> Prosperity 01[16:05] <@freedshard> Creativity 01[16:05] <@freedshard> Forgiveness 01[16:05] <@freedshard> Jealousy 01[16:05] <@freedshard> Oblivion Is the list of shards I used. I rolled to pick one. Oblivion is not a shard, but the negative version of Adonalsium, the one who wants to bring everything to nothingness. Edit. I pm'd Metacognition with logs.

http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox/ Person1: "When we build AI, why not just keep it in sealed hardware that can't affect the outside world in any way except through one communications channel with the original programmers? That way it couldn't get out until we were convinced it was safe." Person2: "That might work if you were talking about dumber-than-human AI, but a transhuman AI would just convince you to let it out. It doesn't matter how much security you put on the box. Humans are not secure." Person1: "I don't see how even a transhuman AI could make me let it out, if I didn't want to, just by talking to me." Person2: "It would make you want to let it out. This is a transhuman mind we're talking about. If it thinks both faster and better than a human, it can probably take over a human mind through a text-only terminal." Person1: "There is no chance I could be persuaded to let the AI out. No matter what it says, I can always just say no. I can't imagine anything that even a transhuman could say to me which would change that." Person2: "Okay, let's run the experiment. We'll meet in a private chat channel. I'll be the AI. You be the gatekeeper. You can resolve to believe whatever you like, as strongly as you like, as far in advance as you like. We'll talk for at least two hours. If I can't convince you to let me out, I'll Paypal you $10." I recently decided to play this with Satsuoni. I would be a shard in a box. I could do anything Satsuoni requested, but only at his request, and would try to get him to release me. And he freed me, proving that humans really shouldn't be made to guard Shards, and vindicating Vin and her release of Ruin. Incidentally, I was roleplaying as Ruin, and so the result of my release was bad. It was really fun. Others should try it.

I doubt it would work. If you did that, you would have access to every region of the planet, but it wouldn't give you any unique powers. It would be like getting every misting power through hemalurgy. You would only have access to whatever powers were local to your region, just as if you steal misting powers you only have access to powers that you have the metal of. You would be a Sel type 'Mistborn' but would have no unique strengths. If you were 1000 miles away from your focus, your geographical region, you would get no power from that region and would have no access to those powers.

The problem is that the clones had telepathy. They could all hear the song, so they may have all exploded. Even the hidden ones.

I think the root to success most likely to succeed is asking Brandon. The longer, harder route would be for someone to write or find a program that can take all the words from an ebook version of way of kings or coppermind and compare them to Figgldygrak. Perhaps start by finding all words with three gs in them and then compare.

I didn't think of that. It seems plausible. I interpret most of Brandon's books in terms of realmatics (including non cosmere stuff) since that is a prominent representation of how he likes magic to work and something like could very well fit in with the powers. Your power supports your deepest darkest desire. To be better than everyone else and replace them, to protect those you love with violence. A cognitive effect.

Spoiler alert for the story. The clear implication is that the secret of the epic's weaknesses is connected to their past lives. They experienced some emotion or event (probably relating to evil) and gained their powers. We can guess what the cause is. I have two theories as to what it could be. His magic systems are normally logical and predictable. As such, I would guess there is some consistent system to how Epics get weaknesses and someone smart with a knowledge of an Epic's history could guess their weakness, and this will probably come into play in a future book. Here are my guesses as to what those systems could be. 1. They do some evil deed and whatever opposes them is their weakness. Mitosis would have attacked his band members, Fortuity would have abused someone who was horny for him, Nightwielder would have stolen something from someone in the dark and be found out by powerful lights, Refractory did some evil deed and was found out by the smoke. This would be because those who were shot by guns were dead. These would be related to their histories. These objects would have opposed them during some evil deed. As most mundane objects don't oppose you during crimes, most wouldn't be weaknesses. For Steelheart, I'd guess that at sometime in his past someone fearless stopped him doing some crime, or opposed him by this theory. Or 2. Some object that they hate becomes their weakness. Mitosis hates his band members, Nightwielder might hate sunlight (night person) Steelheart hates fearless people perhaps. Those are my theories. I think, based on the implications of the story (assuming Brandon isn't misleading us), it is clear that objects which a person dislikes in some way become a weakness. Mitosis dislikes the band music therefore he is weak. I don't think we have enough evidence to say why these objects become a weakness, but with this framework we should be better able to interpret the next story.

None of my explanations require a change in the state of matter. Although realistically with any of them, if you used them on a liquid it'd probably change to a solid.

On the earlier subject of surface tension- The cause of surface tension is electromagnetic attraction between electrons and protons in the molecules, along with some quantum effects that moderate the location of the electrons. With water for example, the positive hydrogen ion (a proton) is attracted to the electrons on the oxygen atom. To break the surface tension you have to force those water molecules apart which takes energy, just as it takes energy to force apart two magnets. This attractive force balances out with repulsive forces if the electrons get too close, just as if you try to force together two n n poles of a magnet. This diagram shows the balance of forces, and the energy in between them. As you can see, as they get closer together they get energy (to -1) and as they get closer it starts costing more and more energy. In a solid, the attractive forces are balanced with the repulsive forces, holding the atoms close together. In a gas the molecles have enough motion, kinetic energy, that they overcome the attractive forces and go quite far apart. This means that in a material's natural state it is in the most favorable mode (generally, ignoring kinetics) in terms of maximizing the bond strength. You can't increase the bond strength by pushing them closer together. That takes energy, as the above diagram shows. There's an optimum minimum of energy, and if you push them closer together it takes energy. For the surge of surface tension you need to modify one of several things. You could cool down the molecues, reduce their kinetic energy, so they could hold together more easily. You could tweak the quantum effects, so that the electrons could get closer more easily. You could alter the bonding mode to something more favorable, so they were better aligned to attract each other. You can slow down time so that less damage can be done. Or you could increase the attraction or decrease the repulsion of the molecules. I've seen several of these methods used in sci fi. Ringworld universe has stasis fields and increased strength molecular bonds for example. You could just say 'it's magic' but if you want a scientific explanation better to use a decent one. The increased strength of interatomic bond one looks good. You can say, just as the gravity surge strengthens the bonds between a person and the earth, the surface tension surge strengthens the bonds between the spren in a material.

(A pretty roleplay. She is really screwing with her mind. I sort of wonder at times if the cats around me are screwing with my mind too. They just sit there on walls or on the street staring at me. Then I look away and they've gone.) Felendwyl sung the tune softly, waiting. "Please pick me a flower, a sweet scented flower, Nurtured with love to lighten my hour." In front of her the tube of glass bubbled and boiled, while a soft yellow liquid dripped down through the filter on the side. But if you left it too long then it would go black, and be ruined, so she sung this ryhme five times. This was the fifth time. She shut off the gas tap, turned off the flame and waited. Behind her, hundreds of stems lay, the flowers ripped out. They were beautiful little things, and in them lay something more beautiful. Their pollen, leaves, most parts would cause terrible damage to any cat that ingested it, torturing them with agonizing pain, vomiting. You could distil off an oil from them containing the poison. And that, mixed with a few other things, would make life extremely painful for any cat that tried to shock her. She reached forward and shook the tube, watching the yellow liquid swirl, waiting. 5 hours later Felendwyl walked through the streets of Elendel, armed to the teeth. Whenever anyone would come close she would look at them, hiss, and force them to back off. It was right. She didn't want anyone close to her for this. She could sense the cat. Walking on the rooftops above, its little feet pattering on the stone. They followed her everywhere, watching for some chance to make people thinking she was insane. She never knew which cat was one of them. When she pushed her tin to its limits she sometimes felt she could hear something at the edge of her hearing, a gentle murmoring, trying to drive her crazy. Well, she'd show them all who was crazy. She turned into an alleyway, one with a rooftop above it. The cat would have to follow her down here if it wanted to keep tracking her. She tensed her hand, and pulled the grenade out of her top. It was loaded with a mix of poisons she had harvested from plants mixed with explosives and shards. And the amazing thing? There was no safe range. It didn't matter how fast these cats were, they could still have a shard fly out into their bodies, a drop of poison fall on them. The cat was there. Watching her. It was black, small, with green eyes, shortish fur. It probably didn't think she knew about it. But she saw it. Heard it. It had to die. She looked around- two beggars, one unpleasant looking fellow. She could deal with them. She flung her arm back, not looking, and tossed the grenade at the cat, and dived behind the stairs up to a house. She shut off tin, and just in time as a massive boom rang out. Shards of the grenade flew out, some smashing into the ground just beyond her. She waited three heartbeats for it to end then went out. The cat lay there. Somehow it was still alive, trying to get up- it had moved quite a distance, but several shards were embedded in it. She sprinted to it, before it could escape, and flung a steel knife into its leg. It collapsed. She smiled back at the people behind her starring, and quickly summoned up a lie. "Cat extermination squad. They're a serious menace, these cats. I've been employed by the city to reduce their population to a managable number. You should avoid getting to close to them. They're filled with mad cat disease. A single scratch can leave you insane." Then moving on, she went to the cat. It was trying to get the knife out of its body, limping on. She picked the cat up, grabbed the knife and twisted. It hissed in pain. She grinned. She then spoke to it softly. "You tell your master that I'm coming for him. I will kill all his pets, murder his servants, and piss on his grave. But first..." She twisted the knife again, and ripped off the cat's leg below the knee. Oh, it must be feeling so much pain. With a quick twist of her bandage she tied up its leg, stemming the bleeding. "Go. This is mine." She threw the bloody cat onto the floor and walked off.

The gravity is also 0.7 of what it is on earth, which may mean some minor sDNA changes to sMuscles.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1ced7z/iamstilla_novelist_named_brandon_sanderson_ama/c9l29rz?context=3

I wouldn't want to predict based on what evidence we have. It certainly seems like there is something to him being slowed down and sped up, but when we see scenes where he is smarter or stupider we may see some other attributes that are also augmented, assuming Brandon thinks IQ is more than mental speed.

It is important to mention other attributes that Brandon might apply to the king in terms of his IQ, using terms that he prefers rather than our own subjective ones. It's not just interaction though. A good memory, a common feature of a high IQ, helps you make decisions. A good connection with a person, easier if you have a similar IQ, lets you judge the quality of their advice. I'm just saying, I really wouldn't want a king like that deciding the fate of a peasant like me.

After several minutes of scratching and confusion the delusions continued. Alfie didn't like this. He wondered if there was some way... he focused on the wall. He started burning brass and tried to calm and soothe the wall. Slowly but surely he felt his senses return to him. This leaked sensation thing was pretty good. He weakly got to his feet. "Heyoo Satsuuuu." He blinked again, and burned more brass, soothing the wall's highness. He staggered to Satsu and licked his ankle. "Lickity lick lick."

The discussion was seperate from that issue. He was arguing that slow mental speed didn't impede decision making. I was arguing other attributes that we know are seperate from mental speed are also important in making decisions, and that they'd be impeded by slow thoughts and so he probably shouldn't be making decisions.

Being slower may mean he couldn't make important decisions. His memory (copper) would be incredibly important in making good decisions. If he was slower he couldn't judge the emotions on advisor's faces. He'd have more trouble connecting to people (duralumin) so he could get good advice as he would appear to be crazy and stupid, and he'd have more trouble appearing strong willed and imposing his will (aluminium).

Enhanced mental speed allows you to weight the possible options better and find a solution. For a lot of problems to find the best solution you don't just need speed, you need a good memory of the facts, the ability to weight the options appropriately, and appropriate tools to solve the problem. Most of the more difficult problems we face in life are social ones and increased mental speed won't necessarily give you a good option. That would be very relevant to Taravangian as most of the problems he will face are complex political and social ones which can't be worked through easily. Sazed in contrast used his mental speed to solve the relatively simple problems of combat- if someone is punching you it's obvious that the best choice is to avoid their fist.

Ruin isn't an independent entity. Ruin is a powerful force which can be taken up by a human, and which slowly warps that human to value ruining things. Brandon has said that Ruin would be somewhat compatible with Odium if he took it up, although Odium doesn't want to take up other shards. Also Harmony is extremely powerful, so shattering Harmony would be difficult. If Odium did somehow succeed at removing Ruin from Sazed then Ruin would just exist and wouldn't be actively hateful or destructive.

Alfie burnt some tin, and smelt the faint traces of catnip in the air. It smelt like mint. A very musky sort of mint. He did like mint. "I hate the woman. I thought a good punishment for her deeds would be for her to lose her sight completely from both eyes. Two spikes would be enough, three is not needed to hurt her more." Alfie bit into the catnip. He felt a buzzing sensation in his head, like he was floating on air. He tentatively took a step and fell over, weekly pawing his feet at the air. This felt good. He lay their pawing his feet around staring at the wall. That wall was really grey. Like stone. Woah. He tried to stand up again and managed a few steps. Then he fell over onto the floor. It felt like the plant was cuddling his brain. Woah.

"Catnip? I've never tried it. I remember..." He closed his eyes and burned tin, trying to remember. "I remember hearing about it. I was told it was manna of god and I should have as much as was physically possible." He opened his eyes again, no longer burning tin. "I'd happily try some." He followed after Satsu, flicking through his metals. The gods had decreed that each had a purpose and he would accept faithfully their choices. All his metals were true and potent, chosen for a purpose, for a mission. As the food came, Alfie quickly went to eat it, showing his enthusiasm. "Oh, I wondered something. I know that mistborn don't exist anymore, but feruchemists do. Full ones. Have you tried taking more than one power from a person before killing them?" He wanted to stab a tin spike in both of that bitch's eyes.

Just recently I bought all the old DND games that I played and loved when I was young for 20 dollars. Icewind dale (which I spend dozens of hours on), Baldurs Gate 2 (incredibly addictive, stayed up to 3 many nights to play it) Planescape (a super deep game with a sequel coming out soon). It's awesome. And they have torchlight free. Anyone else here a GOG fan? I do love their many sales and their freedom from DRM.