Oudeis

That is both an excellent point, since we know he healed people expressly for purposes like perpetuation of the species, and also HA! mental image. 1. If the population of Elendel is 5 million and that's roughly half the world, why are we assuming 20 million total? Wouldn't that be 10 million living people total? 2. Actually 16 generations. Though you're right, surely there was the occasional Lord who died/abdicated and thus we'd have more than one Lord per generation a time or two, but in only 16 iterations I propose that wouldn't have happened all that often. I feel like there'd've been at least 13 or 14 generations. Also look, the magic number. Still, your math is quite impressive. Did you factor in mortality rates, or simple bachelorhood? I suppose that's counted in the average... in a world like this, where people still clearly die from causes we in our world would consider "preventable," the amount of children per couple that actually has children is likely quite a bit higher than the simple average.

That is an interesting point... does that mean it's set in stone? Once you choose something, once you pick your destiny, whether it's "prepare the city for war" or "give your life to save your daughter," are you ever allowed to change your mind? Can you lose your nerve? Can you fail? Can accidents happen? If Lightsong had fallen off a balcony and died at some point, he wouldn't have had the chance to give up his Breath. Was that, therefore, impossible? What about Blushweaver? It seems like all she had to do was gather the resources of other Returned. If they were all sent back by Endowment, and Endowment had this one single purpose in mind, why was it so hard? Why couldn't she (I'm guessing gender here) have sent Allmother a brief vision making it clear, "give your command codes to Blushweaver"? And above all this... what then was Shashara's destiny? Did she fulfill it, or did she fail it? Was it to advance the science of Awakening, then go mad and die? Was the "go made and die" bit not part of the plan?

That's... actually a little brilliant... well done! And the word you're looking for is Intent.

Do you mind if I ask, what is you source that "ghosts are transparent"? Apart from Kelsier, I cannot think of another person who dies, yet has any further influence on the world, and I can't recall a time he had any noticeable impact beyond whispering to Spook... Little is said of Fedik. We know that he was fascinated with Ruin's Shardpool and wanted to take a sample, but I believe he'd safely moved on by the time he was stabbed, so unless he took a sample no one knew about, there wasn't really a "defend my shardpool" reason for Ruin to stab him. We do know that at Rashek's urging, people were starting to think Alendi was insane, and he was even doubting his own grasp of reality. As he himself says in the logbook, Fedik getting stabbed, but surviving and confirming that it was the being of dark fog, went a long way towards proving to people that Alendi wasn't nuts.

That's fascinating, and yet has nothing to do with my question. Regardless of whether they were capable of producing offspring or not, we nevertheless know that 20% of Originators were Terrismen. If we can determine roughly how many Terrismen there were at that camp, we should be able to learn how many Originators there were. I'm just idly curious how close humankind came to being extinct on this planet.

Then it's possible that lerasium does have a "re-write your own spiritweb however you'd like" option, or that he'd know that lerasium still can't give anyone two powers. Just because we know it can do more than we realize doesn't mean it can do literally anything; perhaps there's something fundamental to a spiritweb that means a stable construction of any two powers is simply impossible. My nephew has some legos, and he's not terribly good at building stuff with them. I'm much better than he is and I can build taller buildings, more complicated structures, because I know what I'm doing. I still can't make a piece hover in the air without support, because however skilled I am, there are still things that are impossible. That said, we've seen that hemalurgy can break the rules. So it's possible, plausible even, just far from a guarantee. I'm personally gonna say no. I think that after a thousand years, if it were possible, a few genetic mutations would have made the occasional double-misting, and it never once did. To me, that says impossible, but I'll admit that's simply a feeling.

I'm wondering how many people survived the end of the World of Ash. Just saw hard data that roughly 1/5 of the Originators were Terrisman. I think it's safe to say that statistically the next-best-thing to all of them were in the camp near the Pits of Hathsin. Anyone reading Hero of Ages who wants to keep an eye out for hard numbers on how many people exist there? Anyone think they've got a good idea of where to search the book for that info? Alternatively, does anyone have a different idea of how to calculate the number of Originators?

Hrm... well, as a note, obviously you should burn duralumin first, then turn on aluminum; if you burn aluminum first, the duralumin is gone. Boring though it sounds, I suspect absolutely nothing would happen out of the ordinary. I suppose it depends on one thing, which I don't know if we have a way to prove. Is there any build-up, whatsoever, from "burn" to "burst"? If it's a process with any buildup at all (think of a car, it can go from 0 to 60 within a short period of time, but there's still a fraction of a second where it's only going 5mph), then nothing happens. At that first part, that tiny fraction of a moment when you're barely burning aluminum, all of your aluminum, duralumin and every other metal would simply go away, and the entire burst would be aborted. But let's ignore that, because it's boring. Let's pretend it's like a book instead. Your aluminum is a closed book, at "page 0" let's say. With duralumin, you don't have to open to page 1 and so on until you get to page 20, you're allowed to just find your bookmark and flip it open instantly to page 150. Let's pretend that "opening to the page" isn't a process that takes any time, that you're simply there. Obviously, it'd still be just a single flash; you'd have only the tiniest fraction of an instant before the book itself was just gone. What would happen? Who knows? Per what little we know of aluminum that's "written in steel" (my attempt at coming up with a new word for WoB), it can clear the body of unwanted effects of Investiture and possible cleanse the body of other impurities. So, your metals leave for sure. Perhaps if someone is Rioting you, for just a moment the Riot fails? Might it temporarily affect your own personal Innate Investiture? Maybe burn out any hemalurgic spikes? Remove Basic Lashings you might be affected by? Perhaps if you're sick, it can get rid of the disease? Sober you if you're drunk or high? Would it consider all the bacteria that line your digestive tract to be "impurities"? Regardless, I think there's a case to be made that the effects would be imperfect, incomplete. If it attacks bacteria, it might not get to them all in the barest instant it has before the flare defeats itself. It might remove most of a drug, just not all of it. Any other speculations? Or better, anyone with some actual real evidence that isn't just a guess?

I know we've got it confirmed that mistwraiths are born, live fifty years or so, reproduce, and die. However, I just saw something (and now for the life of me can't think of where) that linked me to a Theoryland post saying that kandra can tell gender by smell, and that they have sexual preference. It didn't specify whether that meant, they were always attracted to the opposite gender, or not. Since they have negligible senescence (and if I spelt that right I award myself fifty points) which is a trait the unbirthed do not possess, they might also have other changes. If I were better at searching theoryland I'd find the quote again and post it. For in-text support, there's a moment when Vin and "OreSeur" are discussing dresses, and she tells him he's a boy, and he asks how she knew. Personally, I think it'd be a blessing if they couldn't reproduce. Imagine falling in love, knowing that if you indulge your lusts there's a chance you'll give birth to a cat, and that unless you give birth within a relatively short span of years, you won't have the ability to bring your child to life as a sentient being. Actually... that might make for an interesting character. What if a couple fell in love, bore a mistwraith child, and in grief either one parent donated his or her own Blessing, becoming a beast in order to grant their child a mind, or maybe each parent donated a single spike (though if I understand hemalurgy, only matched spikes are actual Blessings, so the parents would have to have the same Blessing). I want to write that story now. The only fifth-and-a-half generation Kandra, the only Kandra with Kandra parents, where daddy is kept in a cage and basically treated like a favored, pampered pet... she bears his Blessing of Stability, and sometimes she can sit back and meditate, and literally feel the residual traces of how much he loves her. EDIT: Here's the quote. Believe it or not I hadn't even closed the tab. Remind me to check those next time before I say I lost the link.

Cool, thanks! Kandra have gender and, apparently, gender preference. Can they produce offspring? Would the offspring be mistwraiths? Are kandra genetically capable of homosexuality?

I suppose they can be indicators of depth, but I find more often than not they're indicators of "I don't agree with you, but I can't prove it, so I'm just going to tell you that this is my feeling, so now if you disagree with me you're the jerk who hurt my feelings." When someone says, "I feel this is wrong," the first time, I'll accept it as intuition, but when I reply with, "Okay, but here's all this evidence from the text, can you provide me with anything concrete to back your feelings up?" and then they reply with "I support my feelings with even stronger feelings," I start to despair, as clearly no real communication is going to be harmed in the making of this debate. I appreciate your support of my Fedik idea. I have to remember to go back; I made the point that the Dark Mist Spirit might not have needed metal as he could fuel hemalurgy with his own body the way the Mists can fuel allomancy... from my recent re-read, twice in Well of Ascension the White Mist Spirit is proven to be somewhat solid; in a tent, Vin attacks it with a knife and she is parried as if by something solid, something metal, and at the Well itself, it stabs Elend, not with any piece of metal it found, but with its own hand/substance/what-have-you. I need to go back and update with this theory. With my RAFO, I had despaired of ever learning more, since in annotations Mr. Sanderson has said that he doesn't want to go back to a sequel, but we know the next book at least considered the title "Shadows of Self," and in Hero of Ages the First Generation refers to the Mist Spirit as Preservation's "shadow of self" so it's possible mist spirits will appear in this upcoming book, in which case maybe I will, in fact, learn more.

Bloody Tan being a Seer had been my thought, but then I read this (go to question 10). I actually re-read it and I think the whole thing might be less mystical than we think (although a bunch of people think he was burning electrum, which gave him just enough of his own future-sight to pull it off). Wax and Lessie had a blink-code going, and this was a move they'd pulled off frequently in the past. I think it's possible that Tan simply knew how to count down with them, and that's how he pulled it off. I grant you, it's not a perfect theory, but I'm keeping my eye out to see if I can't figure out more.

Here's the link to Fedik, in case you want to read it. I've stopped linking to theories since that usually just results in people countering my evidence with "I don't feel that way so I'm going to tell you you're wrong" until someone like Mr. Sanderson's personal assistant shows up to tell me I'm prolly right, and then mysteriously people stop talking... funny, that....

...But I'm also sure I heard somewhere that he's confirmed that the linguistics are connected between worlds, so there is still hope (or at least Ati). That said, there's a girl in real life named Matisse that this book was written in honor of. Presumably, he derived "ati" as the only aon her name could contain, and decided for story purposes that it should mean Hope. Also presumably, he'd already named Ati on Scadrial. Still, there's wiggle-room for him to retroactively decide there's a connection. He really likes nerfing his villains by making them good guys seen in a different light, so I can see him deciding that Ati was complicit in his own demise; that he knew he wouldn't be able to resist the Intent for very long which is why he chose to match with Leras, and somehow helped the plan to kill them both so Harmony could eventually ascend... now I'm just rambling.

So... I just finished my re-read of that book, including annotations, and I don't remember that part. So I just now went back to his annotations, and I read all the ones for the chapter before, the chapter of the fight, all the way through the epilogue and series wrap-up, and I don't see anything expressly saying "Preservation's power cannot fuel atium". That said, I still believe it to be the case; logically it makes sense. I just wanted to throw out there that we don't technically know for sure (though the point is moot by now, since clearly the only person who could "fuel" allomancy now is Harmony, who logically should be able to fuel atium, so the point is as academic as can be.) And yes, I added the aluminum thing for the lulz. The mental image just amuses me. Burn aluminum. All mists everywhere... GONE. Preservation loses, Ruin wins, end of story. Well done, Vin.

Hrm... so there is a tiny bit of wiggle-room. Although... that's actually interesting. I suppose you don't need the parents, you merely have to have been born there. So if two Scadrians world-hopped to Sel, they could settle and have a number of children, making it less of a coincidence that one of them would happen to be an Augur. There's still the idea of, how many of them are likely to suffer an experience so traumatic that the Snap? What do you think, guys? Would any of you read a story that contrived? Can anyone help me think of a way to make it more organic? I could make the progenitor a powerful Allomancer, making her genetic legacy more likely, and have the Augur be a grand-child. If her spouse were full-blooded skaa, the Balance would indicate that they'd have lots of children, giving us a few more rolls of the die. It'd amuse me if the child's light connection to Sel (and therefore MaiPon) makes his forgeries weak and poor, yet his gold-cheat makes his Essence Marks beyond compare...

I am way, way too tired to discuss time dilation right now. I have one point of narrative causality to reply to. Someone asked, why wouldn't Wax and Wayne have done this, since they know about time-bubbles and steelpushes? My answer: When in the books did they ever need to fire metal that strongly? Guns with a steelpushed bullet have punched through every defense Wax ever faced. Why did he need to do something fancy, potentially breaking space-time, just to push something even harder? If it's possible, I'm sure they have done it in the past, when it was either necessary or just some cool new thing, but bendalloy is expensive and somewhat rare. After all these years it stops being the novelty to them that it would be to us, and they wouldn't bother if it wasn't necessary. And it never was.

Except why do I feel like I read somewhere that, the way only those with a tie to Arelon can become Elantrians, only those born in MaiPon can be Forgers? It was some WoB that spoke of four-dimensional Punnett squares. I really like your idea, and I still want to find a way to make it work. Perhaps an allomancer worldhopped, and bore the child of a MaiPonese? Except such a child happening to be born with such an incredibly useful power strains credulity. I suppose it could be a child of two worlds, whose first Essence Mark is "what if I'd been born an Augur"? Still feels like cheating the system to me... There comes a time when you have to say of a theory, "that's too overpowered".

The various times that Vin drew on the Mists, could she have burned bendalloy? Could she have burned atium? Basically, was it required that she know a metal exist before she was able to burn it? And can the mists replicate the power of the body of Ruin? What would have happened if she drew in the Mists and then burned aluminum? ^^;;;

From Alloy of Law, Chapter 5. Wax is in Wayne's speed bubble. So here we've got proof that steellines extend through a speed bubble's edge, or he wouldn't be able to see them all. Can he, then, Push on the metal from where he is? Physics get weird when you cross time. Can you Push on a spoon, and since it's moving so slowly you can build up a tremendous force on it before it gets too far away to be affected? Or would it's inability to move be considered an "anchor" on the spoon, and you'd simply be forced backwards through the speed bubble? Or crushed if you tried to anchor yourself from behind? Imagine Marasi standing at one end of a room, Pulsing a time bubble with a table with a spoon on it, while across the room Wayne has a speed bubble going with Wayne in it. Wayne is tapping a bunch of weight to anchor himself, and pushes on the spoon. Imagine how much force it could potentially gather before being "released".

I'd suspect that if it comes up, whatever solution Mr. Sanderson gives us will be far more unique than that. Also everything on the planet has all three aspects, so the AI would have a "soul" if by that you mean bugs have souls, dirt has a soul, and a big mac has a soul.

?? Jasnah knows of Shadesmar, Shallan knows of Shadesmar, those two Ardents from that interlude know of Shadesmar and imply that it's rather widely known amongst the ardentia...

I had not yet heard this; can you link me to the WoB? That chart is outdated. Peter Ahlstrom made a few corrections. It's also worth noting that he pointed out that, until confirmed in the text, this is all very loose. Updated one is here, btw.

...Unless you believe my theory about Fedik.

I just give up. You've all clearly proven that you're willing to say the same "I personally think some things are the same and some things are different" more often than I'm willing to say "Please support your supposition from the text," so I give up. You win, and if and when I am proven right in future books, I will tell you that I told you so so hard. And finally, we have absolutely no idea how feruchemical nicrosil works, so we can't make something redundant when we don't know what it does. Your assumptions about what it does notwithstanding. And there's no infinite feedback loop. Allomancy summons a set amount of energy from Preservation. A metalmind charged with the allomantic trait could be burned, but you'd get nothing more or less than the amount of trait inside. If an infinite feedback loop were possible, it would be possible with just feruchemical compounding as we know it. A compounder could store some attribute, burn that and store all the excess, then burn the excess to store even more, ad infinitum. If it's possible, it's already possible just with what we know from the text. Adding in allomantic dilation changes nothing about that. I'm done. Vaya con dios.