Oudeis

The fact that atium works in allomancy belies your claim.

Yeah... I think that Kurk agreed with me but disagreed with Claincy, and I tried to stand up and agree with Claincy but wasn't being clear. And the thing, with the face, that goes. Can't we all just get along?

"Is hemalurgy evil? Yes." People want to think they can use hemalurgy and not be evil, so y'all will invent every reason/interpretation under the sun why you can use it without becoming someone that would make Hitler cringe. I give up. Yes. You're all right. Hemalurgy is no more harmful than a flu shot. People who get their powers/brain/soul stolen from them will have a headache for a few days and then be fine. Hemalurgy is how Princess Celestia became a Princess Unicorn Pegasus Earth Pony. Magic wand and everything is fine. Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.

I dunno. I suppose maybe, but this just strikes me as yet another way that people are trying to justify why they can like hemalurgy without having to accept that their powers/abilities come at the expense of another human's soul.

Not enough upvotes in the world.

It's cool, it's not like we can see the thought processes that happen inside that insanity you call your brain.

I still think there are too many coincidences for Prof not to be Digzone, but you've hit on the crux. He can't be, but it seems so implausible that he isn't. He's not Digzone, he's just some other "I can tunnel through solid steel" gifter who happens to have a history with Steelheart. I'm hearing hoofbeats, and someone is telling me it can't be horses, so I guess it must be zebras.

The quote states that everyone has life force, not that all life force is equal. Also, who says it's a benefit to have more? There's a lot of reasons to think that tall people have a lot of advantages in life, but try fitting in an airplane, and don't get me started on heart conditions. People on Nalthis might have a touch more life-force; maybe that makes them a better target, like how a tree with the ripest, biggest apples is going to have them harvested first (yes, I know in the wild the point of an apple is to get some animal to eat it, but on a farm when it just means someone's gonna bash you with a ladder it's less of an advantage. I'm terrible at analogies anyway, but hopefully you get my underlying point).

This was my general sense. Basically here's how I think it goes: A normal human from Scadrial has a certain amount of natural "life force," for the sake of this concept I'm just going to call it an aura, I know it's inaccurate but that's not the point. A normal human born on Nalthis has Breath. Here's how I think it goes. Let's say one big part of your aura (80%, just to throw a number out there) is stuck with you until someone rips it out with hemalurgy. But 20% of your "aura" is what we know as Breath. But here's my thought. I think that takes something extra. I think that Endowment does in fact "endow" literally everyone on Nalthis with a touch of power, just the amount required to gift-wrap up the portion of your aura that turns it into a Breath. Let's say it's the equivalent of 1% of your aura. So, that's my thought. A Drab would have 80% aura. A normal person on Scadrial will have 100%. A normal person on Nalthis would be at 101%. Just the tiniest smidgeon more. Prolly undetectable unless someone was at CRAZY high Heightening, and even then only if you're seriously paying attention (and even then my personal theory is that there's a variance, let's say out to +/-3%, in any given person's aura, so someone from Scadrial with a strong aura could have much more naturally than a weak Nalthian, even if neither has any other investiture). So, are Nalthians all inherently superior to people of other worlds? According to my speculation, technically yes, by about a quantum. And in order for any of them to have any real usable local Investiture, several hundred of them have to sacrifice a whole lot more than the bit they're naturally 'superior' by. Just my two clearchips.

I was wondering this; it is an odd way that an Awakener might be uniquely suited to sensing a Smoker. If you've got your life-sense going, and suddenly a massive group of people to your right suddenly seem like Drabs to your life-sense, congratulations. Someone is Smoking nearby.

It is expressly stated in the books that they've thrown their hats over the wall. In the movie Captain America, Bucky asked why he doesn't run, and Rogers answer, "Once you start running, they'll never let you stop." David showed them that they're doing nothing. At this point, they didn't think Steelheart had their names or faces. They needed to win, they needed to show people "Epics can be killed, even the biggest ones" or all they'd ever do would be to run. You either face the Epics when you aren't guaranteed victory, or you accept that you'll never be able to do anything but stay at home. That is what the book tells us. Obviously you are free to read whatever you want into selective quotes but me, I'll just still with what's expressly stated.

1. Forgery should totally be on the poll. 2. Soulcasting. I really can't believe no one has put this yet. Caveat: Some sort of access to Stormlight, obviously. Otherwise it's not a power so much as a delusion. Say, I've got a box, and once a week I can leave gems in it and they'll get infused? Does that sound reasonable? Combat effective: Check. Able to make me rich? Check. I'd just have to find some way to have the FBI not ask me where I keep getting these rock-shaped nuggets of gold to sell. And as we all know, money is the best superpower. It's slightly less subtle than other powers, but still useful. Also, in case I do have to exhibit some trait in order to qualify for the power, well, my personality is already a lot like Jasnah as it is. Loner, rude, arrogant, superior, reasonably intelligent.

I mean, it's a total random throw-away, but it's unlikely to be plot-important enough to get RAFO'd, and c'mon, on this forum, someone will take the answer and build an entire theory around it.

Interesting. If he's answered, it's surely not worth a question, but I still wonder, which comes first? If I'm burning pewter and lift 200, do I get the benefit as though I'd lifted 200, and then it just doesn't help PAST that? Or if pewter grants me another 400lb of strength, do I only get the benefit when I start lifting 401? Or if I lift 300, does pewter take care of 2/3, and I get the benefit of the final 1/3? Or something between those three options?

What Gloom said, basically. I'm sure there are cases of stupid Epics turning in their notice and getting incinerated, or trying to leave and getting caught by a hit squad. Prof isn't just smart, he's a genius, and his power is "I burrow underground where no one else can go". I think if you're only "smarter than average" you can prolly find a way to leave where Steelheart's decision is "waste a ton of resources chasing you down," or "just let you go." Obviously, in Steelheart's perfect world, he gets literally everything he wants and can afford to punish the slightest affront. But even Steelheart lives in the (alternate universe) real world, which means sometimes tracking down literally every Epic who tries to escape to punish them is more than his resources can bear.

@name_here... I don't accept your premise. I think that the point of a checkmate, as explained in the book, is that you're left with no acceptable option. I think David (also his name is David, not Davis) went to run him over, so he jumped out of the way. Once he jumped, Megan took aim and fired with two guns. Once she took aim, specific futures took shape. In mid-air, Fortuity saw those futures, the ones where he gets shot. He tried to twist out of the way, but he'd already committed to the jump. The best he could do was twist into the second bullet. Even if he could see far enough to know, "If I dodge this car, I'll get shot," his other option is, "So I will stand here and get hit by a car, and be dead that way." Maybe he chose "shot" over "roadkill," maybe he simply chose "two more seconds of life before she pulls the trigger," the point of checkmate is, you don't have a way out. Even if you can see the future, that doesn't automatically give you a viable way to change it.

I'll reply to this more thoroughly when I am sober, but let me correct one grammar mistake I made earlier. I was talking about the recipient of the letter, not Hoid himself. Re-reading my own post, it definitely was unclear, and I apologize. One of the first lines of The Letter is something to the effect of, "I hope this finds you well, though since you are now essentially immortal, your health is something I take for granted." So I'm saying that the person Hoid is talking TO might be a shardholder. You are still right, there are other ways to achieve essential immortality. It's simply a guess on my part that the recipient might be a shardholder, and the last paragraph was meant tongue-in-cheek, though since Intents are apparently so over-riding, an Intent of non-intervention would explain why the recipient would refuse to join Hoid's quest since, as you so astutely pointed out, opposing Odium is a no-brainer. And not just cuz I've got a thing for Syl and I'm against whatever makes her do that rage-face-hissing-thing.

Welcome to another exciting edition of, "This is why I don't tend to reply from my old, horrible phone!" Let's see how much of what I typed out hours ago (that decided not to post itself) I remember now... I owe you an apology. We were expressly talking in the abstract, but I made the faulty assumption that we were both talking about the specific. You are, of course, correct. It's entirely plausible for a society to exist such as the one you described. Upvote (I said at the time that I'd do it when I got to a desktop, but that time is now) for you neologisms. Finally, I still think there's no need for ferochanics. Rashek could very easily have decided to keep un-modified feruchemists alive, especially if he was keeping them in (near) stasis as I've already postulated. He wanted a sample of un-modified stock, and the advantage of unmodified feruchemists far outweighed the potential risk of them leaving stasis, surviving, and crossing an entire planet to threaten his monopoly on compounding. And, of couse, hemalurgy has never needed anything but knowledge to work. I would not be surprised if allomancy is the only art achieved mechanically.

If I burn pewter, and lift the heaviest weight I can repetitively, am I getting a workout for my real muscles?

I can find the quote, but it's from The Letter. Basically, Hoid is talking to whoever and complaining that his friends at the "seventeenth shard" are chasing him down. Hoid seems to take it for granted that his friend's stance is purely one of non-intervention. He's not exactly on Team Odium, he just doesn't want to do anything about it. Just to give one potential example (I'm not espousing this, just using it to illustrate a point:) perhaps this person believes that intervening in any way is detrimental; he might not like what Odium is doing (Hoid implies this is because he doesn't fully grasp what Odium is doing) but he still thinks that it is not his, or Hoid's, place to intervene. And how do we know he's wrong? What Odium wants for Roshar is clearly a bad thing, but how do we know that Hoid isn't risking something worse to try and stop him? Or (since Hoid talks about how he is "now" essentially immortal, leading me to suspect he's a shardholder) it's possible his Intent is something like "don't do anything" or "Hoid stoppit".

I agree. And here's why I disagree with your underlying premise. Here's what we know. Rashek took a group of people who had absolutely no chance of survival on their new planet. He left them so far away no one could ever reach them, including himself. He wouldn't be able to so much as check up on them for over a millenium. Despite this, they are his fallback plan. Expecting people with, at best, Victorian technology to survive that long on their own is a preposterous risk; possibly worse, what if a thousand years without Rashek there to stagnate technology causes them to advance? In short, Rashek clearly required a better plan than "plant them underground and hope for the best." Lastly, we know that mechanical allomancy is possible. Now supposition. I'll grant I can't support any of this, but all I'm saying is, it passes the "this could reasonably happen" test. It's a hypothesis, not a theory. Rashek, holding Preservation's power, could very well have learned the secrets of mechallomancy. To overcome the dual problems (sheer survival and technological advancement) he might easily have decided to simply not allow a thousand years to pass for them. If he'd set up cadmium machines, either one large enough to house the entire population or several to cover the whole area, problem mitigated. At normal cadmium burn rate, that's 128 years, still a few generations, still a risk of extinction, but a damnation sight better than 1024. Being Preservation itself for that moment, he might have had a way to make it work better. The (yes, yes, I know, non-canon) MAG suggests that a cadmium bubble inside another cadmium bubble will stack the effects, so if he could make two giant bubbles that's only 16 years that pass. Again, divine intervention, he could have come up with a way to power it enough to last that long. Is it solid? No. Is it a working hypothesis? I think so. It also ties up one last loose end; how did the southern Scadrians get mechallomancy? They've got this machine, built by God himself, to tap into the allomantic properties of metal. They certainly could never replicate something created by a being functionally omniscient, but similar to how a world of Shardplate led to people developing fabrials, they could work out cut-rate versions to work with other metals based on what they learn from the original machine, even if it's not perfect. So, Gloom, my issue with your theory is this: Even if a population were willing to sacrifice each other to survive, how exactly would hemalurgy help them? How would they learn about mechallomancy within the few years, maybe, that they could survive without it? What mechallomantic powers would keep them alive? I don't disagree that desperate people will do desperate things, I just don't think that the specific desperate act of hemalurgy would do them any good, and I simply don't see it being a reasonable assumption that these untouched Scadrians could have possibly survived that long on an alien world under any circumstance. The only solution I see is, they didn't survive that long. They only survived a century or so, and Rashek found a way to make that enough.

But it won't be a unique code. Also, if I actually do end up impressing Mr. Sanderson with my costume, that'll be its own reward.

Ah, my mistake.

I suppose. I wouldn't be surprised if animals, since they don't have bits of Preservation and Ruin in them the way humans do, wouldn't be effective enough to be worth it. Additionally, you're not just killing them. I'm no angel, but even I would at least hesitate before tearing a dog's soul to shreds just so I can get magic powers. Any thoughts on what form this technology will take? A stand-alone machine works for some of the metals (like my bendalloy stasis machine idea) but what about pewter? Will it be some gear a person wears to gain the strength of pewter, or will it create something mechanical with great strength? Could I make a pewter-powered sledgehammer that hits harder than I swing? Tin-goggles for eyesight, tin-gloves for touch? (do not want to consider smell or taste). Will someone invent a bronzedar? If there's a device that can ironpull, who sees the blue lines and how do you choose which to pull on? Or will it simply pull on everything, or everything in a certain direction, when active?