Oudeis

I disagree that the word "imitate" axiomatically means deliberately... I've heard of things being an unwitting imitation before, someone doing a thing unaware that someone else, in a different circumstance, did the same thing. All that said, none of this is to say Vasher definitely didn't Worldhop (or that someone from Roshar didn't bring a Shardblade to Nalthis). I just saw it look like people were assuming it could only mean that one thing. And what do you mean, ninja'd, by Oudeis no less? I can ninja with the best of them. =P

?? From where do you get the information that the hybridization is why Rock can see Syl?

Am I the only person who wonders who died to give Alendi the Piercings of the Hero?

Well Lin Davar didn't try to "block" Balat's thrust with his Soulcaster...

Eh... maybe i'm alone here, but I don't see his answer as axiomatically proving that Vasher worldhopped. It's possible, and does raise questions, but it might have been simple coincidence. Vasher thought, "Hey, why don't I make a sentient sword?" and didn't realize that his own magic system wasn't actually equipped to do that; he was imitating Roshar without realizing he was imitating Roshar. Being very smart and very good at what they were doing, Shashara and Talaxin were able to invent a hack without even realizing what they were doing was non-native to their own Investiture. Additionally, whichever happened, the fact that Nightblood is a hack raises a number of fascinating points. This throws our current model of "four types of BioChromatic entities" out the window, if Nightblood isn't a Type IV. It's possible that the four types exist, but Nightblood's just not an example. Vasher was somehow able to hack his native Investiture to do something native to Roshar, but hasn't figured out how to hack the other way. Perhaps because his Spiritual Identity is tied to Nalthis, or maybe because as a Returned, even a suppressed one, he's too powerfully of Endowment to use another Shard's Investiture for any but the most basic of things (i.e. feeding off of it)? I've also got some thoughts and ideas kicking around my head about the relationship between Returned and things like Nightblood, but those might all be invalid if Nightblood isn't a Type IV.

I would be surprised if no one has ever noticed that any fabrial blocks Shardblades.

Morale: I actually just re-read that scene the other day. Vin comments that while commanded by the Inquisitor and feeling the blood frenzy, they are capable of experiencing confusion and fear, but are powerless to act on it. They keep attacking the same way, regardless. Ordering lifeless: Even if one person held the Command phrase, they could still tell the Lifeless, "Obey any order given to you by this man here." The guy wouldn't be able to order them to disobey anything programmed into them with their Command Phrase, but you could have a whole host of generals each in charge of two hundred Lifeless, with messengers carrying orders back and forth from a central general. As Dunkum points out, the Pahn Kahl weren't sending the Lifeless to Idris for a real battle, it was to provoke war. It was even mentioned that without human direction, the Lifeless would wreak a lot of devastation but that the Idrians would surely survive. Ruin's control was broken when he was just about as strong as he was every gonna be. Vin and Elend couldn't take control of his koloss from him (thought with duralumin, Vin briefly fought him over Marsh's mind) but Marsh himself was able to break free. When he was killing Vin, he realized the earring was a hemalurgic spike, and ripped it from her ear. Ruin saw what he was doing and tried to stop him, but since he was in a blood frenzy and it was technically him damaging someone, even Ruin couldn't stay his hand. So my point is, no Inquisitor will ever be able to make Koloss fight with tactics. They see an enemy, the charge, they hit. They have the ability to reason just well enough to make use of some very simple tools, but even with their mind being controlled, no one could make them push through a defensive line, ignoring apparent targets to go for a high-value strike. And even if they could, taking out one general wouldn't cripple the army.

Does it though? Lifeless aren't superhumanly strong. I feel like it's a difference between Type II and Type III entities. I feel like a LOT of Breaths would have to go into a sort of Awakened scaffolding just to let it move. Still, the price might be worth it for a Lifeless Chasmfiend.

If I knew enough about hemalurgy, could I deliberately Awaken a body into a Lifeless, with modifications to its spiritweb which would replicate iron hemalurgy and make it strong like a koloss?

For purposes of this exercise, I'm gonna say Ashworld koloss, based entirely on the fact that we know more about them than we know about the other kind. Eh. I'm gonna kind of disagree here. You're assuming Koloss will have the tactics to break through the Lifeless lines and take out the general. Also, see above, an advantage of lifeless is that it's much, much easier to establish organizational redundancy (i.e., twelve people can all have the Command Phrase and be directing different sections of the army). It's established that controlling Koloss is not like controlling a video game character, and that you have even less control when they're in the blood frenzy. They just attack, literally whoever is in front of them, regardless of their orders. This becomes a huge plot point in the book. Marsh is able to break Ruin's own control at one point because even Ruin's direct influence isn't enough to counter Marsh's blood frenzy. There's no way someone other than Ruin could control the koloss well enough to specifically order them in real tactics. Koloss are iconic for predictable, boring attack patterns without deviation. If anything, I wonder if this could be turned around. The koloss are far more likely to be controlled by a single person. Granted, that person will by definition be an allomancer. If he's mistborn, rather than a soother or rioter, he'd be pretty hard to kill. Also, he need not get as close as, presumably, the person controlling the lifeless would need to. Still, he or she would be a linchpin in the army, a potential weakness in a way the commanders of the Lifeless army would not be. Not sure I agree with the "morale" thing, honestly I'm not really sure what you're saying here. They've got the bloodlust or boredom. In bloodlust they're deadly, in boredom they're not. Do you think there's an additional level of bloodlust? Do you have anything from the books which would support this theory? Also, it's a trope of fantasy that passion equals competence; in this case I might see the argument being made since the koloss never fight with tactics anyway, so it's not like they'd fall into the overcommitting trap like Eshonai did when she felt the Thrill, but I still don't buy that they are anything less than as fully committed as possible once they're in the blood frenzy. You speak of koloss having very long range... I assume you mean reach? Since they fight only with melee weapons or, very rarely by tossing rocks. Yes, they've got long reach, but without tactics it's difficult to capitalize on this advantage. And most koloss won't have reach all that insane. I fully agree that individual koloss are better fighters than individual Lifeless, but I think the Lifeless capacity for tactics will mean they more frequently win. As time goes on, the Lifeless strategies will adapt; the koloss won't. I was actually thinking about this, how killing a koloss doesn't revert them back to human. Remember that hemalurgy changes your spiritweb, and the physical changes are a manifestation of this. We know too little of the spiritual realm to guess what might be happening. What happens to the spiritweb of a normal lifeless? What happens to your body's spiritweb when you die? How much of you is left? What happens to a koloss spiritweb when it dies? We apparently know that the spikes in Inquisitors don't "die" when the Inquisitor does. Would a lifeless have the same bindpoints? Would the iron spikes work the same way? Would the body even be able to function considering the changes to the spiritweb? Would a Lifeless Koloss undergo even more changes? Would you have to use enough Breath to replicate the hemalurgy in order to Awaken a Lifeless koloss? If I knew more about hemalurgy, could I deliberately Awaken a body into a Lifeless, with modifications to its spiritweb which would replicate iron hemalurgy?

Well, making a scarf able to get up and walk across the room just because of phrasing doesn't necessarily make sense. We know that however strong your Intent is, you can't just say anything and have the scarf do it. There are certain words that form valid Commands and certain words that don't, and we don't know much about why that should be. Innovation is frequently about efficiency. Finding ways of transferring kinetic energy from motors to servos in a more efficient manner, so that the same amount of fuel can do more real work. Why should Breath be any different? Keep in mind, when they came up with one-Breath Lifeless, Awakening had only been around for a century. I don't see any reason to doubt that at first they found out a thing could be done, but in a brutally inefficient way, and later discovered a way that was SIGNIFICANTLY easier. That's... basically how innovation works. EDIT: Also, forgot my real point in saying something here. Didn't we hear once that even in the .7G of Roshar, the Chasmfiends wouldn't be able to move without those spren, presumably the same ones that let skyeels weigh little enough to fly? If the spren don't come back for a Lifeless Chasmfiend, wouldn't it be unable to move, even if animated, crushed by its own weight?

I'm under the impression that the effect of burning lerasium is that it allows a person to change their own spiritweb; without direction it defaults to writing in a connection to Preservation (i.e. "being a Mistborn.") Not sure if this is correct. I'll try to find the quote, but I believe I read a WoB once where Mr. Sanderson points out that every allomantic metal has SOME mental effect, even the physical ones. Pewter gives you a better sense of balance, lets you use your body more gracefully. Tin makes it easier to pick out one specific conversation among many, which you'd think would be harder if you're hearing every sound. So, to an extent, every metal has at least some mental aspect to it. Kay I can't find the quote, and I concede I might be remembering it wrong.

It's been said that tin helps you see through the mist because the mist is of Preservation and tin attunes your eyes to see through it. If you had a steel spike granting allomantic tin, then, since your power is now granted via Ruin's power, would the mists seem even more obscure to you when you burned? Or how about just a tin spike granting eyesight?

I do not believe it is plausible. Per the loan shark, people know what aluminum is. It can only be Soulcast and it's rare, but not unheard of. People recognize it on sight. Compare to the, we don't know what this stuff is Safeshard material. If it were just aluminum... wouldn't people know it was just aluminum? If I made a cage of the Safeshard stuff and tricked Syl into it, would she be trapped?

A few additional thoughts: First, similarities. Both are armies without several of the traditional weaknesses armies have. Neither require much in the way of supplies. One doesn't eat, one can eat dirt. No morale problems, no deserters. Theoretically possible but tricky for someone to sneak into the lifeless camp pretending to be lifeless, but I'm gonna go ahead and say even Wayne couldn't pretend to be a koloss. No guards getting bored on watch. No sloppy half-hearted work. Orders obeyed immediately without question. Do koloss get sick? What specific maladies are lifeless subject to? Second, fear. It's stated frequently that koloss fight with fear as much as with any other weapon. People tend to break and run when they see them and are killed as they flee. Elend's advice to the skaa of Vetitan is to not fear them. Vin walks Human through the city, saying that the more people get used to koloss, the less they'll fear them, and the more effective they'll be. Lifeless won't fear koloss. By contrast, not many people fear lifeless in a panicky sort of way. The Idrians hold them in superstitious trepidation, but that's never brought up as supernatural, barely understood monsters who strike panic. I dunno, this might be one of my weaker points. Much is made in Mistborn about how Koloss attack with fear, and it's not brought up when you'd expect it to be in Warbreaker. The Idrian gathering is upset to see lifeless guards come to arrest them, but not panicked. I'm personally leaning to Lifeless. Lifeless Koloss... would that work? Would they have the benefit of the iron spikes? Would the spikes still have charge, and would they re-bond to whatever happens to the new spiritweb of the lifeless? Or would they have the form of koloss without the strength? If their spiritwebs maintain their hemalurgic boost, would it also affect their personality as it does koloss? Would you have wild, uncontrollable lifeless filled with bloodlust?

I think you're a little confused... people use hammers on Chasmfiend Pupae when they don't have Shardblades to use. Also, the outer layer is a sort of chitin that basically acts as a rock and can be cut by a blade as though it were not alive. So, people will use Shardblades to cut off the chitin so that they can line up a strike that will cut through major organs of the pupa, killing it, so that then they can cut the flesh with the Shardblade, and get at the gemheart. When a regular human dies to a shardblade, his body will not have a sword wound (from that specific strike). His clothing will, any jewelry he might have been wearing, the wall behind him. But his only physical wound will be the burned eyes.

Well, first, let me clear up something with fabrials (that I believe, anyway). There are two broad categories of fabrial. One is the modern fabrial, which according to the ars arcanum comes in five types. They enhance, they decrease, they move in unison or opposition, or they alert. However we've also had a fabrial clock mentioned which doesn't fit any of these categories. These fabrials seem to operate on a principle of trapping a spren, feeding it stormlight, and producing an effect. Heater fabrials, for example, feed stormlight into a spren (presumably a firespren? Are there heatspren?) and then it produces heat. Spanreeds use Stormlight to move in unison when the settings are adjusted properly. The sort of fabrials you seem to mention are the ones I call ancient fabrials. It doesn't seem as though their powers can be replicated. The most prevalent of these is the Soulcaster. Both in Dalinar's vision at at the end of Words of Radiance, we see a Regrowth fabrial. These seem to imitate the Surges, and I would be surprised if they turn out to actually be the same thing. I suspect they operate on wildly different principles. Jasnah says that Navani is capable of fixing a misaligned Soulcaster, but I don't believe they can be produced from scratch, or presumably more people would have them, and Jasnah would be able to claim she'd simply made hers, instead of making up a story about finding it somewhere. So, to get back to your actual point. A half-shard is a type of modern fabrial. A spren in trapped and fed stormlight, and this somehow produces super-strong material, typically in the shape of a shield. They have been shown capable of holding off the strike of a Shardblade. It's unclear if this is because there actually are things hard enough a Shardblade cannot cut them, or if they simply become so Invested that they can resist a Shardblade. Or, if a third, as-yet-unproposed principle is at work. In theory, there's nothing to prevent you from using this type of fabrial on a suit of armor and making it impenetrable to a Shardblade; however, as has been pointed out, it would not by default grant the strength to wear itself the way Plate does.

As for timing... when did Gavilar die? I feel like there's a quote I read saying that Vargo definitely went to the Nightwatcher after Gavilar's death. Also, when calculating how smart he was, they looked back over five years, and implied Diagram Day was before that. Gavilar died something like seven years ago, yes? So we've got a two-year window, at most, where Diagram Day could have happened.

The dwarf planet currently known as Eris was briefly nicknamed Xena; I cannot find a source, but I heard (perhaps an urban legend) at the time that Eris was chosen when the team was told they couldn't call it Xena as sort-of a joke... Xena is played by Lucy Lawless... Eris, Goddess of chaos and discord or, y'know, lawlessness...

I had initially assumed even numbers, but let's think about it logically... It takes two men to create a Lifeless; one corpse, one Breath. (You could be more efficient, kill the man once he gives up his Breath, use his corpse for another Lifeless, but a minimum is one Lifeless per two mortal men.) It takes five men to make a Koloss. So, if either side started with ten thousand men, that would be two thousand Koloss but a minimum of five thousand Lifeless. Possibly more, but also remember that ideal Lifeless soldiers will be people who were soldiers in real life while any human will be a Koloss, so frankly I'd be willing to even lower that number. Given all this (and I'm open to people offering reasons to adjust this number), let's assume that the Lifeless army outnumbers the Koloss 2 to 1. The Koloss are stronger and tougher, but they fight bluntly with no strategy, even when controlled, and predictably; they always must first work themselves up to the blood frenzy, then they attack in a predictable pattern. The Lifeless can be ordered with less immediacy, but can obey a bunch of orders, and will actually obey them, unlike the Koloss who are frequently difficult to control when they're killing. I'm going to assume two armies clashing on an open field, because any other specifics might give the advantage to one side or the other; chance, good intelligence, or a brilliant commander might affect the circumstances of the battle and give one side or the other the advantage, so I'm just proposing a neutral field to see which army is better than the other. So. Koloss have raw power. Lifeless have numbers and skill. Recall that when the army of two thousand skaa-with-weapons (they were not soldiers) charged the Koloss line, they were able to kill a quarter of their own number in minutes before the Koloss had the chance to frenzy. If four thousand Lifeless were able to even only replicate that feat, they would kill half the Koloss army as the battle was beginning. ((EDIT for clarity which I feel is lacking: Two thousand skaa, which even their commander says are one thousand skaa with some training, and another thousand who know which end of a sword to hold, killed 500 koloss; for every four men, one koloss died. If Lifeless are at least as good as that, and we assume four thousand lifeless, then if they can attack before the Koloss have frenzied they will kill a thousand koloss (one for every four Lifeless) which is half of the proposed koloss army.)) In addition, there's the matter of control. One person can control a Koloss army, but if he wants to share control, he needs other Mistborn, Soothers, or Rioters. Someone Commanding the Lifeless need only give out some Command Phrases, or tell the Lifeless, "Obey orders from this man," or, "Obey orders from anyone wearing red with purple", and suddenly your army has sergeants and squad captains who command total loyalty and can adapt to the flow of the battlefield. Even such allomantic allies as the person in charge of the army might be able to hand control over to, would have difficulty giving the Koloss specific orders; if memory serves, when Vin is captured in Fadrex city, she tries to make the Koloss simply jump in place to get Elend's attention; they're not even distracted by the blood frenzy, and they still don't understand what it is she wants them to do. I'm personally going with Lifeless. They can adapt, or at least follow adaptable orders from generals. Their strategies can evolve and change; Koloss cannot. I think my assumption on the numbers balance is fair, but I'm open to valid reasons why they should be adjusted one way or the other. Any other thoughts?

I read somewhere that our planets actual name is Terra (or Sol III) and that Earth is just a word that means, "my home planet", whichever one that happens to be. But I don't know if that's true.

Which would be the superior fighting force, koloss or lifeless?

Eh, I question your "she made it smoke cuz her smokestone wasn't valuable" theory. Her three best (and the gems in her Soulcaster she was gonna pretend to use) would have given her crystal, smoke, and fire. Crystal would have helped not at all. Fire... if it would have burst out like the smoke did, fire would have been a TERRIBLE idea. Smoke was pretty much the only viable option of the three. The rest of it, I don't happen to agree with, but it's viable. I feel like somewhere in the book, someone mentions that diamonds are the least valuable, specifically because they give the best light. They were too useful to hoard, so they were made cheapest so that you could put out a bunch of clearchips to read by, and if someone did steal them, oh well, they stole pennies. So one gem is priced based on soulcasting properties, but another is based on the inverse value of the actual light itself. Who knows what the rest are based on. To add further confusion to the mix... I want to find that Peter quote. Because I feel like as a part of it, he mentions that there are only five levels of value, but that no two gems share the same level. Which would mean there are four spheres of... indeterminate worth? I dunno, the whole thing seems like a contradiction in terms, like two horses that are taller than each other.

There's been a lot of speculation as to what that specifically means. Some people think that smokestone is a sphere, but since it's dark, it doesn't count as a "color". Some people say ruby and garnet are both "red" so there's only nine "colors", some people say sapphire and zircon. Some people say that since diamonds are clear, they're not a "color". Some people, like myself and apparently Turos, take it to mean that there is a polestone which isn't a sphere; heliodor and smokestone are the only two that are never expressly mentioned as spheres in the book, though both are mentioned as existing. Why one of them wouldn't have been made into a sphere is a mystery to me. EDIT: Grr... ninja.

Could Preservation empower a metallic trait you're not currently using? We know, for example, when Elend was there at the end, Vin gave him the power of the eight basic metals, and he burned them. Did he have the option to not? If Clubs, for example, were simply walking along the street, could whoever had Preservation's power provide him with the power of copper, and turn it on, even if Clubs didn't deliberately choose to?