Oudeis

Atium-producing crystals crack in the presence of allomancy. Why? Is it because allomancy is of Preservation? What would happen if you used feruchemy near the crystals? What if the allomancy was stolen via hemalurgy?

I actually thought he might be more interested in mass exodus than personal escape. Maybe just take a few thousand from the Noble Houses and leave the ungrateful Skaa to starve. However, I feel like The Lord Ruler's pride would get in the way of this plan. He wouldn't accept defeat via retreat, or be able to live in a world where he wasn't God. I realize he wouldn't have figured everything out in the moment he touched the Well of Ascension... but remember, he had another millennium to experiment, and we see from hemalurgy that he likes to experiment. Also, he's got the dark god of destruction whispering into his ear; it could perhaps have served Ruin's interest that Rashek simply run away, so perhaps he mentioned, "Hey, you should mix those two metals and gain a means of escaping this world, and those stupid mortals you keep wasting your time trying to protect while they fight and revolt and generally don't deserve you." Far-fetched? Sure. Possible? I think so. And if nothing else, we do know that someone managed to make malatium; alloying atium with other metals isn't exactly a difficult intuitive leap for a metallurgist to make after the first few centuries, and The Lord Ruler has the resources to try pretty much everything. As a full feruchemist, he also has the comparatively-safe method of being able to simple touch a metal and feel an "affinity" if it's feruchemically (and thus allomantically) reactive. Idle question... can tapping gold protect you from the ill effects of burning an impure alloy?

@Kythis: What is the meta, and what's the difference between hard sci-fi and normal sci-fi? @Sanderson: At what point does food you've ingested become "a part of you" enough that you can reduce or increase its weight with iron feruchemy? This might give us some interesting insight as to whether you can affect the weight of metal in your stomach, or hemalurgic spikes. Since a hemalurgic spike is a staple to put another spiritweb into your spiritweb, is it enough "you" that you can reduce or increase its weight feruchemically?

This all comes from my friend, but he doesn't post here, so very little of this is my actual idea. We were just wondering if The Lord Ruler had the ability to worldhop. If anyone in Scadrial's history could, it would be him. I believe it's WoB that every Shardworld's arcana has at least one trick that allows for worldhopping. Scadrial has three arcana that we know of. The Lord Ruler was the unquestioned master of Allomancy and Feruchemy. He could use his feruchemy to power his allomancy; nicrosil speculation aside, we have no idea how he did that and no canon examples of anyone doing the same. He prolly knew more hemalurgy than anyone there's ever been on Scadrial. He had exclusive access to the god metals, one of them in enormous quantities. However Scadrian worldhopping happens, odds are very good that The Lord Ruler was at least theoretically capable of doing it. Then there's his Ascension. In that moment when he held Preservation's power, he could well have gained cosmeric knowledge. The way Sazed realized his Powers were once a part of something greater, Rashek could have realized there were other Powers out there, too. I realize it's all speculation. I just wonder if it's something The Lord Ruler was aware of.

It's possibly a stretch to think that "shadow of self" and "cognitive shadow" are the same thing. Mr. Sanderson seems overly fond of the word Shadow, that could simply be part of it. But maybe. And I, like you, hope that if this next book is called Shadows of Self and the mist spirit was termed a "shadow of self" we might learn much more about Alendi's meeting with the dark mist spirit in the distant past.

It still strikes me that you're trying to make the case that my theory is objectively unsound, based purely on personal speculation and feelings. If you want to state that your gut tells you that you're right and I'm wrong, that's perfectly fine. I just keep getting the impression that you're not satisfied saying that this is a viable idea that you don't happen to share; you're trying to make it sound like it's not even worth conjecture, based on the fact that it doesn't "feel" right to you. If you don't want to join the discussion, okay. You've made your point that it's an idea you don't, out of personal preference, agree with. Continuing to tear me down serves no further purpose, and I worry that there might've been people who wanted to join me in speculation who didn't get the chance to, because they feel that you'll react to them as you've reacted to me.

Feel free to add your thoughts to this discussion.

First, my arguments against the razor still stand; this isn't real life, this is a novel. In a novel, the simplest answer might be simply boring, and therefore cannot be assumed. Not to mention, even in real life, occam's razor is a terrible system for determining what's true and what isn't. The only good time to use occam's razor is when you're presented with limited data, have no way to gain more, and are forced into making a decision anyway; it is by its very nature a gamble. In the classic example, "If you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras," if Occam's Razor were universally true, there would be no such thing as a zebra. When you rely on the Razor, you're essentially saying, "This is likely to be true, therefore it is true," which... isn't true. And finally, I disagree with your assertion that your way is more "simple," anyway. Your explanation required a much longer sentence filled with vague terms like "kinda half-fixed" and "shennanigans," whereas my idea can be summed up in four simple, concrete words. "Investiture can't target them." Again, let me re-state that I'm not using its simplicity as grounds for why I think it's just as plausible as yours; the Razor is a fallacy. I'm just saying, if you believe in the Razor, you should be supporting my idea.

Update: Weiry, I've read what you wrote in "Cause of the Shaod", where you include the source for some of the things you wrote here. In the face of WoB, I have to concede that some of your arguments are now much better founded. I still say that, at best, you posit a second, equally-likely interpretation of events, and you do not prove that my interpretation is any less valid. In closing, I find it incredibly odd that in his own annotations, Mr. Sanderson himself refers to something as "most likely." You would think that he, as the omniscient author, would simply know the answer; what could he possibly mean by saying it's "most likely"? Is he, perhaps, talking from the perspective of what the Arelish believe, based upon their own extremely limited information? I'm just saying, it's a very odd phrasing.

You're still making a large number of assumptions and stating them as fact. Chiefly, here, your assumption that we know how AonDor worked prior to the construction of Elantris, and therefore everything you derive from that premise. Additionally, I will admit that my use of the word "inspired" implied a dismissiveness I didn't intend to convey, but I still feel you are coming across as hard-line on your stance that AonDor must be assumed to be directly analogous to computer programs. Even if all of these assumptions are right, you're still only positing one possible explanation for why Ien couldn't target Galladon. While you're right that it could be for that reason, you seem to imply that your hypothesis is correct and mine is wrong, when all either of us have proved is that both are equally possible. But you're right. Until we have more information, neither of us can convince the other one way or another. I respect your right to have a personal belief that my theory is incorrect, and I assume you respect my right to maintain my hypothesis until hard data disproves it. Finally, I'm gonna keep calling them Reod Elantrians. I refuse to refer to them as Zombies, and "post-Reod" is as inaccurate as anything else; the end of the novel didn't reverse time, so it's still after the "event" of the Reod, so all the shiny new Elantrians are still "post-Reod". A Reod Elantrian, then, in my lexicon, is one suffering the ill effects brought about by the event called the Reod, until those effects are alleviated. In real life, we use the term "war orphans" to describe kids who were made orphans due to an act of war, even though the war itself is not currently happening to the children, and may by this point even be over. And your evidence that "no one in the book ever calls this state of Elantrians 'Reod Elantrians'" only holds water if you can show me a time in the book that they refer to the current state of Elantrians, at all, as anything that isn't "Reod Elantrians". Otherwise, all you've proven is that we have no idea what people in-world refer to the state as, in which case "Reod Elantrians" is as valid as any other, and I think a logical semantic step.

First, I'm gonna nitpick your nitpick. What, then, would you call the state Elantrians are trapped in mid-Shaod? Many words have two, sometimes related meanings. There's no reason the word cannot mean both the initial event, and the state that is a result of that event. Moreover, you knew exactly what I was talking about in context, as I feel anyone who's read the book is likely to. If I use a word, and it's obvious from the word what the meaning is, how is that not an accurate word? I will respectfully disagree. With one point of data, it is difficult for either of us to get traction. Nevertheless, your example doesn't make sense to me. We know that all Investiture everywhere runs on similar principles. The "forms" of AonDor may be like that of computer programming, but surely that's an inspiration rather than a rigid rule. Whereas we have WoB that there are fundamental underlying principles of Investiture that remain consistent, so I suspect that if Aon Ien cannot target Galladon, then a Soother couldn't reach his emotions, either. Also, Aons work on Elantrians, yes? Otherwise they couldn't Tia all over the place. Yet Elantrians are receiving a constant influx of Dor, which heals them and grants them a variety of other powers. The actual physical transformation never finished, but a "program" is obviously still running. I do not know a lot of computer programming, but I think I know enough to dispute your idea. You say two programs cannot be running at once, yet my computer can run many, many programs at once. Finally, when Raoden tries to heal Galladon, it simply fails. It doesn't enter a queue or return an error message or anything. Neither of us knows enough about "failure to initialize Aons" to be able to say if this is normal, but surely it's suspicious that there's no interaction or resistance or backsurge or anything, the Aon simply fades, as though you'd asked it to target a chicken when there was no chicken present.

Do you have a quote to support this supposition?

Interesting conjecture, but you're making a number of assumptive leaps that we don't really know. It's at least as likely that Awakening simply drains away something's pigment. What you're suggesting is that once an object has been "drained" of color, a supernatural force continues to act on that object forever adjusting the local laws of physics for a certain effect; i.e., to cause light to reflect off the object in such a way as to appear grey. While that's possible, I would be surprised if it were true. It also wouldn't much affect microwaves. As Curiousity said, the color we see of objects is light reflected, not light absorbed. In a sense, you have a point in a reverse kind of way, in that if white light hits a leaf and we see the leaf as green, it's because the leaf absorbs every wavelength of light except for green... but that's not what happens to drained objects. They still absorb some light, they simply reflect the grey wavelengths, instead of the green ones. Still, it's entirely possible that something metaphysical is happening to drained objects that would, in fact, cause them to reflect electromagnetic energy in the infrared spectrum, rather than to absorb the energy as heat.

Suffering the Reod was obviously a bad thing. A weak body that tired easily and wouldn't heal, lessened access to local Investiture, and oh god that hair. Yet... I wonder if there might not be a silver lining... We know that an Elantrian, trying to heal a woman, once accidentally inflicted the Reod on her. We also saw Raoden fix it all. We know it's at least possible for someone to go into Reod and be taken out; all that's left is for the proper Aons and modifiers to be discovered and used. But why, you ask? I'm glad you did, rhetorical-question-man. Consider the Reod. While in it, it seems difficult if not impossible to die. Horribly painful beyond imagining to be sure, and hardly what I'd call a plausible method of stasis, but it's worth noting. They also don't need food, or even air. They might be ideally suited for situations of extremes in the environment, like space travel. But that's not their primary power. When Galladon was in the Reod, and Raoden tried to heal him, it was as though Galladon didn't exist. Raoden drew the Aon Ien, designated Galladon as the target, and it was as though he'd told the Aon to heal his invisible friend. There was nothing to grab on to. Imagine such a power. Imagine being immune to being Soulcast into flame, immune to being Lashed. Invisible to lifesense, an entity that won't trip the sensors of one of those warning fabrials. A man spren cannot see. I am, of course, speculating here. One example isn't enough to make someone "immune to magic." After all, even though Raoden's illusions were cast on his clothing, not on himself, he still managed to tie the illusion to his own muscles, so magic can be made to work on him in an at least ancillary way. Still, I think it's fun to think about. Please feel free to poke holes in this conjecture, or perhaps even find something to support it.

lol, well done, sir. "Please state the nature of your medical emergency." "I require ointment for this BURN!"

How long are you willing to wait? The Alloy of Law supplement for the Mistborn Adventure Game will be coming out in the next couple of weeks (it's already been sent to the printers). The rules within it will be non-canon, but it's possible something inside will remind some of us of other feats throughout the books. Or might they accept partial-canon as hard facts? It's true that the game is endorsed by Mr. Sanderson, and I think I heard somewhere that feruchemical bendalloy originally only stored metabolic energy, but after the MAG determined you could also use it to store hydration, he added that to canon. Perhaps they'd be willing to accept things from the MAG that don't contradict canon. A final thought, you may wish to mention TLR's abilities to survive hostile environments. He carries his own food and water in metalminds, he can store heat to survive blistering temperatures, he could prolly stay awake for months at this point, if he can arrange for the battle to be somewhere inhospitable to humans, he might be able to simply out-survive his opponent.

Someone brought up the Heralds, and that seems to be interesting... We know that the Heralds go back and forth between Roshar and Damnation. Kaladin says Damnation is also called Braize. We know there's another Shardworld called Braize. It might be Braise, I'm too tired to look it up right now. If we can't safely assume that Mr. Sanderson is in fact talking about the Heralds going between worlds, I for one accuse him of trolling. This raises an interesting question. Since they seem to shuttle back and forth automatically, does that make them Worldhoppers? If you can't control if, if you're just sent back and forth, are you a Worldhopper, or are you simply Worldhopped? But there's something else interesting. In the Prologue, Kalak talks about how dying instantly sends you back to Damnation, but if you survive you're supposed to go anyway. Spoiler for WoR ... is it possible that death, or at least mortal damage, is necessary to worldhopping? If so, that's... an interesting puzzlement. More WoR spoiler Still, Kalak says the Desolation is over, yet he wonders if all ten survived. So clearly at least one Herald going back isn't necessary to stop a Desolation. A Desolation could end with all Heralds alive. Man, what I wouldn't give to know what specifically "the end of a desolation" means.

The character Matisse was named after a student of his wife's. She did an excellent book report on Elantris, a la books like Dragonology, not at the time aware that that her teacher was dating Mr. Sanderson, and ended up giving the two of them the book report as a wedding gift. Mr. Sanderson wrote this story for her, and the only three-letter combination in her name with two vowels was "Ati" so he had to make that the Aon. Just this once, I think we have to accept that it was coincidence.

As I sit here bored on a Saturday afternoon without a lot going on, I'm watching an episode of Voyager (quit judging me and stay on point) and thinking this would be a good time to store my spiritual and emotional connection to people in a duraluminmind. After all, I'm being pretty anti-social, no one is around, no one is especially on my mind at the moment, I wouldn't be losing much. But then I wondered... is it only your connection to actual people that gets stored? What about fictional people? I'm enjoying this episode because I care what happens to Kes and Amelia Earhart. Psychologists call this a parasocial relationship, and taken too far it's why Sandra Bullock found a stalker in her bedroom a few weeks ago. Would I enjoy the show less, would I care less about the characters in the show, if I were storing feruchemical duralumin? Would it affect my ability to care about fictional people? Do fictional people have spiritwebs and cognitive aspects? After all, a big part of a rock's cognitive aspect is, "how do people think about the thing"? I should think there are a great many people out there who have a very strong, firmly held and reasonably homogenous idea of what Captain Malcolm Reynolds is like. Even though he has no physical form, shouldn't he have a cognitive aspect? If he doesn't, where do all these thoughts and impressions go? If he does have a cognitive aspect, why can't he have a spiritweb? If he does, and I watch the episode where he stands naked in a desert telling himself that everything went according to plan, do I care about the plot because my spiritweb has a connection to his? And isn't that exactly what feruchemical duralumin stores? I've built a very flimsy bridge of speculation, assumptions and outright guesses. This is certainly not something I for-sure believe is true, myself. I just thought it might be something that could spark perhaps some speculation or a discussion. Or maybe someone will immediately reply with the WoB saying, "Nope, it's like this," and I'll feel like a right muggins. Tentatively, personally, and until I am shown evidence to the contrary, I'm going to say that storing in a duraluminmind would lessen the experience of watching Voyager for me.

What would happen if a feruchemist, with enough Breaths to reach the 5th Heightening, started storing age? Would it be another way to compound?

First and foremost, let me preface by saying that my general impression of this site is that while we may kid sometimes, our humor does not tend towards the crude, so I feel comfortable broaching this topic assuming it will stay as a scholarly discussion and not devolve into something lewd. If I'm proven wrong, I will be the first to petition the Admins to delete the entire thread. We know a few facts. (I will look up citations when I get a chance, unless someone beats me to it). 1. At least one aspect of your spiritual DNA is determined by where you are born; i.e. if two Rosharans moved to Nalthis and started a family, their children's spiritwebs would be affected by the environment of Nalthis, though we don't know for certain what that would entail. 2. The moment of conception determines certain things about a person's origins. There is also, in my opinion, strong evidence that Elsecallers can physically enter Shadesmar, though there are MANY major spoilers for WoR to back up my point. It's also, I believe, widely assumed though I'm not sure I've seen the WoB, that Hoid worldhops by physically entering the cognitive realm. As such, it's not a preposterous assumption that others might be able to physically enter the Cognitive Realm, too. Here, then, is my question. What would happen to the spiritweb of someone who was conceived while his parents were in the Cognitive Realm?

Oh, I misunderstood then. From my reading of your initial post, I thought you were saying that anyone on the street could have corrected this gaffe, so Denth would never have told her the information if it wasn't true. I didn't realize you were saying, this can't be common knowledge, or Denth wouldn't have taken the risk of lying to her. My mistake, I apologize for putting words in your mouth.

I assume by compounding you mean mixing allomancy with feruchemy. So, yes. Mixing an end-positive and an end-neutral system gives you a net positive. I'm not sure I understand your point. Please tell me what you think this fairly obvious conclusion means that wasn't addressed when Kurk and I discussed Compounder Savants in the thread. Or, better yet, mention it in the actual thread, which is about this topic, whereas this "question and answer" thread is not.

You may wish to look at, and maybe even join, this conversation, where I posit that every Metallic art has "creations"; Allomancy creates savants and Hemalurgy creates mutants like the Koloss or Inquisitors. In the end-positive system, additional energy is accreted from outside to craft something new and different, stronger than it was (on balance; there are, of course, drawbacks). In Hemalurgy, end-negative, several souls are combined into a single monstrous spiritweb, smaller than the sum of its parts. By this logic, however a practitioner is modified by feruchemy, the end-neutral art, would have to explain how the resultant spiritweb is neither greater nor less, simply different.

If you read the Warbreaker annotations, there are several times that Mr. Sanderson references the information Denth gave Vivenna. I would provide the links but they're really all throughout the book. Basically, they say that yeah, Denth flat-out lied, but the information isn't actually as "common" as you might think. Remember, this is a society without Wikipedia. Idris has Awakening in it's history and lives a few hundred miles from a city full of Awakeners, and people there have tons of horribly wrong information about how Awakening works. Idrians in the city will sometimes wear black to keep up with "don't wear colors because of Awakeners" tradition, ignorant of the fact that black is the most powerful color for Awakening. In the Annotations, it's explained fairly simply. First, Denth fully expects to have so much control over Vivenna that he'll be able to prevent her from talking to anyone who could correct his information. Second, enough people on the street have the information wrong that, even if Vivenna does, at some point, learn from a source she'd actually trust that Denth's information was wrong, he can point to the hundreds of other ignorant citizens of the city and tell her, well hey, I'm just a simple mercenary, I guess i was just wrong like everyone else. Is it an absolutely perfect plan with literally no possibility of failure? Nope. Is it reasonable that Denth would decide that feeding her this scrap of information about Breath, in order to keep all the Breath safe so he can take it from her someday, is worth the minor risk that he might potentially look like less than a scholar of BioChroma? Yep.