StarrFall

If that be the case then I'm not sure the mechanism I had in mind could be powered by Iron. That said it could still feasibly be driven by Steel as there would certainly be enough of a mass of aluminum behind it to bear the force of the Push (we use aluminum in rockets, it can be strong stuff when not in a foil-ish format). My thought was that these "eggs" could be mounted around a flywheel and oriented so that the Allomancer would be able to push the hardest on the metal inside them just after the egg moves between the Allomancer and the axle the flywheel is on. My (original) thought was that the Allomancer just throws up a Steel/Iron bubble to get the wheel moving and then normal world mechanics can be used to "shift" the rotation to the gear configuration necessary for the task at hand. Assuming that Lurchers won't pull the iron out of the aluminum then the eggs would just need to be rotated 180 deg in order to toggle between Steel drive and Iron drive. At work but will slap another picture together later to better illustrate my thoughts.

Say one embedded a small ball of iron in a larger egg-shaped mass of aluminum, but with the iron oriented to one of the tips of the egg so that it was much heavier on one end than the other (and more to the point, so one side of the iron is heavily shielded by alumninum while the other is only thinly shielded). Would you agree that it sounds PLAUSIBLE that a Coinshot/Lurcher would have an easier time detecting and interacting the iron within the aluminum egg when the side with the iron ball is oriented towards the Allomancer and a harder time when the iron ball is oriented away from the Allomancer? *thinking allomantic motor designs*

I've been thinking about mechanical engineering on Scadrial and was hoping someone could set me straight so that I can daydream accurately: First, and more simply, would it be reasonable to assume that a Lurcher could potentially learn to use an "Iron Bubble" a la Wax's "Steel Bubble", whereby they Pull on all metals around them generically? Second, when Allomancers use Iron and Steel could a sheet of aluminum effectively block other metals from the iron/steel sight by "line of sight" (from the chest, of course ) alone or would the aluminum have to completely encapsulate the other metal to hide it from iron/steel sight? Clarifying questions to second, assuming answer is "line of sight" as I suspect: Would the thickness of the aluminum be a factor in the ability to detect metal on the other side of it?

I think you are correct that she could not remove her hunger or replace nutrients, but I'd imagine that Radiant healing can heal cell damage dealt my lack of nutrition. I'd imagine that a Radiant on the cusp of starvation or dehydration could stay alive and function while they are holding Stormlight but that they would drop dead the moment they ran out. Sort of like a big Pewter burn.

In the Q/A i referenced in my first post, Brandon mentioned that her ability to convert food to Stormlight was LIKE metabolism but said that it worked much faster than normal human metabolism. As such I wasn't sure if the ability of converting Stormlight followed the exact same rules as human digestion or, by virtue of the fact that the ability is related to a Connection to a Shard who has potentially permeated the very matter on Roshar, if Lift's ability would allow her to utilize the energy in ALL of the food matter for Stormlight. Put another way, I was thinking her stomach digested requisite nutrients for her body but some non-biological mechanism processes the matter converted to Stormlight, and that this unknown mechanism may be able to crack atoms or some such. Edit: I suppose that would mean that any waste she did have leftover could be radioactive

Thanks, @Calderis! I think that is as definitive of an answer as I'm going to get, and it is more than I expected at this juncture.

Can Lift not breathe Stormlight??? I can't think of an instance of her actually doing so, but I assumed that was more about ignorance than ability.

That is actually a very valid point that could, in and of itself, kill this theory; she seems to prefer to steal the meals of the powerful after all. That said, if she could get her hands on an un-keyed Nicro/Bendalloy Mind then she could presumably enlist absolutely anyone's help in this particular task We are very much on the same page with these key questions.

In truth, the poo question is really incidental to the follow up: can Lift and a Soulcaster work together to generate stormlight during the weeping, in sort of a Roshar-brand compounding fueled by the planet's physical matter and seeded with a steak?

If it takes about half a day then that could potentially mean the food has moved beyond the stomach, and if the food can be metabolized into stormlight beyond the stomach then wouldn't her natural metabolism do its' thing in the first few hours while the stormlight conversion ability eats the rest of the matter in the remaining hours? I've thought about this entirely too much

New here so please forgive me if this is a repeat. That said, I have questions on Lift... I came across a quote where Brandon had mentioned that Lift converted food into stormlight using similar rules to metabolism, in that sugars process faster but don't hold as much energy over all while more complex, higher calorie foods hold more overall energy but take more time to metabolize. This got me wondering how efficiently Lift converts food into stormlight... It stands to reason that 100% of the food matter she eats could potentially be converted into stormlight as stormlight is a form of Investiture, Investiture is the energy that permeates all things in the Cosmere, and the ability to metabolize food into stormlight does not appear to be tied to (or tethered by) her physical biology. That said there are limits to types of matter that biology can convert into usable energy and so I'm left wondering: does Lift ever need to poo or does her ability allow her to utilize 100% of the matter she ingests? Does food grown on Roshar metabolize into stormlight more efficiently for Lift than food grown on other shard planets, assuming the matter on Roshar may have potentially been permeated with Honor's and Cultivation's brands of Investiture? I'll take it one further. How much stormlight can Lift derive from food compared to the amount of stormlight required to soulcast that food from some other matter? Would this essentially just be a game of Investiture catch, is the exchange lossy, or could Lift's ability actually generate a positive gain in usable Investiture on Roshar at the expense of its' physical matter? If I recall correctly some materials may be easier to soulcast into food than others, so could that factor in as well? This forum is awesome, thanks in advance for any enlightenment you can provide!

I just posted this in my own welcome message, but I always saw John Turturro as Sazed. I can see Doug Jones playing him too, but I think he would make a better Ati than a Sazed

Did we just become best friends!? "Storms" is a new (and totally excellent) replacement for the word I used, but the rest has been stated verbatim in my head many, many times... As to other authors, I honestly haven't given anyone else the time of day of the past few years bc I got heavily into Sanderson as my career was picking up and so did't have a lot of free time like I used to for exploration. I'm all ears if you have recommendations in that arena though!

I'm only up to 3-4 passes through the books, still finding new stuff every single time. Thanks for any and all work on tracking Hoid; that is now my mission in life.

Too many Breaths to part with. That is, unless there are more cookies... No bones to spare, but I have some nice sturdy Elm branches that I stripped and polished up that might work nicely for Kandra who aren't on the job. Good call on Stormlight v WoK. I did know that (as well as the fact that I called Scadrial Ladrian above) and am therefore ashamed; however, those cookies are helping with that. I've got 2 friends who are fully on board the Cosmere train, but neither of them have read Oathbringer or any of the Wax & Wayne Mistborns yet, let alone the novellas that are Cosmere heavy, so I always have to ask where they are and try really hard to remember what happened when as I talk to them (would be a real bush-league move to spoiler for someone who likes the stories). Its rough. As to favorite planets/systems in the Cosmere, Scadrial still holds that title for me. Sanderson caught my interest when he fixed Wheel of Time (ya, I said it) and he won me over with Mistborn. I'm a particular fan of how Feruchemy and Alomancy are blended in the Wax & Wayne books and am super impatient for the last of those; Scadrians (?) eventually use their abilities to travel through space ("6th of the Dusk") and I think this last W&W book will fill in some blanks as to the mechanics there. Also super curious to see Hemalurgy loose in the Cosmere at large; who knows what powers can be stolen and combined with it. As to character, I'm definitely most intrigued by Hoid/Midius/Cephandrius. There isn't a heck of a lot to chew on there yet though (plenty to speculate on) and it is really hard to pick a favorite otherwise... Spook or Sazed (for whom I've mentally cast John Turturro) from MB, Rock or Lopin from SL, or Warbreaker himself... Edit: seeing what I just wrote makes me think its a one-armed wrestling match between Lopin and Warbreaker.

Hi there folks! I'm an unrepentant Cosmere junkie and I hope I'm in the right place... I've completely caught up on the Cosmere materials, excepting White Sands (currently in progress, thankfully vol 2 is out now too) and some of the unreleased stuff Sanderson made available on his site, but I'm struggling to get someone in my immediate vicinity to catch up so that I can talk with them about all of this awesomeness without using a mental filter. I am happy to report I have 2 people well on their way, but they have a lot of pages to get through yet and I'm impatient. So... I have always read fantasy predominately because I prefer my leisure reading to provide an escape. That said, I'm a system designer who likes to understand how things work and I've always disliked how many of these stories would just take the magic system's existence for granted without ever satisfactorily delving into the mechanics surrounding them; magic just is and are and there are words/objects/feelings/genetics/what-have-you that allow characters to access them. This is, in my opinion, where Sanderson becomes the greatest fantasy writer of all time; he has built not just a world but an entire dynamic universe, complete with its' own unique mechanics that are full of beautiful nuance and which make logical sense in the way they are arranged and presented, even as they evolve. The evolution of powers on Ladrian, the Warbreaker/Oathbringer crossover (speaking of, WoK progressing way faster than I expected which makes me think that story won't be as simple as I originally thought (awesome!)), Threnodites in the Cognitive Realm (???), all the various crap happening on Sel... I have questions, so many questions... I can't even imagine how much front work would have to go into making all of these stories fit together cohesively, but it makes the Marvel universe look like child's play by comparison. I have a lot of reading to do on this forum and i'm sure you will see more of me once I get caught up and have a chance to compare notes.