HSuperLee

I'm sure some Scadrian Bible-thumper equivalent has made copies that are carved into metal. And by that I mean that I'm sure there are a whole bunch of them. So they'll probably be fine.

Doesn't Mraize say he's found a way to get it off-world in RoW?

Frus, this find is brilliant, even if Sanderson doesn't end up using it. I actually had a discussion with some friends of mine a while (year+) ago about how I was disappointed that we've never seen the idea of a mounted Knight Radiant. You've got me thinking now, Quantus, what if the fifth oath lets Radiants send their spren, possibly their greater spren, possibly their lesser spren, into a creature's gemheart to empower that creature with surges, and then use it as a mount? Though with that line of thinking, I suppose a Knight could always send their lesser spren to cover a ryshadium as barding. No one can deny that a giant horse in shardplate would be beyond awesome. As for us having never seen indications of this happening in the past, it is probably fair to say that 5th order Radiants have been exceptionally rare throughout history, and it might even be that some of them never had the time or opportunity to discover the mounted bonus of the 5th oath. But I agree that it would have been cool to see some foreshadowing if their is the next step. Though Sanderson is famous for giving us foreshadowing that we don't realize is foreshadowing until several books later.

I'm half convinced that Stormlight just lets you ignore the body's normal self-imposed limits on strength exertion (which normally exist for a very good reason) and then just heals away the damage removing those limits would cause. But the other half of me is convinced that we still don't fully understand what it is stormlight does. I mean Kaladin shows substantially heightened reflexes in the WoR duel that immediately goes away when he runs out of stormlight, but I don't know if any non-windrunners have shown the same benefit. I could see where stormlight provides a substantial boost to strength, or where it does not, or even where it does for some orders but not others. If there is a definitive answer on this, I personally cannot say, and many others seem confused about it as well, based on how many times this conversation has occurred in the fandom.

I know TotES is clearly a story told by Hoid with some artistic license, but I don't like the idea of a precedent where we can't believe the things we "see" in a Cosmere novel. I understand the idea of an unreliable narrator, but there's a difference between an unreliable narrator that shows us events from the character's perspective, and an unreliable narrator that is lying to the reader. If we start opening the door to the idea that what we see in the books is a lie, its a quick drop to the narrative collapsing. This is how you end up with those, "the main character is in a coma and hallucinating the whole story" theories, which is the death of story. As for how exactly Hoid was able to change the curse, this was something that bothered me as well in the reading. Aons are so specific that the idea of changing them based off a pun (and a pun in English, no less), but I suppose, as I think about it, the Aons used for curses must last beyond the initial casting for them to have a permanent effect. If that's the case, it makes enough sense why Hoid can't erase them, they're already acting as conduits for investiture, after all, but also that he can add more modifiers to what already exists in order to change the final outcome. In other words, I don't think he changed Riina's spell at all, I think he added to it. I can't be sure how exactly he did this, because Aons are extremely complicated, but I imagine it had to be something like this: We are told, "The curse had said [Charlie] needed to bring the person he loved most to the Sorceress's home, to be cursed, in exchange for his freedom." So the things that the curse needed to be able to do includes detecting where Charlie is in relation to the Sorceress's home, detect who Charlie loves most and her proximity to him, and detect the condition of Charlie's love to react if she has been cursed. Breaking this down into these three steps, the second is the part, detecting who Charlie loves most and her proximity to him, Hoid didn't have to modify. This function probably works off of detecting Charlie's Connections, his bonds, and then a simple Aon Tia modifier that measures location and creates an upper bound for the condition, something like Tress having to be within 20 feet of Charlie. The first part of the mechanic, bringing Tress to the Sorceress's home, could work in a number of ways. It could be detecting Riina herself, searching for her Identity, but the specific wording, "the Sorceress's home," indicates that it instead was tracking physical location. This makes a lot of sense as Riina probably didn't expect to be leaving her island any time soon. So if the location of the curse was based on planetary location, it probably operated off of something like a coordinate system, and all Hoid had to do was add distance to the target location. To explain, if the curse was programming, Riina put in a function something like, "When Charlie is within 500 feet of location x, y, z (x y and z representing the coordinates of Riina's island), then..." Hoid couldn't change the code, but he could add to it, making it instead, "When Charlie is within 500 feet of location x+a, y+a, z+a (a representing the distance from the Sorceress's island to Tress's home), then..." Thus, Hoid could adjust the target location of the curse being lifted without actually needing to erase and of Riina's Aons. The third part is the strangest. Somehow, Charlie's curse needed to detect when Tress was cursed. In my mind, the easiest way to do this would be to detect whether or not Tress had any Aonic Investiture affecting her, but its clear that couldn't be how Riina was doing it, or Hoid shouldn't have been able to do what he did. Plus, it might not have been possible to write the curse to detect Tress's condition directly, since the curse was placed on Charlie, and Riina had never interacted with Tress to code that part to her identity. So perhaps it instead targeted Tress through her Connection with Charlie. If that's the case, the curse may have been set to check for Charlie's perception of Tress. This might, and I stress, might, be where Hoid's pun comes in. If Charlie's curse was checking his perception of Tress for its end condition, then it could have been tied into Charlie's mind and thus understanding of language. The curse was checking for the condition "cursed" as Charlie understood it. The code equivalent might be something like, "If connectiontarget = charliepercption(Cursed), then..." As for how Hoid could have changed the perception target of Riina's Aons, I have no idea. That goes beyond the Aonic knowledge I possess. Frankly, it seems to me like it would have been easier for him to just give Tress a very minor and easily broken curse himself, which would have fulfilled the conditions for Charlie's curse, then just broken Tress's curse via the very easy conditions. He could have saved them a lot of time by just putting Tress into a endless sleep with the condition to pull her out being true love's kiss, and then Charlie could have just kissed her and woken her up. Bam, easy solution while maintaining the fairy tale ending. But that said, I very much understand where Hoid, being Hoid, may have intentionally taken the harder path for everyone involved for the sake a climatic entry, as well as forcing Charlie to write a beautiful poem for Tress, simply because he saw that as a better ending.

I am going to attempt to answer this as diplomatically as possible. Malmahan doesn't just kill talented artists, he kills geniuses at the peak of their talent. So, either Ariana Grande is, by Malmahan's thinking, not a genius or has not reached the peak of her talent. That is the diplomatic answer. Y'all can guess what the not diplomatic answer is.

I agree with you here, I don't believe making logic gates using awakening is at all reasonable. The original question was just about how you could make a computer with awakening, so I started by reply by giving the most straight forward answer based on what we've seen and what we know about awakening. Then I go onto what I think the more reasonable explanation is. I'm almost positive you can use awakening to give "programs" directly to an object, but since we've not seen it done and the original post was asking a question, I was conservative in my answer and replied only with what information we have seen in the books instead of speculating on possibilities through extrapolation of what we have seen. I assumed this post was going to get more replies that would go into the topic further, and then the discussion would begin. I was merely trying to start thing off by giving the "by the book" answer.

I found myself wondering about this as well. There are a few other things throughout the audio drama that seemed to indicate to me that with the Dark One novel coming out, we've entered a new cannon. Also, while this may not be a retcon, due to how little we knew about Paul's father, the graphic novel heavily implied that Zoran went to Mirandus and never returned, while he appears in the audio drama as the "ember wizard." So yeah, I agree with you that the third option is the most likely.

This is why kandra have bothered me for years. If they can replicate genetic material, shouldn't they be able to use that genetic material to produce all kinds of cells, including bone and hair? I get that it takes a long time to make that stuff, but kandra are immortal, and I can see numerous benefits to being able to control every stage of development of bone growth to achieve specific results.

While I suspect that Wax (and most modern coinshots) practice enough to change their push point just enough to aid their marksmanship, another possibility might involve the fact that, as for at least part of the series, we're mostly dealing with wild west style firearms, Wax might be shooting from the hip, quick-draw style. That would put the lines of his shots much more aligned with his center of mass.

I mean as a general statement, computers work via "gates" that have an input and an output. Awaken something with a clear "on/off" state, like a light bulb, and tell it to watch the light bulb in front of it and turn on if that light bulb lights up. Do that a bunch of times and you have a computer. Beyond that, we don't know if the computers we see in TotES are functioning off Breath alone, or, as I suspect is more likely, they're normal, non-magical computers that have been upgraded by giving them Breath. In regards to true AI, Breaths are pieces of souls, so it only makes sense that if you gather enough of them you can stick them together and make a complete soul, albeit a patchwork one.

Is this building towards a "that's no moon" moment?

We shouldn't discuss SP4 openly in this topic, but I'm not sure that the tablet on Lumar is being magically recharged by the sun. It might just be a mechanical process, like how in the real world we have solar powered calculators and solar panels. That may contribute to maintaining its Awakening effect, but I don't know that we should assume a magical process. As for Taldain, there it seems that the star was intentionally invested by Autonomy, and thus I doubt that it is typical.

The way you worded combined with @Storyspren proposing that Hoid might be Adonalsium has now given me a mental picture of the Shattering occurring by somehow condensing Adonalsium's consciousness into Hoid (basically putting Adonalsium into Hoid's body) and then using the fact Adonalsium was now technically mortal to kill him, alongside Hoid's body. But because of how invested Ado's mind would have been, Hoid left behind a cognitive shadow that the other's R/returned (I wish English had letters that were both capitalized and not at the same time for my use of that word) his cognitive shadow to his body. I highly doubt this is the case, but that's the mental image this conversation is giving me.

One of my unpopular opinions is that Nightblood's saturation point is way lower than most people theorize, though I think Nightblood's rate of consumption is higher than most invested art's output. But I look at the Battle of Thaylen Field and it seems like Nightblood was getting full at the end of it, which makes me think that if Susebron used Nightblood, Nightblood would get full way before his breaths are exhausted. The difficulty with trying to feed Nightblood a kinetic investiture like allomancy, aon dor, or even perpedicularities, is that Nightblood will drain them faster than the art can sustain. It seems like passive investitures (as much as Stormlight without surges can be considered passive) are the key to using Nightblood.

This question is basically like asking if a light-bulb weighs more when its turned on. The answer is yes, but its such a minuscule change you won't notice it.

Thank you, Ixthos. I've been distracted by Christmas stuff over the past few days and have been forgetting to look, so I appreciate the announcement.

I guess I had a different reading of that scene. What I got from that wasn't that Wax didn't generate enough heat, but rather that you cannot force a godmetal to change phase with energy alone, instead you must increase how Invested it is. Sure, harmonium might become more malleable when heated up, and possibly even alloyable, but I doubt it would melt. Especially since when it comes to Investiure, the order of lowest to highest Invested phases is sold -> gas -> liquid. If anything, harmonium is more likely to vaporize before it melts. Thus I have to assume the alloying of godmetals has more to do with some kind of catalyst to trigger a chemical reaction rather than just the use of heat.

@Tglassy, I get where you're coming from, but I think you might be taking it a bit too far here. I don't believe Frustration is trolling. I believe he's wrong, but not maliciously so. I appreciate your zeal for the topic, and you've made some good points, such as Zane's sense of balance being enhanced by his pewter. This I'm going to have to push back against. Yes, reading a Sanderson book requires suspending our disbelief to accept a world where magic exists and allows for impossible things. But when you say it this way, it sounds as if you're implying that any logical flaws or inconsistencies can be explained away by the fact its a fantasy book. I hope that is not what you actually mean. I know part of the reason I love Sander's writings is the depth of which he considers the applications and implication of his magic systems. I adore how much effort he puts into giving them rules that he tries his best to consistently apply. Heck, it was Sanderson's Laws of Magic that convinced me to start reading his books in the first place. I also know I'm not alone in that. So I hope that you're not dismissing all that away with the phrase, "suspend your disbelief." If I have read too much into what you meant as an innocent statement, I apologize, I've just been burned by that specific argument before and I'm hypersensitive to it as a result. I do not mean to cause offense. All this to say, you've made your points, and they were good one. You don't need to go further than that and start accusing Frustration of trolling. That just turns this from a discussion into an argument.

I don't necessarily agree with everything StanLemons is saying, but I do think there might be something to Vin having the right Intent to counter atium, and trying to do what she did without knowing that Zane was using atium might have different results. Considering how Sanderson is leaking that Intent is really important to all his magic systems (all I can say without Cosmere spoilers), I wouldn't call that inconsistent.

I don't know, Frus. My combat experience is definitely limited, but when I was in martial arts, I got beat by old men who I was faster than multiple times because nothing I did could surprise them and they could surprise me in a dozen different ways. You and I could probably go on and on in circles about this topic forever, and I don't want to completely flood this thread with only two opinions. In the end, I just think fights are absurdly complicated. Its why I generally don't participate in versus threads, it seems to me that there's no real way to predict the outcome of a fight until it happens, there are just too many variables. The thing atium does is give you more brain power to simplify a fight so that its easier to gain an advantage. Seeing the future almost seems like the lesser of atium's two benefits to me, with the mental enhancement being the greater. At least as far as combat is concerned. I also know that atium seems to make seers or mistborn more efficient, cutting unnecessary movement and refining their every action. I think does more than just show you the future, I think it optimizes the metalborn using it for combat. Sure, that's just a theory, but it seems reflected in the text. I certainly hope we get to see more atium in the future, and that its precise effects are better documented. Especially now that we have the WoB about Era 1 atium not being "true" atium (I'm still annoyed with that). All this to say, please, other people, join this thread and share your opinions so that Frustration and I aren't just playing opinion-pong with one another here. This is a very fascinating discussion and I don't want it to end just because I refuse to respond too many times in quick succession.

I will first point out that virtually all the examples we have of detailed fights involving atium involve mistborn or inquistors, which means we're not just looking at two vanilla humans with just atium engaging with eachother. We're seeing metalborn with many powers that have to be balanced against each other. In such a situation, atium would be invaluable. Take, for example, fighting someone with pewter. It would be very hard to gauge the speed and force of their attacks in a fight because they can burn or not-burn pewter, as well as flare it. Plus each pewterarm will have a slightly different strength of allomancy, making it all very complicated. But if you can see that their next attack is going to be done with flared pewter (which you could judge from the speed of the attack) you know that you'll need to flare pewter to avoid it. I will secondly point out that they're not seeing just a split second ahead, but several seconds ahead. Most fights only last a few seconds. They're not just seeing one attack, they are seeing and processing the whole fight before it happens. Yes, it is true that knowing an attack is coming doesn't necessarily mean you can avoid it, but they're not just seeing the attack, they're seeing everything that leads up to it, all the tells and positioning, how the environment is going to factor into it, etc. Seeing a few second ahead in everyday life is not that significant. Seeing a few seconds ahead in a fight makes you effectively omniscient for that fight. My third and final point is that for those who are trained combatants operating at the top of their game, the fight is going to be much less about your physical abilities. While strength or flexibility is a valuable resource that can sway a fight, skill ultimately beats raw ability. Thus, a high level fight is about reading your opponent and being able to predict what they're going to do and what you need to do to counter it. Yes, there is a limit to how fast the human body can move, but as we see with Zane, someone burning atium is not reacting to what you're doing, they're reacting to what you're going to do before you do it. Yeah, a steelrunner can probably outspeed a seer, but I don't think anyone else can, not even pewterarms. Even if you theoretically could make an attack faster than a seer could dodge, they'll just not put themselves in a position where you can make that attack. If a seer knows that they can't overpower you once you start your assault, they'll kill you before you can make that assault. Simply put, I just think you're underestimating atium. I agree, there are ways to beat it, its not an insta-win, and we're shown those ways in mistborn; Vin outmaneuvers atium and the koloss outgun it. There are a ton of magics that could beat it. But in the situations we've seen it be used in, it should be as powerful as its presented. Atium well deserves its title of godmetal, in my opinion.

This would seem to be why. So I guess its because it fit with his idea of regular cycles involving huge amounts of water that sustain a small system. I certainly can't deny the aesthetic is cool.

As much as I understand why Sanderson included a scene of the Lord Ruler appearing old, I kind of wish he hadn't just due to how much confusion it caused. The Lord Ruler didn't have to appear old, he did so only because it allowed his body to better reflect the way his mind felt. Even when he appeared as an old man, he was still drawing a huge amount of youth from his metalminds to make himself almost a thousand years younger than what he actually was. Frustration is correct in his answer. The Lord Ruler stored a small amount of youth in some atium a long time ago, probably something like a decade or so. Then he burned that piece of atium and, rather than getting the normal future sight, his allomancy identified the youth stored in the atium and was like, "Oh, youth. I know what that is. You want more of this? Okay." And then it burned the atium and produced more youth than was stored in the metal alone, resulting in a net gain of something like a century of youth, which the Lord Ruler immediately stored in another piece of atium. He now had his default age as the ability to make himself a year younger for a hundred years, or two years younger for fifty, four for twenty-five, etc. But then he took that piece of atium with a century of youth in it and burned that too, resulting in a millennia of youth, which he stored in another piece of atium. On and on he did this until he had enough to keep him in the prime of his life for a very very long time, and he stored all of that in one of the two bracers he wore on his arms. From then on he could slowly draw out the youth stored in the bracer as time went on to counteract his aging, making him youthful again. When he appeared old, he was simply drawing less youth from the bracers, and he only did that because he felt old and it made him feel better to look old. He had a kind of body dysmorphia thing going on with that. But that's basically how he did it.

Its probably a pretty fair comparison, minus the fact that breaths seem to have a fairly considerable amount of investiture, whereas it seems that the extra Preservation in Scadrians is a lot less than that. The Scadrians that have their extra investiture taken out probably have poorer health and lifespan than those that don't, but I'd be surprised if its as dramatic as becoming a drab.