Duxredux

My circumstance requires that they get along with my wife and toddler which probably rules out anyone corporeal and it's going to be a hard sell regardless. So... Pattern maybe? I'm studying data analytics and machine learning and he would do fantastic with checking my work and would probably have fun playing with my toddler. Personality-wise though, I'd probably get along best with Wyndle which says a lot about me. As awesome as Steris is, and despite how I think we could be pretty good friends, I'm no where near as tidy and organized as she is and I'd feel guilty if she was constantly tidying after me. One requirement I have is that they wouldn't be driven nuts by living with me.

Variations of these kinds of versus matches have been done for years. If you're interested in this kind of conversation, @WhispersOfWit, then in the advanced search look for the tags "versus" or "vs" and you'll get threads with huge numbers of posts. Allomancer vs Jedi, Fullborn vs Radiant, etc. etc.. At least one had over 400 posts. That said, one rather important aspect of reading historical threads is the forum policy of not posting on old or outdated threads. This is referred to as "necro-ing" a thread. We've seen a lot of people new to the forum come and post on some of the really old threads responding to a post over 2-3 years old, sometimes older. The issue with this is that in many cases the information has changed, books have come out, things that Brandon had kept heavily under wraps for years are now common knowledge. When reading old threads, it's well worth keeping this in mind when someone apparently says something obviously wrong or incomplete. I'll also note that what might seem like a fairly balanced loadout for Kaladin and Vin in this scenario can actually heavily favor one or the other. Open space favors the flier, home turf familiarity for Kaladin, no metal sources for the Allomancer, little cover for the one without magic power armor trying to go evasive, a mistcloak will standout like a sore thumb on a clear day on the Shattered Plains, all of these can dramatically alter the fight. Even details like what is meant by full Allomantic storages? Does this mean that Vin has just swallowed a standard Mistborn metal vial or does this mean that she had the loadout she was frequently carrying in HoA with multiple vials kept on hand specifically to replenish her metal reserves after using Duralumin? Vin's best bet (not a great one) might be hurling a boulder Kaladin wouldn't believe she could possible budge via Duralumin enhanced Pewter, but that's a terrible option if doesn't have backup vials. Another detail is that at any other point in RoW, a Duralumin enhanced Soothing might give Kaladin serious problems when he's at his worst with depression and burnout. Kaladin is either one of the best at fighting though paralyzing depression, or the worst, depending on the day, but this is specifically just after he turned a corner with how he handles his depression and gained armor that shields him from Emotional Allomancy. It might have felt like a fair scenario presentation, but nearly every parameter of the scenario favors Kaladin except for the Stormlight limitation. Allomancy doesn't have a shelf life like Stormlight does (other than purging her internal stores at the end of the day), so if it weren't for the power armor and the summonable soul reaping Blade, Vin could get a leg up if she could avoid a flying Shardbearer for 15 minutes in a open plateau with no metal to push off of other than her bag of coins. Give her a field of Koloss swords, let her fight in Luthadel with places to hide, give her opportunities to utilize her Tin and Bronze to evade Kaladin, fight in the mists at night, or plenty of charges for Duralumin and she will have much better odds as she can use hit-and-run tactics and take potshots at Kaladin's Plate and then the 15 minute Stormlight limit starts making much more of a difference if he can't repair it after 15 minutes.

It's inconclusive to ask this, but there is the question of if the spren are attracted to the color or to the Spiritual property of the colored Stormlight... and if changing the color through an aura phase shift alters that light's Spiritual properties or not, albeit temporarily. The difference between Susebron walking by and simply placing a prism next to a sphere is that the prism splits the light outside the sphere. From the perspective of a spren inside the sphere, there would be no difference, it probably couldn't see the change. Similarly you wouldn't have to worry about red shift or blue shift for a moving gem because it is stationary relative to the spren contained within. I also wouldn't expect applying a colored film to a gemstone to affect the spren at all. In contrast, I'm guessing that Susebron's color distortion isn't limited to the surface of the sphere but permeates through the entire sphere. The chemical composition of the gemstone is far less important than the hue of the Light. Again a question of where the color component really matters and if a BioChromatic aura can alter even the color of Stormlight or not for the purposes of spren taste. Really though, the part that surprises me is that changing the color of a gemstone releases the spren. That's... interesting and unintuitive as dun spheres don't eject spren otherwise every fabrial on Roshar would require require extensive maintenance every Weeping. Absence of Stormlight won't release a spren, but a mismatch of color will. Why? Makes me wonder if this was a verbal misstep on Brandon's part. It does lean towards requiring the Spiritual nature of the gem to change to break the fabrial though.

The God King walks into a Rosharan bar... ...and every fabrial in the building breaks? Polestones are what largely define what kind of fabrial can be made to the extent that inspecting a polestone and the metals used in a fabrial allows an artifabrian to reverse engineer a fabrial. Awakening and draining color from a gemstone apparently works, so what happens if those colors are merely distorted? It doesn't have to be a permanent change, just enough for the spren to be released. Even if it doesn't, if it simply disrupts the fabrials that could still be pretty useful. The core question: Are spren held by the hue, value, or intensity of the color of the light, and which of these scales are altered by Biochromatic Auras? Do BioChromatic auras alter color enough to break Rosharan fabrials, particularly in the case of the 10th Heightening or Nightblood? Thoughts? Applications? Unusual rock/paper/scissor element here?

Random thought, might be worth asking for a WoB. Can Nightblood break Commands, particularly of a Lifeless?

That's both a pro and a con. By Commanding other objects to do various tasks, once you have instilled the proper Command and visualization, both power and the cognitive load is removed from the Awakener and delegated to the Awakened object. Surveillance, searching for tunnels, fetching keys, distracting guards, catching arrows all of these are possible with Awakening. For most other magic users they have to consciously and constantly exerting their attention to produce the effect they need, be it a Tineye filtering out the mess of sensory overload, a Sand Master looking for hidden red spheres, or a Feruchemist using speed to dodge bullets or catch arrows. This is not the case for the Awakener. An Awakener can be totally engrossed in a task like Vivenna climbing a wall while her cloak catches arrows. This ability to delegate their cognitive load isn't to be dismissed as a sufficiently prepared Awakener can become a mobile army by themselves and not just in fighting power but in being able capture and hold ground, build infrastructure, provide surveillance and security. Not only that, but at the Tenth Heightening, it sure looked like Susebron with absolutely no training was able to instinctively coordinate hundreds if not thousands of Awakened objects with a thought, as I sure didn't see him verbally Command a handkerchief to untie Siri at the end after rescuing her. There's a good chance that AI is in the future of Awakening, which may for even more sophisticated automation. An Awakener, by themselves, might be able to setup and power an entire manufacturing plant using Awakened objects working in sequence. The skill of a upper Heightening Awakener in the future may be determined not just on the strength of their Commands and visualization, but perhaps more importantly on their large scale tactical intelligence. Dalinar has a saying that Shardbearers can't hold ground. Awakeners can, better than nearly any single individual. Yes, it's risky, but exposing the Bondsmith or draining a Steelmind is risky as well. Will this utility decrease as automation becomes more plausible through IRL methods? Perhaps, perhaps not. Material strength also is a factor on the effectiveness of Awakening. After writing this, I'm concluding that insisting on a 1 v 1 fight against a powerful Awakener is not where the Awakener would shine the best. You don't want your Awakener trying to punch out a Shardbearer, you want them as your civil/mechanical/industrial/army engineer. Assuming the necessary materials were on hand, I'm not sure if a Fullborn could build a city in a day even with F-Steel, but I think a skilled God King might be able to (well, assuming none of the materials require cure times). Another aspect of the lack of respect is that the 17th Shard is very combat focused, including the original post. Props to Dalinar for digging a latrine with his Shards and bucking the trend.

Part of it is that we haven't really seen an experienced Awakener with the upper Heightenings go all out. We've largely seen them fight relatively ordinary people, including that handicapped fight between Zahel and Kaladin. At the upper Heightenings that's where we start getting conflicts like the Manywar, the Battle of Twilight Falls, and the creation of Kalad's Phantoms. The most dramatic uses of Breath are largely historical and vaguely explained. Part of this is that Awakening is a much younger and poorly understood art. Rashek had 1000 years in addition to information learned at the Well of Ascension to structure an empire and hone his abilities. Ishar is multiple times Rashek's age and the other Bondsmiths are bonded to ancient Spren with millenia of experience. Susebron is a child compared to all of that experience. Had Vasher chosen to remain God-King and experiment instead of living as a pacifist hobo, maybe he could have gotten closer to their levels, but Nalthis and Awakening both are too young with Nalthis lacking even a fossil record. If you think about it, figuring out Awakening at all requires people learning how to give up their Breath in the first place. Type III BioChromatic entities which allow for the most experimentation require far more people willing to become a Drab. It makes sense historically why it's behind instinctive Allomancy or Surgebinding that literally had help from Shards in the accessing and utilization of their abilities. Honor gave humanity Honorblades which by itself is a huge advantage in the learning curve. A large part of it is simple exposure. I know this is a sore topic, @Tamriel Wolfsbaine, but Mistborn has 7 full books and Stormlight has 4 massive installments. Warbreaker has 1. We've seen the Bands of Mourning in use, Ishar fighting Radiants and discussed the Oathpact. We haven't seen that much of Awakening since 2009, just hints and pieces - though Nightblood gets distinct and honorable mention as the only thing not a Shard or Dawnshard to kill a Vessel as far as we've seen. I think it's quite possible that if the understanding of Awakening progresses to the level of the Metallic Arts and Surgebinding it might enter the same limelight, but I don't think Nalthis has been cited as one of the major powers in the space age conflicts. For that matter, the Metallic Arts and the Knights Radiant might be so powerful due to their nature as dual Shard granted abilities allowing for resonances and in-system hacking like Compounding. Nalthis just has Endowment.

Hm. Immortality is a bit tricky. I'm going to expand the question to everyone who has functional immortality and not just from holding Breath. In the end though, yes, they probably could sell youth (like anyone who could blank Identity and store into an Atiummind, both of which are nearly impossible or face stringent resource limitations), but the buyers are going to suffer from the same drawbacks as Marsh and TLR. This may be a method to prolong a few friends, but it likely is not sustainable. It's borrowed power, it hasn't changed the nature of their soul. Would Bloodmaker Ferrings exist in this category as well? If not, what about someone Compounding Gold? Brandon Sanderson Yes, you are correct. Shagomir As a Bloodmaker ages, what keeps them from healing the damage and carrying on as a very old, but very healthy person? Do they come to a point where they can't store enough health to stave off the aches, pains, diseases, and other things that come with old age? This makes sense for traditional Feruchemy as it is end-neutral, so storing health becomes a zero sum game - eventually, you're going to get sick and you're not going to be able to overcome it with your natural healing ability no matter how much you manipulate it with a goldmind. ...Unless you've got a supply of Identity-less goldminds lying around. Would a Bloodmaker with a sufficient source of Identity-less goldminds (or the ability to compound, thus bypassing the end-neutral part of Feruchemy) eventually just die from being too old? Brandon Sanderson Basically, yes. They can heal their body to match their spiritual ideal, but some things (like some genetic diseases, and age-related illnesses) are seen as part of the ideal. Depends on several factors. Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 29, 2016) Returned are odd as the young can age, older ones can revert back to their prime (Lightsong and the other male Returned playing Tarachin all looked rather similar in age) and some can look old like Allmother. Heralds have looked pretty much the same for the last 4500 years and in the case of Ash, they don't even sleep. Secret Project 3 and 4 spoilers: The Investiture to fill an Atiummind has to come from somewhere. I could see this potentially accelerating the Investiture consumption needs of a Returned or other Cognitive Shadows that must consume Invesititure to persist. Another consideration is if the style of Immortality merely pauses the aging process or will pull the individual's age to an idealized prime. I could see a case where storing age still changes the apparent age while the individual either is now immortal at the new older state, or that they will naturally over time revert to their idealized age at an undetermined rate. There's other possibilities, I'm sure, but those are my preliminary thoughts on the subject.

I looked for some Wobs, and unfortunately this is currently inconclusive because Brandon wants us to theorize more. Probably the point of debate then, is if with sufficient investiture (something practical in the future, like a jar full of Dor) an Essence Mark could restore a dead body to full function using flesh forgery, get it "living again" and then install a new soul with an essence mark, even if a person has passed into the beyond. If it can't, what are the limitations or restrictions that govern this? One option is that no matter how hard you try, an essence mark can't actually replicate a soul. We'd have to understand the difference between the Investiture describing the surrogate soul and a Divine Breath making an imprint of a soul as it passes into the Beyond before the Investiture comes down and reinhabiting a dead body. We know that it's possible for a totally dead body to be reanimated after the original soul has left the body and gone to the Beyond as that's Lifeless and Returned. The second WoB makes me lean towards the discussion about Ashravan being about making a surrogate soul and not just reconnecting a broken Cognitive connection though. Shai still being alive could conceivably cause issues too. Option two is that flesh forgery doesn't take on something that isn't alive. This might explain why Ashravan with a bolt through his head could be restored in a vegetative state, yet his wife Kurshina could not. The question here is it the time frame, the manner of death, or is it that most Flesh Forgery stamps don't have enough juice to repair anything more severe than a bolt to the head? Presumably Kurshina was killed with conventional assassination methods if the Emperor just got shot. Option three is that it wouldn't work in context of regrowing a whole body from an arm. That said, there is the fight with Getruda in TLM where Wax thinks about how he had heard of a Bloodmaker regrowing from a severed limb so long as a Goldmind with enough health was still attached to the limb. Brandon has intentionally drawn attention to this style of regrowth from a limb, but left it inconclusive as to whether or not it was actually possible as it was presented as hearsay. It could go either way that Brandon wants it to, but I think he's left room for this to be possible. As a side note, yes, Investiture interferes with Investiture so that's the first uncertainty, but could an Essence Mark restore autonomy and cognitive function to a Lifeless? It might be worth asking if Shai could figure out a way to make it work, though it would probably just be a quick RAFO.

I was thinking and realized that large scale combat related to Lifeless may be far more complicated than the books suggest and I'm not sure how it has been or will be addressed. In essence, how does a Lifeless correctly identify who is a valid target when fighting? According to Vasher, we have a case of someone, probably Denth, slipping a couple of Lifeless that had their Commands broken into a group of regular Lifeless patrollers to make sure a conflict escalated to violence. Notably the regular patrollers did not identify the Lifeless with broken Commands, nor did they attack those Lifeless once they became violent, which you might have expected from Lifeless assigned peacekeeping duties. How does that even work, were the broken Lifeless order to temporarily obey with the same group they were slipped in with, or what? At the end Susebron sends Kalad's Phantoms to intercept and destroy the Hallendren army of Lifeless. We never see these orders being given, but there seems to me to be a non-trivial complexity in getting this right. We also see this going a bit oddly when Clod protects Vivenna, even though odds are Jewels would not have Commanded him to do so specifically. There may be some advantages to being able to give your orders to the army en masse and perhaps there is some degree of identifying how to work together when the whole group is given orders simultaneously, but it probably isn't as simple as the group sharing the same core security phrase as typically the army is divided between 4 Returned. Correctly identifying friend or foe, particularly in a chaotic battlefield seems really important for wars involving tens of thousands of soldiers. Is it at all related to how Nightblood, who isn't good at discerning what is Evil Connects to his wielder and utilizes their judgment? How does that work when the army is far away from the person originally giving the orders? In essence, what do people think are the rules that would govern ordering Lifeless into battle and correctly identifying the enemy?

Dragonsteel Prime spoiler: In terms of Cosmere healing generally not causing a clone like you might get with a starfish (which can grow into a whole new starfish from a severed arm), why is that the case? Heralds I believe grow a whole new body when they respawn, though we only have one of each Herald running around. It may or may not be related, but when you have a suit of Shardplate that is shattered, you can regrow the whole suit of plate by feeding a large piece Stormlight, causing the other stray fragments to crumble into dust. Now one possible option of why the healing works the way it does is because Spiritual based healing is related to the Spiritual Realm where location is irrelevant. There is only one soul for that person, and when they start restoring their body, the other portions of their soul and or body are summoned away or degrade. Way of Kings Prime spoiler: The reason why this scenario might be an exception to the rule is that Essence Marks create a new and valid soul to inhabit the body. This isn't something we've seen any other magic system do. We know that it is possible to heal a body without a soul because that is exactly what they did with Ashravan, at least I'm assuming the original really did die and pass into the Beyond during the 100 day time period that Shai worked to build his body a new soul. We also know that it's possible for the soul found in an Essence Mark to be installed into an empty body. The scenario I presented is just an extension of that. Broken down into smaller steps, could you supercharge Flesh Forgery to regrow a body using a severed arm as a template, particularly if you already knew the history of the body? Once you have that empty shell of a body, then you stamp the body with an Essence Mark reviving it as the false soul, exactly what happened with Ashravan. This new Shaizan sprung from a severed arm would have all of the fragility and limitations of Ashravan, requiring a daily stamp to stay alive, but I think it's plausible that she could exist as a separate entity from Shai herself - so long as that Essence Mark stayed on her arm. Now you might need to setup it up in those steps and it might not work on the fly like my initial scenario, but this could also be a plausible method to introduce cloning into the Cosmere. Now I'm totally fine if this doesn't work, and if I ask it in a WoB and he says it wouldn't work, I'm fine with that, but that could be a pretty crazy result of a fringe scenario. It definitely leans on the side of awesome. At any rate, Brandon has been asked about cloning at least once.

A joke on the "new phone who dis" meme, but seriously, Ookla season makes for a very confusing time on the Shard, not just during the season but for historical posts where quotations retain the name of the member at the time of the quotation. I've been here a bit and I still don't know everyone's pfp, and if you change your pfp at the same time as your name, I probably don't know who you are anymore. I mean, look at this: I count 10 distinct Ooklas in this screenshot alone. The Sibling, Robin Sedai, Aon Ene, is that you? I'm not even sure for the "By Ookla _____" marking for the thread creation. I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but it would really help me out if you put your typical name in your signature or somewhere on your profile or something, though that won't help for mobile users. It's just really hard to know who I'm talking to, particularly if your "Ookla the ____" doesn't relate to your usual username. I have no idea how I would know who anyone is for the inside joke Ooklas if I were to join the Shard right now. I might tag you, but I don't not even sure who I'm tagging. Anyone else feel like this? halp

Most of these ideas are medically related and deal with concepts in the modern era, so their effectiveness may be dependent on how available F-Gold healing is. That said, even if unsealed medallion technology is far more common place, it's still gold and probably won't be the cheapest option. Depending on how available the attribute of Health is, I would expect F-Gold to be used specifically to save lives and stabilize trauma victims while conventional medical practices are used for nearly everything else. #76 Surgeon Not much to say here and we've already seen MeLaan and Ulaam make pretty good surgeons, but I'm putting it in the context of the next few tricks. #77 Kandra Blood Bank / Organic material production With the right food supply on hand, a couple of kandra could probably supply most if not all of the blood needed for hospitals in the basin. Their ability to replicate organic structures would probably let them mass produce other materials as well, like spider silk, though I think other people have already said something similar. Not sure where the line will be drawn though, as anything similar to hair or fur is out which probably eliminates sheep's wool as an option. I think the blood donation demands in the U.S. is around 10,000 liters of blood per day. Despite Gold Ferrings carrying the moniker Bloodmaker, Kandra are much more suited for the role as they can transform literal carrion into blood, and that is generally more resource efficient than burning gold. #78 Patient Blood Care (Heart-Lung Machine, Kidney Dialysis) As an extension of blood production, they could probably serve for major life support systems for these kinds of medical challenges. Worst case scenario, they take in the patient's blood, digest it, and produce their own clean and fully oxygenated blood to pass back to the patient. This could keep someone alive during emergency transport, while surgery is being performed, or if F-Gold is unavailable. Warning, the next is a practical but potentially really creepy and nauseating application.

I'm not sure if either of the core ideas would work at all, @Trusk'our. One of the necessary steps of using a Soul Stamp is the 90-degree twist at the end to lock it in. How exactly do you propose doing that with a person stuck in a mold? For the separate armor pieces, it becomes a question of whether or not the armor views itself as a whole or not in the same way that Shai can't Forge the individual bricks in her prison cell. Odds are if was designed and measured to be a cohesive suit of armor, it will view itself as such. Stamping individual pieces may not work. Well... if the issue is the soul of the combined conceptual object resisting only a portion of the soul changing, then maybe you could get a bunch of your friends to stamp each piece simultaneously to get the whole suit of armor to change simultaneously, but that's a theoretical answer. Honestly, if you're in-system and trying to create Investiture resistant armor, you're probably facing either Elantrians or Dakhor monks. Between Dakhor monks being enhanced and well suited for close combat and the fact that they got obliterated by Aon Daa, makes me think that tanking hits is not your best option. You're probably better off using Forgery for skullduggery or personal enhancement Essence Marks, like making yourself a sword master like Hrathen. Now it is possible to create an extensive series of individual stamps that work together to create a cohesive change to the target, and they should have an additive effect on the total Investiture involved. This is fundamentally what Shai did in creating the plate and linchpin stamp that created a false soul for Ashravan and is the basis for her Essence Marks. Useful for Ashravan as it probably makes the linchpin stamp on his arm more resilient and less likely for him to go catatonic from banging his arm on a table, but it didn't provide any supernatural durability for Shaizan fighting skeletals. It's also noteworthy that she was able to break the stamp she placed on Zu's horse with a fingernail, so stamps on living things may not be the most resilient.

Okay, here's the scenario. Shai improves her Shaizan essence mark to include Flesh Forgery to maximize her physical capacity in addition to her alterations of her personal history. She uses the Essence Mark on her arm and for whatever reason takes a huge shot of Unkeyed Dor at the same time, making the far more permanent. Another hypothetical, but maybe she could setup continuous healing from a combination of the Dor and Flesh Forgery? At any rate, Shaizan gets into a fight and the arm that the Essence Mark is on gets cut off. The obvious answer is that this breaks the Soulstamp seal. BUT what if there was sufficient Investiture from the Dor to continue to power the stamp? Shai herself would probably revert back to herself, but could her severed arm grow into a fully functional Shaizan? The false soul and body template can be recorded within an Essence Mark, and we know Flesh Forgery can heal a body even from a shot to the head even without supercharging it with Dor. Thoughts? Talk about craziest way to get a twin sister/clone.

I also did not realize this was a point of contention and I assumed it was both. I figured he has been stabbed while wearing that cloak and he deliberately chose not to repair the cloak to improve his Awakening efficiency. My take was that this was a continuation of the primer lesson that Vasher gave Vivenna and this is a deeper application of the Law of BioChromatic Parallelism. Two possibilities that aren't mutually exclusive that I can see for Type 3 BioChromatic entities. First, that the Law of BioChromatic Parallelism isn't just referring to how closely the object resembles life, but how closely the object resembles the Awakener. Second possibility is that the style of Awakening that Vasher was using like "Upon call, become my fingers and grip that which I must" specifically is made more efficient or easier to visualize when the clothing very closely matches Vasher himself complete with scars. There may even be subtle Connection shenanigans if the clothes have become used to protecting him and imitating his movements because of how long he's worn them. There may even be some of his skin cells and blood soaked into those clothes if that's his combat outfit - echoing him using his own hair as a focus at the beginning of Warbreaker.

I'll pitch in a few notes addressing @Nightstar The Bright's original post concept, though a few aren't too different from some of @alder24's points. Kalad's Phantoms can really only function as an infantry unit. They have crippling drawbacks as naval or air force units and they introduce a major weight component to transporting them with any method other than their own feet. They are unlikely to be able to climb trees or any weak structures, and would not be able to climb siege ladders when attacking a fortified position. Perhaps they could operate as archers, but then you're losing the advantage they provide as shock troops. In the same way that you can design traps specifically for heavy vehicles like tanks that ignore lighter infantry, you can also create traps that selectively target the Phantoms. Dig a pit trap and I'm not sure if they could climb out - not because they aren't strong enough but because the earth is too weak to support them. Dropping large rocks on them from murder holes should still work to defend fortified locations. Furthermore, the Phantoms in the most recent era were only deployed against a rogue army of Lifeless that was missing its entire living command and support staff which they were never meant to be deployed without, so the army of 40,000 standard Lifeless had no one to give adaptive commands to fight the Phantoms. There were no Awakeners to use ropes as siege equipment to pummel the Phantoms with boulders, no cases of utilizing terrain advantage to fight an incredibly heavy foe. The Phantoms are really strong and really tough to beat, yes, but they certainly aren't insurmountable, particularly for combatants that can think for themselves. They can march and fight tirelessly and once made are pretty low maintenance, but they certainly don't make the rest of military strategy obsolete. Separate from their effectiveness is the terrible risk they represent. That whole debacle of the entire Hallendren Lifeless army of 40,000 getting stolen and sent to destroy another country is a huge red flag in the history of Nalthis for anyone basing their army too heavily on Lifeless. By necessity, the people giving orders to the Lifeless have to know the command structure within the living ranks and have at least sub-level security phrases for the Lifeless. All of Blushweaver's worries about the divided army and Lightsong eventually giving up the security phrases while under duress are very real issues with a Lifeless-based military regardless of if they are Phantoms or not. Had Bluefingers turned the Lifeless against Hallendren, I'm not quite sure if Hallendren would have survived. Susebron may not have had time to activate the Phantoms stationed throughout the city while the army was running rampant and slaughtering his people. I do think that the Phantoms destroying the Hallendren army did permanently change the future of Nalthian militaries, but not necessarily in the way that you first posited.

So... unless you've setup an entire religion and Pantheon designed around sustaining Returned, getting Breath is either hard or expensive. When Jewels sold her Breath it was enough money to pay for a family of 8 for nearly year. In terms of the equivalent cost of living in a metro area in the U.S. for a poor family, that might be the equivalent of a Porsche per Breath. Now they live in a different era and different costs of living, but it's still a lot. A Lifeless servant is expensive, particularly when you consider the opportunity cost of life extension via Heightening. It's why Vasher's stunt in killing Denth was so unthinkable. Now Awakening is generally more accessible than Allomancy or becoming an Elantrian, but that's like saying being a millionaire is more accessible than being born a native Icelander. The scale needed for Kalad's Phantoms and the Lifeless Army of Hallendren is immense. Having the first or second Heightening gets you into the Court of Gods in Hallendren by default because you're pretty much walking around flaunting your millionaire status. Almost by definition you are one of the powerful elite if you can afford that many Breaths. This is one of the reasons that efficiency for Breath utilization and recovery is so important. Vasher and Vivenna are the two most active Awakeners we see and both are very blasé with their Breath, but then neither had to actively collect all the Breaths we see them use. The cost to make a Phantom if it's 50-100 Breaths might be enough to build you a decent house complete with wall and moat, or hire an entire security force. Vivenna didn't know how to get rid of them and Vasher needs them to survive, and so they collect and use them.

So there's two different kinds of efficiency here and your options are dependent on how many Breaths you have. Style 1 is efficency in getting as much firepower for your Breaths, and that's what you're looking at. Creating Lifeless from prepared corpses is the most efficient usage of Breath, particularly if you don't have many to work with in the first place. The skill of the Lifeless is largely dependent on the original person being Awakened - so it's a mixed bag. Style 2 is recoverability of your Breath. For this style you would rarely if ever utilize Lifeless because you can't retrieve the Breath once it has been Awakened. This is what Vasher uses when Awakening those sets of clothes and he retrieved the Breaths from the fallen sets of clothes easily. Going off of Vasher's Command, these sets can fight with Vasher's skill, removing the uncertainty of Awakening random corpses. Furthermore this allows for greater versatility for Awakening objects to perform tasks that Lifeless cannot, like using ropes as seige catapults, or surviving falling out of buidlings. Lifeless in contrast for peak efficiency require substantial preparation and likely can't efficiently be made on the fly in combat. The bodies would likely have been injured or crippled and the Awakening doesn't heal them. In summary, it depends on how many Breaths you have, how personally skilled you are in combat (less skilled, buy a mercenary body as a bodyguard), and how much money and preparation time you have. It is telling that Vasher generally preserves his Breath unless he is sending the Awakened entity somewhere he expects it to beirretrievably, or he is winning a war with Phantoms.

All of Scadrial in Era 2? Step 1: Get Marsh, Kelsier, and Sazed to team up. Step 2: Kelsier provides Marsh with Dor, Sazed directly fuels Marsh's Atiummind, restoring him his youth and further enhances him to be partially under his control - largely to prevent anyone attempting to take control of Marsh via emotional Allomancy. Fueled by the Mists and pure Dor, Marsh annihilates all with his Duralumin, compounded Steel, and Compounded stored Allomantic Pewter. Step 3: Watch the dust settle. Alternate 1: Give Marsh the Bands of Mourning when fully charged. Alternate 2: Sazed spills the beans on the Lerasium and Atium production method Wax discovered. They make a Fullborn via Lerasium. Alternate 3: The Terris community distill their bloodlines and finally give birth to a full Feruchemist. Sazed just makes them a Mistborn the same way he made Spook a Mistborn. There's a lot of precedence that could create a fully functional Fullborn, it's just super risky and requires trusting someone with the powers of TLR including the metals suppressed during the final empire. The catch is the "work together" part of the challenge, not restrictions based on available technology and technique.

This highlights a potential problem based on who is giving birth. If the kandra is the one giving birth, they may not be able to provide the necessary nutrients for the fetus to develop any skeletal structure at all and unless the hybrid can survive as a Mistwraith, they may not survive development or birth. Side note, I wonder if kandra simply can't digest or otherwise process calcium, which would explain bones but not hair. One alternative is if there is something specific in their sDNA which disallows them from making bones but still allows them to pass on the necessary nutrients during pregnancy buuut... having that be the rule basically ends up being "kandra can't because their ideal can't" and that feels a bit like cheating but eventually it will boil down to Brandon needing limitations on powers. One IRL example of complications specifically based on the genetics of the one giving birth is rh factor complications. You know how blood has the following classes A, B, AB, and O with secondary classes of + and -? The + and - refers to whether or not the blood has the rh factor, which is a kind of protein that is produced with some blood types but not others. Where this used to be a problem historically (and is still tracked with blood donation) is that if a mother did not have the rh factor, say a blood type A- and the child did, say A+, then the mother's body would respond to the child's blood as if it were a foreign invader and produce antibodies to attack the blood cells of the fetus. This is less of a problem in places with good prenatal support where they make a point to check for the mother's blood type, but it's because we've developed medications that can suppress this immune response. Back to kandra/human hybrids, this is just a hypothetical but it may make a big difference if the child is carried by the kandra or the human. I think that would unfortunately reduce the odds of lil' Wayne.

So I'm not sure about forced ability activation, but I could see tapping or storing Determination directly impacting the how susceptible someone is to external pressure or imposing pressure. For example, perhaps a Hemalurgist tapping Determination would find it easier to break free from someone who had successfully gained control over them, or resisting Soothing or Rioting in general. If we're talking it as a stand in for "force of will" then it may be related to: (Cosmere spoilers including YatNP) Now for a lot of these simply having more or less Investiture will determine who wins a contest of wills, but Brandon is great at fringe cases that showcase cool abilities. It would be related to Intent and assist in certain Intent-related scenarios, but not actually Intent.

Nice catch. Savantism, might not be the right term, but if there was any Feruchemical ability that I would expect restore a Feruchemist to the original ideal, it would be healing - and that clearly is not the case even for an ability that could conceivably repair skeletal alterations. Perhaps there's a distinction between changes due to an excess of power distorting the soul (flaring, Compounding, to an greater extent Sliverism) and changes caused by a severe loss of Investiture from the soul, which as I think about it may be seen in non-lethal Hemalurgic donors. Non-lethally spike donors might end up looking a lot like a Feruchemist constantly storing an attribute depending on what what part of the soul gets punched out. Maybe a combination of various attributes depending on placement. It may be worth asking if someone can have strength nonlethally spiked out of them and to what extent they would be able to exercise and develop their personal fitness to compensate - and then what would happen if the spike was returned to them. It's a similar question.

So to reference the original post, this is something that definitely happens in world. If you recall, VenDell asked Wayne for his skeleton because Bloodmaker's bones develop unusual characteristics from their time spent storing health in a weakened state. There can definitely be Savant-style consequences for Feruchemical storage. In essence, if there's a logical effect on the body or mind it can have permanent effects outside of storage. Not all of them will be advantageous. I'll borrow @therunner's chart, and I agree that the baseline attribute is not necessarily something that will have positive trainable effects, but I'll cover some of the possible outcomes, both good and bad. Strength - clearly possible, basically magical version of training with weighted vest Agreed. There may be some side effects as you won't be training with the weight of the baseline muscle mass though and you can totally get this to an unhealthy state. I knew a guy who was so built he literally couldn't walk through a door straight on, he always had to turn sideways. Train it too far and you'll need to walk around at a constant storage to not start have other problems. Overtime this will really let you store a ridiculous amount of strength and by then you could probably suplex a grizzly bear just stopping your storage let alone while tapping. Speed - not trainable, you won't magically become faster because you are forced to be slower. When storing you are sluggish and moving itself is simply difficult. Speed itself won't be trainable, but active speed storage may do unusual things to balance or muscular function. No idea if this would be advantageous or not, but trying to walk with exaggerated slowness requires a lot more balance and uses very different muscle groups. For example, trying to do really slow bench presses is way harder than normal speed ones. Maybe you can specifically train fast twitch muscles in a way that would difficult or impossible for someone not storing speed? How does weight lifting even work when storing speed? I'm not sure. Weight - nothing to train, but storing itself can be advantageous Wax becomes weaker when storing weight, so there may be similar advantages to storing strength. Perhaps Wax's musculature of a man 10-15 years younger is a side effect of his habitual weight storage making him proportionally weaker? Again, nothing here that will actively increase your ability to store weight, but it has other benefits like therunner says Senses - kinda trainable? You won't get better senses, but you might learn to better discern unclear input Tapping sight specifically makes you supernaturally farsighted while tapping makes you nearsighted. I'm extremely nearsighted and it helps for really close detail work when I take off my glasses. There may be a permanent effect to this distortion of the eye lens and I have no idea what that is. Same for the other senses as storage probably actually does effect the sensory apparatus and I'm not sure if those changes would be good or considered permanently damaging. A medical profession might be able to say what that would mean for a person. Mental speed - I don't think this is trainable. You quite literally become dumber, take longer to process what is happening around, won't be able to think properly etc. You can try to compensate for some of it, but those skills won't be very advantageous, and they won't effect what you are storing. Yeah, I have similar thoughts. There may be advantages to being forced to think of simpler solutions to solve problems because you literally can't think of more complex answers, but I'm not sure what else. Might depend on if there are physical changes to the brain and what those are. Warmth - not trainable, or at least storing won't have any effect on trying to learn techniques to control your autonomous nervous system Yeah, I don't know if there's any conscious advantages, but you might be able to condition yourself for colder temperatures. Could be useful if you know that you are going to a colder environment. Memories - not trainable Oh, I don't know, there could be advantages. Not sure if a Keeper's incredible memory outside of their Coppermind is simply training or a byproduct of their constant storage and rememorization. Both Kwaan and Sazed had incredible memories, but I don't know if they are typical or outliers. Wakefulness - maybe, kinda? Yeah, I dunno either on this one. You might be able to train yourself to specific sleeping routine that will stick even when you aren't actively storing but I'm not sure if you'll get more wakefulness out of the bargain. Investiture - nothing to train Haven't ever seen the effects of active storage, can't say for sure. Sand Mastery comes to mind but I have no idea if there's an analog here. Might be mostly useless in isolation of other Invested abilities. Connections - nothing to train, at most you might overtime learn to be more persuasive, but that depends on how Connection works exactly Yeah, also inconclusive as we've never seen a viewpoint of someone actively storing this. It depends a lot on who and what get affected. Identity - nothing to train Honestly, I don't know if we've seen enough of Identity to know what really happens to someone who repeatedly sheds their Identity. Training might not be the right word and healthy probably isn't the right word either. It almost certainly would have some effect on who you are, but I don't know beyond that. Fortune - you won't train Fortune, you might learn to be always on-guard, but hypervigilance is not a good thing No idea if this actually changes something in the physical body or not. Again, never seen this actively stored on screen. Breath - trainable Agreed. Energy (Bendalloy) - not trainable? I'm not sure. You might be able to condition yourself to operate on lower food and fluids to try to get your resources to last longer, but that's more mental training than anything, like you might see for sailors lost at sea and forced to ration supplies. You absolutely can store to an unhealthy degree, but most probably wouldn't do that. Not sure how much better this would be just going whole hog during active storage though. I mean... you can probably train yourself for speed eating contests so I guess you can get faster at active storage... Determination - might be somewhat trainable? depends on how it works Agreed. Depends on how it works. Health - might be 'trainable' in the sense that you get infected more easily? but you get infected even when heatlhy, you just don't notice because your immune system does what it is supposed to This might be part of how Bloodmakers get an abnormally high pain tolerance with Miles completely losing his sense of pain. Not sure if that's from just repeated injury and healing or part of the active storage process. As previously noted, there is a side effect identifiable in their bones from the storage process, so maybe the body does reinforce itself or alter pain receptors? There's definitely some benefits to looking specifically at long term or targeted active storage, but some of these could have some pretty unhealthy side effects too, like a certain Bloodmaker not being too concerned when someone threatens to shoot his fingers off. The idea tracks for the body modifications, but I'm not sure how it extends to things like caloric and fluid intake. I could see it going either direction and Brandon either giving a limitation to make it not busted or let it go because many of these changes are not straight benefits and can have serious downsides anyway. The whole problem with Savantism is that it is actually changing and distorting the Spiritweb so you may not be snapping back to a typical Scadrian baseline.

All of the previous stated concepts make an impact, but I think the biggest factor is the environmental difference between Zahel and Azure's circumstances. When Kaladin went to talk to Zahel the nondescript ardent just doing his job, he was isolated and doing laundry, so presumably there was less interference for his Lifesense to detect something as subtle as Syl. No people around, only Kaladin and Syl watching him. In contrast, Azure was only around Syl in overcrowded Kholinar patrolled by Secretspren, ignoring Shadesmar as Syl was corporeal there. There's a decent chance that her Lifesense was overloaded with interference caused by a city full of people watching her as the symbol of their defense and resistance against the Fused. Lifesense allows you to feel someone watching you, particularly if they are Invested - notably Vivenna identifying Vasher in Warbreaker when she first made eye contact with him in crowded T'Telir. That might explain why Azure could pick Kaladin out of a crowd as someone special but still not spot the invisible Syl. Pretty much every factor favors Zahel except maybe current Breath count: 300 years more experience including holding 4th Heightening and beyond in his lifetime, way less interference, and greater familiarity with Roshar. Unless Azure got waaaay more Breaths in the mean time, which is possible, the maximum Heightening that Azure has held is the third Heightening which she got from Lemex. Any of those could explain why Azure never spotted Syl while Zahel did. I don't think we can give a conclusive answer to what made the difference, as nearly everything favors Zahel beyond his status as a Returned.