Duxredux

By my recollection, the title The Book of Endless Pages was planned for a massive tome over 400,000 words long - so big that the publisher, Tor, couldn't actually print the book with their existing equipment. They needed to upgrade their system to allow for printing and binding the book because it was the largest book they had ever had cause to print. Brandon's readership is now acclimitised to that, but Brandon still gets quips from people that they no longer can lie in bed and hold their book up to read it for fear of dropping it and breaking their nose. The Stormlight Archive was to be a flagship series, with commissioned art in the front cover, detailed sketches throughout, and I expect even back then Brandon had declared it to be a ten volume series. Four books in and we've already passed 1.5 million words. Add this into the series starting with not one, not two, but three prologues in WoK. Not every reader is ready or able to commit to that amount of time. Now imagine as a new reader, proud of reading the longest book you ever had, a bit worn out over the months, to pick up the next installment called The Book of Endless Pages and trying to get through Kaladin's depression dropping the tone of the story and nearly killing Syl. The title "Words of Radiance" with the cover featuring Kaladin glowing with Stormlight is a promise of Kaladin's triumph. "Book of Endless Pages" is a challenge and a threat to the protagonist suffering major depression. Even with cover art for other countries, the WoR is intriguing, triumphant, hints at previous secrets of the first book for any who have read it. The original title only makes sense after one has read it the book - which is likely to lose all of those who select a book to read by its cover among all of the neighboring covers in the bookstore. Speaking as one who has tried to read Wheel of Time four different times over the course of fifteen years and bounced off by book 8 or 9 - I had serious reservations picking up WoK having heard it compared to WoT. I'm not sure if I would have started if the book on the shelf next to it was called The Book of Endless Pages even though Mistborn and Elantris were awesome. Yes, the original working title is an cool one, but I think they were wise to name SA 2 Words of Radiance. Even knowing the Brandon and the Stormlight Archive now, I don't know if naming any book more than 300,000 words that title would be wise - as I consistently burned out of reading WoT around 3/4 of the way through. A novella or a something the length of the Wax and Wayne series is less likely to invite irony.

Another way of looking at this perhaps, is that the Cognitive Realm is the realm of the mind where thoughts, emotions, and perception can affect the environment and geography. We'll see if Brandon decides to define Cognitive Realm entities as information given substance of a sort. From this perspective, AI as information with decision making abilitiy and Intent is not so different from any Cognitive being. We'll see what Brandon does with this, particularly for duplication of AI models.

Interesting. Hadn't seen this before. I've thought about how to do something like this for a while, but unfortunately it's very difficult to do without someone personally going through and reading the before and after. I don't know much of the legalese, but I've relatively recently learned Python and a bit of AI coding with NLPs, though nothing too extensive. I can definitely say that modifying audio is waaay more challenging than editing text. For anyone that has ever tried to use voice commands on their phone, it's pretty obvious that we aren't at 100% accuracy for speech recognition. False positives for audio recognition could render huge portions of books unintelligible. What if the heroes in the book decide to head off to Hoover Dam? What if you want to listen to a podcast hosted by Brandon and Dan? Beyond that, content filtering sounds simple enough, but in practice it can be extremely difficult because of how nuanced language is. It's a classification task, to correctly identify language that should be filtered and to leave language that does not need to and has both false negatives and false positives. Innuendo is a likely culprit for false negatives because the words themselves are benign - unless used in that specific phrasing. Wayne for example would have several lines that would totally fly under the radar but would make Marasi blush. False positives are cases where the language could be explicit but isn't in the specific usage. This isn't meant to be innuendo, but I don't have better examples: Even after false positives, it can be very difficult to create filters for content that would/should be filtered, but is plot relevant. For more extreme cases where replacing keywords won't reduce the nature of the subject matter, someone might have to summarize the scene and compare it with the original to make sure that minimal content is lost for comprehension. Trusting the AI to do that is very risky. Here's a comic that might illustrate why altering language and retaining comprehension can be difficult. Separate from all of this complexity is that each reader will have different tolerances for what they would want filtered. Some may be totally fine with the violence of Steel Inquisitors but not Siri and Susebron spending time as a legally married couple and vice versa. It's why VidAngel gives a breakdown for the specific content that the viewer wants filtered. I've thought a bit more since my initial post, and with some time I could write a program to flag potentially explicit text in an EPUB format or something similar, but for all of the reasons stated it would still need someone personally validating the changes. Even then, catching innuendo would be hard enough that pretty much all of the Wax and Wayne books would likely involve just flagging everything with Wayne. For a book I hadn't read, it would take someone who has read it to personally tell me if there were Wayne-esque characters or key scenes that should be filtered.

At the core of my hypothesis is that what we have been told about the limitations on Bondsmiths are wrong. I don't doubt that there can only be three of them (yet), likely the Stormfather, Sibling, and Nightwatcher, but I suspect that they can gain Shards and they can gain squires contrary to history. It is the Stormfather that tells Dalinar that he will be a Radiant without Shards. Basically, I wonder if Dalinar is the first Bondsmith to identify the Third Ideal of Bondsmiths. Long shot I know, but the Stormfather was surprised and seemed off balance when Dalinar swore the Third Ideal. "These Words . . . are accepted, the Stormfather said, sounding stunned. How? What have you done?" What if Dalinar is the first? A Radiant must have the Third Ideal to gain a Blade and to have squires. We know that Dalinar did something to the Stormfather when he tried to summon him as a Shardblade to operate the Oathgate. We know Gloryspren circled Dalinar as he first opened a Perpendicularity. We also know that something was unusual was happening to Navani as she could see into the Realms whenever Dalinar opened a Perpendicularity even though others like Rushu could not. What if Navani was on the edge of becoming Dalinar's squire as she worked with him to unite Roshar? They assumed that Bondsmiths were different, that they could not have squires, nor shards, that they were powerful enough as it was. What if no other had progressed beyond the 2nd Ideal, assuming that the power gained at that degree was all they needed or could obtain? Thoughts?

Well... Kaladin doesn't have to have Shallan's particular inconsistencies to have zero idea for the full mechanism of how a Radiant acquires a squire. Brandon loves misdirection in the magic, particularly when smart people arrive at the logical and completely false conclusion. Beyond that, if only the first Ideal was necessary to become a squire, then I add in the next scenario. At the height of power for the Knights Radiant, an as-yet unbonded individual has a bunch of friends at Urithiru. They become friends with 3+ Oath Radiants of all Orders. They swear the first Ideal, the Ideal that is shared by all orders, "Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination." They are in close proximity to all of their friends. What Surges do they gain access to? It seems very unlikely to me that choosing to avoid pursuing the Oaths would let someone use all the Surges (though they wouldn't have Bondsmithing - nor am I sure that they would have Division, as the Skybreakers do not gain that Surge until the 3rd Ideal, and I could believe the Dustbringers would have the same restriction). And so, I think that even if you do not need to have said the 2nd Ideal, I think that the life you are living will tend to polarize you toward one Order and Radiant as a Squire. I'd say that all of Bridge Four that charged the Tower with Kaladin probably would have qualified as Squires in Syl's eyes, though they may not have accepted it themselves as of yet.

It may not be an important detail, nor am I entirely sure how I would look in the archive for past discussions, since Shardblade and gemstone/gem/gemheart/polestone are all incredibly common terms for this forum. As background, a polestone can be set into the pommel or cross guard of a dead Shardblade that allows the Shardbearer to bond the Blade. Once bonded, then the Shardblade can be summoned and dismissed - indeed the default is to be dismissed unless otherwise specifically willed by the Shardbearer. Breaking the bond involves touching the polestone, and if the polestone is damaged or removed the Blade cannot be summoned or dismissed. Killing a Shardbearer even while the Blade is dismissed will summon the Blade to fall next to the deceased. So... my question. Where does this gem retrofitted to a Shardblade go when the Blade is dismissed? I had more or less skimmed over the fact that Shardblades can pull a foreign object out of the Physical Realm. Yet I don't remember seeing a gem on Maya when we finally see a Deadeye currently bonded to Shardbearer. Furthermore, we know that gemstones are valuable, fundamental to commerce, and can be highly prized. Allies of the Deadeyes including friends and family seem likely to notice such a gem - and depending on what was known, may have tried to damage or remove said gemstone if it and the purpose was discovered. This also raises the question of what would happen if the gemstone bonding a Dead Shardblade to a Shardbearer was damaged while the sword was dismissed? Particularly if the Deadeye was transported by associates far away from the corresponding location of the Shardbearer? So... where is the gemstone? It seems pretty relevant with what we now know of Shadesmar, along with how Deadeyes will wander around following the Shardbearer's equivalent location until summoned, and the rest of the True Spren's feelings on the matter. Is it embedded similar to a gemheart? Is it elsewhere? I have other questions, like if there is anything else that could be attached to a Shardblade that could be pulled into the Cognitive Realm. If you bath a Radiant in Stormlight, have them grasp a Deadeye Blade and dismiss the Blade, could they be pulled into the CR? Anyone have any thoughts or WoBs?

Clever ideas all around. For other options for tethered weapons, look up rope dart or meteor hammer demonstration for some martial arts that used rope tethered weapons. Find the loudest local animal to make into Lifeless, preferably something small and agile like a rodent, bird, or insect. Awaken it and have it target Awakeners or Lifeless to shriek, howl, or scream to drown out all opposing Commands. Basically weaponizing Lightsong's squirrel idea. It will probably also disrupt the Awakeners' focus and visualization. Sure, these Lifeless will probably be one-shot usages, since you may not be able to issue a counter Command either. Unless you are a deaf Awakener that has sign language as their birth language, where this will have very few disadvantages. This might be really dumb, but I want a big carpet with a long pile with the Command "Trip people other than me" in the Awakener's house. Basically anyone that comes in to attack you has the fibers of the carpet subtly wrecking their footwork. Actually, with an Awakened object's ability to detect hidden things like tunnels, this gives a lot of room for selective traps that will not deploy when you pass but will trigger on unknown entities. An Awakened haunted house would be ridiculously easy, if expensive, to make. Not quite sure how feasible this is, since we only get general descriptions for how strong Awakened objects are (thin ropes can operate as siege catapults by hurling boulders), but it might be worth going back and looking at a wingsuit creating powered flight. It's been pretty firmly established that humans don't have enough strength or endurance to generate enough lift by flapping their arms, but what about an wingsuit of Awakened rope and cloth? The Awakened material will never tire and provides a much higher power to weight ratio than what humans can provide. Depending on if you can have it shaped like a bird and follow a pattern of life to cut down on Awakening costs, I think it could work. The next biggest hurdle is visualizing and programming in secondary commands into the initial Command - like Vasher giving tap commands to a rope to raise or lower him but at a much greater complexity. I expect wing-powered flight to be exceptionally nuanced and would probably take years of engineering and trial and error to make feasible. On the plus side, if you're at least 5th Heightening, you have the decades to tinker with stuff like this. Full Cosmere spoilers

Clever idea, but it has a major hurdle that no one has addressed. It's not the First Ideal that qualifies you as a Squire, it's the Second. This is for at least Windrunners and Skybreakers. This was outright stated that swearing the First Ideal alone would not allow the Skybreaker acolytes to draw in Stormlight or utilize the Surges. It's after Skar talks to Lyn about why she really wants to be a Windrunner, to be protecting people, that she gains Light. My guess is that the quoted sections about Vathah are highlighting a truth he has discovered about himself. A Lightweaver requiring witnesses in a trial to admit a deeply personal truth to themselves is unlikely to consistently work. Temporary Oaths in general might irritate the Stormfather or the relevant Radiant spren. So... yes, circumstantial Squires could be possible, but I don't think that walking into a room or city and asking people you've never met or observed to uphold the law or declare truths about themselves to work at all reliably. I think it could come up in special circumstances, but I doubt it would ever becoming standard practice.

My reply will be in reverse order to your comments. Because Kenton is not a bloodthirsty man, nor was his purposes served by demonstrating how dangerous Sand Mastery truly is - though the death match against Drile showed much of that anyway. Kenton's goal was to prove to all the Lords and people of Lossand that the Sand Masters were to be trusted friends, allies, and colleagues - not domineering blasphemous bullies as was the reputation under Praxton and older Lord Mastrells. The other Lords voted for the dissolution of the Diem not because Sand Mastery was impotent, but because it was too powerful and used its power for extortion. Flexing like when Kenton used Sand Mastery to force his way in to see the Lord Merchant (or Farmer, can't remember from the graphic audio) gained him nothing but fear - it was forgiving the debts that earned him respect. Basically my list of possible uses is why the Diem was feared in the first place and for centuries could lean on the other professions with relatively little risk for rebuke or retribution. Technology wasn't stunted because the Mastrells chose not to help and instead took what was invented by others for themselves. There's other reasons why we don't get big dangerous displays of power. The whole story was about how finesse and cleverness are as important if not more so than brute force. Kenton is the viewpoint with the fewest ribbons ever admitted into the Diem, so no, we don't see him leaping hundreds of feet or spearing dozens of opponents simultaneously, but Drile almost certainly would be able to. With more time spent Over Mastering, Kenton will be capable of such feats as well. That's my understanding of White Sand, though I'm open to other views. That said... a nod to your comment I assume is about Game of Thrones, it was around this time that Brandon was writing as a yet unpublished author trying to break in that Brandon literally got feedback from editors asking if he could write more like George R. R. Martin. It's just a bit funny and a bit sad that the series you are comparing White Sand to is the one that editors said Brandon wasn't enough like as a new and insecure author. It's fine if not every author and not every book published is a favorite - and if you want more George R. R. Martin, good for you I hope you find more authors who will do what Martin does for you. That author may not be Brandon (when he tried to write like Martin it was laughably bad and super "grim-dark darky dark"), but I'm glad we have Brandon and the Cosmere.

Not sure on extra height, but scratchy voice is probably the spikes punching holes in the chest cavity and lungs with the necessary physiological modification to make that survivable. Chest puncture wounds are dangerous because they introduce air into the chest cavity which causes the lung to collapse - and special occlusive bandages are needed to remove any introduced air. Considering all the physical activity that Inquisitors get to with those embedded spikes (and maybe they create air tight seals, but... even when swinging axes?), there must be substantial alteration to the respiratory system. The scratchy voice is likely a byproduct of that. If hot-swapping spikes becomes prevalent, those bindpoints might be avoided when you don't intend to retain the power granted alongside a punctured lung.

The OP seems well reasoned, @Trusk'our, though I think I would add one potential tweak: I think this makes sense, but it might only be warping the person hot-swapping spikes for every new bindpoint utilized, but not necessarily for going back to a previously used spike and bindpoint - because the necessary warping would have already occurred at that junction, right? As for: Fun fact - if you get a bone marrow transplant IRL your blood will have the DNA of the donor. Reported by a few news outlets included NY Times, there's been a case of a man who got such a transplant and had the DNA swap be so pervasive that any children he had would inherit the donor's DNA - not his. The term they used for him was a chimera. Other article here. There's also been a law case back in 2002 of a woman named Lydia Fairchild with genetic chimerism who had some difficulty establishing enforcement of child support because of the two distinct DNA lines in her body, until they genetic samples from different locations of her body. We know that DNA and sDNA are not quite the same thing, nor are they inherited quite in the same way. My guess is that Allomantic and Feruchemical spikes distort the sDNA and do not touch heritable sDNA or DNA, but perhaps the physical changes caused by the Iron spikes do leave lasting alterations to the DNA of the recipient - changes that are heritable through regular DNA.

I think this might be the first assumption and hiccup to this process. I don't think placing Light in a vacuum removes the tone or rhythm, rather I think it decouples it from tones of the world. It had the same tone as when it went in but no longer is constantly being reinforced, and instead can be realigned if an appropriate tone is loudly played, momentarily drowning out the global tones. Having light devoid of rhythm... is that even possible? That seems like removing frequency from a light ray - which seems fundamentally impossible for a wave-particle. Considering even a Coppercloud burning Copper has an associated rhythm, I'd guess that tone/rhythm is as fundamental as spectroscopic signature of basic elements - since both are a signature of frequency fundamental to structure. The Ghostbloods are absolutely going to do tests like this, but I'm guessing it will take more steps than posited.

Favorite to read? Depends on which series Brandon is currently putting out books for, which system he's developing. In general though, I find myself rereading Mistborn era 1 and 2 the most often. Allomancy in particular is fascinating to me because metal is the backbone of IRL civilization and technology and is everywhere. I found it particularly brilliant that the catalyst for the power itself can be directly manipulated by Allomancy and so even carrying around your source of power can reveal you. Yes, we'll see more and more people utilize Aluminum vial pouches or flasks, but that's not a straight upgrade as we see early on Vin using Pushes and Pulls to quickly swallow Atium. Wrapping everything in a conductor like Aluminum also won't be an end all solution since it will hinder regular tech as well as Allomancy (for example, wrapping a cellphone in aluminum will block all signals from it), nor is Aluminum as strong as industrial steel. As we see from Ranette, engineering with Allomancy in mind can be fascinating and I'm sure we'll get into different fields as well, be it structural, mechanical, or electrical engineering. A team of engineers could spend a lifetime designing technology to accommodate Allomancy, and because of that, I have no idea how Scadrial will actually develop throughout my lifetime of reading about it. Choosing Mistborn to be the world viewed through multiple epochs was brilliant on Brandon's part. Least favorite to read? Era 1 Hemalurgy. I never liked the relevant scenes, but then I'm not particularly entertained by violence. Theorizing about it is one thing, but I always start skimming when I get to scenes like Marsh being made into an Inquisitor. Boring or clunky is preferrable to nauseating. I get that. Emperor's Soul was a hundred day mad scramble of Shai paying the cost of time and research to create and use a single Soul Stamp. We saw the misunderstandings and revisions of her view of Ashravan throughout the book. We got none of that for her Elantrian Essence Mark, she's just now super powered. Sure, Shai probably spent years of research and iteration to create that Essence Mark, and perhaps we'll some day get a glimpse of that process, but to have her show up having already paid the cost off screen omits much of what made Emperor's Soul so fascinating. Even her other Essence Marks had to be earned by manipulating Gaotona. Granted, her Elantrian mark doesn't really do much at all for the story, it basically served as a diversion. Moonlight didn't really have a character arc, she was exposition and cameo.

Oh cool, that course I took on natural disasters is relevant again. Storm surge and how hurricanes operate are close to, but not exactly as people are describing them. First off, storm surge occurs specifically when a storm is transitioning from water to land, not the reverse. While moving across the water, the winds of the storm blow the water towards the land pushing it further inland until the storm itself arrives. Yes, the low pressure of the storm does create some lift in the water, but it is minor compared to the hours of wind pushing water towards landfall. It's this sustained pushing that relatively slowly forces water onto the coastline and is known as storm surge, and yes it will cause somewhat larger than normal waves, but not tsunamis. Hurricane storm surge is predictable - it happens pretty much every time, and depending on technology people will have days to prepare for the impact of the storm - they are extremely visible and seasonal. In contrast, tsunamis are caused by sudden large scale displacement of water, such as an underwater earthquakes or volcanic eruptions as Treamayne stated, but also landslides. The jolt of displaced water travels extremely quickly laterally through the ocean and may be entirely unnoticed by ships as the water may only move vertically in deep water a few feet, but that displacement suddenly runs out of horizontal room when it hits coastlines and is translated to vertical water displacement - the tsunami wave. Tsunamis travel much, much faster than hurricanes, faster than Highstorms, and may require earthquake monitoring devices to detect. Response time is hours or minutes, depending on the location of the epicenter. On Roshar, the principle of always build facing away from the Highstorm will still apply, but will largely extend to the coastline - which is pretty much a no brainer. Building a stormbreak along a beach would be super expensive and difficult to sufficiently stabilize. It's why many major Rosharan cities like Kharbranth or Thaylen City will preferentially build on the west coast. The Highstorm won't create a storm surge for western coasts, if anything it will create an abnormally low tide as winds push the water away from the shore. This is one of the reasons why the Everstorm made such a huge mess of Thaylen City - it was never designed to withstand the storm surge absent from the Highstorm and got pummeled more than inland cities that simply had buildings facing the wrong way.

This is less Investiture and more of a species ability, but I'll add in one more we have seen that even managed to work on Hoid for a while. A Dysian Aimian hordling stowing away in the target's possessions - in this case mimicking and replacing I think one of Hoid's pens. Simply spreading out and monitoring the whole planet may be possible for the Sleepless, and when they can monitor you through hundreds of pebble shaped hordlings, they may not even need to move or hitch a ride. While directly tracking someone is possible, I'm not sure if global monitoring counts as tracking or not.

TSM's premise is that Nomad is getting tracked across the Cosmere from what appears to be Connection made traceable via Hemalurgy if I'm remembering correctly. Visible Connection looks like one of the best ways to track an individual since apparently it can work on an interplanetary scale and couldn't be disrupted even by a former Dawnshard. If the Night Brigade had implanted something in Nomad he would have just dug it out and been done with it. We also see Hemalurgy used to let Wax Connect to Telsin with a Trellium spike dug out of a random Cycle's body, letting him hear her thoughts and I think even get a vague sense of direction. I think Bondsmiths who can make Connection visible could also put a tracer on someone. Navani's discovery of force multiplication with differently sized conjoined gemstones technically could be reworked to let you get geospatial coordinates by placing one conjoined ruby on the target and a much, much smaller ruby that is located on a map that has the same scale as the difference in ruby size. I could see space age spaceships outfitted with those trackers allowing a tactical room to get real-time positioning, though by that stage other options will exist. The trick though is that you would want something that can't just be disabled by a Coppercloud, walking next to Aluminum, or someone digging out the tracker (since Cosmere healing is powerful enough that even placing it in vital organs just makes it slightly more difficult depending on circumstance).

No problem! Aand it looks like I didn't fully read his intro either. Looks like I need to remove spoilers for even the first book since Desku doesn't say if he's finished it or not. Just tweaked my post, if you wouldn't mind editing your quotation of my post that still has the spoilers. Wow that felt clunky and convoluted.

@Through The Living Glass and @Ookla, a reminder that Desku has only read Mistborn: the Final Empire so far. Please edit your comments to remove information from future books such as: To echo some of the others, @Desku, what would you consider dark? The following is a list of topics found in the book. Spoilers: Sanderson really is legit. Sanderson has a way of embedding a magic system into the culture, economics, technology, and religions of society and exploring the ramifications that would accompany such a magic existing in the world and how both good and evil people would utilize such power and he explores both the light and dark. For example, its pretty firmly established that Allomancy is genetically inherited in the first book, and Brandon does a thorough deconstruction of what that implies. Heritable power is at the root of how the book starts with attempted legal rape and murder of a young girl by a nobleman - who was subsequently slaughtered by Kelsier. It's why Vin was hunted by Steel Inquisitors the entire book and why her former crew leader Camon was tortured and left to hang in the streets by a hook rammed through his throat. Heritable power and the acquisition of it by the elite or the stifling of it in the underclass Skaa is further explored in later books in the series. Most of that list in the spoilered paragraph is largely a result of exploring what could happen with a heritable magic as a catalyst. The first Mistborn series for me at least feels like it has some of the darkest tones in Brandon's books, though there is definitely dark content in his other series. For realism though, you can pretty consistently get the care and level of detail on how the magic shapes the world populated by both the moral and immoral, though the tone of the book will vary.

Interesting. Reminds me of a maglev. Let's see if I can simplify the design. Start with the same layout for cubes, but partially wrap each cube in Aluminum to only allow Steelsight along the path of the projectile. Charge all the cubes with Steel and insert the projectile into the tube. What Aluminum and Harmonium can do that magnets cannot is directional force vectors rather than mostly spherical magnetic fields. Something like this: I was lazy and reused your paint art. Basically, you can set it up to only Push the bullet forward, with Aluminum blocking any backward Pushing. No fancy switching or timing, just straight PUSH. I'm still not sure if this can fire a bullet faster than Duralumin for the same amount of Steel, just based on how fast Duralumin utilizes the metal. What it can do that Duralumin cannot is a continuous stream of fire so long as the cubes remain charged. Add a magazine that pushes ammunition into the barrel, and it looks like it should fire as long as it had Steel, bullets, and the whole assembly didn't shake apart. Adding Aluminum also makes it significantly safer to be standing anywhere close to this thing when it fires.

@Xiahida, sources? How does it react? I've neverheard anything about that. WoB:

Duralumin is an alloy of 96% aluminum and 4% copper. We know the Allomantic, Feruchemical, hypothetical Hemalurgic usages, and how ettmetal responds to it when it is Allomantically burned. What I don't know, is how it reacts to other Metallic arts, and I can't remember it ever coming up. Does it block Steelsight lines? Can it be Pushed or Pulled? Does it block emotional Allomancy? Could it resist a Shardblade? Does it resist or conduct Investiture? We know that certain alloys of Aluminum retain their immunity to A-Steel, but it seems like we have good reason to be uncertain for Duralumin. Most questions about Duralumin probably are along the lines of "what happens if you burn Duralumin while x/y/x" and not "How similar is Duralumin to Aluminum in how it reacts to Investiture and the Invested Arts?" What properties would the metal have in a fabrial? All the questions. Any answers?

Could someone give more design details for this Allomantic railgun? I'm not visualizing it well, and with my admittedly limited experience of only building a single railgun back in my high school physics class, I don't see how the principles that make railguns work apply to Allomancy, at least in a rail setup. Perhaps excessive pedantry ahead. Let's start by laying out some of the different methods of propelling projectiles: Directly pushing the object - throwing a rock or a spear Tricks that improve mechanical advantage, like the atlatl that simply increase the lever length of the arm I'm keeping here Place mechanism under tension to store potential energy before releasing - bow, catapult Pressurized gas expanding to propel object - guns, explosives Self propelled - missiles Magnetic fields - railgun, coil gun Swing object in a circle and build up speed locally before releasing - sling, bolas This category is less how you propel it and more the circular direction - and how keeping it at close proximity lets you apply force for longer to build up to full speed. The trick is that it requires a mechanism to continuously apply force to the projectile, which is a major difficulty for pressurized gas or stored tension like a bow. I'm trying to decide if Allomancy fits in category 1 or if it belongs in its own category. As I understand it, when firing a projectile it takes increasingly more force to continue to accelerate the object as the propellant must catch up to the projectile. Categories 1 and 2 involve accelerating the solid matter propelling the object to the same velocity as the projectile itself (at least locally, like the bow string) and it takes considerable energy to accelerate the propellant in this way. Category 3: pressurized gas delivers huge force initially, but as the gas expands, pressure drops, in addition to accelerating the gas particles pushing the projectile. Missiles can extend the period of acceleration but at the cost of carrying and accelerating the fuel along the duration of the trip. Categories 1, 2, and 3 require accelerating the propelling mechanism to the same speeds as the projectile which costs a significant amount of energy. Category 4 is a bit different. A railgun works based on the magnetic fields generated by a current of electricity running through two parallel rails and a sliding connector that bridges the rails. When current moves along a conductor, it creates a magnetic field perpendicular to the direction of current movement. Often this relationship is remembered with the "right-hand rule" where if you hold out your right hand and extend your thumb and curl the other fingers, the thumb points in the direction of the current and the curled fingers indicate the direction of magnetic field. The magnetic fields generated by the current running through the two parallel rails and the sliding bridge are all in opposition with each other - the rails are firmly security but the bridge is designed to slide, and slide it does along the rails towards the target. See below. From https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Railgun-1.svg As this bridge accelerates, the path of the electrical current is shifted further along the rails, and in a small manner, the electrons also must play "catch up" to move the new magnetic field generated along the rail to the new location of the bridge. The difference between this and the other methods of propulsion though, is that electrical current already moves close to the speed of light, unlike your arm, ignited gunpowder, or a bowstring. Furthermore, you can scale up the power generated to huge degrees, whereas there is only so compact a combustion driven shell can be. Because the accelerating force moves along the vector of motion, at near the speed of light, it has more time to continue to accelerate the projectile. This is why a railgun has such a high muzzle velocity, it's how you accelerate both the projectile and the matter/energy exerting the force on the projectile. Incidentally, electromagnetic acceleration should get honorable mention for IRL usage. The current king of projectile acceleration as far as I know, combines categories 4 and 5, in the particle accelerator by using electromagnetic force to accelerate particles into a circle. From CERN's websites: "At full power, trillions of protons will race around the LHC accelerator ring 11 245 times a second, travelling at 99.9999991% the speed of light." So... help me understand how this Allomantic railgun is at all like a railgun? What makes a railgun so effective is that the power basically follows along the whole "barrel/rail" of the gun and provides force for acceleration along the whole path, something that solid matter or gas has a very hard time doing. This is different from something like magnetizing a projectile and briefly turning on an extremely powerful electromagnetic to repel projectile which is how I might characterize a Steelpush, where the accelerating force does not follow the projectile along the rail. As far as I can tell, a rail setup won't do anything for Allomancy, you might as well use a baseball batting tee. Steel and Duralumin allows compression of power far beyond most charges in fire arms, and is inert (aside from Allomancy) when not in use. Steel charges can be previously calculated and adjusted on the fly, and should be readily accessible. If you're looking for high powered Allomantic projectile launchers, I'd look in this direction. @The Bookwyrm, friendly reminder that this is the Mistborn forum, not the general Cosmere board. I agree, but let's keep SA out of the discussion or in a spoiler box.

Just saying, if the argument is that the power can be replaced with conventional technology, and thus is lame, that strikes out huge swaths of media. Who needs the Hulk? Just get a demolition crew and hope that space alien holds still for the wrecking ball (which I guess basically happens in the old Fantastic Four 2 movie). Who needs Thor when you have the power grid? Hawkeye is just a guy with a bow. Captain America is basically a soldier on steroids with a cool shield. Dismissing a powerset because you can recreate it with conventional tech seems... a bit short sighted. We rarely see Sandmasters in full scale combat with full access to water, and I don't count the scene where the diem gets poisoned as they were severely penalized for using abilities. Give a squad of Sandmasters some Camelbaks and a cooler to refill, and they can do super extended jumps into enemy terrain, create sand walls around them and with practice with Overmastery can send out dozens of lethal ribbons in all directions, ribbons holding swords if need be when facing opponents with terken protection. Beyond that, Sand Mastery allows for a degree of finesse in direct manipulation that rivals the most of the best we've seen in the Cosmere. They could probably pick locks, sneak a ribbon under a door or through a keyhole and thrash the ribbon around killing most people in the room, they can sword fight from a distance by holding swords, when fighting on sand they can manipulate the ground combatants are standing on, they could probably operate guns with ribbons though not without much accuracy. Beyond this, without the distinctive clothing of a Sand Master, you can't tell if this barefoot person is about to spear you with the sand they are standing on. If electronics gets developed on Taldain, I can only imagine what a good Sand Mastered blasting will do for it. Sand blasting like this can jam up plate armor joints, find gaps in visors, go straight through chain mail, bludgeon, saw through leather, or hurl swords. Need I continue? If you think Sand Mastery is boring, spend a few minutes imagining what you could do if you had it. What you would have to do to stop an Sand Master Assassin. Terken can get you a lot, but it can't stop everything.

I've been ninja'd twice, but I'll still add in my two cents. Remember Galladon's explanation of the Dor, and how he and Raoden note that the term AonDor uses a non-Aonic term? Galladon's explanation of the Dor is perhaps surprisingly relevant and accurate considering the 3-4 other religions seen in Arelon. As Treamayne notes, the Dor doesn't only power Aons, but from a certain perspective, life on the planet. Spoilers for large scale Cosmere mechanics and the larger forces in the Cosmere. I don't remember when/where we learn this, possibly from Arcanum Unbounded, annotations, or WoBs. If you want more of a nuanced but possibly jargon heavy explanation read further. Key terms: Shard, Vessel, Realms/Realmatic theory, Investiture. If you don't recognize these terms and want to learn about them on your own then skip this,

I dunno... Hoid is fantastic at burning bridges with former associates. We have the letters in the Oathbringer epigraphs that say how many important friends he currently has helping him out, he left Sigzil to run bridges while he insulted Lighteyes and gave Kaladin a flute. Thaidakar has pointed opinions on him. Telling Dalinar that he will see Roshar burn if it will help him achieve his goals. If he is trying to gain universal support, he's going about in a really weird way. I like others assume that Hoid just knew where he was supposed to be in the way he does and that supposed to be was sheltering Kaladin so that Odium did not destroy him or gain a terrible tool by subverting Stormblessed. He definitely had a stated purpose, which was to give Kaladin a breather - it was a surprise when Kaladin asked for a story. In the end Hoid did relent and just give Kaladin straight advice, that all dark nights have an end, and that Kaladin would one day feel warm again. Full Cosmere spoilers, including secret projects: