ScadrianTank

Just wanted to point out that Allomantic Steel and Iron function similarly to Conjoiners and Reversers.

Allomancer burns the metal -> Blue lines (Connections) appear -> Allomancer pushes or pulls on a line -> Force (generated by Preservations power) is transferred through the line, making the object move.

A Conjoiner (a reverser) is created -> A Connection between the two halves exists but is not visible by the naked eye -> The halves are conjoined, the Connection snaps in place -> Conjoined halves behave as a single object, effectively allowing to transfer force.

There is no real point to this, except that using Connection manipulation, a trapped spren, and some Stormlight Bondsmiths can practically do telekinesis. 

I don't enjoy reading Shallan's chapters. When I do, it's usually because of something that happens around her, like worldbuilding and Jasnah in WoK and her interactions with Adolin and Pattern in WoR. Her quips don't do it for me and her personality issues make her PoVs difficult to read in ways I don't experience with other cosmere characters. 

Still, it's worth recognizing that we're talking opinions here, and other people don't like Dalinar and Kaladin solving problems by "sucking it up and doing things like a manly man." In a series focused on characters going through a journey of self-discovery, different and varying perspectives on that path are a must.

4 minutes ago, Eternal Khol said:

what are the implications of this?

If this WoB stays canon, Sel's timeline might get confusing. Centuries pass on the outside while decades go on Sel. I don't think it's that drastic, but still.

15 hours ago, Bejardin1250 said:

Does this mean Sels CR has Time Dilation?

It looks like it.

Quote

Jeremy

If vast amounts of Investiture can distort time in a similar manner as a black hole, [...] does that include Shards? Would time dilation be greater on Roshar than on Nalthis?

Brandon Sanderson

No, because the Shard is contained almost entirely in the Spiritual Realm. In the Spiritual Realm, time and distance have no meaning. So, what this means is: Large piles of Investiture that somehow make it into the Cognitive Realm or the Physical Realm are going to cause time dilation, but the Spiritual Realm—where it belongs—it's not going to do that.

That's gonna make some exclamation points raise above the heads of some people.

The Dusty Wheel Show (June 17, 2021)

1 hour ago, Bejardin1250 said:

I don’t know if this extends to Fuerechemy but I imagine it does:

Thanks, haven't seen that one. I wonder if he changed his mind on the matter because Kel said this in the Final Empire:

Quote

“First,” Kelsier said, “remember to burn away any unused metals you have inside of you at the end of the night. Some of the metals we use can be poisonous if digested; it’s best not to sleep with them in your stomach.”

The title pretty much says it. I get that Allomantic cadmium should be safer because the time of exposure isn't long, but having a Metalmind made of cadmium constantly in contact with the skin should still cause damage, correct? Or is there something Harmony did that protects people from toxic metal exposure?

15 hours ago, MistMage said:

I for one am excited to see Ruin unleashed upon anyone who dares attack the world where Tindwyl called home

That seems to be the problem Saze has - he can't use the powers separately - they have to be harmonized for him to do anything. With revelations in RoW, the ending of Hero of  Ages reads a bit differently. 

Quote

They could touch without destroying each other, if he willed it. For these two powers had been used to create all things. If they fought, they destroyed. If they were used together, they created.

It's a lot like when Navani and Raboniel were trying to create Warlight for the first time. If one of them pulled too much, the Rhythm couldn't find harmony. And Sazed exists in a state where if he pushes too much with only one power - he'll tear himself apart.

Any splinter created to live primarily in the Cognitive realm should theoretically be like a spren, in that it would be strongly influenced by thoughts and perception. As to why they are a thing, "God did it" seems to sum it up quite neatly. 

16 hours ago, Wyndlerunner said:

Secondly, spren already existed on Roshar pre-shattering, and I don’t think Shards can simply undo what Adonalsium did.

Which is a good argument for the original sixteen being absolutely clueless of the consequences of killing God. Makes one wonder why Honor and Cultivation even chose to settle there, given the wide range of things that might go wrong. Worried about leaving Investiture of all the Shards combined for mortals to access, maybe?

Moash hate-train has more coal in the engine than necessary, but it's not like disliking a character who goes against everything "Journey before destination" stands for is unreasonable or wrong.

And I don't really understand the whole "assassinating Elhokar was right" point, but I usually stay out of character discussions like they have a radiation warning, especially when the concept of oppression phases into a discussion, so maybe it's just me. So to me, shanking a man in the dark so that his more amiable relative can get his job, especially when that relative is also a part of the oppressors, doesn't seem like an act of a man fighting for rights, or justice, or equality. It's an act of a selfish, hateful person, and trying to justify murder done for personal reasons with their upbringing or systemic oppression doesn't change that, at least I'm my eyes.

I think that spren have some innate awareness or Forture that allows them to feel when a Shard focuses its attention on something.

7 hours ago, Chinkoln said:

How big are the ghost bloods? Mraize said they are most powerful organization in the cosmere, implying that they are immense. Mraize also gives us a chain of command.

I assume that they are not necessarily large in numbers, but the organization has a larger reach. Where the Ire rely on their knowledge of realmatics and Elantrian magic, Thaidakar doesn't rely only on the Metalic Arts, preferring instead to work with skilled natives from the planets he's interested in. Maybe thirty to fifty low-level operatives per Shardworld?

1 hour ago, The Technovore said:

This would make the compounding more balanced, since a Mistborn with F-Nicrosil would be able to briefly become stupid powerful, but not permanently and infinitely.

1 hour ago, The Technovore said:

Btw, if it turns out that normal F-Nicrosil does work this way, I'm dropping everything and immediately giving Scadrial the win. Being able to compound anyone's abilities to stupidly-high maxed-out levels with just a couple spikes/a single A-Nicrosil/F-Nicrosil Medallion trumps basically everything.

So, I don't want to toot my own horn too much, but I think that might F-nicrosil work differently with various types of Investiture.

Nicrosil part of regular medallions has the ability to use a power stored in it. Just like memories in the Copperminds, having more of the same memory doesn't improve it - you just have two copies of a thing, like copies of a file on a hard drive. So if you compound it, you don't necessarily become stronger in that ability - you get a second copy of what you already have. You can put that copy in a medallion, but you don't become the Lord Ruler by having it in you.

Compounding the Mist or Stormlight might work in the same way as other attributes since they are quantitative in nature, but memories and abilities are discrete and binary in a sense - either you have them, or you don't.

8 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

I was actually referring to Wax's ability to push on parts of a metal not just the metal in general which enables his steel bubble. where a large piece of an invested metal would be difficult to push a smaller portion of that same metal would have less investiture so might be easier to push. thus pushing the tip of a shardblade has the possibility of working and deflecting attacks. A small point on shardplate has an even greater chance of working. Of course a steel compounder would have both the finesse and power to potentially toss a Radiant in armor all over the place and to strip them of the Shardblade over and over or if it didn't just dissolve use it against them if they had enough metal.

I'm not sure that the blade's tip is distinct enough from the rest of it for this to work, even if we assume that an Allomancer can affect a small piece of a Godmetal. Kelsier could push and pull on ends of the metal rods in the Final Empire, but he already could see them with steel sight. So even if we assume that an Allomancer could do the same thing as Wax did in the prologue of BoM and split a sword into multiple blue lines, with one pointing at a tip, to do this with a Shardblade it would have to have a blue line in a first place. 

1 hour ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

So affecting metals inside someone seems to be a distinct possibility with the Bands, though seeing as Marasi notes how quickly the stores are used up a few seconds or so after she starts tapping you probably couldn't sustain that level of power for long.

The book seems to imply that the increase in Allomantic power will run out. I speculated a bit on why that is the case in a different topic, but as it stands, Scadrians don't have a way to create medallions with Bands level strength without it running out.

Quote

His resources were diminishing. Not merely the metals inside of him, but the reserves stored inside the Bands. Stores that changed his level of Investiture.

However, I think that in the scene you quoted, Marasi primarily meant Feruchemichal attributes other than nicrosil. Wax later notes that she tapped out nearly all body speed when she went supersonic.

Quote

His speed of body was nearly tapped out – Marasi must have used that in getting to him – so yes, Suit would have time, though would he actually do it?

17 minutes ago, Frustration said:

blood and water are the same essence

I mean, sure. That doesn't necessarily mean that an attractor with a rainspren in a garnet would attract the same substances as an alespren or acidspren. 

18 minutes ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

For instance the battlefield dehumidifier (water attractor) used in WoR, where Navani worries that they might have tuned it wrongly and that it might suck the blood out of their soldiers, we've never seen this happen, but we know it's a real possibility and you could deliberately make a blood attractor to, say, drop on an enemy position like a bomb.

Identity and perception shenanigans might prevent that from ever happening with this design of fabrial. As spanreeds take into account "frame of reference" because of how the spren perceives its surroundings, water attractor might only work with liquid in the air and pools, lakes, rivers, and so on that are in its reach. 

Now, because blood is one of the essences, you might be able to create a blood-sucking fabrial bomb, but you would have to use a lot more Stormlight to push through the resistance of a human body. Like an Allomancer has to be more powerful to push on metals inside a body.

On 05.06.2021 at 9:13 AM, The Technovore said:

Something to consider is the sheer amount of investiture that apparently can be stored in metal. Wax had two arms bracers that together--not quite full--gave him the weight of a building in AoL. 

In Wax's case, it's not that he had a lot of weight stored - it's that he drew all of it at once. As Kel said in the Final Empire "Feruchemists don’t have that kind of limitation; if a Feruchemist had enough strength stored up to be twice as strong as normal for an hour, he could choose instead to be three times as strong for a shorter period of time — or even four, five, or six times as strong for even shorter periods." So, theoretically, if tapping at high rates didn't result in a loss of Investiture, you could store weight for an hour, then kill your planet by becoming too massive for a fraction of a second.

On 05.06.2021 at 9:13 AM, The Technovore said:

Apparently, metalminds can get dense with Investiure, so while making Investiture-resistant armor with Feruchemy is plausible, filling up that much metal is gonna take a LOT of power.

I don't think that using Feruchemy allows creating objects really dense with Investiture except maybe with F-nicrosil. Metalminds can be full, and they don't show any signs of change in physical appearance when they are, where Nightblood and Vivenna's blade do

On 05.06.2021 at 8:49 AM, Dancer said:

I don't think Marsh ever had A-Duralumin during Era 1. 

He did. Epigraph from chapter 72 of HoA:

Quote

Yes, there are sixteen metals. I find it highly unlikely that the Lord Ruler did not know of them all. Indeed, the fact that he spoke of several on the plates in the storage caches meant that he knew at least of those.

I must assume that he did not tell mankind of them earlier for a reason. Perhaps he held them back to give him a secret edge, much as he kept back the single nugget of Preservation's body that made men into Mistborn.

Or, perhaps he simply decided that mankind had enough power in the ten metals they already understood. Some things we shall never know. Part of me still finds what he did regrettable. During the thousand-year reign of the Lord Ruler, how many people were born, Snapped, lived, and died never knowing that they were Mistings, simply because their metals were unknown?

Of course, this did give us a slight advantage, at the end. Ruin had a lot of trouble giving duralumin to his Inquisitors, since they'd need an Allomancer who could burn it to kill before they could use it. And, since none of the duralumin Mistings in the world knew about their power, they didn't burn it and reveal themselves to Ruin. That left most Inquisitors without the power of duralumin, save in a few important cases—such as Marsh—where they got it from a Mistborn. This was usually considered a waste, for if one killed a Mistborn with Hemalurgy, one could draw out only one of their sixteen powers and lost the rest. Ruin considered it much better to try to subvert them and gain access to all of their power.

As a side note, I'm disappointed that there were no jokes or references from Kalak about bronze.

4 minutes ago, Frustration said:

and there was no halfay about it.

I meant in the middle of the fight, sorry.

2 hours ago, Bejardin1250 said:

Then what’s your idea?

I don't really have anything better. The last line I added to my KoW predictions doc is "TOdium will make Vyre his avatar." And it would be fine as just a big battle, similar to Vin's last fight in HoA, where she Ascended halfway through, a duel between Ascended Dalinar and Odium's avatar would be big and flashy. But it doesn't have any emotional impact on us, the readers, or Dalinar himself because, at this point, Moash is just an evil dude. It's actually worse because it robs us of a potential resolution of Moash and Kaladin. Same thing with Szeth, he is a significant threat, but it would just be a magical fight. Adolin could be a great foil for Dalinar, but he doesn't have magical powers to oppose a Bondsmith. 

If a duel that was foreshadowed as far as book 1 will be undermined by Odium just throwing a five-year-old at Dalinar, I'm gonna riot. There have to be other ways of bringing Dalinar low that don't involve children as opponents. 

1 hour ago, bmcclure7 said:

 That doesn't really work with his plan to reset the oathpack.  And we have no guarantee that's what is actually happening to the Spren.

He only mentioned resetting the Oathpack when he was sane, so they aren't necessarily connected.

2 minutes ago, Honorless said:

Probably not, we have this WoP:

Okay, that changes things. Never seen this before.

2 minutes ago, Mage said:

In response to your Weird Thing #2, I don't think that all Shards exist in everything, at least not always. Once they invest in a planet, their Investiture is physically there. Ruin and Preservation however, permeate all of Scadrial, because it was their essence that created it in the first place.

Quote

Walin

Does Nightblood contain any of Ruin's Investiture? Like, not atium, but...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, technically; and I'm not wiggling around that, because technically, location in the Cosmere and who belongs to what gets really weird, right? Because Ruin's Investiture is everywhere--but I'm not talking that way. I'm talking the way you actually mean it. 

Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018)

The way I think about it is: Adonalsium created the whole cosmere, and Shards are all pieces of Big A. If Ruin and Preservation permeate all of Scadrial, Adonalsium permeates all of everything in the cosmere.

12 minutes ago, Mage said:

But I like your visualization about the focus and radius.

Thanks!

4 minutes ago, Honorless said:

Should note though, Adonalsium probably didn't create the universe, only the Cosmere, which is a relatively small star cluster.

From the WoBs about some Shard trying to leave the cosmere, I got an impression that this dwarf galaxy is all that exists in this universe.

Odium actively doing things on Roshar while imprisoned on Braize made an impression on me, it seems. So, here goes.

Weird things about Shards:

1. How do you steal power from a Shard?
2. How do you imprison an entity that exists in everything?
3. What does it mean for a Shard to use up their mind instead of power?
4. How do Shads move if they exist primarily in the Spiritual Realm?
5. If Shards have a limited reach, how did Adonalsium created a universe?
6. How is Odium able to reach Roshar?

An analogy that works in my mind is a Shard as an infinite lake of power, with its consciousness in a "center" and somewhat mixed with a visualizing gravity video. Shards bend that plane with its presence. The Vessel can only manipulate things in a radius around that center. When it bends that plane a little, that radius extends a little less than its length, but when it bends that plane a lot, that radius extends only so far as the "walls" of the depression in the plane. So a Shard that is less Invested, or not Invested at all, in a place can reach further, and a Shard that is more heavily Invested has a smaller reach.

1.Preservation stealing Ruin's power - Preservation created a channel, a river if you will, that constantly diverted a part of Ruin's Investiture to the Pits of Hathsin. That would be the reason why atium was constantly growing.

2,3. Preservation using its mind to trap Ruin - he hadn't really used it but diverted a large part of his consciousness to automatically push back on Ruin. In computer terms, he dedicated all cores of his processor but one to a single task. 

4.Shard movement - they shift the point where their presence is concentrated, which changes the area where they can affect things. 

5.Cosmere Big Bang - so, theoretically, if a Shard was fully present, it couldn't reach anything outside itself, and if it was not present at all, it would have infinite reach. So before Adonalsium created the cosmere, it wasn't Invested at all and could do anything. And after they made the universe, their reach diminished. 

6.Odium's long hands - the depression in a plane is caused by three Shards and three heavily Invested planets together. Basically, they share a pit.

Do Oaths, avatars, and Sel fit in all this madness? Not really, just like different things I forgot about, but I wouldn't forgive myself if I had written it all without posting it.

Somehow I read the title as "Ishar is trying to making new friends", and it sounds adorable. 

I don't think he wants to make new Heralds but make himself into a physical being.