Trusk'our

Given that aluminum is supposed to become extremely cheap come era 3, will Emotional Allomancy become largely useless for sneaky exploits? It doesn't feel like anyone taking serious actions with two functioning neurons would choose not to keep some aluminum around their head to prevent manipulation. So, does this mean Emotional Allomancers will become the new Gnats, seen useful only for their abilities in Soothing parlors?

I think era 3 may have a deeper dive done into the mechanics of the Metallic Arts and Resonances in particular. Thanks! Yes, I think that would be a natural outcropping of their Surges. Dalinar might be able to boost Kaladin's Resonance to allow for a whole battlefield to start swearing oaths to win over a tough fight, for example. Hmm, he is a lot more skilled in those metals, but I think it's mostly just a matter of skill there, not necessarily the product of a Resonance or Savantism. The Resonances that appear in Mistborn and other individuals with many powers tend to get diminished, ironically. Though, since Resonances come into play as you use the powers enough, a Mistborn who was only aware of or intentionally only used a few might still develop a more unique and prominent Resonance (like how era 1 Mistborn only knew of Allomantic 10 metals). I thought they were pretty neat! And just considering the sheer number of possible Twinborn combinations, I'm really hoping we learn some guidelines for what determines what they do.

Cognitive Shadows don't seem to age in most cases, only when perception would drive it. Yumi spoilers, in case you haven't read it: It's also definitely weird that TLR wasn't able to maintain agelessness through the sheer amount of Investiture he bore by burning metals with his super-Allomamcy. This could simply be a matter of the amount available, as neither Metalborn nor Surgebinders carry much over extended periods of time. I suspect there's more to it though. I think it's possible that Heightenings really only occur when you carry Investiture in large amounts and that Investiture has no specific job given to it. This would help explain why Kinetic Investiture does not provide agelessness, and why Rashek still needed to Compound Atium despite his abnormal level of Allomantic potential or Bondsmiths plugging massive hunks of power into their Spiritwebs. We have confirmation on who Thaidakar is. Which books have you read again? I don't think it's explicitly stated in the text, but I don't want to spoil to much for you just in case.

Unlikely, I would think. Have you read Mistborn Secret History? Spoilers:

Welcome to the Shard! For future reference, topics like this that discuss Cosmere-wide phenomenon are generally best posted in the Cosmere Discussion Forum. That way no spoiler boxes are needed. Stormlight Archive spoilers: Hope this helps!

Nice! Mistborn is definitely my favorite series. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Welcome to the Shard! Overall, sounds like a good theory to me. I suspect the actual words spoken for the Windrunner's 5th oath will be along the lines of "I will protect", but like Skybreakers will have a lot more entailed within. Taking the training wheels off as you put it, as they've progressed enough to determine how to protect. Other Orders will probably have something similar, where they grow to embody and have full control over their virtues, though with it comes an even greater responsibility to use it correctly. Also, it would be great to get to know you a bit better if you want to post a little more about yourself on the introduction Forum.

Been thinking on Resonances and Savantism lately, and I wanted to compose another working theory on what they actually are and therefore how interactions with them could go. We know from WoBs that Savantism is caused by a warping and damaging of the Spiritweb, widening the cracks to allow more Investiture through. It's also interesting to know that sufficiently warped Spiritwebs can affect how Hemalurgy interacts with it, as the base attributes are effected. Resonances, I'm thinking, are more like an organic merging of multiple Investitures into one. You gain a Resonance over time by using two or more Invested powers. My thinking for this is that as you use the powers the Investiture Connects your Spiritweb and the power more and more. This results in something of a bond, much like the bonds held between Singers and Lesser Spren, albeit less powerfully. This is also supported by the fact that Hemalurgically granted powers cannot usually generate Resonances, though Savantism through Hemalurgic powers can work. I think while Ruin's Intent seems to suppress Resonance growth (possibly by adding a layer of separation between your Spiritweb and the spike's that isn't naturally present in Allomancy or Feruchemy), it won't stop your Spiritweb from getting warped. This suggests if you Hemalurgically spike a power or attribute away from the Resonance bearer, you won't gain the Resonance or any extra effects because the parts aren't changed significantly, only the whole. In any case, I think there are a couple ways to utilize these mechanisms if they prove true. If a Twinborn were given an Unsealed Duraluminmind that allowed them to store and tap the Connection between their powers and their Spiritweb, I think they could weaken and augment their Resonance. A Twinborn with natural duralumin Feruchemy could also be interesting, as influencing and boosting their Resonance would come as part of their package. Similarly, a Full Feruchemist might be able to store Connection to their powers to selectively gain Resonances between them as they choose, maybe even using F-nicrosil to boost the raw potential of that Resonance (as more Investiture for the power seems to effect its level of expression, if Surgebinder Resonances are to be taken into account). A Mistborn could be similar, though they need spikes or Unsealed Metalminds to help them. It also might be that if you could overcome the Connection issue with Hemalurgic spikes you could develop Resonances. For example, if you were to have the donors for the powers tap Connection to you while excising the powers, you might be able to generate functional Resonances. Speaking of Hemalurgy, I wonder if there's a more extreme effect you could produce by utilizing power spikes. If Connecting Invested powers to your Spiritweb brings small but noticeable transformative effects, if you placed a power spike into the correct Bindpoint perhaps you could generate a Resonance-esc effect instead of it acting as a power. Basically using a power spike as an attribute instead. Perhaps comparable to how Singers bond Spren, though using different means. This last hypothesis is definitely the most extreme (and admittedly least likely to work), but at the very least I suspect meddling with Connection can significantly influence how Resonances are accessed and used.

From a videogame point of view, I think Ruin would likely be the terrible sibling who always tries to delete your Minecraft worlds.

Indeed they are, though unfortunately not a ton is known about them yet. I don't think that this is Wax's Resonance. We seen a second Coinshot with this bubble ability in BoM (in the train fight), and considering that there have only been three Crashers recorded in Scadrial's history, I think it unlikely that they were one as well. I think Wax's Resonance Resonance boosts his skill with his aim, as he's made seemingly impossible shots and very difficult shots consistently (most notably shooting one of his bullets midair to ricochet it behind Marasi and into the head of Tarson). This seems like a reasonable take. We don't know the exact mechanics of how Resonances boost your traits, but since the Spiritweb seems to be nothing more than Investiture bound by Connections, Identity, and Fortune, Connection is probably the manipulated trait. Not sure, though given that a significantly altered Spiritweb can impact your attributes for Hemalurgy, I would think it's plausible. Don't know, but it probably depends on the severity of their Spiritweb differences. Also don't know about this one. Hopefully we'll learn more abound Resonance mechanics in Era 3 Mistborn. I believe it would impact it, yes. More Innate Investiture is present in Radiants (more actual Investiture from their powers) and the Ars Arcanum makes it clear that their Resonances are more noticeable and impactful than Twinborn Resonances. The change made to the Spiritweb by Resonances take time to show up, where it seems you have to actually use the powers, let the Investiture flow through you. For example, if Wax were to use the Bands of Mourning, he'd develop a new Resonance between abilities and the Bands over time. However, based on how Mistborn and Full Feruchemists have very weak Resonances, I think the sheer number of powers provided by the Bands would wash out any usefulness from this. So, I don't think you can functionally gain multiple Resonances, at least not as it's currently understood. You might be able to hold multiple for a time by obtaining and using new powers, but I suspect as your old Resonance isn't maintained it will fade as a new Resonance develops. I do think, however, you could track the Spiritweb alterations made by bearing a Resonance somehow, then replicate the effects through another method, such as a tweaked Metalmind or Hemalurgic spike. I also find it worth adding that you cannot Hemalurgically generate Resonances (most of the time), nor steal Savantism's perks. Which is weird, since it can take basically anything bound to the Spiritweb, even certain bindings by oath. As such, there is a possibility that Resonances are something built purely out of a power's direct interactions with the rest of the Spiritweb. You probably can't take those interactions, though you could take the powers themselves. Similarly, Savantism is more of a change to your own Spiritweb and how it interacts with the power than the power itself, so Hemalurgy cannot steal that, though you can replicate it by using the stolen power enough. Hemalurgy specifically may also prevent Resonance generation by putting up a barrier between the Spike's Spiritweb and your own (also preventing genetic powers from affecting your progeny). Shards can theoretically do nearly anything that can be done, even reversing Savantism, so I don't think this is outside the realm of plausibility. Have you read the WaT spoilers? Here's a little excerpt from a relevant one, with very few spoilers except for Shallan's interaction with Pattern and Testament. Overall though, these are great questions! There's a lot of flexibility in what could happen here, I suspect, though we won't know until we can read and find out.

This is a concept I've presented before, albeit only in passing and without much thought put into it. After going through my thread musing on what exactly Identity is, I believe it is a sort of frequency that Spiritwebs and, more generally, organized Investiture vibrate to. Identity is integral to Investiture being able to direct itself- with it comes autonomy, removing it makes it easier to be acted upon. Interestingly enough, while most forms of Investiture develop an Identity over time, there seem to be examples of organized Investiture that lose their Identity over time. The Komashi Nightmares, for example, are Cognitive Shadows with little Identity, which probably explains why they can be controlled by the Father Machine and merge into an amalgamous cloud of Investiture. Furthermore, it seems that Shades' Identity decays over time, shown in their outlines and features blurring over the years. In fact, I think it's quite likely that the "Deepest Ones" are something like the shroud in Yumi, being a conglomeration of old Shades who's Identities have decayed enough to let them function as one entity. With all this in mind, I hypothesize Hemalurgic spikes may have something similar going on, where the individual Spiritweb fragments decay over time, which also leads to their Identities decaying. This might have been at least part of what caused Era 1 Koloss to retain more and more intelligence over time. As their spikes' Identities decayed over generations, the imposed, damaging Identity interference with their own Spiritwebs was reduced. Moving forward with this concept, I think that there are some possibilities to leverage this mechanism for improved Hemalurgic performance. For example, let's say you normally get about 80-85% of the Investiture of a Metalborn's power when charging a spike. If you allowed it to decay to something like 40%, perhaps it would retain functionality while not having enough Identity to interfere with other Hemalurgic charges. Forge three spikes of the same power together, and now you have something more like 100-120% power, possibly better than a natural Metalborn power. In fact, you might not even need to forge spikes. The Set proved you can put multiple Spiritweb fragments into a single spike, even though they will conflict. If you have 25 separate fragments decaying outside a body, you might only need them to sit around long enough to breech their individual Identity threshold before suddenly merging into a functional whole. I think there's also the possibility that if a spike's Identity weakens naturally, you could plausibly give a natural Metalborn an Allomantic compliment to their Feruchemy or vice versa, letting you Compound. It would be less efficient than a natural Compounder (natural Feruchemists burning each unit of metal for less Investiture and natural Allomancers tapping less efficiently), but would still have some use. In any case, this is still all hypothetical, but I'm curious as to what people's thoughts are- what they agree on, what they disagree with, and anything else to add.

Welcome to the Shard! This is a pretty fascinating idea, and actually might lead to some interesting info should it be looked into by the Rosharans. I will mention though, this thread is pretty old. Please be aware that posting on old threads is disliked by the moderators as opinions and knowledge change over time. For future reference, if you would like to continue a discussion on an old topic it is usually best to start a new thread. Again, welcome to the Shard! Hope to see you on the introduction forum, if you're willing.

There is a WoB talking about this a bit, saying that some of it was an exaggeration, but for what it's worth Miles shows that a gold Savant can absolutely survive serious brain trauma and come back. So, beheading probably wouldn't end him, but getting burned to ash probably would, in my opinion.

Welcome to the Shard! Which magic system is your favorite?

Welcome to the Shard! What books have you read of the Cosmere thus far? Of the magic systems you've read about, which one is your favorite and why?

The only example we have of this sort of interaction is in SoS, where Wayne puts up a Speed Bubble to match Bleeder's steel Feruchemy, allowing Wax to pelt her with shotgun rounds. We don't really have a real estimate for how quickly tapping causes a boost, but it seems instant for most intents and purposes. If it's a matter of reaction time, the first to speed up should have the upper hand. But, if it comes down to a 1v1 fight I'd say a prepared Steelrunner will always have a massive advantage over a prepared Slider. The Slider cannot attack effectively outside of their bubble without just spraying bullets everywhere randomly, and once the bubble is set it will take a few seconds before it can be set again. Furthermore, if the Steelrunner is inside the Slider's bubble at any time they get that on top of their own speed boost, effectively negating that advantage for the Slider.

Glad I could help! I think once they know about aluminum's protective properties they can begin Soulcasting replacements for Urithiru's defenses. And if I recall correctly Navani and Raboniel talked about aluminum's properties, so Jasnah will probably work on the issue soon. As for Wit, it's possible that he didn't know about the aluminum being removed, though he does tend to know a lot so I wouldn't put it past him to have seen it.

You cannot Soulcast existing aluminum into another substance due to its Investiture resistance, but you can Soulcast another substance into aluminum (referenced in chapter 48 of WoR and further supported by this WoB).

How do we do that again? I've got a few questions I don't think are RAFO worthy, but would be useful for figuring stuff out.

We don't have a lot of info on it right now other than the fact that 5 eras are now planned as of April 2024. I think you're right that Hoid will also play a significant roll in Era 5 (previously Era 4, as given in this WoB) as well. Dragonsteel is supposed to be written first, likely to fully flesh out his character's background before giving him a larger spotlight. That in mind, I think it's likely he won't be the main character, though his roll will surely be far more significant than previously. It's also worth noting that Era 5 will be sort of a knot-tying series, with significant Cosmere relevance and not just Scadrial.

Ooh, new lore on @alder24! Didn't know Warbreaker was your favorite, I always pinned you as a Mistborn kind of person.

Based on the Stormlight quote, that's probably right. That limits some of its use, but it would still certainly be powerful in the right scenarios.

True, Hemalurgic cookies don't usually taste terribly good. Also, while Hemalurgy is probably my favorite Metallic Art, it's probably never going to be a "good" magic. Just too many ways to abuse it with little effort. Still interesting though, and the few times it is used for good are pretty neat, I think.

Nice! Mistborn was my first Sanderson book too, and the series is my favorite of all time. What do you think of each Metallic Art? Gotta choose chouta too. It just sounds tasty (though not healthy).

Makes sense to me. Using zinc might be like getting answers to "click" in your head with less conscious thought- you might not need to lay out a complex mathematical equation to determine when exactly a ball will hit a target when thrown, you can just work it out subconsciously, kind of like how Sazed was able to predict the trajectory of a thrown lantern during his confrontation with Marsh in WoA. Adding an idea to this thread I've been pondering, how far does the real benefit of zinc go for your usual mental computations? Like, let's say you sit a Sparker down with a difficult engineering problem and ask them to solve it, requiring them to come up with a new and creative solution. If they spent a week without tapping mental speed, would they make more or less progress than if they decided to instead spend 6 days storing and 1 day tapping? Due to compression loss it seems obvious that the Sparker using their powers would actually be way less effective at their job, but we have an example in gold Feruchemy of the Investiture focusing the attribute way better than normal- Wayne spending about two weeks in bed to recover from multiple bullet wounds, a drink of poison, and an explosion, all while not suffering from scars. And no amount of time spent healing through natural means would equal being able to regenerate your lost fingers either, which Bloodmakers can do with relative ease. I guess I'm just wondering, would zinc Feruchemy be similar? Maybe it would focus the attribute more, making certain tasks much, much easier, maybe even allowing cognitive breakthroughs in engineering, medicine, or Investiture better. Just some more thoughts.