DoctaDajman

Yeah, it would be powerful to have emotional allomancers as leaders within squads or armies. We see it to great effect in the battle for Luthedel if I remember correctly. Mistborn are so versatile that I sometimes feel they are wasted as mere assassins and powerhouses on the battlefield. My favorite thoughts of mistborn in the newer era as just how busted they would be as commanders on the field. They offer a tremendous amount of control. From emotional allomancy to crowd control options with steel and iron to being individual monsters with pewter and even the time bubble manipulation. Cadmium bubbles are big enough to cause mass confusion of an oncoming army. The enemy charging at blurring speed to the people in the bubble means that as each well spaced row of soldiers enters your bubble they are getting speared and trampled by the rows behind them. Vin dancing over the battlefield was super cool to read about. Don't get me wrong. But they aren't immortal and a smart leader could probably get more out of a mistborn by utilizing its ability to control a battlefield than simply by sending it to act as an army of one.

These powers are so slept on. The Mistborn novels were all written with more political and social intrigue I feel like. When in physical combat losing is more of a permanent issue I feel like. The plot armor wins out... there is something about reading about political and social jousts that have always made me think of more long term and impactful consequences to the story line vs a fight scene. Thus getting caught using those powers always seemed to be higher risk. If you are fighting in a battle and you need pewter to win then you use it and everything's good. Even if your opponent knows you have it in the future it's not going to destroy your ability to function in society and make everyone question everything about you forever... you just get strong. But being a rioter or a soother paints a massive target on your back and wrecks your credibility (or at least that is what we were shown in the mistborn books so far). Vin proves just how powerful it can be against Straff. We are talking about a man who is completely versed in what is happening as well right? He knew what she was doing which theoretically should have made it less effective for anything other than shock and awe as well. But he was entirely crippled by the attack. Not to mention he too was a powerful allomancer (and if anticipating an assault was likely actively burning which should make him even more invested in that moment). As @Quantus said, the bigger assault to a fuzed / singer would likely be a strong coppercloud though. I have wondered in the past that perhaps rioting and soothing are attached in part to rhythms. So for a race that always hears them, would a singer / fuzed be more or less susceptible to rioting and soothing baseline regardless of Investiture level? Regardless of what emotional allomancy does the coppercloud would cut them off of a sense entirely. Like losing your sight... they also communicate and coordinate their attacks and efforts through rhythms right? In the end... we have seen emotional allomancy mostly used intentionally in highly subtle ways with the risk being getting found out... if employed as a weapon with no fear of the repercussions for using it on the battlefield... I think it could easily be the difference between victory and death. Very similar to Vasher vs Denth. I think people really underestimate the importance of every second in a fight. Think of how effective a sucker punch is. Think how much more effective that could be as a free shot with a blade or weapon? When you blast someone with emotional allomancy that's what you buy yourself. It's just boring to read.

So copper can block lifesense per wob. Now I would like to hear thoughts on awakened items. Most items sense the world through something like inquisitors steel sight but Nightblood doesn't just see... he almost has a lifesense as well. What objects do you think would be interfered with by copper allomancy and which ones do you think would work perfectly normally? Is there an in-between? A portion of the awakening process that may not take hold quite like the awakener wants or a sense that is dulled making an awakened object less able to function as intended? Likewise... copper blocks lifesense, and I imagine would likely hide biochromatic aura of, at the very least, the coppercloud. Do you think a copper allomancer could hide the aura of other awakeners in his coppercloud? Its hard to picture a room full of awakeners who can't sense through lifesense but they all still recognize eachothers aura and can recognize eachothers hieghtening. But perhaps this is exactly how it would work? I initially imagined copperclouds basically making everyone drab until I remembered the aura. What are yalls thoughts?

I hadn't thought of the discomfort that would be from simply getting a face full of the grit. I was merely thinking of the eyes and the pain there as well as the inability to focus up. A fine dust or sand blast to the face in general could absolutely wreck the respiratory system. I have a hard time envisioning the way healing works in the cosmere. Would it bypass all natural defense systems as the investiture simply removes the bad in whatever way it needs to? I think there would necessarily be some form of physiological action to cough up and expell whatever irritant is in there, even if investiture is making it move more easily. I can't imagine the magic marching out a slurry of sandy mud up the mucosa and over all of the sensitive areas without triggering cough or gag reflexes to expell it. In a conflict where every action needs to be met with a reaction, it seems to me that the extra blinks to clear the sand, the extra cough or gag, would make for a clear advantage regardless of the healing that could be taking place. Hundreds of foreign bodies in the eyes nose and mouth, would still need to be cleared out to prevent the body from going through the natural physiological efforts of removing it. I had no idea that thing existed. That is dope. My love for Darts is that you can make them work within a tube and still gain the advantages of using nice broadhead mechanics for maximum penetration. If a dart can be used from a blowgun for hunting I figure a scaled up version with zephyr would be probable. The rockets sound interesting.

Yeah I think that is more what I was envisioning. Carrying an air compressor around and powering it constantly would be a paint. Being able to simply fuel your own pneumatic weapons systems on the go without the need for fuel and power sources. To be fair.... if you just want to shoot something, I dont see any air rifle competing with good old fashion firearms anyways. There are options that could be quite powerful still yet. Blow guns and Darts are effective. How much could you scale up the weight of a dart using zephyr aether? And if your dart kept an aluminum tip far enough down the shaft and away from the air then perhaps the aether being used to launch it would be less effected by the Aluminum itself. Basically make a repeating harpoon gun (worth testing with aluminum).

Is there are system of air entrainment that could produce enough pressure to move the particles to make it work? Even if the aether itself were to not impact aluminum, wouldn't a jet of aether being used to start entrainment of other air and particles be enough to move it? Also there could be that the other sand particles could pick up and send the aluminum depending on how much of it is in the mixture. It makes me wonder about aluminum shot in an air rifle being powered by zephyr. The aether may not push the aluminum but you could still launch slugs if you had a wad in the barrel. The aether would only need to effect the wad between itself and the aluminum to launch the aluminum projectile. So if I can generate a massive pressurized jet of aether that entrains a bunch of other air and passes over the mixture of sand then the sand plus the additional air that isnt be powered by aether should work. Similarly... if aether were used to drive air compression then wouldn't that compressed air still work for it? My ideas and what makes me excited about zephyr is that the aether can simply be used to power so many devices.

I thought silver destroyed aether but aluminum continues simply being immune to investiture. Like you can't push aluminum but you can throw it. In my mind, at least, there is a big difference in using investiture to move aluminum and using investiture to affect the thing moving aluminum. Tiny particulates of aluminum may disrupt a field to some effect but once they are airborne they still are effected by the laws of physics. In this case it is a tube feeding into another tube with sand / dust / aluminum all mixed together sitting at the edge of the tube. The air that is shot through the tube would simply create the negative pressure needed to entrain those particulates up into the flow and shoot them out. The beauty of zephyr in this instance is that you can use a small amount of pressurized aether and entrain in more air that is not influenced by investiture at all to create the effect. Its how we use Venturi Masks in the hospital or other air entrainment devices to turn 15lpm of O2 flow into 80lpm of high flow aerosol.

So an aluminum boomerang like Sokka's could be a legitimate weapon choice for a zephyr aetherbound. Sick. Combined with a mindset allowing you to fight dirty this could be a nasty opponent.

My thoughts were that aether not staying connected to the aetherbound in the right atmosphere turn to dust or whatever. So I was under the impression that you likely couldn't control it beyond contact and thus it would dissipate and quickly just become air with no lasting change. If it can be controlled beyond touch then I think it becomes even more powerful and my ideas are way limiting its power. The windwall is a solid idea.

Yeah I imagined the sand would get pushed out of the eye itself but thought it would only be to the surface level causing each new blink to to mess it up. Trapped in the eyelid if you will. But aluminum dust is brilliant. You wouldn't even need it to all be aluminum. Just a % of its mixed with the other dust to carry it and cut cost. Just a couple flecks of aluminum in the eyes would be effective for nearly blinding your opponent. Nice thought.

Wayne points out in TLM that healing suffocation and strangulation take up a lot of gold storage. I assume it is because the healing cant fix the underlying condition. I was thinking about a rigged zephyr aether sandblaster and it makes me wonder how effective it would be against invested healers... Now sandblasting could absolutely devastate flesh. This would likely be grown back by most forms of healing that we have seen. But what if instead of using it to main and cause mortal injuries that will be healed back it was instead deployed at range targeting the face. How well would the Spiritual Realm workings of invested healing contend with the constant presence of sand in ones eyes? The healing would fix up the trauma caused by it eye blink by eye blink but the irritation and bodies natural tearing up would likely still exist until you removed the sand similarly to Not Wayne's body continuing to need more and more gold healing while being suffocated. Until you fix the outside issue the healing can only do so much. I think this plays into similar ideas as @alder24s awakened swarm and such. I find joy in such simple, yet potentially terrifyingly effective tactics within what may be viewed as weaker arts.

I was just watching some videos on Vortex cannons and large air rifles and my mind locked onto and remembered the idea of zephyr aether. The ability to create and control air could be pretty dang awesome. My first thought was flight but then I wonder how do you shape air? It doesnt really hold its shape right? So if creating air as aether, do you suppose you could control its form and the way it is being created? Obvious options for weapons systems involving air are air rifles. Some tube that you have developed a psuedo magazine for and you just create air double time within it might net you a decent rate of fire. Some divers carry knives that shoot out CO2 when they are activated to not only pierce but create some good air embolisms. Barotrauma would be the other one. Like blasts from explosions, barotrauma is basically the pressure changes so rapidly that the body cant change fast enough to compensate. Popped lungs, brain bleeds, burst eardrums and even bulging eyes and blindness... all brutal effects of barotrauma. Perhaps simply creating a large enough puff of air would do this. Range would not be your friend here. You need to be close. Do you think Zephyr aether could control the type of gas they are creating? Could you create CO and pump it into a room giving carbonmonoxide poisoning to the inhabitants? Could you create pure O2 and make a poor mans blood doping to boost your own performance? Sand blaster. A tiny tube hooked up to a bag of sand using the venturi effect for air entrainment making a sand blaster? Absolutely capable of peeling the skin off of any target. Its all kind of brutal ideas but I think there may be even more that a tinkerer could do with something like Zephyr aether and I would welcome any thoughts of uses. Big question... What do you see as working defensively for Zephyr Aether?

I think Riino's experience is the only one close. The vivid world I give. I won't argue it anymore though. Sadly for Warbreaker and awakeners, the most fascinating parts of that system are passively handed to others in the cosmere with such little regard for them that they aren't even named or discussed beyond a single passage. I concede it and am left to wonder how the Heralds haven't ended their war yet. Trapped in an endless hellscape where it is only in the necessity for story writing that they are still fighting the same fight 6000 years later. With surges that can insta 1 shot an entire planet being direct conduits with the Spiritual Realm and the fact that they can't manage to get it together enough to end the Final desolation. How is it that they need to raise armies at all? Simply sever connection to life of all the entities you deem unworthy of existance. Simply soulcast the entire fused army into smoke and nuke those around them. Vacuum seal the whole of Roshar and call it a good day. It is the fuel of my hatred for the Stormlight Archives. The reason I can't read more than I have. Rool of cool goes to far with power creep and the entire plot becomes pointless.

So is it new cannon or mentioned anywhere at all that a Herold or other invested being has life sense and the ability to sense the world in a way that is so central to Awakenings existence? Maybe I missed it but I don't recall a single PoV from anyone other than those with biochromatic breaths sensing the innate investiture and very life of the grass and everything organic around them. Add in the 7th heightening and it is static investiture as well! I'm not saying it is impossible. If there is a quote from any non biochromatic breath holder describing sensing the world around them in that way (I would exclude dawnshards as well)... to the point of knowing when someone is looking just at them vs past them... I will gladly concede the whole point. Until then I have to think of acquiring this specific sense as having the same profound effect on anyone who existed without it to someone born blind and then suddenly being able to see in noon day. I don't care how invested anyone is... being able to see for the first time ever is going to cause you to skip a few beats.

I don't know if there is a better way to explain this. The type of investiture matters. Kaladin is mistaken for having a heightening because he is invested and creates a slightly higher aura but he doesn't have any of the effects of having the heightening's. If everyone experienced perfected sensations like biochromatic breaths give then it would be noted somewhere. Even if we granted something akin to perfect pitch and color recognition to the dawnshard it is not the same as having the lifesense and invested breath recognition. Hoid is extremely invested as well... but he mentions perfect pitch to Kaladin in a nod towards having enough biochromatic breath to be the 2nd heightening. So no, simply being the most invested being outside of the godking does not and would not equate to having the same sensory effects of the heightening's. Vasher does use the trick and he doesn't skip a beat. He is prepared and knows he is going to enter drab mode. He knows it. The fact that it works on another Returned is proof of how effective it is. It was only hundreds of breaths that caught Denth by surprise and I am suggesting tens of thousands! Huge difference. Further I don't believe for a second that getting rid of the breath and then reloading quickly after that would cause the same shock any more than your eyes needing to readjust to the light after closing them for a few seconds. But for someone who has never experienced that it would absolutely overload their system. Like a frog in a pot of water.... If you were sleeping well in a darkened room and someone came in shouting and opened up the curtains to noon day you wouldn't be able to function until everything adjusted. But you can blink in the middle of noon day and not worry about disorientation, right? That is the scenario. A tiny moment of turning out the lights before turning them back on immediately following. I would say no. Edit: I love your profile picture by the way!

So if Nightblood took 1000 breaths to awaken then the average returned is more than two times more invested than the perpendicularity that Dalinar created? A 10th heightening person is therefore more than 50x more invested than Dalinar's perpendicularity? I think the sentience is what is necessary along with the breaths. IF someone could awaken with stormlight they would funnel that stormlight into the weapons with the command and intent. I believe the command and intent are what cause the sentience. Thus, without using your own biochromatic breaths you could use the stormlight to provide the juice for the awakening and it should work until the stormlight leaks out... As I said it is not a forever solution but it is sound given what we have seen. I meant they could awaken armor to act as a psuedo shardplate should have clarified that. I didnt think shardplate to be relevant aside from creating something to block the blows of honorblades. I think Brandon has hinted that Sus was the most invested non-shard in the cosmere... 10th heightening is no slouch. Also I dont think it is the influx of the investiture that causes the ecstasy effect on Denth... it is how that investiture manifests itself as things like perfect pitch, perfect color recognition, aura recognition, lifesense, and in the case of the 7th heightening the ability to sense static investiture as well. No matter how invested a Herald is the senses would explode with activity and basically short circuit their brain. Put 2 fighters in a room and ask them to fight then, in a single push of a button, turn out the lights, start up strobes and start blasting foghorns. The world they knew will be so dull to them. They will be experiencing a wave of sensations their body has never experienced before. Like a baby being born via C-section. Your life was padded and safe. Sounds were quieter and you have never seen light or felt touch before. Then a hand grabs you and yanks you out of your home, pulls you up to a massive bright light and then carries you to a table where I get to rub and pat you dry and start blowing a bunch of air on you. The sensation overload would be a problem no matter how invested a Herald is because their investment doesnt come with all of the extra sensations that the heightenings have. While Heralds are shown to catch darts and You boast the inhuman speed here... We see Vivenna's awakened cloak catch an arrow. Yeah the Heralds are fast but these feats don't prove anything other than they are as fast as a brand new awakeners cloak is. I mention lifeless only because it is an integral part of the Scholars backstory and experience as generals, kings and a queen. If we wanted to get truly ludicrous I would say the 10th heightening offers a Scholar the ability to spend a minimum of 25 thousand breaths (25 Nightbloods worth) awakening a power suit of metal. They could throw blades on chains and create a suit of slicing, dicing, evil destroying fun. And the suit would be every bit as quick... if not faster... than the Heralds using dart catching as our metric of measurement. And this would still leave them with enough breaths to, at a range of their voice, send all of that sensory overload into a Herald at the speed of their voice. We don't know how many breaths the Scholars had each but we know that at least one had access to enough for the 10th heightening. We also know you can split your breaths and that Denth was lying about the all or nothing bit he delivered to Vivenna. The order of operations in this case is: Start with 50,000 breaths granting 10th heightening Store 25,000 breaths into an item maintaining the 9th heightening to allow for ranged commands. When someone gets close enough speak the command "My life to yours. My breath become yours.” while picturing the Herald you are targeting. Immediately speak the command "Your breath to mine." to your item which will allow you to retrieve your second 25000 breaths acting as a reload for your second assault. 5 10th heightening scholars could use this attack a bare minimum of twice each. Potentially more depending on how close to the ~100,000 breath mark to obtain the 11th heightening. 5x2=10 heralds reeling from the sensory overload.

This is a bit late but I totally think that storing would be similar to gold. A broad storage but applied to a single moment could lessen the tax on tapping.

That is how I see it playing out. Distractions everywhere and targeting the heralds that mean the most. I dont want to sound like I think it goes Scholars even 50% of the time. I think the Heralds have a far easier path to victory... surges are stupidly broken and the healing factor on Roshar as a whole makes me loath that portion of the cosmere.... (Unpopular opinion but I almost wish I had never learned of Roshar. I spend way too much time trying to convince myself that other systems stand a chance when the reality is that answers like "soulcast the air around their head in aluminum" and "sever their connection to life" are options.) I would say that the Scholars are known for knowing more than just awakening. They are not limited in anyway to a location and they carry the most universal magic system there is. Vasher can exist on Roshar and feed his divine breath stormlight. Some WoBs hint to awakening with stormlight as well. This goes away from the arena style scenario and into a far more preparation style of format... Long term, I would argue that Vasher and Arsteel could potentially band together and dang near take out the entirety of Roshar or Scadrial alone. They are the cosmeres top Scholars. Roshar is progressing in a magitech direction. That magitech is based around gems which have color integral to them... what would happen to the tower if all of the color were drained from it? It is basically a giant fabrial right? Color is a big part of fabrials working. Once the information on how to awaken with stormlight is gained it becomes even easier for awakeners with 10th heightening to do their thing. They can awaken silently, at a range, and lose no breath from it. Stepping into far theoretical realm here... if stormlight awakens but doesn't cling like breaths and it drains off of the items over time... A single 10th heightening awakener could reanimate an entire army, and create pseudo shardplate and blades on every member of an army in the presence of an open perpendicularity. These lifeless would resist investiture and have soulcutting weapons only momentarily until the stormlight faded too much and you would not be left with the fallout of having thousands of new shards for worlds to fight over.

Homie needs some spikes and start compounding that bendalloy!

I think that it is explained in Warbreaker that the Breath trick works because Denth and Arsteel had spent time appearing as drab. Moving from drab to 9th heightening wouldn't cause the same shock if you were recently holding those breaths. Denth had spent a lot of time without the sensory overload from heightenings and when it hit him the pure amount of information he had been without was overwhelming. But to give the Breaths away and then take them back again would not have the same effect. Retrieving them from a scarf is as simple as saying "your breath to mine." It's not like it is a process. I dont think that the other heralds can blink in and murder them quite that easily in the space of 5 seconds. We aren't fighting steel compounders. (A steel compounder with nightblood alone could probably kill all of them) And with an army of lifeless or of phantoms to surround and protect them it would be difficult to kill them with honorblades before they get to transfer whatever necessary Breaths they may need.

The point is that he won't be able to. Instantly being boosted to the 9th heightening from a range is an instant stasis effect. He won't be doing anything. Surgebinding or not he will be completely immobilized. If Taln allows himself the ability to touch them then he is open to an instant counter attack. Hit him with the stasis effect and then kill him with an awakened blade like Nightblood. Once a Herald is hit with those breaths they will be a sitting duck until their body is able to adjust to the pure amount of sensory overload.

Vasher took on Kaladin and made Kaladin look like a child throwing a fit. The ability to tangle up even the best fighters in the cosmere shouldn't be overlooked. Talns strength means nothing if he so much as gets nicked by Nighblood. A single touch of the blade is instant consumption. The scholars could force feed him the heightenings as he gets near them. With a single thought 5 of the heralds will be under stasis effects long enough to touch them with Nightblood. Cut that in half and use your words and they can do it with words from range. Store 25000 breaths in a scarf speak them into the first 5 heralds, then withdraw them and speak them into the other 5. While they are overcome from instantly having the 9th heightening touch them with nightblood. Even if all 5 scholars end it as drabs... Edit: good to know about the perpendicularity thing. I assumed that with the surges coming from an honorblade and not spren directly tied to a shard it would limit that single thing.

Does a bondsmith with honorblade open perpendicularities? Is it just tied to honor? Full strength simply doesn't mean anything when the biggest potential counter is draining the enemy of their supply of power. You awaken the heralds clothing... at range... and with no need to say a word. That awakening drains the color from all of their gems and has a likelihood of destroying those gems ability to hold stormlight at all. I think fuel is something that has to be considered too. Breaths are sticky and don't go away until you kill the person using them. Stormlight leaks... the attack from the scholars should be first and foremost an attack against stormlight. Conveniently, that attack is automatically carried out as they awaken anything touching the herald and near the gems.

A single sacrifice to fill Taln with ecstacy and then drive nightblood through him would fix that. And if awakening at a range drains all gems of color there are untold issues to be had. At the very least they would not hold stormlight as well. At most it could destroy their ability to hold it at all.

I wouldn't sleep on the scholars! I think with that much investiture they would likely resist all forms of invested attacks directly at them. At the 9th heightening they can command at range. All of the heralds would be forced to fight naked... and sphere pouches wont stay on them well at all. 10th heightening the scholars can do it all on a whim and at a thought. Smart mention of Vashers trick. While the Heralds are invested and powerfully at that, I dont think that the overwhelming ecstacy of being handed a bunch of breaths at one time will be lost on them. Nightblood can absolutely consume all 10 heralds if he touches them.... who is to say how non evil he would find them anyways? And the scholars could very likely find a Command that teaches a sword a new definition of evil that would warp the heralds into the target of envy and drive them to kill eachother for the scholars (we have seen that they are more than half broken already). I think a single scholar with nightblood and the 10th heightening could do some serious work on the heralds. Plus they could awaken shardplate... and they have knowledge of aluminum. What would a couple hundred kalads phantoms do if they had a coating of aluminum covering them as well? (I only count it because the scholars knew enough about it to make a sheath to contain nightblood and knowing what we do about nightblood I assume that sheath was very near immediately available after his creation.) Now the Heralds are not easy targets either. Together they could negate the fleeing sphere pouches if they simply fight next to an open perpendicularity. (Can an honorblade do this though? If not ranged silent commands causing spheres to flee would be #1 strat.) Many of the surges are pretty busted. Soulcasting a scholar directly probably wouldn't be beneficial as investiture resists investiture. But soulcasting the air around them or making a vaccum... they have no healing. (This is the crap that literally makes me hate everything stormlight archives related though). Probably not feasible against an army otherwise there would be zero reason to write the Book because they would instantly win all battles. I think each battle would be over really quickly. Scholars best bet is to hide in the lifeless army and surround themselves with phantoms (coated in aluminum or not) use ranged & silent commands to cause the heralds clothes to start strangling / crushing them. When the heralds strip naked then awaken the sphere pouches to try strangling them... once the heralds are forced to fight with only the spheres they can carry things get pretty interesting... Let the heralds fight against the armies as long as possible... awaken the clothing on the lifeless soldiers and force the Heralds to struggle through that as well. When faced down make the ultimate sacrifice and pass all of your breaths to the herald before killing them with their own blades and assuming their powers. Something else that is a good side note. Awakening drains spheres of color and color is an important part of spheres. The first round of ranged awakening will likely drain all spheres as well as the gems inside of them to white... perhaps this will be a big issue as far as how well the spheres can hold stormlight or investiture in general. Big complications potentially. WoBs on gemstone color and awakening Edit: Do Honorblades have gemstones as a part of their function? If an awakener drained the color from any gemstone in any fabrial that WoB makes it sound detrimental to the fabrial. But I dont know that honorblades work the same.