SteelBagel

Balanced in that I'm nuetralized things except for a single factor. Magic & magitech vs real world tech.As for sourcing, it's more interesting if they have magic. Rosharans & selish folks vs earthlings on anywhere but roshar/sel is just earthlings va regular people. that's why I did this. They don't have infinite investiture either, they still have to rely on what they can harness. There's a limit to how much you can pull through the dor and how quickly gems are restored, or how many breaths there are, I'm just allowing them to use their magics in the way we're most familiar with, the way they do on their homeworlds. Doing the same for earth isn't giving them acess to the cognitive realm, it's giving them enough batteries and fuel to power all of their tech. Which it would be weird not to have. And each planet can't come and go from the CR at will. only Rosharans and Selish folks can go to the CR. There are no perpendicularities for anyone to use, and no one else can make their own. And you can soulcast a bomb as easily as you soulcast anything else. The only thing that blocks soulcasting is strong Identity and Investiture, a bomb has neither more than any other object. The complexity of an object has nothing to do with it. also, rule of thumb that overules all of this: It's my thread. I can do what I want.

I figured they need the help, since earth has such a tech advantage that most of the Cosmere is just outranged or outsped most of the time.

One thing for the selish folks: they can pre-draw stuff, and wait in the cognitive realm while doing it, only popping out to use the runes they draw. Or they could possibly set them up to travel to the other realm first, then activate. as for roshar: I don’t know that bullets can destroy shardplate. I don’t think we’ve ever seen one damaged by a non-magical item. It’s possible, of course, but per WOB it holds up “well” to bullets. whether that means immune or just resistant is up in the air. For flight, yes, planes are faster, but an elsecaller carried by a skybreaker just needs to get close to turn the whole thing to glass and destroy it. No dodging possible. For transportation, satellites can’t see inside buildings, or the CR, and they take time to check. Imagine a trio of an elsecaller, a skybreaker, and the stormfather’s bondsmith. Bondsmith charges up, elsecaller takes them to the CR, skybreaker flies them in the CR to appropriate destination, periodically getting stormlight recharges from the bondsmith if needed, and food recharges from the elsecaller. You arrive at you desination. Elsecaller dips back into the physical realm, stabs a high ranking official, back to the Cr. Nothing they can do to stop or prevent it, aside from watching for invaders from the Cr around all VIPs and hoping to outdamage them enough that they can’t get back to the CR in time. For transmutation, yes we have good supply lines and industry, still don’t think that defeats being able to create what you need at a moments notice from thin air. And for healing, I wasn’t talking about stormlight healing factors so much as the surge of regrowth. The ability to instantly heal any wounded is a huge advantage.

I’d say probably like 50:50, or maybe 75:25 magic users to non-magic. It’s the only way the Cosmere really stands a chance here.

So, say that each planet in the cosmere had to fight the modern military on earth. For balance reasons, I'm going to say that every planet can match the earth's population and has more magic users than they do in canon. Here's my ranking on how this would go. Also, we're removing all location locks & sourcing issues because it's more interesting. Everyone can access their magic just as well as they could on their home world. The earth subastral we'll say is completely uninhabited before the cosmerenauts get there, since the earthlings can't get in. No shards. 1- Roshar: Flight, transmutation, healing, illusions, teleportation, and decay. widespread healing factors. Bulletproof armor & shields. Weapons that can cut through any amount of earthly armor. Weapon's that could turn into a gun, if they knew how. Lasers & radiation blasting, if they knew they existed. 2- Sel. Super versatile abilities, increased physicals, light healing factors. Their main drawback is speed. They can't do comlex things quickly, and they don't have any good defense against bullets or bombs, especially if they don't know they're coming. 3- Scadrial. Experience with guns and motors, manipulation of guns and bullets, emotional influence, superspeed for bullet dodging. Enhanced dexterity, increased healing and speed. Increased mental speed would probably help aiming. The occasional compounder, who's varying levels of difficulty to pin down. Not giving them any mistborn though, since we're going off era 2 rules. They do have hemalurgy though, so a few powers could be mixed. 4- Nalthis. No Awakening metal, no increased durability, minimal mobility increases, low tech level. Thoughts? Do you agree, disagree? What are your own rankings?

I would live a mostly normal life, but with all the benefits of allomancy and compounded feruchemy. I probably woudn't be immortal, because no atium IRL, but I would never sleep, probably never turn on the lights to save electricity, etc. Constantly be tapping gold and a little bit of steel. I would definetly not keep my powers secret, though I might keep the details under wraps. But I would probably use them to make money somehow. Maybe just use a-bendalloy/f-zinc/f-copper to work super fast? I probably woudn't have to work at all, actually, just being a wizard would net me enough fame and fortune to live off of and buy metals with.

original aether strains?

Are they? they're certainly created with Investiture, but I don't know that they're made of it. Granted I've not finished SP1 yet so maybe there's proof in there.

I think some bad stuff happened in SA5, Hoid jumped ship over to scadial to ask for Harmony's help, but Harmony wanted hoid to do some stuff in return, which was basically helping wax out in the ways we see in the books. In exchange Hoid gets something he needs, either to deal with Odium or to complete his overall goals.

RIght, but why would original shai put it in the mind of elantrian shai to keep stamping herself if original shai didn't want it to be permanent?

yeah, Harmony is definitely becoming Discord. Probably either in era 3, or between eras 2 & 3, but it only gets revealed that he did in era 2. He's already got his evil clone hanging out with him, it's not long now...

It doesn't make much sense to me that you can split harmonium into only Atium. It seems to me like the only options are you split it into atium and lerasium, or not at all. If he's making Atium, he's probably making lerasium. Though if he wants Marsh to live, I don't get why he can't just make Atium (an act of ruin) to preserve Marsh (an act of preservation) keeping in line with his intent.

is there any reason she would do that? she doesn't want to become an elantrian permenantly.

Possible, but I think we'd still see some sort of physical reaction. Beyond that, this is definitely a plotpoint to be resolved in the next era, which she likley won't be around or important for. She's just to minor a character for me to think she did something so significant.

I guess. It still seems weird to me that he can make Atium via telling the kandra to make bombs in order to de-age marsh, but not just de age marsh directly. sazed's (not harmony, but sazed) intent (to de-age marsh) is the same either way. He intends to do the same thing, one path is just more roundabout. Why is ordering someone else to do it different from doing it yourself, for the Shard's Intent?

Maybe. I feel like Sazed wouldn't want an evil clone wandering around with 2/3 of infinite power. Besides, who's to say he did anything at all with that extra investiture, maybe he's forcibly keeping it under control via force of will, but it's slowly overwhelming him, turning him into Discord.

It just doesn't seem consistent to me. If the mists and the dor can power allomancy because they're made of investiture, the shouldn't something else made of that same investiture (a shard) could do the same thing? The metal just provides access to that investiture, whether that be directly or by working as keys. We see proof of this when Vin fuels elend in HoA. She probably coudn't fuel feruchemy or Atium allomancy, because she didn't control Ruin at that time, but this is not a restriction that applies to Harmony. I don't see why he couldn't fuel the appropriate abilities to de age marsh, or even just physically modify his body to be that of his younger self. He definitely knows how, shards seem have to have a flawless memory, and TLR manipulated all of humanity and some plants, animals, and microbes on a genetic level in a short amount of time. So Sazed could probably just swap out his body to it's younger version, while keeping his cognitive and spiritual aspects.

It's literally made of harmony, how would he not not know how to make it? even if he doesn't know the process with Trellium, couldn't he just coalesce some ruin investiture into solid form? hell, why even bother? why not just directly de-age marsh? It's the powers of ruin and preservation that are used to do this, and he has both, couldn't he just directly produce the effects of allomancy and feruchemy without ever having any metals to use as a focus?

Still doesn't explain why Sazed couldn't just give him some more, or power his de-aging directly, or tell him how to make it, and had to wait for wax to make it.

No real solid explanations for either, but we have some theories. Copper compounding could allow you to copy memories out of metalminds without any degradation while they're out. It could also maybe allow you to store muscle memory or physical memory, which will be more handy when we have more unkeyed and unsealed metalminds. Nicrosil compounding we have pretty much nothing to go on, since we only understand the basics of nicrosil allomancy and don't understand nicrosil feruchemy really at all. One thing I think it could let you do is amp up the power of your Allomancy via investiture compounding, letting you deliver one helluva nicroburst, (or do more if you have more powers.)you could maybe use it to increase or create feruchemical or allomantic reserves. It also could be used to store abilities without losing use of them yourself, but we don't know enough about it to say anything more specific. I suspect we'll learn a good bit about nicrosil in era 3, because people will generally have more realmatic awareness then that will help with the spiritual metals, and the protagonist of era 3 was planned to be a nicroburst last I heard.

Well Roshar has 70% gravity, and we don't know ashyn's gravity, so it's possible all humans on roshar have a sort of superman deal going on where they come from a planet with stronger gravity and therefore have evolved to have stronger muscles, and can therefore lift heavier objects.

He might get some kind of powers, but likely won't become a radiant. At least not in the traditional sense. Because the way radiants work is a spren bonds a creature from the physical realm. But Maya can't bond anybody, shes too broken. Instead, Adolin is bonding her. We don't know the implications or effects of this yet, but It'll probably do something for one of them, or at the very least make Adolin the only non-surgebinder with a living blade. (An interesting compliment to his wife, who has 1 living blade and 1 half living blade.)

I think TLR would die to nightblood. it would suck up all his reserves, and then he'd become so old he'd die even if he let go of it. Not sure if he could be controlled by nightblood or if his copper would block that though. I think copper would block it, but there's a good chance TLR would take nightblood anyway, because hey free sword.

Vasher with all the Breath and Rashek are the real contenders here. Neither of them could easily be taken out. Rashek is obviously a lot harder to kill, but Vasher does have the only weapon in the Cosmere capable of doing it. Vasher has a lot more offensive capabilities thanks to all the junk he has and can awaken, so without Rashek this is easy. Rashek's army is probably pretty dogshit, with all their combat experience being against malnourished, outnumbered, untrained, unequipped skaa for the last 500 years. Especially since all of the Allomancers who work for Rashek are noble, and therefore unlikely to join the army. Going in with the steel inquisitors and Rashek to assasinate Vasher is probably the best plan, since Rashek alone can easily Blitz and oneshot him, but it all depends on how seriously Rashek takes this threat. if he's going all out, Vasher doesn't have a chance, and if he can hide away Nightbood somehow, There's nothing stopping him from just soloing the entirety of Hallranden. Of course, that depends on how well he can resist Nightblood, which I don't give him great odds for. So this is the scenario I'm imagining: Vasher and his armies roll up in Luthadel. Rashek, energized at finally seeing something new for the first time in hundreds of years, goes and Interogates Vasher, but thanks to Zinc compounding he doesn't let his guard down, and when Vasher tries to kill him, Rashek Blitzes and Kills Vasher. However, nightblood then seduces Rashek, convincing him to kill himself. With both leaders dead, the Armies of Hallranden easily storm over Luthadel, especially with no one to command the Koloss.

I still don’t think lerasium Allomancers are strong enough to compete with a high tier awakener or a skilled and unchained Bondsmith. As for versatility, afawk most surges just let you do 2 things, whereas Awakening gives you a ton of stuff you can do, anything you can find the Command for. As for mobility, gravitation is better in the air, and faster short range (maybe, we still don’t know enough about AonDor to say for sure. If you can create a reusable Aon ahead of time that teleports you 15 feet ahead everytime you use it, I think that’d put them somewhat equal.) Buf I was mostly considering Radiant surgebinding, in which Transportaion specifically takes you to the Cognitive Realm. its also true that cohesion and Tension are easier to use than forgery, but if we’re ignoring Rarity, I’m taking a Forger at their peak, with a bunch of premade SoulStamps, and skill in forging to equal Cohesion and Tension. man’s yeah, plenty of surges have range, but none have as much range as Awakening, which can work from the next country over if you have enough time for the Awakened object to get there.