PinkPlasma

i chose furechemy, because not only could you potentialy take the energy from your metalminds and do commands with it, you could likely do the reverse, taking breaths and converting them into energy for any number of metalminds. furechemy is the most useful ability for day to day life right next to awakening, to have both would be a luxury too good for me to pass up.

So, I just watched(listened to?) the SP4 shardcast, and the discussion has me thinking about cosmere space travel, and how it will work.

first off, its hard for me to imagine that any merchant, military, or travel in general, would opt for the danger of the voids of space, lightyears of travel, over what takes a few months to walk in shadesmar. but then that got me thinking about what shadesmar really is. As far as I understand it, shadesmar is a reflection of the collective cognitive view of the world, sort of inverted or abstracted in some ways. right now, the common knowledge of the regular people of the cosmere, not our min charcters but the normal citzens, doesn't entirely understand space and planets as a concepts yet.

and, I think notably, we haven't seen shadesmar in any of the storys where they do. the general concept is that if you walk far enough in a direction, you'll get to a location. oceans are also a concept, a barrier to that physical travel, and their raw concept is also included in pretty much every place in shadesmar we have seen. so, I guess what I'm asking, is do we think it's possible, that once the majority of the cosmere understands space travel, that shadesmar will start to reflect that in its physical reflection of the world?

and while i think, even if this did occur, the "space" in shadesmar wouldn't reflect the same distance as the physical world, it would explain why they would need to start using space travel instead of some elsecalling connection perpindicularty shenanigens. and i know that its hard to get between realms, but its also really hard to travel between solar systems. even with any kind of time dilation bullcrap they could pull, shadesmar, in the way it is right now, would be to convenient a avenue to not explore, and attempt to find easy ways to travel to and from the physical plane in any location. 

my second question is, propulsion. we have seen a few spaceships now, but we really don't know how they work, because the pov's we see them from are for the most part from a distance. do we expect several types of space travel, for each culture, or one type of fuel, some sort of pure raw investiture? I could see some sort of engine based of steel pushing or iron pulling labor to generate energy, or them doing some electromagnet propulision, and on the rosharan side, I'm sure there re some conection or elsecalling, maybe even fabrial stuff that they base everything off of, because i can't imagine lashings work efficiently when there's no gravity to redirect. elantris side (can't remember the planet name) will almost certainly go the raw investiture route, and awakening can really do some crazy things so i can imagine them being self sufficient.

I kinda wanna steer clear of space fight discussion because... that is just a whole other beast entirely, but im really curious to hear other poeples thoughts on this cus i don't hear it talked about often

12 hours ago, therunner said:

Ehm, he basically summoned Phendora into a Shardblade, something Kalading could not until after swearing 4th Ideal.

i was so confused until i realized it was because of the dampining during the invasion. ToT

I was like "teft summoned a shardblade tons of times, what are they talking about?"

On 7/9/2020 at 2:15 AM, Frustration said:

So I often come across topics that involve fights between Brandon's magic users and one of the most often talking points is how overpowered Mistborn are. I however have a hard time seeing that especially from the perspective that Stormlight Archive has given me. So I'm going to give a run down on how the two compare, and later an all out comparison from all magic systems.

 

1. Attack

Radiant- Shardblade, enhanced with Plate (Division, Gravitation, Transformation buffs when applicable)

Mistborn-Pewter, Steel, Dur-aluminum

In the offensive category the Radiant takes a huge advantage over their Mistborn counterparts, as most if not all of their attacks are one shot kills, on any non-Radiant, while A Mistborn's best is deadly it just isn't on the same level, Dur-aluminum can get it there but that make it a one time use.

 

2. Defence

Radiant- Shardplate, Shardblade, (Illusion, Tension buffs, when applicable)

Mistborn- Pewter, Steel

While a Radiant can shrug off basically anything a Mistborn is basically a glass cannon, and can only take so much punishment

 

3. Healing

Radiant- Stormlight, (Progression buffs, when applicable) 

Mistborn- Pewter

While A Radiant can basically live through anything as long as they have stormlight, a Mistborn only has a boosted recovery and no regeneration.

 

4.  Sensory 

Radiant- Spren, Stormlight, (Potential Tension/Cohesion buff when applicable)

Mistborn- Tin, Bendalloy, Bronze

Mistborn Actually wins this one being able to get more think time, and greater sensory input as well as an investiture detection.

 

All in all While a good build Mistborn just simply aren't up to the level of punishment a Radiant can dish out, and can't do enough damage of their own to be an effective match up.

i think this is a bit of an unfair comparison frustration. of course a 4th ideal radiant is more powerful than a mistborn. i mean 5th ideal bondsmiths are more powerfull than fullborn to put some perspective on the table. like. fullborns are nuts. they are so many powerscales above a mistborn it's not even funny. but we've generally as a community decided that a group of 5th ideal radiants could probably win against a fullborn, if they played it right and had near infinite investiture.

most comprable to a mistborn is probably a 3rd ideal radiant. the only real flaw that a radiant has, is how it uses investiture. but even this is a pretty small flaw, and hard to exploit without some serious risk. the only other flaw is how long it takes them to reach potential. a recruit mistborn, is infinitly more useful than a recruit radiant. all a recruit radiant is essentially the same as A pewter and F gold(with some obvious differences but functionally similar enough) that is, most definitly. net enough to win against an equally trained mistborn. they will have the advantage in reach, damage, durability, and speed.

a radiant who has gotten to a point where they have plate has some serious experience on the table, and those are pretty few and far between. not only that, but there is a limited number of how many radiants the world can have. there are only so many spren. allomancy doesn't have this problem, it can have as many mistborns as harmony wants. so yes, the radiant is more powerfull in a one on one when both are at their prime, but the effort and difficulty for a radiant to get to their prime is much much harder than some consistent night time training, and a bit of natural skill. difficult enough that in the whole series, we have seen a total of 2 radiants get close to the prime capability. the feasibility of a mistborn makes up for its downfalls when you consider how hard it is to get a hold of a radiant capable of beating them. send a team of mistborn to roshar to take out all the world leaders? nothing the radiants could do about it before it was too late I guarantee you. an army of soldiers where every 10 are mistborn, vs all the radiants?

i mean we haven't even delved into the teamwork potential of mistborn here, thats almost frightening to think about, espicially if we assume that only half of those would be as skilled as kelsier in his prime. and im fairly confident many were more skilled than kelsier in mistborn history, not to mention alll mistborn we've seen were working on half potential. the fact that it's even a debate over weather a mistborn is better than a full radiant makes me frightened for scadrial at war, especially when mistborns aren't the best it can offer. so yes, I agree that 1 on 1, radiants are just definitively better, I think that's probably good, because if they weren't scadrial would by far be the most powerfull planet in the cosmere.

On 8/6/2023 at 4:42 PM, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Some things just don't interact with Aluminum's field. Not because they're too strong, but because they just don't. It's pedantic to say Nightblood would become a steel sword when in the presence of Aluminum, but Forgery, while it cannot affect Aluminum, has no problem Forging things within it's field, and Forgery is a low-Investiture Art. Even still, when Nightblood is wielded against its Aluminum sheath, it stops just like a regular steel sword, just the same as an ordinary Shardblade would have. Nightblood's telepathic communication, though, could be stopped by an Aluminum band around the head, as well as his 'test', which are both likened to EA.

i agree with most of the things you've said, ya'll have for the most part convinced me that aluminum would stop invested healing. but i don't think the examples you gave here really prove the light theory wrong. the first example, was kind of my point. there is no way that nightblood would ever do this, so it at least proves aluminum isn't all powerfull and investiture nullifying. with forgery vs EA, i think target of the "light" (investiture) is important here. say two people have a flashlight, trying to light up something they can't see. both of them are in a room, with a window with a curtian drawn over it. one of them is trying to light up a tree outside (EA on a person) but the curtain stops them (aluminum in the way). the other person is in the same room, trying to light up their book (forgery on an object nearby aluminum). the curtian didn't stop the second person because it wasn't in the way. they were both around the same level of flashlights (around same investiture level) but the curtain (aluminum) didn't stop the second person because it wasn't blocking their target, even though it was nearby. I think the issue here is that you all assume that alluminum projects some sort of dynamic investure stopping feild that stops some things but not others and does this sometimes. ima be frank, sometimes the simpler awnser is just the right one, and i think thats how it is here. 

2 minutes ago, therunner said:

I think it will heal everything except near vicinity of the aluminum, since it won't be able to move or affect aluminum in any way.
So shoot Gold compounder or Radiant in the brain stem with Aluminum bullet and they will simply die, because the power won't be able to heal the damage.

fair enough, I can't really argue with that, considering aluminum con stop ridculous amount of investure on contact.

11 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

True, but the amount of extra Investiture needed to push through most effects of Aluminum is so large that the comparatively small difference between something like EA and Stormlight wouldn't be enough to make a difference. Also note that even if that is the case, even a bullet/bullet fragment-sized damage to the brain can be severely hindering depending on where it is, going from general mind fog to loss of motor function. Not to mention the panic factor of suddenly being shot in such a deadly place and being unable to heal from it, and the fact that with an auto-aiming gun, you could fire multiple times wherever you please.

i will concede that even if they fully healed over, having chunks of metal in your brain will still probably kill you. my best guess is the investiture would keep you going for a while depending where in your brain the metal is, but once it runs out you'd be done

5 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Well, it's not that hard of a rule. You could Soulcast Aluminum if you really wanted to, provided six Shards of Adonalsium are backing the transformation up with their full power. Beyond that, Nightblood can, just a little, bypass Aluminum. Wounds made with his sheath still on leave blackened tissue.

to top this off, he can still telepathically comunicate even when completely sheathed.

15 minutes ago, therunner said:

Investiture strength does not matter, not when it comes to Aluminum. As far as we know even Shards could not do anything to Aluminum (directly at least).

It is inviolable even to Nightblood (its sheet is aluminum). Compounders nor Radiants are not even within the same neighborhood of power, so they won't affect it.

i think its like the brightness of a light bulb right? if you completely cover the lightbulb, no light comes out. so no matter how strong the light is, none escapes. nightblood is like a floodlight, but its still completely covered. however when its even slightly uncovered, its light shines pretty damn bright. when even slightly unsheathed, nightblood can make almost anyone go on a murderous rampage if they get hold of him. but thats because the "Light bulb" is really really bright. other things with less allomancy, might be more properly covered by less aluminum though, without even having to cover the direct source. so while yea, nightblood is completely capured while completely coated in aluminum, i don't think a tiny peice of aluminum will completely keep a pretty large and important body part from healing at all when discussing something as invested as a bag of sphere's worth of stormlight, or compounded gold. it'll stop it a little sure, but i doubt it will stop completely. with that logic, if i wear an aluminum headband Nightblood will turn into a normal steel sword if it gets too close to my head.

3 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Bullets do often fragment inside, and Aluminum projects enough of a "No magic here" zone to fully protect someone's head from EA from all angles from just a band in their hat. Also wanted to mention, brain damage is usually enough to kill a regular Bloodmaker, Miles survived because of his Savantism (most likely, unless he had a Bavadinium spike the entire time). The rumors about the LR were purposefully exaggerated to help his reputation as unkillable and god-like early in his reign.

i do want to point out that the strength of the investiture probably matters, and while i don't have any confirmation of it, i'm gonna assume EA has less strength than compounded healing or stormlight

healing around the aluminum is a little different than unhealable. the hole might be able to partaily close up in front of the bullet if it went deep enough in, or if it went clean through it wouldn't have trouble healing at all. however the idea of aluminum bullets that shatter once inside could be super deadly as well

Just now, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

That's a headshot form an Aluminum bullet, not just a normal one.

can wounds from aluminum not be healed? I would've thought they'd bring that up with Wayne if it were the case

On 8/2/2023 at 0:21 PM, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

True, but if you just want to kill them a headshot would be better, if the gun can just auto-aim. No amount of any Invested Healing will save you in that case.

someone forgot about miles hundredlives. dude took a shotgun to the face if i remeber. and we know for a fact that most surgebinders have healing on par if not above that scale. we also have legends of rashek going from a skeleton to fully healed in seconds, so i seriously don't see how you kill these people with anything other than magic shenanigans or a shardblade. we have a scene where kaladin gets his spine repeatedly severed, and continued to heal just fine, so loss of the brain shouldn't be any different.

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

How would you ensure that the bullet will stay in the body and not pass right through it just like it does in most cases? Or that it doesn't deform on impact like it usually does? Or that it won't shatter? Bullets don’t stop in the body where you want them to. The softer material you use for bullets, like aluminum, the easier it will break and deform. That's why lead is used to make bullets, as they are super dense, but it passes through the body.

would it not work correctly if it passed completely through the body? this kind of soul staple/tearing in quick succsession could seriously storm someone up. the deforming is a serious issue though, they might use something more like a harpoon gun in this situation? 

we know that there are many throughout the body though yes? I think a gunslinger could, while maybe not with every shot, shoot someone in the bind point on the shoulder, or through the eye, or even in the back, which are spots we know inquisitors all had spikes, so unless donor and recipient spots are different, which i will accept as a fairly real possiblity, i can't imagine its as immpossible as you're making it seem.

just checked the coppermind, and it mentioned that there were somewhere between 200 and 300 different bind points in the body, if a person were to be knowledgeable of even a fraction of these and intend to shoot them, I can't imagine it would take an expert long to hit one.

just checked again and i got the recipient and donor mixed up i'm sorry. i do still find it diificult too belive that there are only bind points in the heart however. is there a wob on this maybe?

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Theoretically possible, practically impossible. People are moving. Hitting one of 4 binding points in the heart of your opponent with surgical precision is impossible when the target is moving. A simple metal armor would deflect and deform the bullet enough to prevent you from getting spiked. A Surgebinder has a Shardplate, it won't work against them. Fun idea, applicable only in some rare circumstances and that's it. 

i think it is important to point out that very few surgebinders have shardplate, in fact most never get shardplate. so while, yes, shardplate will stop this, it wasn't exactly my target victim. second to this, does it actually need to hit a bind point? I know that we need to hit a bind point for the spike to be useful to the recipient, but if our goal is only to tear of peices off the soul, do we need to be as precise? can we hit close enough to the bind point that we are still ripping a hole in the soul, but not useful beyond that?

as for regular metal armour, i think getting them to do this puts them in enough weakness that we won't need our creative solution anymore, we just need to call a local coinshot and lurcher, unless of course the person is rich, and has a full suit of aluminum armour. which is very heavy, and hard to run away in. there's a reason peoples stopped wearing it in the real world, it becomes more of a hindrance when people have things like guns

Quote

Sorana (paraphrased)

Would a spike charge if I threw it at someone with the intention to spike something out of him and hit the right bindpoint?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes.

Sorana (paraphrased)

So spike darts are a thing.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, and spike guns are a thing as well.

Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

I just read this WOB, and it got my brain churning. is there a potential for us to be seeing gunslingers with the express intent to shoot peoples invested abilites right out of their soul in combat? we know that being spiked is already seriously damaging to a person, and i just can't stop thinking about how utterly devastating this could be in combat. and if this is the case, i could see it being a pretty efective method against some of our top teir invested type peoples (Higher oath surgebinders, Compounders, Fullborns) while i doubt it would be enough on its own, if combined with other abilities, even if they could heal their soul, I can't imagine it would be immediate. it would certainly make characters on these power scales far more vulnerable. Do yall think this stuff is popping up in era 3? or 4?

alr lets say the same size as the one that attacked luthadel

alright I like fights.

you like fights.

so lets talk abt some cool fights. cus we all know we want to.

1 koloas army vs shallan, jasnah, and kaladin (in their current forms) each with a lot of stormlight but still a limited amount, and no refills. who wins?

13 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

 

- Susebron Awakening... IDK. This would only work with special materials available, I think; normal wood/cloth/etc just won't be strong enough to restrain Shardplate.

 

I had honestly forgetten about the shardplate, that coupled with the pewter and stormlight + gold compounding, this really is a terrifying combination of powers

On 4/6/2023 at 9:28 AM, robardin said:

It seems like we've seen pages and pages of "discussion" of who would win in a 1v1 (whether "on a battlefield", in an arena, with/without knowledge of the other's powerset, with/without time to fully prepare, etc.), ...

...between a "Fullborn" with access to both Feruchemy and Allomancy in all sixteen metals (excluding "god" metals), which we haven't seen in canon except in the person of The Lord Ruler, 

...and a "Fifth Ideal Radiant" (which we also haven't actually seen in action yet, with Nale never even appearing in Shardplate), usually a Windrunner, presumably an Enraged Maxed-Out Kaladin.

But there's no reason to pick between the two as some kind of Ultimate Cosmere Champion!

 

What if Rashek had faked his own death (MB: Secret History notwithstanding), worldhopped over to Roshar, super-impressed Nale, bonded a highspren, and became a Fifth Ideal Skybreaker. (We haven't seen a Skybreaker use Division yet, but if it's at all like what Malata the Dustbringer could do to burn-carve a wooden table with a touch, I'm skeered.)

Who could challenge or surpass him in a 1v1?

Susebron, Returned of the Tenth Heightening, wielding Nightblood? Hmm!

Right... well I will say not many things could be a fair fight here. im gonna leave nightblood out for now because he's a massive wildcard, just as dangerous to the weilder as he is to the opponent. im also not going to consider atium in this.

its probably not out of the question that he could use stormlight as fuel for other abilities, so I'm gonna go on the assumption he can, which essentialy gives him a massive supply of investiture, but only one pool, if he chooses to use it as such. but he'll still probably hold onto some metals, at least for feurochemy. so he has metals but also can probably fuel his powers with stormlight in an emergency. he is going to be ridiculously powerful, a fullborn with living plate and a living shardblade, and who knows, maybe he can use fuerochemy to increase his connection to his spren, or any number of weird wild tricks. it's not entirely out of the question that his allomancy and fuerochemy will interact with lashings and the spren bonds in ways we can't predict. so we can safely say that they will be ridiculously powerful, and their biggest play will be that devastating combo of increadible speed, flight, and the fact the division or a shardblade can end someone in seconds. so who can outplay that, at a minimum?

1.) An unchained bondsmith. we already know these are the absolute powerhouses of the cosmere, with abilities so great that we only have legends. they can teleport entire planets worths of a population, and very potentialy are the reason they had to teleport in the first place. they can steal the bonds with spren, and probably the bonds with shards too. they can change things about. we know they can manipulate all 3 realms and mess with peoples spiritwebs, which is unfortunately where all our lord rulers powers are housed. so the bondsmith can essentialy wave away his benifits leaving him the equivalent to a drab. so they still wipe the floor with them.

2.) An elantrian. we already know that aons can basically do anything, so as long as they have the time to write them and the knowledge to understand, they have infinite potential. the limitations are obviously, how much time do they have, and how much knowledge do the posses, so there isn't really much to talk about here. with enough time and knowledge they win, simple as that.

3.) Hoid. he's been playing the Collect em all game way longer than the lord ruler has. definitive win.

those are the definitive wins, not really a real fight, after this are potential contenders

1.)  A kandra bonded to a spren, 5th ideal. the near imortality coupled with the ridicuolus healing capabilites give them a lot of potential. problem is, that they have hemolurgy, and I believe we all know the glaring weakness hemolurgy has against alomancy, but there ar likely ways to prevent this. even without that, division would be particularly effective against a kandra, as would a shardblade. but a kandra can pull some funky things with their bodies, and im not sure if there is a limit on how much mass they can have. they could potentially absorb a thunderclast with enough mass and biological knowledge to pull it off. so, again very dependent on the conditions, but an interesting fight to be sure.

2.) an unmade. any one of them would be a serious contender in a to-the-death combat. it is a mammoth task to kill an unmade, most likely needing the lord ruer to travel to the cognitive realm where they seem to exist more and leech them out of existence. which is a huge amount of investiture, and takes a good deal of time to drain, where our skybreaker lord ruler is particularly vulnerable. i can genuinely see this one going either way

3.) susebron, or anyone with similar levels of breath, provided that they can awaken enough things that our lord ruler won't simply burn them all to dust with division and that they have several packs of high color-saturated crayons as well of course. if they can manage to hold the fullborn still and create a sort of protective bubble of stuff to protect from lashings and steel pushes and pulls, they can just stab him with living spears of wood until he dies. but its difficult to pull off, and one mess-up would mean death. you can't heal yourself with breaths, a very glaring issue in this fight that can make it turn around VERY quickly. A single blow from the lord ruler could end them

thats all i really had the time to think of, but im sure theres a few other options

On 4/5/2023 at 10:20 AM, Xiahida said:

Fullborn versus unchained bondsmith! Running is not an option.

Fullborn: Has access to infinite metals but no atium but if he wants to compound he has to do it during the fight. The metalminds can be filled a small bit before the fight so they can compound it.

 Bondsmith: Have bonded a spren. Have spent a long time studying their powers and have no boundaries.

Who will win and how?

right. so.  the bondsmith wins seven ways from Sunday. honestly im not sure why you hindered the fullborn there's not much he can do. im like very confident we have a wob that flat-out says an unchained bondsmith would wipe the floor with a fullborn. like its not even funny. the bondsmith can just, steal the fullborns connection to their powers. or severe their connection to preservation so they have no power supply. or make an army of fullborns. The only counter i can see is the fullborn attempting to use hemolurgy to steal the bondsmiths powers before they can do the same. which would be INCREDIBLY difficult. and im not even sure if thqt would work, it would be a huge gamble. bondsmiths are like binding shards and stuff. its a totally different power scale. if the fullborn had an infinite supply of atium i think they would still lose. im genuinly struggling to think of any way the fullborn can gain an advantage here and the only ones i can think of are maybe, they can move quicker than the bondsmith can react, but the bondsmith can just alter their connection to time or something and be faster. the problem is we don't know the limits of a bondsmith, and a fullborn has some pretty clear limits, its the whole jist of their magic system. i think the only thing that could counter a bondsmith is a team of highly skilled and cosmere aware elantrians.

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

It would, but that's not what it's for, shardplate is already immune to that. It's blocking Atium.

  Hide contents

Questioner

Would aluminum give an atium shadow? Like if someone threw an aluminum spear?

Brandon Sanderson

The aluminum would not give an atium shadow. Good question.

Words of Radiance San Francisco signing (March 6, 2014)

 

i would also like to point out that just because aluminum doesn't give a shadow, doesn't mean it would block shadows from other things

4 hours ago, Frustration said:

Atium can be completely countered by coating shardplate in a layer of aluminum

but thats not like part of what the fight is yk? its not a radiant with a suit of aluminum that somehow melds to their shardplate pefectly vs a fullborn, its just radiant vs fullborn with the things needed for their abilities. like if the radiant can have a suit of aluminum why can't we give the fullborn one? that'll solve their shardblade problem. 

28 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Not here:

oh sorry i missed that ty for explaining

but yea, if the radiant can't hit them it doesn't matter how much power they have, that's kinda the whole point of atium. that, coupled with even just regular speed instead of compounding, would make them untouchable. you'd have to checkmate them reckoners style, wich is really hard to do when the only thing you have that they can't recover from is a shardblade. and every second you don't have them in checkmate, the more they are gonna be hitting you. beating them is going to be near impossible for anyone in those circumstances