darniil

A couple of my friends have been reading them since the third book was new. I saw how long they were, and how long the series kept getting, and I kept putting it off. I eventually bit the bullet and borrowed the first book from a friend. I think I read the prologue two or three times before I managed to get farther than that. When I was a DSL tech support person, working at the telco's HQ, I had found a Russian website with full-text copies of the books. I'd read the physical books on the train to work, pick up where I left off on the website once I got to work, reading between calls, and then continue reading from the physical book once I got back on the train at the end of the day.

I don't remember anything about a second bead, so I'm as puzzled as you are.

Forsaken. (Which I guess is Horde. :-/ ) Angry Video Game Nerd or Zero Punctuation?

Dividing by zero, before the whirlpools start.

I've often thought that there should be a "techician's Ajah", now that there are a few more people able to make angreal and such. Not sure what color would be used. In this world, I'd lean towards silver, but I don't know that that color would make sense in their world. (Kinda like our "healer" color is red [or white, depending] and theirs is yellow, our law-enforcement is blue, theirs is red, etc.) I'd probably be Green, with strong Brown tendencies. Battle-Poet?

I have the impression that Mistborn were much more common in the early generations after the ascension of the Lord Ruler, but I can't find any solid evidence of that. I could be wrong, I guess.

Very awesome. Thanks for the notice.

If Sazed is in charge of the Seventeenth Shard, it makes me wonder what kind of "history" Hoid and Sazed would have had for Hoid to refer to him as "you old reptile"; I've never encountered that term being used in a positive light. Though he does refer to him at the end as a friend. And I can certainly see how Sazed might adopt a policy of non-intervention after the events of HoA.

Is it Chemmings? I thought I read Peter saying it was Ferrings. *shrug* Whichever. I'm cool with either. Also, what KChan said. Personally, I tend to perceive the high frequency of Mistborn during the Final Empire as a blip in the overall history of Scadrial, due to the Lord Ruler's artificial introduction of that degree of intensity of allomancy to the populace.

I actually had to look those up. While aqua regia had a cool use in WWII, I think I'd go with aqua fortis. It seems to have had a lot more uses in the visual arts. Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking?

Wrong. It is not a misinterpretation. As you just said here, again, the laws cannot be bent or broken. (For the most part, of course. Change the Planck Constant, and the laws change. This has already happened at least once in our universe. Excepting that, however: ) While laws are immutable, human interpretation of those laws is not. Human understanding is not a constant. A red dwarf was discovered fifteen years ago. With current science, we've discovered that this star is not only much younger than we originally thought, but also much closer to our star system. Just because we think that things work a certain way in the cosmere doesn't mean that they do. The magic systems in these books are so different that they, upon initial inspection, appear to be completely separate. The only reason we know they're not is because the author of this universe has told us that there's an equivalent of a Grand Unification Theory that binds all of these magic systems together. So, until we hear something definitive from the creator of this universe, neither of us can say with 100% certainty that either of us is correct in our theorizing. We may get more clues, but clues may not always suggest one theory over another - they could be ambiguous, they could even be red herrings. I disagree with the claim that the Shards cannot be reunited. Destroying is easy. Creating is hard. Repairing is almost as hard. I like the thought of a broken thing being repaired, particularly if it is a difficult endeavor and the rewards would be great. Would reconstructing Adonalsium be a good thing? I have no idea. But as I like the books and I like the idea of repairing the Shards, I may as well run with that idea until something better comes along. (If the US economy can be repaired, why hasn't it been done yet?) Perhaps because nobody has thought of making Adonalsium whole? Perhaps because nobody has tried? Perhaps because the only person who is trying, who can try, is being opposed? I imagine that the shattering of Adonalsium would have been a very confusing time for anyone around back then. If we assume that magic systems on given planets exist because of the presence of a Shard, then it's safe to assume that a different magic system existed prior to Adonalsium's shattering. The Shards could have fallen in one "location", or they could have been scattered. If they were scattered, then odds are there weren't multiples in one location for someone to test "Shardic Superglue". Rayse has only killed two Shardholders that weren't local to his planet. That suggests it's difficult for one Shard to find another if they're not in close proximity. (Unless, apparently, there is diametric opposition, as was the case for Preservation and Ruin.) At some point, though, regardless of the desires of the Shardholder, eventually that holder's mind will bend to the intent of the Shard, and unless there is a Shard of Reconstruction, none of the Shards would have a desire to find other shards for purposes of reunification. (That's beyond their intent.) That may be why a third-party is necessary for something like this. And with so few people having knowledge of What Was, the odds of someone attempting a reforging are slim. Again, too black & white. Too boring. These are worlds of fantasy, not our world. Yes, there are laws and rules, and yes, those laws and rules are the norm for the natives of those worlds, but for us it is fantasy. Fëanor's techniques to capture the light of Telperion and Laurelin within the Silmarils would be considered magic to humans and hobbits, but it is a simple science to the Noldori. Fantasy to one, mundanity to another. These books are being written as stories of fantasy, not science textbooks or nonfiction histories. There are more philosophical ways of looking at things. There are shades of gray.

I'm not a huge fan of it, myself. It's kinda handy having some options right there, but at the same time, they end up moving things around so I can't find the other options I use. Gotta say, though, I am liking how Windows 8 will natively support ISOs.

It does, but at the same time, I think you're using "merged" in too simplistic a way. Too binary. As if the only result of a merging of two things is the destruction of those things as unique entities in favor of the creation of a new, third entity. I don't believe that. I just thought I'd mention something I thought was a neat idea - the joining of two Shards within a single entity. (Not the merging of two Shards into one, though I won't say it's impossible since they were originally joined.) However, there seems to be some rather strong and passionate opposition to this idea. As a result of that, the only thing I can do is stick to this theory until it's proven wrong. As KChan said in another thread, "The Cosmere is more like the natural world, with the addition of magic...." And much like the natural world, we don't know all the rules. We don't know how things interact. All we can do is hypothesize based upon the information we have. If we didn't have the Mistborn books, we'd never have proof that it's possible for someone to do what Sazed did; it would just be wild speculation. But he was able to show the cosmere something new (at least, show it to those who were paying attention). The sixteen Shards were all together in one entity at one point, but now they're apart. The liquid metal in the Well of Ascension got dispersed whenever it was used, but it came back together. Atium beads are effectively atomized when burned allomantically, but they coalesce over time. I think these two examples, plus the fact that the sixteen Shards were once together as one, plus the lack of evidence saying that Shards can't be reunited is enough for me to think that it's possible. Do I think Preservation and Ruin have merged? No. I think I explained that very clearly in my initial post. But I don't think it's impossible, over time. (Eons, perhaps.)

Perhaps I misunderstood, but it sounded to me like you were trying to argue that two Shards could not exist in one person. I was trying to show how it's possible. I guess I could have just used a coin as a much simpler example: there's a face on one side and a building on the other, but they're still part of the same coin.

I never claimed they've merged. As I said, they're distinct. The existence of two types of mist supports this, as is coincides with the two mists that existed when Preservation and Ruin were each held by one individual.

Chaos' post made me think of putting this together. Here's the image that accompanies this post. (I would have attached it directly to this post, but I didn't realize there was such a small limit on a "global upload quota".) It's a little difficult for me to put it together in words, so I went the picture route. I was originally planning on doing something in Gimp while at work, but I don't know it that well, so I just grabbed some pens and sketched it out on some printer paper. So, Adonalsium was one thing at one point in time. Then it shattered into sixteen different intents (Shards). Each intent was adopted by one person, and over time that person essentially became the intent. (As an aside, I just reminded myself of the Endless. Each one is the aspect that it governs. If one dies, it is replaced with another aspect of itself. However, the thing that it governs can still do its thing without active administration. I wonder if Shards work the same way - the intent still causing things to happen, but without a consciousness guiding it.) Anyhow, Sazed has done something unprecedented. Not of his own doing, of course - Preservation laid the ground work for it - but he's the one who finished the job. Now we have one person with two intents, two Shards. In the days of the Final Empire, those shards were distinct - Preservation and Ruin. In Waxillium's time, there is only Harmony. What does this mean for the Shards of Preservation and Ruin, though? Did they fuse into one shard? Probably not, as Chaos explains, since the Metallic Arts still exist as they did in the Final Empire. (Or, at least, we assume they do. The only real evidence we have is that they exist as they did before the Final Empire: only Allomancy and Feruchemy.) Hemalurgy probably does still exist, as if it didn't, that would mean there was no Ruin, and without Ruin there would only be Preservation, not Harmony. As we know, Allomancy was fueled by Preservation, Hemalurgy was fueled by Ruin, and Feruchemy came about from the interaction between Preservation and Ruin. (Top graphic in my image.) Since all three Metallic Arts still exist, they must still be separate from each other, right? Not necessarily. (And this is where my words begin to fail me and I have to rely on the image.) We've been told that, normally, those two Shards taking up one place would annihilate each other. However, with a mind directing them, they wouldn't. They can't be separate, since they're both being contained by (or containing) the same mind. One mind, two Shards. The one mind keeps them together, but at the same time holds them distinct from each other. This allows each Shard to continue to fuel its Metallic Art, and also allows the two of them to interact with each other, conflicting with each other, to generate Feruchemy. (An aside: If this is the case, it would be interesting to see what would be made if other Shards were held by the same mind. What would become of Honor/Odium? (Something Lawful Evil?) Or Endowment/Cultivation?) Now, we've also been told that, after some very long time, Sazed would be changed by the two Shards. Perhaps that would also be the same duration that it takes two Shards in constant contact to reunite. If that happens, would this entity still be known as Harmony, or would it become something else - after all, there would no longer be a balance, as there would only be one Shard, not two. It would contain within it the intents of Preservation and Ruin, but it would be neither. And if the two Shards reunited, what would become of the Metallic Arts? I imagine they would still exist, but not in the form(s) we know them now. As regards the image, I'm also planning on trying to make something that contains more Shards, so as to give more detail to my thoughts along this line. If I can manage it in Photoshop, it'll be a little easier to get across. If not, I'll just have to break out my compass and Prismacolors and do it the old fashioned way.

Page 49? The copy I just accessed from Sanderson's website said Fifth Heightening.

Got this one just now trying to access the root of the forums.

...that the favicon.ico for www.17thshard.com kinda resembles Chaos' avatar? It took me a while to realize that they weren't the same image. For the first week or so, I kept thinking, "Well, I guess I know who's in charge here. "

I seem to recall the message saying it wasn't a server issue, that it was specifically a SQL problem. There was a pink box going across the length of the window, with a white box that was allegedly supposed to contain an error message. There was no error message. I seem to recall another part of it saying, "This is not IP-Something's fault" or OP or some other two-letter acronym. I know this doesn't help much. Sorry I didn't take a screenshot. Edit: The pink box error was only on www.17thshard.com. coppermind.17thshard.com showed the Coppermind logo, a message saying it was unavailable, and a Google search box to search for cached articles.

Much like in White Wolf's Aberrant RPG. <3 my Aberrant character.

Me.

Yeah, I noticed it on www.17thshard.com and coppermind.17thshard.com.

Barney. Much easier to hit with a sniper rifle. 16x10 or 16x8 resolutions?

Don't feed the trolls. >_>