darniil

Thanks, Catalyst. Now I need to go re-read a final battle scene in AoL: That's definitely not ten books from now, so maybe I misread that scene.

So, those who have finished Alloy of Law - shall we continue this thread? There was information in the book that directly pertains to this topic.

So, I was thinking how the third trilogy was mentioned as being in the future (as opposed to the second trilogy being contemporary to our time), and I wondered if the people from Scadrial would be able to visit the other shardworlds without using Shadesmar - and, if so, how would they do it? The simplest (and most boring, and not germane to the topic) method would be FTL travel. But then I got to thinking about Pulsers and Sliders. My first thought was, "Hey, what if a bunch of Pulsers - or some Pulser-inspired technology - could put a bubble around the crew quarters of a starship? That would allow the crew to travel from one system to another within their own lifetimes." Just put the ship on autopilot, power up the Pulser Engine, and go have a sandwich. Then I tried to figure out if something similar might work for Sliders, but the first bump I hit was that bendalloy bubbles - and cadmium bubbles - were stationary. Which, in turn, would probably rule out the Pulser starship. But then I thought some more. These books take place in a universe which is, astronomically, pretty much like our own. It follows the same rules of physics. Which means that Scadrial is rotating on its axis, while it revolves around its star, while that star moves within its galaxy, and that galaxy moves within its universe. Which means, technically, bendalloy and cadmium bubbles aren't stationary. They're stationary relative to one object - Scadrial - but they're perfectly mobile when one looks at the bigger picture. This makes me think that a Pulser starship might be possible, provided the Pulsing can be anchored to the ship rather than Scadrial. It also makes me wonder why the default anchor is the planet and why nobody has figured out how to anchor it elsewhere. Is it simply a mental block that could be overcome? Is a person too small to be used as an anchor (even though the bubbles pop up with the person at the center)? Can a bubble's size be altered, dependent upon the size of its anchor? (That is, could a small bubble be made around, say, a person's heart if the whole person were the anchor?) I still dig the idea of Allomancers Iiiin Spaaaaace!, though I'm not entirely sure how it would work.

It does seem kind of monstrous when you put it that way, but I think that's pretty much the whole point of that particular Shard: You freely give of yourself in order for someone else to have a better life. Now, is it open to corruption? ("Here, I'll give you 500 gold pieces if you give me your Breath.") Sure. But that wasn't the initial concept. That's just how some people attempt to game the system. They're not operating by the spirit of the system, just the letter. (damnation munchkins.)

<pedantic> We are. The group in the books is the Seventeenth Shard. </pedantic>

[[Miles]] or [[Miles Dagouter]]?

There were three that just jumped out at me. All of them came from Wayne. "Huh. Tea's poisoned." Marasi: "Dare I ask what [the cloud area] is?" Wayne: "The white, puffy things that float high above the fruitful land where the seeds are planted." "I bought a ward against [logic] off a traveling fortune-teller. It lets me add two 'n' two and get a pickle." Oh, and is anyone else amused that Spook's Eastern street slang dialect is considered High Imperial during AoL?

HE HAS GREAT BIG SCARY POINTY SPIKES IN HIS EYES. Would you want to have a giant with railroad spikes poking through his skull over for tea and biscuits? To sit next to you at the opera? To debate beef futures with? NO! When you see him, you run screaming in terror! This is not someone you want to have dating your daughter. This is a force of nature that forcibly initiates "fight or flight", and just as forcibly railroads "fight" out of the way so "flight" can make use of that railroad and get you the hell out of there! (Note: Caps and italics used for humorous intents only. Not to be taken seriously.)

I asked Brandon about this at his Eagle Eye Books signing during Dragon*Con 2010. (Although you worded it much better than I did at the time.) Essentially, Brandon said that Preservation wanted the number 16 to be noticeable in a multitude of places. This would make it easier for humanity to realize that something specific / unusual / planned was going on. Brandon didn't say why Preservation chose 16 over 18 (or more, due to other atium alloys), just that Preservation wanted the number 16 to be noticed. My guess is because, in a different world, it would have been pointless trying to figure out why these two guys over here (aluminum and duralumin mistings) couldn't do anything, even though they both obviously Snapped during the Allomantic Aptitude Testing Procedure. (And because it would be too confusing if every atium-alloy misting were also added in to the mix.)

My guess is no, since the Tears are plants, not metals. (And now, due to a potentially different wording, I have the Major-General's Song from The Pirates of Penzance running through my head. >.< )

Well, if the first one you pointed out was on page 202, that's looking much more promising than WoK.

I have my copy sitting right next to me here at work. I will be taking an hour for lunch today - rather than my usual 15 minutes - so that I can read. The only question I have, now, is do I start at chapter 7, or do I read the previewed chapters I already read on Tor's website?

Or call in sick. (...or Spiked. >_> )

I'm hoping my copies arrive tomorrow. I bought two, since I knew my mom wouldn't want to wait for me to finish before starting. (Plus I've got NaNoWriMo taking up some of my free time, as well as working on chapter summaries of MB1, so I know AoL is going to take me a while to finish.)

Welcome aboard. I don't know what those people out there in the line are doing, but if you see a cat walking by with hemalurgic spikes, just pretend you didn't. It'll be for the best.

I'm just stating that I like where this idea is going, and quoting Homer Simpson in order to do it. =^.^= Catonalsium?

I was recently corrected on this, so I thought I'd pass it along. The Returned are not Splinters; the Divine Breaths are Splinters. It is the fragment of a Shard that is held by a mortal that is the Splinter, not the mortal. The mortal may have supernatural abilities when holding the Splinter, but the mortal is not, itself, the Splinter. I don't see any problems with the rest of your post, though.

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Yeeah, Amazon.co.uk already posted the Ars Arcanum on their website, and we've already spent a while talking about it. >_>

I'm disappointed that I can only upvote this once.

Equal how? We know that some Shards can see into the future more clearly than other Shards, so in that sense, no, they're not equal.

Oh, definitely. I'm going to put one together later on today. I don't know what would be the proper program to use for something like this, so I'm just going to knock something together in Photoshop. (It's the tool I know the best.) Yes, thank you. Edited appropriately. /me glances at his signature block, which hasn't been edited in well over two months. >

Another delay. http://www.crafty-games.com/content/mistborn-adventure-game-releases-november-22 They say "most digital formats" on November 22nd. Not quite sure what that means, but I'm still bummed.

All very good points, Thor. I guess I'll just have to wait until the 8th to find out if the AoL AA was written by a new character there, or if we're still all in the dark.

You're right. I forgot about that aspect of the illusions. Thanks for the correction.