skaa

In case my point about Nicrosil got buried inside my wall of text, let me repeat it using Gold-Nicrosil FICTs. So, we have a Nicroburst-Bloodmaker and an Augur-Soulbearer who are Feruchemically Identical. The point I was trying to make is that there is a way to significantly decrease the amount of time the Bloodmaker has to be sick. Here's the step by step process (where Bob=Nicroburst-Bloodmaker and Sam=Augur-Soulbearer): Bob becomes sick for just 30 minutes (for example) storing Health in a goldmind. Bob gives the goldmind with 30 minutes' worth of Health to Sam. Sam burns the goldmind, generating (just a wild guess) 5 hours' worth of Compounded Health, assuming a multiplier of 10. Instead of using the Compounded Health, Sam stores all of it in his nicrosilminds. He now has 5 hours' worth of Health in, not goldminds, but nicrosilminds. Sam gives half of his nicrosilminds, containing 2.5 hours' worth of Health to Bob. Bob burns the nicrosilminds and stores Health in goldminds without having to be sick. This is because the Health he's now storing comes from the nicrosilminds, not from his body. Repeat 2-6 as needed. Depending on whether or not stored Investiture within nicrosilminds actually increase when Allomantically burned, Bob would end up with either 2.5 hours or 25 hours worth of Health after the first cycle. Either way, he only had to be sick for 30 minutes for both him and Sam to get tons of Health. And as long as they still have some Health left in either a goldmind or a nicrosilmind, they can continue doing Steps 2-6 (or Steps 5,6,2,3,4) indefinitely. Bob never has to be sick to store Health ever again. All this assumes that Nicrosil Feruchemy works like Tin or Copper Feruchemy, i.e. the "flavor" of the attribute remains when storing. The process becomes slightly more complicated if we follow the MAG rules, where nicrosilminds only contain "raw" Investiture. In that case, both Bob and Sam will need to have some goldmind reserves to "flavor" the Investiture coming from the nicrosilminds. Either way, they still get much more stored Health than other kinds of Gold FICTs, and are only slightly less awesome than a single Double Gold Twinborn like Miles. This process benefits any form of Feruchemy where storing usually leaves the user at a disadvantage (Steel, Pewter, Tin, Zinc, Aluminum, Chromium, Gold, and Electrum).

I knew it! Hoid is Bowerick Wowbagger!

Yes, Gold-Nicrosil and Chromium-Nicrosil FICTs would be pretty cool, but I chose Steel and Pewter as examples because they have very useful Allomantic properties that also benefit from a Nicroburst. Gold Allomancy isn't very useful, and I don't see how boosting a Leecher would do any good.Edit: Wait... boosting a Leecher would let him destroy an enemy's Hemalurgic spikes almost instantly (assuming the Leecher has enough chromium). Yeah, that'd be pretty handy.

Alright, I've thought more about it, and I believe Harmony is capable of creating "Compound Twins" (a term I just invented for two Twinborn with opposite powers) who are also Feruchemically Identical (i.e. they can share metalminds). These Feruchemically Identical Compound Twins (FICT) would be within the realm of his Shardic powers, I believe. But for identical twins who are also Feruchemically Identical without Harmony's special intervention, I think the chances of that happening is extremely small. See this WOB: If Feruchemy uses some Realmatic equivalent of a crypographic hash function to identify people, then even if identical twins have a higher chance of having similar Identities, that won't mean they'd have a higher chance of being Feruchemically Identical. This is because the probability of key collisions does not necessarily increase with similarity of the inputs. For example "skaa" in MD5 is "c87de6f3c2804593be217bb90dda1bdb", while "skab" in MD5 is "61de917aba4f6b53a37a2bb76d2915ff". Those two words are almost identical, but the generated keys look totally different.So I'm thinking only a freakish coincidence, an intentional intervention by Harmony, or perhaps some heretofore unknown application of Hemalurgy could create identical twins who are also Feruchemically Identical. Furthermore, I no longer think such FICTs can store anything in each other's metalminds. I just don't see how they could store something that their Spiritweb doesn't know how to store. But I believe they should be able to burn each other's metalminds for Compounding, because their Spiritweb knows how to burn the metal and their Identity is accepted by the metalmind. With all that being said, let me talk about one interesting possibility regarding FICTs. Suppose a FICT has access to Nicrosil (i.e. one is a Soulbearer and the other is a Nicroburst). The Soulbearer half of the FICT should be able to store Compounded power in his own nicrosilminds, which he could then share with the Nicroburst. For example, given a Steel-Nicrosil FICT, the Nicroburst-Steelrunner could hand over a small steelmind to the Coinshot-Soulbearer for Compounding. The Soulbearer Compounds Speed and stores that in a bunch of nicrosilminds. The Nicroburst could then burn one of the Soulbearer's nicrosilminds to fill more steelminds without the need to become slow. So basically you have two people who are practically both Steel Compounders, even if only one of them can burn Steel. But that's not the end of it. The Nicroburst can also boost the Coinshot's Steelpushes. Heck, I'm not even going to discuss the possibility of boosting Steelpushes with Nicrosil Feruchemy, which is speculative anyway, or the even more speculative idea of storing Steelpushes in a nicrosilmind so that the Nicroburst half of the FICT can also Steelpush. All I will say is that this duo would take the Steel-based Metallic Arts to a whole new level. Now imagine a Pewter-Nicrosil FICT.

I think I know which part of the ending you're referring to. In a few of Brandon's interviews, he's said things that gives people hope that what happened there can be undone by... a character you already know. We have no idea if Brandon will actually include such a scene in a future book, and I'm guessing there are fans who would be against it, but it's a possibility. Oh, and Vin's totally awesome. If you see yourself in her, then you'll be really proud of what she ends up doing. @Enna: I was like that, as well! It was actually my knowledge of the ending that kept me going through some of the less exciting parts of the trilogy.

What are your musings regarding this couplet by the Mad Arab?

What... is your quest?

From here: Note that Brandon had a different answer a few years prior to that, so he probably hadn't thought about the possibility of burning Hemalurgic spikes until someone asked him about it, which means it's not part of his original plan for the Metallic Arts. But he can always change his mind.

Welcome! Speaking of Warbreaker, what do you think of the character Nightblood so far? Also, what's the next Sanderson book you plan to read? If it's Elantris, I highly recommend getting the new edition that was released this year, if only for the pretty maps (though I got it mainly for the extra scene at the end and the fact that it now has an Ars Arcanum).

True. If she had a good reason to lie about it, it would have been wise to invent a story beforehand. I still think she wasn't lying. You know what? Let's wait for Blue to read that part so he can tell us what he thinks. This is his thread after all.

Um, I think Blue is saying that maybe Jewels was the one to turned Arsteel's corpse into a Lifeless. But yeah, she probably wasn't lying. Blue, later in the book you'll read a scene where Jewels defends her decision to sell her Breath as a child, and the story she tells is way too detailed for it to have been made up on the spot.

Theoretically if you could tap a metalmind you should also be able to store in it. So assuming twins can indeed access each other's metalminds (which, again, I don't think is the case) the Augur-Subsumer could just store Compounded Health in plenty of goldminds that he could then share with his Slider-Bloodmaker twin, who in turn could share Compounded Calories with his brother. Even if twins who can tap each other's metalminds somehow can't store in those same metalminds, that would still be mutually awesome for certain opposite-powered twins: e.g. Zinc-Pewter/Pewter-Zinc (though the Thug-Sparker would have to spend more time dull-witted to make extra metalminds for his brother).

Watching cute K-Pop girls. Er...cake. Cake is my guilty pleasure.

Mind if you share a link to that, Moogle? My WoB-searching power is failing me for some reason. I believe that identical twin Ferrings can't access each other's metalminds. For one thing, they won't even necessarily have the same power, because while Scadrian powers are hereditary, Brandon said the specific powers themselves are not: (@Moogle, was this the WoB you were referring to? It does seem to imply that identical twins won't necessarily have the same sDNA.) Suppose Bob and Charlie are identical twin Ferrings. Bob is a Brute, while Charlie is a Connector. Charlie obviously can't access Bob's pewter metalminds because he doesn't have the correct sDNA for Feruchemical Pewter. If the Identity of Ferring twins is different enough to manifest different powers, I think it's likely they'd still be different enough even if they were born with the same power. Twinborn twins with opposite powers (e.g. one is Gold-Bendalloy while the other is Bendalloy-Gold) would be super awesome if they could access each other's metalminds. I just don't see it as a possibility.

Tin does enhance the senses of hunger, pain, and thermoception, at least. From the Final Empire: I'm not sure what to think about the how Tin affects balance. On one hand, multiple characters attributed an enhanced "sense of balance" to Pewter, not Tin. Here's just one instance: On the other hand, balance is a sense, so Tin should also affect it. I guess it's quite possible that the characters in the book were just using the term "sense of balance" to describe something else that just so happens to leads to the same result. I theorize that Pewter Allomancy counteracts the effects of any force that might change the user's expected physical position, condition, and form. When a Pewter Allomancer expects to remain upright, forces that are counter to that expectation do not affect the user as much as normal. Hence the perception of an increased sense of balance. This fits the other effects of Pewter. The reason a Thug could lift a heavy object isn't really because he physically gets stronger as he burns Pewter (though that's what he feels is happening). His muscles don't grow bigger as they would if he was using Feruchemical Pewter. Instead, what I think is happening is that when he exerts effort to lift his hands up from underneath the heavy object, his body's expectation is for his hands to move up, so Pewter Allomancy counteracts any force contrary to that expectation (e.g. the downward force caused by gravity on the heavy object on his hands). Similarly, the body expects itself to be whole and healthy, and so Pewter Allomancy makes the body less affected by wounds and sickness, and boosts the body's healing. Tin, on the other hand, does not work with expectations, but with physical realities. It doesn't matter if you don't expect lunch for another hour, Tin will make you feel your hunger as long as it's there. It doesn't matter that you don't expect to see things in almost complete darkness, Tin will show anything that is there to see. So I guess, if I'm correct, this is the real difference between Tin and Pewter: Tin "pulls" the environment's reality towards the user, while Pewter "pushes" the user's "reality" onto his environment. Edit: tobar14's idea is also valid, I guess.

Well let's hope they didn't forget to get rid of all the skullmoss that might have been on that fain branch before Worldhopping to Roshar with it!

If the originators of the Table of Essences really were Worldhopping scholars, and if they had some theory about the Essences being connected to the Shardworlds in some specific (but wrong) way, then it's an honor to be in such distinguished company, even if we are wrong.

Nice to have that sort of cleared up, though the wording still allows for some small level of relationship depending on what exactly those philosophers thought and how far they are off the mark. We'll see. I guess for now I'll acknowledge that the connection, if it exists at all, can't be that great. Wait... so those philosophers (presumably Rosharan) knew about the other Shardworlds?! Whoa, that's actually pretty interesting.

Skaze are probably named after Skai, the guy who held the Shard of Dominion before it was Splintered.

Have fun reading through that list. Ender's Shadow is my favorite book in the Ender series. I can't say I like Game of Thrones or any of the A Song of Ice and Fire books, but it is immensely popular after all so maybe you'll like it. Since you like Sci-Fi and Fantasy and you're apparently open to sexual themes (given that you have Game of Thrones on your list), you might want to try The Chronicles of Chaos series by John C. Wright. It has some pretty cool ideas, albeit with bits of off-color humor here and there. When you get to Way of Kings (Book 1 of the Stormlight Archive), you might afterwards be interested to read the next book in the series, Words of Radiance, or take a detour and try Brandon's shorter books. For example, Warbreaker has a few minor connections with Words of Radiance even though it's not set on the same planet. By the way, do you know that a lot of Brandon's books (including Mistborn and Way of Kings) are set in the same fictional universe? It's called the Cosmere, and it's one of the reasons why some of us here get so obsessed by his books. It's fun figuring out all the hidden connections.

Hi there Michael! Please ignore the spam posts that occasionally pop up here. I'm sure the admins are working on ways to prevent those. Anyway, welcome to the 17th Shard. It certainly is a favorite for many. Do you plan to read the Mistborn books published after the first trilogy? Both Alloy of Law and Shadows of Self are set around 300 years after the events of Hero of Ages, so it features a whole new set of characters. There will be more Mistborn books in the future. You can read about Brandon's Mistborn plans here. Have you heard of his other series?

Fortunately, Warbreaker can be read for free from Brandon's website. It's even got chapter-by-chapter annotations (if you're into that sort of thing). Welcome to the official fan community of this wonderfully generous and prolific author. I hope you have fun.

Welcome! At first I thought "Fullmetal Feruchemist" would have been better (because of the "metal" part and the "-chemist" part), but considering Rithmatic circles, I'll admit that Rithmatists are indeed more similar to FMA-style alchemists. Have an upvote!

Interesting idea. Maybe Endowment only Returns human Cognitive Shadows (i.e. souls who did not move on).

We've seen another instance (in a different Cosmere series) of a group of beings worshiping a Shard whose human origin they were aware of, so I think it's quite possible that the Heralds worshiped Honor.