aeromancer

No. I'm not going to agree with this unless you have proof. Kelsier is the one that built the legend around himself, and the crew has conversations about reeling him in. Now, Breeze claims that his emotional allomancy 'sticks' with the people he influence, but we have only his word to back him up, and, even if he did, so what? Breeze's plan was never to influence the skaa population on the scale that Kelsier's plan was, so at best, Breeze was manipulated by Kelsier to be a better manipulator. Okay, right, because Breeze was the one who came up with the plan, and had the burning desire to kill the Lord Ruler. As previously stated, Kelsier can do everything that Breeze could do, plus Riot plus charisma plus an actual plan. They team just needed Breeze for the manpower. Yes, Breeze can read emotions really well, he's probably the best person on Scandrial who can read emotions. But just being able to read emotions doesn't make you a good manipulator. No. I'm including whatever you say into 'manipulation', and then some more like 'mass population effects', 'long term manipulation', and 'altering thought process'. If you want to tell me that I'm expanding manipulation too much, that's fine, I've already answered that point. Kelsier did it. Kelsier did it by founding a cult centered around him and embedding himself as a mythical figure within the skaa community and having OreSeur imitate him to give the impression that he is still out there. I would include that within the scope of my definition of 'manipulation'.

That's manipulation as well. More specifically, the 'cult personality' type of 'brainwashing' is a heavy-duty form of manipulation. 'Brainwashing' is a horribly unspecific term, but the way that most cult leaders do it, like Scientology or Peoples Temple is through manipulation of some sort. (Peoples Temple is the infamous 'Don't drink the Kool-Aid' cult, that was referenced to in the beginning of Firefight.) This manipulation heavily revolves around changing the subject's view of the user, as well as how he thinks to benefit the user. Now, you may say that Breeze isn't that type of person (because he's not, being a bad manipulator and all), which is true, but Kelsier is. A cult is precisely what Kelsier was trying to accomplish, what with his random visits to skaa, and spreading messages about how he was the Survivor and all. In case some people are wondering, yes, this is morally wrong for Kelsier to do, but a: Kelsier is a sociopath, and b: he was doing it to defeat a worse evil, so two wrongs make a right? Ends justify the means? Eh, I'm not judging him, I've already wrote a thread about that buried somewhere in the annals of the Shard. Now, if you want to say manipulation is not that, and is only what Breeze used it for, i.e. besting someone in an exchange or getting them to do what you want in the short term, then, yes, Breeze is an expert manipulator. He's also worthless for a long-term rebellion. Breeze was brought on board to greatly influence the skaa population to wwant to rebel against the Lord Ruler, and he did a passable job. Certainly not a masterful job, though.

I never said he wasn't. The quote I open with essentially says that everyone is a manipulator at some level. I'm simply saying that Breeze isn't the caliber of manipulator that should be required for this kind of job. I will agree that Breeze is an expert in reading emotions, though. This is all but explicitly stated when he undergoes inner monologues about his fear of relationships. Breeze feels that his bonds formed are unnatural (because they are), and because of that, he's scared when he forms intense relationships. Also, the 'comfortable life' things is proving my point. If you compare Breeze's work ethic, to say, Ham, it doesn't compare. Ham is hard-training mercenary who doesn't rely on his powers and thinks strategically through their use. Breeze uses his powers constantly, and only fails to use them when he absolutely doesn't need to. True manipulation changes a person to your side of thinking. A master manipulator would never have cases like Bilg. Bilg is what happens when you emotionally charge a mob, and expect them to have the same psyche after the effects wear off. Kind of like feeding someone steak, and then feeding them gruel, but tell them to pretend it's steak. Master manipulators get you to think that gruel is better than steak, and only their particular gruel is real gruel, every other gruel is shredded steak pretending to be gruel. I should have made this point clearer. Breeze is a manipulator. Just not a great one.

“What they do not realize—and what you must realize—is that manipulating others is something that all people do. In fact, manipulation is at the core of our social interaction.” -Lord Breeze Ladrian. Ah, Breeze, you wonderful manipulator. Obviously the best in the Mistborn series. Except for, you know, Kelsier, who riled up the population of an entire city into rebellion. And, maybe the Lord Ruler who managed to beat the skaa down in the first place and control the world for a thousand years through the nobility. Also, the First Citizen, who controlled a city by being a dictator. Elend should probably be somewhere above you as well, you know, having created a stable political system (for an entire year!) that had classes formerly attempting to kill each other getting along. And, um, Allrianne Cett, for obvious reasons. (Maybe Straff? Nah, he's just a run-of-the-mill warlord.) You can probably see where I’m going with this. Breeze isn’t a good manipulator. He is, at best, a mediocre one who is bolstered to ‘passable’ by being an expert with playing with emotions. Which, by the way, is cheating and I say ‘passable’ comparing him to non-magical manipulators, like, say, politicians. Breeze’s claim to fame is being able to convince a dozen men of a hundred to rebel, and while that’s all and good (earning several thousand troops over the course of a year), he’s still pretty bad. I’ll explain why, but first, I’ll take out two counterpoints. Counterpoint 1: The Soothing Stations. Yes, there were Soothing stations. But, that didn’t stop Kelsier, and Breeze has emotional alomancy himself to level the playing field. Remember, even though Breeze can only Soothe, he himself claims that you can achieve the same effects by both Pushing and Pulling. Meaning, Breeze at that point is only on his own talents, and he’s mediocre at best. (And if he’s wrong about Soothing being able to work as well as Rioting, that’s a strike against him.) Counterpoint 2: Breeze doesn’t use dark manipulation. (Because there’s nothing morally wrong with adjusting emotions, whatsoever.) Yes, Breeze doesn’t use threat, for the most part, or anything more questionable, and he considers emotional alomancy no different from a set of powerful teeth (false!) or a charismatic personality (which he doesn’t have). Yes, I’ll give Breeze half a morality point for that. Half a morality point doesn’t make him a good manipulator, though. So, why do I say Breeze isn’t a good manipulator? Because Breeze uses the equivalent of whacking nails to get people to agree with him. He tells people to do things, and expects them to do it. Like with Spook, for example. Or, he’ll subtly nudge you to the point where you agree with him. Now, is this manipulation? Yes. It achieves it goals. But it’s not good manipulation. Because, it doesn’t last and isn’t flexible. Why do you think people like Bilg happened? Because of Breeze’s incompetence. So, what’s real manipulation? Real manipulation isn’t changing people’s emotions, or riling them up, or playing mental games until they give up and do what you want (cough Ham cough). Real manipulation is changing the way people think. This is achieved through behavior reinforcement, false information, propaganda. Someone’s who is a capable manipulator will change how you think and view things. This can be done by sparking emotions. This can be done through the spread of information. Or, through social interactions. Painting yourself in a different light. Breeze doesn’t do these things at all. Kelsier does a lot of them, but Breeze does nearly none, and he’s scared of his power, to an extent, which could be why he doesn’t do that. Why post this? Two reasons. One, because I don’t think Breeze is that good of a manipulator, and I want to hear opinions. Two, because I thought about this, realized it brought up points on manipulation that everyone should know, and decided that would kill two birds with one coin. So, read through this and tell me what you think. Please, disagree. And, secretly wonder if I'm attempting to manipulate you to do so. Or, actually I'm trying to get you to not argue. Heh.

Welllllll, that's technically not a railgun, because a railgun uses electromagnetism through conductors along the barrel, the projectile as part of a circuit, and usually have the projectiles fired at subsonic velocity first. Also, like stated frequently on these kinds of discussion, you have to watch out for the Law of Unintended Consequence a la Newton's Third Law. Every action has a equal and opposite reaction. You do not want to fire a railgun-level-kinetics projectile from your hand. Because plasma. Not a plasma railgun, the plasma trail following the railgun projectile. Why include the plasma railgun hyperlink? Because, face it, 'plasma railgun' is a term which you wish existed until you found out it did.

I'd go with Chromium compounder. Yeah, being a Leecher is basically worthless by itself, but imagine what a madman wielding fortune can do. Or, don't imagine, and read my list. First of all, money. Slots, lottery, poker, no matter what, this guy's winning it. In other words, your basic unlimited reserve of cash whenever you feel like. This can be used to fund small armies. That's starting off small, of course. If you really feel like it, try to have every person possible win Powerball at the same time, and watch the fireworks. The fun bit is when our CC decides to start feeling lucky. You know, basic stuff like randomly causing earthquakes. Volcanoes. Super volcanoes. Wandering near a nuclear power plant and randomly cause it to decay. Having moon-sized asteroids crash into the earth. Then there's more fun stuff, like luckily guessing the password to every single nuclear warhead on Earth.

I shouldn't be doing this... Evolution. It's a theory created by a Christian named Charles Darwin, and should not really any bearing on religion, or the age of the earth. It's just a theory on why and how different species originated. It's used way to often for something it's not. Also, dinosaur bones are cool. I have a dinosaur claw on my writing desk. If you want to prove the age of the earth, though, there are a lot more fun and better ways to do it. Like, trying to gauge how long it took for a solar system to form and / or galaxy to form. That number is bigger than how old my dinosaur claw is. By a lot. And that still doesn't prove anything. Just that from our observations, it looks like the universe is billions of years old. Key term: 'our'. I'm writing this small so that if you didn't want to read it, you wouldn't.

I recently got interested in the technological Singularity, and I was wondering if anyone could direct me to a decent place to learn information about it. I do have a (slight) background in AI theory, and I mostly want to build a disproof for it modeled around Godel's Incomplete Theorem. So, if anyone has anything helpful, that would be greatly appreciated. Also, I'm always up for a discussion about it and, as I said earlier, I'm going to argue against it.

Welcome to the Shard. Don't eat the cookies, they're chocolate chip. I have an assumption of which name you're thinking of, but I'm not going to say it for various reasons. There are good sections of this site where you could ask.

Sounds fun, and I need a decent writing excuse. I'm interested.

It is the start of a brand new year, and a lot of people (myself included) are still in a state of recovery from precisely what just it us. To aid my recovery, I recently listened to an open New Year's letter from Dr. Jordan Peterson. Dr. Peterson is a name that some people might recognize, he's an eminent professor at University of Toronto, active psychologist, and routinely gives lectures on various topics, mostly philosophical. I listened to his letter, and it blew me away. The video can be found here, and the text of the letter can be found here. Now, a slight word of caution. Dr. Peterson is an academic, and thus uses a high level of diction, but more importantly, he uses heavy philosophical concepts, and uses them without abandon. I didn't post this so much as to have a discussion, though, rest assured, I have no problems discussing it, I chose to post this because this is something I feel strongly that people should hear. Not necessarily to agree with everything, but it's a very valid viewpoint that I wanted to share with open minds. That being said, please listen or read the letter with an open mind, and if you find yourself agreeing with parts of it, Dr. Peterson has around one hundred and fifty similar lectures or discussions on YouTube. Also, for the moderators of this site. Let's try to keep all discussion (if any does occur) as calm as possible. And, if you have any other letters that you think the Shard would benefit from, please post them on this thread as well.

No on the ring. Running through all the calculation takes time, but essentially, you won't be able to get a big enough ring to black out part of the planet without blacking out the whole thing unless you want to deal with a whole host of other problems. Problems: a) not blacking out the entire planet, and choking the planet from life. Even using a single hemisphere rings leads to more problems as: b ) The 23.5 axis degree tilt would require an insane margin, assuming a single ring can cover the entire view of a single hemisphere, which could be corrected by removing the tilt, but then you lose seasons, and c) the gravity calculations are staggering. Rings is a bad idea. Tidally locked sounds fine, but then you have (as you mentioned) problems arriving from lack of sunlight, as well as losing seasons. It's a bad idea. So, how about a thick, Venus-like atmosphere? A very dense atmospheric cloud that blocks sunlight, but has a built in ecosystem that gets the solar nutrients to the soil, somehow. This would require a lot of work, but I'd be willing to go in greater detail should you want it.

And what does the esteemed Coffee Monarch have to say about Turkish? [Though, I must personally admit to occasionally drinking the heathen brew known as 'instant', due to the sheer volume I consume and little prep time it requires. I understand that there are some which cannot accept that, but you may take solace in the fact that I never sully a coffee with the white sludge known as 'sugar'.]

Vampires come from two basic origins, either based off of Bram Stoker (and heavily modified from pop culture) or based off something like Camazotz from Mayan(?) mythology. Now, current vampires are usually just boosted humans with bloodlust, and lack the finer points of the classic vampire. I'd rather the old ones. Also, for fun, I'm going to see if I can identify the historical basis of weaknesses. Religion: In I am Legend (the book), the protagonist has to use Stars of David against the Jewish zombies, because his crosses don't work. He coats his house in every religious symbol eventually. The origin of this comes from the assumption that vampires are demonic in nature, and thus, can be banished by religion. Silver: This is fun, it comes from summoning. Well, the principles of summoning, anyway, that silver is a ward against anything dark. Silver, along with cold iron, is usually effective against anything that goes bump in the night Running Water: Running water disrupts ley lines. I think. (Actually, I'm not sure about this one. I do know that running water was highly symbolic in the middle ages, though) Stakes: This is from thorns, specifically bloodrose. It's a flower that kill vampire from a thorn scratch. Also, take a look at aconite, if you look up plants. Invitation: Also from summoning. The door to your house represents a threshold that can't be crossed. Garlic: No, this one is stupid, unless you give your vampires a really good reason for doing so. Sunlight: Like all good creatures of the dark, vampires hate sunlight. Shouldn't kill them outright.

From what you've described, I wouldn't say the sister can be a contrast character. If 'all returned ghosts are evil', then the sister is, by default, evil, and is thus more of a force-of-nature than anything else. As a character, the sister has lost free will, and must be evil. This does not contrast well to a protagonist who is choosing to believe that something he knows should be evil, is not evil. A contrast character that I would use wouldn't necessarily be an antagonist. Say, a ghost hunter working alongside Jonathan who (like you said) believes that all ghosts are evil or, better yet, this character believes that all humans are inherently evil, and that ghosts act evil because there aren't consequences for doing so. This can contrast to Jonathan's pure idealism. That's just my thoughts. Hope it helps.

Cave Story. It's an 8-bit Indie game I found out about, and spent a lot of time dying in. It's highly addictive. So, to continue the trend... Favorite RTS (Real-Time Strategy) game?

Assuming the planet is pure gemheart, I don't think so, for one simple reason. Diamonds are flammable. (Diamonds aren't forever, I'm not sure where you heard that from.) Diamonds are mostly carbon (plus a few other elements for color) and carbon burns. Now, when you have a planet sized gemheart, that generates a planet size gravitation field. On the surface, not so bad. At the heart ... well the gravitational forces will pull the molecules so close they'll super heat and melt (though not without a fight, as carbon has a melting point of around 6000 degrees Farenheit, if I remember correctly). Now, the superheated liquid diamond will heat the planet until the surface is heated as well, and the surface will ignite from the oxygenated atmosphere, until the oxygen is depleted and the exterior is essentially coal. So, you'll be left with a coal-crusted planet with a liquid diamond interior. While that is really fun to imagine, it'll also probably form a holder of stormlight (read: the surface is black, so none), and the Rayse Beam of Razing won't be able to hold it's charge. EDIT: Also, making a smaller diamond will render you incapable of storing Rayse's true power.

You get an unsheathed Nightblood dripping with blood! (No, seriously, why did you think putting Szeth-son-son-Vallano into a vending machine was a good idea?) *inserts dragonfuit slice*

That's probably a bad idea. To simulate anywhere near earth level gravity using mass alone, you need a lot of it. For reference, the earth is roughly 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms. The metalminds would need to be very large, and you run the risk of a black hole if you're using a small enough space. Centrifugal force is a better idea.

Excellent. Always happy to see someone else to discuss Mistborn physics. Also, as bleeder said, don't eat the cookie. I mean, it's chocolate chip. It'd have to be at least oatmeal raisin for me to accept it from a stranger, and oatmeal craisin for me to eat one with a hemalurgic spike in it. Not that cookies from the Dark Alley have hemalurgic spikes in them, of course.

One of the two great themes, the other one being 'Kane's Wrath'. Cannot believe I forgot about those.

Congratulations!