Swimmingly

Except that that's a one-time boost, and Kaladin implies later on that Dalinar supercharged him again.

Here it is.

 

This feels a LOT like Brandon's novels. It's got the same tight pacing, similar effective prose, great worldbuilding, you know the rest.

 

This is a world where fame grants power. Dominic de Luca is a young man on the brink of poverty, scraping money in however he can - and it's not fast enough. When a battle between demigods takes an unexpected turn, his life changes forever.

I just tried to get on the Coppermind. And then it just... stopped working.

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Die on a bed fully charged Ferucemically. Made of gold.

Hmm. Hemalurgy OP.

-

Completely unrelated, how much air pressure is required to prevent the average human male from being able to inflate his lungs? I need this. Don't ask questions.

With Stormlight constantly healing crushed lungs/boosting muscle strength/preventing you from needing to breath, it becomes irrelevant.

With Feruchemical pewter, Feruchemical iron, Feruchemical gold, Allomantic pewter, Feruchemical cadmium, more than a normal human to an arbitrary amount.

Otherwise, no idea.

Perhaps they've got superhuman speeds and reaction times? Or maybe constant Stormlight healing sans Stormlight?

Unless it simply never occurred to them that powers could be gifted.

At least they aren't becoming an equinonymous herd. That would truly be terrifying.

I haven't actually worked out the spirits' behaviour yet. I figured that could wait for another time, as the focus of what I'm going to be doing is the diagrams.

Ok, I'm going to try to describe this a different way:

Imagine that each diagram is function in a program, which accepts only spacial parameters. So long as the deal's valid, anybody can call it by inscribing the diagram with red dust (this is usually done by tracing it in an adhesive and brushing the dust over it).

As to capabilities, I want to leave that more open-ended. Because of the changeable nature of deals (e.g, if there's a diagram tied to a person's lifespan, or tied to the power of a dead or imprisoned entity, or only works every other day) it's most effective to memorise well-documented diagrams tied to powerful entities with few restrictions. It also means that, if you mess up, your diagram either doesn't work at all or does something entirely different. I want to roughly confine the effects to the purely physical, but even that has some wiggle room.

Again, you do not use the diagrams to summon anything. That's entirely different. And the spirits can affect people without a deal. They just tend to move through pawns, worshippers, or negotiators who traded a favour for a diagram.

Basically, when a deal is made, it's in "the public domain" so to speak. The negotiator can keep the diagram secret, if he wants, but anybody using that configuration of shapes can access it.

Also, the deals are by no means a required art for the diagrammists. That's something entirely different, even if it's a logical progression. An analogy that works is that the negotiators are electricians, connecting the switch to the power line and the lightbulb. Diagrammists just flip the switch. The only difference is that, because the wires are metaphysical, the lightbulb can be anywhere.

So, I'm writing an urban fantasy (think Dresden Files) and I want to have a world where there are an indeterminate number of magic systems, all supporting eachother in one way or another, and possible to group in any number of ways depending on your perspective. Anyway, the system I want to focus on is diagrams.

My idea for diagrams is that they're very specific geometric figures which invoke agreements with abstract entities. These deals can be set up by shamans, priests, summoners, diabolists, whatever, but they come down to an agreement whereby the entity agrees to cause such and such effect whenever a particular geometric shape is drawn and traced with activation dust. For example, a minor spirit of gravity might agree to power a small region of weightlessness when such and such diagram is inscribed. The price might be worship, it might be a symbolic offering of power, it might be an inch of height, it might be the chance to corrupt the negotiator with some measure of mental and bodily influence.

Anyway, I want to explore the way that, while there might be an official guide to designing these diagrams, in the end, it's really up to the negotiator what it looks like. I could draw some interesting parallels between this and language, I think.

It sort of reminds me of that Sherlock and Holmes IN THE FUTURE thing, but better defined. I think that, if you could keep the stories recognizable as containing elements of a proper Holmes mystery as well as the themes and plots of the period aspect, it could turn out quite well. On the other hand, it would be much like lining up a pile each of bowling balls, knives, feathers, and loaded handguns, then promising to juggle them in succession while riding a unicycle.

 

In case the metaphor is not clear, it might not be pretty if you messed up.

 

I would also warn against falling into stereotypes of period pieces, and looking at the kinds of twists you could do with it. Quite a lot of bad fanfiction happens when people take characters they enjoy reading, settings they enjoy reading, and mashing it all together with mediocre writing and very poor themes. Not to cast this in any sort of negative light - I know you enjoy fanfiction - but that is what this boils down to: transplanting characters into new situations. It needs to be done exceptionally to look good.

 

Those issues avoided and your exemplary writing adhered to, it'll kick some serious rock-shelled saddle-backed chull.

Marasi's Pulser Allomancy.

The first one seems pretty straightforward - the plot will involve a method of storing digital information biochemically or genetically. The cell appears to be a virus - influenza, maybe? The strand in the back might be a strand of hair, which would make the virus something held in the dust, but it might just be a decoration, in which case it's probably an inner infection. What does the data contain? Hard to say, apart from that it's binary.

 

The second scene suggests a betrayal. The way that the woman looks directly at the viewer, and the way that the gun is held slightly off-centre, suggests both competency and intimacy - she trusts Steven to be reasonable when she's holding the weapon. Her suit isn't ruffled, and they're in an alley, either on some pretence or as a result of her threatening him to make him go there. She seems calm, collected, suggesting that Steven is as well. What does the CAL on the dumpster sticker signify? California jumps to mind.

Wow. This is pretty awesome.

Raoden 6
Vin 11
Wax 10
Kaladin 9
Shallan 10
Shai 5
Sarene 8
Vasher 10
Hoid 7
Nightblood 14
Galladon 10
Demoux 6
Leras 11
Rayse 8
Tanavast 9
Cultivation 10
Skai 9
Aona 10
Endowment 10

First, I'm gonna nitpick your nitpick. What, then, would you call the state Elantrians are trapped in mid-Shaod? Many words have two, sometimes related meanings. There's no reason the word cannot mean both the initial event, and the state that is a result of that event. Moreover, you knew exactly what I was talking about in context, as I feel anyone who's read the book is likely to. If I use a word, and it's obvious from the word what the meaning is, how is that not an accurate word?

I will respectfully disagree. With one point of data, it is difficult for either of us to get traction. Nevertheless, your example doesn't make sense to me. We know that all Investiture everywhere runs on similar principles. The "forms" of AonDor may be like that of computer programming, but surely that's an inspiration rather than a rigid rule. Whereas we have WoB that there are fundamental underlying principles of Investiture that remain consistent, so I suspect that if Aon Ien cannot target Galladon, then a Soother couldn't reach his emotions, either.

Also, Aons work on Elantrians, yes? Otherwise they couldn't Tia all over the place. Yet Elantrians are receiving a constant influx of Dor, which heals them and grants them a variety of other powers. The actual physical transformation never finished, but a "program" is obviously still running.

I do not know a lot of computer programming, but I think I know enough to dispute your idea. You say two programs cannot be running at once, yet my computer can run many, many programs at once.

Finally, when Raoden tries to heal Galladon, it simply fails. It doesn't enter a queue or return an error message or anything. Neither of us knows enough about "failure to initialize Aons" to be able to say if this is normal, but surely it's suspicious that there's no interaction or resistance or backsurge or anything, the Aon simply fades, as though you'd asked it to target a chicken when there was no chicken present.

Just a note: a computer is a machine, capable of running many different programs at once. I think the comparison was with a single program acting on something in a basic language, where two operations within a single program cannot be acting simultaneously.

That...sounds like a realistic timeline, actually

Okay, I've seen this thing around on other forums, basically, press Ctrl+V or right click and select copy and post your result! (Yes, this is totally pointless)

Mine:

Conspiracy theories are like the weird aunt in the family, either

Uh, Ati, shouldn't that be "and select paste..."

My clipboard seems to be blank. Huh.

I liked it. A lot. My only problems were little things:

Otherwise, I loved it. The characters were great, the plot made just enough sense, and the effects were incredible. The CGI on Groot and Rocket were very very nice. Be warned: this is not a deep movie exploring real-world issues, and it doesn't try to be that. It sets the bar at 'entertainment', and clears that with flying colours.

9/10 five-pointed gold hemalurgic spikes.

Well, scientifically speaking, they shouldn't be able to walk, either. I wouldn't underestimate the power of a proper Lifeless Command if I were you. Of course, even if it wouldn't work, a surgical remedy would be easy enough.

Or just that he can exert influence in the right circles. It's possible that Hoid just wants to get the seventeenth shard off his back.

In my opinion, Calamity is simply the most powerful gifter of all, but himself with a fairly narrow power set.

I'm trying to stay just behind Swimmingly on the rep list. At the rate we're going, somebody is going to pass Peter Ahlstrom soon and become the target of an angry mob. And I pity the fool who passes Brandon Sanderson.

So Swimmingly? Be as witty as you can, I'll try to be as dull as possible.

Your clever ploy to gain reverse-psychology upvotes will not fool me!