Swimmingly

But we haven't seen any cases of compounded Full Lashings. And if you have tiny cells of vacuum, then all compounding would do would increase the number of cells, or possibly reinforce the Stormlight maintaining the vacuum. Think of it like tiny bubbles in between the Lashed objects. Stormlight maintains the integrity of the bubble walls, but applying sufficient pressure will break them. The point at which they break, however, seems to be obscenely high.

I assumed that it simply created a vacuum between the objects, using the stormlight to maintain microscopic supercells of vacuum, thus preventing them from being drawn apart

Also, note that just because you have a copy of an object, you can't necessarily reproduce it, and the strike force might not even have plans to steal. Especially if the mechallomantic devices have some mystical component.

Unless they speak a whole different language, have an entirely different skin colour, etc. They might be a little out of Wayne's espionage capabilities, though he could probably amble in and stay undetected for a few minutes. With a bit of bendalloy, he could probably Slide in, copy down some plans, and get out. I bet he would need allomancy though.

Or it just requires an actual death, as opposed to a trip to damnation

Oh - sorry

I think the strength and even presence of the lines indicates what you can do. So very very slight lines would be just weird annoyances in your eyesight

There's a difference between a Returned going Drab and a Drab becoming a Returned. The first is simply the process of hiding a Breath so it cannot be sensed. The second is not well explained at all, but Brandon has said: If you die Drab, you can't Return.

Also, big artillery would knock out any advantage the enemy might have. A Crasher like Wax might be able to deflect a big, fast shell and a double Iron user might be able to change it's course. A Pulser could sacrifice themselves if they started the bubble at exactly the right time to give everyone else a chance to escape. A full feruchemist could block the explosive while tapping iron, gold, and pewter and maybe survive. Using trained, anchored coinshots, you might be able to trigger the things in midair, or shove them away at the cost of the coinshot's life - perhaps a Feruchemical gold Allomantic iron user could survive. If the explosives have metal triggering mechanisms, a lurcher or coinshot might even be able to set them off directly. Generally, though, the simple speed, mass, and momentum of an artillery shell would be extremely costly to life, feruchemical Investiture, or both to negate, while presumably costing the shooters nothing.

By proactive, I assume you mean "fly into the midst of the enemy by night, descending with gleaming iron eyes and shining knives to soak the earth in Southern blood like a grim and terrible angel of death"?

I believe Brandon has stated that Drabs cannot Return

So a rioter might have Vin-on-trace-elements levels of power? Cause even that worked pretty well

so you're saying uranium, staballoy, molybdenum, and molybdenum-tungsten would actually work - kind of?

Not everybody is an allomancer in the north But a fleet of mechallomantic cannons flinging explosives on ships powered by mechallomantic engines, with everybody able to operate mechallomantic small arms and body armour, is going to have a significant advantage over a motley of coinshots, lurchers, thugs, koloss, kandra, rioters, soothers, copperclouds, seekers, ferrings, people able to warp time.... actually never mind what I just said. The law of Narrative Causality states that any group that contains protagonists and can be defined as "motley" has a 90% chance of winning a war, with increased probabilities if they are defending their homes, have nominal heavenly assistance, and the bad guys have a record of pillage-and-burniness.

When I say we know how that ends, I was referring to the fact that superior weaponry tends to dominate given time, though guerrilla tactics ccan help prolong it

Or, you know, conventional warfare except one side has Allomantic cannons and the other has koloss and pewterarm infantry with coinshot shock troops/snipers etc. Essentially, superior weapons vs. superior soldiers... and we know how that all ends eventually

Other spren seem very... spirity and effervesent. Like ghosts or holograms or something. Wyndle is a bundle of moving plants. They seem totally different to me. Is this just Lift's perception?

Thank you. My humor and wakefulness have an inverse relationship.

thanks

There are crocodiles. They are fuzzy crocodiles, too. They gore people in exquisite delightful fuzzyness. They will munch on your soul while you fall adoring into their big, sweet eyes.

Oops...sorry bout that

The 17th shard is actually a worldhopping census society. They compile the phone book for Hoid. They're irate because the last Cosmerical phone book they gave him was a misprint that listed the entire population of Sel as the occupants of a non-existent Parshendi metropolis overlapping a section of Nalthis roughly three hundred kilometres southeast of Hallendran, and they want to give him the corrected copy before he goes looking to hint the secrets of a new Form to Raoden and runs across a vampiric Returned (these exist, WoB. Not actually vampires, but they dress all in black (good for awakening) and tend to act gothy, being back from the dead and needing a human Breath every week to survive and all. I'd find the quote, but...I won't. You'll have to take my word for it )

Remember Elend and his Duralumin Atium? What if, when you die on Nalthis with a Breath, the power of that Breath gives you a glimpse into the various possible futures, as Elend was implied to, and you can choose to go back as a Returned to try to guide the future down a particular path. Endowment acts as a sort of judge of these, and gives some a Splinter (the Divine Breath) and lets others through?

I could see him making a bunch of "minor tweaks" to prevent a full scale war and destruction of the genetic heritage of the North.

And I guess it's possible that the Terris were the only feruchemists... everybody else just had a tiny chance of being an allomancer. I want a novella about an iron, steel, brass, zinc, pewter, or tin Misting pre-Rashek sometime. We know they existed. Imagine when allomancy was so rare, realizing you could influence another's feelings, send yourself or knives or whatever flying, etc.