Author Topic: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****  (Read 335787 times)

little wilson

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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****
« Reply #540 on: November 30, 2008, 05:07:46 AM »
Sazed would be able to use Ruin's power to steal that control, though, and I think he'd do so pretty quickly.  He might adopt a mostly hands-off approach for managing the world, but I don't think he'd permit someone to dominate Marsh for long regardless.

Maybe, but maybe not. Preservation allowed it with the Lord Ruler (although maybe he couldn't do anything about that because he was more tied up in Ruin's imprisonment...or maybe b/c he didn't really have the power to stop TLR). That was the example Brandon gave when I asked him. He said that a Duralumin/Nicrosil-enhanced Soother would be able to control Marsh, similar to how the Lord Ruler was able to (although I'm thinking TLR was significantly stronger in that area than any Mistings could possibly be in the later trilogies).....But I'm just going by what Brandon said. Since he's the author....

Anyway, you're probably right. Sazed wouldn't permit it to continue once he noticed it. My question was more if it was possible. Which it is. And I thought that was cool.
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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon*
« Reply #541 on: December 03, 2008, 10:22:43 PM »
I have a question.

Let us say that someone became a Koloss or a kandra . . . Then they managed to get a hold of Lerasium.  Would they gain the powers of a Mistborn as well?
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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****
« Reply #542 on: December 03, 2008, 10:44:35 PM »
I would guess so but I would not be surprised either way and I'll tell you why.

Koloss are human, they have just been warped by their spikes to the point of severe disfigurement.   I don't see any reason why a Koloss couldn't become a mistborn.   On the other hand, would you really want a Koloss with Mistborn powers?

Kandra are not human.   They were transformed oh so long ago into an entirely different species that breeds true.   On the other hand, they are still effected by spikes so why not Lerasium.

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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****
« Reply #543 on: December 04, 2008, 02:54:42 AM »
Oh, I know there's nothing that states that there was each kind of Misting. But there's also no evidence against thinking that....This also makes me wonder if there were Mistings in that group that were Mistings of maybe Nicrosil, or Chromium, or maybe the true External Temporal metals, but we just didn't know it--nor was it mentioned in the book--because the metals weren't discovered.

Hypothetical situation here. I'm thinking it's Chromium that's the external pairing to Duralumin. If I'm wrong, correct me. I wonder what would've happened if, at the exact moment when Vin was trying to take over Marsh, and burning Duralumin, a Chromium misting burned their metal, thus enhancing Vin's soothing. Would it have enhanced her Duralumin? So she'd in essence have a double Duralumin push? Would this have made it possible to control Marsh? What if this happened in the next trilogy, when Marsh isn't under Ruin's control, and if there WAS a Mistborn there.....Or maybe a Soother with a Hemalurgic Duralumin spike? Makes me wonder...

I know you recently said that Brandon said that this wouldn't work, but I got to wondering how much control a Chromium misting would actually have over his/her power.  I mean, if it just Enhanced indiscriminately, it wouldn't have given Vin that extra Push anyway, since I'm betting Marsh was burning Copper to block her Allomancy.  Thus Marsh would receive enhanced protection equal to Vin's enhanced control.

Also, although we've only seen one example and it's not very likely that a single case generalizes so easily, I find it probable that atium alloys change the "target" of the base metal.  As malatium has the effect of Gold, but can be used on someone else, an atium-brass alloy might allow a Misting to Soothe himself!  Similarly Pewter and Tin could strengthen and increase the sensitivity in someone else, respectively.  Copper wouldn't seem all that different, except that it would have the side-effect of shielding others from emotional Allomancy (by the way, it might do more -- such as further increase the difficulty of Pulling metals from someone else's body, but since nobody other than Vin has ever done that anyway and the Lord Ruler didn't like to burn Copper, who knows...).  Atium-iron and -steel alloys would be particularly interesting.  Would they allow the user to Pull a metal towards another person's center of gravity?

Of course this is all speculation and extrapolation from just one case, but it would make for some interesting additional powers, no?

...On the other hand, there's the seemingly-random distribution of effects in Feruchemy and Hemalurgy (I can't find any pattern as the metals are currently -- incorrectly, it seems -- organized).  What sort of effects do Atium and Lerasium alloys have in these two forms of magic?

SarahG

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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****
« Reply #544 on: December 04, 2008, 08:04:32 PM »
If the planet is tilted a lot less than Earth, but still tilted a little, it could have seasons that aren't extreme and the day length would not be very different from summer to winter.

Also, the seasons could be due more to the distance from the sun than to the axial tilt: but that would mean that seasons would be more extreme on one pole than on the other. For example, if we assume that the Final Empire's seasons are due mostly to distance from the sun and the planet is not tilted at all (I don't remember; how much does the book talk about day length changing as the seasons progress?), then north and south poles would have summer at the same time instead of at opposite times like on Earth (our Earth is actually slightly closer to the sun during northern hemisphere winter; our seasons come mostly from axial tilt rather than sun distance).

OK, I still don't get the Luthadel-as-axial-pole thing.  Whether or not the planet has tilt, if I stand in the center of Luthadel, how would I experience days and nights at all?  Wouldn't the sun appear to be always a constant distance from the horizon, simply moving around the horizon as the planet spins?

Then, if I move a little away from Luthadel, I would begin to experience days and nights, but still, there wouldn't be a dramatic difference between them until I was some distance away from the pole.  Also, I would not need to travel far for day and night to reverse themselves.  Woudn't it be daytime in the Western Dominance at the same time as it was nighttime in the Eastern Dominance?

Assuming there is no tilt or very little tilt, we have another problem.  Luthadel will get very little sunlight, since the sun will always be very near (if not below) the horizon.  And if the entire populated area surrounds the pole, there would be nowhere that the sun would ever get very high above the horizon.  These things would surely be hard on plants, even if it weren't for the ashfalls and mists.
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Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****
« Reply #545 on: December 04, 2008, 09:03:05 PM »
You have a lot of good points, Sarah. I'll have to think about it. You're right about the sun being at a constant distance from the horizon at the pole of a zero-degree-tilt planet.

Are we ever told about the sun being high in the sky? Maybe it does stay relatively close to the horizon when it's up—and since the planet is closer to the sun than normal, the plants get enough sunlight at that angle. (That would make everyone always have rather long shadows...) But even if there's a slight tilt, that doesn't explain why there wouldn't be a white nights/dark days phenomenon—unless you assume that the axial precession has a one-year cycle instead of our Earth's 25,765-year cycle...something which is incredibly unlikely. Maybe Rashek could have set that up, but would he have known to?

And even if you make it so the axis is pointing slightly away from the sun at all points of the orbit, how are you going to give Luthadel a sunrise and sunset? You'd have to make the planet have a significant bulge that swings around every day to block the sun.

I think that if you take all these things into account, it COULD be done, but it would be highly difficult—of course, we're definitely talking about Intelligent Design here on Rashek's part, so the extremely unlikely is possible. Also, it would make the south pole always face the sun, which would make life down there quite unlikely.

OK...let me think about this a different way.

Maybe the planet is straight up and down and night/day is entirely due to a planetary bulge blocking the sun. We know there are really tall mountains in the "north." Perhaps these mountains are the bulge.

Umm... This just isn't working very well.
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SarahG

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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****
« Reply #546 on: December 04, 2008, 09:16:37 PM »
YES!!!  I finally stumped Ookla!  Usually, when I bring up something that seems like an obvious problem to me, Ookla quickly dismisses it with his superior knowledge and I end up feeling stupid.  But today I don't have to feel stupid ... that is, unless I think about how many things I got wrong on the theory threads.  (I was the one to suggest that Reen's obsidian could be significant, for instance.)

I hadn't considered the idea of planetary bulge.  Perhaps that does explain the day/night cycle for Luthadel, although it seems like a stretch to me.
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Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****
« Reply #547 on: December 04, 2008, 10:48:46 PM »
Well, it would only explain it if the mountains are extremely tall (like some geographical features on Mars) and the entire area of the Final Empire doesn't take up much of an arc at the top of the planet.
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SarahG

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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****
« Reply #548 on: December 04, 2008, 11:09:28 PM »
Yes, and it wouldn't feel quite like "day" and "night" as we think of them.  The sun, rather than sinking, would simply move horizontally behind the mountains.  The mountains would then cast an enormous shadow over the entire Final Empire - and they'd have to be tall enough to shadow a good share of the Empire's atmosphere as well, or it wouldn't be dark enough to feel like "night".

In any case, people who actually traveled up into the "northern" mountains would surely notice that there was no nighttime up there - unless, perhaps, no one ever actually has made it far enough into the mountains (or close enough to the other side of the mountain range).  After all, Alendi & Rashek's journey occurred before these planetary alterations took place.  Perhaps the current Terris peoples stay pretty much on the southern faces.
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Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****
« Reply #549 on: December 04, 2008, 11:45:25 PM »
Yeah, you wouldn't be able to get anywhere near a decently dark night unless the bulge was significant and also accompanied by a significantly large enough tilt and the yearly precession of the axis like I said before—which would screw up plans Brandon might have for the south pole unless people down there were living underground the whole time—or the people in the south did live in a land where the sun never set.

To get a planet to precess like that you'd need significant tidal influences from other passing planets—but the people on the planet would probably never notice the precession since if you can't see the stars you can't see the north star changing. The nearby planets would probably get pretty bright though...

Eh. The more I think about it, the less I can see this working out.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2008, 11:47:49 PM by Santooklaus »
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SarahG

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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****
« Reply #550 on: December 04, 2008, 11:53:28 PM »
I wish EUOL would come back to the forum and answer some more questions.  But I know it's a lot to ask, with all he has to do these days.  And at this point he has several dozen pages of posts to reply to - so I doubt he'll ever catch up.

I guess it serves me right for waiting to read HoA till the library finally had a copy.
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Cosmic_AC

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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****
« Reply #551 on: December 05, 2008, 02:43:37 AM »
Since the planet's "spin" has little to do with magnetic polarity if the planet's core is set up a certain way, is it possible that the magnetic polarity axis is (almost?) perpendicular to the rotational axis?  So it's basically Earth but with a magnetic alignment such that all compasses point to Greenwich or Utah or whatever.   :D


[EDIT]
Oh, erm, you were saying that Luthadel was the AXIAL pole.  Well, that could still work... sort of.  What we think of as an Earth year is really the time it takes for our planet to make one revolution around the sun, and an Earth day is the time it takes for Earth to make approximately one rotation on its own axis (I say approximately because each time a day goes by the Earth has also moved slightly, so since I'm too lazy to figure out what it is I'm gonna say give or take a few minutes because the day is subjectively defined, and a period of 24 hours is the amount of time it takes for the sun to appear to be in roughly the same location in the sky to someone standing in roughly the same location on the ground).

If that confused you, don't worry.  It's not that relevant.  I just brought it up because I'm insane.  God told me to.
So.  We know now that some planets have shorter years than days.  But since a year also changes the observed location of the sun (if we had substantially less than 365.22 days each year, we'd probably notice more), such a planet would count its years as "days" and its days as "years."

So if the planet Luthadel is on (I forget which page Brandon named the planet on) happens to revolve around the sun more than 100 times faster than it actually spins (this is definitely scientifically possible because it has been observed), Luthadel could still have days and nights as long as its axial tilt wasn't perfectly parallel to its revolution axis.

In fact, suppose the axial tilt is perpendicular to its revolution axis.  That is, suppose Luthadel is actually on the north "pole" of the rotational axis, but it is also simultaneously on its equator (like Uranus, though Uranus isn't perfectly perpendicular either).  This would make for "days" of exactly the same length in Luthadel.  Of course, this would make for a strange time system -- a "year" would vary depending on where on the planet you were; Luthadel itself wouldn't actually have seasons in this scenario (but a slight tilt from this would allow for seasons), and the further you got from Luthadel the more volatile the seasons would get, until you started approaching the south pole.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2008, 03:01:11 AM by Cosmic_AC »

Czanos

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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****
« Reply #552 on: December 05, 2008, 07:10:41 AM »
Seasons are milder in the Central Dominance than those of the Outer Dominances.

However, we can't forget the burnlands. They surround the entire Final Empire, which leads me to believe that they are caused by the sun's heat hitting the planet more directly. This would mean the axial pole of Scadrial is at least close to perpendicular from the astral plane. (I'm pretty sure, at least.)

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Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****
« Reply #553 on: December 05, 2008, 10:13:20 AM »
Cosmic, in order for a planet to revolve around its sun in 24 hours, it has to be EXTREMELY close to that star, so close that it would be so hot that any atmosphere would be instantly vaporized no matter how much ash and smoke was in the air.
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Re: ***SPOILERS Official Hero of Ages Spoilers Thread. Includes Q&A w/Brandon****
« Reply #554 on: December 05, 2008, 10:42:25 PM »
We are assuming that the star and planet are of similar size and shape to Earth.  What if the star is smaller than the sun, but the same temperature and color?  It would be easier then for a sunset and sunrise to occur.  You could even get away with a very slight tilt without creating extreme solstices, providing the planet's path around the star was on an exact equatorial plane .  The book does say that it rarely snowed in the central dominance, only in the mountains to the "North".  Scadriel could also be larger, and have a more extreme curvature than Earth.  If the mountains mentioned in the story are the exact axial center, then there would be peaks that always see the sun.  If the peaks rose into the ash layer, so no one would really notice the light reflecting off of them all the time.  The star would always have a very low path through the sky.  If this is the case, it would tend to appear red even without ash in the sky, like a permanent sunrise or sunset.  We need visuals aids.
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