Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Brandon Sanderson => Topic started by: Feynmanfan on March 11, 2008, 01:05:55 AM
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hi everyone,
from what we've seen so far of the two physical external metals, iron seems the more useful. the mistborn mostly use iron for metal jumping since you need a source of metal above you for steel to use for traveling and during the fighting iron is used offensively (to shoot coins) and defensivly (to push away incoming coins), while steel has defensive use only (remember the lurcher mistings with the big shields).
of course there are lots of other ways to fight with the two metals, like pushing/pulling on the armor or weapons of soldiers or barely moving smaller pieces of metal to use in one of the tricks that make the MB fights so interesting, but these are not the main fighting styles (at least not so much for the mistings, since the mb can use both + they have duralumin they have lots of ways to fight with iron/steel that the mistings cant) + iron and steel dont differ much on these jobs.
so it seems that steel is the weaker one of the two.
but if im right there should be another use of steelpulling we havent seen yet (at least i think so, im not 100% sure about the kelsier/inquisitor fight at the end of tfe).
assume a lurcher pulls on a nearby piece of metal (a coin), then makes a step to the side while continuing to pull. the coin would miss the lurcher but because he keeps pulling it wont just fly away but instead start to rotate on an elliptic course around the lurcher. by changing the strenght of the pull or moving while the coin rotates the lurcher could alter the ellipse and the speed of the coin to his preferred form. since the coins can be pretty fast, a couple of them rotating would provide somewhat of a shield, not so much against arrows or other objects, but against anyone trying to come to a near-distance fight.
in addition, the lurcher can stop pulling on a rotating coin thereby releasing it and shooting it away just like the coinshots can.
while id say that it requires more skill then simply shooting the coins by ironpushing it certainly should be possible for a competent lurcher(or of course the mb).
finally some questions to EUOL because i want to make sure i understand the physics of metal pushing/pulling correct (if theyre not this theory might be crap)
1. as i understand it the "normal" physics (like gravitation,the mass of the object and most important inertia) are all still applied to a piece of metal thats being pushed/pulled. the only addition is the push/pull, which is a force along the allomancer-coin trajectory
2. to what exact part of the allomancers body are the metals pushed/pulled, the stomach where the metals are burned? the head? or is the allomancer capable of changing the exact location within his body?
thats it for now, looking forward to responses/critics/additional ideas
feynmanfan
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First of all, I think that's a pretty good idea, but it would need to be a really competent lurcher, and I think they might have to move around too much for this move to be effective defensively, however if they used multiple coins... I also thought it would be cool to for a lurcher to kind of "swing" from buildings using iron pulling, like spiderman, without as much give. Oh, and just for continuity's sake, it's iron pulling and steel pushing, I think you got them backwards in your post.
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He did have it backwards. Also, the pushing and pulling force is always in a straight line between the Allomancer and the metal being pushed. The blue line marks the path, right to the center of the body. If a Lurcher continued to pull as he moved out of the way, it would change where on the coin he was pulling, and the coin would change direction and still com right at him/her. It would take a constant on and off technique in order to manipulate the object the way you describe. I also disagree with the offensive advantages of pulling. Throwing a coin behind someone then pulling it back would be quite effective. You could also pull your sword back to you if you lost it in a fight, or pull on someone and either send them flying towards you or you them. You could rip a weapon out of someone's hands. Lot's of fun can be had by all. You are right that Lurchers and
Coinshots are more ranged and/or support fighters than anything else.
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darxbane, learn some physics....
You pull on something, it accelerates in the ay that it is pulled, say you have it going at 10 metres per second, and then start pulling it from a different direction, it's not going to instantly turn round, it's course will slowly change, this is how the moon orbits the earth, it had an initial velocity, but the earth keep s pulling it in with gravity, that is the only significant force on the moon and it maintains it's orbit, the earth's gravity does not turn on and off.(same with the earth going round the sun, or a ball being spun on a string), anyway, Kelsier did do something like this with a soldier when he was fighting the inquisitor. He pulled on the soldier and while pulling moved himself to the side so that the soldier spun round him to fly off and hit something else.
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I think a Lurchers greatest talent would be thievery. He only ha to walk into a room, and he knows where everything metal is, and can instantly pull it towards him, without actually rummaging around for things. They can also pull safes out of walls, like kelier did, bracing themselve sby pulling on other things. True they don't have pewter to help them carry anything, but still, I think Lurchers would make excellent thieves.
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darxbane, learn some physics....
Rhuan, Rhuan, Rhuan,
First off, not very friendly of you. Secondly, you are forgetting about friction, Inertia, and Centrifical force. Inertia keeps the Moon wanting to move in a straight line. Gravity prevents the Moon from going in a straight line. Centrifical force keeps the Moon at a constant speed so gravity doesn't take over The Moon stays in orbit because the two forces (inertia and gravity) are equal. If one became greater, the moon would either crash into the Earth or fly off into space. With your second example, spin that ball on a string while wrapping it around your arm and see what happens. In this case, the metal object will not maintain speed in its original direction. It will be slowed by air, gravity, and the new direction you are pulling on it. Plus it will be constantly changing as you move. This will cause it to get closer and closer until it either hits you or you stop Pulling. You could never maintain a spin without being able to spin your body as fast as you wanted the coin to spin around you.I don't think that would make a very effective defense. Kelsier stopped Pulling the soldier as he was moving out of the way. The speed generated from the initial pull was enough to send the soldier flying past him. Kind of like a catapult or trebuchet. You can (try to) make a point without flaming someone, but if you do decide to flame, make sure you have all your facts in order. >:(
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My initial post was not intended as a flame, but to be blunt, you're still wrong.
There is no such force as inertia, inertia is a measure of a body's tendency to resist a change in it's motion, in simple cases this is just the bodies mass. Hence Newtons second law, force = mass * acceleration (simplified slightly but will do for this purpose).
The only consequential force on the moon is gravity. At any given moment, the moon is moving in a straight line tangential to the earth, if you turned off the earth's gravity it would carry on in that straight line, the earth's gravity pulls it enough to stop it from flying off, but due to it's rather large momentum, can not cause it to fall to the earth. If you;re interested, the appropriate rearrangement of Newton's second law in this case is, Force = mass * (velocity squared)/(radius of circle), velocity being it's tangential velocity and the force being the force towards the centre of the circle, if the force is too big it will move toward the centre of the circle, if it is too small it will move away.
The case being suggested of pulling metal objects with iron pulling to make them orbit around you would work if you made the pull force small enough, considering that you'd be using small enough objects so that pulling them wouldn't move you, the force you'd have to apply would be tiny, unless they were moving at insanely high speeds.
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i'd just like to point out that vin actually does something similar to what you described in WoA. when she first returns to luthadel during the battle with the koloss, she rips the gate off its hinges, pulling it towards her and then moves while still pulling causing it to pivot and smash into a group of koloss. i have to say that i agree however that it would be nearly impossible to have a maintained spinning coin shield. the person would have to continually be moving to keep the coins rotating and not crash into them. i think that if they only moved once the coin would have a very quick spiral route leading to the allomancer, kinda like a whirlpool (that's probably a bad example).
also, rhuan, i believe when an allomancer pushes or pulls, they do so with the full weight of their body. there is very little variation in that, the exception being flaring and duralumin. so the only way for the "tiny" amount of force you suggest is to have a constant succession of very brief pulls. i'm probably wrong about this stuff, but thats my two cents.
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There is also one of the first fights with Kel. Where he's fighting the (can't remember the word Sanderson uses) mistborn assassins. He uses a paperweight or something, and through various skilled use of pushing and pulling, ends up taking out most of the attackers. At least, that's what I remember. I can't check my book as it's packed away.
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How was I wrong? You stated the exact same thing I did, just in a more complicated way. You even admitted that the Moon's momentum would need to remain equal to the force of Earth's gravity. Subtle pulling would still not work if it was constant. However, I just thought of something; If you allowed the object to slingshot around you by pulling and releasing, you may be able to get an elliptical orbit for a time. However, in the case of the Mistborn Universe, it would take so much concentration as to be counterproductive. When Vin Pulls that gate, she stops pulling once the object passes her. If she didn't the gate would either slow down or stop and come back at her, or if it was heavy enough, take her with it. I see Pushing and Pulling like tying yourself to the object like on a tether.
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I'm only around the middle of the second book, so I might be missing out on something (I definitely haven't gotten to the part about the gate yet) but I think a Lurcher doing anything like this would be impossible. You'd have to have a lot of speed and dexterity to pull this off, not to mention a real good head for physics. I don't think the speed of objects while they are in flight has ever been discussed, but that's one of the big factors here. You'd have to be able to move laterally as fast as the object is moving toward you in order to maintain any sort of ellipse without the object coming toward you. If you could pull the object extremely slowly you could perhaps make an ellipse but the speed of the object wouldn't be practical for any sort of shield. It would not only be extremely difficult to maintain, but impractical unless you were fighting in a huge open area. It might make sense to use an object much larger than you perhaps, but then you run into the weight problem. I think the way Mistborn can create an effect like this much more easily is by both pushing and pulling being alternated (the last fight between Kell and the Inquisitor comes to mind here where he is confusing the "sight" of the Inquisitor by moving many objects around between the two of them very quickly).
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How was I wrong? You stated the exact same thing I did, just in a more complicated way. You even admitted that the Moon's momentum would need to remain equal to the force of Earth's gravity. Subtle pulling would still not work if it was constant. However, I just thought of something; If you allowed the object to slingshot around you by pulling and releasing, you may be able to get an elliptical orbit for a time. However, in the case of the Mistborn Universe, it would take so much concentration as to be counterproductive. When Vin Pulls that gate, she stops pulling once the object passes her. If she didn't the gate would either slow down or stop and come back at her, or if it was heavy enough, take her with it. I see Pushing and Pulling like tying yourself to the object like on a tether.
Nope, a constant force is what is required. The only problem I can think of is that the coins might drop and hit the ground. The force on the moon does no the vary, the force on a coin would not have to vary to keep it in a circle. And no, the force on the moon is not equal to the moon's momentum, momentum is velocity multiplied by mass, the force on the moon (or anything moving in a circle at constant speed) is the object's mass multiplied by it's (speed squared) divided by the radius of the circle.
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In order for a lurcher to make any sort of effective shield it would require a huge arc which in turn would require the use of more and more metal objects to effectively "shield" the area. The more objects added, will mean more concentration required to keep said shield spinning. I don't see this working to the lurchers advantage it might be a neat trick but not very useful in a fight. Kinda like the trick Zane does for Vin when he twists in midair using a coin as his base. I think she even thinks to herself something along the lines of "very amazing and graceful but not very practical." Those words would apply in this scenario.
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Agreed. How about this trick? you have a dirtbag in front of you and behind you, both wearing metal breastplates.....Pull, jump out the way, and laugh as they meet in the air! ;D
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you have a dirtbag in front of you and behind you, both wearing metal breastplates.....Pull, jump out the way, and laugh as they meet in the air! ;D
i like it. :D that reminds me of when Guybon (or whatever that dude's name was) was chasing vin with shan and pulls that armored soldier into himself in midair. classic.
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You could also do some killer Bruce Lee fyling side kicks, as long as you don't hit so hard you break your own legs, of course.
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OK, I've been thinking about this, and I" don't think the coin thing would work. Here's why:
1)Just spinning around wouldn't change the trajectory of the coin, it goes straight towards you front or back, you'd have to be stepping around, essentially running in a circle, this would make you very tired.
2) It's no like swinging womething at the end of a string. It's moving towards you. That coin is moving fast enough to pierce skin, to change the trajectory, you'd have to move faster than it is, otherwise it would just crash into you.
3)If you tried to pull it any slower, it probably wouldn't be able to defy gravity and would be dragged towards you on the ground.
Feel free to correct me on any of these points, this is just what I came up with.
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Comatose, pulling something towards you does not have to make it move towards you.
To make something spin around you, you would not have to move at all, if the object is initially moving tangentially to you, and you pull on it with a force of appropriate size, it will go round you in a circle. The only problem is that while doing so it would fall towards the ground due to gravity. you could however make an object go through your legs and over your head at high speed. You'd just have to reduce the force when it's over your head and increase the force when it's between your legs in order to counter gravity.
Your points sound like Aristotle based physics rather than Newtonian physics (hint, Aristotle was wrong, Newton was right).
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pulling something towards you does not have to make it move towards you.
This could just be me being ignorant, but that sounds kind of contradictory. I know who Aristotle and Newton were, but I admit physics isn't really my area of expertise, and I admit I could be wrong, just I don't quite get how pulling harder from the same direction would make the coin change trajectory, and besides, you can only pull with iron so hard by flaring, and to pull any harder you'd need Duralumin which would use up all the iron, and a Lurcher wouldn't be able to use duralumin anyway. From my knowledge, it seems the only way to do this would be to use pushes and pulls, like Kelsier did at the end of MB1. Sorry if I'm totally off base, as I said, it takes me a while to understand physics. Would you mind making your explanation a little simpler some of the terminology makes it confusing, at least to me :-[. Sorry. I'm sure I could agree with you if I could understand your point.
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The simple example for circular motion is the moon, the only force of any significance on the moon is the earth's gravity, which is directly towards the earth, yet the moon moves around the earth in a circle.
If something is already moving and you pull on it in a direction other than the one it is moving in, you will bend it's path, rather than just making it move towards you.
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But the coin won't be moving to start out with
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yes it will, thats why the step to side is needed. you first draw the coin into your direction to make it move at whatever speed you want, then you make the step to the side and only then the "ciruclar/elliptic" movement begins.
pulling something towards you does not have to make it move towards you.
comatose, the essential point to understand the physics of the pulling is Newton good old" F=m*a" ; Force=mass*acceleration. The part about the mass is already well explained in the books so i think that should be clear.
SO whats acceleration? Its the "change of the velocity" per time.
Now imagine the coin flying straight to a point 3 meters beside you at a speed and trajectory "V(old)". If you now start pulling, the Force--> acceleration will change the coin speed and/or trajectory, but only the change "c" is directed along the direction of the force(towards the lurcher), the resulting velocity is "V(new)= V(old)+c" , which is not directed at the lurcher.
to Rhuan: gravitation isnt really a problem, it only means that the coins have to rotate a little bit below the heights to which its pulled, so that the Force isnt 100% horizontal. If youre good at it you could even use the gravitation to control the vertical component of v.
Im pretty sure by now that this way to use the pulling ist physically possible. If it would be possible (in terms of skill) for the MB/Lurchers is another question, though the longer i think about it the more i think it should be doable with some training.
One last thing, if you have the time to spin it around you for long enough to speed it up to the maximum, the lurcher shots should be much faster the ones from the coinshots.
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If you want the force that holds them in orbit around you to counter gravity, they'd have to go at a set speed depending on how far below the point they were being held in orbit. Because, a lurcher or mistborn can only control the magnitude of the force, not the magnitudes of it's vertical and horizontal components.
the horizontal component (Fcosø) would have to be m*v*v/r while the vertical component (Fsinø) would have to be m*g, where ø is the angle that the line of the force makes with the vertical.
This would therefore require v to be √(rg/tanø) where r is the radius of the circle and g is the local gravitational constant.
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It just seems like too much work doing something that a coinshot could just come along and kill you with. Interesting discussion but impractical usage in an imaginary world.
What we really need to discuss is why they don't have mass transit pump cars, or maybe I missed it. ;)
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Having coins spinning around you could be useful as a sort of shield.
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OK, I think I understand now, but I don't think you could make a shield of coins. First of all, doing this to one coin would take a huge amount of skill, and doing multiple coins at a time would take even more. And even then, one little push or pull would disrupt the orbit wouldn't it? All you need is a coinshot or lurcher to push or pull the coins away.
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OK, I think I understand now, but I don't think you could make a shield of coins. First of all, doing this to one coin would take a huge amount of skill, and doing multiple coins at a time would take even more. And even then, one little push or pull would disrupt the orbit wouldn't it? All you need is a coinshot or lurcher to push or pull the coins away.
You're right. However, if there are enough things flying around, the enemy may not be able to focus on your shield, if not, well, it would be useful against anyone other than a coinshot, lurcher or mistborn.
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true, so we have decided that lurchers can be useful for something other than pulling coins away from mistborn, and can fight anyone who can't push or pull metals.
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Didn't Kelsier and the Inquisitor that he killed do something similar??
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A Lurcher assasin skilled in throwing knives would work well. He wouldn't have to go to the body to retrieve the knife, and since most Allomancers are not constantly burning metal, he could kill almost anyone with a knife to the throat, Heart, or Aorta. You pretty much die instantly with these injuries, so no time to heal yourself with Pewter.
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Ya, not to mention he could detect if there was a hidden weapon on them because he could see lines pointing to all their sources of metal. Like I said before, they would make good assaassins and thieves.