Feruchemical Zinc and Allomantic Atium

[Aminar]

Yes, they have x seconds of warning. But the bullets shadow is going to move so fast odds are they won't even really be able to see it and calculating where a gun will hit by looking at the barrel is very very difficult.

[Voidus]

"Yes, they have x seconds of warning. But the bullets shadow is going to move so fast odds are they won't even really be able to see it and calculating where a gun will hit by looking at the barrel is very very difficult. "

I think that they'd probably see some blood splatter-shadows or something of the sort as well and if they're looking at the gun then they should be able to see it's shadow being fired. Atium enhanced reflexes take care of the difficulty of judging where it'll hit.

[Observer]

They'd see the shadow shoot through them, or at least the enhanced senses would.

So....would Cadium slow the shadow down?

If somebody was pretending to be unconcious, and unconsciously burning Atium/Electrum, then would an Atium burner be able to see that they were awake? If they really were incapacitated in any way, they wouldn't have any Atium cloud, since they only have one option: Stay asleep. In that one case, creating an Atium cloud would be a bad idea.

[happyman he/him]

This discussion brought up a question: Are Atium shadows reserved for just sight, or is that just the way the mind interprets most of the information? In other words, what would a blind Seer experience when burning Atium? Because if it is really all possible sensation (under the covers, as it were), then the question is answered: The Atium burner would become aware that they were about to get a gunshot wound and would know to dodge, whether they can "see" the bullets or not.

[Aminar]

This discussion brought up a question: Are Atium shadows reserved for just sight, or is that just the way the mind interprets most of the information? In other words, what would a blind Seer experience when burning Atium? Because if it is really all possible sensation (under the covers, as it were), then the question is answered: The Atium burner would become aware that they were about to get a gunshot wound and would know to dodge, whether they can "see" the bullets or not.

In all honesty I'd debated this. And we know the answer. Inquisitors don't see through traditional means. But they can still use Atium. I would guess the mind just processes it another way or even just creates sight for a little bit. The same applies to Iron/Steel's Blue lines(as suggested by Inquisitors.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Aminar

[name_here]

Given that it seems to be effective against attacks from behind, I've been assuming that the conscious mind simply interpreted it as sight.

[happyman he/him]

In all honesty I'd debated this. And we know the answer. Inquisitors don't see through traditional means. But they can still use Atium. I would guess the mind just processes it another way or even just creates sight for a little bit. The same applies to Iron/Steel's Blue lines(as suggested by Inquisitors.

Good answer! So in all likelihood, it is impossible to shoot at an Atium burner fast enough for them to not know in advance that they are being shot at and begin dodging. Whether they can physically dodge all the bullets is a different question entirely.

[Observer]

Good answer! So in all likelihood, it is impossible to shoot at an Atium burner fast enough for them to not know in advance that they are being shot at and begin dodging. Whether they can physically dodge all the bullets is a different question entirely.

Since they get a set amount of warning and enhanced mind and reflexes, I'd imagine it wouldn't be hard.

[happyman he/him]

Since they get a set amount of warning and enhanced mind and reflexes, I'd imagine it wouldn't be hard.

Depends on how many bullets. A sufficiently large ambush armed with guns could probably get an Atium burner much more easily than, say, said ambush with swords would. One on one, though, they'd have a massive advantage, true.

[Observer]

You see Vin fighting Shan just fine when being hailed on by arrows. I'd think bullets would be no different.

[Aminar]

You see Vin fighting Shan just fine when being hailed on by arrows. I'd think bullets would be no different.

There is a huge difference between Bullets and Arrows. Arrow volleys will have empty spaces big enough for men to hide in, they fall vertically not horizontally, and move a hell of a lot slower. Remember that even In Wax's day and age there are likely Gatling guns and firing squads with semiautomatic guns(revolvers.) Dodging waves of fire from those will be next to impossible, especially given the fact that all dodging will likely have to be done based on where the barrels are pointing. Bullets move way too fast for even an Atium enhanced mind to be able to process given what we've seen so far. There are men that can catch/block arrows. There are not men that can catch bullets or even come close.

[Observer]

They'll always have a good 1-2 seconds of warning, knowing exactly when it's fired and where it's poitning. I think that's all they need.

[Aminar]

They'll always have a good 1-2 seconds of warning, knowing exactly when it's fired and where it's poitning. I think that's all they need.

That depends. The motions there are pretty subtle and quick. Trigger pull, kickback, and muzzleflash all last a scant porion of a second and by the time that scant section is don the bullet is there. In addition rate of fire on guns is a huge issue for anybody trying to dodge bullets. Oddly enough I'd be tempted to say a less accurate gun is a better weapon against somebody burning Atium as they have less to work with then. A single man can pull off 3 to 4 shots a second on a revolver. There will be limited accuracy but that's a good thing when you're trying to hem the opponent in and make dodging impossible. Automatic weapons make things even more impossible.

[Observer]

Knowing where the bullet will hit isn't a problem, you'll see the shadow fly through you exactly where it'll land. Again, since it's a set amount of time, no matter how fast the bullet comes, you'll always have enough warning

[Aminar]

Knowing where the bullet will hit isn't a problem, you'll see the shadow fly through you exactly where it'll land. Again, since it's a set amount of time, no matter how fast the bullet comes, you'll always have enough warning

No you won't. Bullets travel at over 1000 mph and are tiny. The human eye cannot see that, the human mind cannot process that, or anywhere near that. Atium is never shown to be able to see anything near that level of speed. I find it hard to believe Atium allows for that level of perception enhancement. That's around 1500 feet per second. The human eye will be able to see the bullet every 50 feet .The human eye operates at about 30 different views per second. Atium does not speed the mind 30X regular speed, when you could see the bullet's motion perfectly. I doubt it manages twice the mental speed, and try spotting something the size of a bullet, even glowing when it appears every 25 feet for 1/30th of a second. Admittedly Atium could work like Tracer fire and just drag, but the supernatural nature of it makes me guess it doesn't.

Basically the speed of bullets is so far beyond what we've seen Atium deal with that I highly doubt it can accommodate.

[Observer]

I guess it comes down to this: Could you could detect somebody bashing your head from behind, perfectly outside your vision? If so, Atium isn't sight dependent (Inquisitors can use it, so I think that term may be incorrect), and seeing the bullet's shadow is no longer an issue.

[Aminar]

I guess it comes down to this: Could you could detect somebody bashing your head from behind, perfectly outside your vision? If so, Atium isn't sight dependent (Inquisitors can use it, so I think that term may be incorrect), and seeing the bullet's shadow is no longer an issue.

Sure, when the shadow of the club went through my head an into my vision. In all honesty I'm more detailing what the human mind can process. Bullet speed is well beyond that while club being swung speed isn't. The speed of an attack makes it harder to dodge even if you do have two seconds to dodge it.(Which isn't that much time. The faster the attacks the less use Atium is. I would guess bullets move too fast for Atium to be able to calculate and send the information to the brain. I'm not requiring sight in all reality. The bullets move too fast for even Atium enhanced reflexes to deal with.

[Observer]

If I tell you a bullet will slam through you, heading straight from the center of the room directly into the far left corner two seconds before it fires, coul dyou do it? 2 seconds sounds like plenty of warning to me

And I said if the club, and therefore it's shadow, NEVER entered your line of sight.

[name_here]

I am dubious that bullets would be too fast for Atium-enhanced reflexes to deal with. While we've never seen anything as fast as a bullet interacting with an Atium burner (except possibly Bloody Tan, who is confirmed to not be a Seer but definitely has something up), we have seen Atium burners in extremely complex situations perform pretty elaborate maneuvers without any noticeable difficulty. For instance, the huge battle outside the Pits, where a a bunch of inexperienced Seers had no difficulty being swarmed by literally tens of thousands of Koloss until they ran out of Atium, or when Vin managed to dodge an entire roomful of guards in Kredik Shaw without breaking stride. While bullets are fast, dodging them would not be terribly complex. I fully expect Seers would do the same effortless sidesteps against bullets they do against everything else.

[Aminar]

If I tell you a bullet will slam through you, heading straight from the center of the room directly into the far left corner two seconds before it fires, coul dyou do it? 2 seconds sounds like plenty of warning to me

And I said if the club, and therefore it's shadow, NEVER entered your line of sight.

Yes. But we aren't talking single shot weapons here. A sword, you can manage a slice every few seconds, more if you're really god but not by much. Even when surrounded by a five or six Koloss(as many as could reasonably engage one of the seers in that last battle, the attacks aren't coordinated well and the close quarters hampers the Koloss, who probably killed eachother more than the seers did.

Guns are not single shot. Guns aren't deadly for their range or even the amount of damage they do. Theyw ere once, but now they are deadly for the number of those attacks you can throw out quickly. I'd choose a man with an AR-15 and hazekiller bullets over a mistborn any day.

Also, Atium doesn't tell you what is coming per say. It shows you, but requires the speed of your mind and your body to react. It enhances the minds speed some, but just not enough to deal with any gun in the hands of somebody competant with better rate of fire than a bolt action rifle. Multishot shotguns get even more difficult to deal with. Atium is great but you're making i seem far more powerful than Brandon ever has.

[Satsuoni he/him]

Also, Atium doesn't tell you what is coming per say. It shows you, but requires the speed of your mind and your body to react. It enhances the minds speed some, but just not enough to deal with any gun in the hands of somebody competant with better rate of fire than a bolt action rifle. Multishot shotguns get even more difficult to deal with. Atium is great but you're making i seem far more powerful than Brandon ever has.

Um.

A quote (from the wiki, but I assume it is copied from the chart. that is where I've seen it before):

Burning atium allows the user to see a few seconds into the future, and expands the user's mind to be able to accept and process all of the information.

Emphasis mine.

So, essentially, the atium burner will see his/her body hit by bullets, calculate where the bullets came from, and react accordingly. Of course, with enough fire density there may not be a place to dodge to, but at least they will be able minimize the damage. The aim does not matter, (as long as the shooter does not do as Vin did in the fight with Zane) since the burner will know where the bullets will be (they don't calculate trajectory from aim). The speed of the bullet does not really matter either, since they'll start dodging before the trigger is squeezed (as it happens in the real life, if you see the gunner).

[Voidus]

Something else to recall is that an atium shadow also leaves a trail back to the present-time object so a bullet would actually create a long shadow back to the point of origin, so if there are two points (Point of origin and the termination point) then a line will connect those two points in a way that I would see as similar to steel-lines. So bullets shouldn't be a problem for a Seer.

[Aminar]

Um.

A quote (from the wiki, but I assume it is copied from the chart. that is where I've seen it before):

Emphasis mine.

So, essentially, the atium burner will see his/her body hit by bullets, calculate where the bullets came from, and react accordingly. Of course, with enough fire density there may not be a place to dodge to, but at least they will be able minimize the damage. The aim does not matter, (as long as the shooter does not do as Vin did in the fight with Zane) since the burner will know where the bullets will be (they don't calculate trajectory from aim). The speed of the bullet does not really matter either, since they'll start dodging before the trigger is squeezed (as it happens in the real life, if you see the gunner).

I find "all" to be hard to imagine as feasible. I really do. There is a limit to what the body can manage. Enhancing it to the level needed to dodge bullets means that Atium burners should never die to things that move much slower but they do. And not because of unavoidable situations only. Atium has been shown to be fallible, explained to be fallible, and should be fallible. Atium has limits to what it can process and 1000 mph objects thinner than my finger should be one of those things, if for no other reason than the human eye can't see at that speed, and the muscles cannot be activated at that speed. Two seconds of warning is alot, ut not enough to deal with extended gunfire. Now I am thinking that people would train specific fire patterns to deal with seers. A simple cross shot pattern would cover most escapes quite quickly, staring in the center, adjusting for the mandatory dive in both directions, and then one up an down incase of backflips.(assuming hazekiller bullets of course, to stop the bullets from being pushed(although the relative force involved in pushing multiple bullets might not be such a good thing. I mean, the rifle jerks my set shoulder back hard. Pushing on 5 or six of the things at once. OW.

I don't remember visualizing Atium shadows as ghosting back, but that might just be me... That makes bullets a little easier to deal with, but nowhere near as easy as is being explained.

[Voidus]

QUESTION

I’ve always wondered what Atium looks like when you’re burning it, do you have possible things coming out of you or do have one shadow just walking out or like an accordion of shadows?

BRANDON SANDERSON

I see one shadow that bursts out that leaves a trail, so like a really faint blur, and then the one shadow in the front, for each...and yeah, if you've got like two Atiums then it's a whole bunch of those, but I see one shadow with a blur of all the pieces and things behind it.

So it should be reasonably easy to see where the bullets will go, this combined with the superior reflexes should enable avoiding of most gunfire, barring machine guns, etc.

Keep in mind that Atium is a god metal it's not unreasonable for it's abilities to be far beyond the other allomantic abilities. I find it hard to believe that atium would be rendered completely useless in the next two trilogies.

[Satsuoni he/him]

What he said..

And here is the quote from the book:

Kelsier seemed to fuzz slightly to her eyes; then a translucent, wraithlike image shot out into the mists in front of him. The image looked just like Kelsier, and it walked just a few steps in front of him. A very faint, trailing after-image extended from the duplicate back to Kelsier himself.

So, you see a trace, although faint.

Therefore, all bullets look like tracer bullets shot about 2 seconds ago. That does not mean that atium burner is invincible - proper firing patterns will probably be able to hit, and also, the fact that he has to start dodging before firing (or the speed of the bullet will not allow him to react), the Vin trick may be easier to execute (i.e. adjust your aim as he starts dodging). It will still be a large advantage.

You know, it made me start wondering : what happens if you are about to open the door while burning atium? Will you be able to see beyond the door before you open it? (since it would be opened two seconds later).