Pushing Awakened Objects

[Darebear]

I like to design card games in my free time and was recently thinking about a cosmere one. It borught up the question, can a steel or iron allomancer push or pull on a awakened piece of metal. I know that they can't affect nightblood but what about a standard awakened piece of metal. At that could they push an object that has been lashed to fly at them.

[Windrunner he/him]

Heavily invested objects, such as Shardplate or something like Nightblood, are mostly immune to Pushing and Pulling, though with a high enough power level it can be done.

[Voidus]

To Awaken metal you need a large amount of breaths so they'd be at the level of Nightblood. However if you just put a few Breaths in it for storage a Lurcher or Coinshot could probably push/pull on it.

[Kurkistan he/him]

To Awaken metal you need a large amount of breaths so they'd be at the level of Nightblood. However if you just put a few Breaths in it for storage a Lurcher or Coinshot could probably push/pull on it.

We're not even sure that you can even "store" Breaths in metal, actually. All we've seen it done with is textiles and people, so far. Organics. You probably can put Breath in metal, given that sufficiently large amounts of Breaths can be used to Awaken metal, but I wouldn't be flabbergasted if normal levels of Breath don't "stick" to metal.

On top of that, there is the question of whether storing Breath in an inanimate object actually counts as it being "Invested": was Vivienne's shawl really holding Breaths directly, with its Aspects interacting with the Breaths in any meaningful way?

Note that "my Breath become yours"-style Breath transfer doesn't drain color, so we know there is some difference between that and normal Awakening--although the lack of color-draining might not actually be evidence on its own, since I think color-drain is related to fueling the transfer of the Command, though that's neither here nor there.

EDIT: Or Breaths are only actually incorporated into the aspects of an Awakened object when the Command is successful, which is why Tonk Fah's cloak didn't act special or anything, yet still held recoverable Breath. So unsuccessful Command == direct Breath transfer, essentially.

Edited February 28, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Mexxell]

I think it would work. I believe that BioChroma is mainly based in the Spiritual and Cognitive Realms, while at least Steelpushing and Ironpulling are almost entirely Physical. I'd say that an Awakened metal would be able to be Pushed and Pulled, though the Awakened object would probably fight back.

Then again, as Kirkistan mentioned, we're not even sure that Breaths can be stored in metal, and it takes a silly amount of BioChroma to use metal in any capacity, so the odds that the question would be put to the test is slight at best.

Edited March 3, 2013 by Mexxell

[Windrunner he/him]

I think that you can awaken metal without making it sentient just like you can Awaken anything else. You need the 9th Hightening, sure. There's a special process involved in making a Type IV Biochromatic entity.

That was the great crux of the problem, the issue that had dominated most of Vasher’s life. A thousand Breaths. That was what it took to Awaken an object of steel and give it sentience. Even Shashara hadn’t fully understood the process, though she had first devised it. It took a person who had reached the Ninth Heightening to Awaken stone or steel. Even then, this process shouldn’t have worked. It should have created an Awakened object with no more of a mind than the tassels on his cloak.

[Voidus]

I've always wondered what would happen if you tried to awaken a piece of Atium.

[Senor Feesh]

I've always wondered what would happen if you tried to awaken a piece of Atium.

Nothing good, I'm sure

Or possibly just nothing, as Atium is already heavily Invested (being the physical embodiment of a Shard's power).

[Voidus]

Yeah I suppose it'd probably do nothing, I just wonder how it would react if it gained sentience, as a piece of concentrated Shardic power which would influence it more? Ruins Intent or its command?

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Nothing good, I'm sure :P/>/>

Or possibly just nothing, as Atium is already heavily Invested (being the physical embodiment of a Shard's power).

Filling a metalmind adds investiture, though. So it's possible to put more in.

Well, shardblades aren't very susceptible.

In your gut instinct, who would win in a fight, Marsh (no atium, limited feruchemy) or Szeth? (Or maybe we could go Zane & Szeth since I see a lot of similarities in their characters. They also happen to be my favorites from their respective series)

First question: It's always hard to answer these questions, since there are so many factors. Do the combatants start at a distance? If so, Marsh/Zane have a huge advantage; they have the ability to fling coins.

Does Szeth have metal on him? Szeth's Shardblade would be mostly immune to Pushing and Pulling, as it's an Invested object. But he'd still have trouble getting to them if he had a clasp on his shoes, for example. He doesn't carry a lot of metal, but he might have some.

Overall, I'd say that a full-blown Mistborn would be tougher than Szeth in most cases.

Meeeeech: Who would win this three way fight? Vin vs. Vasher vs. Lan? I vote Vin...

Depends on how much metal Vin has, how many Breaths Vasher has, and if Lan can get the jump on them. Probably Vin, though Rand would blow her out of the water.

We also have a secondhand quote that nightblood is orders of magnitude more magical than a shardblade. So that would imply that Nightblood ain't gonna be pushed or pulled around. And, really, without Nightblood Vasher's combat options are pretty limited, no way he'd beat Vin if she could just gesture and remove nightblood from play.

Edited March 3, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[Voidus]

Yeah but feruchemy doesn't really change the Atium in any way, it just gets used for storage, so thinking about it something which actually changed the behaviour of the Atium would probably not work. But then again Awakening metal requires a pretty large investiture anyway, so that might be enough.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Yeah but feruchemy doesn't really change the Atium in any way, it just gets used for storage,

Apparently it actually does cause some changes, given how compounding works.

Edited March 3, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[happyman he/him]

I can't help but think that an awakened sword like Nightblood, made out of Atium, would be freaking scary. Scarier, I mean. If you gave it the command "Destroy Evil", it would probably rub its metaphorical hands together, crack its knuckles and say "It's soul-eating time." I doubt anybody would be safe.

[Oneyespike]

What about *burning* awakened metal?

[BlairJ he/him]

If you are working on a card game, I would be willing to help. I have recently started on a Way of Kings card game using the MD Editor.

[Voidus]

What about *burning* awakened metal?

I got RAFO'd on that, could be interesting though.