Seer vs. Sparker

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Who would win in a battle of an atium Seer misting versus a zinc Sparker ferring? Assuming they both have unlimited resources. The Seer would see the Sparkers next move, but the Sparker would see the Seer move and be able to react, pulling off a vin-type move. Would the battle just go on forever?

[Shardlet he/him]

Nah.  I think the Seer has the advantage since they only deal with two shadows and sooner or later they would guess the right one.  Zane lost because he was confused at the second shadow and that slowed him.  Slow down against Vin and you're dead.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Why only 2 shadows? The Sparker can see the Seer react to the second shadow, then react to that, then react to their reaction, then... until you get to the point where the Atium is useless or worse and the Sparker is still an incredibly powerful Ferring.

[Shardlet he/him]

I doubt it would extend out to very many shadows (certainly not like atium v. atium).  It would still only be the sparker's originally anticipated action do and the sparker's reaction to the seer's action.  It would not magnify out because the sparker can only react to the seer's actions.  On top of which the atium also speeds the seer's mental speed (at least in terms of reactions to the shadows). 

[Claincy he/him]

Given we are talking about unlimited quantities the sparker could essentially reduce time to an absolute crawl for them and could react to the slightest change in the seer's position or bearing. So I think they could easily split their shadow many many times. In the end I think the sparker would more likely win as they would always be able to see what the seer is trying to do and react to that, rather than having to pick between shadows.

 

The seer could just try to pick the newest shadow as that will be the current one, but the sparker will see that and change again, splitting the shadow further, too fast for the seer to keep up with which shadow is real.

[SwiftSteel he/him]

I think in a battle with unlimited resources, the person who tired more quickly would end up losing

[king of nowhere]

if the sparker is fast enough, the seer will never be able to dodge. dodging would require to move before the sparker moves, but then the sparker would just hit the new position of the seer. there's a level of power over which no strategy can succeed. there's a level of speed over which no foresight can prevail.

From the seer point of view, he would probably see the atium shadow split, because his attempt to dodge would change the attack strategy of the sparker. It's a bit like a chessplayer who calculated every possible move and saw that he's going to lose in each and every one of them.

[Shardlet he/him]

Perhaps, but the sparker is going to have human speed and the atium gives the seer the mental speed to dodge and react to the atium shadows.  Again, surprise is what did Zane in.  Also, just because the sparker can adjust along the way, if you make a thrust with a fist, knife, sword or whatever and try to change the direction of that thrust midstream, what do you get?  Likely a slower, weaker, clunkier thrust.  Your physiology would have to be incredibly tuned to do this effectively.  The sparker has mental speed.  All the physical limitations still apply.  It's not like in Mario Bros. where you can change the direction of your jump after you've left the ground. 

[Pechvarry]

I think people overestimate Atium's mental expansion. I think it just lets you keep up with the new data, not like it's free Zinc.

[Kurkistan he/him]

I agree with Pech. Atium enhances your mind exactly enough to deal with every object around you having a future-shadow: not to dealing with a dozen of them.

[aeromancer he/him]

With all due respect, I think this whole discussion is pointless because there is a no way a Sparker could pull off the "two-path" trick Vin does. True, he will be able to come up with a solution to anything the Seer does, but the only reason why Vin has two shadows is she is acting in response to Zane; the Sparker in contrast is anticipating every results, so in a way, it works against him. 

 

Atium allows you to see in the future, so anyone reacting to what a Seer does, is by extension using the power of atium as well. The Sparker is not doing that. Therefore, to extra shadows. Anyone can pull off the "two-path" trick, it just requires insane reflexes.

 

"Atium has a weakness - it allows you to see into the future" - Vin.

[Shardlet he/him]

The problem is, a fight is not a chess match, per se.  The combatants are not limited to specifically constrained rules of movement in the way chess pieces are.  One cannot, even with Feruchemical zinc, accurately predict the entire course of a fight or even a series of actions of others (like in the case of the new Sherlock Holmes movies).  Every action you take will change what they intend to do and people react to stimuli differently.  People are inherently unpredictable from move to move.  You could make some reasonable guesses and assumptions if you have substantial knowledge of your opponent and their fighting style, etc.  But, even then, good luck.  However, if the sparker is observing the actions of the seer and basing their action out of reaction to a move the seer has made, then yes, there would be a second atium shadow.  This is what has been discussed so far (mostly).  Not planning out a chess game, if you will.

[Kurkistan he/him]

I think you have the right of it, Shardlet.

 

Just to pile on:

 

Atium allows you to see in the future, so anyone reacting to what a Seer does, is by extension using the power of atium as well. The Sparker is not doing that. Therefore, to extra shadows. Anyone can pull off the "two-path" trick, it just requires insane reflexes.

 

"Atium has a weakness - it allows you to see into the future" - Vin.

 

You acquire multiple Atium shadows when you receive and are capable of acting on information from the future. Zane essentially "told" Vin something about the future, so she was able to react to that information. The same would hold true for a Sparker: s/he could easily observe and analyze movements and facial expressions caused by the Seer seeing Atium shadows, and so get information from the future.

[Vortaan he/him]

Think this goes to the Seer. Yomen was able to dodge a pewter-enhanced Elend. Even if a Sparker could predict what the Seer is going to do, I don't think they'd be fast enough to take advantage of it.

[Claincy he/him]

Perhaps, but the sparker is going to have human speed and the atium gives the seer the mental speed to dodge and react to the atium shadows.

 

That doesn't make sense as an argument to me. The seer and the sparker are both limited physically to normal speeds and are both going to have highly advanced mental speeds. Let's say that pech is correct and that atium doesn't have an upper limit to its mental expansion (which doesn't feel quite right), in that case the seer will have expanded mental speed that matches what the sparker has, not above.

 

Also, just because the sparker can adjust along the way, if you make a thrust with a fist, knife, sword or whatever and try to change the direction of that thrust midstream, what do you get?  Likely a slower, weaker, clunkier thrust.  Your physiology would have to be incredibly tuned to do this effectively.  The sparker has mental speed.  All the physical limitations still apply.

 

This is true and a good point. However it applies equally well to the seer as it does to the sparker. Each time the shadow splits and the seer switches to attack the new shadow they will suffer the exact same difficulty as the sparker does when changing their attack.

 

I think what is particularly important here is the combat skill of the sparker. If they were trained and could accurately judge the seer's intended actions then it would be more or less equal footing. A sparker inexperienced with combat however would sooner or later misjudge one of the seers actions and as a result might react in the wrong way to counter first and *might* not be able to adjust their action back in time. This is still somewhat stymied by the sparker having a more or less infinite time to consider each and every minor adjustment to the situation if we are sticking with the "unlimited reserves".

 

@Kurk

On a related note: A fundamental disagreement we seem to have is on how much atium expands the mind. If atium expands the mind exactly enough to deal with every shadow, hence they wouldn't have a problem keeping track of which of the sparker's shadows was the most recent then in theory in a conflict between 2 seers each would always know the exact action that the other was about to take, naturally this would change an instant later, but they would still be able to keep track of which of the new shadows was correct. This does not fit with what we have seen of atium in canon. The shadows are too numerous and too fast for them to keep track of which is the newest.

 

You could say that atium will result in far more shadows than you could create with zinc but this also doesn't fit. When Kelsier trains Vin with atium the shadows coming off him are described as "dozens", a sparker who was capable of interpreting their enemies movements with unlimited zinc could easily split their shadow that many times, in which case what applies for one situation should apply for the other as in my previous paragraph.

[Vortaan he/him]

I think the difference between the Sparker and the Seer is that by reacting BEFORE something happens, the speed difference is somewhat limited. Sazed only really makes the best use of his zinc when he has steel to use too. Atium mistings, on the other hand, we have proof can react fast enough to dodge Thugs, so... yeah, Seer wins

[Claincy he/him]

Unless the seer was also able to tap steel or burn pewter there is always going to be some giveaway of their action at least a second before they take it, more depending on their fighting skill. So the seer would likely have an extra second to react, but this is balanced out by the zparker having as long as they want to consider how to react and to change their mind however many times over and they don't have a multitude of shadows muddying the water as to what their opponent is about to do.

 

I would rather pit a seer against a thug than a sparker, I think they would find it easier, however I still maintain that sparker vs seer the sparker has the advantage.

Edited September 16, 2013 by lord_Ffnord

[Kurkistan he/him]

@Kurk

On a related note: A fundamental disagreement we seem to have is on how much atium expands the mind. If atium expands the mind exactly enough to deal with every shadow, hence they wouldn't have a problem keeping track of which of the sparker's shadows was the most recent then in theory in a conflict between 2 seers each would always know the exact action that the other was about to take, naturally this would change an instant later, but they would still be able to keep track of which of the new shadows was correct. This does not fit with what we have seen of atium in canon. The shadows are too numerous and too fast for them to keep track of which is the newest.

 

You could say that atium will result in far more shadows than you could create with zinc but this also doesn't fit. When Kelsier trains Vin with atium the shadows coming off him are described as "dozens", a sparker who was capable of interpreting their enemies movements with unlimited zinc could easily split their shadow that many times, in which case what applies for one situation should apply for the other as in my previous paragraph.

 

I think we're actually on the same side here, since I said the same thing about Atium's mind-expansion being limited... 

[Claincy he/him]

Sorry for being unclear Kurk. I wasn't disagreeing with your most recent post, I agree with that one.

 

I agree with Pech. Atium enhances your mind exactly enough to deal with every object around you having a future-shadow: not to dealing with a dozen of them.

 

I was trying to clarify that one and how much it affected this argument =)

I think I misunderstood how you were saying it slightly, my apologies.

Edited September 16, 2013 by lord_Ffnord

[Kurkistan he/him]

No, I'm sorry for being unclear. To reiterate (hopefully in more precise terms), I think that Atium's "mind expansion" is relatively limited, as evidenced by the fact that Atium is useless when fighting other Atium (and even Electrum) buners, as opposed to merely having its utility reduced by some amount.

Edited September 17, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Vortaan he/him]

Unless the seer was also able to tap steel or burn pewter there is always going to be some giveaway of their action at least a second before they take it, more depending on their fighting skill. So the seer would likely have an extra second to react, but this is balanced out by the zparker having as long as they want to consider how to react and to change their mind however many times over and they don't have a multitude of shadows muddying the water as to what their opponent is about to do.

 

I would rather pit a seer against a thug than a sparker, I think they would find it easier, however I still maintain that sparker vs seer the sparker has the advantage.

 

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. Even if the Sparker's mind is moving ten thousand times faster than normal, their body just can't keep up with the increased information. I believe there is a bit where Sazed runs into exactly this issue. He can see something coming, but without steel he isn't fast enough to take advantage of it. An Atium misting doesn't react to things, they dodge them before they even happen. This is going to be the big difference in that a Sparker is only ever going to be reactive while atium is always going to be proactive. Heck, a large enough zinc tap may just give you a few hours of time to contemplate every possible angle of the knife heading for your chest.

[Claincy he/him]

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree.

Hmm, we may.

 

I would say that atium is as reactive as zinc is, you are just getting the info slightly sooner and in a different way.

Heck, a large enough zinc tap may just give you a few hours of time to contemplate every possible angle of the knife heading for your chest.

Yes, this can happen. But a similar thing can happen with atium. It is quite possible for a seer to get into a situation where their atium tells them that they are about to get hit, but they cannot move out of the way in time.

[Shardlet he/him]

That doesn't make sense as an argument to me. The seer and the sparker are both limited physically to normal speeds and are both going to have highly advanced mental speeds. Let's say that pech is correct and that atium doesn't have an upper limit to its mental expansion (which doesn't feel quite right), in that case the seer will have expanded mental speed that matches what the sparker has, not above.

 

Upon rereading, I see I spoke poorly.  I did not intend to suggest that the seer would have less physical limitations.  Clearly the same physical limitations would apply.  I think we must also make the assumption the the fighting skills of the seer and the sparker are equal.  I still maintain that the seer would not see more than a few shadows (really I think two).  This is because atium v. atium gives a few seconds head start to both burners causing a chain reaction of compounding choices for both.  In contrast, the sparker can only react to a choice that the seer is actually carrying out.  This results in the original shadow of the sparker and the reaction shadow.  The first shadow would rapidly disappear as well.  There would be no compounding of shadows because the sparker must wait for the seer to do something. 

 

On top of which, the seer can see the choices of the sparker while the sparker must interpret the movements of the seer.  That key difference is why I give the advantage to the seer.  An increase in mental speed does not include increased perception, smartness, intuitiveness, etc.  The sparker may be able to think faster, but that may well just mean he comes to the wrong conclusion quicker.

 

This is a challenging discussion because there are so many variables.  But I think at the end of the day, the seer has the advantage.

 

Edit: also, I really, really, doubt that you could mentally slow down time such that you would have the equivalent of an hour to contemplate a second.  Sounds pretty extreme to me.

Edited September 17, 2013 by Shardlet

[Claincy he/him]

I can't disagree with most of what you've said there. But there are a couple of things I would like to mention.

 

First up regarding your edit, I think its possible, but it would require ludicrous amounts of zinc to do so, impossible without compounding and if you somehow got enough you would probably burn through it in a second. As in, a second for you, making it kind of pointless

 

Anyway, I think there are a couple of especially important variables that would really define what the end outcome was.

 

First, if the seer didn't know and understand how the sparker was splitting their shadow they would likely die in the first or second exchange, just like Zane. So let's go with the assumption that they understand how the sparker is splitting their shadow.

 

Let's say that the sparker has just split their shadow for the first time. The seer can either A continue on as before (and die), or B react to the new shadow, in which case the sparker will see the change in what they are doing and adjust their action again, splitting their shadow again. I can see option B happening again and again very very fast. So the real question here is then, how long would the atium shadows last? Not long certainly, but even a second or two would result in a build up of a large amount of shadows if:

A: the sparker changed their action as soon as they saw the seer change theirs, probably a fair assumption.

B: the seer changed their acton almost instantly after the shadow split, which atium would allow them to do.

 

I can see the fight going either way, or, I have a mental image of them just standing facing eachother twitching

[Shardlet he/him]

I can see the fight going either way, or, I have a mental image of them just standing facing eachother twitching

 

lol.  This makes me think of the Princess Bride:  "So you've made your choice?" 

"Not even remotely!"

 

But I do see a result where each thrust results is an ineffectual meeting because each has shifted and reshifted what they intend to do until their blows become so weak that they might as well be slapping each other with soggy pasta.  It actually sounds like a rather disapponting fight to watch.

Edited September 17, 2013 by Shardlet