Wayne *from Brandon Sanderson’s second Mistborn series) is one of my favorite fictional characters… mostly because of his inner (and outer) dialogue. He has a special power that’s fairly common in fantasy: the ability to compress time within a “bubble,” allowing him to move more quickly than the world around him (see also one of the most useful powers of Aurors in the Licanius Trilogy by James Islington).
Today we’ll look at how internally consistent the rules of Wayne’s “speed bubbles” are.
Today we’ll look at how internally consistent the rules of Wayne’s “speed bubbles” are.
The Alloy of Law, Brandon Sanderson
According the Wax, “With one nugget worth about five hundred notes, Wayne can compress about two minutes into fifteen external seconds.” This means that:
The problem: every time a speed bubble is used, the goings-on outside the bubble seem to happen much slower than 1/8x speed.
Consider this example, where Wax shoots one shot out of a speed bubble, watches the bullet move in slow-motion through the outside air, then fires another bullet to clip the first and deflect its path:
“The bullet shot out of the bubble in an instant, then hit slower time... He watched it go, judging its new trajectory. It moved forward sluggishly, spinning as it cut through the air. Wax took careful aim, waiting several excruciating moments…”
Or this example, where Wayne dodges bullets:
“Wayne could slow time, see where the bullets were heading, then walk to a place where they wouldn't hit. It took a great deal of luck and skill to hit a Slider who knew you were there.”
This sort of thing happens a lot. But if you think about it, bullets fly fast. Even if we assume that technology was bad and bullets were big and slow (say Civil War Colt Revolver), bullet velocity would be 750 ft/s.
To people in a speed bubble, that would look like 1/8th speed (93 ft/s, or 60mph). That's a lot faster than a dodge ball, and even dodge balls are hard to dodge. You can't just look where a dodge ball is about to hit, then walk to somewhere where it won't hit you.
To put it another way, if someone were 10 feet away and shot a 1/8th speed bullet at you, you would have about 0.1 seconds to get out of the way (the average person's reaction time is about 0.25 seconds, link). Even if you had great reflexes, you wouldn't see the bullet moving sluggishly and have time to take aim and wait several excruciating moments.
This is all a minor quibble in an otherwise very entertaining book by one of my favorite authors. It just goes to show how a minor miscalculation (or getting too exact with the limits of powers when engineers might be reading your books) can diminish credibility, even in a fantasy novel.
Thanks for reading! Until next time, read more fiction.
- From outside the bubble, things inside appear to move at 8x speed
- From inside the bubble, things outside the bubble appear to move at 1/8x speed
The problem: every time a speed bubble is used, the goings-on outside the bubble seem to happen much slower than 1/8x speed.
Consider this example, where Wax shoots one shot out of a speed bubble, watches the bullet move in slow-motion through the outside air, then fires another bullet to clip the first and deflect its path:
“The bullet shot out of the bubble in an instant, then hit slower time... He watched it go, judging its new trajectory. It moved forward sluggishly, spinning as it cut through the air. Wax took careful aim, waiting several excruciating moments…”
Or this example, where Wayne dodges bullets:
“Wayne could slow time, see where the bullets were heading, then walk to a place where they wouldn't hit. It took a great deal of luck and skill to hit a Slider who knew you were there.”
This sort of thing happens a lot. But if you think about it, bullets fly fast. Even if we assume that technology was bad and bullets were big and slow (say Civil War Colt Revolver), bullet velocity would be 750 ft/s.
To people in a speed bubble, that would look like 1/8th speed (93 ft/s, or 60mph). That's a lot faster than a dodge ball, and even dodge balls are hard to dodge. You can't just look where a dodge ball is about to hit, then walk to somewhere where it won't hit you.
To put it another way, if someone were 10 feet away and shot a 1/8th speed bullet at you, you would have about 0.1 seconds to get out of the way (the average person's reaction time is about 0.25 seconds, link). Even if you had great reflexes, you wouldn't see the bullet moving sluggishly and have time to take aim and wait several excruciating moments.
This is all a minor quibble in an otherwise very entertaining book by one of my favorite authors. It just goes to show how a minor miscalculation (or getting too exact with the limits of powers when engineers might be reading your books) can diminish credibility, even in a fantasy novel.
Thanks for reading! Until next time, read more fiction.