Alex Mercer (Prototype) Vs. the Lord Ruler (Mistborn)

[DaedalusMkV]

Yeah, I know, another Versus thread, and one featuring relatively obscure media to boot. This is one that I posed to a couple of my novel-reading friends a little while ago, and we never really reached a clear consensus. For those unfamiliar with the characters:

Alex Mercer is a sentient, shape-shifting viral mass capable of consuming and absorbing just about any sort of organic matter. His preferred form is that of a hoodie-wearing scientist, but he can take on the appearance of any creature he has Consumed and absorbs the memories and some of the abilities of those creatures as well. He has an exceedingly fast metabolism and a robust physiology which allows him to shrug off heavy machine gun fire and survive anti-tank missiles and recover from such injuries with astonishing speed as long as he has a source of biomass available to eat. Capable of manipulating his physical form to produce a wide variety of organic weaponry such as claws and blades, as well as shields and armour at least as tough as military-grade vehicle armour. Can run at highway speeds and leap over ten-story buildings. For more detail, see here. (http://prototype.wikia.com/wiki/Alex_Mercer)

The Lord Ruler is revered as the living god-emperor of an entire continent. He possesses all three of his setting's magic systems, which results in an immense array of powers, and thanks to a short period of time as a literal deific entity is very, very well-informed about the nature of those powers. The combat-relevent ones include: Flawless manipulation of his own mass (capable of reducing himself to one-tenth normal mass or vice versa at his whim), superhuman speed (five times normal human speed or more), exceptional healing abilities (sufficient that he can simply ignore a spear through the heart and recover instantaneously from any injury short of disintegration or decapitation), immunity to aging, the ability to repel or attrack metal to himself, vastly superhuman perception (several orders of magnitude better than average), superhuman mental acuity, the ability to manipulate the emotions of others and temporary but flawless short-term precognition. For more detail, he can basically do anything listed here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allomancer) or here (http://mistborn.wikia.com/wiki/Feruchemy), only without any of the tradeoffs involved and with exceedingly powerful effect.

The battlefield in question is modern New York, only ignoring trifling details like police or military response. There are plenty of civilians around for Alex to eat or impersonate, as well as a functionally unlimited supply of every Allomantic metal save Atium for the Lord Ruler. Both combatants have flawless descriptions of the appearance (or preferred appearance) of the other, Alex is aware that his opponent is capable of incredible powers but not the specifics, while the Lord Ruler knows only that he's dealing with a powerful shapeshifter. In preparation for the fight, the Lord Ruler has ingested his metalminds.

We had three different scenarios to consider:
1: The Lord Ruler has access to his entire Atium supply. With effectively unlimited flawless precognition, we concluded that the Lord Ruler would have no chance of defeat. In short, this one doesn't matter.

2: The Lord Ruler has only a few beads of Atium, sufficient for exactly 2 minutes of total use.

3: The Lord Ruler has no Atium available.

So, who do you think wins?

[Forum Explorer]

From the description given (I'm doubt I'm ever going to check the links) I'm going to say Alex Mercer.

I just don't see anything that will put Mercer down in Lord Ruler's arsenal.

Lord Ruler's precog will only let him find Mercer and smack him around for a while. Eventually Mercer will start getting hits in and will eventually decapitate or eat Lord Ruler, giving him the win.

[Sanguine]

The OP is actually inaccurate about the Lord Ruler's healing factor. It says he is vulnerable to decapitation, however Miles (from the Alloy of Law) had the same Double Gold healing factor and survived a decapitation. Now if there is any difference between the Lord Ruler and Miles' capabilities in this regard it would be that the Lord Ruler is even stronger, as his abilities predate the weakening of Allomancy and Feruchemy whereas Miles' didn't.

Now the question is if his Gold Metalminds protect him from ingestion. If yes, than there is very little either of them can do to hurt the other as the scenario is that the Lord Ruler has effectively infinite Gold. If not, than the Lord Ruler eventually loses.

[Mewtarthio]

The Lord Ruler can still be killed if he loses his goldminds. It would take a while, but Mercer's powers are pretty ridiculous, and he's very good at eviscerating people. Plus, I don't think he has anything that would protect him from being eaten. Compounding gold might slow the process, but it seems too fast in the game for that. He'd probably just give Alex a nice boost of biomatter as he died.

Note, by the way, that atium does not make you invincible. The precognition only extends a few seconds into the future (and also grants the heightened reflexes needed to exploit it). It's quite useful in a fight, but I don't think it would do much against a Devestator.

*shrug* Then again, Specialist Cross was able to hold his own against a mid-level Mercer, and he was just a Badass Normal. The Lord Ruler might stand a chance.

[Connington]

Mixing flared Brass with Duraluminum pushes the Lord Ruler's abilities from "manipulating emotions" to "short, crippling, send you to your knees burst of depression", which introduces a new element that Mercer might not be able to deal with. On the other hand, his atium arm bands are a huge point of weakness, even if his opponent wouldn't know that.

I'm not sure that swallowing the Lord Ruler is a good idea though.. He's been shown to be strong enough to push on the trace metals inside people's bodies, flinging them around like rag dolls. Since Wax was able to create a steelpush field around himself, the results could be rather... messy (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0638.html).

[Flickerdart]

Mercer might be able to run really fast, but any average mistborn can practically fly, and the Lord Ruler is far more powerful. What counter does he have to the Lord Ruler flying really high and just pelting him with stuff?

[DaedalusMkV]

My interpretation of "Decapitation would kill the Lord Ruler" was from Sanderson's online chapter notes from book 1, where he comments that the Lord Ruler is exaggerating about his immortality and decapitation would do the job. Either Miles is a Gold Savant where the Lord Ruler is not (entirely reasonable, given how much more powerful Spook's Tin was than anything we ever see out of a Mistborn in The Hero of Ages) or Sanderson later changed his stance on what sort of things Gold Compounding is actually capable of.

Regarding Mercer just Consuming the Lord Ruler, it's always been my interpretation that he needs to kill the target to be able to Consume them. That's why Hunters and bosses just shrug it off until mortally wounded, as well as the Evolved from game 2. That said, if anyone has any better info on this front than me I'd be happy to concede the point.

Those who think the Lord Ruler doesn't have a chance are definitely underestimating the synergies between his powers, though. As Flickerdart said, in the environment presented the Lord Ruler's allomancy and weight manipulation give him what effectively amounts to flight, and combined with his excessive superspeed means that he has a definitive edge on Mercer when it comes no maneuverability, and also allow him to turn any piece of metal in the environment into a high-velocity projectile. Moreover, Mercer needs to eat people to heal while the Lord Ruler just needs to not be instantly killed. Combined with the Lord Ruler's ruthless streak, there's a very good chance that he'd start murdering every civilian he sees to keep Mercer from healing. Also, don't underestimate the edge that Atium gives; combined with his speed and strength, it basically amounts to two minutes of Alex getting curb-stomped by a guy who is probably stronger than Alex with no chance of escape, attack or effectively defending himself.

Mercer's main edge is the potential element of surprise in the initial fight and his very lethal attack forms and nigh indestructibility. IMO, while he is definitely faster than a human being, there is no possibly way he can keep up with the barely-perceptible blur that a Feruchemist can manage at peak, not to mention his Ironpushes and Steelpulls giving him effective flight.

All that said, I'm still not convinced either side has a definitive overall advantage. That's kind of why I started this thread in the first place.

[Forum Explorer]

Mercer might be able to run really fast, but any average mistborn can practically fly, and the Lord Ruler is far more powerful. What counter does he have to the Lord Ruler flying really high and just pelting him with stuff?

Mercer can fly and regularly takes down military helicopters.

[Kitten Champion]

It would depend on the how strong a feruchemist with a full pewtermine boosted with allomantic pewter multiplied numerous times by duralumin turns out to be, relative to our physical world. I suspect Mercer would be squished, his powers well impressive, are not magical.

[Anecronwashere]

For Mercer it's simply a waiting game.
He got as strong as he did in 3 weeks of being created.
And when he did the was flying, running up the Empire State and divebombing anyone under him for 0 damage to himself, taking out Bases, throwing around tanks and planes and who knows what else.
Now give him another month of on-again off-again fighting through New York with a reducing supply of civies. Consume-Health becomes more scarce so Mercer bulks up his defense and his Spontaneous Healing Rate, becomes even faster (Cant he outrun cars and vans at top speed?) and his Tentacle attack gets more Range.


And Mercer absorbs them as they are mortally wounded, the Hunters evolved specifically to not be absorbed by have 2 central nervous system, which is gotten around by severing the spinal cord and then doing the standard Absorb (ie tentacles to the brain/headcrush).
Idk what the deal is with Cross (though he isnt just Normal, he has power Armour and subtle Runner powers) and why you cant absorb him before the end of the boss fight with the Supreme hunter.

But yeah, my money is on Mercer if he can escape once or twice to simply Adapt. And if he isn't, then he just has to survive until the Metal reserves start to deplete temporarily and move in for the kill then.
And remember, this guy survived being at Ground Zero of a small tactical Nuke and reformed from it by eating small animals. He can handle anything up to and including complete disintegration.

[Pronounceable]

Lord Ruler is a pretty obscure guy in and out of universe. Not many people have read Mistborn trilogy and even in books his real limits are never really touched on. It's not easy to estimate how he'd fare in a fight with anything not from Mistborn world, even for a Mistborn fan.

That said he'd win because I haven't played Prototype and Lord Ruler is awesome. Which is about as objective as it gets in an online versus arguement.
(a compounding Lord Ruler would be something like Wolverine, Flash and Hulk combined on just the physical ability front and who knows what sort of crazy crap funky metals like chromium would enable; but that's neither here, nor there)

[D_Lord]

With as much metal there is in New York, Lord Ruler never has the touch the ground again. He could always get higher than Mercer as long as Mercer can't fly on his own power. Not to mention unlimited amoun around for him to throw at him. And I'm not sure how much Lord Ruler really needs to sleep, so he could just send about all day and night throwing things at Mercer and messing with his emountions. So as powerful as Alex is I don't think he can win.

[Flickerdart]

who knows what sort of crazy crap funky metals like chromium would enable
All but a small subset of metals make you sick or worse when burned, which is why nobody experiments with them. The Lord Ruler never exhibited any supernatural knowledge of metal effects, or else he would have been using the metals nobody else knew about.

[Douglas]

My interpretation of "Decapitation would kill the Lord Ruler" was from Sanderson's online chapter notes from book 1, where he comments that the Lord Ruler is exaggerating about his immortality and decapitation would do the job. Either Miles is a Gold Savant where the Lord Ruler is not (entirely reasonable, given how much more powerful Spook's Tin was than anything we ever see out of a Mistborn in The Hero of Ages) or Sanderson later changed his stance on what sort of things Gold Compounding is actually capable of.
I don't think Miles was ever actually decapitated. The closest he got was a point blank shotgun blast to the face, and his healing factor was already turned on at full force before the trigger was pulled. With the kind of healing use Miles was always doing, chopping off his head with a normal sword would fail because the entry wound would already be healed by the time the sword came out the other side. You'd need something like a guillotine, where the entire cut all the way through the neck is blocked all at once. Shotgun shells don't even come close to the kind of continuous healing prevention required.


Those who think the Lord Ruler doesn't have a chance are definitely underestimating the synergies between his powers, though. As Flickerdart said, in the environment presented the Lord Ruler's allomancy and weight manipulation give him what effectively amounts to flight, and combined with his excessive superspeed means that he has a definitive edge on Mercer when it comes no maneuverability, and also allow him to turn any piece of metal in the environment into a high-velocity projectile.
Yeah, this. For anyone who's seen Megamind, think of the scene where Metroman goes superspeed and - all in less than the blink of an eye - moves a few miles, reads several books, sips casually from a fast food soda, rethinks his life, and so on, returning so fast that no one even noticed he'd gone. The Lord Ruler can do something at least close to that if he realizes he needs to get serious, and he has similar super strength and pseudo-flight as well plus a bunch of other powers.


And I'm not sure how much Lord Ruler really needs to sleep
Simple: He doesn't. At all. He can tap wakefulness from Feruchemy indefinitely.


All but a small subset of metals make you sick or worse when burned, which is why nobody experiments with them. The Lord Ruler never exhibited any supernatural knowledge of metal effects, or else he would have been using the metals nobody else knew about.
Off the top of my head, he at the very least knew of aluminum, electrum, and malatium. It seems likely to me that he also knew of the rest but either didn't think they would benefit him enough with what he already had to be worth it or couldn't figure out a way to acquire them in quantity without giving away the secret. He also knew of a way to use feruchemy to strengthen his allomancy, which no one else has figured out yet - his Soothing aura is way too strong for even his status as an Original Allomancer to account for and Brandon Sanderson has mentioned this in an interview somewhere.

While he held the Well of Ascension's power he had complete understanding of the Metallic Arts - without it, he would not have been able to create the Kandra, Koloss, and Inquisitors. Afterward he retained whatever selection of that he thought was important and that his mundane mind could handle.

[Kitten Champion]

All but a small subset of metals make you sick or worse when burned, which is why nobody experiments with them. The Lord Ruler never exhibited any supernatural knowledge of metal effects, or else he would have been using the metals nobody else knew about.

Didn't he create allomancy while channelling the god-like power of the Well of Ascension? He knew about electrum and aluminum, which the nobility were utterly ignorant of.

He was a shark in a small pond. He could conquer everyone just using steel, iron, brass, and feruchemy.

[Kd7sov]

Technically, he didn't create it - I think it's speculated in one of the book 3 epigraphs that he was already a Misting, and the original Mistborn definitely got that way by eating the lerasium near the Well. But the rest of your point stands.

[Douglas]

Allomancy already existed, but it was completely unknown because there were no bloodlines with significant allomantic ability. Alendi was a bronze misting, which is what allowed him to sense the Well of Ascension's location even though he had no clue such abilities existed.

When the Lord Ruler took up the power of the Well he instantly gained an understanding of all three magic systems and their interactions, and he formulated his ultimate plan on the spot when he noticed the interaction that would allow functional immortality. He forgot most of Hemalurgy when his short stint with the power was over, but I think that was due to its incredible complexity more than anything else. Allomancy and Feruchemy are much more simple and straightforward, enough to make remembering every last detail of them reasonable.

[Mewtarthio]

He also knew of a way to use feruchemy to strengthen his allomancy, which no one else has figured out yet - his Soothing aura is way too strong for even his status as an Original Allomancer to account for and Brandon Sanderson has mentioned this in an interview somewhere.

I'd guess this has something to do with nicrosil, which is mentioned in the appendix of Alloy Law as a Feruchemical metal that stores "Investiture" (used in Allomancy, it has the same effect as duralumin, only on whoever you're touching).

Now, I will grant that the Lord Ruler has a lot of wild cards up his sleeve. We have no idea what Compounding nicrosil would do for his abilities, for instance. The trouble is, the Lord Ruler did lose in the books, so we do know what it takes to kill him. You just have to pull out his metalminds. Easier said then done, I know: He only died because he got caught off-guard (Vin was probably the only other person in a hundred years who even suspected that you could Pull on metal embedded in someone's skin, and never saw that drawing-on-the-mists trick coming).

I'd expect Alex Mercer to catch him off-guard. The battlefield is the entirety of New York. That's over eight million people, and Mercer could be any one of them. The Lord Ruler can't exactly hide with all those metalminds stuck in him. All Mercer has to do is absorb a bunch of people, walk right next to the Lord Ruler in the middle of a crowd, then hit him with a point-blank Devestator. He can blast tanks apart; I doubt the Lord Ruler will have any metalminds left after that attack. Now, if Mercer compromises his stealth advantage (say he underestimates his opponent and goes for a direct assault), we have a much more intersting fight.

[Silver Swift]

Assuming Mercer isn't significantly more powerful than I understood from what I have seen from from prototype (never actually played the game) and assuming the Lord Ruler gets atium, Mercer is toast. Here is how I imagine it happening:

Lord Ruler hops around New York staying as high as possible so that he can't be seen from the ground (easily possible using iron feruchemy and steel allomancy), compounding tin to get ridiculously good vision. He eventually spots Mercer while he is absorbing someone, drops to the ground and starts burning atium and compounding steel, pewter and gold. Keeping duralumin and plenty of extra pewter ready in case a pewtermind at peek capacity isn't enough to get through Mercers defences. What follows are two minutes in which the Lord Ruler is as strong as he wants, as fast as he wants and capable of predicting every move Mercer makes before he makes it.

Without atium, Lord Ruler is still faster and stronger than Mercer, but Mercer has more combat experience, which might give him a chance. This is of course assuming the Mercer has some kind of defence against the effects of (duralumin enhanced) brass/zinc, if not, then that is pretty much game over too. Also, if Lord Ruler has access to and knowledge of bendalloy, he can take away Mercers healing source, giving himself a huge advantage.

[Douglas]

I'd expect Alex Mercer to catch him off-guard. The battlefield is the entirety of New York. That's over eight million people, and Mercer could be any one of them. The Lord Ruler can't exactly hide with all those metalminds stuck in him. All Mercer has to do is absorb a bunch of people, walk right next to the Lord Ruler in the middle of a crowd, then hit him with a point-blank Devestator. He can blast tanks apart; I doubt the Lord Ruler will have any metalminds left after that attack. Now, if Mercer compromises his stealth advantage (say he underestimates his opponent and goes for a direct assault), we have a much more intersting fight.
As specified in the OP, the Lord Ruler knows he's dealing with a powerful shapeshifter. He's ruthless enough that he might respond to that by just slaughtering every one of those eight million civilians he comes across. He's certainly not going to allow one to get close to him.

What exactly is a "Devastator"? I can't be sure without knowing the details, but I'd guess there's a good chance TLR could either dodge or heal it anyway if he's taking the fight seriously enough to have all his combat abilities active.


Without atium, Lord Ruler is still faster and stronger than Mercer, but Mercer has more combat experience, which might give him a chance.
I wouldn't be so sure about Mercer having more combat experience. The Lord Ruler has been in multiple "himself vs entire army" battles where he personally slaughtered the entire enemy army unaided.

[DaedalusMkV]

Technically, he didn't create it - I think it's speculated in one of the book 3 epigraphs that he was already a Misting, and the original Mistborn definitely got that way by eating the lerasium near the Well. But the rest of your point stands.
No, the Lord Ruler was pure Feruchemist before ingesting a bit of Lerasium to become a Mistborn. He may or may not have created the Lerasium using the power of the Well; there's no way of knowing whether the Lerasium in the Well room was already there, created when the Lord Ruler was remaking the world or a naturally occurring result of proximity to Preservation's body like Atium is for Ruin. Either way, it's pretty much a given that the Lord Ruler was the first Mistborn in recorded history and that his time as a literal God gave him massive amounts of knowledge on the mechanics of the setting.



Now, I will grant that the Lord Ruler has a lot of wild cards up his sleeve. We have no idea what Compounding nicrosil would do for his abilities, for instance. The trouble is, the Lord Ruler did lose in the books, so we do know what it takes to kill him. You just have to pull out his metalminds. Easier said then done, I know: He only died because he got caught off-guard (Vin was probably the only other person in a hundred years who even suspected that you could Pull on metal embedded in someone's skin, and never saw that drawing-on-the-mists trick coming).

I'd expect Alex Mercer to catch him off-guard. The battlefield is the entirety of New York. That's over eight million people, and Mercer could be any one of them. The Lord Ruler can't exactly hide with all those metalminds stuck in him. All Mercer has to do is absorb a bunch of people, walk right next to the Lord Ruler in the middle of a crowd, then hit him with a point-blank Devestator. He can blast tanks apart; I doubt the Lord Ruler will have any metalminds left after that attack. Now, if Mercer compromises his stealth advantage (say he underestimates his opponent and goes for a direct assault), we have a much more intersting fight.
I think it's only fair to keep it to his known abilities. No Chromium, no Nicrosil, no speculating what Compounding the time-dilating metals would do. While he almost certainly knew about those metals and their properties, he never used them in the series and wouldn't be likely to fall back on untested abilities in a situation like this to begin with. Also, the Lord Ruler can easily take a cue from Sazed if necessary; he can swallow his metalminds or embed them deep into his body then Compound Gold to heal up. If he actually takes the fight seriously rather than falling back on the protection of his enemy's ignorance and his intense personal arrogance, his Metalminds shouldn't be too vulnerable. Of course, given both combatants heavy tendency to the aforementioned intense personal arrogance, I somehow doubt either the Lord Ruler or Mercer will fight smart or safe until they see what the other is capable of.


Lord Ruler hops around New York staying as high as possible so that he can't be seen from the ground (easily possible using iron feruchemy and steel allomancy), compounding tin to get ridiculously good vision. He eventually spots Mercer while he is absorbing someone, drops to the ground and starts burning atium and compounding steel, pewter and gold. Keeping duralumin and plenty of extra pewter ready in case a pewtermind at peek capacity isn't enough to get through Mercers defences. What follows are two minutes in which the Lord Ruler is as strong as he wants, as fast as he wants and capable of predicting every move Mercer makes before he makes it.

Without atium, Lord Ruler is still faster and stronger than Mercer, but Mercer has more combat experience, which might give him a chance. This is of course assuming the Mercer has some kind of defence against the effects of (duralumin enhanced) brass/zinc, if not, then that is pretty much game over too. Also, if Lord Ruler has access to and knowledge of bendalloy, he can take away Mercers healing source, giving himself a huge advantage.
This tactic might work, but Mercer does have at the very least a supernatural ability to sense his prey once he knows what to look for. He'd only need to eat someone who's been in close proximity to the Lord Ruler to be able to track him, at which point the Lord Ruler can never really possess the element of surprise. Now, if the Lord Ruler did actually go for this tactic rather than walking around proclaiming his superiority, broadcasting his presence and screaming for Mercer to come out and fight him, and Mercer wasn't able to find a proper target in time, the Lord Ruler probably could use the element of surprise to rip Mercer apart before he can get away. I mean, the Lord Ruler could easily lead off this sort of attack by throwing a high-velocity helicopter at Mercer or pulling half a building down on him.

As specified in the OP, the Lord Ruler knows he's dealing with a powerful shapeshifter. He's ruthless enough that he might respond to that by just slaughtering every one of those eight million civilians he comes across. He's certainly not going to allow one to get close to him.

What exactly is a "Devastator"? I can't be sure without knowing the details, but I'd guess there's a good chance TLR could either dodge or heal it anyway if he's taking the fight seriously enough to have all his combat abilities active.


I wouldn't be so sure about Mercer having more combat experience. The Lord Ruler has been in multiple "himself vs entire army" battles where he personally slaughtered the entire enemy army unaided.
That was also something I was thinking about. It depends on how much the Lord Ruler associates "Shapeshifter" with Kandra. That said, once he learns that Mercer can change his appearance the way an average person changes hats, I'd pretty much guarantee that his response would be to start murdering the entire city with the change in their pockets.

Devestators are powerful area-effect abilities that Mercer uses to cause terrible damage. They come in three flavours: Armor-piercing spikes shooting from the ground in a 50-meter radius to impale everyone and everything on the ground, masses of bladed tentacles fired in a full hemisphere around him to cause horrible mutilation to organic matter around him and a direct-forwards blast of tentacles and pressure which rips apart tanks with ease and turns people into gibs. Luckily, the first one only targets people on the ground and the second one, based on the effect it has when a powerful enemy uses it on Mercer, wouldn't cause enough trauma to actually kill the Lord Ruler. So yeah, it comes down to the third one, which is actually dodgeable. If Mercer comes straight out of a sneak attack with it, I'd say there's a fair chance it would end the fight in a single hit.

Also, by this point Mercer has over a hundred lifetimes of combat experience. He gets all of the memories and experience of everyone he eats, which by the point in his powers we're talking about amounts to at least a hundred or so veteran soldiers, dozens of US military officers including a General with thirty years seniority and multiple members of elite special forces teams. By the end of the game he can pick up a heavy machine gun and kill thirty soldiers in four seconds by firing thirty shots on full automatic. In other words, the Lord Ruler has about a century of fighting (and nine of peace) under his belt to Mercer's millenia or three.

This discussion's still bringing up a lot of good points. I think I'm probably getting a bit more into the Lord Ruler's camp, all things considered, since if both sides play it safe and smart the Lord Ruler pretty much has a huge advantage from his mobility and ranged attacks (I never even thought of Compounding Wakefulness to never get tired or Compounding Tin for impossible senses). I'd say the main advantage Mercer still has is that he tends to be slightly less relentlessly arrogant than the Lord Ruler, which means he's less likely to do something monumentally stupid out of delusions of invincibility...

[Flickerdart]

Also, by this point Mercer has over a hundred lifetimes of combat experience. He gets all of the memories and experience of everyone he eats, which by the point in his powers we're talking about amounts to at least a hundred or so veteran soldiers, dozens of US military officers including a General with thirty years seniority and multiple members of elite special forces teams. By the end of the game he can pick up a heavy machine gun and kill thirty soldiers in four seconds by firing thirty shots on full automatic. In other words, the Lord Ruler has about a century of fighting (and nine of peace) under his belt to Mercer's millenia or three.
Mercer's experience is almost all experience of being a little man with little toys fighting other little men with little toys. I don't see that being especially relevant in a battle between demigods.

[Connington]

I think it's only fair to keep it to his known abilities. No Chromium, no Nicrosil, no speculating what Compounding the time-dilating metals would do.

That last one's out anyways. You can only compound feruchemical powers, not allomancy. It's probably best leaving these four out. Bendalloy allows TLR to empty out New York of potential meals in minutes, but compounded chromium gives unlimited luck, or essentially plot control.


So yeah, it comes down to the third one, which is actually dodgeable. If Mercer comes straight out of a sneak attack with it, I'd say there's a fair chance it would end the fight in a single hit.


Then it really does depend on how seriously the Lord Ruler takes this. If he's compounding Zinc he has ridiculous mental speed, which should let him dodge just about anything. Of course, he has been successfully rushed by mere mortals on at least two occasions, so he doesn't seem inclined to take fights seriously.

But again, duraluminum fueled flash of soothing. Unless Alex has some resistance to mind control, that should be enough to put him on the ground.

[DaedalusMkV]

That last one's out anyways. You can only compound feruchemical powers, not allomancy. It's probably best leaving these four out. Bendalloy allows TLR to empty out New York of potential meals in minutes, but compounded chromium gives unlimited luck, or essentially plot control.



Then it really does depend on how seriously the Lord Ruler takes this. If he's compounding Zinc he has ridiculous mental speed, which should let him dodge just about anything. Of course, he has been successfully rushed by mere mortals on at least two occasions, so he doesn't seem inclined to take fights seriously.

But again, duraluminum fueled flash of soothing. Unless Alex has some resistance to mind control, that should be enough to put him on the ground.

Hmm. Did your copy of the Alloy of Law have a table for the Feruchemical powers of the new metals? Mine didn't, so I had no idea about what they might have done. Thanks for the update.

Also, if anything Alex has displayed a distinct weakness to acute emotional shocks; at least one totally human enemy takes advantage of his plot-induced crippling flashbacks to jab him with a needle, and Alex is definitely overwhelmed with emotion fairly often throughout the game. Though, Duralumin being what it is, something tells me the Lord Ruler is better off not using it except as a last resort. If he uses it he's got to have all of his Allomantic (and Compounding) powers shut down for at least a couple of seconds or have everything blow up in his face and run out immediately. That's pretty much a death sentence right there. Given the few seconds of being totally human, trying to hit Mercer with an Oblivion-soothing is just begging to get a tentacle through the head. He's really just better off using his superspeed and flight to dodge away then counterattacking as usual.

[Flickerdart]

Doesn't duralumin only drain your resource of the metal you're using? So he'd still have all the other metals plus his feruchemy and hemalurgy based powers.

[Kitten Champion]

This is just a passing thought, however, could the Lord Ruler not produce Hermalurgic spikes and convert the population of Manhatten into ya'know, Koloss?

I don't think the creation of spikes was ever explained, other than it was the Lord Ruler who generated them.

[Silver Swift]

Doesn't duralumin only drain your resource of the metal you're using? So he'd still have all the other metals plus his feruchemy and hemalurgy based powers.

That's how I understood it too, also:


If he uses it he's got to have all of his Allomantic (and Compounding) powers shut down for at least a couple of seconds or have everything blow up in his face and run out immediately.

Compounding is burning feruchemically charged metals to fill your metalminds to ridiculous levels without paying the price for it, getting the actual effect from it is still feruchemy, so duralumin doesn't drain it.

Interestingly, you probably could use duralumin while burning the feruchemically charged metals to get a duralumin enhanced feruchemy effect (burning steel and duralumin for a short moment of lightning speed for example) but since feruchemists can already control the speed at which they burn through their stored powers (to a much greater degree than allomancers) this might not be very usefull.


This is just a passing thought, however, could the Lord Ruler not produce Hermalurgic spikes and convert the population of Manhatten into ya'know, Koloss?

I don't think the creation of spikes was ever explained, other than it was the Lord Ruler who generated them.

Well, we know that Ruin could create spikes (or at least, that marsh could while under his influence), but I suspect that creating spikes may take to much time to be an effective strategy in a combat situation.

Aside from that, though, I don't think that Koloss are much of a threat to Mercer, and considering that he gains some of the abilities of the people he absorbs, creating a bunch of Koloss for Mercer to absorb may not be the best of ideas :smallwink:.

[Douglas]

No need for duralumin, here. The Lord Ruler is capable of generating an absurdly powerful Soothing effect on many thousands of people at once without it; simply concentrating that level of power on one person should produce a more than sufficient effect.

[DaedalusMkV]

Doesn't duralumin only drain your resource of the metal you're using? So he'd still have all the other metals plus his feruchemy and hemalurgy based powers.

It drains all the metals you're currently burning and enhances their effects. In book 2 Vin nearly gets herself killed when she uses Duralumin to enhance a Steelpush only to find that she's drained her pewter as well in the middle of a fight. So, one of the things that Sanderson makes a point of mentioning after that is that she needs to stop burning metals she doesn't want to use up before using Duralumin.

Also, it only would waste the Compounding metal, not the amount stored in the Lord Ruler's metalminds already, so it wouldn't likely stop his Health and Speed, just slow him down a bit until he can get back to Compounding away. So yeah, in retrospect it wouldn't be a huge deal.

[Mewtarthio]

This is just a passing thought, however, could the Lord Ruler not produce Hermalurgic spikes and convert the population of Manhatten into ya'know, Koloss?

I don't think the creation of spikes was ever explained, other than it was the Lord Ruler who generated them.

You just have to stab someone and rip out their soul to create a spike. It looks like any killing blow can pull it off. The tricky part is knowing where to put it. There are a couple of points where someone appears to get spiked by accident, though Ruin was probably manipulating things behind the scenes: Notably, that's how Spook got the ability to burn pewter.

Of course, all this is useless for the Lord Ruler, since Hemalurgy cannot create more power, but can only steal existing power. Since there aren't any Allomancers or Feruchemists in New York, he won't be making any Steel Inquisitors any time soon. As for the koloss, those are a bit more complicated than simple Hemalurgy. We never actually see the creation of a koloss, but it appears to involve recycling the skins of other koloss. I don't think the Lord Ruler can produce them in New York. Now, he could spike some poor bastard several times to produce a supersoldier, but that would take time, force him to hang around "normals" for a while so as to kill them (leaving him open to a sneak attack), and wouldn't really produce that spectacular a weapon. Really, what's one guy with the strength of ten men compared to Alex Mercer?

[TheDarkDM]

It bears repeating that Mercer survived a tactical nuke to the face, only needing to consume a crow before regenerating fully. Does the Lord Ruler have anything in his arsenal that can match that level of destructive power?

[Anecronwashere]

I think he consumed more than 1 crow to regen, more a lot of off-screen animals.

Can I say that Mercer is very heavy and seems to be able to control his mass?
Everyone he eats is completely sucked into his form. Meaning he gains the full mass of a person. This is seen by the fact he causes cracks in the ground when he runs, letting some of his mass become heavy again for the extra push-off with each step.
Its also why he sinks in water, he sinks faster than a stone then jumps from the bottom back up.

What happens to Lord Ruler when several Tonnes of Mercer target him from atop the Empire State? or launch himself at roughly 100mph (its faster than a car speeding down a road by a lot) to grind his face into the road followed by Nomnomnom?

[Kd7sov]

What happens to Lord Ruler when several Tonnes of Mercer target him from atop the Empire State? or launch himself at roughly 100mph (its faster than a car speeding down a road by a lot) to grind his face into the road followed by Nomnomnom?

If he happens to have his atium on? He dodges. Heck, he's probably good enough at tin (perception), pewter (strength), and zincminds (mental speed) to do that without atium.

For that matter: pewter (either/both) plus iron (feruchemical, possibly compounded) should let him stand up under even those forces. (Feruchemical iron, for reference, stores physical weight.)

[Douglas]

Yeah, the Lord Ruler is quite capable of taking something like that and returning the favor. Extreme weight, strength, speed (both physical and mental), and durability are all among the abilities he has with no practical resource limit.

[DaedalusMkV]

What happens to Lord Ruler when several Tonnes of Mercer target him from atop the Empire State? or launch himself at roughly 100mph (its faster than a car speeding down a road by a lot) to grind his face into the road followed by Nomnomnom?

Nothing, because Mercer's runspeed is more like 60 mph than 100 (seriously, those cars are going at busy-city speed, not highway speed) and his divebomb attacks are very, very obvious. Actually, so is sprinting in and going for a tackle. The Lord Ruler has very superhuman senses and can move at a literal barely perceptible blur when he wants to. He'll just dodge any sort of clumsy one-off attack like that. Mercer wants a one-hit-kill he's going to need to do it with a Devestator from sneak attack, because his biggest kill attacks have huge windup times and telegraph themselves to hell and back.

Also, yeah. His other option is just to counter with a punch to the face. The Lord Ruler will probably pulp his own arm doing so, but he doesn't care because it'll grow back in a second or two and Alex will lose a lot more from having to regenerate his head than the Lord Ruler will from regenerating an arm. Basically, if you want to play that kind of game the Lord Ruler is going to do it better since he can make himself weigh as much as a freight train after hurling himself at airplane speeds if he wants to.

[Forum Explorer]

Mercer might be able to run really fast, but any average mistborn can practically fly, and the Lord Ruler is far more powerful. What counter does he have to the Lord Ruler flying really high and just pelting him with stuff?

Lots of stuff, but that's already been covered. I will add that he can just get in a plane/helicopter if necessary to close the gap as another way he can counter it.


For the emotional attacks well that may depend on if we are dealing with after the final boss Mercer or not. To my understanding Mercer discovers

That essentially he doesn't exist. Mercer was merely the first person the virus thing killed. He is the virus eating monster full out and he embraces that truth.

Now I'm not sure if that's actually true, as I'm going on vague reviews and hearsay.

[Anecronwashere]

Mercer is dead, ZEUS is alive.
ZEUS is several hundred/thousand people at the end of the game after a mere 3 weeks of existence constantly fighting and avoiding things.

As I said earlier: All Mercer has to do is survive one or two fights with Lord Ruler and he can come back better and adapted to fighting this guy.
He has two weaknesses: 1 being injected with basically Zombie Cancer and 2 breathing in Anti-Zombie Gas. Both of which he develops an immunity too before it kills him.

He took a Nuke to the Face and reformed from it.
Also his pain from regaining memories/absorbing new skills won't work any more, because Lord Ruler has no new information to give Mercer, which unlocks the memory inside him.

[Silver Swift]

It bears repeating that Mercer survived a tactical nuke to the face, only needing to consume a crow before regenerating fully. Does the Lord Ruler have anything in his arsenal that can match that level of destructive power?

If that is the case then how the hell do you lose in that game? Do enemies repeatedly throw nukes at your face in hopes that you run out of crows or something? :smallconfused:

To answer your question, that would depend on how literal Sanderson is, Feruchemy is described as having no limits to how far it can crank up your strength/speed/senses/etc. as long as you have some of that attribute stored in your metalminds (which the lord ruler has effectively limitless supplies of), in practice we do see feruchemists coming up short even when they do have charged metalminds left, so there probably is some limit.

Personally I don't think the lord ruler could generate anything that powerful (although we never do see a pewter compounder showing the maximum of his combined powers, so who knows). He probably could dodge/survive it, but not throw it.


Also his pain from regaining memories/absorbing new skills won't work any more, because Lord Ruler has no new information to give Mercer, which unlocks the memory inside him.

That is not the point, so long as Mercer has emotions the only defences against Rioting is burning copper or covering your head in pure aluminium (both of which probably don't work against the lord ruler anyway).

[Anecronwashere]

The Nuke-to-the-face survival is the ending cinematic after you eat the other Runner, basically another Alex Mercer who is bigger, bulkier and needs to be repeatedly Devastated.
He reforms as puddles of goo that can move, one of which eats a bird from the inside.

He is not Human, by any possible measurement.

[Anteros]

The Nuke-to-the-face survival is the ending cinematic after you eat the other Runner, basically another Alex Mercer who is bigger, bulkier and needs to be repeatedly Devastated.
He reforms as puddles of goo that can move, one of which eats a bird from the inside.

He is not Human, by any possible measurement.

You're missing the point that it is still possible to die in the game. Thus he obviously isn't functionally immortal.

[Flickerdart]

Lots of stuff, but that's already been covered. I will add that he can just get in a plane/helicopter if necessary to close the gap as another way he can counter it.
So your solution when fighting a being that can control metal is to get into a big metal box. And this doesn't strike you as a terrible idea.

[Douglas]

So your solution when fighting a being that can control metal is to get into a big metal box. And this doesn't strike you as a terrible idea.
The control is a bit limited, being constrained to pushing and pulling directly towards and away from him, but yes any metal vehicle is not going to work for helping get close to the Lord Ruler.

[Anecronwashere]

You're missing the point that it is still possible to die in the game. Thus he obviously isn't functionally immortal.

The game ends (not counting the whole freeform thing) when he Eats the Supreme Hunter and takes the nuke.
He doesnt get the last "Survive a nuke" Evolution upgrade until he beats the Hunter.
So if we start right before the end, before the last boss, yes he is not functionally immortal. But after it he is perfectly capable of survivng