ConQuesT Kansas City - 5/22/15

[Esmale]

Some more questions and things that I got from either direct questions, or chatting with Brandon while we were playing Magic last night:

 

Q: Will we ever see full Mistborn and/or Feruchemists again?

A: Yes, but they may be cobbled together...

 

Q: I meant more along the lines of a natural born Mistborn.

Q: RAFO

 

Q: In Sixth of Dusk, the advanced society that's trying to take advantage, have we seen them before?

A: They've been referenced elsewhere

 

This last bit was less a question, and more some information that he volunteered, regarding Perfect State (spoilers, sorry, I haven't figured out how to do the 'hide the spoiler text unless you click a button' bit yet):

 

Sophie, the robot that Melhi made to mess with Kai, is Melhi: she made a robot duplicate of herself.  Brandon said that she actually feels kind of bad about all of it now...but that she's also rather messed up.

[Argent]

This last bit was less a question, and more some information that he volunteered, regarding Perfect State (spoilers, sorry, I haven't figured out how to do the 'hide the spoiler text unless you click a button' bit yet):

...

 

You can edit your post and replace it with

 

{spoiler}Spoilery text goes here.{/spoiler}

 

Where you replace the curly braces - { } - with brackets - [ ]

[Kaymyth]

OK, so in the signing line, I asked the question about chromium vs a Compounder with both invested and uninvested metals in both their stomach and piercings.

 

Sorry I don't have exact quotes, but there was a line and no easy way to take notes. 

 

But what it boils down to is this:

 

1)  Yes, the piercings will get burned off.*

2)  The noninvested metals go before the invested ones.  He said that because invested metals are harder to effect, it takes a little extra time and effort to get them to burn off.  So a Leecher trying to clean out a Compounder would have to get a good grip and hang on for a few seconds.

3)  Chromium burns about as quickly as duralumin, so if you're trying to burn off a lot of metals, it is possible to run out of chromium before your target is clean.  This would probably only be an issue when dealing with larger pieces (like jewelry) rather than your standard metal-flakes-in-the-stomach deal.

 

I asked another question about the population levels of Mistings, Ferrings, and Twinborn in the AoL era during the Magic tournament, but it goes better as a response to an older thread of mind on the Mistborn boards.  It basically will tie up that thread quite nicely.

 

Also, I got beat at Magic: the Gathering by Brandon Sanderson.  That was cool. 

 

* I bet that seeing that happen would look downright weird.

[WeiryWriter]

I asked another question about the population levels of Mistings, Ferrings, and Twinborn in the AoL era during the Magic tournament, but it goes better as a response to an older thread of mind on the Mistborn boards.  It basically will tie up that thread quite nicely.

 

Please put it here.

[Kaymyth]

Please put it here.

 

Sorry. 

 

OK, quoting myself with the post in the other thread, specifically regarding the distribution of Mistings and Ferrings in the population as of Alloy of Law:

 

 

Straight WoB:  the numbers in the AoL MAG supplement are off.  (It states the occurrence of Mistings/Ferrings is 1 in 50 people.)  He said that they're not terrible, but they definitely are shown as somewhat more common than they really are.  But he also said that they're not nearly as rare as people seem to think; for example, he stated that virtually everyone would know at least one Coinshot.  So there are definitely a lot of Allomancers around.

 

And the occurrence of Twinborn would not be a normal statistical spread (alas).  As folks opined before in this thread, the Terris folk do tend to keep somewhat to themselves, so there's not a huge amount of population mix.  So Twinborn will be rarer.

 

I did point out that there had to be some mix, else we'd be seeing full Feruchemists around, and to that he mostly just smiled and looked mysterious.  As he does.  And then he proceeded to trounce me in a game of Magic.

 

Oh, and one other tidbit of information, so that this post isn't just a rehash of other stuff I already said on another board:

 

Brandon verbally confirmed that he plans to return to Kansas City for WorldCon next year.

Edited May 24, 2015 by Kaymyth

[Kurkistan]

@Kaymyth

 

Just to clarify, are you saying that Brandon said that the MAG numbers are too high or too low? So is <2% of the population mistings/ferrings or >2%?

Edited May 24, 2015 by Kurkistan

[Kaymyth]

@Kaymyth

 

Just to clarify, are you saying that Brandon said that the MAG numbers are too high or too low? So is <2% of the population mistings/ferrings or >2%?

 

The MAG numbers are too high.  Mistings and Ferrings aren't quite as common in the population as the supplement states.  (But they're still a lot more common than Final Empire numbers.)

 

Another potential tidbit of amusement that I just remembered:  someone asked how much Sazed "cheated" when it came to the Metalborn distribution.  That was met by more mysterious smiles and even a bit of chuckling.

 

Sorry this is coming in so disjointed, but that Magic tournament ran late last night.  I am too old to be staying up past 1AM anymore.

[Kurkistan]

@Kaymth

 

Okay, thanks.

 

Q: In Sixth of Dusk, the advanced society that's trying to take advantage, have we seen them before?

A: They've been referenced elsewhere

 

We've multiple quotes about the Ones Above being from a planet we've seen before, but this WoB might be hinting at something else. Esmale: was this how Brandon phrased it, or was it a paraphrase where he might have said something more direct like "you've seen them"?

 

Because if Brandon was intentionally saying "oh they've been referenced elsewhere" that might suggest that other Cosmere books make oblique reference to the Ones Above already.

 

EDIT: Fixed the link to go to the specific WoB rather than the interview.

Edited May 24, 2015 by Kurkistan

[skaa]

OK, so in the signing line, I asked the question about chromium vs a Compounder with both invested and uninvested metals in both their stomach and piercings.

Sorry I don't have exact quotes, but there was a line and no easy way to take notes.

But what it boils down to is this:

1) Yes, the piercings will get burned off. (I bet that seeing that happen would look downright weird.)

2) The noninvested metals go before the invested ones. He said that because invested metals are harder to effect, it takes a little extra time and effort to get them to burn off. So a Leecher trying to clean out a Compounder would have to get a good grip and hang on for a few seconds.

3) Chromium burns about as quickly as duralumin, so if you're trying to burn off a lot of metals, it is possible to run out of chromium before your target is clean. This would probably only be an issue when dealing with larger pieces (like jewelry) rather than your standard metal-flakes-in-the-stomach deal.

You can destroy Hemalurgic spikes using (prolonged) Chromium Allomancy?! That's awesome! (Well, I guess it's not awesome for Hemalurgists...)

Perhaps the reason Aluminum can't destroy spikes is because it disappears instantly upon burning, taking away only the non-Invested metals along the way. I guess this fits the self-preservation theme of Allomantic powers since burning off your own spikes would physically harm you. Burning off other people's Hemalurgy is another matter, so maybe that's why Brandon gave Chromium this particular advantage.

This mismatch between the Enhancement Pulling powers makes me wonder if there's something special about Nicrosil that can't be predicted from what we know of Duralumin.

Edited May 24, 2015 by skaa

[Guest]

You can destroy Hemalurgic spikes using (prolonged) Chromium Allomancy?! That's awesome! (Well, I guess it's not awesome for Hemalurgists...)

 

Does this also mean a Nicroburst could force a Hemalurgist to burn their own spikes? Because I seem to remember a WoB saying that would be pretty much the most painful thing that could ever happen...

[Moogle]

Interesting - this suggests you could use a Nicrosil Misting/duralumin spike to be a more effective Chromium Misting. You superboost the chromium to deal with Invested metals faster. It already burns fast, yes, but if you have to hold on for a few seconds normally, being boosted helps dramatically.

[Kaymyth]

I didn't specifically ask about hemalurgical spikes, but I'd say that's a rational conclusion that can be drawn.  I would think that hemalurgical spike would be harder to force a burn than a charged metalmind, though, in terms of difficulty levels.  It might be a LOT harder.

 

Also, I think it would only work if the target is capable of burning the metal that the spike is made out of, which isn't necessarily going to be the case.

[WeiryWriter]

We've multiple quotes about the Ones Above being from a planet we've seen before,

 

As a point of fact that's not quite what Brandon has said:

 

Question

In Sixth of the Dusk, and where that fits in the timeline, are the visitors from anywhere we've seen before?

Brandon Sanderson

You have seen people from that place before.

 

(source)

 

Question

In Sixth of the Dusk, it feels like it’s a crossover…

Brandon Sanderson

That is true.

Question

So is it a planet that we've seen before, or...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Well, you have seen the people they are calling "The Ones Above."

Question

And you're not going to tell any more?

Brandon Sanderson

Nope.

 

(source)

 

Both of those are verbatim and they both seem to imply, at least to me, that we have seen the people but not the planet they are from.

[Kurkistan]

My apologies, it seems I linked to the interview as a whole rather than the specific WoB before.

 

Source:

QUESTION

Were the aliens in Sixth of the Dusk from the Mistborn planet?

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

RAFO.

 

All I've said is that they're from a planet you've seen/heard of before.

 

I suppose he does say "seen/heard of", but at the very least it does tie them to a specific planet. And if by "you" he means "the reader of cosmere books" I think "seen" and "heard" mean basically the same thing. I think Braize would be the only other possibility besides a book-featured world, at this point?

 

--

 

Also that second WoB of yours seems like it has Brandon saying "yes" to the Ones Above being from a planet we've seen before, for what it's worth.

Edited May 24, 2015 by Kurkistan

[WeiryWriter]

Also that second WoB of yours seems like it has Brandon saying "yes" to the Ones Above being from a planet we've seen before, for what it's worth.

 

Yes, but he immediately qualifies it, by saying "well, you've seen the people", which to me at least undercuts the "yes"?

[b4dave]

Im going with that The Ones Above are members of the Seventeenth Shard, and are not one specific people, but rather a collective of them

[ROSHtaFARian2.0]

Q: In Sixth of Dusk, the advanced society that's trying to take advantage, have we seen them before?

A: They've been referenced elsewhere

 

 

Going off this specific question, Brandon saying they've been referenced elsewhere doesn't contradict him saying elsewhere that we've seen the planet they're from before.  The key word in this question was 'society'. 

 

So for instance, the specific advanced society featured in Sixth of Dusk could be the Scadrian civilization from the southern hemisphere, the ones who use mechanical allomancy.  In that context, we've seen the planet the Ones Above are from, while only having seen the specific 'advanced society trying to take advantage' in that story only referenced before, in AoL and other Words of Brandon about Scadrial.

[skaa]

I didn't specifically ask about hemalurgical spikes, but I'd say that's a rational conclusion that can be drawn.  I would think that hemalurgical spike would be harder to force a burn than a charged metalmind, though, in terms of difficulty levels.  It might be a LOT harder.

 

Also, I think it would only work if the target is capable of burning the metal that the spike is made out of, which isn't necessarily going to be the case.

 

So Brandon didn't imply that the burning of piercings is a general effect regardless of the target's Allomantic ability? Did you only ask about Compounders specifically?

 

We'll need to ask Brandon to clarify this in the future. The worst case scenario is that Chromium is completely useless against Ferrings and that non-Compounding Twinborn opponents will still get to keep their metalmind piercings.

[Kaymyth]

So Brandon didn't imply that the burning of piercings is a general effect regardless of the target's Allomantic ability? Did you only ask about Compounders specifically?

 

We'll need to ask Brandon to clarify this in the future. The worst case scenario is that Chromium is completely useless against Ferrings and that non-Compounding Twinborn opponents will still get to keep their metalmind piercings.

 

Correct, I was specifically asking about Compounders.  It never occurred to me to ask about the other, as it seems to me highly unlikely that a Leecher (or a Nicroburst, for that matter) could force-burn on someone who isn't actually capable of burning the metal involved.

 

But, you know, I could be wrong.  It's been known to happen once or twice.

[skaa]

Correct, I was specifically asking about Compounders.  It never occurred to me to ask about the other, as it seems to me highly unlikely that a Leecher (or a Nicroburst, for that matter) could force-burn on someone who isn't actually capable of burning the metal involved.

 

But, you know, I could be wrong.  It's been known to happen once or twice.

 

Yeah, I re-read your earlier post and it did say there that your question was about Compounders. Sorry, I should have read it more carefully the first time.

Edited May 25, 2015 by skaa

[Blaze1616]

I think Braize would be the only other possibility besides a book-featured world, at this point?

 

Don't forget Yolen, as well as the race on Roshar that might be from a different planet as well. Then there's the question of whether he counts the Ars Arcani as us "seeing" Khriss or not... Unless you're counting those as "book featured" even though they have yet to be published.

[Esmale]

 

We've multiple quotes about the Ones Above being from a planet we've seen before, but this WoB might be hinting at something else. Esmale: was this how Brandon phrased it, or was it a paraphrase where he might have said something more direct like "you've seen them"?

 

Because if Brandon was intentionally saying "oh they've been referenced elsewhere" that might suggest that other Cosmere books make oblique reference to the Ones Above already.

 

To my memory, that's exactly how he phrased it: "They've been referenced elsewhere".  The response seemed strange, so it kind of stood out.

[WeiryWriter]

Hey so Aaron Wheeler on youtube recently posted a video of Brandon's panel from here, which includes a reading from Adamant.

 

 

I've started a transcription of the video here.  So far I've only done a rough run-through of the reading and surrounding bits.  Hopefully I'll have time to go back and transcribe the rest and proof the reading soon.

 

Anyway one of the most interesting things that comes out of this is that Brandon is considering sliding the novel (which is the first of like 5 or 6) into the cosmere!

[bunyip99]

This sound awesome!

 

I'm going to guess that if this does make it into the Cosmere, they will be from a world without Shards, similar to Threnody. I say this because I think that Brandon has already mapped out his 10 Shardworlds and their resident Shards.

However, reading Weiry's transcript, Vigilance and Valor sure sound like they should be Shards to me.

 

How many Cosmere books is that now anyway, approaching 50 I would guess. Damnation, I don't think I will live long enough for all that.