Gunpowder and the Cosmere

[EC11]

Ok, so this is more of a general rumination versus an in dept theory, but bear with me.

We know gunpowder is present on Taldain, and it may have possibly been present in the pre-Lord Ruler Scadrial. Outside of these worlds (so far as we know) gunpowder is not existent before Mistborn Era 3 in the greater cosmere. Is this because certain events and environmental stressers have allowed it to develop on these worlds, or because other worlds have just not advanced that far up the tech tree?

[Oversleep]

Threnody also has it. First of the Sun has it.

Roshar is headed toward magicpunk, so I expect fabrial technology instead of gunpwoder and electricity.

Elantris was long, long ago, so no idea what has Sel developed.

Edited April 23, 2017 by Oversleep

[soyperson]

Era 3? It's playing a large part in Era 2 right now. 

[Weltall]

Brandon has confirmed that Scadrial had gunpowder (and steam power) before Rashek's rise to power. Khriss in AU mentions that if it hadn't been for the man deliberately stunting innovation for a thousand years, Scadrial would be Silverlight's equal even without the benefit of all the cross-cosmere knowledge sharing. It is in short a world with a distinct innovative bent and as it's an analogue to our own world it can be expected to develop along roughly similar lines, supplimented by the Metallic Arts.

Elantris as noted is one of the earliest novels and there's still one major civilization we know nothing about, plus who knows what's happened there between the time of TES and, say, the Era 2 Mistborn/Stormlight Archive period of the timeline.

Up until Aharietiam, Roshar kept getting its civilization reset to possibly stone-age levels on a regular basis so it's not surprising they didn't develop gunpowder during that period. They've had to rebuild from scratch since then, with some interruptions along the way. Roshar's famously violent weather and unusual flora probably make it harder to get the components necessary to make black powder and nobody has yet had the opportunity to do sufficient experimenting to produce the stuff. That might change assuming Roshar has a future, but with Dustbringers due to reemerge along with all the other Radiant orders and the implication that all kinds of Surgebinding can be replicated with the right fabrial, gunpower might well be redundant.

Nalthis during the Manywar and at least Hallandren in the 'present' make use of Awakening in places we would use technology  We don't know enough about the planet as a whole to say much more though.

First of the Sun and Threnody have gunpowder with the former also having explicit offworld contact. According to a reading Brandon did from the beginning of The Silence Divine, Ashyn also has gunpowder, though that's not canonized yet.

[+Slowswift]

1 hour ago, bleeder said:

Era 3? It's playing a large part in Era 2 right now. 

Not to mention I'm pretty sure it would've been in Era 1 had the Lord Ruler not suppressed it. Gunpowder definitely existed, he just offed anyone who knew about it.

ETA: Ninja'd. Been a while since that's happened.  

Edited April 23, 2017 by Slowswift

[ZenBossanova]

What has me curious, is the leather bandolier that Jasnah returns with, for guns? If so, could she be bringing firearms and gunpowder to the physical realm of Roshar? That could make things significantly different from previous Desolations. I imagine an army of thunderclasts being ripped to pieces by cannon fire. All the advantages of Void-forms could be partly negated by a good rifle. 

We all know the old saying, "God made man, but Colt made them equal." Perhaps we will have to rephrase that, Jasnah made them equal. 

[Spoolofwhool]

2 minutes ago, ZenBossanova said:

What has me curious, is the leather bandolier that Jasnah returns with, for guns? If so, could she be bringing firearms and gunpowder to the physical realm of Roshar? That could make things significantly different from previous Desolations. I imagine an army of thunderclasts being ripped to pieces by cannon fire. All the advantages of Void-forms could be partly negated by a good rifle. 

We all know the old saying, "God made man, but Colt made them equal." Perhaps we will have to rephrase that, Jasnah made them equal. 

This was discussed in another topic. Personally I think bandolier was used in a more broad definition for a belt from shoulder to hip to carry things. 

 

[captainbutterbal]

Wasn't it mentioned in arcanum unbounded roshar have a high oxygen level that affect fire differently than most other worlds? Something about people discover a new method for light due to it. I imagine that would change how gun powder is used and viewed in Roshar. 

 

[Yata]

I think Roshar's issue with gunpower is more intrinsict.

The mining tech is primitive and their landscape is all rock (except Shinovar) so I think they didn't dig into rock's composition too much. Much more also if discovered, I think they will use it less than in our world...they have alternative to the historical uses of gunpowder. Soulcasters and Shardblades offer way a lot safer to carve into and demolish things.

It would also troublesome to store gunpoweder in a place where the ignition is easier and periodically huge storms cross the lands.

It's possible they discovered the gunpowder's principle, but they find it useless

[ZenBossanova]

Considering their enemies are sometimes made of rock, I think they will find this to be tremendously useful, though the higher oxygen content does mean they have to be extra careful about it. 

[Yata]

7 hours ago, ZenBossanova said:

Considering their enemies are sometimes made of rock, I think they will find this to be tremendously useful, though the higher oxygen content does mean they have to be extra careful about it. 

Lightning user enemies Will male your own weapons blow with long range Attack...I honestly believe Rosharans don't know of gunpowder but if they know. I am unsure It's a good addiction to their weaponery

[+Extesian]

You can mine stuff on Roshar, there are proper  mineral deposits, but it's hard. 

Quote

QUESTION

This whole talk of both Roshar and the highstorms, I’m glad that you said they predate the Shattering. There are some people on 17th Shard that believe the entire continent is crem that’s accumulated, one highstorm at a time.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Good. Let me actually squish that one a little bit because there are mineral deposits that have been mentioned that you have to mine, and crem...there is actual ferrous iron that you can smelt on Roshar, you have to know how to get to it and things like that, and there are actual gemstone mines and things like that, but they’re much harder to get to and Soulcasting is a stopgap that’s helped with this a lot, but there are actual deposits and things like that.

Combine with the fact they do have other useful alternatives like soul casting to metal and gem hearts rather than mining gems, I think it'll be like Scadrial not having radio because they have so much already (necessity being the mother of invention).

So I'm sure there's gun powder there but like others I doubt it will be discovered and thought useful enough to be really developed before it's made completely redundant. 

[ZenBossanova]

20 hours ago, Yata said:

Lightning user enemies Will male your own weapons blow with long range Attack...I honestly believe Rosharans don't know of gunpowder but if they know. I am unsure It's a good addiction to their weaponery

If you are hit by lightning, you are pretty much dead already. 

But the real advantage, is that we don't have to wait for people to become Radiants. Any man, woman or child with a decent aim, could be worth half a Radiant. Maybe that is a little generous, but the point remains, that you really could arm everyone, and then the Voidbringers are going to be outgunned, and Heralds and Cultivation won't even have to raise a finger. Which is probably good, because I don't think the Heralds are going to be fully-powered in their current state. 

[Yata]

1 hour ago, ZenBossanova said:

If you are hit by lightning, you are pretty much dead already. 

You are hit by the lightning and your weapon Explorer possibly hurting your allies. But i talked mainly of bombs because guns will be quite useless aganist Odium's forces(see below)

1 hour ago, ZenBossanova said:

But the real advantage, is that we don't have to wait for people to become Radiants. Any man, woman or child with a decent aim, could be worth half a Radiant. Maybe that is a little generous, but the point remains, that you really could arm everyone, and then the Voidbringers are going to be outgunned, and Heralds and Cultivation won't even have to raise a finger. Which is probably good, because I don't think the Heralds are going to be fully-powered in their current state. 

The guns are not probably good weapons aganist Voidbringers. 

A tunderclast is quite immune to them and a Listener in a Form of Power has improved reflex and a natural armor, so could easily protects his mistakes defenseless parts (we don't even know if they have access to some Healing).

Probably the Midnight Essences Will be Easy preys of guns.

 

[nervousnerd]

It make a lot of sense that Scadrial,  a world where metal is very important, would discover a lot of minerals first (out of the post Adonalsium planets). They also seem to use more chemistry but I suppose a lot of that is metal focused. Did we hear much about mining besides the Pits? I believe, after the Final Ascension, it is mentioned how you could pretty much throw a rock in the Basin and hit resources so I wonder if mining is not really as necessary.

Roshar would have too much trouble with rain and storms to keep mines operational (until fabrial pumps become more common). I thought something like this was mentioned in one of the Stormlight books but I can't find anything.