Future of the Cosmere

[Kered]

I've been binge reading the excel sheet that @Pagerunner made with all the WoB's (thank you again, you're a legend) and I came up with a question that I can't find an answer to (this seems to be happening a lot lately haha). Has it been discussed what type of genre the end of the cosmere stories will be? I know we'll be moving to sci-fi in a few years, but will the final books be a combo of sci-fi and old school fantasy? Like if the futuristic Mistborn world were to meet the end of book 10 SA world. Basically, has Brandon stated if all the important Shardworlds (Roshar, Sel, Scadrial, Nalthis, etc.) will be at the same technological level once we finally start seeing crossovers that lead to the cosmere's endgame?

[The One Who Connects]

12 hours ago, Kered said:

Basically, has Brandon stated if all the important Shardworlds (Roshar, Sel, Scadrial, Nalthis, etc.) will be at the same technological level once we finally start seeing crossovers that lead to the cosmere's endgame?

11 hours ago, Figberts said:

I'm pretty sure that it's only the Mistborn era 3 that's Sci Fi. SA ends around the time of Mistborn era 2.

While the timeline bit is semi-accurate(all we know is that MB Era 2 is after the Front 5 SA books, but we don't know if it is also after the Back 5 or not), it doesn't mean that only MB is going Sci-Fi.

• Brandon has said that Roshar is heading towards Magipunk due to all the free-floating Investiture.{1}
• Nalthis doesn't seem to have too much conflict, but we'll have to wait for Nightblood(Book) to learn more. We do know there is already at least one nation that uses breath powered objects for mechanical use, so that's something.{2}
• Sel has about 1,500-1,800 years of societal advancement from Elantris(Book) before it reaches MB 2 and SA with little to no Shardic interference, so they've got a big head start.{3}
• Taldain was the most advanced until Autonomy decided on isolationism, so they've got just as much of a head start as Sel does, if not more.{1}

Mistborn is going into space by Era 4. We have no idea how big this time-gap is going to be, but that's even more centuries of societal advancement on all fronts. There's no guarantee that they will all be at the same level, but they will all be getting up the tech tree in their own way.

Edited May 18, 2017 by The One Who Connects
v1. Inserted Sources v2. Corrected Source {1}

[Farnsworth]

I'm pretty sure that it's only the Mistborn era 3 that's Sci Fi. SA ends around the time of Mistborn era 2.

[Andy92]

I thought I read somewhere that the in-world gap between books 5 and 6 of SA would be around 15 years. So I don't think you'll see technology advance tremendously throughout the 10 books in that series. Some of the characters in the books now will definitely be in the 6-10 part of the series (I think), so I don't think that timeline will go any longer than a single generation. 

[Oversleep]

11 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Brandon has said that Roshar is heading towards Magipunk due to all the free-floating Investiture.{1}

11 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Taldain was the most advanced until Autonomy decided on isolationism, so they've got just as much of a head start as Sel does, if not more.{1}

Y'know, there is a transcript of the interview

Quote

DK: Technological progress. So Scadrial is going all the way to cyberpunk.
BS: Yes.
DK: But do you plan to do it on, anywhere else?
BS: Yes, with an asterisk, right. Roshar has very different technological path but they have access to so much more Investiture in easy to use format. Roshar is really heading toward what we call magic punk or things like this mage punk, where you are using a magical power source and things like this. So their technology is gonna go weird but it's gonna go fast once they start figuring things out because they have easy access to Investiture resources.
Scadrial: slower for various reasons and things like that, but it's ahead.
And then there was Taldain, which was really far ahead but then froze when it got, offworld travel was stopped and became isolationist.
So most everybody is kind of heading that direction but, yeah.

source

And since White Sand is happening before Elantris (source) and Darksiders already had guns by then, I'd say they were really far ahead even of Sel... but then Autonomy did the thing.

Edited May 18, 2017 by Oversleep

[The One Who Connects]

1 minute ago, Oversleep said:

Y'know, there is a transcript of the interview

I opened page 1 first, so I linked to your post there. I'll edit accordingly.

8 hours ago, Andy92 said:

I thought I read somewhere that the in-world gap between books 5 and 6 of SA would be around 15 years. So I don't think you'll see technology advance tremendously throughout the 10 books in that series. Some of the characters in the books now will definitely be in the 6-10 part of the series (I think), so I don't think that timeline will go any longer than a single generation. 

You are correct, unless Brandon sees fit to change the exact time-gap, but for now it's 15 yrs. The OP asked about when the worlds start to cross over, and used MB Era 2 and SA 10 as an example. FTL won't exist for much later, so Roshar will have advanced much more by then. We won't really see much of it unless he pulls another Wax&Wayne on us, but that's another story for another time(and one I would definitely read )