"Upending an Entire Mercantile Ecosystem"

[+hwiles]

Fabrials didn't exist in large numbers for most of Cosmere history as near as I can tell, but true, it is just speculation on my part that rosharans could trade cubic-foot sized gems for a substantial profit offworld..

Edited June 6, 2017 by hwiles

[The One Who Connects]

13 minutes ago, FiveLate said:

No cubic foot sized gems even on Roshar...a gem that size would weigh...check I don't know other than more than one man can carry.   I remember a mention of one being tossed to someone else.  Even in shard plate I cant see a cubic foot gem being tossed...weight immaterial, shape and mass make this problematic.

While I also don't think they would be that big, heavy weight wouldn't really be a shock if it's a Gemheart from a Chasmfiend or a Lanceryn.

Maybe 6in x 6in x 6in? It's not a big deal anyway, since I doubt they'd sell something that valuable.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I think hwiles was also referring to gemhearts with his cubic foot comment.

Edited June 6, 2017 by The One Who Connects

[Calderis]

Considering the way Gemhearts work I do think insanely large ones are rare but definitely possible. The larger Chasmfiends hearts are easily a 6 inch sphere. If I remember correctly the one that Sadeas tosses across the Chasm was a handful in his plate (and my brain may be filling in extra details. I only have tWoK on Kindle, so I can't quickly search WoR). 

But if all Greatshell have gemhearts, and we know they can be ridiculously large there are probably some that fir the cubic for classification. A Taina heart Is probably easily as wide as a man is tall. 

Edited June 6, 2017 by Calderis

[Calderis]

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

I've always assumed the unstable perpendicularities occur when a shade is born, in which case, all a world hopper would have to do is sit and wait (maybe a few hours, maybe a few days, whatever) outside a settlement and use the inevitable eventual shade birth to hop back and forth. Otherwise, thanks!

Shade births would only have happened with any frequency when the forescouts first arrived and again after the larger migration. As the simple rules became well established in people's minds, the creation of new shades should have become rarer and rarer, up until try to use that as a perpendicularity would most likely involve intentionally causing someone's death in a manner that doesn't draw the shades and you, and managing to avoid their bloodletting state to access them at the moment of creation. And hopefully avoid the new shade in the process... 

Threnody seems like access would be prohibitively difficult to access with any kind of reliability. 

[+hwiles]

23 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Shade births would only have happened with any frequency when the forescouts first arrived and again after the larger migration. As the simple rules became well established in people's minds, the creation of new shades should have become rarer and rarer, up until try to use that as a perpendicularity would most likely involve intentionally causing someone's death in a manner that doesn't draw the shades and you, and managing to avoid their bloodletting state to access them at the moment of creation. And hopefully avoid the new shade in the process... 

Threnody seems like access would be prohibitively difficult to access with any kind of reliability. 

All you have to do is tomahawk someone while standing in a ring of silver...I mean, the simple rules are really only prohibitive for the lower class. Rich people and world hoppers could have access to enough silver to violate them with impunity.

You leave one guy behind with a bunch of silver and a tomahawk and tell him to create a shade at x location after y days. Easypeasy.

Edited June 6, 2017 by hwiles

[LH1407]

Ok just backtracking a little here. Do we know for certain that aluminum can be Soulcasted? Maybe it is actually being imported in from other shardworlds. Obviously not a very likely theory but it's an interesting thought.

[+Extesian]

1 hour ago, LH1407 said:

Ok just backtracking a little here. Do we know for certain that aluminum can be Soulcasted? Maybe it is actually being imported in from other shardworlds. Obviously not a very likely theory but it's an interesting thought.

From WoR chapter 48

Quote

“Simple, but of aluminum, which can only be made by Soulcasting,” the man said to his boss. “Ten emerald.”

I mean that may be in-world wrong, but that's the original source. I'm not aware of a WoB confirming it. 

[The One Who Connects]

14 hours ago, FiveLate said:

6x6x6 is 1/8 the size of a cubic foot ....fyi

The comparison to a cubic foot means little since the distance between your hands isn't the issue.

1ft long x 1ft high was too big to easily hold in two hands, so all I really did was cut the size in half, from a certain point of view

[Tineye Navigator]

So with the release of Oathbringer, I think we might have been wrong regarding aluminum. 

WARNING: Oathbringer spoilers might be below, but I don't know how to hide them, so I am just putting them below

Spoiler

 

So, we know that Azure received some special metal plates that they lined a room with so that the corrupted spren couldn't feel the use of the fabrials used for soulcasting food to supply the wall guard with supplies. Hoid was all but confirmed to be the one to bring them to Azure. I suspect that these plates were aluminum or an aluminum alloy. I know that Oathbringer happens quite a bit after the original mistborn era. So that would allow for worldhoppers to have re-opened a trade route to Scadrial, and for world hoppers to have found out some of the aluminum alloys. 

But the fact that Hoid brought full plates of some material(my speculations are an alloy of Aluminum) shows that perhaps worldhoppers knew of the value of aluminum long before scadrians in general knew of it's value. 

Maybe i'm wrong, but as far as I could tell, there are very few mentions of aluminum outside of Scadrial.

 

 

Edited February 16, 2018 by Pagerunner
Use the eye-shaped button (between the brackets and the smiley face) to add a spoiler box.

[Weltall]

Roshar has aluminum via soulcasting, Sel has it naturally (they call it Ralkalest) and they have access to it on Nalthis as well since Nightblood's sheath has been confirmed to be made from aluminum. Consequently, the only major shardworld where we do not have any mention of aluminum so far is Taldain.

[Dawnshard]

I love imagining worldhoppers when they find out their only route home is gone. "Wait what happened? Yeah some idiot allomancer destroyed the pits. Ah damnation you mean we're stuck on this oppressive rock with crazy people having spikes through their face?"

[Isilel]

This is a fascinating topic. I have just re-read the first Mistborn trilogy, and I can only agree that most world-hopping traders would have preferred not to enter Scadrial's Physical Realm while the Final Empire lasted, because they wouldn't have been adapted to breathing ash, like the Scadrians were and would have been at risk of getting the Black Lung decease ASAP. Now, this wouldn't apply to super-duper special, heavily invested folks like Hoid, of course, but those would have been  rare exceptions, if not completely unique. Naturally, leaving the Pits would not have been a problem for somebody like that, even without assistance from the natives.

Yes, we have seen Khriss and Nazh in "The Secret History", but IIRC it wasn't clear if they ever visited Scadrian PR or just studied it from the Cognitive at that time. Of course they, while not on Hoid's level, still must have _a lot_ of tricks, so they may have been able to survive even if they did. BTW, Nazh's diving after Jasnah's and Shallan's effects in SA makes me think that he must have and be somehow able to tap a cadmium metalmind. Of course, that's 3 or so centuries post-FE.

Anyway, I don't think that a lot, if any, world-hoppers would have been caught on Scadrial when the Pits of Hatshin were destroyed, because they had  good sense not to enter it physically in the first place. The danger to them would have been the sudden lack of re-supply of water and food at their trading hub in the Cognitive. Excepting Hoid, of course - he was playing an informant in Fadrex and... hm. He somehow managed to get out before the Catacendre? Otherwise wouldn't Sazed have either noticed him when he was re-making all the surviving people or re-made him and caused him to lose all the carefully assembled investiture from the other Shards?

Now, trading goods. Slaves are out, IMHO - transporting them would be prohibitively expensive, as one needs to carry one's food and water in the Cognitive and IIRC there is a WoB that it would take several weeks, if not months, to travel from Scadrial to Nalthis. You'd also need to discreetly move them in and out of respective perpendicularities, which tend to be in fairly inaccessible locations. Also, why would anybody want to expose a very lucrative and exclusive secret of world-hopping to slaves? Except... it now occurs to me that the Lifeless would be the perfect means to move trade goods through the Cognitive, as they don't need food or drink.

I used to think that the world-hopping traders could only transport what they could carry, in addition to supplies needed for their own survival, maybe pull a cart to be able to squeeze in a bit more. So that they'd be limited to small amounts of light, very expensive goods. That would fit likely Nalthis exports - dyes and spices, as well as  gems from Roshar, but not so much anything that Scadrial has to offer, metals being notably heavy. Would even gold be lucrative enough? And something like mechanical watches for off-world export would have needed to be made specially, as other planets have other day-lengths and possibly also different time-units. In any case, I don't remember anybody in Warbreaker or SA consulting those, or even having them as curiosity items. Not even the Ghostbloods. But using the Lifeless, yes, I could see it being feasible to transport exclusive metallic goods. Of course, the Lifeless were invented only  1-2 centuries prior to the fall of FE, so hm... And we don't know where the perpendicularity is located on the Alloy of Law era Scadrial...

Speaking of Sel, it is allegedly very dangerous and difficult to travel to it, but we have already seen 2 world-hoppers from there, at least one of whom - Riino, doesn't seem to be a particularly intrepid and resourceful type of person, so perhaps it is not quite as hazardious as all that. Not sure what their exclusive exports could be, though.

Concerning Roshar - is there anything else that they could export, besides gems? Fabrials won't work without stormlight and there wasn't even a hint of dead shardblades on the other worlds. Soulcast alluminium? Maybe some of their weird fabrics, which woud be pretty unique, provided that they look good in comparison to the more mundane ones from more earth-like planets? Greatshell carapaces? Spices, again?

Edited February 25, 2018 by Isilel

[ghajan monk]

House Venture could subcontract Kandra in exchange for various goods and services.

Instead of slaves they might transport indentured servants, a slave could be willing to work for several years in exchange for their freedom. Also if you wanted to have a new start on life someone from house Venture could arrange transport to another world. 

Another commodity that could be traded would be books. Romance novels from Roshar might not sell well but the Way of Kings could end up on the Lord Ruler's bookshelf. Remember there is always another library. 

Of course you would need someone to translate books from one world to another. 

Edited February 25, 2018 by ghajan monk

[The One Who Connects]

21 hours ago, ghajan monk said:

Of course you would need someone to translate books from one world to another. 

You'd have to have some form of magical translation in order to set up interplanetary trade deals to begin with, would you not? If your book clients were "in the know," they could easily contract you for this, maybe have a Skaa slave re-scribe the book as you translate it, so they could enjoy it whenever they wish. It's a start at least.

[Lirins hand]

There is one major every day item no other planet has iirc, that Scadrial can export to Shadesmar in TFE time.  An essential item for any long term settlement in the cognitive:  canned food.  

Everyone needs to eat and drink!  

[+Oltux72]

On 2/18/2018 at 2:49 PM, Isilel said:

This is a fascinating topic. I have just re-read the first Mistborn trilogy, and I can only agree that most world-hopping traders would have preferred not to enter Scadrial's I used to think that the world-hopping traders could only transport what they could carry, in addition to supplies needed for their own survival, maybe pull a cart to be able to squeeze in a bit more. So that they'd be limited to small amounts of light, very expensive goods. That would fit likely Nalthis exports - dyes and spices, as well as  gems from Roshar, but not so much anything that Scadrial has to offer, metals being notably heavy. Would even gold be lucrative enough? And something like mechanical watches for off-world export would have needed to be made specially, as other planets have other day-lengths and possibly also different time-units. In any case, I don't remember anybody in Warbreaker or SA consulting those, or even having them as curiosity items. Not even the Ghostbloods. But using the Lifeless, yes, I could see it being feasible to transport exclusive metallic goods. Of course, the Lifeless were invented only  1-2 centuries prior to the fall of FE, so hm... And we don't know where the perpendicularity is located on the Alloy of Law era Scadrial...

They were made cheaper, not invented a short time ago. A reanimated elephant, or whatever be the largest animal they have access to, could carry quite a lot.
 

And even if House Venture as a whole did not know about the Cosmere, why would TLR himself be so ignorant? He held the power of a shard for some time. In fact a hideout in the CR may have been his ultimate bunker.

[Yata]

8 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

They were made cheaper, not invented a short time ago. A reanimated elephant, or whatever be the largest animal they have access to, could carry quite a lot.
 

And even if House Venture as a whole did not know about the Cosmere, why would TLR himself be so ignorant? He held the power of a shard for some time. In fact a hideout in the CR may have been his ultimate bunker.

TLR knew about the Cosmere a bit but he was mostly not interested in it.

He also knew of the mercantile system some people in the Venture house setted. But as far as we could tell. This doesn't bother him.

He already had a ultimate bunker, how one in the CR would be better? He can't check that with the same efficiency.

[+Oltux72]

2 hours ago, Yata said:

He already had a ultimate bunker, how one in the CR would be better? He can't check that with the same efficiency

He planned for the survival of mankind on Scadrial in case of his own demise. In the CR people could survive for some time, even if Scadrial's surface became uninhabitable. And in case of a catastrophe, they could march into exile.

[Yata]

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

He planned for the survival of mankind on Scadrial in case of his own demise. In the CR people could survive for some time, even if Scadrial's surface became uninhabitable. And in case of a catastrophe, they could march into exile.

You are a bit too optimistic. What prevents Ruin from simply smash them all, as he seems more free to act in the CR than he is in the PR ?

Notice how the wise worldhoppers tried to flee from Ruin's reach (outside Scadrial and surrounds) because the CR is not safe.

Lastly the CR isn't really hospitable except with a great deal of efforts and resources to import... It's not truly a solution, without consider Ruin could simply make his pawns to transition into the CR and repeats the whole situation