FTL travel in the cosmere

[R_P_Gamer]

Hello all. I visit these forums infrequently, typically only when some question about the cosmere is itching in the back of my head that I need an answer to (or at least a sounding board for). Well, that time has come again. In what I believe is my only other post on the 17th shard, i asked about what would happen in shadesmar if a ship containing peoples from a particular cosmere world was passing through in space in the physical world (would a ship from Scadrial be towing a bank of mist, a ship from Roshar thousands of tiny beads?), as we know mistborn will eventually push into the world of technology and science fiction. A reply to my question stated that they thought travel to and from worlds would be through worldhopping, and I thought no more of it until recently.

But... how sure are we of that?

Presumably, the first books to show us cosmere space travel in detail will be set on Scadrial, and Scadrial is maybe the only world in the cosmere that we know does NOT require worldhopping to get to other planets, just through the nature of the magic present on it. In alloy of law, we saw how feruchemy and the technology of the southern peoples of Scadrial could be combined to lower the mass of an object, something which not only allows Alec's people's ships to fly, but throws the entire rocket equation out of whack (provided the change in mass does not have an effect on the chemical potential energy of the rocket fuel) and potentially allowing near light-speed travel. Scadrians are also the only peoples who may have a means to travel the vast distances to other stars without dying on the way, as cadmium could presumably allow for the construction of stasis pods for the crew, greatly limiting what supplies need to be taken on a flight.

Another point, the ones above from Sixth of the Dusk are... well... from ABOVE. They don't appear at the singularity, despite it being necessary to transition (and if they did appear there, I think they'd go straight home, Patji does NOT seem a hospitable place).

What do you think? Have i missed some Word of Sanderson on this, or are we working entirely on speculation? Any thoughts about why physical space travel could or couldn't work, or why worldhopping is or isn't how the peoples of the cosmere will travel to other worlds?

[Weltall]

We know that Mistborn Era 4 is going to be the big crossover book and it will involve actual FTL travel with really cool space battles, apparently. The Ones Above are confirmed to be from another world and it's one we've seen before. We also know that the Metallic Arts are a system that has FTL 'built in' as a potential application and it's not the only world that's going to have it. Surgebinding is another system that's got really obvious mechanics that could be applied to space travel, particularly Gravitation. AonDor has a spatial transportation Aon so if you could ever crack the regional limitations of the magic that one would be easy, Brandon's talked about how you could gather Investiture from Taldain's star and power a solar sail...

So yeah, we've got multiple WoBs that the final Mistborn books will be much closer to 'hard' science fiction and there will be actual FTL travel. Worldhopping as we've seen it is great for individuals and small groups but the two worlds whose Cognitive 'zones' we've seen so far require Investiture just to move around in safely and the limitations imposed by the need to use Perpendicularities to transition between Realms is a huge bottleneck to mass travel and trade on top of that. Especially when you have Perpendicularities that are in spectacularly dangerous places (First of the Sun, Sel as a whole), are unstable and unpredictable (Threnody) or are completely interdicted by the resident Shard (Taldain).

So while Cognitive Realm travel is never going to go away, space travel as Brandon plans on having is likely to become a lot more practical by the end of the timeline for most people wanting to get from world to world.

EDIT: Incidentally, we've been trying to figure out how Metallic Arts FTL might work since the minute Brandon first revealed it was a thing. We're juuuuust starting to get to the point where we might be able to make predictions that are closer to the truth, since Brandon has introduced 'mechanical' applications in Bands of Mourning and he'd earlier implied this merger of magic and technology is a prerequisite for how the FTL will work. However, the way Brandon has described things, there's one more step in the development of 'magical technology' that we haven't gotten to yet. So we're still just guessing at how the most important bits of the technology will actually function

Edited July 18, 2018 by Weltall

[TheManKnownAsHoid]

So we have those cubes that can store allomantic power. What if they charged a cube with bendalloy and duralumin? And then if attached to something with sufficient mass like a space ship, the potential is amazing. Or what about a twinborn endlessly compounding steel and using unknown technology to transfer that speed into the space ship? The possibilities are endless.

[Bigmikey357]

Bendalloy bubbles don't move with the entity that produces it and the bubbles aren't big. So in order to make FTL travel work medallion wise first we need an insane amount of Bendalloy; the burning rate is ridiculously fast. Next, we need to find a way to make the bubbles larger, large enough to encompass a Spaceship large enough to provide life support to fragile humans. If the first 2 concerns are satisfied then to operate the ship in FTL mode it would look like many, many jumps between bubbles.

[Calderis]

Just now, Bigmikey357 said:

Bendalloy bubbles don't move with the entity that produces it and the bubbles aren't big. So in order to make FTL travel work medallion wise first we need an insane amount of Bendalloy;

This is partially right... In the case of a ship, that may not be true. 

Bubble will attach to something of a sufficient mass. Apparently somewhere between a horse drawn carriage... Which we've seen them lurch out of, and a moving train (or maybe just the train car, it's not clear) which we've seen a bubble move on. 

A ship designed for interplanetary travel would most likely be large enough to carry a bubble with it.

The problem with Bendalloy though, is that you need a way to nest the passengers in a cadmium bubble within the bendalloy to counteract it, otherwise outside of the ship sure they're moving FTL. Inside they ship they still have to deal with all that subjective time. 

[Bigmikey357]

We have seen a Bendalloy attach to something of sufficient mass. What we haven't seen, what we won't see, is the Bendalloy user carrying his bubble with him. Objects in motion passing a certain mass threshold will hold a Bendalloy bubble, essentially treating that object (i.e. train) as stationary. But the one generating the bubbles move freely within their boundary. They pass the boundary and leave their pocket of fast time. The reason I say the FTL option were still viable is because when a user leaves a speed bubble they get some acceleration boost for a short time. So, make a speed bubble and go through it. Pass the boundary then immediately make another bubble. Rinse and repeat as often as necessary to get to terminal velocity. Not quite firm enough on physics to figure how to overcome the light speed limit but I know the Bendalloy will get you there. Maybe store weight to counteract the mass increase that comes when approaching light speed? 

[TheManKnownAsHoid]

You wouldnt need any cadmium. Its just a simple matter of using Gold and Bronze to keep them alive and asleep for the duration of the trip. Gold should repair the DNA degradation that causes aging, and it would appear to only take an instant while filling a Bronze metalmind.

[Calderis]

5 minutes ago, TheManKnownAsHoid said:

You wouldnt need any cadmium. Its just a simple matter of using Gold and Bronze to keep them alive and asleep for the duration of the trip. Gold should repair the DNA degradation that causes aging, and it would appear to only take an instant while filling a Bronze metalmind.

It doesn't. 

Spoilered for length 

Spoiler

Iceblade44

So White Sand [than Elantris] is earlier... Then how the heck old is Kriss then? Will we ever get an answer as to why every worldhopper is flipin immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

There is some time-dialation going on. I'll explain it eventually; we're almost to the point where I can start talking about that. Suffice it to say that there's a mix of both actual slowing of the aging process and relative time going on, depending on the individual. Very few are actually immortal.

Faera

Implying that some are actually immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on which definition of immortal you mean.

Doesn't age, but can be killed by conventional means. (You've seen some of these in the cosmere, but I'll leave you to discuss who.)

Heals from wounds, but still ages. (Knights Radiant with Stormlight are like this.)

Reborn when killed. (The Heralds.)

Doesn't age and can heal, but dependent upon magic to stay this way, and so have distinct weakness to be exploited. (The Lord Ruler, among others.)

Hive beings who are constantly losing individual members, but maintaining a persistent personality spread across all of them, immortal in that as long as too much of the hive isn't wiped out, the personality can persist. (The sleepless.)

Bits of sapient magic, eternal and endless, though the personality can be "destroyed" in specific ways. (Seons. Spren. Nightblood. Cognitive Shadows, like a certain character from Scadrial.)

Shards (Really just a supercharged version of the previous category.)

And then, of course, there's Hoid. I'm not going to say which category, if any, he's in.

Some of these blend together--the Heralds, for example, are technically a variety of cognitive shadow. I'm not saying each of these categories above are distinct, intended to be the end-all definitions. They're off the cuff groupings I made to explain a point: immortality is a theme of the cosmere works--which, at their core, are experiments on what happens when men are given the power of deity.

Shagomir

Heals from wounds, but still ages.

Would Bloodmaker Ferrings exist in this category as well? If not, what about someone compounding Gold?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you are correct.

Shagomir

As a Bloodmaker ages what keeps them from healing the damage and carrying on as a very old, but very healthy person? Do they come to a point where they can't store enough health to stave off the aches, pains, diseases, and other things that come with old age?

This makes sense for traditional Feruchemy as it is end-neutral, so storing health becomes a zero sum game - eventually, you're going to get sick and you're not going to be able to overcome it with your natural healing ability no matter how much you manipulate it with a goldmind.

...Unless you've got a supply of Identity-less goldminds lying around. Would a Bloodmaker with a sufficient source of identity-less goldminds (or the ability to compound, thus bypassing the end-neutral part of Feruchemy) eventually just die from being too old?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, yes. They can heal their body to match their spiritual ideal, but some things (like some genetic diseases, and age-related illnesses) are seen as part of the ideal. Depends on several factors.

source

 

[TheManKnownAsHoid]

So what if a twinborn burned unkeyed Gold metalminds from another Bloodmaker? Would they heal to their own spiritual Ideal? Or the other Bloodmaker's? Or maybe ettmetal can store age as a metalmind, like atium could, along with whatever lerasium does.

[Calderis]

1 hour ago, TheManKnownAsHoid said:

So what if a twinborn burned unkeyed Gold metalminds from another Bloodmaker? Would they heal to their own spiritual Ideal? Or the other Bloodmaker's? Or maybe ettmetal can store age as a metalmind, like atium could, along with whatever lerasium does.

With an Identity marker, they would be unable to burn it. 

Without, it should burn as if it's their own.