Shardcast: Vax and Weird Things

Don't worry @WeiryWriter. I got that Critical Role reference.

On the question of whether the Lord Ruler might have had the foresight to scrub metallic arts genes from his sperm while holding the power: it was then that he created the Mistwraiths, so he clearly thought Feruchemy was an issue already. It's not impossible that his shard enhanced mind came up with "Might be useful to have kids someday, but better not let them have magic or they'll try to overthrow me."

17 minutes ago, digitalbusker said:

On the question of whether the Lord Ruler might have had the foresight to scrub metallic arts genes from his sperm while holding the power: it was then that he created the Mistwraiths, so he clearly thought Feruchemy was an issue already. It's not impossible that his shard enhanced mind came up with "Might be useful to have kids someday, but better not let them have magic or they'll try to overthrow me."

But he knew to remove the current Feruchemists, but he didn't get rid of the gene that the non feruchemists have to give the powers to children, why would he remove his power, but not theirs?

The Lord Ruler having kids pre-ascension would make much more sense, and that they weren't feruchemist, so they wouldn't be turned into mistwraiths, and that they wouldn't have the allomancy gene.

3 hours ago, ElephantEarwax said:

But he knew to remove the current Feruchemists, but he didn't get rid of the gene that the non feruchemists have to give the powers to children, why would he remove his power, but not theirs?

Maybe he skimmed the section of the shardic README about genotype vs phenotype and didn't realize that it was possible for the power to pop up again. Maybe genetic fiddling on that level was still beyond him (though apparently he did some fiddling with the skaa). My only point is that there was a window of time where he both recognized Feruchemy was an issue and had the power to do wacky things, which is a fact I thought was missing from the discussion on the cast.

Maybe I missed it, but USB’s there a reason “the evil” on threnody couldn’t be fainlife?

(Is there) sorry autocorrect

I was listening to this late at night and was starting to fall asleep when I heard "This one was sent in by Slowswift...", and then suddenly I wasn't sleepy anymore.

(I was hoping y'all would guess Shallan, as Windrunner pointed out during the next character. But I'm not surprised at how quickly it was guessed, especially with all the Threnody talk.)

Thanks for the show, guys! 

To quote Kelsier, "There's always another Vax"

Awesome podcast, like usual.

What if Vax is just a name for the vacuum of space?

If we are going that route for the Kandra world hopper, we should probably be calling her Wilma, seeing as that’s Waldo’s female counterpart. 

I have a question.  In talking about the skaze, another entity was mentioned called the "sprakis", or "resprakias" or "svrakis".  I heard it pronounced three different ways and have no idea how to spell it so can't look anything up about it.  I tried scanning the list of lifeforms on the coppermind wiki but can't find a similar word.  How is it spelled and is there any info about them?

@Shusun these entities are called the Svrakiss, here's a link to the coppermind article:

https://coppermind.net/wiki/Svrakiss

Hey WeiryWriter i got the critrole reference as well

Lutha is likely Lord Ruler's daughter or lover. Speaking of Lord Ruler's children i always found it intriguing that he still has descendants in the modern Scadrial. Like how did that happen ? Who ? Did he have harems ? Or did he spare his children or lost track of them ?

I'd love if Vax is gonna play a role on cosmere eventually and it being initially Ruin-dominated place(or probably him leaving power there too)

Also i would really interested if Sanderson wrote Cosmic horrors even if it was not cosmere and just SF.

Or.....

3 hours ago, Obnoxiousspren said:

Or.....

These are my favorite things ever now.

Excellent and interesting podcast guys!! When in doubt, Vax!!   I, too, can't wait for more Threnody. My guess/theory as to what the Evil is. Perhaps a corruption of the Investiture occured when Ambition was shattered and it is slowly spreading through the planet like a virus, till only Shades are left? It's hard to make a better guess as we don't know if there are cities, people, life living in the Evil? I don't think it's a "Lord Ruler" or "Emperor of Darkside" thing going on, I think it's a natural or supernatural force of some kind. The Lord Ruler as always is fascinating; I always found him to be a sympathetic character. He holds all this power and Ascends for a time, but ultimately he is human and has finite foresight and knowledge and really does the best he can. It probably was hell trying to just barely stay ahead of Ruin. You can tell he did care for the inhabitants of Scadrial in the end with all of the bunkers and instructions he left for everyone. I'm sure he had kids before and after his ascension into power. I would think he wouldn't want Feurchemy and Allomancy to totally die out, but he wouldn't want an influx of them either. All in all the Lord Ruler has my love. Thanks again guys!! 

P.s. @Chaos Anyone ever tell you your laugh is infectious. It's amazing, thanks! ;p

3 hours ago, Chaos said:

These are my favorite things ever now.

I have been recognized by the Shardcast, Heralds be praised I must have an ardent burn glyphwards for me as a show of gratitude!!

A separate note: Did anyone consider that maybe Lutha (or whatever the name of the city was named after) was one of the Lord Ruler's children? And maybe at first he was having children that were both Feruchemists and Mistborn? Or maybe at least one? It was also discussed that the Lord Ruler tried to give up the kingdom at one point, how do we know he didn't try to give it up to one of his children who his capital city is named after?

My theory would be that the Lord Ruler planned on having at least one, maybe more, children who would have the similar powers to him. After all, besides mistborn he needed powerful allies/minions to help him keep hold of the kingdom. We know that he made the inquisitors and that those individuals had many of the powers that made the Lord Ruler extremely powerful. What if he thought at first he could accomplish the same with his own offspring? So he has Lutha, someone who is a full Feruchemist and Mistborn and begins prepping him to take over the kingdom. He even establishes Luthadel and starts converting it into the kingdoms capital. His plan is to give the empire over to his son/daughter (I guess we don't know for sure the gender).

Then the plan doesn't end up working out. Maybe Lutha is killed (not super likely in this scenario) or starts going a way that the Lord Ruler doesn't want. Maybe he wants to free the ska or joins Ruin or goes crazy or maybe he just leaves Scadrial and goes worldhopping (crackpot theory, I know). The Lord Ruler has to kill Lutha, decides that the only person he can trust completely is himself and settles into a much more strict set of procedures for his tyrannical rule to make sure he isn't put at risk again.

Anywho, those are my two cents.

Perhaps the Lord Ruler's children are the reason for the Terris breeding program? Maybe as one of them grew up he realized the danger to himself?

@plowshares I would assume that when the Lord Ruler held all that power, he probably gleaned a bit of the multitude of future threads. Perhaps he saw that Feurchemy would become a commodity and spread throughout the cosmere and wouldn't be good? Perhaps he saw that Scadrial would destroy itself if Feurchemy wasn't bred out. Or the most likely, the population would be harder to control if knowledge and memories of a time before the Lord Ruler were passed down through Feurchemical metalminds. I would think people would become resentful if they remembered that Scadrial was once green and full of flowers, instead of a sky full of ash.

15 hours ago, plowshares said:

Perhaps the Lord Ruler's children are the reason for the Terris breeding program? Maybe as one of them grew up he realized the danger to himself?

Wasn't the terris breeding program went two-ways ? Like the secret breeding program for feruchemist (which Tindwyl became part of) and the normal one from the Lord Ruler to actually do the opposite of what Tindwyl been part of.

@goody153 The Terrs breeding program that Tindwyl was apart of was, I believe, women who were fertile enough and with Feurchemical heritage themselves had multiple children with, I believe, multiple men to ensure that the Feurchemical descendents presumably wouldn't run into interbreeding. You couldn't have just 1 or 2 lines producing Feurchemical children. Meanwhile, to counteract that, the Lord Ruler made all Terris male Feurchemists eunuchs so they couldn't breed and they became servants, like Sazed. I don't think the women were ever sterilized, though.

Yay!  I was on Shardcast!

Oh wait, all of my clues would have worked on Vin's sister too.