Isilel

My impression is that Nale doesn't really want to fight them - he just feels that he doesn't have a choice, according to his principles in his current mad state. So, he only attacks half-heartedly and probably hopes to be defeated. In fact, it seemed to me since OB that Nale was purposefully setting up Szeth as somebody who'd be able to do so, if needed and provided him with Nightblood for that very reason.

Isn't it mentioned somewhere in SA that the Heralds had been fuelled by Honor directly in the past? Which would have required some kind of bond, but it doesn't quite fit the Nahel definition, since a Vesseled Shard doesn't need a sapience boost. But what about their screaming that can only be heard by the one they are bonded to when a Radiant touches them too? Sounds like an obstructed boost to sapience to me. An interesting question, to be sure. I mean they are part of a Shard in a sense, since their investiture is part of one. But there doesn't seem to be a reciprocal exchange.

Why is whoever made Gavilar's sphere of anti-voidlight not famous and super-rich? For the same reason, I imagine - they had been working for a secret worldhopper org, most likely the Ghostbloods. If the Ghostbloods or similar groups help you with a breakthrough invention, they are ultimately in control of how it gets used and whether your contribution is publicly aknowledged at some point or not. @IlstrawberrySeed: excellent point - we already know that the Ghostbloods have Awakened items, so why not an Awakened electricity generator? In addition, southern tech is farther along, so it may have been used too. Another advantage that they could give their prospective inventor is access to southern knowledge. Or vice versa. For all we know their chemical engineer is a southerner, but they keep the process secret from both sides, to protect their funding. At some point soon they'll have to patent it or let somebody else reap the rewards.

As has been already mentioned above the Set had thousands of people working on their secret projects with very little information leakage. It took Harmony actively steering his chosen tools to uncover their operations. Alone what happened in Dulsing demonstrates that it is quite possible to hush down the most sensational things in the Basin with uninvolved noble Houses being none the wiser. Kelsier used to be good at such things in MB1 despite higher level of surveillance - there were hundreds involved in staffing Renoux's residence, lots of outside talent brought in by Breeze and Ham, etc. And nobody ratted him out. Granted, he appears much less competent in TLM, but setting up a secret aluminum processing plant somewhere in the Roughs still should have been within his capabilities. I really don't see why the electrochemical aluminum purification process couldn't have been invented on Scadrial? I mean it was invented iRL in the late 19th century and one of the 2 guys who independently discovered it was working out of a shed on his parents property, with tools that he built himself. Kelsier had a nose for talent in the past - I don't see why he couldn't have found a talented inventor and maybe helped him out a bit with his vestiges of Preservation's knowledge?

Spren can't leave Shadesmar through a perpendicularity - somebody has to bring the goods through. What do you mean? There are all these gems on Roshar that would be very valuable elsewhere, giant crustacean chitin - light and robust, would be valuable on the worlds that don't yet have plastics, like whalebone and tortoise shell was iRL, there are the invested fish from Purelake that retain their useful traits when dried or salted, possibly an aluminum soulcaster somewhere since Shallan's chain wasn't even that valuable and for all we know much more. Nalthis can offer exclusive dyes, cloths, spices. Scadrial has high-quality steel and, until the return of the Radiants also other metals at the levels of purity unheard of on Roshar. Not to mention various mechanical items, which we, granted, have seen no sign of. Riino was placed quite far from Cultivation's perpendicularity too, so he had to eat food that could be stored for a long while. I don't remember if it was mentioned what Our Heroes ate in the honorspren city. They knew that Bilming was the Set central and they also have associate members like that driver, Darkwater. Anyway, they are protecting Scadrial from dangers that most Basin citizens consider fantastical, so a sensationalist rag would have been a logical place to start. Not to mention that Copper first tried more reputable papers. To be any good re: protecting they need to keep ears to the ground specifically for odd occurences. I hope that they recruit that editor to gather and sift information for them - so far what she has heard - i.e. "insect people" and "Fairy creaturies with golden hair" - all checks out. Weren't the Nalthians stuck in the honorspren city initially headed for Cultivation's perpendicularity? Nor did we see spren selling that much stuff, and of course you'd earn much more if you unloaded your goods and chose what to pick up in return closer to the source, rather than through lots of middlemen. There is no reason for merchants to travel to Rosharan Shadesmar without any actual trade. It is not a transport knot like Nalthis.

I really don't see why the scientist can't be a Scadrian who has been nudged in the right direction by Kelsier's ex-Shardic information. Kelsier can be aware that some things are possible without knowing the details and it is always easier to figure out something that you already know is feasible. Honestly the side-lining of Scadrians among the Ghostbloods in TLM doesn't make a lot of sense even as is, whithout adding even more theoretical worldhoppers into the mix.

Do we actually know that it didn't? Kelsier had to be able to somehow convince the southerners that he was a Fullborn and the Ghostbloods that he was still a Mistborn. He also was able to use feruchemy to store that memory in a coppermind and presumably, he uses weight medallions when flying. Also, he must be able to use connection tricks for translation. Maybe the Bands do work for him, but, unlike what kandra thought back in BoM, they can't be recharged without an access to a Mistborn/ full Feruchemist. After all, we learned about new limits on compounding in TLM, so it is quite likely that one can't use the Bands to recharge themselves via compounding. In this case, there must have been at least 2 copies of the Bands - one in Kelsier's posession and one held in reserve. He had to use his copy very judiciously and it has eventually run dry. So now he had to trick TenSoon to get the temple copy back. Some of it's storages are nearly exhausted, but quite a few must be untouched and would allow him to pretend being a Mistborn for a bit longer. The temple still makes zero sense, though - it would have made vastly more sense to hide them in an unmarked cave. There being rumors of them in the Basin is even more suspicious - who except the Ghostbloods could have spread them? IMHO, there must have been some other purpose to all of this, but it didn't quite work out like Kelsier wanted. That is, if he was the one who voluntarily left the Bands there. Maybe someone did it behind his back? And he didn't know where they were and was also looking? I don't believe that Hoid could have forcibly extracted a memory from somebody else, btw

I have hoped that the collaborative novel with Stewart would already have a publication date... At least it still seems to be going forward. I have a real hunkering for an exploration/expedition type story in era 2. There is all that unknown land beyond the Roughs! There are mysterious islands! In fact, before the details about TLM became known, I expected that Our Heroes would chase after the Set into the wilderness beyond the Roughs and that the final confrontation would happen in a secret base somewhere far outside the Basin. And honestly, I'd still would have preferred such a scenario to what we got. I also really like the broadsheet stories about Nikki and Nazh. Allomancer Jak too, but Sanderson has his plate full and I'd rather he concentrate on Stormlight 5/Mistborn Era 3. Though I was disappointed that Handerwym wasn't revealed as a Ghostblood in TLM. You'd think that popularizing exploration, while learning juicy secrets anout the post-Catacendre world is something that Kelsier would want, and Connector powers are potentially very versatile and valuable. Also, somebody who was able to work with Jak for so long can only be an excellent team-player...

There is no reason to think that Kelsier can't use the medallions, is there? He travels on airships, after all.

Actually, I have expected to see something like that in TLM, since there was a WoB that Marsh would appear in it. I think that it could have worked much better than what we got - and he still could have been a great help to W&W in such a scenario. I mean, it is rather illogical that the Set didn't have seekers and tineyes as guards and lookouts, for instance, whom Marsh could have detected, disabled or screened W&W from - though this is a problem in Era 2 in general, IMHO. Not to mention his emotional allomancy and his effect on the morale of the opposition. Then he could have split halfway through - maybe because he was really running to the wire with atium, maybe because he needed to rest or maybe because of some other lead that needed to be checked. Scratch one of the fights with the impersonators for more Marsh - 3 rounds was too much and felt repetitive. Or have him looking into a secondary Set base in the Roughs during that day and only appear in an epilogue. Kaladin is a great natural fighter who should have noticed that what Zahel was doing while they duelled had a supernatural element. Not to mention the weird lecture about the nature of investiture and the ages of planets. Every scrap of additional knowledge and power would have helped his people. And even if Kaladin was so dense that he somehow missed all that, a skilled "normal" fighter whom he trusted, like Zahel was a logical person to try to recruit while Kal was sneaking around undercover during the occupation. That this didn't even occur to him was very jarring, IMHO. Re: Ghostbloods, being secretive doesn't in any way preclude being well-informed. You'd think that their very goal of protecting Scadrial requires it. We never heard about wonderful Horneater dyes/spices or superior Horneater steel or any other potential off-world imports that Rosharans would have believed originated with them. Also, it is mentioned a few times that Horneaters often leave the Peaks because there are too many people there and not enough food - and in fact we saw a number of such individuals eking out their livelyhoods in the camps/Urithiru as servants and criminals. Finally, you'd think that with off-world knowledge and Horneater physique winning a shardblade in a duel shouldn't have been that difficult - just coat your armor and particularly gloves with aluminum. Last clap works because people don't need to swing shardblades hard and aren't trained to do so, which means that aluminum should survive a hit or 2 and give a Horneater an advantage of surprise. Instead of calling out people with just a shardplate, somebody should have called out and defeated a person with just a blade long ago. Or demanded that a worldhopper obtain them one. IMHO, YMMV.

Yes, I very much agree with you. In fact, I think that both TLM and RoW handled this issue in a rather awkward and clearly contrived manner. OTOH, I feel similarly about the many worldhopper cameos that are just there for no observable reason and who, despite alleged bustling inter-planetary trade, don't affect the alien worlds that they are on at all. Like, if the Horneater peaks are a mercantile hub through which rare and expensive imports flow onto Roshar, shouldn't the tribes that control Cultivation's perpendicularity and provide caravan service for the worldhoppers through harsh mountain terrain be obscenely rich? And believed to be the source of these exclusive merchandise? You'd think that getting their hands on a shardblade shouldn't have been such a huge problem for them if powerful world-hoppers with strange powers owe them? That is not to say that I dislike the worldhopper concept - on the contrary, but it should be implemented as having plausible consequences. Frankly, I don't see why there had to be an implicit immediate threat to the world in Era 2. It felt tacked on. But beyond that, I actually have no quarrel with either Harmony or kandra staying in the background. It is what I expect from Shards in general - it isn't like Honor or Cultivation smote the Fused, rather than relying on people fighting them in a series of exceptionally bloody and destructive wars. They may not be all-powerful or all-knowing, but given their future sight, they tend to be pretty ineffable and generally work through intermediaries/pawns. Sazed prepared the tools to deal with the problem and got them there in time, subtly nudging chance in their favor the whole way. As to the kandra, thanks to Paalm the Set knew how to detect, disable and even subvert them, so it makes perfect sense that they couldn't do much. All of this checks out. All of this. Marsh running out of atium right at this moment is just lame, sorry. And he didn't do anything about the Set in the intervening years since AoL, why, exactly? It is even worse re: Ghostbloods, because Tobal Copper was right under the noses of their Bilming chapter, he tried to attract public notice to the Set's doings and they napped through it all. I really hope that they recruit that newspaper editor Maraga Dulcet to keep an ear to the ground for them, because they are so (implausibly, IMHO) bad at it. Kelsier may no longer have allomantic powers, but people working for him clearly have a selection of off-world ones and should have had much greater access to the medallions and allomantic grenades, which they also didn't use in TLM for some inexplicable reason. Etc., etc. And people wanted Spook to be around and immortal, too! Maybe with some real teamwork? We haven't seen to much of it in Sanderson books so far, it is usually 2-3 people tops. Also, there may be some limits on how many abilities a mistborn/feruchemist can use at the same time. IIRC, Vin never burned more than 4 metals concurrently. Except Marsh should still be able to be active for a few hours or why is he still around? Why didn't he die in HoA as I thought he did until he popped up in AoL? Why didn't Sazed turn him back into a human or close enough on his Acsension, like he did with the koloss? There must be a reason for why he was kept as a hemalurgic construct and why he was given a new lease on life in TLM. He should be able to be more active for longer in Era 3. And yes, it would have been better if he didn't appear in TLM or only in the epilogue. He could have been chilling in the south too or looking for a secondary Set base somewhere in the wilderness, etc. Not sure why the Bands or the medallions were introduced in BoM if TLM had to go out of it's way to not let them be used. Marsh can protect himself from emotional allomancy by burning copper, wearing an aluminum-lined hat or Harmony can just not allow such influence. Vin/Elend could only affect the koloss for as long as Ruin let them, after all. He must be still around for a reason and was only made a feeble wreck in TLM so that he wouldn't overshadow Wax. IMHO he _could_ have helped clear part of the way for W&W before needing rest and it would have worked much better for me. Just because Kelsier doesn't have his allomancy doesn't mean that he didn't acquire any new powers. He must have a Seon at the very least. And in any case, he has people working for him who have powers and is a capable tactician and strategist. Yea, Zahel and Azure worked well until RoW, but Kaladin lack of reaction to Zahel using strange powers and giving weird lectures that outed him as an off-worlder stuck out like a sore tooth. Ditto him not sharing this info with others. And then, when Urithiru was occupied, it never occured to Kaladin that Zahel would be a very handy person to recruit?! Pure nonsense, sorry. I mean, he could have failed to find Zahel, who of all people in the tower had the best skills for escaping. And it is believable that Vasher didn't chose to involve himself on his own, given his track record and regrets. But Kaladin flatly ignoring such a resource made zero sense. He could have been a great help to Kaladin, though! Alone his scouting abilities with the little poppets would have been worth their weight in diamonds and they require very little Breath.

No Inquisitor would have had F-Nicrosil, F-Duralumin or F-Aluminum spikes, which are all essential for making of the Bands. @Oltux72: nickel was first extracted and identified in 1751 in a lab, and as pointed out above, chromium was first isolated in 1797. It was entirely possible for Kelsier coming off shardhood with expanded metallurgic knowledge and/or for people working for him to produce small amounts of Nicrosil. Big Industrial base wouldn't have been required for that. At this point I think that Spook likely did charge the allomantic reserves of the Bands, but how the feruchemical aspect of their creation was achieved is a complete mystery, unless Harmony himself lent a hand. On the plus side, his involvement might explain why on Scadrial Kelsier chose to leave the Bands at the temple - the god forced him to divest himself of this power, once SoScads have been saved. It would also provide an excellent reason why they couldn't have been copied. On the minus side, if this was the case, it really should have come up in the epilogue conversation. OTOH, it already completely omits everything related to SoScads in the most contrived manner - like, they must both use hemalurgy and practice selective breeding of their few Metalborn by having them be a caste apart, since keeping certain powers around is an existential factor for them. So, what is one more artificial elision?

Harmonium couldn't be melted down in Wax's lab - but it came close with the whole stretching thing when heated by electrical current. I am sure that it could have been melted at an industrial facility. And unless atium-electrum alloy has a much lower melting point than pure atium, we already know that it was possible to melt and alloy it in Era 1 to produce malatium.

Yes, we know that she is 5 years younger than Steris. Steris said that she was getting close to 30 in BoM, which may have been a slight exaggeration or not. Marasi then would have been about 24, give or take a year and herself around 30 in TLM.

Who would want to conquer them? Also, I very much hope that Nazh's gun doesn't literally shoot shades, which are then free to wander around, because wouldn't his using it on other planets start a shade-creation cascade there otherwise? This also may be a scary potential planetary-eradication weapon in Threnodite arsenal, if they figure out how to reach other worlds. Unless the shades can't maintain and multiply themselves longterm elsewhere, that is. We know that they can leave the subastral, after all, so there must be a reason why they didn't yet overrun Shadesmar, etc. Though it now occurs to me that Scadrians, with their chromium and aluminum allomancy and harmonium grenades may have decent chances against the shades. There is still nothing on Threnody anybody would want, though, apart from possibly the shades themselves, if people find out how to use them as weapons or magi-tech fuel.

Right, IMHO it is important to mention that their industrial base and military technology available to non-magical people were medieval when last seen. And mages are a small minority of this huge population. Also, a chance for world unity appears to be slimmer than on Roshar and Scadrial. Also, didn't the pale man who marked Shai practice a form of magic that you didn't include?

If the Set had produced atium, we would have heard about it, though. Particularly since they would have quickly discovered that, if Sanderson intends to go forward with the ret-con, anyone can burn it. Otherwise, this is an interesting idea, but there is another difference between Wax's experiment and the Set's - he was using a charged hemalurgic spike, while they, no doubt employed pure trellium. I am not sure if we can believe Harmony that he doesn't know what happened either, BTW. There is a WoB that he is capable of producing atium and lerasium if he so choses, but clearly he wants everyone to think that he isn't, and similarly he wishes to keep the knowledge of making lerasium from ettmetal to remain secret for as long as possible.

One of the things that I enjoy about cosmere books is that future sight isn't set in stone - it works off probabilities, not certainties. Prophecies _can_ be circumvented, not just misunderstood. People have real agency, their decisions actually matter. We have already seen Shards "breaking bad" and will no doubt see more in SA, given Heraldic flashbacks planned for the second arc, whatever Cultivation is up to and, well, TOdium. But if it is all we see, it will become boring and repetitive. "Powers that man isn't meant to wield", yadda, yadda, ad nauseam. So I really hope that with Sazed and Harmony we'll get something different. And "Sixth of the Dusk", ironically, gives me hope. Because "The Ones Above" are clearly trying to work around some non-interference rule that feels very vintage Sazedian. IMHO, the future of Scadrial will be shaped by the tension between Sazed's "freedom of choice" stance and Kelsier's "pre-emptive defense" one.

Could Autonomy have corrupted an Aether? Is this the source of her army? In the unpublished "Aether of Night"

The Oathpact never bound Odium - only his Fused and maybe his spren. Odium is bound "by the powers of Honor and Cultivation", which is why a Stormfather's Bondsmith, as Honor's heir, can release him.

It cannot be Spook's body, because we know from Allik that the Sovereign came to the south only a few years (a decade, I think), after the Catacendre. And from that copper metalmind that Wax viewed in BoM we know that the Sovereign was Kelsier. Spook ruled Elendel for a 100 years before stepping down, however. Personally, I think that he is using his own bones and a mistwraith, but it might also be some random body, I guess. A survivorist fanatic? Though wouldn't it age in such a case?

Ehlokar. Yes, Thaidakar is likely some Vorin name.

IMHO, if Kelsier had managed something like that successfully, he would have had his allomancy and hemalurgy would have worked for him. He probably wants to get his hands on Kalak to, among other things, figure out how bodies of the Heralds are created when they return to Roshar. Ishar likely uses this knowledge in his experiments, too.

...want Marsh to be weak? Each for his own reasons - Kel because Marsh sometimes works for Harmony perhaps, while the latter maybe because of something that he sees in the future? Because that's the only way that I can explain Marsh being almost at the death's door due to lack of atium in TLM. Kelsier works with people who were born 1-2 millenia previously and while some of their longevity is likely time-dilation, they also must have ways to significantly slow aging. Harmony could have prolongued Marsh's life - there is a WoB that TLR could have made himself immortal via Connection manipulation, if he had thought to figure out how to do it while he held the power of the Well. Surely Sazed knows how. I equally don't believe for a second that he didn't know how to produce some atium, either natively or by splitting his metal. I'd also point out that kandra stole both atium and lerasium from Wax's lab on Harmony's instructions and could have taken atium to Marsh, which would have allowed him to participate in the action. Harmony clearly could locate him at any time, as the interlude with the police demonstrated. But he basically made Marsh sit out a close brush with the alleged end of their world, by witholding atium until the dust settled. And it isn't like Harmony wants Marsh gone, seeing how he occasionally invests him with Shardic power to give the last walk to the souls of the dead, and how he established a cover for continued atium supply for him vis-a-vis Kelsier. I have previously mentioned in one of the book reaction threads that Marsh being conveniently incapacitated during TLM felt far too contrived to me. Now, if Harmony arranged it that way for reasons it is slightly better, but then I'd like an explanation for what these reasons were at some point. I also don't entirely understand why Marsh is still around, if he isn't allowed to act, lest he upstages the new protagonists. Won't the problem persist into Era 3? Is it just because he is the closest thing to a sliver of Ruin that they have, while Kel is a sliver of Preservation and Sazed is both?

Transcript of the rest of chapter 1 and chapter 2 has appeared on Arcanum, in the Dragonsteel [email protected] and it is very juicy. I am not quite sure where to start a topic about it, given certain connections. Guidance would be appreciated, TIA.