What is the political aftermath?[DISCUSS]

[+Oltux72]

Telsin is dead. Some scientists of the Set are dead. Their breeding programme has been disrupted. Most members, however, are alive and still affiliated with the Bilming government.

Will they simply vanish? If not, how will the Northerners deal with them? What will the Ghostbloods do? The Set still seems a lot more advanced than the rest of Scadrial in science and technology.

They had a weapon of mass destruction go off right next to their capital. The story of an alien invasion is kind of hard to surpress if it is that obvious. And it is an alien invasion. Marasi may keep quiet about the men in gold and red, but a lot of people too influential to just make disappear again know about it. So will we see a Scadrian equivalent of NASA charged with exploring Shadesmar? A military equivalent? An "astral force"? Intrepid adventurers searching the Southern Roughs for the perpendicularity?

[AquaRegia]

Good questions.  My sense is that the Set was directly propelled by Trell/Autonomy.  Now that Autonomy has withdrawn, there will be no Set, and any remaining Set members will be forced to follow their own separate path.

I was underwhelmed by Telsin's actions in TLM - she spent all her screen time verbally sparring with Wax, trying to distract him from figuring out the plan, when (with the power of Autonomy fueling her) she could presumably have simply killed or disabled him far more easily.  Then, when he figures it out, she literally just lies down and dies?  Lame.

One of many weak plot points in this book, IMO.  Given the numerous logical inconsistencies, I decline to make any predictions beyond this: the near-miss at Elendel, combined with the political tension between north and south (plus Kelsier poking Harmony) will result in some greatly accelerated technological development over the next 50 years.

[Returned]

I don't think that the specifics are going to change much. The pattern we've seen thus far on Scadrial is that governance tends to converge towards dictatorial/oligarchic rule and corruption, and that doesn't seem likely to change. Why would it? My specific guesses about how things will develop are below:

Most people on Scadrial won't believe or care about the realities of what happened in Lost Metal. Most people, even knowledgeable ones, will have the same worldly concerns as they ever did, and those people will view the events as another political struggle (righteous on the part of the factions they are aligned with) which nearly led to substantial destruction because their own technology wasn't sufficiently advanced. Bilming-aligned folk will wish they'd had an adequate rocket, Elendel-aligned folk will wish they had better military equipment overall (and a lot more of it than they had), and Southerners will become much more tightfisted with their ettmetal, medallions, and related technology.

As has been the case on Scadrial nearly 100% of the time, there will not be enough (perceived) common interest in general threats to bring groups together while individuals exploit and expand tensions to secure their own aims (power, wealth, or whatever). I don't see any particular reason for any of the factions in era 2 to change their perspectives or modes of operation at all. They will all likely go all-in on applied research and development, particularly with an eye towards military concerns, so that when those nefarious other Scadrians get out of line their own groups will (they presume) be able to fight them off. New developments will be jealously guarded with as much secrecy as can be managed, and espionage will flourish.

Knowledge of Hemalurgy will ineveitably spread as the Set's unity is challenged following the collapse of its initial plans. Northern Scadrian governments are likely to try to push laws which forbid Hemalurgy broadly (to reduce violence towards and murder of suspected metalborn), but also produce and maintain their own stashes of spikes for "emergencies". This will form the core of the North's military contingencies for opposing the Southerners, as abundant metalborn are one of the only major advantages they have.

There will be small splinter groups, exactly like the Set and the Ghostbloods, operating in pursuit of more expansive goals, but they will remain in the shadows as much as possible. Some groups will specialize in brokering resources from elsewhere in the Cosmere but these, too, will not be well-known publicly; limiting knowledge about Shadesmar and its potential will help ensure more stringent control over offworld technology and goods. Similarly, governments will try to control transit from offworld but will largely fail, in no small part because of interference from other governments who are seeking a special edge for themselves.

The Terris (as a cultural, political, and social group) will rise in importance due to their near-monopoly on Feruchemy and the potential value of large-scale attribute storage and the potential represented by unkeyed metalminds. Their insularity will give them leverage that will be far harder for Allomancers to develop.