Yados Posted May 29, 2012 Report Share Posted May 29, 2012 This is, I suppose, related to the "Second Trilogy" thread as it concerns the timeframe of those books. However, I'm less interested in the plot details of those books and more the general culture, supplemented by the inherent Misting, Ferring, and Mythos that we've seen culminating into... well, something close enough to modernity that we could call it an "urban fantasy". Because modernity isn't really worldbuilt. It's frivolous and interesting and strangely divorced from classical ways of thinkings. How is that going to look on Scadrial? For one, I think the second Mistborn book is going to be set in a sort of mid-90s/80s world. We'll have planes and cars and nuclear fusion, but communication tech will still be a bit stunted as it was in Alloy. No internet, obviously. Probably TVs. I'm wondering about music in particular. I suppose there would be really, incredible, precise classical music that's written, tailored to, and enjoyed, primarily, by tin mistings/ferrings. In fact, I think there would be a huge cultural bias re: these people's past domination of musical culture. Pop Music, on the other hand, I think would be even more of a movement on Scadrial as it's literally opening music up to the masses. I wonder if the beats in rock and roll (which sort of has to exist in some manner or it's just not the modern world) are based on the allomatic pulses given off by certain metals. I also see a lot of pop musicians being Aluminium ferrings, disappearing into the crowd for most days, only to flair identity up on the stage-- your Elvises, your Bowies, your GaGas. At one point or another, there must have been an artistic movement by steel/iron mistings, painting the world via a series of blue lines. Maybe some sort of Scadrial-centric version of pointillism. Do we think that Chromium ferrings/compounders are barred from finance or do they control whole markets? Can a Duraluminum or Aluminium ferring/compounder be a politician? Their ability to manipulate the masses would, in theory, far surpass those of a Soother or Rioter. What about sports? We've never seen them in a Mistborn book. Is there Soccer (the word "hat-trick" is in the vernacular, afterall)? Is there a Legend of Korra-esque "Pro-Bending" scene? Are there kids down and out of the Elendel version of St. Marks St, weiring out the normals with their hemalurgicaly charged eyebrow/tongue rings? Is there a form of ancestor worship that involves taking on the spikes of past family members, giving generations worth of allomantic/feruchemical power to a single bearer? Is the church of the survivor in as much shambles as the modern Catholic church? Have Koloss-blooded citizens achieved civil rights equal to those enjoyed by human citizens? Do they still struggle with institutional racism?(now that the skaa/noble distinction has been stamped out, they're the only "race" left besides Terris. This is a planet of white people, after all) Are there still noble houses? I feel like Sazed would pull strings to keep his friends' ancestors in control to the extent he allowed himself, like the Lord Ruler, but a clear and legislated hierarchy is pretty anathema to modernity. Were the houses falling a political movement or a cultural one, like the 1960s? Obviously, I have some ideas. What are yours? 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunblesser Posted May 29, 2012 Report Share Posted May 29, 2012 There could be a sport similar to hand-ball, but played in a metal cage by coinshots and lurchers. certain unscrupulous rioters will make mints off of rioting pleasurable emotions in people, perhaps turning it into something like a black-market narcotic trade. soothers will do the same by soothing away the unpleasant ones. there will be groups of breath-storing ferrings (can't remember name or metal) who will live a semi-aquatic existence. also, mountain enclaves of brass ferrings, soaking in the warmth of cave-fires and saving it for their forays into the wild. it's hard to say how many years these things might take to come about. it could take hundreds, as feruchemy and allomancy diffuse into ever greater proportions of the population. how long is the second trilogy supposed to be after wax's life? for some reason i don't think it's gonna be centuries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander Spoonface Posted May 29, 2012 Report Share Posted May 29, 2012 Word of God describes the second trilogy as "modern, with cell phones, etc." (that's a paraphrase obviously). So at minimum we're looking at mid 90's. Now, I don't think those gigantic late 80's cell phones count. Nor do car phones. I'm thinking we'll end up in the late naughts or near future. Of course, by the time these books get written our "near future" might be "present" or "recent past". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyRioter Posted May 29, 2012 Report Share Posted May 29, 2012 Gasper Ferrings (those are the breath-storing ferrings) can play a Scadrialian version of Blitzball, from FFX. (for those that don't know, it's a sport played in a big glass bubble filled with water). I think duraluminum ferrings would do better in the pop musician role, storing connection is better for avoiding being mobbed, and tapping will get people to pay attention to you. also the second trilogy is supposed to be about 50 years after AoL (apparently technology is going to develop somewhat quicker then it did in our world). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander Spoonface Posted May 29, 2012 Report Share Posted May 29, 2012 also the second trilogy is supposed to be about 50 years after AoL (apparently technology is going to develop somewhat quicker then it did in our world). It was 300 years between HoA and AoL Considering they started out after HoA with no infrastructure and, at best, an early 1400's society and AoL is equivalent to the pre WWI era, I'd say that Sazed is able to accelerate development just as effectively as TLR suppressed it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunblesser Posted May 30, 2012 Report Share Posted May 30, 2012 It was 300 years between HoA and AoL Considering they started out after HoA with no infrastructure and, at best, an early 1400's society and AoL is equivalent to the pre WWI era, I'd say that Sazed is able to accelerate development just as effectively as TLR suppressed it. seems likely. his MO is to let the most amount of people make their own choices, so he's hyper-accelerating them into a high-technology society, where presumably the greatest amount of people can achieve self-sufficiency and 'freedom' as he sees it. there are obviously going to be some extreme, and extremely great for writing about side-effects, like maybe, serial-killer mistborn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander Spoonface Posted May 30, 2012 Report Share Posted May 30, 2012 seems likely. his MO is to let the most amount of people make their own choices, so he's hyper-accelerating them into a high-technology society, where presumably the greatest amount of people can achieve self-sufficiency and 'freedom' as he sees it. there are obviously going to be some extreme, and extremely great for writing about side-effects, like maybe, serial-killer mistborn It also appears like Sazed wrote about a lot of tech that Scadrians would end up with in his Book of Founding, like electricity and aeroplanes. After all, it's a lot easier to develop a technology when you know that what you're trying to do is possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethling Posted June 3, 2012 Report Share Posted June 3, 2012 Architecture at the very least would look inverted to us. Instead of steel inside, it will probably be more external. Instead of buses and the like, I see more streetcars. Cans will probably use non-allomantic metals or be mostly glass jars. Trains will probably be much more highly developed. I am not so sure about the state of airplanes. Most of those these days are made out of aluminum, and we know how rare that is. Ceramics will probably be used for most things that we use iron or steel for household usage. Solar power will be almost universal. Copper will probably rival aluminum in price due to its importance in electricity, though we may see a gold based electrical grid. It was pretty useless in the economy last we saw. Imagine an electrical grid with hundreds of thousands of miles of GOLD wiring. The communications grid will probably be mostly fiber optic. I can't imagine a world where sand is more expensive than gold. Cars will probably be made from ceramics or titanium. Dirt and sand are about the cheapests things imaginable. Heat will be provided without wood, gas, coal, oil, or electricity. We already see some of that with the limelights used at the balls. Quicklime and water should be cheap and relatively abundant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander Spoonface Posted June 4, 2012 Report Share Posted June 4, 2012 The communications grid will probably be mostly fiber optic. I can't imagine a world where sand is more expensive than gold. The Free Kingdoms? Also, a lot more goes into the production of fiber optic wires than just melting sand down in the right way. I'm not sure what you mean by "cars will probably be made for ceramics or titanium. Dirt and sand are about the cheapest things imaginable". Titanium is not "dirt" or "sand", it's an incredibly rare, very expensive metal. Gold was still valuable in AoL. Not as valuable as rare-earth metals like Cadium, but that's how it is in real life. Gold is way, way, way rarer than copper. Also, gold melts a lot easier. Cars wouldn't be made of ceramics for the same reason they aren't today: ceramics are too brittle and don't have a high impact tolerance. Limelights aren't made from quicklime and water; you have to heat the quicklime up quite a bit for it to work. It's exceedingly inefficient compared to electric lights, which is why we don't use limelights anymore. I guess my point is is that not a lot of things will necessarily be different from ours except when Allomancy has a noticeable effect on the culture... Such as streetcars. I believe that streetcars can easily be pushed/pulled by mistings, which makes them more efficient than cars. We've already seen the introduction of cars in the broadsheets of AoL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyRioter Posted June 4, 2012 Report Share Posted June 4, 2012 also, the reason aluminum is expensive is that it's hard to smelt, discovery of more efficient smelting techniques will likely reduce the price, as it did in real life, although probably not to the same degree as there will be more demand for it then there is in real life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asha'man Logain Posted June 16, 2012 Report Share Posted June 16, 2012 also, the reason aluminum is expensive is that it's hard to smelt, discovery of more efficient smelting techniques will likely reduce the price, as it did in real life, although probably not to the same degree as there will be more demand for it then there is in real life. Especially with the foil lined hats from the broadsheet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Meatshield Posted June 21, 2012 Report Share Posted June 21, 2012 Also with an increase in availability of aluminium, I think it would be safe to expect the appearance of a new breed of Haze-Killer, heavily trained, and possibly working on a freelance/bounty system like the one in the Roughs, or employed by police forces and/or noble houses. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vikter Posted June 22, 2012 Report Share Posted June 22, 2012 Also with an increase in availability of aluminium, I think it would be safe to expect the appearance of a new breed of Haze-Killer, heavily trained, and possibly working on a freelance/bounty system like the one in the Roughs, or employed by police forces and/or noble houses. This give me mental images of a Sandersonized version of Bobba Fett hunting down 'Jedi' allomancers and misting. With his ability to put action fight scene to words it would make for some excellent reading, coins flying through the air the Bounty Hunter dodging out of the way dropping the coinshots with a few quick rounds before having to fend of a pewter arm… I think I need to be alone now… Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king of nowhere Posted June 22, 2012 Report Share Posted June 22, 2012 About aluminium, it wass more expensive than gold before the heroult process was invented. then it became very cheap; it's one of the most copmmon elements on heart, after all. in the real world, that process was discovered around 1870, so I would really have expected for scaadrrial to have it before automobiles, since they are good on metallurgy. But I can understand it not having been conceived. there could be plenty of reasons, from the simple "no one got the idea yet" to the more complex "the heroult process requires aluminium fluoride, and on scadrial civilization had not spread much, and maybe they never found many fluorine containing minerals, and getting it out of seawater is beyond them, so maybe they never invented that process because they don't have much access to fluorine". Anyway, I expect aluminium to be cheap shortly after AoL. Also, I'm not sure saze is speeding up tech development. the technology under the lord ruler was much more than middle age. limelights were known and they were only devised a few centuries ago. the canal system is something we can expect to see in a 19th century society. I seem to recall peopel using spyglasses, and those required also some advanced technology. Rashek suppressed knowledge of gunpowder, but aside from that scadrial was more advanced than your average fantasy. I think after the rebirth it advanced more or less at the smae pace as the real world. Probably the informations left in the words of founding were enough to compensate for the lower population and resources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Posted June 22, 2012 Report Share Posted June 22, 2012 Our world had working automobiles several years before Hall and Heroult (independently but in the same year) discovered their process, actually, and went into commercial production about two years after. It could be a major plot point in further ruining House... was it Hastings who was shipping aluminum under false papers? Destroy their profits by making it all cheap and buying up all their holdings to get a monopoly. I can dig it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oxinabox Posted June 23, 2012 Report Share Posted June 23, 2012 It could be a major plot point in further ruining House... was it Hastings who was shipping aluminum under false papers? Destroy their profits by making it all cheap and buying up all their holdings to get a monopoly. I can dig it. It was Tekiel, and they were destroyed beyond all relervance, already. (Sad, I liked them). I doubt they has a monopoly on aliminium Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aradel Posted June 26, 2012 Report Share Posted June 26, 2012 House Tekiel seems to get the shaft alot. They were some of the first to fall in the House War of TFE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander Spoonface Posted June 26, 2012 Report Share Posted June 26, 2012 Maybe Brandon just really likes the name and so uses them for when he needs something to happen to a house... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.S.A.M.K.M Posted June 26, 2012 Report Share Posted June 26, 2012 WHat with their train system, I think trams a better bet. I think bicycles could be pushed along by allomancy. What with such a big impact of metal in their society, magnetism and electromagnetism will be big subject for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dj26792 Posted July 16, 2012 Report Share Posted July 16, 2012 Their society has consistently been hard to place as their cultural development has happened faster than ours but their metallurgy has improved even faster again. So I think that we'll see a 50s (ish) and modern technology in some kind of terrible but somehow brilliant mash up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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