theory Magical Technology on Scadrial

[Oudeis]

Huh. Well, depends on whether I liked the neighbor. Wait, illegal? Legal system is weird. Well, murder for pie is wrong anyway. Don't confuse "murder for pie" and "murder in self-defense and then eating the body since there is no other food around."

 

While there might be a difference between "evil" and "necessary evil", both are still evil.

[Satsuoni]

/>

While there might be a difference between "evil" and "necessary evil", both are still evil.

Hm. Yes, that is quite true. Still, it may be forgivable.

[skaa]

If I recall correctly, Allomantic technology will be a major part of the third Mistborn trilogy (the one that's supposed to have sci-fi elements). Since the consensus here seems to be that Hemalurgy-based Allomantic technology is at best a useful evil and at worst a horrifying and inexcusable evil, I think Brandon probably has a less controversial kind of Allomantech in mind for the third trilogy.

 

I'm not saying that the Southern Scadrians did not use Hemalurgy for their tech. That's still a mystery to us. But if they did, then someone (probably from the North) will have to come up with a less bloody alternative at some point in the story's timeline.

[Oudeis]

Everything skaa just said. I would be surprised if there weren't a way to augment allomantech with hemalurgear, but I don't see it being a requirement.

[Kurkistan]

If you're all so squeamish about the whole "mass slaughter" thing, might I suggest (again) that they could use animals?

[Robot Aztec]

 

/>If you're all so squeamish about the whole "mass slaughter" thing, might I suggest (again) that they could use animals?

 

Or Plants shardblades cut plants like they do animals and breath works on planss like it does on animals so it should work the same for hemlaurgy and plants have more lifespan and health anyway

[Oudeis]

If you're all so squeamish about the whole "mass slaughter" thing, might I suggest (again) that they could use animals?

 

I suppose. I wouldn't be surprised if animals, since they don't have bits of Preservation and Ruin in them the way humans do, wouldn't be effective enough to be worth it. Additionally, you're not just killing them. I'm no angel, but even I would at least hesitate before tearing a dog's soul to shreds just so I can get magic powers.

 

Any thoughts on what form this technology will take? A stand-alone machine works for some of the metals (like my bendalloy stasis machine idea) but what about pewter? Will it be some gear a person wears to gain the strength of pewter, or will it create something mechanical with great strength? Could I make a pewter-powered sledgehammer that hits harder than I swing?

 

Tin-goggles for eyesight, tin-gloves for touch? (do not want to consider smell or taste). Will someone invent a bronzedar? If there's a device that can ironpull, who sees the blue lines and how do you choose which to pull on? Or will it simply pull on everything, or everything in a certain direction, when active?

[WeiryWriter]

I suppose. I wouldn't be surprised if animals, since they don't have bits of Preservation and Ruin in them the way humans do, wouldn't be effective enough to be worth it. Additionally, you're not just killing them. I'm no angel, but even I would at least hesitate before tearing a dog's soul to shreds just so I can get magic powers.

 

Actually animals do have pieces of Preservation and Ruin in them.  Humans are unique in that they have an imbalance between the two (i.e. more Preservation than Ruin) which is what gives them sentience (On a side note it is possible to grant sentience the other way, more Ruin than Preservation, as well).  Animals have equal amounts of Ruin and Preservation in them.

[Oudeis]

Actually animals do have pieces of Preservation and Ruin in them.  Humans are unique in that they have an imbalance between the two (i.e. more Preservation than Ruin) which is what gives them sentience (On a side note it is possible to grant sentience the other way, more Ruin than Preservation, as well).  Animals have equal amounts of Ruin and Preservation in them.

 

Ah, my mistake.

[Kurkistan]

When you create a new topic there's a check box to the left of where you enter the tags that says "Use First Tag as Prefix". So the first tag you use will be placed by the title of the topic, and in this case the tag was theory.I'll probably stick with just typing it out, because I tend to dislike camel case.

 

I can't see it myself. Are you sure that it's not reserved for Admins/Mods?

[Gloom]

I suppose. I wouldn't be surprised if animals, since they don't have bits of Preservation and Ruin in them the way humans do, wouldn't be effective enough to be worth it. Additionally, you're not just killing them. I'm no angel, but even I would at least hesitate before tearing a dog's soul to shreds just so I can get magic powers.

 

They lived underground. They don't now, but they have lived underground for centuries. Living underground is far more hazardous than living above ground. They would need light, food, space to grow food, space to live, ways to ensure the air stayed clean, a safe way to create more space, a pecking order to decide who got the food when things grew scarce, population control, genealogies, plague control, etc. What they would never have is sunlight, wide open spaces, a plethora of resources, or a self renewing environment. If you have to rip apart the soul of an animal to help make your environment more survivable, then I don't think it would even be a topic of debate. You would do it because most people are already at a subsistence level of survival. They wouldn't have the leisure to take the moral high ground.

 

I'm not saying that I think that this tech is based on Hemalurgy, but if it is, I wouldn't be surprised if they used people, as well as animals. I don't know if trees would even be an option given the environment. It may be now, provided the land was seeded, but not when they were forced to live beneath the surface. Three hundred years is barely a drop in the bucket for many of the historical societies of our planet to change. Human sacrifice is as old as time, and still goes on to this day, and we don't even get any powers from it. I think it is naive to think that a society wouldn't be able to maintain itself using such methods. We, as human beings, can justify almost any atrocity. We can convince ourselves that sacrificing our own children is for the greater good. We can be proud of what we were willing to give up, take pride in the death of our loved ones. As long as it didn't threaten the family line, it would be tolerated without question if the need was apparent. Those who made to much noise about it would be scorned by their neighbors, neighbors who have made the same sacrifices and bore them stoically. If you think the society the LR commanded was harsh, just think about how harsh the one he abandoned would be if Hemalurgy was the only means he gave them to survive.

 

Yes, survive. I doubt that they would be capable of surviving without whatever magic the LR provided them with. Surviving for a millennium beneath the surface with a tech level equal to that of the other continent would have been nearly impossible without magic.

Edited October 26, 2013 by Gloom

[Oudeis]

Yes, survive. I doubt that they would be capable of surviving without whatever magic the LR provided them with. Surviving for a millennium beneath the surface with a tech level equal to that of the other continent would have been nearly impossible without magic.

 

I agree. And here's why I disagree with your underlying premise.

 

Here's what we know. Rashek took a group of people who had absolutely no chance of survival on their new planet. He left them so far away no one could ever reach them, including himself. He wouldn't be able to so much as check up on them for over a millenium. Despite this, they are his fallback plan. Expecting people with, at best, Victorian technology to survive that long on their own is a preposterous risk; possibly worse, what if a thousand years without Rashek there to stagnate technology causes them to advance? In short, Rashek clearly required a better plan than "plant them underground and hope for the best." Lastly, we know that mechanical allomancy is possible.

 

Now supposition. I'll grant I can't support any of this, but all I'm saying is, it passes the "this could reasonably happen" test. It's a hypothesis, not a theory. Rashek, holding Preservation's power, could very well have learned the secrets of mechallomancy. To overcome the dual problems (sheer survival and technological advancement) he might easily have decided to simply not allow a thousand years to pass for them. If he'd set up cadmium machines, either one large enough to house the entire population or several to cover the whole area, problem mitigated. At normal cadmium burn rate, that's 128 years, still a few generations, still a risk of extinction, but a damnation sight better than 1024. Being Preservation itself for that moment, he might have had a way to make it work better. The (yes, yes, I know, non-canon) MAG suggests that a cadmium bubble inside another cadmium bubble will stack the effects, so if he could make two giant bubbles that's only 16 years that pass. Again, divine intervention, he could have come up with a way to power it enough to last that long.

 

Is it solid? No. Is it a working hypothesis? I think so. It also ties up one last loose end; how did the southern Scadrians get mechallomancy? They've got this machine, built by God himself, to tap into the allomantic properties of metal. They certainly could never replicate something created by a being functionally omniscient, but similar to how a world of Shardplate led to people developing fabrials, they could work out cut-rate versions to work with other metals based on what they learn from the original machine, even if it's not perfect.

 

So, Gloom, my issue with your theory is this: Even if a population were willing to sacrifice each other to survive, how exactly would hemalurgy help them? How would they learn about mechallomancy within the few years, maybe, that they could survive without it? What mechallomantic powers would keep them alive? I don't disagree that desperate people will do desperate things, I just don't think that the specific desperate act of hemalurgy would do them any good, and I simply don't see it being a reasonable assumption that these untouched Scadrians could have possibly survived that long on an alien world under any circumstance. The only solution I see is, they didn't survive that long. They only survived a century or so, and Rashek found a way to make that enough.

[Gloom]

All I was trying to establish is that the tech could have been based on hemalurgy. I'm not saying it was, in fact I have serious doubts that the LR would want a society to be that knowledgeable about hemalurgy. At various points it was pointed out that no society could exist for an extended period of time under, what they would consider, such an oppressive, evil regime. My goal with the post above was to establish that such a society could indeed exist and even thrive, provided that the conditions were harsh enough, or most of the people were aware of how tenuous their existence was.

 

I find technomancy to be far more likely than technolurgy. I believe that Ferocanics could also be a possibility, but figuring out how that one would work makes my brain hurt.

[Oudeis]

/>All I was trying to establish is that the tech could have been based on hemalurgy. I'm not saying it was, in fact I have serious doubts that the LR would want a society to be that knowledgeable about hemalurgy. At various points it was pointed out that no society could exist for an extended period of time under, what they would consider, such an oppressive, evil regime. My goal with the post above was to establish that such a society could indeed exist and even thrive, provided that the conditions were harsh enough, or most of the people were aware of how tenuous their existence was.

I find technomancy to be far more likely than technolurgy. I believe that Ferocanics could also be a possibility, but figuring out how that one would work makes my brain hurt.

[Gloom]

Ahh, I see you were so impressed by my logic you felt that it was worthy of quoting without comment.

 

You may use it as your signature if it pleases you.

[Oudeis]

Welcome to another exciting edition of, "This is why I don't tend to reply from my old, horrible phone!"

 

Let's see how much of what I typed out hours ago (that decided not to post itself) I remember now...

 

I owe you an apology. We were expressly talking in the abstract, but I made the faulty assumption that we were both talking about the specific. You are, of course, correct. It's entirely plausible for a society to exist such as the one you described.

 

Upvote (I said at the time that I'd do it when I got to a desktop, but that time is now) for you neologisms.

 

Finally, I still think there's no need for ferochanics. Rashek could very easily have decided to keep un-modified feruchemists alive, especially if he was keeping them in (near) stasis as I've already postulated. He wanted a sample of un-modified stock, and the advantage of unmodified feruchemists far outweighed the potential risk of them leaving stasis, surviving, and crossing an entire planet to threaten his monopoly on compounding. And, of couse, hemalurgy has never needed anything but knowledge to work. I would not be surprised if allomancy is the only art achieved mechanically.

[Isomere]

@Gloom: upvote for the new terms. Technomancy and technolurgy are awsome, but I'd like to tweak ferumechanics.

Back to creating these machines, we don't seem to have many permanent investiture options on Scadrial. It is in Harmony, living souls, and Hemalurgic spikes. Lots of folks resist using Hemalurgy to endow the machines, but I just don't know of anywhere else to get access. It's possible some other source will pop up, Sazed could create some splinters for the people of the southern continent or some such. Until then I think we are stuck with spikes.

The discussion about ethics is definitely showing conflicting viewpoints about the importance of Souls. However, an appeal to morality doesn't help us find an alternate source of investiture and is not sufficient to discount Technolurgy. Brandon is quite willing to create moral ambiguities. Creating a system of Hemalurgy based machines could hardly be worse than a respectable protagonist that feeds on the souls of children.

[Gloom]

I stole technomancy, and used it to adapt technolurgy. I agree that Ferumechanics sounds better.

 

An early appearance of the term can be found in Steve Martindale's 1990 short story "Technomancy" in the magazine Aboriginal Science Fiction

Edited October 27, 2013 by Gloom

[dyring]

Sorry for going completely OT here... but I haveto add something nonrelated so you can all laugh at me.

 

A few days ago, when doing the shardhunt, I spent way to much time looking for what Scadrial don´t have in this thread, thinking it couldent just be a coincident that Chaos posted it just at the morning when the shardhunt was launched....

Felt quite stupid afterwards;) 

[Gloom]

ahh, if only Skype emoticons worked here, I could have easily given you a clue

[Pechvarry]

Woah morality debate. Not touching that.

I like to think the BS quote is in reference to the final empire. Hemalurgy is only as evil as the people who use it. And during TFE, all known methods were pretty evil.

[Oudeis]

I like to think the BS quote is in reference to the final empire.

 

"Is hemalurgy evil? Yes."

 

People want to think they can use hemalurgy and not be evil, so y'all will invent every reason/interpretation under the sun why you can use it without becoming someone that would make Hitler cringe. I give up. Yes. You're all right. Hemalurgy is no more harmful than a flu shot. People who get their powers/brain/soul stolen from them will have a headache for a few days and then be fine. Hemalurgy is how Princess Celestia became a Princess Unicorn Pegasus Earth Pony. Magic wand and everything is fine. Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.

[Shivertongue]

Alright kids, play nice. Debate is one thing, we're very encouraging of it here. But once you start being impolite or insulting to other members... well, that makes me have to step in to tell you to cool it down, go back to your corners, and keep it civil.

 

And you don't want me to have to step in. I'm a busy guy, and don't really have the time to pre-emptively end arguments before they begin to get nasty. So this is the only warning you're getting. Don't make me turn this thread around.

 

Back to your regularly-scheduled thread, while I go back to my thesis.

[Gloom]

We'll be good, we don't want any thread hemalurgy going on around here. It's evil you know.

[jag519]

But yeah, Hemalurgy is inherently evil, you're ripping apart someone's soul and putting part of it in you, essentially, yeah, bad.

 

If you're an ends justify the means kinda guy, it could be an evil that has to be done for the greater good, etc, but that act is still an evil.  

 

I don't think that the southern group uses mechalurgy, but if that was a necessary evil, I don't know if that would make them necessarily evil, at least according to some philosophies. 

To be sure, I think Jasnah would be ok with it :-p