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Allomantic Interstellar Spaceships


Paracosmic_nomenclator

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So, we have WOBs that Mistborn era 4 is going to be a space opera, with spaceships powered by allomancy. Though we still don't know exactly how scadrian tech (i.e. ettmetal and feruchemical medallions) work, I figured it would still be fun to speculate about how such ships could work. I can think of two main options (Warning, rocket science terminology ahead):

1. A cadmium-powered drifter ship. If you can get your ship on a course to another star (very possible with VASIMIR (or an allomantic steelpushing equivalent, which would be awesome (embedded parentheses, whee!)) or NERVA engine, along with a few good gravity assists from the Scadrian system's gas giants), then you should be able to use cadmium pulser (or ettmetal equivalent) to make the journey in an arbitrarily short amount of time. Since we've seen that cadmium pulsing works over large time-scales on the surface of a planet that is both rotating and orbiting. With that in mind, all one would need to do is create several concentric cadmium bubbles (off the top of my head, three), and you would experience the ship's thousand-year journey to another star as happening in a matter of weeks. So long as the entirety of the cadmium bubble is contained within the ship, it shouldn't knock the ship off course.

 

2. A bendalloy-powered faster-than-light ship. Since we say Wayne (and other sliders) able to walk normally within their bubbles, we can assume that the strength of a gravitational field is maintained within. With that in mind, a ship entirely contained within a bendalloy bubble (or bubbles) would orbit much faster (potentially faster than light). Such a ship could make a journey of arbitrary distance in an arbitrarily short amount of time to an outside observer. However, within the confines of the bendalloy bubble, the entire natural duration of the voyage would have to be experienced, with bendalloy kept burning the entire time. Even if you used advanced engines (like an Orion drive, or allomantic equivalent) to get your ship up to a reasonable percentage of lightspeed naturally, you'd still need a supply of bendalloy (or ettmetal) that would burn for several years in order to keep the ship moving at superluminal velocities the entire time. Since any passengers inside the ship would also have to experience the entire multi-year journey, you would also likely have a small portion of the ship slowed down via cadmium bubble. As long as the cadmium bubble was completely contained within the bendalloy bubbles, it shouldn't disrupt the FTL capabilities of the ship.

 

So, yeah. Did that make sense? Do we think that allomancy would even work outside of the Scadrian system? Did I miss any better way of creating an interstellar ship? Let me know!

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33 minutes ago, Paracosmic_nomenclator said:

So, yeah. Did that make sense? Do we think that allomancy would even work outside of the Scadrian system? Did I miss any better way of creating an interstellar ship? Let me know!

As Kurkistan just showed, you're not the first with this model, and it compelling. The nested cadmium bubble inside of the bendalloy seem the most feasible option, and pure bendalloy bubble would make for what still feels like a long journey, and a pure cadmium "drift" would leave the ship vulnerable I'm the event of incoming space debris collisions. 

And we already have confirmation that Allomancy works Cosmere wide. 

SA spoilers 

Spoiler

Pay very close attention to a conspicuous character in Shallan's flashbacks in WoR. 

 

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3 hours ago, Calderis said:

The nested cadmium bubble inside of the bendalloy seem the most feasible option

That's what I was thinking, but it still seems like it would require an insane amount of bendalloy or ettmetal.

Also, if steel feruchemy works the way I think it does (increasing or decreasing the amount that one is affected by gravity), you could seriously hack orbital dynamics with a steelmind, basically removing the need for an engine. If it doesn't, then you could still make a really good engine with steelpushing.

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