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Era 4 Ideas


DracostarA

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Brandon has repeatedly mentioned that Mistborn Era 4 will involve faster-than-light space travel.

Now, we know that to get to other shardworlds, the cognitive realm is a far easier way to get around, and we know some Scadrians have access to this knowledge. This begs the question, why the need for FTL travel at all then? I have a few possible ideas:

  1. There is a metal shortage: It makes sense in the future of an allomantic world that there can be a supply issue, so perhaps the motivation is to go to uninhabited planets to mine for resources.
  2. They want to go to non-shardworlds: Worlds without a perpendicularity cannot be easily accessed, so FTL may be needed to get to these otherwise inaccessible planets - but why would they want to?
  3. There is no longer a perpendicularity on Scadrial: Depending on conflict between Shards and movement between worlds Scadrial may no longer be a Shardworld in the far future. Though Harmony's Perpendicularity is currently unknown to us, Khriss and Nazh are present in Era 2 so there is some movement still. (This is the one I find the least likely)
  4. There is an issue with the Cognitive Realm in Scadrial: Much like in Sel, there may be events which make the Cognitive Realm hostile to large groups of people, which may link in with the Discord theory going around. Thus, FTL travel is the fastest way to get people offworld when necessary.
  5. Perhaps the most simple reason: They just do it because they want to explore. Scadrians might just want to explore unrestricted to populated worlds and Shardworlds and want to explore the Cosmere to the fullest.

If anyone has any ideas please bring them up. I'm not sure if I'm reading into this too much but I think there must be something slightly more going on since we know FTL isn't required for interplanetary travel.

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I propose a #6 which is that they simply stumble on a way to pull off FTL easier than navigating through shadesmar with all the varied hazards and foreign powers active; possibly something closer to a point-to-point Jump transportation.  As an example, one theory I saw about travel with Metallix Arts centered around the idea that manipulating Identity and Connection properly could theoretically more or less wooosh you off to another planet by essentially convincing the Cosmere and/or your own spirit-web that you are actually supposed to be over There.  Or there's the precedent of the Oathgates that are implied to operate via Spiritual Realm rather than the Cognitive.

In general I think Shadesmar is not that great a way to travel in all sorts of ways so it wouldnt take all that much to make an alternate method appealing. 

 

Also as a #7, which is that War comes.  Scadrial era are supposed to help act as the measuring scale of the overall cosmere tale, so Era 4 is going to be toward the end of things, when Id generally expect the Shardic infighting to be getting into full swing. 

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Couple of points for consideration. 

Ease of transportation. I think that it's damnation near impossible to gage the way that the technology is going to progress due to this WoB (spoilered for length).

Spoiler

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

In reading about Adonalsium and Odium, I get the sense that it's more related to lerasium and atium than it is to, like, Preservation or Ruin. Because, sometimes it seems like we're identifying Odium and Adonalsium as beings instead of, like, the body of...

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yeah, it is a little confusing by design. The question is, like, telling the difference between the Vessel who is holding the power, the intent of that power, and the physical manifestations of that power as Investiture or as whatever, these things are confusing. And I did this on purpose. I like that blurring between them. One of the things I did when I was designing the magic for the cosmere, was... you guys know this very easily from looking at the books, I love the ideas of quantum theory, string theory, all this stuff. And even, just looking at quantum mechanics as we understand them right now. And the further you get into the details, the more the rules that you built, everything you understand upon, become blurry. And we live in this world where certain scientific principles, like... I was sitting at a writing group, talking to my friend who's a mathematician, and I'm like, "I really like math 'cause it is objective. One plus one equals two." And he's like, "Well, the further you get in math, the less that actually is true, and the more 'One plus one equals two' is a philosophical statement, not an actual objective truth." And we talked about the nature of, the further you dig into things...

So, I tried to build the cosmere magic... for instance, how the Bands of Mourning work. We are getting away from Step 1, which is, "Metals push or pull." We can get that. Into Step 2, where we are building complex machines out of the interactions between the magic. And we will then get to Step 3, where it's like, we can explain the principles, but you need to be a computer engineer to understand exactly how the computer is working. And I wanted to be able to build to get to that point. With the philosophy of, "What is the power, what is the individual, what is the intent," and things like that, we're kind of going that direction, in a philosophical direction. What does it mean? What are the answers?

Humans like things to be divided and put in boxes, but in nature, these boxes are usually arbitrary, of our distinction. So, I like that aspect of our interaction with the real world. So, the answer to your question is, this is not a question for me, this is a question for philosophers. Where does the intent stop, and the being begin? And what does it mean to have a body? Is the body of the original person that has taken up the Shard, the Vessel, when that drops out when they die, is that their real body? Or is that just the power pushing out something that it absorbed and recreating it, and dropping a copy of it? What is that? What's going on there? What's it mean? How much can a Vessel influence their intent? This is all a question for philosophers, that I'm going to explore in the books, but it's not the sort of thing that you're like...

Does one plus one equal two? The answer is, one plus one equals two according to this proof that we believe explains the universe, but is a little fuzzier than you think it is.

source

Allomancy as we think of it is step 1. The Bands are step 2. That's... Some crazy implications. 

Next, era 4 is literally the end of the Cosmere timeline as Brandon had planned. 

Quote

sherwin94

Is Dragonsteel still planned to be the bookends for the cosmere (2 eras)?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but not exactly how you think. It will make sense when I do it, but the final Mistborn series will be the actual end--Dragonsteel will link to it, though.

source

 

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1 hour ago, DracostarA said:

There is a metal shortage: It makes sense in the future of an allomantic world that there can be a supply issue, so perhaps the motivation is to go to uninhabited planets to mine for resources.

FTL won't be required with this. Asteroid mining from within their own system would be enough to fix any supply issues and break the economy..
I'm partial to the idea of there being no perpendicularity on Scadrial anymore. If Trell succeeds in their conquest, that may just happen.

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@Quantus @Calderis I agree the Metallic Arts at their most sophisticated may make it significantly easier to achieve FTL travel. However, I propose that like in BoM, necessity is the mother of invention, and if as old as The Final Empire Scadrians were Worldhopping (the method behind which I expect to have become public knowledge by late Era 3 or Era 4), what need is there to attempt to develop FTL travel. Much like Harmony's influence retarded the technological advancement of Elendel, I think unless there is some increased difficulty/change in Worldhopping ease there will be no drive to aim for FTL travel at all.

One thing I am willing to consider is maybe FTL is easier for mass transport or for regular people without any Allomancy or Feruchemy than travelling through the Cognitive Realm?

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14 minutes ago, DracostarA said:

One thing I am willing to consider is maybe FTL is easier for mass transport or for regular people without any Allomancy or Feruchemy than travelling through the Cognitive Realm?

Honestly, I think it's this. Allomancy and Feruchemy aren't required, just the perpendicularity, but it's either build vehicles on the Cognitive side, transporting materials through the bottleneck of the perpendicularity, or just build a space dock and fly. 

FTL has still got to be faster than foot traffic, and if your building vehicles either way... 

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FTL has still got to be faster than foot traffic

That's not necessarily true. Since we don't know just how far apart the planets are in the Physical Realm, and in the Cognitive Realm, 'dead space' (uninhabited planets included) takes up almost no space. Therefore, like on the Shadesmar map, Roshar and Scadrial are adjacent in the Cognitive Realm. Maybe its faster however to get to Sel or Nalthis through FTL, since you don't have to pass through Shadesmar. Perhaps that is another reason - some places are easier by Cognitive Realm travel while others are easier to reach with FTL.

Oh and since I forgot to mention, FTL is by far the safest way to reach Sel with the knowledge we have at the moment - that may be an incentive.

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The compression is not always going to be helpful. There is dead space yes. But what if the Cognitive of one world is between you and your destination? You have tea eking through it is going to increase your travel time substantially. Going around is going to do the same, though hopefully to a lesser extent. 

And it still takes time, and is technically FTL, but I think traveling between worlds in normal space is going to be significantly shorter. Partly because the Cognitive Realm isn't only expanded in places where sentient minds are, but also in places that are thought about.

As science and technology progress, the way and things that people think about space are going to change and the world's are going to be pushed farther apart Cognitively. 

For reference, spoilered for length (and SH spoilers if anyone actually cares) 

Spoiler

Questioner

So like as far as distance traveled in Shadesmar. 

Brandon Sanderson

Mhm

Questioner

So when Kelsier...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Questioner

...in Shadesmar. He meets the Ire, who are presumably Elantrian.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Like how far did he travel? Is that still within Scadrial's realm of the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's within-- he has s-- By the time he meets them he has slipped right to the edge of the Cognitive Realm on Scadrial and into kind of the darkness between planets. 

Questioner

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

He's close enough that he can get there. But he's kind of suffused with Scadrian Investiture then, to a point that it would be harder--you saw in there--for him to get further. I would say that he's like... He has entered space between planets, but he's not out of the solar system.

Questioner

Okay, so he's <still there> in the Scadrian system, just...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yep.

Questioner

Okay, just edging it there.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, mhm. That's what I'd say if I had to actually point <at> him. I would get really fuzzy though, because it wouldn't be too much longer before he enters another solar system. Like he would pass lightyears in steps as he starts getting further, if that makes any sense.

Questioner

That makes sense, because, I mean, with worldhopping in general it's like... You can only... I mean it's... I don't know how the time dilation works per se, but...

Brandon Sanderson

It's not-- there's not much time dilation. What you've got going on is... Things that people aren't around to think about, things without minds or any sort of life, don't manifest on Shadesmar very much at all. And so the space between planets gets really small, unless there's another planet out there with thinking beings or at least some sort of life on it. Like even lower lifeforms, you'll get something manifesting on Shadesmar. But yeah.

Questioner

Okay. So the Cognitive Realm, in Shadesmar...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Questioner

...in the Cognitive Realm... It's kind of the... Any kind of sentient or cognitive life-- that's what is building Shadesmar?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah.

Questioner

So like anything where there's blackness... is like... condensed or--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes. Particularly if no one's thinking about it? If people are thinking about it.. like, for instance, an island in the ocean that was scoured of all life and even bacteria would still manifest in Shadesmar on that planet because people are aware of it and things like this. But one on the other side of the planet, that no one ever knew about it, probably wouldn't.

Questioner

So that same island, if people just stopped thinking about it or like stopped being aware it's *inaudible* would it...

Brandon Sanderson

It could slowly vanish, yes. And so-- But that's more of a thought experiment. You're never gonna have a planet that that happens to, you know cause...

Questioner

Right.

Brandon Sanderson

But thought experiment wise, yes, that would eventually kind of get consumed by Shadesmar and vanish. The same thing would happen to a planet that you strip the atmosphere from--all the bacteria and life dies on it--you know, slowly going to vanish. But a moon will still manifest because people are thinking about it. It'll just not-- it won't-- it'll be hoakie, it'll be weird--the moon will be. Like you might find a little patch that represents the moon. Something like that.

Questioner

That's interesting.

Brandon Sanderson

You're not gonna find the full landscape of the moon until people start visiting it. And it's gonna grow on Shadesmar.

source

 

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17 minutes ago, Wander89 said:

Is there a mention on how many Mistborn books there will be. I know Stormlight has been announced as 10. Or even any other series for that matter.

It was originally supposed to be a trilogy of trilogies. Then we got era 2 which is 4 additional books, and Secret History, which may have sequels. So... At this point, at least 14

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7 minutes ago, Calderis said:

It was originally supposed to be a trilogy of trilogies. Then we got era 2 which is 4 additional books, and Secret History, which may have sequels. So... At this point, at least 14

The more the better, I say!

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I think we're settling on the idea that it will come down to the practical differences between FTL travel and Shadesmar travel.  So lets dig into those for a sec. 

 

Shadesmar has two primary advantages: It almost entirely ignores the vast emptiness of space down to foot traffic distances, and it is traversable without having to carry a full environment with you (air supply, etc).  It's downsides are that it is restricted to Perpendicularity Travel (unlike Surges, the Metallic Arts do not provide independent Shadesmar transfer, yes?) so it has something like a dozen worlds it can reach, being only the Shardworlds plus whatever naturally occurring perpendicularities might be left post-Adonalsium shattering (not many Im guessing).

 

Physical Realm FTL is likely going to have some oddball advantages and disadvantages depending on how it is actually implemented.  But we do know that it will have the advantage of being capable of reaching non-perpedicular worlds, worlds with a dangerous Cog Realm side (Like Sel) or heavily populated one (like Roshar).  I might have the advantage of being pure Science rather than Investiture, but I think that is less likely.  I suspect that it would be able to transport larger number of people and resources, but really there's no reason they couldnt make a fleet of Shadesmar specific vehicles just as easily as a space fleet.  One major advantage is that it should not have any difficulty removing a large chunk of Investiture the way over-invested Kelsier had trouble.  It's downsides are the real physical distances, though until we know how much faster than Light it goes we cant know if that's an actual issue.  I dont actually see any particular shortcoming of FTL in general, though I can see all sort of different shortcomings depending on how it's actually implemented.

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  • 4 weeks later...

One other possibility occurred to me, and I cant believe it didnt come up while we were talking about it (unless it did and I just missed the point).  A very strong motivator to develop FTL tech could be as simple and horrifying as the idea that Harmony will be the Big Bad of Era 4, that he'll loose control of his warring shards and become Discord as many fear he might.  With that sort of hostile Double-Shard, they'd need to find a way off the planet and likely not want to risk a raid on whatever Perpendicularities might exist by then.

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The way I look at it, worldhopping using Shadesmar is for all practical purposes equivalent to hyperspace in hard sci-fi. Basically transitioning to a different realm where distance in one is radically different than in the other. The main difference, though, is that you can’t just enter or exit anywhere you like in the case of Shadesmar (well, maybe Elsecallers could, but generally you can’t). And presumably the Cosmere galaxy contains vastly more planets than just those that have Shards and hence perpendicularities on them. So developing an alternative form of FTL travel that doesn’t have that limitation makes complete sense. 

Another interesting thing to think about is what effect building interplanetary/interstellar bases would have on Shadesmar. For example, if they were to construct some kind of Stormlight-powered megastructure in the space between Scadrial and Roshar in the Physical Realm, would that effectively cause Shadesmar to ‘expand’ to accommodate it? 

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The way I look at it, worldhopping using Shadesmar is for all practical purposes equivalent to hyperspace in hard sci-fi. Basically transitioning to a different realm where distance in one is radically different than in the other. The main difference, though, is that you can’t just enter or exit anywhere you like in the case of Shadesmar (well, maybe Elsecallers could, but generally you can’t). And presumably the Cosmere galaxy contains vastly more planets than just those that have Shards and hence perpendicularities on them. So developing an alternative form of FTL travel that doesn’t have that limitation makes complete sense. 

Another interesting thing to think about is what effect building interplanetary/interstellar bases would have on Shadesmar. For example, if they were to construct some kind of Stormlight-powered megastructure in the space between Scadrial and Roshar in the Physical Realm, would that effectively cause Shadesmar to ‘expand’ to accommodate it? 

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It won't even require space stations or outposts for Shadesmar to grow. 

Yes, that's going to create much larger pockets I expansion, but planets with no life on them, like the 10 gas giants in the Greater Roshar System, have slight Cognitive representations due to people think about them. 

So what happens as technology and scientific knowledge progress and become more common? What happens when people start thinking about space as a place that can be traversed? 

I think FTL is going to become much more necessary, because as knowledge and thought about the intervening areas between worlds grows, so will the distance between those worlds in the Cognitive. 

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1 hour ago, Calderis said:

It won't even require space stations or outposts for Shadesmar to grow. 

Yes, that's going to create much larger pockets I expansion, but planets with no life on them, like the 10 gas giants in the Greater Roshar System, have slight Cognitive representations due to people think about them. 

So what happens as technology and scientific knowledge progress and become more common? What happens when people start thinking about space as a place that can be traversed? 

I think FTL is going to become much more necessary, because as knowledge and thought about the intervening areas between worlds grows, so will the distance between those worlds in the Cognitive. 

I agree. I think about this a lot, actually; one of the first questions I wanted to ask Sanderson is how the cognitive realm would be affected by a planet being settled directly between two currently occupied planets.

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59 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

And also, what would an occupied planet that lacked a perpendicularity look like in Shadesmar between two Shardworlds? Does Shadesmar extend beyond Cosmere and into other galaxies as well? Presumably it would have to.

Like what a shardworld would look like except that there would be no glowing pool of liquid, and Yes, Shadesmar extends to other galaxies

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24 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

Like what a shardworld would look like except that there would be no glowing pool of liquid, and Yes, Shadesmar extends to other galaxies

Sorry, that was meant to say 'unoccupied'. Siri's clearly having a bad day. lol. And I know, I was just speculating on the possible implications of that. All the worlds we've seen so far appear to be relatively close together; a few hundred light years or so. But it's interesting to speculate what else might exist out there beyond Shardic territory.

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