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History/Timeline of hemalurgic constructs in the Final Empire (When did Inquisitors first appear?)


robardin

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While Ascended, Ruin "directed Rashek to an understanding of hemalurgy", leading to his creating the three hemalurgic constructs of the Final Empire: Inquisitors, koloss, and kandra.

Koloss and Inquisitors are made from an original, base human (like Marsh, or that overseer obligator that Kelsier talks to in the Cognitive Realm in Secret History), who is then enhanced with hemalurgic spikes that have stolen Investiture (at a net loss of power) from multiple other humans, by killing them.

The kandra are different: they are mistwraiths, a living and breeding species created by Rashek with the power of Preservation by altering Feruchemists into something immortal but without Feruchemy - and with some kind of a block to Connection that renders them essentially mindless, which can be restored (if they had a mind before, like the First Generation had) or given one (by creating that Connection) with the right kind of hemalurgic spikes, that were also created by killing people.

We know that Rashek was unable to kill with the power of Preservation, as he tried to kill Kwaan with it and got "bounced" instead.

So it stands to reason that he could not directly and immediately create hemalurgic spikes while Ascended, either, as that would involve killing people. He (with an assist from Ruin) had expanded his mind properly while Ascended to understand the hemalurgic principles involved for the three constructs, but would then have to go about killing people to make them once de-Ascended, right? I mean, he rewrote himself to be a superstrong Mistborn on top of being a Feruchemist, so killing people to make spikes wouldn't exactly be a challenge.

So, what was the timeline? Some hemalurgic constructs must have taken much longer to create than others.

Koloss are quick and easy to create, but it takes time to make enough of them to form an army. Even if you trust the koloss with the task of making more koloss (as Ruin later did - it's unclear if Rashek did as well), he clearly took care to keep secret the nature of their construction (that, or very effectively stamped out knowledge of the secret once he become The Lord Ruler). Still, it's conceivable he started making koloss very soon.

I personally like to think his first priority was to make kandra Blessings. We know from The Hero of Ages that Rashek returned his personal Feruchemist friends (including the fellow packmen who had gone up to the Well of Ascension with him and Alendi) to sentience after turning them into mistwraiths, and that the longer a sentient being is in mistwraith instead of kandra form, the more "holes" are formed in their memories. So I would think Rashek (if he cared about his friends) would have made creating spikes for them his first priority.

The really intriguing question is when did Inquisitors arrive on the scene. By Vin's time, they are essentially "super obligators" in the Steel Ministry (the Canton of Inquisition), drawn from the ranks of ordinary obligators. And per Yomen, Ministry doctrine holds that there were SIXTEEN original Inquisitors! (Which could just be legend, of course.)

But Inquisitors are made from not just one, but multiple Allomancers, and Allomancers would have been quite rare for quite some time after Rashek's Ascension! In the Final Empire, most if not all Allomancers are noblemen, descended through multiple generations from people that Rashek gave lerasium beads to recruit them as allies, making them very strong Mistborn.

Allomancers did exist and continued to exist on Scadrial without this lerasium injection, but rarely. So to get the upwards of 7 or 8 Allomantic spikes needed to make an Inquisitor, aside from the steel ones from ordinary humans, he would have needed 7 or 8 sacrificial Allomancers. For sixteen of them, in one go? Hmm.

And without skaa Mistings around to harvest, which would take generations of illegal hanky-poo to pop up, where are those early Allomancers going to come from? The very small pool of "natural born Mistings"? Or... The descendants within 1 or 2 generations of the lerasium Mistborn, or even himself? (Whoa.)

Perhaps the earliest Inquisitors were all made from Mistborn (and relatively strong ones) and didn't need as many, or even any, Allomantic spikes?

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10 minutes ago, robardin said:

I personally like to think his first priority was to make kandra Blessings. We know from The Hero of Ages that Rashek returned his personal Feruchemist friends (including the fellow packmen who had gone up to the Well of Ascension with him and Alendi) to sentience after turning them into mistwraiths, and that the longer a sentient being is in mistwraith instead of kandra form, the more "holes" are formed in their memories. So I would think Rashek (if he cared about his friends) would have made creating spikes for them his first priority.

A reasonable and I believe supported deduction.  He now has supperpowers and a bunch of kandra sidekicks.

11 minutes ago, robardin said:

The really intriguing question is when did Inquisitors arrive on the scene. By Vin's time, they are essentially "super obligators" in the Steel Ministry (the Canton of Inquisition), drawn from the ranks of ordinary obligators. And per Yomen, Ministry doctrine holds that there were SIXTEEN original Inquisitors! (Which could just be legend, of course.)

I believe that this would have been much latter.  He would want to conquer the world first.  Inquisitors are enforces they are of limited use on a wide scale battlefield where they can get flanked and overwhelmed.

13 minutes ago, robardin said:

Perhaps the earliest Inquisitors were all made from Mistborn (and relatively strong ones) and didn't need as many, or even any, Allomantic spikes?

If they have no spikes they are not inquisitors.  They were likely made from stronger alomancers but all alomancy was just stronger back then so that is not noteworthy.

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I had wondered about this recently and went on a bit of a deep dive to figure it out, but didn't really have enough to put together a cohesive theory post. I had arrived at the same conclusion that Rashek could not have created the spikes while holding the power at the Well. I had wondered if maybe the First Generation didn't have spikes because Rashek purposefully made them mistwraiths without the spiritual blockage but upon researching it they do indeed have spikes, so yea he had to of killed a bunch of people shortly after his Ascension. Another missing piece is exactly when did the First Contract get written, how many generations of Kandra grew up without it? From the way Ten-Soon talked about it, it seemed like it was an event that happened in his lifetime but there's no way to be sure. While he was being relatively honest with Vin he was also intentionally leaving certain things out. I'm also insanely curious about the other Kandra "criminals" that were imprisoned for eternity. What did they do to deserve that? What happened to them when Sazed remade the world? So, yea I got more questions than answers but I do like a good question. Though, the OP should note that mistwraiths are not immortal, they do breed and live for about 50 years(or else every mistwraith would be one of the original Terrismen that Rashek turned into mistwraiths). It's only when they're given spikes that they are given a longer lifespan(I don't think they live forever or at the very least they have to deal with consequences for living as long as they do). 

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7 hours ago, Karger said:

If they have no spikes they are not inquisitors.  They were likely made from stronger alomancers but all alomancy was just stronger back then so that is not noteworthy.

Not Hemalurgic Inquisitors.

But as shown by spanish inquisition memes, one doesn't have to have spikes to be an Inquisitor.

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48 minutes ago, RayOfSunshine said:

But as shown by spanish inquisition memes, one doesn't have to have spikes to be an Inquisitor.

One does if one is on scadrial where Inquisitor is the name of a separate race.

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The origin of Inquisitors baffles me.

One of Sazed's epigraphs in HOA says that TLR developed all three kinds of Hemalurgic constructs by holding the power. But another epigraph says that all the "original Inquisitors" had a healing spike created by killing a Feruchemist. But there was only one living Feruchemist, Kwaan, at that point - the others had all just been turned to Mistwraiths!

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For example, all of the original Inquisitors were given a pewter spike, which—after first being pounded through the body of a Feruchemist—gave the Inquisitor the ability to store up healing power.

(HOA CH 36)

This wording rules out TLR creating pre-charged spikes with the power of the Well (without actually killing anyone) also.


Probably TLR developed Inquisitors as a concept with the expanded mind he had at the Well, but none were actually created for a couple of centuries, until the era when there were enough Feruchemists for the Keepers to be formed (third century after TLR's Ascension, if I'm reading Sazed's comments correctly).

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On 8/1/2019 at 4:58 PM, Harrycrapper said:

Another missing piece is exactly when did the First Contract get written, how many generations of Kandra grew up without it? From the way Ten-Soon talked about it, it seemed like it was an event that happened in his lifetime but there's no way to be sure. 

Actually, this is known: HOA epigraphs Ch 11

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The First Contract, oft spoken of by the kandra, was originally just a series of promises made by the First Generation to the Lord Ruler.

 

TenSoon (3rd generation) tells KanPaar (2nd generation) that they were both there when the service Contracts were written using the First Contract as the basis. The First Contract itself was written by the First Generation:

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7 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

The origin of Inquisitors baffles me.

One of Sazed's epigraphs in HOA says that TLR developed all three kinds of Hemalurgic constructs by holding the power. But another epigraph says that all the "original Inquisitors" had a healing spike created by killing a Feruchemist. But there was only one living Feruchemist, Kwaan, at that point - the others had all just been turned to Mistwraiths! ...


Probably TLR developed Inquisitors as a concept with the expanded mind he had at the Well, but none were actually created for a couple of centuries, until the era when there were enough Feruchemists for the Keepers to be formed (third century after TLR's Ascension, if I'm reading Sazed's comments correctly).

This is my conclusion as well. Even so, it's interesting to think about exactly when that could have happened.

Sazed recalls the history of the Terris Keepers to Vin as:

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"Centuries ago, my people hid away the last few Terris Feruchemists. The Lord Ruler's purges of the Terris people were growing quite violent - this was before he began the breeding program. Back then, we weren't stewards or servants - we weren't even skaa. We were something to be destroyed.

Yet, something kept the Lord Ruler from wiping us out completely. I don't know why - perhaps he thought genocide too kind a punishment. Anyway, he succeeded in destroying our religion during the first two centuries of rule.

Rashek didn't want the Terris eliminated, he wanted Feruchemy eliminated. Who knows, if he'd renewed the Well as he had planned and with a few generations with no more Feruchemists appearing, he might have elevated the surviving Terrisfolk in TFE.

And presumably, his "quite violent purges" of Feruchemists would include harvesting them for hemalurgic spikes for F-gold to make Inquisitors with. (He doesn't seem to have granted them any spikes for other Feruchemical powers; those came later, with Ruin taking the initiative.)

But wait! I just remembered something...

In The Hero of Ages, Ch. 44, when Elend is debating with Yomen after crashing his ball in Fadrex City, Yomen maintains TLR's high moral ground regarding the routine castrating of Terrismen with this:

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"The sixth-century stewardship program was not even devised by the Lord Ruler. The newly formed Canton of Inquisition proposed it as a means of population control for the Terris, and the Lord Ruler agreed to it provisionally. ... Everyone knows the history of this, Venture."

Whoa whoa whoa. This is two tidbits in one.

The Sixth Century of the Final Empire, at least 500 years after Rashek's Ascension, is about when the Canton of Inquisition was "newly formed". And when the Terris bloodlines for Feruchemy began being documented and tracked and "bred out".

So I figure the timeline as there having been an initial century or two of "increasingly violent purges" of Feruchemists, during which Rashek may have stockpiled spikes for F-gold, or not; and then, after 500 years or so, well after cementing down the Final Empire, he established the Canton of Inquisition.

This may or may not be when he first created the hemalurgic Steel Inquisitors. I don't think all obligators in the Canton of Inquisition were Steel Inquisitors, but given that their mandate was to monitor, regulate, and enforce his regulations regarding Allomancy and (more secretly) Feruchemy and the propagation of bloodlines thereof (nobles x skaa, controlling Terris breeding), such a Canton would have a need for Super-Seekers who could (or, should be able to) overcome any discovered Feruchemists or natural born skaa Allomancers.

And, I think originally Rashek would have been cognizant of the risk of creating hemalurgic pawns for Ruin. He gained an understanding of hemalurgy (was "directed" to it) while Ascended, but only created the weakest of the hemalurgic constructs initinally, and had the sense to warn his friends about the need for "the Resolution".

We also don't know when he started making koloss exactly, but I found this reference in Ch. 19 of The Well of Ascension, when Sazed encounters Jastes' troops (it's also when we, the readers, first see koloss in the flesh from a POV), and reflects on what was known about them:

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...even the books didn't know much. The koloss had been kept separate from mankind for centuries; the Lord Ruler only called upon them in times of great martial need, to quell revolts, or to conquer new societies discovered on the inner islands.

"Kept separate from mankind", or perhaps more accurately, "not yet created from mankind?"

I think Rashek was "taught" how to make kandra by Ruin, with the idea of making mistwraiths to solve the "Feruchemist Problem" with the power of Preservation followed by "Psst, you could keep your friends around afterward forever with hemalurgy, dude, check it out!"

Then, while Rashek was receptive to learning more about hemalurgy, Ruin downloaded the instructions for koloss and Inquisitors to him, as a guide to what else was possible, and "y'know, in case you ever find reason to make these, buddy".

Rashek was wise to the potential for Ruin's eventual control of these constructs, so when he began by restoring his friends to consciousness with spikes, he warned them about the need for them someday to remove them themselves. "There wasn't a 'might' about it."

But, with the passage of hundreds of years, and Ruin's constant whisperings in his head, and constant rebellions that were more and more tiresome to put down, he decided (and was probably suggested to decide): hey, those koloss would sure be handy... And I could delegate control of them with Mistborn, or teams of Soother or Seeker obligators. Why not? What about Ruin? --- I'll worry about that later.

And then finally, after he was alarmed at the spread of skaa Allomancers and the recurring need for Terrisfolk purges due to Feruchemists popping up (which was also emotionally exhausting, for him), he thought or was led to think: I could delegate this with a Canton of Inquisition, those hemalurgic super-Allomancer/slightly Feruchemist creatures would be perfect for being the commandos, and I can always control them... What about Ruin? Well, what's 16 Steel Inquisitors on top of tens of thousands of koloss? I'll figure that out later.

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On 8/6/2019 at 7:40 AM, robardin said:

Rashek didn't want the Terris eliminated, he wanted Feruchemy eliminated. Who knows, if he'd renewed the Well as he had planned and with a few generations with no more Feruchemists appearing, he might have elevated the surviving Terrisfolk in TFE.

Yeah, if he had successfully eliminated Feruchemy, I doubt he would have oppressed the Terris.

Quote

Whoa whoa whoa. This is two tidbits in one.

The Sixth Century of the Final Empire, at least 500 years after Rashek's Ascension, is about when the Canton of Inquisition was "newly formed". And when the Terris bloodlines for Feruchemy began being documented and tracked and "bred out".

So I figure the timeline as there having been an initial century or two of "increasingly violent purges" of Feruchemists, during which Rashek may have stockpiled spikes for F-gold, or not; and then, after 500 years or so, well after cementing down the Final Empire, he established the Canton of Inquisition.This may or may not be when he first created the hemalurgic Steel Inquisitors

I had figured that the Inquisitors (as a Hemalurgic 'species') were older, and what happened then was the establishment of the Canton of Inquisition as an organizational structure within the Steel Ministry. Before that they might have reported directly to TLR without involving the Ministry at all (until TLR changes it at the end of book 1, the Canton of Orthodoxy is nominally 'senior', though I doubt the Inquisitors listened very much), they might have been part of the Canton of Orthodoxy, or something else.

Yes, Sazed's timeline suggests the original "violent purges" of Feruchemy among the Terris began in the 3rd century or thereabouts. Probably the 6th century stewardship program & Canton of Inquisition reorganization was a response to the continuing failure of those purges to eliminate Feruchemy.

On 8/6/2019 at 7:40 AM, robardin said:

We also don't know when he started making koloss exactly

 

Very, very early - Tindwyl's biography of King Wednegon refers to them, and it also mentions food shortages caused by the Deepness, so this is a few years after the Ascension at most. (Which is a bit odd because elsewhere TLR's conquests seem to be implied to have taken far longer...)

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8 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

[The Lord Ruler created koloss] Very, very early - Tindwyl's biography of King Wednegon refers to them, and it also mentions food shortages caused by the Deepness, so this is a few years after the Ascension at most. (Which is a bit odd because elsewhere TLR's conquests seem to be implied to have taken far longer...)

Ahh, nice catch. That's right, this was a pre-Ascension king who attributed his downfall not to "the Conqueror's" koloss, but to the lack of food that resulted from the earlier effects of the Deepness, the Ruin-enhanced mists that choked the crops. And that "The Conqueror", by contrast and by inference, had a ready food supply that he did not.

Which would suggest that it happened within a few seasons of the Ascension... If it's accurate. Because it's curious that King Wednegon didn't mention anything like, I dunno, the sun turning red, the continent changing shape, the food crops turning brown to be able to grow at all in an ash-filled sky, or that Rashek's forces had a stockpile of new generation brown, ash-compatibly-grown foodstuff while he was left with a rotting stockpile of pre-Ascension grains and plants that wouldn't grow any more.

It could very well mean that the "history" that Tyndwyl and Sazed were familar with was already purged or doctored by TLR to leave the core lesson of "food supply is critical for military resitance and conquest, even more so than the advantage provided by having koloss vs. humans", while suppressing things related to how the pre-Ascension world looked and operated (including growing food).

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On 8/9/2019 at 9:53 AM, robardin said:

And that "The Conqueror", by contrast and by inference, had a ready food supply that he did not.

Maybe, not sure we can infer that... Koloss can eat almost anything, there's a comment that it appears that filling their bellies is more important than actual nutritional value. So they wouldn't need stockpiled grain or other human-edible foods. TLR might have had nearly all his human population farming and fought with almost entirely koloss forces.

On 8/9/2019 at 9:53 AM, robardin said:

Because it's curious that King Wednegon didn't mention anything like, I dunno, the sun turning red, the continent changing shape, the food crops turning brown to be able to grow at all in an ash-filled sky, or that Rashek's forces had a stockpile of new generation brown, ash-compatibly-grown foodstuff while he was left with a rotting stockpile of pre-Ascension grains and plants that wouldn't grow any more.

It could very well mean that the "history" that Tyndwyl and Sazed were familar with was already purged or doctored by TLR to leave the core lesson of "food supply is critical for military resitance and conquest, even more so than the advantage provided by having koloss vs. humans", while suppressing things related to how the pre-Ascension world looked and operated (including growing food).

Possible... but we have only a few sentences of a whole book, and Tindwyl is only mentioning the things relevant to the current mystery.


I actually don't think the fact that things were different before the Ascension was secret or considered dangerous by TLR.

Vin thinks:

Quote


He was the creator, protector, and punisher of mankind. He had saved them from the Deepness, then had brought the ash and the mists as a punishment for the people's lack of faith. Vin wasn't particularly religious - intelligent thieves knew to avoid the Steel Ministry - but even she knew the legends.

 

(Mistborn: The Final Empire, Chapter 6)

This seems to imply that the pre-Ascension world being ash-free is 'common knowledge'.

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On 8/2/2019 at 3:28 AM, Harrycrapper said:

 I'm also insanely curious about the other Kandra "criminals" that were imprisoned for eternity. What did they do to deserve that? What happened to them when Sazed remade the world? 

Yeah they were killed by the second generation , and the vacated prison was used to imprison the first generation,  following  the coup de etat . I wonder why they didn't melt down sazed too. Maybe they were still too reluctant about violence. I mean , killing kandra imprisoned for centuries in such conditions was an act of Mercy really.  So I guess Sazed couldn't save them . But he would have gotten the reasons for their imprisonment from the kandra post catecandre. I don't think they were imprisoned for breaking rules like TenSoon did , I think maybe those kandra tried to wipe out humanity or at least kill tlr and then let the chaos that followed wipe out humanity. TenSoon was something of an exception I think. The kandra were already  under a lot of stress due to tlr and tfe death and ruin being released and TenSoon kinda helped ruin getting released so I think the they just wanted a scapegoat and there came TenSoon . 

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6 hours ago, PrinceGenocide said:

Yeah they were killed by the second generation , and the vacated prison was used to imprison the first generation,  following  the coup de etat . I wonder why they didn't melt down sazed too. Maybe they were still too reluctant about violence. I mean , killing kandra imprisoned for centuries in such conditions was an act of Mercy really.  So I guess Sazed couldn't save them . But he would have gotten the reasons for their imprisonment from the kandra post catecandre. I don't think they were imprisoned for breaking rules like TenSoon did , I think maybe those kandra tried to wipe out humanity or at least kill tlr and then let the chaos that followed wipe out humanity. TenSoon was something of an exception I think. The kandra were already  under a lot of stress due to tlr and tfe death and ruin being released and TenSoon kinda helped ruin getting released so I think the they just wanted a scapegoat and there came TenSoon . 

Oh yea, I forgot about that, have an upvote. It's likely that in some way there were plotting against TLR or maybe just tried to escape the Kandra civilization and blend in with humanity. The Steel Inquisitors would probably have been the ones to hunt them down and bring them in, would be pretty easy with emotional Allomancy and their ability to see the Kandras' spikes. 

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12 hours ago, PrinceGenocide said:

 I wonder why they didn't melt down sazed too. Maybe they were still too reluctant about violence.

Also, killing humans is against the First Contract, killing other kandra is technically not - as TenSoon points out.

5 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

 The Steel Inquisitors would probably have been the ones to hunt them down and bring them in, would be pretty easy with emotional Allomancy and their ability to see the Kandras' spikes. 

Eh... I actually can't see how any kandra that just ran away and hid could ever be caught, either by other kandra or Inquisitors, except by really extreme bad luck. TenSoon-as-OreSeur talks about Mistborn being able to find them, but how? Throwing really powerful emotional Allomancy around everywhere on the off chance you hit a kandra doesn't really sound practical.

Inquisitorsight could spot them, but there are maybe three dozen Inquisitors in the entire empire at most (IIRC, per WOB - Kelsier estimates 20 total in the first book). The chances that a kandra living in some out-of-the-way place would ever see an Inquisitor, even in a thousand years, are pretty low.

(And I'm not sure Inquisitors would automatically spot kandra "in passing", though. If they were closely looking at the person yeah, but if the kandra is just one person in a crowd hundreds of feet away, I doubt a Blessing would automatically stand out as different from jewelry, coins, or whatever.)

Either Inquisitorsight or extra-powerful emotional Allomancy would only really be useful if you were trying to pick out a kandra from a relatively small set of suspects. But a kandra who was just hiding, as opposed to carrying out a contract, would presumably pick a place to live where they'd never be around a Mistborn or Inquisitor.

I mean, if TLR told an Inquisitor, "a kandra went rogue, go catch them", how would they even start? Could be anyone of tens of millions of people, or some animal (a kandra who was really paranoid could hide as a fish for a few decades, until any kandra or Inquisitors hunting them assumed they were dead...)

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5 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Also, killing humans is against the First Contract, killing other kandra is technically not - as TenSoon points out.

Eh... I actually can't see how any kandra that just ran away and hid could ever be caught, either by other kandra or Inquisitors, except by really extreme bad luck. TenSoon-as-OreSeur talks about Mistborn being able to find them, but how? Throwing really powerful emotional Allomancy around everywhere on the off chance you hit a kandra doesn't really sound practical.

Inquisitorsight could spot them, but there are maybe three dozen Inquisitors in the entire empire at most (IIRC, per WOB - Kelsier estimates 20 total in the first book). The chances that a kandra living in some out-of-the-way place would ever see an Inquisitor, even in a thousand years, are pretty low.

(And I'm not sure Inquisitors would automatically spot kandra "in passing", though. If they were closely looking at the person yeah, but if the kandra is just one person in a crowd hundreds of feet away, I doubt a Blessing would automatically stand out as different from jewelry, coins, or whatever.)

Either Inquisitorsight or extra-powerful emotional Allomancy would only really be useful if you were trying to pick out a kandra from a relatively small set of suspects. But a kandra who was just hiding, as opposed to carrying out a contract, would presumably pick a place to live where they'd never be around a Mistborn or Inquisitor.

I mean, if TLR told an Inquisitor, "a kandra went rogue, go catch them", how would they even start? Could be anyone of tens of millions of people, or some animal (a kandra who was really paranoid could hide as a fish for a few decades, until any kandra or Inquisitors hunting them assumed they were dead...)

OMG yeah I'd understand why the kandra didn't run away. They hated the pits , wow there is something really different about thier Connection or Determination 

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11 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Also, killing humans is against the First Contract, killing other kandra is technically not - as TenSoon points out.

Eh... I actually can't see how any kandra that just ran away and hid could ever be caught, either by other kandra or Inquisitors, except by really extreme bad luck. TenSoon-as-OreSeur talks about Mistborn being able to find them, but how? Throwing really powerful emotional Allomancy around everywhere on the off chance you hit a kandra doesn't really sound practical.

Inquisitorsight could spot them, but there are maybe three dozen Inquisitors in the entire empire at most (IIRC, per WOB - Kelsier estimates 20 total in the first book). The chances that a kandra living in some out-of-the-way place would ever see an Inquisitor, even in a thousand years, are pretty low.

(And I'm not sure Inquisitors would automatically spot kandra "in passing", though. If they were closely looking at the person yeah, but if the kandra is just one person in a crowd hundreds of feet away, I doubt a Blessing would automatically stand out as different from jewelry, coins, or whatever.)

Either Inquisitorsight or extra-powerful emotional Allomancy would only really be useful if you were trying to pick out a kandra from a relatively small set of suspects. But a kandra who was just hiding, as opposed to carrying out a contract, would presumably pick a place to live where they'd never be around a Mistborn or Inquisitor.

I mean, if TLR told an Inquisitor, "a kandra went rogue, go catch them", how would they even start? Could be anyone of tens of millions of people, or some animal (a kandra who was really paranoid could hide as a fish for a few decades, until any kandra or Inquisitors hunting them assumed they were dead...)

I disagree. The "runaway" Kandra has four options; hide among the nobility, hide among the Skaa, hide among the thieving crews, or hide in the wilderness. I'm ruling out the nobility and the wilderness because the nobility would be idiotic due to the small amount of nobles and I doubt a Kandra would give up civilized life just to live as a fish as you said. They seem to be able to retire after a while serving contracts so giving up and living like an animal just seems illogical to me. Hiding among the normal Skaa may be effective for a time but also seems illogical. Skaa have it as bad as the Kandra do, the exception being that nobles are more violent with Kandra because they know they can't die easily so there aren't many consequences to beating them to death. Still, trading life like that for the life of a Skaa seems like a small improvement and at some point they'll do something that merits death as a Skaa and they'll be outed as a Kandra when they don't die. In Era 2, hiding in the populace would be easy, but in Era 1 the only large group of people was the slave class and there's no way a Kandra could hide forever among them. That leaves the thieving crews and we never saw a rouge Kandra among them or any of the other groups which means if this ever did happen, the Kandra was found and captured. 

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On 8/14/2019 at 9:33 AM, Harrycrapper said:

I disagree. The "runaway" Kandra has four options; hide among the nobility, hide among the Skaa, hide among the thieving crews, or hide in the wilderness. I'm ruling out the nobility and the wilderness because the nobility would be idiotic due to the small amount of nobles and I doubt a Kandra would give up civilized life just to live as a fish as you said. They seem to be able to retire after a while serving contracts so giving up and living like an animal just seems illogical to me.

I didn't mean the fish thing to be permanent, just to disappear for a long time so that anyone who is looking for them gives up. Then come out of the water and take a human form and identity in the Southern Islands or Farmost/Remote Dominance where there is less oversight.

(And I was talking about kandra who had already committed a crime that would get them imprisoned forever, so the retirement thing wouldn't really be an option at that point.)

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In Era 2, hiding in the populace would be easy, but in Era 1 the only large group of people was the slave class and there's no way a Kandra could hide forever among them.

Thing is, we only see the Central Dominance, per WOB the Skaa/Noble relationship is a lot different in some parts of the Outer Dominances, some places skaa can own land and so on. TLR keeps much more control in the Inner Dominances. And a kandra would presumably want to go somewhere far from the center because Inquisitors are largely in Luthadel.

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That leaves the thieving crews and we never saw a rouge Kandra among them or any of the other groups which means if this ever did happen, the Kandra was found and captured. 

I don't think it means that, the main characters wouldn't have known if some random thief they met once was actually a kandra. Sure there weren't any in Kelsier's crew except OreSeur, but in any case, a kandra who decided to hide in the criminal underworld wouldn't pick Luthadel - too many Inquisitors. They'd go for Urteau or Tremredare or Fadrex or something, which we don't see anything of until the Post-TLR collapse is well advanced.

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It's interesting, and probably worth its own fun thread, to speculate and extrapolate about what specific crimes other kandra had committed that merited eternal imprisonment ("ChanGaar"); or how long a rogue kandra on the run could avoid capture, and who would be sent out to do it, and how they would be expected to accomplish it.

I would assume the kandra themselves would be the ones to track down a rogue kandra, but since such a kandra would also be a Contract-breaker, perhaps they could appeal to TLR for help in some way, i.e., an Inquisitor.

The latter might be worth a fanfic write, since this is a scenario Brandon is unlikely ever to sketch himself: a kandra and Inquisitor teaming up to hunt down a kandra on the run, from Luthadel to the Outer Dominances, in the height of the Final Empire.

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