Era 3 Villain Theory(Minor SA spoilers)

[Karger]

We don't know much about era three except that it is going to be around 1980s tech level and something of a spy thriller.  However given 80s technology and resources the globe should be pretty well understood.  This means that people should know where the perpendicularities are unless someone decides to keep them a secret(IE the government).  From this I think we should be looking at a threat that comes from the perpendicularities one that the government wants to keep secret.  Aliens!  So far what I have proposed is kind of par for the course believe it or not.  Landing of aliens have been proposed several times by people on the shard but of the alien species we know I can only think of one that is actually super scary and capable of worldhopping.  The sleepless of Roshar.  I imagine a Rosharan sleepless with a grab bag of magical gizmos from across the cosmere and some innate abilities that have been acquired as well.   Such a villain would be super hard to kill and could be played a lot of different ways.  What does the morality of a never sleeping thousand year old immortal look like?

What do you all think?  Also how on earth does one defeat such a person?  

Edited February 26, 2020 by Karger

[Elsecaller_17.5]

1 hour ago, Karger said:

What do you all think?  Also how on earth does one defeat such a person?

Capture it, try to reverse engineer the connection to its hordelings to track then all down, systematically destroy each hordeling, and then kill the main body.

[Karger]

5 minutes ago, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

Capture it, try to reverse engineer the connection to its hordelings

You think the connection is traceable?  Also how does one capture such a being?

6 minutes ago, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

and then kill the main body.

It could have a good 10 main bodies if it wanted to.

[Elsecaller_17.5]

37 minutes ago, Karger said:

You think the connection is traceable?  Also how does one capture such a being?

Put it in a glass jar?

38 minutes ago, Karger said:

It could have a good 10 main bodies if it wanted to.

Can they?

[Honorless]

'Villain', you missed an 'i'

[Karger]

25 minutes ago, Dreamer said:

'Villain', you missed an 'i'

Thanks.

[+ILuvHats]

How you defeat them depends on what the Sleepless is doing. If they're just gathering information and remain spread out among their hordelings, eradicating them is virtually impossible. On the other hand, if their objective requires social interaction, they'll need to form a body for periods of time. And if you know what to look for, it's not that hard to distinguish Sleepless from humans. If you actually find them, bring explosives, which I'm sure will be available at that time, whether they're all ettmetal-based or the current technologies include traditional incendiaries as well. It would be damnation difficult to surprise the Sleepless, but it's not out of the question. Especially if Kandra help in the investigation.

[Use the Falchion]

Interesting concept! I still think Brandon might still with the Mistborn serial killer angle, but I wouldn't hate to see the alien angle either! Although when I think of alien invasions, I think more of the 1950's, almost B-rated movies than I do the 1980's (which is all Cold War to me). 

[Karger]

1 hour ago, Use the Falchion said:

I still think Brandon might still with the Mistborn serial killer angle

The Mistborn turning out to be more then just a mistborn makes a lot of sense as a last minute reveal.  Also we have already met evil Mistborn before.  I suppose taking them down without being a mistborn could be interesting but with aluminum bullets it is not like they are invincible. 

[+Oltux72]

9 hours ago, Karger said:

We don't know much about era three except that it is going to be around 1980s tech level and something of a spy thriller.  However given 80s technology and resources the globe should be pretty well understood.  This means that people should know where the perpendicularities are unless someone decides to keep them a secret(IE the government).

In that case the perpendicularities would be watched and guarded. And they would have traffic through them. Unless Harmony blocks them, in which case the whole point would be moot. In fact I cannot see how you would not have some kind of controls and guards on accessible perpendicularities at that level of technology in a reasonable open country. Idle curiosity seekers will use them, especially in a world with adventureres living from publishing, and public opinion will demand at least some check points and patrols.

[Karger]

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

And they would have traffic through them

They might have some government approved traffic but relations with southern scadrial might be tense and by stopping casual perpendicularity access you stop a security nightmare.

[+Oltux72]

2 minutes ago, Karger said:

They might have some government approved traffic but relations with southern scadrial might be tense

So the Soyherners have a perpendicularity of their own? If so the Northerners must guard theirs.
If not we must allow for some treaty that allows the Southerners to use it. And they would use it, just to keep up appearances. Hence the North would guard it. And if thensions are very bad they would guard it to secure themselves against umpleasant surprises.

2 minutes ago, Karger said:

and by stopping casual perpendicularity access you stop a security nightmare.

Right. But that implies troops (well probably a specialised constablury unit) there. How would an Aimian get through? He would have to emulate somebody known and that in a very short time. And a simple X-ray would reveal them or even drawing blood for a medical exam.

I just cannot see anybody but a Kandra, Lightweaver or Returned pull this off. And they wouldn't endanger their mission by becoming a serial killer.

[Karger]

9 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

So the Southerners have a perpendicularity of their own? If so the Northerners must guard theirs.

They get Ettmental somehow.  Also we saw one getting into the northern perpendicularity prior to international travel.

10 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

How would an Aimian get through? He would have to emulate somebody known and that in a very short time. And a simple X-ray would reveal them or even drawing blood for a medical exam.

He might fight his way through.  Maybe he is some kind of fullborn elantrian sleepless(or something to that effect).

[Pathfinder]

Hordlings can only be so far from the full group, so theoretically if you find one, the rest are not far behind. Now what that range is, I do not believe we know, but that would at least give the hunters some means of narrowing down the search to a degree. 

[+Oltux72]

1 hour ago, Karger said:

They get Ettmental somehow.  Also we saw one getting into the northern perpendicularity prior to international travel.

That can just as well argue for them having to use the northern one

1 hour ago, Karger said:

He might fight his way through.  Maybe he is some kind of fullborn elantrian sleepless(or something to that effect).

OK, a bgood bloodbath in the afternoon is supremely relaxing . I like gratitious violence at least as much possibly much more than the next man. I could accept a probing attack or a campaign of saotage against Scadrial. But in this case the question best be simply put as:
Why would he do that?

[Karger]

Just now, Oltux72 said:

That can just as well argue for them having to use the northern one

No you can't.  The only way between continents that we know is the flying ships of the southerns which need ettmetal.

1 minute ago, Oltux72 said:

Why would he do that?

Because they won't let him through so he just smashes his way through.

[+Oltux72]

18 hours ago, Karger said:

No you can't.  The only way between continents that we know is the flying ships of the southerns which need ettmetal.

That is kind of circular. If there is an alternate souce of ettmetal, the problem goes away.

18 hours ago, Karger said:

Because they won't let him through so he just smashes his way through.

You can explain an alien elite fighter fighting his way into Scadrial.

You can explain a serial killer, even an alien serial killer.

But the combination defies logic. Why would a powerful alien force his way into Scadrial just to become a serial killer?

[+robardin]

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

You can explain an alien elite fighter fighting his way into Scadrial.

You can explain a serial killer, even an alien serial killer.

But the combination defies logic. Why would a powerful alien force his way into Scadrial just to become a serial killer?

Huh. Have you never seen the movie Predator?

As for a Dysian Amian being super hard to kill, we've only seen two of them (not counting stray singleton hordelings) in POV descriptions: Arclo with Lift, and the smoking pile of dead "cremlings" in one of Dalinar's visions of Aharietam, the one where he sees Jezrien falsely telling the people that they'd finally won for good. So it's certainly possible to kill one and I'm not sure it involves hunting down each individual hordeling and smushing it.

[Karger]

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

That is kind of circular. If there is an alternate souce of ettmetal, the problem goes away.

Exactly.  So I assume an alternate source of ettmetal.  If it is anything like other godmetals it should only be available at a perpendicularity.  As such they have one.

 

Edited February 27, 2020 by Karger

[+robardin]

29 minutes ago, Karger said:

Exactly.  So I assume an alternate source of ettmetal.  If it is anything like other godmetals it should only be available at a perpendicularity.  As such they have one.

What? Really? I think you're confusing liquid "Shardpools" representing Perpendicularities of a Shard's power, versus "god metals" which appear to require conscious effort from a Shard to manifest.

Atium was apparently automatically formed at the Pits of Hathsin in the Final Empire, but that was because of how Preservation set it up: that was the godmetal form of the significant chunk of Ruin's power that Lerase had splintered away to hide as a metal burnable by Allomancy, while engineering it so that Mistings, not just Mistborn, appeared who could do so.

Lerasium was not known to be naturally occuring: there were two beads left at the Well of Ascension from the number that Rashek went about getting at some point after his Ascension, which no doubt tipped him off as to what it would do and where they were located. They didn't grow back the way the atium did, and per that WoB, they pre-existed Rashek's Ascension. Where and why and how Leras created them we don't know, except it was probably to enable Mistborn and stronger strains of Allomancy on Scadrial as part of his Plan, and Rashek snagged them to seed the "nobility class" of the Final Empire instead of having Allomancy occur more broadly in the general populace of Scadrial.

As for other godmetals we've seen, or were heavily implied to be godmetals, they are: the "red spotted spike" in Bleeder (presumed to be "bavadium" as some kind of interference from Autonomy), the gold/white metal with a gemstone in the pommel Moash used on "Ahu" (presumed to be "raysium"), and the Solid Investiture metal of Honorblades and Shardblades being of Honor ("tanavastium"). All created on purpose and for a purpose.

[Karger]

55 minutes ago, robardin said:

What? Really? I think you're confusing liquid "Shardpools" representing Perpendicularities of a Shard's power, versus "god metals" which appear to require conscious effort from a Shard to manifest.

No I am really not.  The only times we have seen a consistent renewable amount of a god metal is at a perpendicularity.  The Pits of Hethsin.  Shardblades are wierd and not renewable.  Broadly speaking the best way to get investature is to go to a perpendicularity.  It makes way more sense to assuming Harmamonium leeks through the SR from a perpendicularity then that Harmony just created some somewhere.

[+robardin]

52 minutes ago, Karger said:

No I am really not.  The only times we have seen a consistent renewable amount of a god metal is at a perpendicularity.  The Pits of Hethsin.  Shardblades are wierd and not renewable.  Broadly speaking the best way to get investature is to go to a perpendicularity.  It makes way more sense to assuming Harmamonium leeks through the SR from a perpendicularity then that Harmony just created some somewhere.

Yes and THAT was the special, not the general case. God metals don't occur naturally at a Perpendicularity, like condensation; we have never see that. The liquid "pooling" is natural, however.

The atium geodes formed at the Pits was not a passive action of Ruin but an active one of Preservation, and there was never a mechanism for lerasium to naturally "grow" the way that atium did.

The Pits were "Ruin's Perpendicularity" on Scadrial and destroying them ruptured it mainly because so much of Ruin's power was concentrated there, I suppose. A very early WoB (from 2008) suggests that the dark lake that Alendi and his party encounter on the way to the Well of Ascension, as described in his log book, was Ruin's Perpendicularity, and that it still existed in Vin's time "but underground", which could mean "transformed into atium" (which seems unlikely, since that wasn't something Rashek did but Leras) or perhaps somehow co-located with the geode-forming Pits by Rashek (similar to how he rearranged the world to hide the Well of Ascension).

I don't think it's quite right to say one can "get Investiture" at a Perpendicularity, either. It's simply a kind of indentation in the universe, which can then be used to portal to and from the Physical Realm into the other two realms. True, immersing into a Shardpool seems to have... Effects... Under certain conditions, but not the same effect as using or obtaining that Shard's magic; Raoden being immersed in the pool near Elantris didn't do very much. And I do not think drinking from the liquid at the Well of Ascension would have made one a Mistborn, though I could be wrong.

Edited February 27, 2020 by robardin

[+Oltux72]

5 hours ago, robardin said:

Huh. Have you never seen the movie Predator?

The predator was strictly speaking not a serial killer. And he was not an elite fighter. He was a hunter.

5 hours ago, robardin said:

As for a Dysian Amian being super hard to kill, we've only seen two of them (not counting stray singleton hordelings) in POV descriptions: Arclo with Lift, and the smoking pile of dead "cremlings" in one of Dalinar's visions of Aharietam, the one where he sees Jezrien falsely telling the people that they'd finally won for good. So it's certainly possible to kill one and I'm not sure it involves hunting down each individual hordeling and smushing it.

Flamethrower

[Karger]

4 hours ago, robardin said:

Yes and THAT was the special, not the general case. God metals don't occur naturally at a Perpendicularity, like condensation; we have never see that. The liquid "pooling" is natural, however.

The pooling liquid is just the godmetal in liquid form and investiture does leek from all perpendicularities in one form or another.

[Frustration]

On 2/25/2020 at 4:38 PM, Karger said:

What do you all think?  

I think Odium will be the villain, or maybe he only comes around in Era 4 my personal opinion is that he is the cosmere big bad for the ultimate climax. I actually think that he is behind Trell(I know a lot of people think it's Autonomy I'll have to check white sand for the exact connection but until then this is my cannon.)