How do you feel about Cosmere technology?

[Frustration]

Personally I like my fantasy to reflect the middle ages, maybe some few powers or techs from latter era's but the second guns enter I get a little uncomfortable.

[classicalkhlennium]

I generally feel the same way, but I feel like specifically with Mistborn Eras 2 and 3, they aren't medieval but they're still fantasy, even though they can fall into overlapping genres(Western and Spy novel respectively).

[Karger]

I really think that magictec and steampunk have been overlooked way too often by the fantasy genre.  I am glad that Brandon is actually saying.  "No.  Eventually people are going to figure out guns and trains and steamships.  I am not going to keep everyone in some weird 9th century+some 19th century stuff era."  This keeps cropping up in fantasy when the knights know about the scientific method and can tell time accurately and know how to prepare good incendiary devices and it annoys me a lot.

Edited February 28, 2020 by Karger

[Honorless]

I'm tired of spells and swords, I want spells and science

Edited February 28, 2020 by Dreamer

[Quantus]

I cant wait to see the Scadrial tech progression across the era's, and WOB has mentioned that eventually Fabrial will become a generic term for magic/Investiture device, rather than being specific to Rosharan gem tech.   

[Pathfinder]

One thing I love about Brandon Sanderson's books is that he does something I believe has never been done before. Showed technological progression in his world building with magic. He really considers how magic would affect daily life, and how that could change over time. 

[king of nowhere]

when i had to invent a fantasy world for a D&D campaign, i decided to take a classic fantasy world and advance it by a few centuries. it's always come naturally for me, whenever confronted with fantasy, to wonder "what would happen with more progress"? having magic with late-renaissance  or early industrial tech has always appealed to me. i still hadn't made the next step, to advance it further to modern era or space era (though there is an argument to be made that the star wars universe has many elements that fit more closely in fantasy than in sci-fi), but as soon as i read brandon's plans for mistborn i realize it was the logical prosecution.

so, all hail magitek!

 

also, there is a ton of classical fantasy with medieval stasis out there. probably more than one can read. i don't think we need more of it. better to explore in different directions.

 

[Koloss17]

I love the idea of a world where science and magic intertwine, and finding out how to make technology based on the magic is so cool! I just feel like exploiting the hypothetical in every possible way is awesome and should be done. That is what I love about adding new rules to a world: having it mix with the understood. I am personally happy with both techno and non techno fantasy worlds.

[DiePie]

I think one of Brandon's strengths has been to take a world/magic system, and extrapolating "what would happen in a world like this?", so I want to see where he takes magitec, and I think he's also going out to relatively uncharted territory here, seeing how a world progresses over time while shaped by a hard magic system.

[Elsecaller_17.5]

I've really enjoyed the tech progression on scadrial but the thought of it in Roshar makes me nervous. I hope its almost all magitech and very little normal technological advances. 

Edit: really I want the cosmere to stay fantasy. I want gods and monsters and magic. I worry that as we hit the space age the fantasy will be toned back.

Edited March 2, 2020 by Elsecaller_17.5

[Lucky MOPper]

1 hour ago, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

I want gods and monsters and magic.

Don't worry, magic won't disappear in space. Actually, magic might need to be emphasized more for plausible FTL space travel.

[jamesbondsmith]

One of the things I like about magic/superpower stories is how they affect daily life (I guess it's a bit like literary fiction which focuses on every tiny detail of the characters life, except in a world where they can telekinetically control metal or soulcast one thing into another). Technology affects our daily lives, so it would be interesting to see how it affected the Cosmere

[king of nowhere]

5 hours ago, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

 

Edit: really I want the cosmere to stay fantasy. I want gods and monsters and magic.

it's interesting, actually.

many people, even here, strongly associate fantasy with low tech. some people think that if there is technology, then it's not even fantasy anymore.

except that technology does not in any way preclude "gods and monsters and magic". there really should be no reason to associate fantasy with low tech except tradition.

[Draginon]

I’m someone who loves traditional fantasy but for my own story ideas I always have them post-medieval, anywhere from industrial revolution level to modern, since I wonder so much what a fantasy world would be like if it did progress and wasn’t stuck in the 14th century for 6000 years. One of the aspects I like imagining is how the race relations between humes, orcs, elves, dwarves and other fantasy creatures would change since it would be incredibly unrealistic for the ‘always evil’ race to stay evil and very bad for the ‘always good’ races to always have the moral high ground. Then there could always be the conflict between traditionalists and the modern folks over whether magic or machines are better similar to the ‘old is better vs. new is better’ conflicts we have these days.

[Bookish Ocelot]

I love the idea of fantasy and tech combined. I feel like there's tons of potential there. Robert Jordan scratched the surface a bit with the age of legends. But we barely saw any of that. Other than that, most fantasy I've read is just "ah yes we have been stuck in the 1300s for over 20,000 years" no. stop. I want my spaceship magik battles and things. 

[Rorzikel]

On 3/2/2020 at 3:15 PM, king of nowhere said:

it's interesting, actually.

many people, even here, strongly associate fantasy with low tech. some people think that if there is technology, then it's not even fantasy anymore.

except that technology does not in any way preclude "gods and monsters and magic". there really should be no reason to associate fantasy with low tech except tradition.

I think it’s a matter of relevance. The knights radiant are dramatically reduced in importance when anti-aircraft guns come into play. Widespread use of Surge fabrials lessen their esoteric impact as well.

Edited March 5, 2020 by Superbus

[ftl]

I'm looking forward to it. I think a magitech world could be something that Sanderson can pull off that basically no other writer can, because of the way he's set up his magic system to follow internally consistent rules.

[king of nowhere]

6 hours ago, Superbus said:

I think it’s a matter of relevance. The knights radiant are dramatically reduced in importance when anti-aircraft guns come into play. Widespread use of Surge fabrials lessen their esoteric impact as well.

i actually prefer that scenario. i don't like when the magical people are the only ones who actually matter. i don't like the lone hero doing everything. i prefer that the muggles can contribute. and i find that being the only superpowered guy around lessens the heroism of a hero. "I will do it because someone has to" is better than "i will do it because i am invulnerable and shoot lasers from my eyes and everyone else cannot"

that said, wax is not reduced of importance just because there are guns. spensa's powers make her useful even with future tech available.

Edited March 5, 2020 by king of nowhere

[Pathfinder]

8 hours ago, Superbus said:

I think it’s a matter of relevance. The knights radiant are dramatically reduced in importance when anti-aircraft guns come into play. Widespread use of Surge fabrials lessen their esoteric impact as well.

Fabrials are still limited in what they can do. They can do one thing, and do that one thing well. Radiants are not as limited. So I do not think they would become useless in a magitech society that is coming. I would like to see technology develop that could counter radiant abilities, but that does not mean the radiants would become useless. Anti aircraft may be able to windrunners a run for their money, and maybe skybreakers as well (we don't know if skybreakers can use division at range or not), but there is still 8 other orders with different abilities that you will need counters for as well. I think it would make more sense that technology, fabrials, and radiants are used side by side on either side of a conflict, than purely one against the other. 

Edited March 5, 2020 by Pathfinder

[Retrac]

I want magic guns. Like shard guns.

Edited March 5, 2020 by Retrac

[ToaCalune]

2 minutes ago, Retrac said:

I want magic guns. Like shard guns.

Yes! That is amazing! Or guns that cause withering like shades.

[Djerf]

Well to me the idea of mixing magic and science is nothing new and it feels quite logical to do so when applicable, the perpetual medieval setting needs to be justified and not the other way around. 

 

On the other hand I do come to the cosmere for magic and there is the possibility that, just like how I don't like some of Brandons characters, I won't like the way he turns the cosmere into science fantasy. 

[+Oltux72]

14 hours ago, Superbus said:

I think it’s a matter of relevance. The knights radiant are dramatically reduced in importance when anti-aircraft guns come into play.

 

They are not. The Windrunners are. A Dustbringer with a gun becomes more terrifying. A Soulcaster who knows about TNT, let alone plutonium, is awesome. Good luck using a radar-controlled gun against Lightweavers. And so on.

14 hours ago, Superbus said:

Widespread use of Surge fabrials lessen their esoteric impact as well.

I see that point. The magic obviously can become ubiquitous. The mages become redundant. Any sufficiently automated magic becomes indistinguishable from advanced technology.

[Weltall]

40 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

They are not. The Windrunners are.

Even the Windrunners might not be. AA weaponry isn't generally designed to hit human-sized targets (unless you're looking at anti-missile weapons specifically, in which case a human is a relatively 'big' target in terms of a radar cross-section) and their accuracy requires some method of locking onto the target in order to direct that fire, which is going to be a challenge and subject to all the various tricks that exist in reality, plus whatever can be done with Investiture. Then there's the fact that we know their hypothetical powers include creating sufficiently stable atmospheric bubbles that a Windrunner could travel through space unassisted, which means they can probably do equally funky things to assist against incoming fire as we see Wax do with his steel bubble, like Kaladin's trick of deflecting the stormwall briefly but on a more contained scale. And that's before you factor in that they can manipulate gravity. Brandon has confirmed that a Reverse Lashing can alter the trajectory of bullets, so I'm sure the Windrunners could come up with creative tricks to make sure that bullets aimed at them go astray from far enough away to comfortably miss the Windrunner.

It's still going to be an interesting intersection of technology and magic and no doubt some arms races will result, but AA weaponry by itself isn't going to neutralize a Windrunner.

[Fezzik]

On 3/5/2020 at 10:46 AM, ToaCalune said:

Yes! That is amazing! Or guns that cause withering like shades.

Have you read the bands of mourning broadsheets? Nazh uses a "shade" gun.