Mapping Scadrial

[Treamayne]

On 12/8/2022 at 7:10 PM, Ookla of axi said:

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that both of these cultures, North and South, have apparently somehow coexisted on the same landmass for 300+ years without any contact.

But they have had contact. Even the Alloy of Law Broadsheet showed:

Spoiler

Is There Life Across the Ocean?

Two years ago, the coastal exploration vessel the Ironsights was taken by a terrible storm and blown into the ocean deeps. Out of sight of land, there was no way to navigate properly, and the brave sailors found themselves praying for their lives as they sailed back eastward in the hopes of striking land.

Harmony favored them, and they eventually found land—a strange island filled with unusual animals. There they also found a refugee, a sole survivor with a terrible story of his ship being taken by a strange seafaring people.

Now, long after their loved ones had given them up for dead, the sailors have returned to civilization, bearing with them this refugee. His story is one of fright, worry, and wonder. Read on, as we uncover the truths of the people of the oceans and their mystical Unknown Metals. Full story, reverse side.

Not to mention the incidents related in BoM (where the Hunter was met in the mountains years before the Allik's ship crashed. There were probably more random incidents in the previous years (like the incident above and similar to random encounters with natives and vikings in North America  in the centuries before Columbus was even born).

I would imagine that since both continents lost 75+% of their population and that hundreds or thousands of miles separate the settled areas of North and South, 300 yrs seems a short amount of time to rebuild infrastructure, regrow population, innovate technology and explore the new/unsettled areas. SA Spoilers:

Spoiler

After all, the Listeners settled the Shatterd plains and wastes of former Natanatan for at much longer (4 millenia~ish) without ever encountering the humans to the north, south, east, and west until Eshonai met Gavilar's hunting party.

 

Edited February 7, 2023 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Jofwu]

3 hours ago, Treamayne said:

But they have had contact. Even the Alloy of Law Broadsheet showed:

You're not really disputing that point though, because the encounter from the Alloy of Law Broadsheet was "300+ years later"

But anyways...

I realized tonight: "Duh. We have the scale on the Elendel Basin map which largely prompted this whole post in the first place." So if you look at the Elendel Basin map, the distance from the center of Elendel to Bilming is almost exactly equal to that 100 mile scale at the top of the page. I'm using those two points because they're relatively distinctive on the new Scadrial map and because if we want to measure a greater distance as a baseline then we start adding more error in to the measurements. So anyways, let's assume that Scadrian miles are the same distance as a standard real-world mile. Which given the whole "Scadrial is like Earth" premise is probably a safe assumption?

When I pull up the new Scadrial map, I'm measuring somewhere between 14.3 and 16.8 pixels from the center of Elendel to Bilming. Just sort of depends on which pixel you measure to. This is going to be the greatest source of error in all this. So from here we back up and measure the distance between lines of longitude, which are equally spaced, and for that I get 125 pixels. This tells me that the distance between lines of longitude is between 745 and 874 miles if we extrapolate our Elendel to Bilming scale? We have to be careful here because the scale on a Mercator projection increases the further you get from the equator. That scale factor is pretty small if we're under 30 degrees latitude though, which seems like a pretty safe bet here. All that to say, that's some more error... but probably not much compared to the error we're already working with.

Now again, "Scadrial is like Earth". We're basically 100% confident that Scadrial is Earth-sized, which means it has a circumference of 24,901 miles. If 745 to 874 miles is 15 degrees as I had been assuming, that means it has a circumference of 18,000-20,000 miles. So there's two possibilities: (1) the scale on the Elendel map is slightly off or (2) these lines of longitude (and latitude) have some other spacing.

I do want to emphasize that (1) is VERY POSSIBLE. There's a scale on the original maps of Alethkar in The Way of Kings. They removed it from the leatherbounds because they realized it was wrong. I actually spoke with Isaac a little bit about it at JordanCon in 2021 and he made some comments about how it's always a bit of a gamble putting scales on these maps. They look nice... but they don't always have these things worked out decades in advance. And if something comes up and they want to make a change... They will. I think it's abundantly clear that the GRID on the Elendel Basin map was made up just to look cool and doesn't really fit into this new "world map" in a logical way. So blindly assuming the scale must be correct is a mistake.

But with that as our only thing to work with, and because this is fun, let's assume it's correct.

For the measurements we have, it suggests the longitude lines are spaced at 10.7-12.6 degrees... out of 360. Now, they could be spaced as 12 degrees. It wouldn't be the most unreasonable number to go with... But it IS odd. And we've been wondering about the possibility of Scadrians using a different number of degrees in a circle... Well, if we back up just a tad, what I'm getting is that there must be 28 and 34 lines of longitude (at 745 to 874 miles spacing).

Hmmm... Suspicious that 32 is within that range... Guess what? If Scadrians use 256 Scadrian degrees (let's call them Sdeg) in a circle (that's 16 squared) that gives you 32 spaces at 8 Sdeg each. That's RIGHT within our margin of error.

To be clear that's 8 Sdeg out of 256 Sdeg. So 8 Sdeg is equal to 11.25 degrees (out of 360 deg).

What that means is the whole map needs to be scaled down even more than what I had before... It actually puts the Northern and Southern continents COMBINED as roughly the size of Africa. And frankly that's enough to make me skeptical about this. Anyways, here's what I come up with adjusting to that scale. I'm... not 100% I can just scale it like this... Someone more familiar with map projections might want to weigh in. (I was assuming the lines at 15 deg and had the grids matched up. If they're supposed to be 11.25 deg now, that means I had to scale the Scadrial map down by 11.25/15--or in this case scale the underlay of Earth up by 15/11.25)

Just to be clear, if you suppose the lines are at 16 Sdegree spacing out of 256 Sdeg, the following is what you get. It seems like the Final Empire region is probably too large at that size to me? And that means the Elendel Basin map scale is off by a factor of 2.

If I had to put money down, I'd still suppose that the lines are at 15 degrees and the Elendel Basin scale is slightly off. The size of the land just... feels more right to me in that one and I'm not sure I have enough faith in the Elendel Basin scale with the "fake" grid on it.

But hey, maybe they're using 256 degree circles and I'm onto something.

@Otto Didact When you've got some free time maybe looking at this map would be fun.

[+Oltux72]

9 hours ago, Ookla of axi said:

All excellent questions.  If the same geophysical laws operate as here on earth, then the Elendel Basin - at sea level and less than 10° from the equator - is in the warmest, wettest, and most consistent climate zone on the planet.  @Oltux72 is correct in comparing its location to that of Dakar on the coast of West Africa, which has average daily temperatures around 28 °C (83 °F) and average night lows of 21 °C (70 °F).  The all-time record low temperature in Dakar is 14 °C (57 °F).

Given that it does snow in Elendel, the warmest place in the world... most OTHER places on Scadrial should be VERY cold indeed.

Yes, so I think Scadrial is a lot farther out from its star, respectively that star is dimmer than our sun. We should also note that Scadrial seems to have a lot less land than the Earth, unless there are even more unknown continents. That should make ocean currents more effective in heat transport and storms not broken up by any land over three quarters of a planet should be fantastic. Brandon has a thing for storms. I do not want to live on an east coast on Scadrial.

9 hours ago, Ookla of axi said:

So the Southern Scadrians have lived for 300+ years in a place too cold for them, where they need magical technology powered by dedicated metalborn slaves just to survive... and never considered moving someplace warmer?  What's Kelsier been doing all this time?  What about Marsh, and Harmony, and all the Kandra?

The implicit assumption being here that major warmer places exist on the planet. If Elendel is what you get in the wet tropics, I'll not bet on that.

9 hours ago, Ookla of axi said:

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that both of these cultures, North and South, have apparently somehow coexisted on the same landmass for 300+ years without any contact.  I guess we are supposed to infer that there is the Scadrian equivalent of the Himalayas separating them... but both sides surely must have had boats for quite a while now, right?  One side has railroads and the other side airships, for Harmony's sake.  By 1850 on earth, people had explored (and colonized) every coastline not covered with ice.

We might assume that the oceans of Scadrial are a bit rougher than ours. In fact Scadrial seems to be on a different period of the supercontinent cycle. And in general has less continental crust.

9 hours ago, Werewolff Studios said:

There's some really fantastic observations here! Personally, I've always seen the Basin itself as magically Invested to create the most livable climate all year round.

I'd argue that it s too cold for that.

9 hours ago, Werewolff Studios said:

We've seen that the Roughs are warmer than the Basin, despite sitting at a similar point above the equator. 

Do we? They are separated from the ocean by substantial mountain ranges. We'd expect them to show climate a lot more continental. Thus the extremes of warmth will be above the Basin's. But that does not make them warmer over all.

9 hours ago, Werewolff Studios said:

Regarding the non-Interactions of the people, I think there are a few points to consider. For one, both societies were almost completely destroyed during the Catacendre, which would've taken a lot of time to recover from - both physically and culturally. We also know that the relatively 'easy' life of the Basin slowed their technological progress and, likely, their explorative progress as well. Why travel over the Himalayas or across tumulted seas when all the food and wealth is in the Basin? 

Colonists in North America in 1600 - a few hundred
Colonists of North America in 1900 - annexing islands in the Pacific and East Asia

The thing is that they have explorers and they do feature in popular culture. And they are mining the Roughs, transporting ores by rail. Shipping the would be a lot cheaper.

9 hours ago, Werewolff Studios said:

Another point to consider is that the Malwish Continent isn't a happy one. We know there's five main cultures throughout the continent, and it's likely they would've been fairly combative over the medallions during the past three-hundred years. Maybe that would've slowed their exploratory progress northward? We don't know how long they've had airships either - that might be a (relatively) recent invention. 

That is more or less the opposites of what we've seen in history. The countries with most wars sent out out most explorers. Cook, La Perouse, Bougainville, Drake ...

By this point I think we need additional parties to explain this. If I may propose

1. Sea monsters - there must be a reason the Malwish went for airships in a big way
2. Koloss - we may be drastically underestimating the number of Koloss. Voyages between North and South over land may run into culinary difficulties. With ordinary people no longer at the food chain's apex
3. the unknown metal constructs mentioned in one of the broadsheets of The Bands of Mourning. Travellers may meet entities that do not want to be met and reported on

 

[AquaRegia]

6 hours ago, Jofwu said:

There's a scale on the original maps of Alethkar in The Way of Kings. They removed it from the leatherbounds because they realized it was wrong. I actually spoke with Isaac a little bit about it at JordanCon in 2021 and he made some comments about how it's always a bit of a gamble putting scales on these maps. They look nice... but they don't always have these things worked out decades in advance. And if something comes up and they want to make a change... They will. I think it's abundantly clear that the GRID on the Elendel Basin map was made up just to look cool and doesn't really fit into this new "world map" in a logical way. So blindly assuming the scale must be correct is a mistake.

I think you have keenly summed up a very important point.  I know I'm guilty of treating the Cosmere as if it were a real-world logical puzzle, and that by "scientifically" collecting data from the novels, stories and WOBs (and maps!), we'll be able to answer every question and solve every mystery.  Unfortunately,

Spoiler

it's really all just made up

and Brandon's ultimate goal is simply to tell stories, not to create bulletproof hyperrealistic astronomical, geophysical or sociopolitical systems.

That said, TERRIFIC work on the scale-sleuthing of the new map!  I'm with you in suspecting the "truth" is likely somewhere between those two options.

[Jofwu]

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

We should also note that Scadrial seems to have a lot less land than the Earth, unless there are even more unknown continents.

There was a Cosmere.es interview from a bit before the TLM release where Brandon said we would get a new map but it would NOT be a map of the whole planet. And probably by Era 3 we would. So there must be more. Now, it's possible the only thing left is the land at the edges of this map and no telling how extensive those get... Regardless, I feel like it must imply there's *something* notable out there.

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

By this point I think we need additional parties to explain this. If I may propose

It is interesting that the AoL broadsheet mentions "a strange seafaring people." I would have assumed it's the Southerners... But maaaaybe there's other people out there???

[StanLemon]

12 hours ago, Jofwu said:

Just to be clear, if you suppose the lines are at 16 Sdegree spacing out of 256 Sdeg, the following is what you get. It seems like the Final Empire region is probably too large at that size to me? And that means the Elendel Basin map scale is off by a factor of 2.

I'm not so sure the Final Empire region would be too big. It was described as taking months via canals to get from the western most regions to Luthadel. That would make more sense if the Final Empire was continental in scale like your second map presumes

[+Oltux72]

18 hours ago, Treamayne said:

I would imagine that since both continents lost 75+% of their population an that hundreds or thousands of miles separate the settled areas of North and South, 300 yrs seems a short amount of time to rebuild infrastructure, regrow population, innovate technology and explore the new/unsettled areas. SA Spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

After all, the Listeners settled the Shatterd plains and wastes of former Natanatan for at much longer (4 millenia~ish) without ever encountering the humans to the north, south, east, and west until Eshonai met Gavilar's hunting party.

 

They wanted to hide, at least their ancestors wanted. And it is inland. I am afraid I have to point out that the first circumnavigation of the Earth happened centuries before, for example, the sources of Nile were scientifically explored and published.

 

14 hours ago, Jofwu said:

measurements. So anyways, let's assume that Scadrian miles are the same distance as a standard real-world mile. Which given the whole "Scadrial is like Earth" premise is probably a safe assumption?

Which real world mile? Why not nautical miles or the Scadrian equivalent?

Yes, Scadrial is an analogue to Earth. But the Earth is larger than peoples using customary British units.

14 hours ago, Jofwu said:

For the measurements we have, it suggests the longitude lines are spaced at 10.7-12.6 degrees... out of 360. Now, they could be spaced as 12 degrees. It wouldn't be the most unreasonable number to go with... But it IS odd. And we've been wondering about the possibility of Scadrians using a different number of degrees in a circle... Well, if we back up just a tad, what I'm getting is that there must be 28 and 34 lines of longitude (at 745 to 874 miles spacing).

Do we know into how many hours the Scadrians split their day?

6 hours ago, Jofwu said:

There was a Cosmere.es interview from a bit before the TLM release where Brandon said we would get a new map but it would NOT be a map of the whole planet. And probably by Era 3 we would. So there must be more. Now, it's possible the only thing left is the land at the edges of this map and no telling how extensive those get... Regardless, I feel like it must imply there's *something* notable out there.

I am already hard pressed to accept one people who are abyssimally bad at seafaring. Yet another?

2 hours ago, StanLemon said:

I'm not so sure the Final Empire region would be too big. It was described as taking months via canals to get from the western most regions to Luthadel. That would make more sense if the Final Empire was continental in scale like your second map presumes

Indeed.

[Frustration]

6 hours ago, Jofwu said:

There was a Cosmere.es interview from a bit before the TLM release where Brandon said we would get a new map but it would NOT be a map of the whole planet. And probably by Era 3 we would. So there must be more. Now, it's possible the only thing left is the land at the edges of this map and no telling how extensive those get... Regardless, I feel like it must imply there's *something* notable out there.

Probably the Maskless.

[+Oltux72]

16 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Probably the Maskless.

And that is a deeply problematic explanation. The more human peoples you add, the less likely is that none of them is nautically inclined. So I think it is likely that the factor we are not getting is not human, or at least not fully human as seen in full Koloss.

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

And that is a deeply problematic explanation. The more human peoples you add, the less likely is that none of them is nautically inclined. So I think it is likely that the factor we are not getting is not human, or at least not fully human as seen in full Koloss.

The Maskless and the Malwish interact to a much greater degree than they do with the North, Allik mentions that they have wars against the Maskless in BoM.

And given the map the Malwish have probably been acting as a barrier between the Maskless and the Basin.

Edited December 9, 2022 by Ookla the Frustrated.

[+Oltux72]

10 hours ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

The Maskless and the Malwish interact to a much greater degree than they do with the North, Allik mentions that they have wars against the Maskless in BoM.

And given the map the Malwish have probably been acting as a barrier between the Maskless and the Basin.

Yes. So you have a nation that is hostile towards another nation on a different continent, yet none of them uses its navy to seek island bases in the ocean to fight the other nation from? Why?

[Frustration]

7 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Yes. So you have a nation that is hostile towards another nation on a different continent, yet none of them uses its navy to seek island bases in the ocean to fight the other nation from? Why?

They could but we would have no way to tell. In order for the Maskless to meet up with the Basin they would have to circle around the entire Malwish continent, without being spotted by the enemy. 

[Jofwu]

On 12/9/2022 at 3:13 PM, Oltux72 said:

Which real world mile? Why not nautical miles or the Scadrian equivalent?

Yes, Scadrial is an analogue to Earth. But the Earth is larger than peoples using customary British units.

Sure, you can go that route if you want.

I don't think Brandon is playing with that kind of pedantry. The point of being Earth-like is "it is what it looks like".

Maybe I'm wrong to assume that, but I'm comfortable with.

On 12/9/2022 at 3:13 PM, Oltux72 said:

Do we know into how many hours the Scadrians split their day?

I don't know off the top of my head, but I'd be extremely surprised if it's not 24 SI hours. See above regarding that assumption.

On 12/9/2022 at 3:13 PM, Oltux72 said:

I am already hard pressed to accept one people who are abyssimally bad at seafaring. Yet another?

Agreed there. But there's more flexibility to explain it away than the Norhterners and Southerners had at least. If it happens.

But it doesn't have to mean there's people out there. Could just be unclaimed land.

[cometaryorbit]

On 12/8/2022 at 6:10 PM, Ookla of axi said:

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that both of these cultures, North and South, have apparently somehow coexisted on the same landmass for 300+ years without any contact.  I guess we are supposed to infer that there is the Scadrian equivalent of the Himalayas separating them... but both sides surely must have had boats for quite a while now, right?  One side has railroads and the other side airships, for Harmony's sake.  By 1850 on earth, people had explored (and colonized) every coastline not covered with ice.

IMO, the big differences are that for Earth in 1850, people had existed on all habitable continents for 10,000+ years, total population was 1.2+ billion, and the world was in an age of colonial empires actively competing for territory.

Scadrial, OTOH, has all its people deriving from 2 small groups after a devastating population bottleneck, and total population is probably tiny*. There isn't anyone to conquer -- most land is simply unpopulated - so colonial empires on the model of Earth of that era just aren't possible. Without that competition of colonial empires, the motivation to explore the world of 16th - 19th century Earth doesn't exist.

The Basin's rich resources give the North no reason to expand, and the medallion dependence probably makes it very hard for the South to expand.

(I think airships are probably very recent, and that's why we're seeing contact now.)

Their lack of interest in sea travel doesn't really strike me as that surprising - with no one to trade with externally (due to a basically empty world) there's much less reason to invest in it.

Also, the "Malwish Consortium" label on the map covers a huge area, and no cities are marked. Perhaps most of their population is very far from the Elendel region (kind of Iike how Canada is huge but most of its population lives in a pretty small area).

The conflict with the Maskless could be fairly recent too. In fact, if only two populations survived the Catacendre, they'd have to be a "breakaway" group. Allik's term "deniers of masks" in BoM could suggest they used to be part of the Southern culture then "denied" it.

*we have no numbers on the Southerners, but Sazed's "others, who were nearly destroyed" comment in SoS could suggest they were actually *worse off* than the North.

Edited December 19, 2022 by cometaryorbit

[AquaRegia]

Those are all perfectly reasonable points, and I'm (gradually) becoming willing to accept the in-universe "reasons" why things are the way they are on Scadrial... but I'm not sure I'm ever going to really buy it.

In our history, conquest has never been the primary motivation for humans to explore the world.  People didn't migrate from Africa to Europe, or from Asia to North America, because they were looking for someone to beat up.  We are instinctively, fundamentally curious.  It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to view Scadrians as humans somehow completely lacking in this one characteristic human trait.

The relevant comparison of Era 2 Scadrial to exploration-era Earth also invites the consideration of another fundamental human quality: greed.  Every major advance in mapping Earth was made by someone looking not for a fight, but a way to GET RICH.  We've seen plenty of textual evidence that Scadrians like accumulating wealth just as much as we do.  The Allomancer Jak stories demonstrate that there is a hunger in Elendel both for adventure and for seeking ancient or mythical treasures.  They have legends of "lost metals" and magical artifacts objectively based in reality; it seems to me that that alone should have been more than sufficient to motivate someone - at the very least - to rusting circumnavigate the coastline of their rusting continent!

It's been 350 years, call it 15-20 generations, since the Catacendre.  People get bored, they get restless, they are curious and greedy.  I don't think it will ever really make sense to me that they progressed to skyscrapers, locomotives, and steel navies, but have never explored the coastline 200 miles from their home, neither on land nor by sea.

The bottom line is that the stories Brandon wants to tell depend on things being as they are.  I'm working on accepting that, even if it doesn't fit my idea of "reality".

[Zapata]

6 minutes ago, Ookla of axi said:

The relevant comparison of Era 2 Scadrial to exploration-era Earth also invites the consideration of another fundamental human quality: greed.  Every major advance in mapping Earth was made by someone looking not for a fight, but a way to GET RICH.  We've seen plenty of textual evidence that Scadrians like accumulating wealth just as much as we do.  The Allomancer Jak stories demonstrate that there is a hunger in Elendel both for adventure and for seeking ancient or mythical treasures.  They have legends of "lost metals" and magical artifacts objectively based in reality; it seems to me that that alone should have been more than sufficient to motivate someone - at the very least - to rusting circumnavigate the coastline of their rusting continent!

We know that many of those gentleman adventurers are phony and just make up or exaggerate their stories. Wax even says of Jak that he at least leaves his manor (implying that others of that type do not). Furthermore, after Wax discovered the Sovereign's Temple, artifacts of the Sovereign began appearing in adventurer stories. People on Scadrial like imagining adventure, but the comfort of the Basin has made them less likely to seek it outside of the Basin. 

[+Oltux72]

On 19.12.2022 at 7:22 PM, AquaRegia said:

Those are all perfectly reasonable points, and I'm (gradually) becoming willing to accept the in-universe "reasons" why things are the way they are on Scadrial... but I'm not sure I'm ever going to really buy it.

I see what you are saying.

On 19.12.2022 at 7:22 PM, AquaRegia said:

In our history, conquest has never been the primary motivation for humans to explore the world.  People didn't migrate from Africa to Europe, or from Asia to North America, because they were looking for someone to beat up.  We are instinctively, fundamentally curious.  It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to view Scadrians as humans somehow completely lacking in this one characteristic human trait.

I do not like to say this, as it has some very evil connotations, but for fairness you could make two arguments:

1. Scadrians are not human. They are artificial constructions after all. It is possible that Ati and Leras left some things out, intentionally or not
2. The Final Empire was not a place whose ruler rewarded curiosity or progress. I fact the opposite was true. That may have triggered a change that goes very deep.

On 19.12.2022 at 7:22 PM, AquaRegia said:

The relevant comparison of Era 2 Scadrial to exploration-era Earth also invites the consideration of another fundamental human quality: greed.  Every major advance in mapping Earth was made by someone looking not for a fight, but a way to GET RICH.  We've seen plenty of textual evidence that Scadrians like accumulating wealth just as much as we do.  The Allomancer Jak stories demonstrate that there is a hunger in Elendel both for adventure and for seeking ancient or mythical treasures.  They have legends of "lost metals" and magical artifacts objectively based in reality; it seems to me that that alone should have been more than sufficient to motivate someone - at the very least - to rusting circumnavigate the coastline of their rusting continent!

True. That drives me personally to conclude that there is an unknown danger that precludes it, unless you are sailing in a very modern ship. It may be as simple as Scadrial's seas harboring life forms that are hostile to wooden sailing ships. The Lord Ruler after all had to keep his people and the control group separate. That means that prior to the introduction of steam engines and air ships, contact was prevented by other factors.

On 19.12.2022 at 7:22 PM, AquaRegia said:

It's been 350 years, call it 15-20 generations, since the Catacendre.  People get bored, they get restless, they are curious and greedy.  I don't think it will ever really make sense to me that they progressed to skyscrapers, locomotives, and steel navies, but have never explored the coastline 200 miles from their home, neither on land nor by sea.

The bottom line is that the stories Brandon wants to tell depend on things being as they are.  I'm working on accepting that, even if it doesn't fit my idea of "reality".

Or there are things on Scadrial that Brandon still wants to tell stories about. We have seen hints like the mysterious metal constructs mentioned in a broadsheet.

On 19.12.2022 at 7:37 PM, Ookla the Observant said:

We know that many of those gentleman adventurers are phony and just make up or exaggerate their stories. Wax even says of Jak that he at least leaves his manor (implying that others of that type do not). Furthermore, after Wax discovered the Sovereign's Temple, artifacts of the Sovereign began appearing in adventurer stories. People on Scadrial like imagining adventure, but the comfort of the Basin has made them less likely to seek it outside of the Basin. 

Settlements in the Roughs are multiple decades old at this time. Its a few weeks by ship along the coast if we are to trust those maps. It is hard to explain why simple fishing vessels did not discover the South centuries ago.

[StanLemon]

8 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

The Final Empire was not a place whose ruler rewarded curiosity or progress. I fact the opposite was true. That may have triggered a change that goes very deep.

This right here, people underestimate how much culture and learned behavior influence what society does. America for example still almost 200 years later for example has many many cultural aspects that were cultivated during the age of manifest destiny. 

Between the harsh treatment TFE would give to people who would be progressive, and the scarceness now being replaced with abundance, I can very much see a cultural shift of those living in the Basin towards contentment

[cometaryorbit]

On 12/19/2022 at 0:22 PM, AquaRegia said:

In our history, conquest has never been the primary motivation for humans to explore the world.  People didn't migrate from Africa to Europe, or from Asia to North America, because they were looking for someone to beat up.  We are instinctively, fundamentally curious.  It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to view Scadrians as humans somehow completely lacking in this one characteristic human trait.

The relevant comparison of Era 2 Scadrial to exploration-era Earth also invites the consideration of another fundamental human quality: greed.  Every major advance in mapping Earth was made by someone looking not for a fight, but a way to GET RICH.  We've seen plenty of textual evidence that Scadrians like accumulating wealth just as much as we do.

I am sure there are some people in any society, including Scadrial's, who are curious... but that tendency can be greatly encouraged, or suppressed, by culture.

And Basin people do explore - but without much support, they don't get very far on a whole-continent scale. Or perhaps they do get far, but their discoveries aren't followed up on so remain rumors or travelers' tales rather than "accepted knowledge".

There *are* stories brought back by explorers - we see that in the broadsheets. What there isn't is a push to *follow up on* discoveries. Curious explorer-types exist, but aren't supported by society (admired from a distance, yes, actually supported with infrastructure, no).

Sure, greed was a huge factor historically, but accumulating wealth was often linked to conquest of or trade with people already there (or trade becoming exploitation becoming conquest as the exploring nation gained power).

It's way, way harder when you have no one to give you hints as to where the valuable resources might be. Also, it's way, way easier to get pretty much everything in the Basin compared to 16th-18th century Spain or 17th-19th century Britain. That shifts the balance from greed encouraging expansion to discouraging it (expansion is not economically a win for Basin people, whereas it was for European nations of that era).

 

Cultural momentum matters, too. After Columbus there was a competition between nations, everyone was exploring and that pushed their competitors to explore.

But then, nothing came of the Norse discovery of the Americas centuries earlier. We don't necessarily know that BoM was the absolutely first contact (actually, the "Visitors from Other Worlds?" broadsheet bit shows that it wasn't). Any earlier contacts just didn't involve governments and didn't become general knowledge.

Edited January 1, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[AquaRegia]

Great points, well said!

[The Bookwyrm]

I decided to post this here instead of making a new thread...

But, out of curiosity, has anyone overlayed the old Final Empire map with the new map we get in TLM? I skimmed this thread, and I noticed no one had tried it.

I just want to see how much is the same, and how much Sazed shifted around during the Catacendre.

And I don't have the level of savviness to do this fairly simple task myself.

[Frustration]

20 minutes ago, The Bookwyrm said:

I decided to post this here instead of making a new thread...

But, out of curiosity, has anyone overlayed the old Final Empire map with the new map we get in TLM? I skimmed this thread, and I noticed no one had tried it.

I just want to see how much is the same, and how much Sazed shifted around during the Catacendre.

And I don't have the level of savviness to do this fairly simple task myself.

Ladylameness made one already, I'll see if I can find it.

Edit: @The Bookwyrm here:

https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/112964-era-1-the-final-empire-and-era-2-combined-maps/

Edited January 18, 2023 by Frustration

[The Bookwyrm]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

Ladylameness made one already, I'll see if I can find it.

Edit: @The Bookwyrm here:

https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/112964-era-1-the-final-empire-and-era-2-combined-maps/

Ah.

Thanks!

[Treamayne]

On 1/1/2023 at 3:31 PM, cometaryorbit said:

And Basin people do explore - but without much support, they don't get very far on a whole-continent scale. Or perhaps they do get far, but their discoveries aren't followed up on so remain rumors or travelers' tales rather than "accepted knowledge".

@StanLemon, @AquaRegia, @Oltux72, @Zapata, @Jofwu

Just as another thought to add to the discussion (because I hadn't seen it mentioned). From AoL Broadsheet:

Spoiler

Out of sight of land, there was no way to navigate properly,

I know this does not address a Brown-Water Navy, but if there is no equivalent of the North Star (and we know there is no moon) - then it is unlikely to have an equivalent of the Sextant. Without that, they seem to have not developed any method of Blue Water navigation. 

If the Bennet were the pre-ascension sea-faring culture that mapped the coastlines (and their knowledge allowed Sazed to restore the continents); but they were cultually wiped out - then where is the impetus for the survivors of the Catacendre to pursue Blue-Water navigation techniques?

Previous discussion focus on "why sail over the horizon" (Trade, exploration, warfare, colonization) - but the 'why' is secondary to 'how.' 

Which begs the follow-on question of - if the Bennet's teachings helped restore the continents then they must have known about the SoScads in pre-ascension times (to map the coastline of the Southern Continent). Did TLR supress and wipe that information to keep the control group separate? Were their navigation techniques also lost/wiped? If the Keepers only had the results of their labor (maps) - but not the techniques of how to navigate and sail Blue-Water - then the Words of Founding would not have that information to learn. 

Without a sailing culture or open-water navigation techniques - any developement in open-water exploration would have to have significant motive to be developed. 

Edited February 7, 2023 by Treamayne
SPAG

[cometaryorbit]

21 hours ago, Treamayne said:

@StanLemon, @AquaRegia, @Oltux72, @Zapata, @Jofwu

Just as another thought to add to the discussion (because I hadn't seen it mentioned). From AoL Broadsheet:

  Hide contents

Out of sight of land, there was no way to navigate properly,

I know this does not address a Brown-Water Navy, but if there is no equivalent of the North Star (and we know there is no moon) - then it is unlikely to have an equivalent of the Sextant. Without that, they seem to have not developed any method of Blue Water navigation. 

If the Bennet were the pre-ascension sea-faring culture that mapped the coastlines (and their knowledge allowed Sazed to restore the continents); but they were cultually wiped out - then where is the impetus for the survivors of the Catacendre to pursue Blue-Water navigation techniques?

Previous discussion focus on "why sail over the horizon" (Trade, exploration, warfare, colonization) - but the 'why' is secondary to 'how.' 

Which begs the follow-on question of - if the Bennet's teachings helped restore the continents then they must have known about the SoScads in pre-ascension times (to map the coastline of the Southern Continent). Did TLR supress and wipe that information to keep the control group separate? Were their navigation techniques also lost/wiped? If the Keepers only had the results of their labor (maps) - but not the techniques of how to navigate and sail Blue-Water - then the Words of Founding would not have that information to learn. 

Without a sailing culture or open-water navigation techniques - any developement in open-water exploration would have to have significant motive to be developed. 

Hmm. Very good point.

Blue water navigation techniques IMO were almost certainly lost before the Keepers existed - iirc they were founded 200+ years post TLR Ascension - and so couldn't be saved. They couldn't be used in ash-world (not only was the accessible sea area pretty small, you couldn't see the stars without Tin Allomancy anyway).

Era 2 Scadrial surely has the astronomical and technological ability to work out good navigation, we had it by the late 18th century, but the theory may not have been worked out into practical advice for sailors if there have only been a couple recent attempts at blue water sailing (like the Ironsights) rather than a continuing subculture of it with a knowledge base. They may just not know a good method of finding longitude, though they surely *could*. The Basin's small land area and reluctance to travel (thus no practical need to determine it) plus small population and narrow academic community- how many different universities do they have? - may mean no one has thought of it. They probably don't have time zones either - the Basin is small enough that it would all be in one time zone by our system.

They may well lack a good North Star (and even for Earth that changes - there was no really good North Star in say Ancient Greek times).

As for whether the SoScads were known in pre-TLR-Ascension times... quite likely (the Bennett apparently explored most if not all of the world's coasts) but they probably weren't "SoScads" yet. There were lots of distinct cultures before TLR messed up the world and shoved everyone into two comparatively small habitable areas. The SoScads probably have *more* continuity with their previous culture, since they didn't have TLR's culture-crushing and homogenizing rule, but I imagine they were still drastically affected. Civilization was falling apart from the Deepness before TLR took power, and TLR's radical changes to the world would have had their own effects on culture even if TLR didn't meddle directly. (And he still might have done something. He probably wanted to limit the South's tech advancement - if they started at ~1800 levels then even with slowed advancement due to a small population and resource base it wouldn't have been that hard to hit a level where reaching the Final Empire was possible in a thousand years. I think we likely could have done it since 1950s-60s via airplanes, though it depends on what the upper atmosphere was like in ashworld times.)

Edited February 8, 2023 by cometaryorbit