How many Mistborn in the early Final Empire?

[Mistchemist16]

Allomancy was always on a downwards curve, starting from Rashek’s Ascension. There aren’t even any known Mistborn in Era 2. But it does make me curious about how many Mistborn there were in the early final Empire, when Allomancy was stronger. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the only thing we really know is that Mistborn were used to hunt Kandra. I also think it’s fair to assume the highest amount of Mistborn at one time would’ve been somewhere in the first few hundred years. The sweet spot where the nine original lerasium Allomancers had the most Mistborn descendents but before Mistings began to appear more often.

For those of you who know population dynamics, any estimates for how common Mistborn might have been in the early Final Empire? I know there’s a lot we can’t know for sure, but I’m curious to know the math. 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Mistchemist16

[StanLemon]

It's honestly hard to judge, considering the population of TFE there were likely at least a few hundred throughout the entire empire. Possibly into the low thousands. The problem is that noble houses kept their Mistborn a secret as long as possible so it makes estimations difficult.

Throughout the books themselves, not counting artificial Mistborn like Elend, we have a confirmed 9 Mistborn. Gemmel, Kelsier, Antillius Shezler, Vin, Crews Geffenry, Shan Elariel, the Mistborn working with Shan to assassinate Elend, the Mistborn at the beginning of Well of Ascension, and Zane.

[alder24]

8 hours ago, Mistchemist16 said:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the only thing we really know is that Mistborn were used to hunt Kandra.

Remember, in the early days of The Final Empire Allomancy was so strong that Mistborn didn't need duralumin to control hemalurgic constructs - single zinc/brass Misting was enough to control Kandra. HoA ch 21

Quote

It should be no surprise that Elend became such a powerful Allomancer. It is a well-documented fact—though that documentation wasn't available to most—that Allomancers were much stronger during the early days of the Final Empire.

In those days, an Allomancer didn't need duralumin to take control of a kandra or koloss. A simple Push or Pull on the emotions was enough. In fact, this ability was one of the main reasons that the kandra devised their Contracts with the humans—for, at that time, not only Mistborn, but Soothers and Rioters could take control of them at the merest of whims.

Apparently Kandra were hunted and killed for the first few centuries, this shifts the timeframe of when Allomancy was strong enough for singular Mistborn/Misting to control Kandra up to this point at least.

9 hours ago, Mistchemist16 said:

For those of you who know population dynamics, any estimates for how common Mistborn might have been in the early Final Empire? I know there’s a lot we can’t know for sure, but I’m curious to know the math. 

It's really hard to say how many Mistborn there were. TenSoon said (WoA ch 22) that during early centuries of the Final Empire there were more Allomancers than when Vin was alive, which makes sense because Allomantic genes were stronger. Looking at Straff and his kids, he had an unknown number of kids, but only one of them, Zane, was a Mistborn, and 18 was Mistings, but Mistborn were even rarer than that, as Breeze, Ham and Clubs have their own Misting teams. The best we have is WoB about the number of Mistings/Ferrings in Era 2, but that's when everyone could be a Misting, in early Era 1 it was mostly nobles, so you would have something like 1% of an 1% of total population.

Spoiler

Kaymyth (parapharased) (paraphrased)

I asked another question about the population levels of Mistings, Ferrings, and Twinborn.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The numbers in the [Alloy of Law Mistborn Adventure Game] supplement are off. (It states the occurrence of Mistings/Ferrings is 1 in 50 people.) He said that they're not terrible, but they definitely are shown as somewhat more common than they really are. But he also said that they're not nearly as rare as people seem to think; for example, he stated that virtually everyone would know at least one Coinshot. So there are definitely a lot of Allomancers around.

And the occurrence of Twinborn would not be a normal statistical spread (alas).  As folks opined before in this thread, the Terris folk do tend to keep somewhat to themselves, so there's not a huge amount of population mix.  So Twinborn will be rarer.

I did point out that there had to be some mix, else we'd be seeing full Feruchemists around, and to that he mostly just smiled and looked mysterious.  As he does.

Footnote: Kaymyth later clarified that Brandon said that the MAG numbers are too high.
ConQuest 46 (May 22, 2015)

 

So let's try to estimate something like that. We know population of the Final Empire during times of Vin:

Spoiler

wackyHair

What's the population of the shardworld's we've seen so far (even in very general terms, like one's much bigger than the others or something)?

Brandon Sanderson

Scadrial is certainly the least populated of the major shard worlds. Then Nalthis, I'd guess, followed by Roshar, and finally Sel--which likely has the largest population. I would have to look closely to see which is bigger between those last two.

Phantine

Does a population of about 100 million during The Final Empire (with 1-2 million in Luthadel), and around 15 million during Alloy of Law (with about 5 million in Elendel) seem right?

Brandon Sanderson

Have to RAFO this for now, for reasons I can't explain without giving spoilers.

Phantine

How about as far as Elend/Wax knows, at the beginning of their respective series?

Brandon Sanderson

Then those numbers, if they're off, are at least close.

faragorn

Interesting that Sel has such a large population, given that the actual numbers of soldiers shown seem to be quite small.

Brandon Sanderson

Let's just say that Opelon has an inflated opinion of its own size in relation to the rest of the world.

Footnote: The RAFO about the Scadrian population may be due to the existence of the Southerners, which had not been revealed as of this time.
/r/books AMA 2015 (June 8, 2015)

So it's around 100 mil. Using Medieval Europe population numbers, and growth rate per century, we can estimate how big was empire's population in earlier centuries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_demography#Demographic_tables_of_Europe’s_population

Average growth rate per century is around 10%. In 500 years Europe population grow by 60% from 56.4 to 90.7 mil. This mean that in the year 500 of TFE, there was around 60 mil people, 54.5 mil in the year 400, 49.5 mil in the year 300, 45 mil in the year 200, 40.9 mil in the year 100, and around 37 mil in the year 0. 

The percentage of nobility in medieval Europe was around 3%. Clergy was 5-10%, but let's not count them, only nobles. However I think that in fully enslaved society those numbers would be even lower, but let's assume there were 3% of nobles in the Final Empire.

In the year 100, there were 1.2 mil nobles, in the year 200 1.3 mil, in the year 300 1.5 mil. 

From this, based on the WoB, which said that 2% being Misting/Ferring is too high, let's assume that only 0.1% is the correct number. and taking only nobles into account, as among Skaa at that times it would be far lower, hidden and uncommon, it gives us:

In the year of 100, there were 1200 Mistings, in the year of 200 there were 1300 Mistings, in the year of 300 there were 1500 Mistings. 

And let's again assume that Straff's 1:19 proportion is the correct one in the early ages of TFE, that gives us:

In the year of 100, there were 63 Mistborns (direct descendants of the original 9), in the year of 200 there were 68 Mistborns, in the year of 300 there were 79 Mistborns.

 

I think these numbers look "reasonable". Mistborn were rare, Breeze said it to Vin when they first met. Since the year 300 we can assume that genes began rapidly deteriorate and Mistborn numbers started to drop in favor of Mistings (from 1:19 to lower), and the percentage of people that were Misting would drop lower from 0.1%, but the genes were more mixed into the Skaa population so the overall numbers of Mistings started to rise a bit. Even though the population would continue rising up to 100 million people, the number of Mistborn would not exceed 79 anymore, as, like TenSoon said, there were more Allomancers in the early centuries of TFE than later. This would eventually tie up nicely with low dozens of confirmed Mistborn in the final years of TFE, lot's of Misting among skaa, nobles and the Ministry, There was around 20-30 Inquisitors at that time, each of them required around 9 Allomantic spikes, but they lived a bit longer, and spikes can be reused, that would mean Inquisitors alone would require around 200-300 Mistings/Mistborns every 2 centuries to create new members - and those were captured among Skaa mostly. Most of those Misting/Mistborn would eventually end up in Luthadel, as that was the center of the Empire, and if your noble family had a Mistborn, then they could risk rising up among most important nobles in the Empire. The same would go with Skaa and the Ministry - it's easier to hide in the city of 1 million people, and the Ministry needed Mistings for their hidden Soothing stations in the city. Mistborn found among Obligators would become Inquisitors, and those among Skaa would be most likely caught and spiked to steal A-Atium from them.

What do you think? Looks good or too low/high?

[therunner he/him]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

So it's around 100 mil. Using Medieval Europe population numbers, and growth rate per century, we can estimate how big was empire's population in earlier centuries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_demography#Demographic_tables_of_Europe’s_population

Average growth rate per century is around 10%. In 500 years Europe population grow by 60% from 56.4 to 90.7 mil. This mean that in the year 500 of TFE, there was around 60 mil people, 54.5 mil in the year 400, 49.5 mil in the year 300, 45 mil in the year 200, 40.9 mil in the year 100, and around 37 mil in the year 0. 

The percentage of nobility in medieval Europe was around 3%. Clergy was 5-10%, but let's not count them, only nobles. However I think that in fully enslaved society those numbers would be even lower, but let's assume there were 3% of nobles in the Final Empire.

In the year 100, there were 1.2 mil nobles, in the year 200 1.3 mil, in the year 300 1.5 mil. 

From this, based on the WoB, which said that 2% being Misting/Ferring is too high, let's assume that only 0.1% is the correct number. and taking only nobles into account, as among Skaa at that times it would be far lower, hidden and uncommon, it gives us:

In the year of 100, there were 1200 Mistings, in the year of 200 there were 1300 Mistings, in the year of 300 there were 1500 Mistings. 

And let's again assume that Straff's 1:19 proportion is the correct one in the early ages of TFE, that gives us:

In the year of 100, there were 63 Mistborns (direct descendants of the original 9), in the year of 200 there were 68 Mistborns, in the year of 300 there were 79 Mistborns.

 

I think these numbers look "reasonable". Mistborn were rare, Breeze said it to Vin when they first met. Since the year 300 we can assume that genes began rapidly deteriorate and Mistborn numbers started to drop in favor of Mistings (from 1:19 to lower), and the percentage of people that were Misting would drop lower from 0.1%, but the genes were more mixed into the Skaa population so the overall numbers of Mistings started to rise a bit. Even though the population would continue rising up to 100 million people, the number of Mistborn would not exceed 79 anymore, as, like TenSoon said, there were more Allomancers in the early centuries of TFE than later. This would eventually tie up nicely with low dozens of confirmed Mistborn in the final years of TFE, lot's of Misting among skaa, nobles and the Ministry, There was around 20-30 Inquisitors at that time, each of them required around 9 Allomantic spikes, but they lived a bit longer, and spikes can be reused, that would mean Inquisitors alone would require around 200-300 Mistings/Mistborns every 2 centuries to create new members - and those were captured among Skaa mostly. Most of those Misting/Mistborn would eventually end up in Luthadel, as that was the center of the Empire, and if your noble family had a Mistborn, then they could risk rising up among most important nobles in the Empire. The same would go with Skaa and the Ministry - it's easier to hide in the city of 1 million people, and the Ministry needed Mistings for their hidden Soothing stations in the city. Mistborn found among Obligators would become Inquisitors, and those among Skaa would be most likely caught and spiked to steal A-Atium from them.

What do you think? Looks good or too low/high?

To me it feels a bit low, but you did great job of sourcing your hypothesis and it seems a reasonable estimate.

Only thing I would adjust would be that clergy should be included in the number of nobles (as they were sourced from them), so that would increase it from 3% to ~10% (taking average).
However, as you state, in fully enslaved society the ratio could be different, and since Skaa were of lower intelligence and more docile early on, this would bring the percentage back down. But, not all were Skaa, as TLR was conquering other societies. So I would probably go for something like ~5% noble population?

That would raise the numbers a bit, but no by that much, to something like ~132 Mistborn being sort of soft statistical cap.

Still though, Mistborn would be much more rare than I thought! ~1:100 000! Which feels too low.

Edited April 6, 2023 by therunner

[alder24]

5 minutes ago, therunner said:

Only thing I would adjust would be that clergy should be included in the number of nobles (as they were sourced from them), so that would increase it from 3% to ~10% (taking average).
However, as you state, in fully enslaved society the ratio could be different, and since Skaa were of lower intelligence and more docile early on, this would bring the percentage back down. But, not all were Skaa, as TLR was conquering other societies. So I would probably go for something like ~5% noble population?

Yeah, I realized after writing it that Obligators were always from noble houses, but I came up to the same conclusions as you, because of the slave society.

The most important numbers, and most uncertain, are the percentage of Misting in the population and proportion of Mistborn to Misting, but even with some variations, it would still put the number of Mistborn in high tens or low hundreds. 

[Mistchemist16]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

What do you think? Looks good or too low/high?

I think it looks great! As you said, it does track with what we can infer. But the other interesting thing is that the lerasium probably would’ve gone farther without the Final Empire. Among the biggest things stopping Mistborn from being more common

1. Scadrial’s era 1 population was probably already off thanks to living in the North Pole. At least that was the impression I got, since one of the WoBs you mentioned had Scadrial as the least populated Shardworld

2. Nobles were designed to be less fertile than normal. So less Allomancer kids, especially in those early stages before the alterations were basically undone.

3. The skaa bloodlines weren’t allowed to have Allomancy, so more potential Mistborn branches brutally cut off. 

4. Despite noble marriages keeping Allomancy locked among their numbers, Mistborn probably wouldn’t be hooking up that often. They would generally have to keep their powers secret. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible for marriage alliances to be formed on Allomancy, but they would probably only have one Mistborn at most

But even then, Mistborn would still be pretty rare. TLR and the nine original Allomancers wouldn’t be enough people to keep the trait going forever, especially as it declines over time.

On a side note, do we know if any of the original nine lerasium born were female? Harmony does refer to kings in HoA chapter 65, but that could just be the majority. Maybe Lutha was one of the nine. Who knows? 

“He could have, I suppose, kept Allomancy secret and used Feruchemists as his primary warriors and assassins. However, I think he was wise to choose as he did. Feruchemists, by the nature of their powers, have a tendency toward scholarship. With their incredible memories, they would have been very difficult to control over the centuries. Indeed, they were difficult to control, even when he suppressed them. Allomancy not only provided a spectacular new ability without that drawback, it offered a mystical power he could use to bribe kings to his side.”

[cometaryorbit]

On 4/6/2023 at 9:03 AM, alder24 said:

Yeah, I realized after writing it that Obligators were always from noble houses, but I came up to the same conclusions as you, because of the slave society.

The most important numbers, and most uncertain, are the percentage of Misting in the population and proportion of Mistborn to Misting, but even with some variations, it would still put the number of Mistborn in high tens or low hundreds. 

TFE has a higher noble to skaa ratio than historical societies with nobles and peasants. It's something like 1:10 overall, 1:3 in Luthadel. (Which makes sense, Luthadel is both huge and dense and so requires a lot of logistics to keep running. It wouldn't work with a nearly all illiterate population.)

So about 10 million nobles in the entire FE.

I also don't think FE demographics are Medieval Europe like. There's a lot of major differences:

- TLR's meddling with fertility

- the weird climate's implications for agriculture

- the "closed system" nature of the Final Empire (no contact with external peoples) meaning no chance for introduction of plagues from outside like the Black Death

- lack of large scale wars (only border raids and skirmishes with bandits, in marginal areas which are probably relatively low population anyway)

- skaa being treated worse than most medieval peasants.

I would think TFE (given its stable / relatively low seasonality, and somewhat artificial, climate, and much better than medieval shipping infrastructure) probably lacks really dramatic weather driven famines as well as plagues and wars. Local crop failures (eg volcanic eruption) aren't so disastrous with a canal system as good as theirs, and large scale ones probably don't happen. So you're not going to get large population crashes.

But the terrible treatment of skaa will lead to a lot of extra deaths.

So I think that TFE will have slower growth than the medieval "good" times but also lack crashes. Its population might be fairly near constant for most of its history, after a huge crash at the beginning with the Deepness destroying crops and Alendi/Rashek's wars (Scadrial started out as Earthlike and with early 1800s tech, and Earth's population then was about 1 billion).

--

House Venture had two dozen Mistings in Luthadel early in book 1 (according to Dockson, so this probably excludes Straff's secret ones... who might not have been in Luthadel at that time anyway).

Kelsier says that the Ministry must have recruited across the entire Central Dominance to gather 130 Mistings for the Soothing stations ... but they were looking only for Soothers and Seekers, and surely most Mistings stay with their noble House, so there are surely thousands and probably tens of thousands of Mistings in the Central Dominance.

But due to the skewed nobility ratio in Luthadel the other Dominances presumably have less.

Mistborn, though, are way rarer. They're probably mostly limited to the major or Great Houses and very rare even there.

--

I'd expect the number of Mistborn to have peaked a couple centuries in, or maybe sooner. If some of the early kings were polygamist (like many kings in RL history) they could have had a huge number of descendants in just a few generations.

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[alder24]

32 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

TFE has a higher noble to skaa ratio than historical societies with nobles and peasants. It's something like 1:10 overall, 1:3 in Luthadel. (Which makes sense, Luthadel is both huge and dense and so requires a lot of logistics to keep running. It wouldn't work with a nearly all illiterate population.)

1:10? Where did you get that number? 10% of Scadrial was nobles? That doesn't check out at all. Especially when you mention Rashek changing the fertility rate. Many skaa in Luthadel were of "middle" class, like Clubs, craftsmen, who would be able to read.

[cometaryorbit]

25 minutes ago, alder24 said:

1:10? Where did you get that number? 10% of Scadrial was nobles? That doesn't check out at all. Especially when you mention Rashek changing the fertility rate. Many skaa in Luthadel were of "middle" class, like Clubs, craftsmen, who would be able to read.

This WoB: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/379/#e12788

Brandon says it's rough, and "I believe", so it could be more like 12 or 15 to 1 overall (though Luthadel is 3:1). But still more than most historical societies with nobility.

It's not that unheard of though. The Polish-Lithuanian szlachta nobility were maybe 10% of the population.

The fertility differences are long gone by Vin's era.

"Middle class" skaa like Clubs were unusual exceptions. I don't think they are a significant percentage.

[alder24]

37 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

This WoB: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/379/#e12788

Brandon says it's rough, and "I believe", so it could be more like 12 or 15 to 1 overall (though Luthadel is 3:1). But still more than most historical societies with nobility.

If it's 10%, then the number of Allomancers is either lower (less than 0.1% which I assumed) or there is a lot of Mistings (3x my number, ~4500) but the percentage of Mistborn is lower instead (less than 1:19 which I assumed).

Or the numbers are the same, and the maximum number of Mistborn would be around 260. Which I think is a lot. But that's in the early centuries (3rd), where there were more Allomancers than during Vin times, like TenSoon said, so it still is reasonable.

But then is the 10% mentioned by Brandon the number of all nobility + obligators? Obligators were only from noble houses, and I was counting without them. If yes, many of those mistings would be Obligators, and we know they were used. Depending on the nobility and the Ministry, you might get something closer to 5% nobles + 5% obligators, which is not unreasonable to assume that many nobles would join religious organization, like what was happening in Europe.

37 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

It's not that unheard of though. The Polish-Lithuanian szlachta nobility were maybe 10% of the population.

Yes but there was no slavery in the Commonwealth.

TFE society is far closer to Russian serfdom, where in 1857 37.8% were serfs, around 18% were non-peasants. But this is early industrial society. Is there historically a society almost fully enslaved like TFE? I'm not familiar with anything like this. 

37 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

The fertility differences are long gone by Vin's era.

Yes, but we're counting at the beginning of TFE, so it was still important at that time. So there might be fewer than 10% nobles, but greater than 5%.

51 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

"Middle class" skaa like Clubs were unusual exceptions. I don't think they are a significant percentage.

I disagree, there were a lot of shops and workshops like this. But they would be still far less numerous than normal skaa (like 10-20% of skaa in Luthadel, including their workers)

[Mistchemist16]

2 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I also don't think FE demographics are Medieval Europe like. There's a lot of major differences:

- TLR's meddling with fertility

 

I don’t know if this affects your calculations at all, but I also found this WoB about the fertility. It seems to suggest a lot of adjustments came from regular urbanization and propaganda, with little relevance from magic fertility changes. Make of it what you will

Quote

<snip>

Phantine

>While he couldn't change genetics, his work here did make people start to look at things like class and clothing more than accents or racial identifiers.

How did the 'skaa/noble' class genetic tinkering work out, anyway? Did the leadership of every nation just wake up the next morning and find themselves taller, more intelligent, and less fertile?

Brandon Sanderson

Most genetic differences between skaa and noble were exaggerated, even fabricated, by noble culture as justification for their perceived superiority. Height differences due to nutrition, 'intelligence' due to education and societal expectations, fertility due to common factors in urbanization. The LR did try some minor tinkering, to be played out over time through genetics, but in the end these changes weren't very successful.

 

 

8 minutes ago, alder24 said:

If it's 10%, then the number of Allomancers is either lower (less than 0.1% which I assumed) or there is a lot of Mistings (3x my number, ~4500) but the percentage of Mistborn is lower instead (less than 1:19 which I assumed).

One other thing to consider. Most Mistborn would probably lie and claim to be a Misting of their favorite metal. That would make them fit in better with the nobility while also hiding their true abilites. So theoretically, people may have believed there were more Mistings than there really were, no matter what. But I doubt that factors in since we are taking about overall population

16 minutes ago, alder24 said:

But then is the 10% mentioned by Brandon the number of all nobility + obligators? Obligators were only from noble houses, and I was counting without them. If yes, many of those mistings would be Obligators, and we know they were used. Depending on the nobility and the Ministry, you might get something closer to 5% nobles + 5% obligators, which is not unreasonable to assume that many nobles would join religious organization, like what was happening in Europe.

The Steel Minsitry adds a bit of an interesting angle. On the one hand, it can very much prove the power of its god. On the other, the role of obligators is different from our priests. Obligators also served bureaucratic roles and were meant to emphasize loyalty. I don’t actually know if that would be a turn off or not. But it may be worth keeping track of the differences, just in case. 

[cometaryorbit]

3 minutes ago, alder24 said:

If it's 10%, then the number of Allomancers is either lower (less than 0.1% which I assumed) or there is a lot of Mistings (3x my number, ~4500) but the percentage of Mistborn is lower instead (less than 1:19 which I assumed).

I think it's the latter: there's a ton of Mistings for every Mistborn. The Ministry can recruit over 90 Soothers just from the Central Dominance. If all 8 generally-known types are equally common, that means close to 800 available to them in the Central Dominance alone. But surely most Allomancers stay with their Houses. So I'd expect thousands of known noble Mistings in the Central Dominance (and that excludes undiscovered or known-only-to-the-Ministry types, and half-skaa Mistings, and secret noble Mistings of the known types like Straff's).

Mistborn are very rare and special. Mistings are not that unusual in the Luthadel underground- there are whole teams of them - but Vin is only the 2nd other half-skaa Mistborn Kelsier's ever known of.

The 19:1 ratio can't be extrapolated because Venture is specifically a very strong line, and Straff is an Allomancer. It would be much lower for average nobles with neither parent being a Great House line, much less Allomantically poor bloodlines like the Cetts.

--

I don't think obligators are 5% of the population, or even close.

--

13 minutes ago, alder24 said:

TFE society is far closer to Russian serfdom, where in 1857 37.8% were serfs, around 18% were non-peasants. But this is early industrial society. Is there historically a society almost fully enslaved like TFE? I'm not familiar with anything like this.

I don't think so (at least if you mean large-scale societies, not just a sugar plantation island in the Caribbean which was just a small part of a larger empire). The closest might be Sparta, where the helots were the majority of the population. Though whether they were more like serfs or like slaves is debated. Arguably the former.

But that was very much pre-industrial, and IIRC that demographic imbalance is part of what wrecked them: certainly their society became shaped by the need for relatively few citizens to control a much larger helot population, as the imbalance grew over time.

In general this kind of thing wouldn't be stable in RL, and doubly so in a society that needs to support a 1+ million city.

But then, RL societies don't have an immortal invulnerable god-emperor and a squad of near-unkillable super-powered Inquisitors and armies of koloss to squash rebellions.

TLR's system was rather poorly designed and maintained only by overwhelming force to prevent effective rebellion, IMO.

 

15 minutes ago, alder24 said:

If it's 10%, then the number of Allomancers is either lower (less than 0.1% which I assumed) or there is a lot of Mistings (3x my number, ~4500) but the percentage of Mistborn is lower instead (less than 1:19 which I assumed).

Or the numbers are the same, and the maximum number I disagree, there were a lot of shops and workshops like this. But they would be still far less numerous than normal skaa (like 10-20% of skaa in Luthadel, including their workers)

I think most shops are run by nobles. Skaa having the ability to deal in coin is kind of the exception.

Nobles aren't necessarily powerful or important, most are more like employees of the major or Great Houses.

[cometaryorbit]

6 minutes ago, Mistchemist16 said:

I don’t know if this affects your calculations at all, but I also found this WoB about the fertility. It seems to suggest a lot of adjustments came from regular urbanization and propaganda, with little relevance from magic fertility changes. Make of it what you will

[...]

The Steel Minsitry adds a bit of an interesting angle. On the one hand, it can very much prove the power of its god. On the other, the role of obligators is different from our priests. Obligators also served bureaucratic roles and were meant to emphasize loyalty. I don’t actually know if that would be a turn off or not. But it may be worth keeping track of the differences, just in case. 

The fertility changes have basically disappeared centuries before Vin's time (as ought to have been expected! Low fertility traits will get selected out, especially since TLR couldn't completely prevent interbreeding. That was a really dumb move on TLR's part.)

But they were real once, and might matter for the demographics of the early centuries. How much they'd matter depends on the details of what was changed, whether the early kings were polygamist, etc etc.

TFE isn't a very religious society. Elend says in WoA the nobles mostly see the religion as a justification for their rule and otherwise don't think about it much. The fact that someone as educated as him barely knows the stories about the Well is really telling. He says they're basically taught not to worry about religion, let the obligators handle it.

Sure, people accept as fact that TLR is divine - but that's not in itself an argument to devote ones life to religion in a context where that isn't expected of you. TLR's religion is very worldly.

[alder24]

6 minutes ago, Mistchemist16 said:

The Steel Minsitry adds a bit of an interesting angle. On the one hand, it can very much prove the power of its god. On the other, the role of obligators is different from our priests. Obligators also served bureaucratic roles and were meant to emphasize loyalty. I don’t actually know if that would be a turn off or not. But it may be worth keeping track of the differences, just in case. 

Considering that Obligators were always present at every noble gathering, and were the legal witness to every trivial contract made between nobles, many nobles from lesser houses would consider this a great improvement in their position, giving them more power than mere lesser noble. And being a Misting/Mistborn might be even known to increase your status among obligators, encouraging more Misting to join the Ministry.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Yomen Is a Seer

That raises the question of how Yomen discovered that he was a Seer. He mentions that atium was too valuable to waste on testing for atium Mistings. That's true, but incomplete. The Lord Ruler did test his obligators for the power, particularly the high-ranking ones. Those he found were told of their power and used as an extra level of security. There weren't many, but there were some—and they tended to rise very quickly in the ranks (like Yomen) and be given important positions. Yomen's power with atium made him a valuable secret weapon, and when in a position of power, he could use his ability to quell rebels or perform feats of wonder to keep the people in line.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (April 15, 2010)

 

5 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

But surely most Allomancers stay with their Houses.

I tend to disagree. Keep in mind, there were like 9 Great Noble Houses in TFE, accounting only for a small percentage of all nobility. Most nobles were of lesser houses, some aligned with great houses, but most were just independent, working on their own. For many of them, becoming an obligator would be an improvement in their social status and would bring more power not only to the individual, but also to the whole house. 

Going back to the Commonwealth - there were only around 80 magnats houses, the richest of the richest noble houses, most were far poorer than them. 20% of nobles didn't have any land, 40% were possessing a part of a village or few households in a village, 23% were engaged in trade activity. Only 17% of Commonwealth's nobles did not have to farm the land or work themselves, including those 80 magnat houses. For most nobles (like the one from TFE prologue) becoming an obligator would be a great increase in social position, that could lead to the increase in power of your house. Just like with clergy in our world.

24 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

The Ministry can recruit over 90 Soothers just from the Central Dominance. If all 8 generally-known types are equally common, that means close to 800 available to them in the Central Dominance alone.

Where is that 800 number comming from? 4500/8 = 562 across whole empire. Most of them would be in Central Dominance, which leave pleanty of Mistings for Ministry to gain. And that's from the year 300, not 1000. 

 

26 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Mistborn are very rare and special. Mistings are not that unusual in the Luthadel underground- there are whole teams of them - but Vin is only the 2nd other half-skaa Mistborn Kelsier's ever known of.

The 19:1 ratio can't be extrapolated because Venture is specifically a very strong line, and Straff is an Allomancer. It would be much lower for average nobles with neither parent being a Great House line, much less Allomantically poor bloodlines like the Cetts.

Yes, but we're still talking about the early ages of the Empire, not during the times of Vin. Allomancy was much stronger in genes, and that's why I assumed the number 1:19, because later it would drop to a lower proportion, as Allomantic genes would become weaker. This is the only number we have about the proportion of Mistborn to Misting to go with. I know it’s not perfect, and likely it was lower, but that’s all we got.

30 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

But then, RL societies don't have an immortal invulnerable god-emperor and a squad of near-unkillable super-powered Inquisitors and armies of koloss to squash rebellions.

TLR's system was rather poorly designed and maintained only by overwhelming force to prevent effective rebellion, IMO.

I agree.

[cometaryorbit]

The 800 is from 3 Soothers per station x 32 stations = 96 Soothers. Times 8 types of publicly known Mistings is about 800.

Even if half of the public noble Mistings end up in the Steel Ministry, that's 1600. If 25% do, that's 3200.

Plus secret noble Mistings (which seem very common) and part-skaa illegal Mistings. Just for the Central Dominance alone (which admittedly has the highest noble:skaa ratio, but the other four Inner Dominances should also have significant numbers.)

OTOH, Terris should have none except maybe a few obligator overseers, and the other four Outer Dominances seem thinly populated, and the noble ratio is lowest on the fringes.

These are the numbers for Vin's time, yeah but if there were more Allomancers in the past then her time sets a minimum for what the peak could have been like.

[alder24]

46 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

The 800 is from 3 Soothers per station x 32 stations = 96 Soothers. Times 8 types of publicly known Mistings is about 800.

Even if half of the public noble Mistings end up in the Steel Ministry, that's 1600. If 25% do, that's 3200.

Plus secret noble Mistings (which seem very common) and part-skaa illegal Mistings. Just for the Central Dominance alone (which admittedly has the highest noble:skaa ratio, but the other four Inner Dominances should also have significant numbers.)

That's not a good way to estimate. You're starting by listing all known numbers (one), and then make a long list of unknown. Everything outside of 93 is unknown. That's why I started with the base percent of Allomancers among the population, which includes all of your numbers and works very well with the number 96. All public and secret Allomancers are included in calculations. And those 96 were secret, not public Mistings.

But that doesn't matter, with the correction to 10% of nobles (including Ministry), the total number of Allomancers would be around 4500-5000 in the year 300. And because total population of the Empire was around 50 mil in that year, population of Luthadel would be around 0.5 mil, not 1 mil, so that's half the size or more, so half as much soothing stations and Soothers - 48 (if that was introduced at that time at all).

Proportion of Mistborn to Misting was probably lower than 1:19, because I can't imagine 200 Mistborn (out of total 264) jumping around Luthadel at night - quite crowded roofs  

[Mistchemist16]

32 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Proportion of Mistborn to Misting was probably lower than 1:19, because I can't imagine 200 Mistborn (out of total 264) jumping around Luthadel at night - quite crowded roofs  

Rooftop mist parties every night! 

But to be fair, Mistborn would only really be jumping around on missions. Brandon has described conflicts with Mistborn as similar to mutually assured destruction. No house leader wants to bring them out because they and their loved ones are next on the chopping block. So the only time the roofs would be crowded would be in a major house war and the amount of those can be counted on your fingers. Though it does make you wonder what the house war would be like in year 200 or 400, when everyone has Mistborn. As well as how many times Mistborn were used during the Fibal Empire (since MAD is in effect)

Quote

Secondly, there is the feel in this world about using Mistborn–it’s a little like the modern idea of Mutual Assured Destruction. If both parties have Mistborn, and one attacks, there will be retribution. People tend to hold their Mistborn back, using them only in emergencies, lest they unleash something dangerous in return.

No matter how many Mistborn there are, the vast majority of them are probably pretending to be Mistings of one type or another. Few would flaunt their true power and even fewer would pretend to have no powers (might as well take the excuse to openly use one). 
 

Wonder which Mistings they chose. Bet Coinshot, Tineye, and Thug were the most common. Some social ones like Shan could pick Rioter or Soother (though they wouldn’t outright claim to be one). A few odd ones might bluff Lurcher or Seeker. No one would ever choose Smoker though. Probably makes them pretty trustworthy friends (wouldn’t want to accidently be dealing with a secret Mistborn)

Edited April 17, 2023 by Mistchemist16

[cometaryorbit]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

 And because total population of the Empire was around 50 mil in that year, population of Luthadel would be around 0.5 mil, not 1 mil, so that's half the size or more, so half as much soothing stations and Soothers - 48 (if that was introduced at that time at all).

Proportion of Mistborn to Misting was probably lower than 1:19, because I can't imagine 200 Mistborn (out of total 264) jumping around Luthadel at night - quite crowded roofs  

See, I'm also skeptical that it scales like this. IMO it's just as possible that the FE population has been essentially constant for most of its history, or slightly declining with agricultural capacity if TLR's climatic changes weren't perfectly stable. (Were the Outer Dominances always as empty as they seem to be? They're almost left off the newer map, which is an in-world artifact.)

200 Mistborn in a city of 500,000 just doesn't seem that crazy to me in an era when Mistborn were supposed to not be that rare. 264 in the whole Empire honestly feels low to me for that era. One early near-Lerasium-strength bloodline king who specifically tried to have a bunch of Allomancer children (which seems an obvious enough strategy that I'd be surprised if someone in the first few generations didn't try) could easily account for that many, if basically all their descendants would be Mistborn that early.

--

I think secrecy of Mistborn has to be a later development, once they became relatively rare. At the beginning, descendants of one of the original nine kings would be assumed to be Mistborn.

We know there have been past House Wars, I wouldn't be surprised if the reluctance to have Mistborn battles came out of a really bad early one (maybe that was part of what ended the period of more-common Mistborn, by killing off a lot of them!)

Edited April 18, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[alder24]

10 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

See, I'm also skeptical that it scales like this. IMO it's just as possible that the FE population has been essentially constant for most of its history, or slightly declining with agricultural capacity if TLR's climatic changes weren't perfectly stable. (Were the Outer Dominances always as empty as they seem to be? They're almost left off the newer map, which is an in-world artifact.)

Why would you think that? Before Rashek Ascension there was a lot happening. Deepness was killing people and preventing farming, which likely caused famine. Alenthi was waging wars with the whole world for decades, and was called "the Conqueror'', because he defeated and conquered several countries, uniting almost the whole world. Just before Rashek Ascension there would be millions of casualties.

And then Rashek Ascended and it just got worse. He spent the first years of his reign to conquer the world once again, and crush all resistance (and there were many rebellions in the early years). The last religion was said to be destroyed around the year 500. This would once again create an enormous death toll on the population. Not to mention drastic changes in the environment would make early farming really difficult, which could cause more famine and further deaths.

That's why I think it's best to assume normal population growth, like it was in late medieval Europe. Population rarely stagnates, or declines, the last time the population was in decline in our history was because of the Black Death in the 14th century. And before that it was during and after the Roman Empire collapsed. And because we try to estimate based on almost no data, we need to reach into Earth's history for that data, and go with that. Few last centuries of the Final Empire might have stagnated, but I highly doubt the early ones were like that.

11 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

200 Mistborn in a city of 500,000 just doesn't seem that crazy to me in an era when Mistborn were supposed to not be that rare. 264 in the whole Empire honestly feels low to me for that era. One early near-Lerasium-strength bloodline king who specifically tried to have a bunch of Allomancer children (which seems an obvious enough strategy that I'd be surprised if someone in the first few generations didn't try) could easily account for that many, if basically all their descendants would be Mistborn that early.

Keep in mind after the first century there would be around 4000 Allomancers (with nobles at 10%, from which 210 were Mistborn) alone, all of them would be children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of the very first Lerasium Mistborns. That's a looooot. They were for sure busy at night.

I was referring that despite Vin asking Kel "what would happen if they met another Mistborn at night", they never encounter any Mistborn or Misting in the whole first book. Yes, there were far fewer Allomancers at that time, but there still should have been around 10-30 Mistborn in the whole Empire before the House War began. Luthadel was huge, yes, but Mistborn can quickly jump across the whole city in a few minutes. Therefore I think in the early years, in a smaller city, with almost 10x the amount of Mistborn present, such encounters would have happened more frequently (I'm not saying they would fight, just that they would awkwardly meet each other on some roof - <insert spiderman pointing at spiderman meme>).

12 hours ago, Mistchemist16 said:

So the only time the roofs would be crowded would be in a major house war and the amount of those can be counted on your fingers. Though it does make you wonder what the house war would be like in year 200 or 400, when everyone has Mistborn.

10 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

We know there have been past House Wars, I wouldn't be surprised if the reluctance to have Mistborn battles came out of a really bad early one (maybe that was part of what ended the period of more-common Mistborn, by killing off a lot of them!)

I think that the early House Wars might be less frequent (but more brutal), because of the Final Empire expansions and wars, which would shift the focus of great houses into gaining more land from conquered territory. But that’s very speculative. 

11 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I think secrecy of Mistborn has to be a later development, once they became relatively rare. At the beginning, descendants of one of the original nine kings would be assumed to be Mistborn.

I agree. In the early years Mistborn would proudly want to show off their powers 

[Mistchemist16]

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

Keep in mind after the first century there would be around 4000 Allomancers (with nobles at 10%, from which 210 were Mistborn) alone, all of them would be children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of the very first Lerasium Mistborns. That's a looooot. They were for sure busy at night.

I was referring that despite Vin asking Kel "what would happen if they met another Mistborn at night", they never encounter any Mistborn or Misting in the whole first book. Yes, there were far fewer Allomancers at that time, but there still should have been around 10-30 Mistborn in the whole Empire before the House War began. Luthadel was huge, yes, but Mistborn can quickly jump across the whole city in a few minutes. Therefore I think in the early years, in a smaller city, with almost 10x the amount of Mistborn present, such encounters would have happened more frequently (I'm not saying they would fight, just that they would awkwardly meet each other on some roof - <insert spiderman pointing at spiderman meme>).

What exactly would these Mistborn be doing at night? In most cases, Mistborn would be sent at night to do jobs. If not assignations, then something else big like stealing Atium, as Kelsier did. Jobs like that would have to be on minor houses if they didn’t want to start a house war. Some  Mistborn could be training, but that would probably be a relatively short time. I guess others could go jumping for fun, which would be the best reason for crowded roofs, so to speak.

But my point is that Mistborn do operate under MAD to some extent. When they are allowed to do jobs, it’s either against lesser houses that don’t have the resources to fight back or it would quickly spark a house war. Even if this arrangement wasn’t known during the first war or two, that would be more reason for nobles attacked by Mistborn to respond in kind. In other words, not realizing MAD is in effect would start the house war immediately. It may also be part of why Mistborn began hiding their powers. If one was seen and known to be part of a family, then that house knows they’ll be getting a nighttime visit and no one wants to risk that. Better to make it a bit harder for houses that get attacked.

 

Edited April 18, 2023 by Mistchemist16

[alder24]

9 minutes ago, Mistchemist16 said:

What exactly would these Mistborn be doing at night? In most cases, Mistborn would be sent at night to do jobs. If not assignations, then something else big like stealing Atium, as Kelsier did. Jobs like that would have to be on minor houses if they didn’t want to start a house war. Some could be training, but that would probably be a relatively short time. I guess some could go jumping for fun, which would be the best reason for crowded roofs, so to speak.

Meeting informators, spying, meeting with spies, testing defenses of other houses, spreading rumors, hiring people, investigating attacks on their business, protecting their house and their business, or just traveling from point A to point B. Kel and Vin training sessions were very long. There are lots of things for a Mistborn to do at night, that doesn't include starting a house war.

[cometaryorbit]

(Numbers added for reference)

9 hours ago, alder24 said:

[1] Why would you think that? Before Rashek Ascension there was a lot happening. Deepness was killing people and preventing farming, which likely caused famine. Alenthi was waging wars with the whole world for decades, and was called "the Conqueror'', because he defeated and conquered several countries, uniting almost the whole world. Just before Rashek Ascension there would be millions of casualties.

And then Rashek Ascended and it just got worse. He spent the first years of his reign to conquer the world once again, and crush all resistance

[2] (and there were many rebellions in the early years). The last religion was said to be destroyed around the year 500. This would once again create an enormous death toll on the population. Not to mention drastic changes in the environment would make early farming really difficult, which could cause more famine and further deaths.

[3] That's why I think it's best to assume normal population growth, like it was in late medieval Europe.

[4] Population rarely stagnates, or declines, the last time the population was in decline in our history was because of the Black Death in the 14th century. And before that it was during and after the Roman Empire collapsed. And because we try to estimate based on almost no data, we need to reach into Earth's history for that data, and go with that. Few last centuries of the Final Empire might have stagnated, but I highly doubt the early ones were like that.

1. Absolutely, but TFE population was like 100 million. Before those events, tech level was early 1800s; population might have been 1 billion + like early 1800s Earth. The fact that there was massive population loss during the Deepness and Alendi/Rashek's wars doesn't mean it was recovered later.

While it's likely that there was a brief recovery after people adapted to the new conditions and stability returned (say, the first century or two post-TLR Ascension) TLR specifically wanted a static/unchanging society. I don't think he'd see significant population growth as desirable... even if his ecological changes + technology limits allowed for a higher population.

2. I disagree that the conflicts after the first few years were significant enough to have a meaningful impact on the overall population. Tindwyl says that Wednegon was the last ruler to oppose TLR in "meaningful" conflict - and that was soon enough that his kingdom was still dealing with Deepness effects on food stores, so within a few years.

Conquests definitely happened afterward - there's a reference to koloss being used against societies discovered on the islands in what seem to be comparatively 'recent' times - but they don't seem to have involved major wars. Probably either the societies conquered were small to start with, or things were so one-sided that they surrendered quickly, or TLR used Inquisitors or Mistborn to remove the leadership and kandra to replace them, or some combination.

There were absolutely rebellions, but I don't think there's evidence of rebellions large enough to make a noticeable difference in populations of this scale. Even Yeden's army wouldn't.

3. I can totally see using RL analogues, but I think medieval Europe is not at all a close match to the Final Empire. There really aren't any very close matches in our history, but I think large urban empires are a much closer match than medieval Europe. Medieval Europe was decentralized and low-infrastructure, without huge cities on the scale of Luthadel, and subject to many significant wars, plagues, and famines; while the FE is centralized, very stable, very high infrastructure for premodern societies, and Luthadel is larger than any pre-industrial city on Earth.

The more stable era (Pax Romana) of the Roman Empire is probably the closest RL analogue (huge capital city with centralized rule + high infrastructure, broad regional peace under an emperor) though the FE is more stable and higher-infrastructure than even that, and has much more extensive slavery. And Rome did have the Antonine Plague.

China might be vaguely close (big capital city, imperial rule, infrastructure) but lacked a large slave/serf class, and rice agriculture is likely way more productive than what they had in TFE.

4. I agree population stagnation is rare in our history, but TFE seems to have the right conditions for it ... high urbanization, very harsh treatment of the rural slave class (including murder of many young women), bad agricultural conditions. Also, TLR didn't allow either technological advance or significant conquest, and there's no habitable lands to expand into.

Edited April 18, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[alder24]

15 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

1. Absolutely, but TFE population was like 100 million. Before those events, tech level was early 1800s; population might have been 1 billion + like early 1800s Earth. The fact that there was massive population loss during the Deepness and Alendi/Rashek's wars doesn't mean it was recovered later.

True, but we don't know the population of the world before. Like Era 2 is proving, advanced technology doesn't necessarily mean a huge population.

15 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

While it's likely that there was a brief recovery after people adapted to the new conditions and stability returned (say, the first century or two post-TLR Ascension) TLR specifically wanted a static/unchanging society. I don't think he'd see significant population growth as desirable... even if his ecological changes + technology limits allowed for a higher population.

Static society doesn't mean no population growth.

16 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

2. I disagree that the conflicts after the first few years were significant enough to have a meaningful impact on the overall population. Tindwyl says that Wednegon was the last ruler to oppose TLR in "meaningful" conflict - and that was soon enough that his kingdom was still dealing with Deepness effects on food stores, so within a few years.

I'm mainly referring to the conflict of early years. But then Rashek's obsession on extermination of religion is tricky. In many historical cases, religion dies off when its people die. I see it highly plausible that Rashek persecuted and killed believers of other religions on a massive scale. Speculative. 

20 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Conquests definitely happened afterward - there's a reference to koloss being used against societies discovered on the islands in what seem to be comparatively 'recent' times - but they don't seem to have involved major wars. Probably either the societies conquered were small to start with, or things were so one-sided that they surrendered quickly, or TLR used Inquisitors or Mistborn to remove the leadership and kandra to replace them, or some combination.

Koloss are notoriously hard to control when enraged, once released on a city, they won't stop after the whole city is dead. 

21 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

There were absolutely rebellions, but I don't think there's evidence of rebellions large enough to make a noticeable difference in populations of this scale. Even Yeden's army wouldn't.

Rashek reaction to the whole Luthadel rebelling against him was "I've seen rebellions like that before, I've killed entire armies on my own".

It's not just about the amount of people killed during rebellion, it's about destabilization that can cause plague and famine after the rebellion, which killed far more than rebellion. Which was the exact thing that The Final Empire was struggling with after the Rashek death.

And there was a time when Rashek tried to end the Empire, whatever it means:

Spoiler

Comatose

(Paraphrased) Can you tell us something about the Lord Ruler that we do not already know?

Brandon Sanderson

*Written* The Lord Ruler once gave up + tried to end the F.E.

Alloy of Law release party (Nov. 7, 2011)

 

24 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

3. I can totally see using RL analogues, but I think medieval Europe is not at all a close match to the Final Empire. There really aren't any very close matches in our history, but I think large urban empires are a much closer match than medieval Europe. Medieval Europe was decentralized and low-infrastructure, without huge cities on the scale of Luthadel, and subject to many significant wars, plagues, and famines; while the FE is centralized, very stable, very high infrastructure for premodern societies, and Luthadel is larger than any pre-industrial city on Earth.

The more stable era (Pax Romana) of the Roman Empire is probably the closest RL analogue (huge capital city with centralized rule + high infrastructure, broad regional peace under an emperor) though the FE is more stable and higher-infrastructure than even that, and has much more extensive slavery. And Rome did have the Antonine Plague.

TFE and Luthadel fit well with populations of capital cities of late medieval / early modern Europe  1500, England 2.6 mil, London 50k - 2%. France 16.3 mil, Paris 225k - 1.5%, Ottoman Empire 11.5 mil, Istanbul 200k - 1.7%,  Grand Duchy of Moscow 6 mil, Moscow 100k, 1.7%. 

The Final Empire 100 mil, Luthadel 1-2 mil - 1-2%. 

And I did use the Europe population growth from 1000-1500, thus Luthadel at the year of 1024 fits Europe 1500 capitals perfectly. 

And the Roman Empire fits this as well. At its peak, ~100 AD, it had 50-100 mil total population, with 1 mil at Rome alone. 1-2%. And the Roman Empire's population was growing up until the crisis of the 3rd century (civil wars and plague hit) on a similar scale to that of late medieval Europe - 0.1% annually. It wasn't a stagnate society.

Quote

What would become the territory of the Roman Empire saw an average annual population growth of about 0.1 percent from the 12th century BCE to the 3rd century CE, resulting in a quadrupling of the region's total population. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_demography#Demographic_tables_of_Europe’s_population

58 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

4. I agree population stagnation is rare in our history, but TFE seems to have the right conditions for it ... high urbanization, very harsh treatment of the rural slave class (including murder of many young women), bad agricultural conditions. Also, TLR didn't allow either technological advance or significant conquest, and there's no habitable lands to expand into.

During most of medieval Europe technological progress was slow and there was also no land to expand into, yet the population was growing. Peasants were treated well, but the population was growing. Even in countries with a big slave history (like the Roman Empire - up to 20-30%) the population was still growing. 

[cometaryorbit]

 Era 2 started from a very small population. There were less than 200,000 Originators (the Originators were 1/5 Terris, and we know there were 40,000 Terris at the Pits earlier in HoA) so current population is more than 50x what it was immediately post-Catacendre. Ancient Scadrial hadn't had a recent apocalypse. There were lots of different nations and cultures - it doesn't seem to have been a near empty/recent bottleneck world like Era 2 Scadrial.

Re city sizes: It's not about the % of total population, its about the sheer size of Luthadel and what it takes to support a city like that. You just didn't get >1 million cities in the pre-industrial world (ancient Rome at its height was 1 million or a bit less). A society capable of supporting a 1-2 million city is not a society that resembles medieval Europe.

The Roman Empire is a better analogy, and does suggest some growth. But the policy of organized killing of half-skaa children and potential mothers could easily wipe out a 0.1% growth rate.

 

[alder24]

5 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

 Era 2 started from a very small population. There were less than 200,000 Originators (the Originators were 1/5 Terris, and we know there were 40,000 Terris at the Pits earlier in HoA) so current population is more than 50x what it was immediately post-Catacendre. Ancient Scadrial hadn't had a recent apocalypse. There were lots of different nations and cultures - it doesn't seem to have been a near empty/recent bottleneck world like Era 2 Scadrial.

We know nothing about Ancient Scadrial, but I'm pretty sure that Deepness would cause massive death toll alone, if Deepness started to appear from the edges of the world, towards the Well, then location of the Well, that during those times was far away from civilization, close to the north pole, would mean that long before Deepness would even approach the Well, all of the populated land would be covered by Mist, killing crops and people.

And Sazed created a favorable environment, with rich soil, perfect for agriculture on a massive scale, Rashek destroyed all of farming with one single move of the planet. Not to mention wars that were waged before and after Rashek Ascension - Napoleonic Wars killed around 5% of Europe's population, wars on Scadrial were being waged for decades on the entire planet, add to this Deepness causing massive crop failure during the war times and you have a recipe for an apocalypse.

5 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Re city sizes: It's not about the % of total population, its about the sheer size of Luthadel and what it takes to support a city like that. You just didn't get >1 million cities in the pre-industrial world (ancient Rome at its height was 1 million or a bit less). A society capable of supporting a 1-2 million city is not a society that resembles medieval Europe.

Alexandria 100 AD: 0.5-0.75 mil. The Aztec Empire 1500: 5-6 mil, Tenochtitlan 200k-400k - 4-7%. Carthage ~200 BC: 3.7-4.3 mil, city Carthage 250k-500k - 7-12%. Byzantine Empire 500 AD: 19 mil, Constantinople 500k - ~2.7%. Baghdad 900 AD 0.9-1 mil form 26 mil - 4% (at minimum, in 900 AD the global Muslim population reached 11%, that's 26 mil, but can't find information about Abbasid Caliphate alone). Cairo reached 0.5 mil in the 1300s.

It's about the percentage of the total population. Because the whole population sustains that city, not just 1 mil people living in that city. And if Ancient Carthage could sustain 10% of its population living in a single city, then TFE can sustain only 1% of its population in Luthadel, when most of its population lives in the most fertile lands of the Central Dominance anyways, very close by, with extensive canal networks used for transportation. The Central Dominance was the economic center of the Empire.

If Luthadel were to have like 30% of total TFE's population, then you would be right, it's unsustainable and doesn't fit known examples in history, but that's just 1%, with the WHOLE empire working to sustain that city. Things like that were common in history.

5 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

The Roman Empire is a better analogy, and does suggest some growth. But the policy of organized killing of half-skaa children and potential mothers could easily wipe out a 0.1% growth rate.

The Final Empire isn't like medieval Europe, but there is no real life analog, and The Roman Empire had the same annual population growth rate as the late medieval Europe. The same rate, despite having a vastly different society from medieval Europe. The same numbers would still be used for calculation. So what's the difference? 

Did you forget about the history of Rome? The Punic Wars were responsible for deaths of 1-2 mil people, in the first war, hundreds of thousands of Romans died during storms at sea alone, second one killed another hundreds of thousands on the battlefield (1 in 6 of every Roman man). The Empire times - great revolts constantly being crushed by Romans (the Great Jewish revolt and subsequent persecutions added another 1-2 mil casualties), civil wars fought for the Emperor’s title, fights on the borders like in Germania or Persia, conquering new territories, numerous slave revolts. Romans were constantly killing more and more people, and you really think that TFE killed more percentage wise? That tens of thousands half-skaa and women killed every year would be even close to Roman losses sustained during the Germanic campaign or numerous revolts Romans had crushed?

The Roman Empire was far from being stable. And had so many revolts on a scale, which the Final Empire never saw. The presence of the Old Gate district in Luthadel suggests that the city was growing significantly in the last 1000 years, and new walls had to be built around it. If the city itself grew, why would you assume that the whole population of the Empire wasn't growing during the 1000 year long period?

TFE ch 19:

Quote

Luthadel was an enormous, sprawling city; every few decades or so, new sections were added, the city wall expanded through the sweat and effort of skaa labor. With the advent of the modern canal era, stone was growing relatively cheap and easy to move.

The book clearly shows that the capital was growing in population every few decades, therefore there is no reason to suggest that the entire Empire's population was stagnate, and wasn't growing at all. People simply moving into Luthadel doesn't make sense, as Skaa are forbidden from moving and traveling at all! Luthadel growth had to come from population growth, not migration. And therefore the entire Empire would grow as well.