Factions Emerging for Space Age

[MasterK-Bob]

One interesting thing we see is a glimpse at what I suspect is relatively early, but certainly established, space age. I was expecting technology honestly to be more advanced than this by the space age. I don't get the sense there is FTL travel though, and maybe that's not coming. I wish I knew how long Zealot has been on the run. He seems to think people he knew on Roshar would still be alive, and I would have said that I would have been surprised for those who had not become fused to make it to the space age. Anyway, the factions we see emerging are:

Scadrians: they seem to be a relatively callous one would government, though not actively malicious, one works government. They don't care about the plight of non-Scadrians. This is consistent I think with what we saw in 6th of the Dusk, just looking for resources to exploit. They felt like someone trying to convince you that their trade is to your benefit in Catan but is obviously lying.

Rosharans: Our most significant data here comes from the Scadrians' attitude towards the prospect that Zellian is "Oathed", but more significant data comes from the 6th of the Dusk sequel where the Rosharans radiant ambassador seems downright sinister. Definitely more evil than the Scadrians. It's unclear how many factions there are from Roshar but I hope it's not just evil Odium servants.

Threnodites: I dono that happened there but the Night Brigade is terrifying. Their power is that of shades which they now seem to have near total control of. I don't know if this is the only power from Threnody or how much control they have on their home planet, but things are not looking good.

Sel: We know people from Sel are players, but not much more. Obviously Elantrians are ridiculously powerful, and the other magic systems we've seen from Sel are also really significant.

Other groups are less clear.

Any thoughts on my analysis? What do you think the implications of all of this.

[Ookla the Sibling]

12 minutes ago, MasterK-Bob said:

I don't get the sense there is FTL travel though, and maybe that's not coming.

I might be wrong but I though that the Night Brigade had FTL which is how they got to Canticle so fast without using a perpendicularity.

[TheoreticalMagic]

I would not count out the Nalthians yet - not only does the Scadrian ship use an Awakened Metalmind, which suggests an exchange of technology/magictech that could be just as likely to go both ways (Nalthians taught the Scadrians how to Awaken, the Scadrians provided some of their unkeyed magictech in trade for Nalthians to use for themselves), but let's not forget that Nalthis was implied to have the equivalent of worldhopper customs offices for people coming to and from their planet via Shadesmar....major players on Nalthis like the Five Scholars (who had enormous roles in shaping Nalthian countries in the past) have had a broad knowledge of the cosmere centuries ahead of a lot of other Shardworlds.

And the mere fact that Breath Equivalent Units is used as a system of Investiture measurement could suggest that its not escaped anyone's notice that Awakening is one of the easier magic systems to hack or use to fuel other Shards' magic systems.....so I think that combination of factors makes it at least possible that Nalthis is positioned to know enough about how other magic systems work to use them in conjunction with Awakening and power all sorts of tech....including space travel.

All that said, the fact that Nalthis has already been implicated as a major worldhopping hub in ages past could also suggest Nalthis never develops (or is slow to develop) space travel because the relative ease of worldhopping to and from it means there's less drive for them TO develop spaceship technology.

Could go either way, honestly, just thought all of that was worth mentioning. 

Edited October 20 by TheoreticalMagic

[Ookla the Sibling]

1 hour ago, TheoreticalMagic said:

And the mere fact that Breath Equivalent Units is used as a system of Investiture measurement could suggest that its not escaped anyone's notice that Awakening is one of the easier magic systems to hack or use to fuel other Shards' magic systems.....so I think that combination of factors makes it at least possible that Nalthis is positioned to know enough about how other magic systems work to use them in conjunction with Awakening and power all sorts of tech....including space travel.

 

Maybe Nalthis is to the Cosmere what Svorden is to Sel (minus the shark fighting). A small place that doesn't have a huge military force, so it can be captured fairly easily, but it gains respect by being very progressive and technologically advanced. There could be lots of scholars on Nalthis who study awakening, intent, command, and magi tech, but I still don't think that on the scale of the Cosmere Nalthis is as powerful as Scadrial or Roshar.

[bmcclure7]

10 hours ago, TheoreticalMagic said:

I would not count out the Nalthians yet - not only does the Scadrian ship use an Awakened Metalmind, which suggests an exchange of technology/magictech that could be just as likely to go both ways (Nalthians taught the Scadrians how to Awaken, the Scadrians provided some of their unkeyed magictech in trade for Nalthians to use for themselves), but let's not forget that Nalthis was implied to have the equivalent of worldhopper customs offices for people coming to and from their planet via Shadesmar....major players on Nalthis like the Five Scholars (who had enormous roles in shaping Nalthian countries in the past) have had a broad knowledge of the cosmere centuries ahead of a lot of other Shardworlds.

And the mere fact that Breath Equivalent Units is used as a system of Investiture measurement could suggest that its not escaped anyone's notice that Awakening is one of the easier magic systems to hack or use to fuel other Shards' magic systems.....so I think that combination of factors makes it at least possible that Nalthis is positioned to know enough about how other magic systems work to use them in conjunction with Awakening and power all sorts of tech....including space travel.

All that said, the fact that Nalthis has already been implicated as a major worldhopping hub in ages past could also suggest Nalthis never develops (or is slow to develop) space travel because the relative ease of worldhopping to and from it means there's less drive for them TO develop spaceship technology.

Could go either way, honestly, just thought all of that was worth mentioning. 

Awakened dosen't mean awakening.  Brandon was clear on this point even object brought to life through investiture is referred to as awakened regardless of which magic system was used.

[TheoreticalMagic]

2 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

Awakened dosen't mean awakening.  Brandon was clear on this point even object brought to life through investiture is referred to as awakened regardless of which magic system was used.

Thanks for letting me know, I wasn't aware that he'd said something like that. Do you have a link to where he did? Not doubting your word at all, I'm just curious about the full context and want to read up on that.

[Ookla the Vacant]

If you want it, here's a quote from the shardcast interview they did back in July. 

They're talking about YatNP a little bit, but I've edited out the major spoiler. 

Quote

Argent

[...] So what I do want to ask is: one, was the [if you've read the book, you know what this is] Awakened using Breaths, using Nalthian Awakening? Or are you using Awakening as Lightweaving or Bondsmithing which is an overarching system in the Cosmere?

 

Brandon Sanderson

It's the second. This wouldn't exist in the pre-space-age as much; by space age there's a certain terminology that is going between... basically it's starting with the arcanists and moving to the general population. What certain themes in the Cosmere magics mean. And so when Hoid says "this is an Awakened machine" his audience understands what that means. It does not necessarily mean Breaths Awaken, but Breaths are one of the main ways that people see things be Awakened. You should be noticing those parallels, but that's a term that in the Cosmere is becoming genericized to mean un-living object being given some measure of sentience and even sapience by application of Investiture, Commands, and these sorts of things. By this point they've all interacted with various Awakened machines of sorts in the future Cosmere. They know what this means. They've talked to an Awakened computer. 

It seems like there are 2 main factions in this "Cosmere cold war."

 First, there's Scadrial. Scadrial seems like it's not doing so well. First, in the SotD and the SotD2 preview, it seemed like the Scadrians were more focused with the prize they wanted than with the people they harm along the way. This is also shown in Sunlit Man, where they are more focused on their goal - research - than with the lives that could be saved with their help, which would have been very easy to give! 

Second, there's Roshar. Roshar, however, seems to be doing better than Scadrial, but that may just be because we haven't seen much besides Zellion and the one person in the SotD2 preview. However, unlike Scadrial, Roshar gave the people on First of the Sun an offer of 1 in 100 birds, instead of Scadrial, which didn't offer them any birds. (If I'm wrong about that, sorry, it's just been a while since I've read either of those.) In the research pod on Canticle, the Scadrians only asked if Zellion was Oathed, and when he said he wasn't, they then were fine with "hiring" him.  This seems to say that only the KR are involved in the "Cosmete arms race," which may be good, and which may be bad. 

Just a final note : we do see, in Sunlit Man, the Rosharan helping the people of Canticle, and the Scadrians harming them by helping the local tyrant.

[TheoreticalMagic]

25 minutes ago, Aredor said:

If you want it, here's a quote from the shardcast interview they did back in July. 

They're talking about YatNP a little bit, but I've edited out the major spoiler. 

Thanks for this!

[bmcclure7]

35 minutes ago, Aredor said:

If you want it, here's a quote from the shardcast interview they did back in July. 

They're talking about YatNP a little bit, but I've edited out the major spoiler. 

It seems like there are 2 main factions in this "Cosmere cold war."

 First, there's Scadrial. Scadrial seems like it's not doing so well. First, in the SotD and the SotD2 preview, it seemed like the Scadrians were more focused with the prize they wanted than with the people they harm along the way. This is also shown in Sunlit Man, where they are more focused on their goal - research - than with the lives that could be saved with their help, which would have been very easy to give! 

Second, there's Roshar. Roshar, however, seems to be doing better than Scadrial, but that may just be because we haven't seen much besides Zellion and the one person in the SotD2 preview. However, unlike Scadrial, Roshar gave the people on First of the Sun an offer of 1 in 100 birds, instead of Scadrial, which didn't offer them any birds. (If I'm wrong about that, sorry, it's just been a while since I've read either of those.) In the research pod on Canticle, the Scadrians only asked if Zellion was Oathed, and when he said he wasn't, they then were fine with "hiring" him.  This seems to say that only the KR are involved in the "Cosmete arms race," which may be good, and which may be bad. 

Just a final note : we do see, in Sunlit Man, the Rosharan helping the people of Canticle, and the Scadrians harming them by helping the local tyrant.

No we saw (A) Rosharian help them, Nomad dosen't speak for the planet. He said as much. 

And I'd like to remind you that the guide book implied that a Rosharian would be more likely to help the same Tyrant going so far as to describe them as violent and war like.

It doesn't seem like Roshar has the best reputation in the future. 

Edited October 21 by bmcclure7

[apepi]

The thing that kind of scares me is we don't hear about any shard in any of these factions really.

Some other 'factions' you might have missed. 17th Shard, Worldsingers, Ghostbloods, Ire, and the Iri.