Metallic Arts gadgets and gear in Era 3?

[Isilel]

I have been thinking for some time about how the promised mechanisation and commercialisation of Metallic Arts would look in Era 3. 

TLM has made clear that:

we can't expect people creating copies of Bands of Mourning any time soon,

that creation of the medallions probably requires different processes for each type of power, which is why only a small variety of them existed even among the Southerners in Era 2, 

that allomantic medallions don't exist, so the principles of medallion creation are different from how BoM were made. 

Since medallions weren't used in TLM at all (when they really should have been, particularly by the Ghostbloods!) and the Bands only made an appearance to be immediately wisked away, all of this info seems to have been in service of laying foundation for what would be available in Era 3. 

I honestly don't think that functional  micro-hemalurgy or fully synthetic spikes foreshadowed in TLM will be known to exist in Era 3. At best, the Ghostbloods might have them secretly.

I also don't believe that _all_ possible feruchemical medallions for the 16 basic metals will have been invented. Nor that they will find a way around the upper limit of 2, rarely 3 powers. 

This is a bit speculative, but I also think that a given power on a medallion allows either for storage or for tapping, but not both. In addition, I suspect that for versatile powers such as F-Tin, a separate medallion may be needed for each sense. Sanderson did say that medallions are more limited than natural/hemalurgic abilities and these would be logical limitations. 

So, which medallions already exist in Era 2, in addition to those seen in the text? I.e. Feruchemical Iron (store), Brass (tap), Copper (tap)  and Duralumin (tap, but only for translation). 

First of all F-Aluminum Identity storage medallion for mass production of unkeyed metalminds. It  must exist in the South given that they routinely fill brass metalminds with heat on industrial scale. This couldn't have been achieved with a few spikes.

Ditto F-Brass storage medallions. There is no way for the rare Brass Ferrings to supply the whole population, even if they store heat  24/7. Probably also F-Duralumin storage, for the translation medallions. Beyond that, it is difficult to say. Wax did mention that there didn't seem to be any medallions for the most powerful/useful abilities, but the Mawlish may have been hiding some things too.

Anyway the idea behind mechanised Metallic arts seems to be versatility, but with strict limits, to avoid overpoweredness. And also, hopefully, an end to the need for the protagonists to have been _born_ with rarest, most powerful ability combinations around.

As such, I think that in Era 3 medallions for F-Chromium, F-Gold, F-Steel, F-Zinc and F-Duralumin for purposes other than translation still won't exist. They are just potentially too powerful. F-Electrum probably won't exist because it isn't interesting enough to attract inventors.

But all the others should be fair game. 

To be continued...

 

[Elite01]

Great analysis. I wonder if there will be open trade with the southern scadrians to get these medallions into Elendel. Maybe allowing access to the more obscure feruchemical powers they get medallions in return? I don't see them discovering the secret of the exscisors offscreen. Whoever the main characters are in era 3 could be gifted them or maybe the elendel basin will have a stockpile of confiscated medallions if relations are more hostile.

 

This isn't as directly related but I wonder how we will see hemalurgy in era 3. I agree that I don't think they will be mainstream by era 3 but I could see things in the background being set up for it to become more popular. Something like a broadsheet debating about the ethics behind a proposed bill to spike death row prisoners who have rare abilities, something like that. I just wonder how the common people will learn about it. The Set knew about it and Wax/Marsai knew about it. Would either of them do anything with that knowledge? 

[Isilel]

16 hours ago, Elite01 said:

I wonder if there will be open trade with the southern scadrians to get these medallions into Elendel.

 

My impression from what we have heard about the Era 3 so far is that the Northeners will produce their own medallions and that they will be widely accessible commercially. We had the set-up for that with Kelsier wanting more Metalborn on Scadrial in the Epilogue and he clearly isn't going to get that, so spreading mechanical Metal Arts is the next best step. Conveniently, he is the one who (co?-)invented the technology in the first place! All he has to do is leak the information and maybe smuggle some initial tools in and of course he is in  position to do that. People of the Basin with their comparatively numerous Metalborn would have an advantage in developing new applictions, in all likelyhood. Additionally, to balance animosity of the Mawlish, the Basin could ally itself with the Maskless, for example, who, presumably, also have medallion technology and access to harmonium. Otherwise the Mawlish wouldn't consider them dangerous, IMHO.

 

16 hours ago, Elite01 said:

This isn't as directly related but I wonder how we will see hemalurgy in era 3.

 

It might be related. While I believe that hemalurgy is only needed to create initial tools that create other tools for the actual medallion production, it might make a lot of things easier. At the very least, now that the cat is out of the sack in the North - many of the Set members must have escaped, some with this knowledge, it shouldn't be exclusively a province of criminals. I really hope that the spikes recovered from the Set and other criminals bound to follow suit aren't going to be wasted, but used under strict controls to further research and create metalminds that would be impossible to make otherwise. Likewise, to deter criminal hemalurgy, a law should be passed that anyone found wearing a spike without an iron-clad provenance is automatically convicted of murder.

But I suspect that we will only see  regulated hemalurgy along the lines suggested by Spook in the South. I mean, there are many opportunities for abuse, so I could see that something like that could best work where it is interwoven with the very survival of society and not vulnerable to considerations of personal greed as it would be in the North. Hopefully, we will finally  learn in detail about the  South in Era 3 and this will be one of those cultural differences...

To continue with the other new applications of Feruchemy, I believe that Mistings will be able to burn unkeyed metalminds and get use of the stored attributes for the length of the burn. But they won't receive the benefits of Twinborn compounding - i.e. they'll only get out what was stored. Nor would they have much  control over Feruchemical compression - it will be determined by the burn speed of the metal and the only way to affect it would be to flare. As such, it would make varying amounts of sense to do this and also limit resulting power.

For instance, Speed can only be stored at a fairly low ratio and steel burns at an average rate. So, a Coinshot burning unkeyed steel metalminds would only become a third or so swifter, even with flaring. Definitely beneficial, but not absurdly overpowered. Etc.

Metals that burn instantly would be useless for this... Apart from potentially Nicrosil. Burning steel/iron allomancy stored in Nicrosil+ appropriate metal should produce _one_ push/pull per vial. Gold allomancy ditto + health mind should give decent healing. I don't think that anything else works, but the possible protagonist of Era 3 might have a couple of interesting options at their disposal,  that require bespoke resources and would need to be employed with a lot of forethought.

Edited June 14, 2024 by Isilel

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

I really hope that the spikes recovered from the Set and other criminals bound to follow suit aren't going to be wasted, but used under strict controls to further research and create metalminds that would be impossible to make otherwise.

I've been thinking about that myself, what happens to the Spikes leftover from the bad guys after they're dead.

My best guess is that someone, either a Kandra for Harmony or a Ghostblood plant, confiscates the spikes after the Hemalurgist's corpses are placed in the morgue. Harmony doesn't want the public to know about Hemalurgy and Kelsier seems to, if not agree, then at least isn't going against that policy.

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

To continue with the other new applications of Feruchemy, I believe that Mistings will be able to burn unkeyed metalminds and get use of the stored attributes for the length of the burn. But they won't receive the benefits of Twinborn compounding - i.e. they'll only get out what was stored. Nor would they have much  control over Feruchemical compounding - it will be determined by the burn speed of metal and the only way to affect it would be to flare. As such, it would make varying amounts of sense to do this.

I like this, as the concepts of Identity and Unkeyed Metalminds spread through the Basin, more people will wonder about opportunities.

Coinshots could become temporary Steelrunners, Rioters gain more brainpower and Augur's will gain more prominence by trying to copy the unkillability of the late, great Miles Hundredlives.

Mistings would in effect, become very limited Compounders, but I imagine that Unkeyed Metalminds would be rare due to being highly regulated and/or very expensive since the ones who would be most likely to make them would be the Terris Village, who don't seem to care much about things outside the Village. Or maybe some kind of Set Splinter group.

[Isilel]

9 minutes ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Mistings would in effect, become very limited Compounders,

I believe that they are going to be more limited than that - I added how I envision it working to my previous post. So, Augurs would be able to heal, but probably not from wounds as lethal as Wayne could, leave alone Miles . 

 

15 minutes ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

ones who would be most likely to make them would be the Terris Village

 

While filling metalminds would likely become quite a lucrative source of income for the Village and other Terris settlements - in fact they might prefer it to their people having to go outside for work, I think that the many attributes would be stored by anyone interested via special storage medallions with F-Aluminium and Feruchemical storage power for whatever attribute needs to be stored. In fact, that's how it must already work for heat in the South - they can't possibly have enough Brass Ferrings to continually supply their whole population!

Of course, it will take time to invent those and I don't believe that they will have medallions for a number of the most powerful abilities in Era 3, so those unkeyed metalminds will indeed be rare and expensive. Not to mention that some of the metals already are. 

Concerning hemalurgy - the cat is out of the bag, so I very much hope that the government of the Basin will be able to work with the spikes they take off criminals, under strict controls. At this point it would be actively harmful to prevent them. And in fact the trellium spikes that Our Heroes had given to researchers weren't stolen by the kandra, nor did Harmony disapprove of Wax and Wayne spiking themselves with already existing spikes in TLM. As to Kelsier, he wants for Scadrial to be stronger, doesn't he? And from his thoughts it seemed to me that the Ghostbloods do spike their enemies, given opportunity, so he probably doesn't really need to steal. 

Stormlight spoilers:

Spoiler

poor Gereh whose Aviar Lift rescued had definitely been spiked.

 

[Isilel]

Alright, but what about mechanical allomancy in Era 3?

Since it has been made clear in TLM that allomancy medallions don't exist and that the Bands are a unique artifact that can't be replicated in the forseeable future, I posit that mechanical allomancy is going to be harmonium-mediated, an evolution of the primer cubes and allomantic grenades. Now, of course,  relationship with the Mawlish is already strained and there is going to be a Cold War in Era 3, so it is unlikely that they are going to export harmonium to the North. However, I think that the Northeners are going to get limited supply of it from elsewhere. For instance, the Maskless should have access to it too, or they wouldn't be "dangerous". There also might be a modest source of harmonium somewhere closer to the Basin, in an area  that it's people have been too lazy and incurious to explore in Era 2. Tangentially, I foresee  the Ghostbloods becoming harmonium smugglers, once their aluminum bonanza dries up, and basically monopolizing this area of criminal enterprise.

In any case, my feeling is that the North is not going to have enough harmonium for industrial and transportation use - most of their large-scale technology is going to be similar to the respective period iRL, except for mechanical feruchemy applications. But there is going to be enough harmonium for commercially accessible business and personal use.

Now, I'll further postulate that without additional complex hoops  harmonium can only be used with external metals. TLM says nothing about priming it with internal ones, which should have been the obvious and easiest thing to try, so I'll assume that it didn't work. There is also this WoB that it wouldn't work with burned feruchemical storages:

 

 

Quote

 

Phantine

Irich had that degenerative disease. If the Set still had Miles available, could he have cured Irich's disease by giving him Compounded health with a primer cube?

Brandon Sanderson

This requires more steps than it would appear, but this is the sort of thing people will trying very hard to figure out in coming novels.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 26, 2018)

 

 

So, this gives us zinc, brass, copper, chromium, nicrosil, cadmium and bendalloy, iron and steel to work with.

I imagine 3 main types of gadgets based on allomantic grenades: those used in businesses or at home which could be in whatever form, wearables switched on manually and ranged ones that would activate on impact. All in aluminum casings, so, push/pull wouldn't work on them, nor Steel/Ironsight detect them. 

With cheapness of aluminum in Era 3, I imagine that everybody will wear aluminum-lined headgear most of the time (and hats would never go out of fashion!), so emotional allomancy would mostly require consent and there would be little reason to prime one's personal equipment with it. There would be great potential for using it in healthcare (soothing at the dentist's? Yes, please!), entertainment, etc. Cadmium and possibly bendalloy would also be very much useful in civilian context.

As to the actiony stuff:

For ranged applications, I imagine that modified aluminum or aluminum-plated dart gun launchers that would shoot darts tipped with mini-grenades primed, say, with chromium or nicrosil, would make most sense for precision and, in case of nicrosil, also for boosting collegues at range, with, maybe some kind of grenade attachment for cadmium grenades?

For wearables, copper, bendalloy and maybe steel primed gadgets worn on a belt or a harness. In Era 2 we barely saw any Seekers, since them being on sentry/lookout duty would have put a serious crimp into Our Heroes ability to sneak around without enlisting a smoker, but having mechanised copper allomancy would get around this without making antagonists look like idiots. Bendalloy is obvious. Since I expect most weapons and such to be made of inert aluminum alloys or be aluminum plated, unfocussed steel allomancy may not be as useful as it was in era 2. For first responders, cadmium primed ones would also make sense.

But can steel/iron allomancy via harmonium  be directed, somehow? If there is a small apperture in all the encasing aluminum, will it focus the push/pull? Maybe if you run an electrical current through it? If something like this is possible, then contraptions primed with steel and iron strapped to a person's forearms, along with a steelsight/weight medallion, could provide an approximation of a natural/hemalurgic coinshot's abilities.

Oh, and speaking of another possible gadget - an aluminum bracelet incorporating several medallions that one could switch between at a press of a button.

Alright, I got these ruminations off my chest! I really hope for a transition from the superhero mode in the Mistborn saga, to where many people have access to powers and consistently use them on-screen, not just the protagonists and the more notable antagonists. And show us how the society would adapt to this. There are too few books with the latter premise and too many with the former, IMHO, YMMV.