Technology between Era 3 and Era 4

[therunner he/him]

We learned few things as far as technologies used go: 

• Scadrian ships use Pushes and Pulls, but only in prepared 'Steelfields'
  • Is this Allomancy used by non-living object, like Malwish ships used Feruchemy?
  • They are reliant on steelfields, otherwise use Aether-based engine. Suggests either Aether's are much more efficient, or their rocketry is a bit behind what we would expect
• Scadrians rely on Rosharan tech for levitation and anti-gravity
• Scadrians don't seem to utilize Hemalurgy on large scale
  • None of the soldiers exhibited overt Invested powers, perhaps one instance of F-steel (but then didn't use those in combat)
  • Cultural problem? Or general problem with harvesting powers?
• Aether drive seems to be rather common way of propulsion
• FTL already exists, but is very expansive, no further details
• Scadrians can modulate Investiture on the fly (unkeying or reversing it), though only through large specialized machines
• Scadrians can break Dragon magic (some at least)
• Traps for Shades exist, and there is general knowledge of how to kill them (anti-investiture or silver)
• Sufficiently strong Clouding (likely more than regular Misting can achieve) can disrupt Sleepless
• Sufficiently strong/sensitive Seeking can be used to Navigate in Emberdark 
• Perpendicularities can be expanded (likely via infusion of unkeyed, or aligned, Investiture)

Please, feel free to add or expand.

Sidenote: I find it a bit funny that Brandon has fit in effectively Shadowrun-like dragon in Xisis  

Edited July 4, 2025 by therunner

[+Oltux72 he/him]

This opens up quite some questions

1. Why is nobody using Awakening? Can't they make Breaths for some reasons?
2. Where is Invention's technology? It seems odd to me that the major tech branches come from Scadrial, Roshar, Sel and Nalthis. I would Invention to be a major sources of technology.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

6 hours ago, therunner said:

Scadrians don't seem to utilize Hemalurgy on large scale

• None of the soldiers exhibited overt Invested powers, perhaps one instance of F-steel (but then didn't use those in combat)
• Cultural problem? Or general problem with harvesting powers?

 

Maybe it's the Malwish specifically? They don't have many natural Metalborn of their own, due to a lack of Lerasium and Terris in their ancestry.

Maybe if Elendel is still around somehow, and not allied with the Malwish, maybe they're the ones with more Invested powers in people?

I hope that's the case, because all of Scadrial being part of an Evil Empire sounds kind of depressing.

6 hours ago, therunner said:

Traps for Shades exist, and there is general knowledge of how to kill them (anti-investiture or silver)

Well, we already knew from TSM that Shades could be contained, so that's not really too surprising.

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Why is nobody using Awakening? Can't they make Breaths for some reasons?

Making Breaths probably isn't easy as collecting it from Nalthians. And Awakening, while versatile, isn't going to be as super useful in Space Age unless you have a dedicated field of study, which the Scadrians might not have but the Nalthians do.

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Where is Invention's technology? It seems odd to me that the major tech branches come from Scadrial, Roshar, Sel and Nalthis. I would Invention to be a major sources of technology.

I've seen this topic brought up before, and I'm willing to bet it could be for a few reasons.

-Their tech might not be like other people's tech, maybe it's not mechanical technology but biological, biopunk or whatever you'd call it.

-Their tech might be super blackboxed, unable to be used by other people for whatever reason, maybe by design, maybe because you need Investiture specifically from Invention to use it and even Unkeyed power won't work.

-Or maybe Invention has somehow managed to find a way to prevent any humans or mortals from gaining an Invested Art from them, allowing them to completely dedicate their Investiture to making their own inventions.

[Kingstar114 he/him]

8 hours ago, therunner said:

Scadrians don't seem to utilize Hemalurgy on large scale

Dajer notes that he has lung problems from the Battle of Aheleha. We know his metal mask is keeping him alive, which could be an application of hemalurgy. Though, the fact that gas is released makes this not a guarantee.

 

IotE Chapter 38, Page 272

Spoiler

“I was a soldier. Ground combat. Fought in the Battle of Aheleha. They burned the very sky around us...So much smoke...Like it was suddenly midnight, and the darkness was strangling us . . .”

Dusk remained quiet. This seemed the sort of old pain that a plati- tude couldn’t fix, while silence could reverence.

“Well, that was it for my frontline days,” Dajer said, then stroked his side mask. The hoses that extended from the metal portions released a small hiss of gas in front of his nose. “I need these to function now. Without them, I’d be wheezing on the ground, my lungs enflamed.”

 

[therunner he/him]

8 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

1. Why is nobody using Awakening? Can't they make Breaths for some reasons?

4 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Making Breaths probably isn't easy as collecting it from Nalthians. And Awakening, while versatile, isn't going to be as super useful in Space Age unless you have a dedicated field of study, which the Scadrians might not have but the Nalthians do.

I think maybe Breaths are more than 'just' Endowment-Keyed Investiture, and Awakening as whole is more spiritually involved than Scadrians can do at the moment.

After all, many here speculated that Connection medallions/powers could be used to make someone trust you, treat you as friend, etc. and we see none of that here, though it would be very useful. 

So either that is flat out not possible, or it is beyond the scope of what Scadrians can do.

8 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

1. Where is Invention's technology? It seems odd to me that the major tech branches come from Scadrial, Roshar, Sel and Nalthis. I would Invention to be a major sources of technology.

4 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

I've seen this topic brought up before, and I'm willing to bet it could be for a few reasons.

-Their tech might not be like other people's tech, maybe it's not mechanical technology but biological, biopunk or whatever you'd call it.

-Their tech might be super blackboxed, unable to be used by other people for whatever reason, maybe by design, maybe because you need Investiture specifically from Invention to use it and even Unkeyed power won't work.

-Or maybe Invention has somehow managed to find a way to prevent any humans or mortals from gaining an Invested Art from them, allowing them to completely dedicate their Investiture to making their own inventions.

As @JustQuestin2004 said, It might be that Invention tech is, unusual, and so those not of Invention have hard time with it. This would prevent it from spreading, despite being advanced. 

Plus, Invention might be a bit insular (as in, not interested in others), and as result other nations might underestimate them. See Dejer boasting about Scadrian technological prowess, which is basically immediately contradicted by the POV (e.g. Taldain, Invention planets, need to use Rosharan tech for levitation).

4 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Maybe it's the Malwish specifically? They don't have many natural Metalborn of their own, due to a lack of Lerasium and Terris in their ancestry.

Maybe if Elendel is still around somehow, and not allied with the Malwish, maybe they're the ones with more Invested powers in people?

I hope that's the case, because all of Scadrial being part of an Evil Empire sounds kind of depressing.

Could be, though that is all the more reason for Malwish to use Hemalurgy to obtain powers, by e.g. kidnapping Elendeians.  Since they are cosmic power, that would be well within their power. 

Unless Harmony is enforcing some kind of balance on Scadrial, that prevents Malwish from interfering with Basin too much. Or Basin is fully subservient to Malwish, but there are other issues with granting powers we do not yet know.

4 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Well, we already knew from TSM that Shades could be contained, so that's not really too surprising.

Huh, right. At the time, I thought what Night Brigade did was more their specialty, and not general purpose tech, but yeah we did already see that.

2 hours ago, Kingstar114 said:

Dajer notes that he has lung problems from the Battle of Aheleha. We know his metal mask is keeping him alive, which could be an application of hemalurgy. Though, the fact that gas is released makes this not a guarantee.

IotE Chapter 38, Page 272

  Reveal hidden contents

“I was a soldier. Ground combat. Fought in the Battle of Aheleha. They burned the very sky around us...So much smoke...Like it was suddenly midnight, and the darkness was strangling us . . .”

Dusk remained quiet. This seemed the sort of old pain that a plati- tude couldn’t fix, while silence could reverence.

“Well, that was it for my frontline days,” Dajer said, then stroked his side mask. The hoses that extended from the metal portions released a small hiss of gas in front of his nose. “I need these to function now. Without them, I’d be wheezing on the ground, my lungs enflamed.”

 

Yeah, I think that is likely either some Invested gas that heals his lungs, or just ordinary healing 'item'. Other Malwish also have metallic elements in their faces that are functional (like comlinks at minimum), so his having additional functionality does not make it Hemalurgy. 

Personally I read it as Malwish having basically cyberpunk-style implants (which increases my hope for potentialy Cyberpunk Mistborn Era or novel).

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

45 minutes ago, therunner said:

Plus, Invention might be a bit insular (as in, not interested in others),

That's a definite yes, they basically blocked Harmony from even locating them after Saze reached out.

47 minutes ago, therunner said:

Could be, though that is all the more reason for Malwish to use Hemalurgy to obtain powers, by e.g. kidnapping Elendeians.  Since they are cosmic power, that would be well within their power. 

Unless Harmony is enforcing some kind of balance on Scadrial, that prevents Malwish from interfering with Basin too much. Or Basin is fully subservient to Malwish, but there are other issues with granting powers we do not yet know.

Or maybe Elendel is also a Cosmic power, with there being two cosmic powers on the same planet, which would be a bit weird. They just entered a Cold War at the end of Era 2, with Elendel being the one to have the first Scadrian nukes, so I have my doubts that they were conquered. 

Or maybe the Malwish are cheapskates and don't give out metalborn powers to anyone other than their most elite members?

[alder24]

15 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

• Why is nobody using Awakening? Can't they make Breaths for some reasons?

There was mention of Awakened Metalminds and they said they are very expensive, so Awakening is still in use, but it's probably turned towards creating AI rather than simple tools. From Yumi we know Awakening can be done without Breaths as it's a general term in Cosmere referring to using investiture to grant sentience. We also saw Awakened Metalminds in TSM so Scadrial definitely can use Awakening. Ch 22:

Quote

All it was missing was an Awakened metalmind, but those were expensive—and Starling had never trusted them anyway

There is also something called the Awakened deflection shield, some sort of protective system used next to Allomancy and Aons. Ch 39:

Quote

“We’ve surveyed it by ship, but that thing attacked. It chews through ship hulls—and shields of all sorts, whether they be Allomantic bullet shields, Awakened deflection shields, or even Aonic force fields. I did not like being forced to write a loss report on one of our starfighters. Expensive, particularly these days.”

 

9 hours ago, Kingstar114 said:

Dajer notes that he has lung problems from the Battle of Aheleha. We know his metal mask is keeping him alive, which could be an application of hemalurgy. Though, the fact that gas is released makes this not a guarantee.

 It seems it's just an oxygen mask, not something invested. However it's weird he doesn't use F-gold to heal it. They still can't make medallions granting that power, or is it too expensive? Ch 58:

Quote

Dajer’s skin was flushed, the tubes to his nose hissing oxygen.

 

5 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Or maybe Elendel is also a Cosmic power, with there being two cosmic powers on the same planet, which would be a bit weird. They just entered a Cold War at the end of Era 2, with Elendel being the one to have the first Scadrian nukes, so I have my doubts that they were conquered. 

From TSM we know there are multiple factions on Scadrial, some neutral in the conflict. I doubt Elendel was conquered, but it definitely isn't as influential as Malwish are, nor as aggressive. Malwish are dominant on Scadrial in Era 4 so it looks like they won the cold war in Era 3. Ch 35:

Quote

The Malwish were a dominant force on the planet of Scadrial.

[RedBlue]

55 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I doubt Elendel was conquered, but it definitely isn't as influential as Malwish are, nor as aggressive. Malwish are dominant on Scadrial in Era 4 so it looks like they won the cold war in Era 3. Ch 35

The Malwish are a dominant force, not the dominant force. There are plenty of clues that North Scadrial is still very influential, like seeing their writing on tech, and the fact that Ed is a Pathian (a distinctly North Scadrian religion) despite not being Scadrian himself.

My read on this is that nobody won the cold war. It’s still ongoing. Which is why the Malwish can’t take or purchase Allomantic and Feruchemical abilities from the Northerners for their own use, at least not at any kind of scale.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

There was mention of Awakened Metalminds and they said they are very expensive, so Awakening is still in use, but it's probably turned towards creating AI rather than simple tools. From Yumi we know Awakening can be done without Breaths as it's a general term in Cosmere referring to using investiture to grant sentience. We also saw Awakened Metalminds in TSM so Scadrial definitely can use Awakening. Ch 22:

 

That precisely is the issue. The machines they use, use up prodigous amouts of Investiture. Under these circumstances, they should have used a rush of dolls to get through the tunel or have used other awakened tools.

Also Breaths are probably the most useful personal form of Investiture. They include immortality as a fringe benefit. Articial Breaths should be at top demand.

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

 It seems it's just an oxygen mask, not something invested. However it's weird he doesn't use F-gold to heal it. They still can't make medallions granting that power, or is it too expensive? Ch 58:

If you are fighting Scadrians, buying or developing weapons that circumvent feruchemical healing should be a top priority. How you would do so is an interesting question. Weaponized forgery? You rewrite the past so that the injury the weapon caused was always present.

[therunner he/him]

17 hours ago, alder24 said:

 It seems it's just an oxygen mask, not something invested. However it's weird he doesn't use F-gold to heal it. They still can't make medallions granting that power, or is it too expensive? 

They do have some means of Feruchemical healing, Dajer mentioned them in context of the soldiers going to the cave:

Quote

“It’s the nephilim,” Dajer said, “in the pool outside. We brought Feruchemical healing devices, and they didn’t work in the slightest. Something’s interfering with Investiture in this cave.” 

Either his wound is somehow being renewed, or medallions are limited in what they can heal, or his perception is keeping him from healing it (perhaps sufficiently traumatic event makes wound harder to heal?)

9 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

If you are fighting Scadrians, buying or developing weapons that circumvent feruchemical healing should be a top priority. How you would do so is an interesting question. Weaponized forgery? You rewrite the past so that the injury the weapon caused was always present.

Or make the situation where the wound occur traumatic enough that they are unable to not see the wound as part of themselves. 
Dajer's description sounded to me like someone with PTSD, so perhaps he cannot heal it because of that.

[RedBlue]

1 hour ago, therunner said:

Either his wound is somehow being renewed, or medallions are limited in what they can heal, or his perception is keeping him from healing it (perhaps sufficiently traumatic event makes wound harder to heal?)

If I recall correctly, Feruchemical healing works by speeding up the natural healing process. It uses perception as a guideline to fix wounds back to how they’re ‘supposed’ to be, but if an injury or illness can’t be healed naturally, Feruchemy won’t be effective.

In Dajer’s case, I think the problem is that the body can’t heal his kind of lung damage.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

12 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

If I recall correctly, Feruchemical healing works by speeding up the natural healing process. It uses perception as a guideline to fix wounds back to how they’re ‘supposed’ to be, but if an injury or illness can’t be healed naturally, Feruchemy won’t be effective.

Enough Feruchemical Gold lets you heal a shotgun to the face. 

Although it can't heal aluminum, so perhaps vaporised aluminum can be used as an anti-Invested gas weapon? If someone breathed in superheated aluminum particles, it could cause unhealable damage to the lungs and throat, and if the aluminum seared into the flesh it'd become practically unremovable.

Edited July 6, 2025 by JustQuestin2004
I think I was being a little too rude.

[RedBlue]

6 minutes ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Natural smatural, enough Feruchemical Gold lets you heal a shotgun to the face.

Yes, because it can speed up the natural healing process so that you recover from would-have-been-fatal wounds before you die of them.

That’s different from irreversible chemical damage to the lungs.

[Walter The Moral]

It can also heal lost limbs, and bring you back after a full explosion. At that point, it's past natural healing, and is probably more similar to Radiant Healing (bringing the physical aspect in line with the spiritual aspect through the lens of the cognitive aspect).

[+Oltux72 he/him]

4 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

Yes, because it can speed up the natural healing process so that you recover from would-have-been-fatal wounds before you die of them.

That’s different from irreversible chemical damage to the lungs.

Human beings generally cannot regrow limbs. Yet this happens with feruchemical healing.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

6 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

Yes, because it can speed up the natural healing process so that you recover from would-have-been-fatal wounds before you die of them.

That’s different from irreversible chemical damage to the lungs.

There's a WOB stating that how F-Gold works is that it 'shifts' your Physical self to match your Spiritual ideal, which is filtered through your Cognitive self-perception. So it's not quite like normal bogstandard healing, it's still magical in nature like Stormlight healing.

Spoiler

Questioner

Wayne's ability to heal himself, obviously doesn't mimic his natural ability because he can regrow fingers. So if he lost a limb, could he regrow the--just heal it roughly until he stored up enough Health and then regrow the limb at a later time? Does it have to be an instantaneous--

Brandon Sanderson

No, he could totally get that back.

Questioner

And if say somebody was born with an extra finger, could they cut that off, heal that up and have a whole fingers-worth of Health saved?

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on how they view themselves. Healing in the cosmere is based on replacing-- returning you to the state you view as your natural state... Almost every cosmere magic is going to work that way, unless-- There’s certain ones that-- Yeah almost everyone is going to work that way.

[lacrossedeamon]

Side tangent but Malwish and Basin relationships might be similar to Fjordel and Arelon. Not sure retreading that type of political dynamic would be interesting though.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

34 minutes ago, lacrossedeamon said:

Side tangent but Malwish and Basin relationships might be similar to Fjordel and Arelon. Not sure retreading that type of political dynamic would be interesting though.

Maybe, but unlike Arelon their Invested people aren't bound by geography, which means Elendel (or whatever is around) doesn't have to stay stuck on the defensive like Arelon might.

I could easily see hidden resistance groups being funded by those that oppose the Malwish, kind of like the thieving crews in Era 1, only much more high tech and more like disposable, black ops espionage mercenaries or something. Constant cloak and dagger shenanigans that the Malwish Empire would prefer to keep under wraps to off-worlders so people don't see weakness.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

5 hours ago, lacrossedeamon said:

Side tangent but Malwish and Basin relationships might be similar to Fjordel and Arelon. Not sure retreading that type of political dynamic would be interesting though.

I doubt it, for Scadrial has a Shard and exactly one Shard. The weaker side would be really pressed to ally with the Shard.

[RedBlue]

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

I doubt it, for Scadrial has a Shard and exactly one Shard. The weaker side would be really pressed to ally with the Shard.

Unless the Shard is unable or unwilling to take sides.

[Isilel]

On 7/4/2025 at 8:36 PM, therunner said:

• None of the soldiers exhibited overt Invested powers, perhaps one instance of F-steel (but then didn't use those in combat)
• Cultural problem? Or general problem with harvesting powers?

 

This makes me very worried for the Era 3 books. Mechanical access to the Metallic Arts for personal use was supposed to be widespread in them, which should have nicely distinguished the upcoming trilogy from prior cosmere books, where invested arts had been reserved for the chosen few. Particularly, since on Scadrial those few had to be the winners of genetic lottery. 

As a result, Era 2 books had certain amounts of "idiot plots", since the problems had to be resolved with the powers that the protagonists had been born with. So, everyone "kinda forgot" that Tin Metalborn and Seekers make superior guards, since logical use of those would have impeded W@W's ability to sneak into secret installations. And would have instantly revealed emotional Allomancers affecting crowds in SoS, without Marasi having to deduct anything.

Then medallions and allomantic grenades made their appearance and there was hope of sensible and fun power combinations that wouldn't have required so much contrivance for the protagonists to win.  But, except for in a very limited way with Marasi, it didn't happen. Particularly jarring was that the Ghostbloods, of all people, with their links to the South, had neither medallions nor harmonium-powered devices.

And neither did the Ghostbloods in WaT! Despite Kelsier's acceptance of hemalurgy, despite Mraize almost certainly having spiked Gereh, none of them seemed to possess any Metallic Arts, except for  translation medallions.

The idea of non-lethal hemalurgy and possibly even wholly synthetic spikes has been introduced in TLM... But with Sanderson now seriously thinking about writing a cyberpunk era, this will clearly be relegated to it. 

However, in Emberdark, hundreds of years later, there is still no sign of any further developments in terms of hemalurgy, medallions and other individual devices. Still, the same  translation ones and a few weight ones were mentioned, when they tried to restrain the Dakwara. Yes, they are Mawlish, they have few Metalborn, but Mawlish had no problems producing heat and weight medallions at industrial scales _before_ Era 2! Surely, if anyone should have been provided with Metallic Arts enhancements, an expeditionary force looking for a new Perpendicularity to a valuable planet should have been top of the list!

I understand that Sanderson probably wants to save Metallic Arts evolution for the Scadrial books proper, but I am worried that he is drip-feeding them too slowly, since now they'll have to be spread over 3 Eras. And also, that the extremely limited use of personal Metallic Arts by future Scadrians in the Secret Projects will prevent him from making Metallic Arts as widespread and accessible for personal use as past WoBs about the "Modern Era" Scadrial suggested that they would be. And as a result, we'll be back to "genetic superheroes" as protagonists.

[therunner he/him]

29 minutes ago, Isilel said:

This makes me very worried for the Era 3 books. Mechanical access to the Metallic Arts for personal use was supposed to be widespread in them, which should have nicely distinguished the upcoming trilogy from prior cosmere books, where invested arts had been reserved for the chosen few.

....

However, in Emberdark, hundreds of years later, there is still no sign of any further developments in terms of hemalurgy, medallions and other individual devices. Still, the same  translation ones and a few weight ones were mentioned, when they tried to restrain the Dakwara. Yes, they are Mawlish, they have few Metalborn, but Mawlish had no problems producing heat and weight medallions at industrial scales _before_ Era 2! Surely, if anyone should have been provided with Metallic Arts enhancements, an expeditionary force looking for a new Perpendicularity to a valuable planet should have been top of the list!

While I am a bit worried too, here we have seen primarily Malwish, for whom Metallic arts are rare enough to literally venerate anyone who has them.

And second, I think "Mechanical Metallic Arts" will be literal, machines using Metallic Arts not people. Isles explicitly mentioned 'Feruchemical Healing devices', and the 'Starfighters Pushing and Pulling on Steelfields', so they clearly have some. There were also the weight devices you mentioned, the 'breaking' device, and I suspect the room heating was also supplied by Metalminds.

So it is there, just not very overt. I suspect going forward Malwish side will have primarily tools that use Invested Arts, and not people who are Invested.

29 minutes ago, Isilel said:

And neither did the Ghostbloods in WaT! Despite Kelsier's acceptance of hemalurgy, despite Mraize almost certainly having spiked Gereh, none of them seemed to possess any Metallic Arts, except for  translation medallions.

While Kelsier is accepting of Hemalurgy, that does not mean he is going to share that knowledge, the man is practically build on secrets. 

And he clearly mistrusted Rosharan cell even before they went nearly completely rogue (as discussed in TLM), so all the more reason not to share it with them.

I can imagine Mraize tried to spike Gereh, but failed, Hemalurgy requires great precision.

29 minutes ago, Isilel said:

I understand that Sanderson probably wants to save Metallic Arts evolution for the Scadrial books proper, but I am worried that he is drip-feeding them too slowly, since now they'll have to be spread over 3 Eras. And also, that the extremely limited use of personal Metallic Arts by future Scadrians in the Secret Projects will prevent him from making Metallic Arts as widespread and accessible for personal use as past WoBs about the "Modern Era" Scadrial suggested that they would be. And as a result, we'll be back to "genetic superheroes" as protagonists.

I mean, unless cost of Invested Arts technology goes to effectively 0, having personal Metallic Arts be a commodity just turns 'genetic superheroes' to 'economic superheroes'.
The only difference is they bought their powers, instead of being born with them (which arguably limits their background more, as there is minimum economic strata they are from).

I don't think he ever planned them to be that widespread, as even in TSM 1000 BEUs is still basically a fortune. But maybe I am missing some WoBs, would you mind sharing them?

Edit: And side note on W&W, though WoBs vary, Metalborn are roughly 1 in a thousand or so, which means there is a total of ~15000 metalborn in all of Basin. Across all 32 powers, and all ages. Likely there is ~few hundred Tin eyes of all ages, and not all of those will necessarily want to work as sentries.
Still a plot hole, but Metallic Arts are still quite rare, just not as much as in Era 1.

Edited July 10, 2025 by therunner

[lacrossedeamon]

1 minute ago, therunner said:

I mean, unless cost of Invested Arts technology goes to effectively 0, having personal Metallic Arts be a commodity just turns 'genetic superheroes' to 'economic superheroes'.
The only difference is they bought their powers, instead of being born with them (which arguably limits their background more, as there is minimum economic strata they are from).

I don't think he ever planned them to be that widespread, as even in TSM 1000 BEUs is still basically a fortune. But maybe I am missing some WoBs, would you mind sharing them?

Kelsier desire the "democratize the metallic arts" feels like its just gonna turn into Halladren with Awakeners and Drabs.

[Isilel]

5 hours ago, therunner said:

 Isles explicitly mentioned 'Feruchemical Healing devices', and the 'Starfighters Pushing and Pulling on Steelfields', so they clearly have some

 

As an aside, I always wondered whether an Augur burning an unkeyed health  metalmind could prime an allomantic grenade with it and do an area heal.

But if they have Feruchemical healing devices, why is Dejar a cut-rate Darth Vader? For that matter if he couldn't have been healed for some reason, you'd think someone like him would have had access to an F-Cadmium medallion for his oxygen instead of whatever contraption he had.

And isn't it odd that they have Steel/Iron mechanical Allomancy for their air/spacecraft, but not their individual soldiers? Maybe not for everyone, but for a handful on such a potentially crucial mission?

 

5 hours ago, therunner said:

While Kelsier is accepting of Hemalurgy, that does not mean he is going to share that knowledge, the man is practically build on secrets.

 

When Kelsier had sent out Iyatil, he had  entrusted her with a very important mission on an alien planet, which would have necessitated her going against invested entities. It would have been implausibly counter-productive not to equip her with some invested abilities of her own. He didn't have to share secrets of hemalurgy with her, he could have just implanted her with a spike or 2. And provided  some medallions, apart from the obligatory translation one. 

 

5 hours ago, therunner said:

I can imagine Mraize tried to spike Gereh, but failed, Hemalurgy requires great precision.

 

But why include something like that, which didn't even lead anywhere in the end? 

 

5 hours ago, therunner said:

I mean, unless cost of Invested Arts technology goes to effectively 0, having personal Metallic Arts be a commodity just turns 'genetic superheroes' to 'economic superheroes'.

 

But didn't all Mawlish have heat medallions in Era 2? They didn't strike me as either exorbitantly expensive or at all rare. Why should the other medallions be in the future? Most of them should be somewhat affordable, at least.

 

5 hours ago, therunner said:

I don't think he ever planned them to be that widespread, as even in TSM 1000 BEUs is still basically a fortune. But maybe I am missing some WoBs, would you mind sharing them?

I could only quickly find this:

Quote

 

WeiryWriter

For the Coppermind: What should we call the page about the Southerner medallions? (or: How would Khriss refer to them in an Ars Arcanum?)

Brandon Sanderson

Let's call them "unsealed metalminds" though Era 3 might use slang.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/134/#e2112

 

You don't have slang for something that is not widespread.

But I remember some WoBs about the democratisation of Metallic Arts via gadgets. I'll look for them, when I have time.

 

5 hours ago, therunner said:

Edit: And side note on W&W, though WoBs vary, Metalborn are roughly 1 in a thousand or so, which means there is a total of ~15000 metalborn in all of Basin. 

 

 

Khriss didn't specify "in the Basin", did she? I always thought that it was on average for all of Scadrial, including the South, though Wax couldn't have known it at that point.

There were also conflicting WoBs, IIRC, that 1:50 Metalborn in Era 2 in the old Mistborn RPG was a little too high, but not far off. And that "everyone would know a Coinshot" in the Basin.

P.S., here is one of the WoBs:

 

Quote

 

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)

 

 

 

5 hours ago, therunner said:

 Likely there is ~few hundred Tin eyes of all ages, and not all of those will necessarily want to work as sentries.

 

As we know, the Set weren't shy about either recruiting Metalborn or procuring powers for those willing to work for them. Tin Allomancy or  Feruchemy would have been significantly more common than Gold Feruchemy, but we have seen a few Set members with the latter.

Edited July 10, 2025 by Isilel

[JPGU]

15 hours ago, Isilel said:

This makes me very worried for the Era 3 books. Mechanical access to the Metallic Arts for personal use was supposed to be widespread in them

I mean, i think they are. Dajer told this to Star:

"The dragons have stagnated. Once, they flew, and mortals walked. Now any child with a coin can soar as they did"

That sounds to me like the ability to use allomancy is available to practically anyone. If we didn't see it in the book it's because Brandon doesn't want to spoil too much of the future of magic in Scadrial and the reason in the world why we didn't see any soldiers use allomancy is that there really wasn't a real opportunity, it's not like throwing coins at the Dakwara was more useful than shooting it.