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[BoM Spoilers] Status of the Vanisher Kidnapping victims


Numuhuku

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Does anyone else feel this detail ended up getting effectively dropped over the last couple of books? The abductions of the Allomantic blooded noblewomen was such a big part in Alloy of Law in kicking off Wax's adventures in Elendel, and establishing the Cett's perverse ruthlessness. It seems odd that the fate of the still captive women and the Cett's presumed plan to breed more Allomancers with them has been mostly reduced to off handed references to the Cett's general long term plans (even by Steris and Marsai, who had cousins among the kidnapped women). Obviously there were a few rather more immediate concerns, but it still felt a bit strange.

 

Especially now that the Cett's "benefactors" have turned on them, rendering any long term plans seemingly moot. I'm wondering how the kidnap victims and the breeding program will factor into the last book. While it certainly could have resulted in children by this point, it seems that not enough time would have passed for it to accomplish anything substantial (besides serious trauma on the victims part that is).

 

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

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Does anyone else feel this detail ended up getting effectively dropped over the last couple of books? The abductions of the Allomantic blooded noblewomen was such a big part in Alloy of Law in kicking off Wax's adventures in Elendel, and establishing the Cett's perverse ruthlessness. It seems odd that the fate of the still captive women and the Cett's presumed plan to breed more Allomancers with them has been mostly reduced to off handed references to the Cett's general long term plans (even by Steris and Marsai, who had cousins among the kidnapped women). Obviously there were a few rather more immediate concerns, but it still felt a bit strange.

 

Especially now that the Cett's "benefactors" have turned on them, rendering any long term plans seemingly moot. I'm wondering how the kidnap victims and the breeding program will factor into the last book. While it certainly could have resulted in children by this point, it seems that not enough time would have passed for it to accomplish anything substantial (besides serious trauma on the victims part that is).

 

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

 

Maybe if Wax had fallen for one of those dangling plot threads that Suit tried to set up at the beginning of BoM, he'd have been led to some of the surviving kidnappees as a reward.  And I do mean "surviving" because the allomantic ones have undoubtedly been used for spikes.  

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Maybe if Wax had fallen for one of those dangling plot threads that Suit tried to set up at the beginning of BoM, he'd have been led to some of the surviving kidnappees as a reward.  And I do mean "surviving" because the allomantic ones have undoubtedly been used for spikes.  

I wasn't under the impression that most of the women who got kidnapped in that plot were actually powerful allomancers themselves. Just noblewomen related to the Lord Mistborn spook under the pretense of them being convenient hostages for a get-away. It honestly would have been rather incredibly dangerous to aim that kind of theatrical kidnapping against actual allomancers (the curbstomp that Wax and Wayne inflicted on them being self-evident). Hafthór Júlíus Björnsson would be a safer hostage than a even a female thug for example. 

 

I'd think number of candidates to be spiked among that pool of people would be relatively small. I'd guess victims for spike experiments were likely procured by other means.

Edited by Numuhuku
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It was hinted at that the true danger is the longer term plans that the Set has, which implied to me was the breeding program. So it wasn't ignored or forgotten, just that Sequence and Suit were pushing for a more immediate result by using the Southern Scadrialians technology instead of waiting on the breeding program. At least that is what I got out of it. 

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It was hinted at that the true danger is the longer term plans that the Set has, which implied to me was the breeding program. So it wasn't ignored or forgotten, just that Sequence and Suit were pushing for a more immediate result by using the Southern Scadrialians technology instead of waiting on the breeding program. At least that is what I got out of it. 

That was my understanding to. It just seemed a bit odd for so many of the characters to refer to a kidnapping/forced breeding program soley as an abstract long term problem. Especially Steris and Marsai nearly ended up as victims of it as well.

 

At bare minimum, it seems like it'd be something worth mentioning to the Southerners (the extremely technologically advanced Southerners who don't currently have a very good opinion about the Northerners) to impress upon them that plenty of the Northern mask-less barbarians have just as much cause to hate the Cett as they do.

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Hmm...I was thinking it was implied that those women were actually being used by the Set for Hemalurgy practice and experimentation, rather than breeding.

I dunno. If that was the case, why not grab some coinshot messengers to experiment on. Ones no one will miss. Instead of high profile and connected women who could have a wider range of abilities

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The Set's focus on women suggests that the goal is to use the targets for breeding. If the goal was merely hemalurgy, then males would be just as valid of a target as females. But if your goal is breeding, then women work better than men. A woman can be imprisoned, raped, and then left in confinement during her pregnancy. A man can be raped by a woman, but the rapist is the one who gets pregnant. You can't depend on the pregnancy to make it easier to keep the man imprisoned (unlike a woman, where pregnancy is a huge physical burden). And the now-pregnant female rapist is "out of action", so to speak, for the duration of her pregnancy (and likely the first year or two after the birth of the child). The focus on the upper classes is likely because the various houses were founded by powerful allomancers. Steris is a target in AoL even though she has no known abilities herself. They want her because of her ancestors.

Of course, it's possible that some of the kidnapping victims are being used to make spikes. If a woman is forced to have a few children, and the results are unsatisfactory, then the Set might find another use for her. And children who show evidence of powers, but not in a way that the Set finds satisfactory, might end up serving in the same capacity.

My guess is that Wax won't completely shut down the breeding program. And eventually the program will achieve its goal of producing a mistborn... who will be the serial killer in the next trilogy (assuming that the next trilogy is still intended to be about a mistborn serial killer).

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It probably takes more than one generation of breeding to get results.

If two misting parents had a good chance at getting a misting child that would be common knowledge and people would choose their partners accordingly.

Also, if we're already on the topic of cruel logistics:  You only need a few male allomancer rapists for a lot allomancer women. Actually you probably want very few males so you can get maximum allomantic inbreeding going. Something like in the image on the right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbreeding#Domestic_animals. You'd probably also need a different strategy depending whether you want mistings or a mistborn. And there is probably a decent amount of knowledge on animal breeding around, considering there were farm animals during the final empire.

 

Man, I never realized just how dark this could get.

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Alright, you all make very good arguments against Hemalurgy instead of breeding. I can't support that theory. 

 

The truth is that we don't know WHAT the Set is up to exactly. The breeding program was an idea that Wax and Marasi came up with but was never confirmed one way or the other. That's always bothered me. 

 

The organization is devious. They use covers and diversion to hide what they're doing. And they've been dabbling in Hemalurgy. I just put these scattered pieces together. It's admittedly clumsy.

 

I'm just suspicious of anything that's given to us too easily. A breeding program is cumbersome and will take a long time with no guarantee of success. And the reason for it is weakened by the fact that they can now use other means to transfer/gain abilities. Is there a reason for a breeding program at this point?

 

What if the entire idea is a misdirection? What if, instead of breeding, these women were instead abducted to remove the possibility of more Allomancers being born (in high society only perhaps, or maybe it's just that those family lines are well documented)? 

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I'm just suspicious of anything that's given to us too easily. A breeding program is cumbersome and will take a long time with no guarantee of success. And the reason for it is weakened by the fact that they can now use other means to transfer/gain abilities. Is there a reason for a breeding program at this point?

 

What if the entire idea is a misdirection? What if, instead of breeding, these women were instead abducted to remove the possibility of more Allomancers being born (in high society only perhaps, or maybe it's just that those family lines are well documented)?

In order to remove allomancy from the population, you'd have to remove both men and women. That's not what's happening.

As for other means - there are drawbacks with those other means. If you're referring to Hemalurgy, then apparently the members of the Set can only safely spike themselves a few times. A mistborn, with access to all of the metals, would be much more powerful. Finally, the focus of the next trilogy is supposed to be a mistborn serial killer. That sounds like the sort of thing that might be produced by lots of allomanticly-focused inbreeding, suggesting that the Set might be accidentally responsible.

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In order to remove allomancy from the population, you'd have to remove both men and women. That's not what's happening.

As for other means - there are drawbacks with those other means. If you're referring to Hemalurgy, then apparently the members of the Set can only safely spike themselves a few times. A mistborn, with access to all of the metals, would be much more powerful. Finally, the focus of the next trilogy is supposed to be a mistborn serial killer. That sounds like the sort of thing that might be produced by lots of allomanticly-focused inbreeding, suggesting that the Set might be accidentally responsible.

 

Accidentally or "accidentally"? It could be that Wax and Wayne series sets up the ground for Set's actions in 80s series, with the serial killer being controlled by some cabal. There's always another secret, after all.

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Hmmm, I wonder how much time would have to pass on Scadrial for there to be 1980s tech.

After BoM technology probably the equivalent of mid-to-late 19th century. This would mean there's only about one century.

 

 

 

And that is why the Set are the villains, because their actions have suggested that they have discussed precisely this.

I think the Set is part of Harmonies plan to prepare for humanity what's to come. They are responsible for many technological advances. And in the epilogue the Trell-agent explains that they are afraid of civilisation advancing too far. I would be surprised if members of the Set didn't turn out to be good guys at the end, at least to Taravangian levels of goodness.

Edited by Plastic Misting
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I think the Set is part of Harmonies plan to prepare for humanity what's to come. They are responsible for many technological advances. And in the epilogue the Trell-agent explains that they are afraid of civilisation advancing too far. I would be surprised if members of the Set didn't turn out to be good guys at the end, at least to Taravangian levels of goodness.

 

Suit accepts the Trell-agent's authority without question, and is gratified that they listened to him about moving up the timetable.  That is, until they told him what exactly that entailed.  That plus the fact that the Set's hirelings are afraid of them (see also their conduct while divulging the information about the agents' presence) suggests that the Trell-agents are fully in charge.  Also, Taravangian runs a murder-clinic to get intel from one of the Unmade (who by the way are his ostensible enemies) regarding his plan to take over the world - if he's good, he is extremely misguided.   

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Suit accepts the Trell-agent's authority without question, and is gratified that they listened to him about moving up the timetable.  That is, until they told him what exactly that entailed.  That plus the fact that the Set's hirelings are afraid of them (see also their conduct while divulging the information about the agents' presence) suggests that the Trell-agents are fully in charge.  Also, Taravangian runs a murder-clinic to get intel from one of the Unmade (who by the way are his ostensible enemies) regarding his plan to take over the world - if he's good, he is extremely misguided.   

Well, you are right. I was just speculating what seems likely to me from a story-telling perspective. I don't think we know enough about the Set one way or another.

 

Taravangian... Is kind of like the trolley problem. I think that is going to be a big part of Stormlight Archive. Honor obviously has his solution of "you can't kill to save" but the characters will be tempted to go for other solutions. Taravangian tries to kill to save.

I think the Set might be similar. I don't think the Set is simply power-hungry. If that were the case their long-term plots wouldn't make sense because they don't help them achieve anything during the life-time of the current leaders. There has to be a greater goal. I also don't think Sanderson would write such a simple style of villain.

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Taravangian... Is kind of like the trolley problem. I think that is going to be a big part of Stormlight Archive. Honor obviously has his solution of "you can't kill to save" but the characters will be tempted to go for other solutions. Taravangian tries to kill to save.

I think the Set might be similar. I don't think the Set is simply power-hungry. If that were the case their long-term plots wouldn't make sense because they don't help them achieve anything during the life-time of the current leaders. There has to be a greater goal. I also don't think Sanderson would write such a simple style of villain.

 

Honor never said that.  Besides, the "current leaders" are the Trell-agents.  They couldn't care less about any specific human pawn, so long as the plan itself continues on schedule (and if they aren't immortal, I'll eat my hat).  And there is a greater goal - secure dominance over the whole of Scadrial.  Again, they don't care about the puny humans.  If they need to wipe everything and start from scratch, so be it.  It'll take time, and is appallingly wasteful, but better to flip the table than lose on it. 

Edited by Landis963
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Harmony has stated explicitly that he brought Wax back from the Roughs to act as his (i.e. Harmony's) tool.  And in two out of the three novels (AoL and BoM), Wax works directly against the Set.  If Harmony is trying to use the Set, he's got an odd way of going about it.

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Harmony has stated explicitly that he brought Wax back from the Roughs to act as his (i.e. Harmony's) tool.  And in two out of the three novels (AoL and BoM), Wax works directly against the Set.  If Harmony is trying to use the Set, he's got an odd way of going about it.

 

And in a third (SoS), he works indirectly against the Set by working to bring Bleeder to justice.  (Because those two allomancers working the crowd during the climactic speech didn't come from nowhere)

Edited by Landis963
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Well, in a way he could possibly think that they are a necessary evil, as long as he keeps them in check. Which he now realizes to be harder than anticipated as the Set is backed by a force he did not expect to show up.

Can't really deny that they have made contributions to technology, even if it was for rather distasteful reasons.

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Remember how crazy Preservation's future prediction skills were during the first three books? He was predicting the future more than a thousand years ahead. Presumably Sazed has them now. So anything that happens is probably according to Sazed's plan, or at least he accounted for it.

 

Honor never said that.  Besides, the "current leaders" are the Trell-agents.  They couldn't care less about any specific human pawn, so long as the plan itself continues on schedule (and if they aren't immortal, I'll eat my hat).  And there is a greater goal - secure dominance over the whole of Scadrial.  Again, they don't care about the puny humans.  If they need to wipe everything and start from scratch, so be it.  It'll take time, and is appallingly wasteful, but better to flip the table than lose on it. 

I didn't mean it as a quote... It seems pretty obvious that honours thing is to act morally correct, e.g. the ends don't justify the means.

 

We don't really know how exactly the Trell agents are connected to the Set. But even if they are at the top of a strict hierarchy they still have to convince the humans to do their bidding with some explanation. And as I explained earlier: It probably isn't just a promise of power.

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