New market

[Stormgate he/him]

I had a thought about the medallions: If the technology to make them becomes even somewhat commercialized, then it opens up a whole new market. You could sell your abilities, for example. You know how the Aluminum and Duralumin burners are pretty much useless? Sell their power to Mistings, and they don't have to worry about getting poisoning from pewter, bendalloy, cadmium, etc. 

Any other uses you can think of for Feruchemy and Allomancy? Storing attributes in prison metal so that Allomancy won't have as much of an effect, for example.

[Oversleep]

I was thinking about these things.

First of all, if medallions become widespread and somewhat common... Combine that with the fact that Northern Hemisphere has a lot of Metalborn and you have a lot of Compounders running around. That's a little scary thought. One Miles was quite a trouble... imagine Steel Compounders running left and right, people who cannot die, people able to Lurch down buildings, people infinitely Lucky... Or even a rustful more Twinborn like Crashers.

That's starts to get into Reckoners territory...

If you cannot afford a medallion, I imagine that some who do could set up business which would be Compounding client's metalminds. I mean, you're a Bloodmaker and don't want to spend two weeks in bed with sickness just so you could heal one bullet? Give your metalmind to the Compounder store and get back a goldmind filled to the brim.

The Southern Scadrians probably don't have any problems like that, since every medallion provides Feruchemical Warmth and double power medallions are rare. With virtually no naturally born Allomancers and probably no Feruchemists, even with medallions they have less problems with Metalborn than Northern pre-BoM. But once Northeners get their hands on medallions, things gonna get crazy.

[Three1415]

There's also the small, totally-not-world-breaking problem that the Bands can be duplicated infinitely. All you need is a copy of the Bands and a vial of all 16 metals, and you can Compound everything to form a new set, meaning that every person in the Cosmere could potentially become Fullborn. 

Next time, on 'Compounding breaks all the magic systems'....

Edited July 26, 2016 by Three1415

[Stormgate he/him]

I'm pretty sure Sazed would have something to say about that. Besides, to quote a The Incredibles, "If everyone's super, no one will be." It would become a planet with interesting interactions, but terrifying to other planets. Come in spaceships? They can launch you into the sun with a group Steelpush. Go in through a perpendicularity? Get brass duralumined and you are essentially stunned while you get ripped to shreds by any number of metal objects. Got a Shardblade? They will do a group push and yank it from your hands.

[Rasarr she/her]

This sounds awesome... but also makes me worried that Brandon will not go this way because of how hilariously overpowered this would be, especially in comparison to other systems (I know Brandon cares not for balance, but still... the Space trilogy could be over pretty fast if it's Scadrial vs. the World type of deal). If people in "80s trilogy" will be wearing gold medallions, it'll still take a lot of threat - and thus tension - away, which is, again, why I'm worried that our esteemed author won't go in this direction, even though it's pretty cool.

Then again, it is Brandon Sanderson, so here's hoping we'll get some delightfully broken Scadrians in the future.

Edited July 26, 2016 by Rasarr

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

Bloodmaker medallions and thug medallions would be wonderful for emergency care... I suspect that there will be a LOT of regulation on how abilities may be bought and sold though.

[Radiant Returned he/him]

1 hour ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

I suspect that there will be a LOT of regulation on how abilities may be bought and sold though.

Any time there's regulation there's black market. I'd be willing to bet that that plays a major role. 

[Eki]

I've been thinking about this a lot... I think there's a big risk for exploitation. For example, rich people paying poor people to sleep for them.

[Arrae]

I think rich people would all end up with medallions, and some would leak through to other parts of the Cosmere. Scadrial wouldn't be the only planet with medallions, even though it'll have the most. Medallions can be sold, stolen, gifted away, etc and metal powers can be taken through a little thing called hemalurgy...

I wonder what happens if a Windrunner gets their hands on iron/steel medallions...

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

Depending on the how the nicrosil hack works, it may not work for other worlds. And I agree about the black market; we know we'll have a programmer and a swatt team in the modern day... having them run into a black market/crime syndicate would make sense.

[Szmit]

I don't think a windrunner could use a medallion, unless he had a parent with scadrian blood or a proper hemalurgic spike. (Probably any allomatic or feruchemical ability would be enough).