nervousnerd

Most of us know that but since this was in AoL (a first book in a new group of stories), it may also have been Brandon explaining certain allomantic powers to new readers or people who had forgotten what a Lurcher was.

I've also thought about Atium in relation to how Ruin has been described. He is willing to build up one thing if it can somehow be used to break down two more. In my mind Allomantic Atium is very fitting with Ruin in that it allows one person to fight and potentially destroy many enemies. It might do it through a method that is not similar to his intent but it still can be used to achiece his purpose.

Well then, that confirms that blades and armor will likely be the same color. I'm still not sure about the eyes though. I suppose it would be an interesting conflict but many people kind of already have a conflict with the Radiants due to the Recreance. Maybe it would be more useful as a way to pit certain orders against one another instead.

Do we know that order color affects anything but plate color? I had always assumed it was similar to (or maybe even caused by) the glyphs on the armor that denote order. Wouldn't there be people still living who had red eyes now though? I guess maybe the dead blades couldn't cause that color change for some reason but I can't imagine how. I was under the impression that light eyes (of any color) in a radiant are caused by continued use of stormlight. When held in in large amounts it can cause the eyes to look almost white. Stormlight itself doesn't necessarily have a color though, does it?

The new map also seems about the same size as the old one if you compare similar points of reference.

That makes sense. But It seems as though that is becoming less of a problem in Elendel than it is in the surrounding areas though. Wayne mentioned how he struggled to get any gold at all when he first found out he was a bloodmaker, I wonder if there would be some more mundane job (not involving fighting) that would be particulary suited to oracles that would make it more worth trying to discover them (like coinshot messengers, etc.),

I'm not necessarily saying that it is the same thing. I just thought it was an interesting thing that came to my mind. There is no proof obviously that just anyone can soulcast or 'transport.' I do wonder what is happening in SH though and if anyone in the cognitive realm can do this. I also thought of it like this: if Jasnah is able to move her entire physical self into shadesmar then she can likely do the same for certain objects. She may not even have to leave Shadesmar as she can interact with anything that is in the physical realm from there. I'm not sure how much sense that makes.

We have seen something like this before (Secret History Spoilers):

Yeah. I was hoping to see an Oracle somewhere. Adding more characters might not have really added to Era 1 because they still would not have really compared to mistborn. Now that we have all these mistings around though it would be more interesting.

I don't know that the ideal structure is going to be so rigid for all Orders. I mean. in terms of shardblade we know that Shallan only had to say the first ideal (and no truths even from what I remember) to be able to draw pattern as her blade. This could mean that certain orders are more powerful than others initially. I also agree that we also don't necessarily know how many ideals there are. I does seem like there aren't many but we don't really know.

I agree mostly. I wasn't really thinking about Era 4 when I considered it. I was mainly thinking of the exploitative groups that we have met and they were the first who came to mind and also the first I dismissed. I do agree that it is unlikely that they will make it to even the third era because if they do then the ending to Era 2 would be kind of anticlimactic. At the same time, I think it unlikely we will experience the same type of world ending event that happened in Era 1 to wipe out or completely alter so many groups. I think Brandon has also mentioned that different planets are developing at different rates and that is how he wants it. He doesn't want a universe of equal planets meeting each other (eventually). This is why the Ones Above are so intriguing. I find it unlikely Roshar or any other planet with a hostile shard around will ever really care about the rest of the cosmere until they solve their own problems. Harmony has allowed the planet a fair amount of peace and quiet to develop. It may be that Scadrial and Sel are meant to give us those two opposing types of interplanetary travel. I do worry that the splintering may make this more difficult for Sel to be effectively involved in this space race though.

I think protecting the cosmere is something that they do seemingly tangentially though (that is technically the 17th Shards job, maybe?). I mean, I doubt they would work with Odium or anyone that is actively hurting the cosmere but I don't think they would discriminate against for example Hoid or the Shard despite their differing views of what is good for the cosmere. I thought I read a WoB (can't find it again) comparing them to something like mercenaries in that they would work with anyone as long as it was to increase their cosmere awareness. Speaking of Hoid, do we know of any meetings between Hoid and Khriss? I mean, I love the guy but an awful lot of people with knowledge of the cosmere seem to not agree with my opinion on him.

Did not see that. Thanks.

Sel and Threnody are in the same solar system. I'm not sure where Scadrial and First of the Sun are in location to them or Roshar. As you said, we will find out soon enough when the official map gets published.

Maybe. The Ire is the only other group from a single planet that we have seen travel outside of their own. That is an interesting question though in that it raises this one to me: What group from Scadrial would do this to First of the Sun? It is unlikely to be the Set because the Ones Above do appear to have rules and don't just take what they want (even if they skirt those rules to get what they want in the end). Are all of the people of Scadrial going to end up working towards the same goal or will their be factions that work against each other?

We don't really know how easy it is to start and stop burning tin though do we? With practice it might be possible to do as was said and stop burning when you anticipate a noise. Not likely a great idea but it might be possible. Many powers also create the need for different fighting styles to allow their usefulness in a fight such as when the newspaper articles mention the chromium burner with a special fighting style to allow for touching a person and draining their allomantic reserves. It is interesting to think about how the powers might be used in ways that they haven't before. The whole point of the metallic arts is that almost any power is useful somehow if a person knows how to use them. Marasi and Spook are good examples of this. Their powers have a limited use but they are useful (as a trap or for spying). I'm sure that there are uses that haven't been thought of for many of them yet though. Obviously gold, aluminum, and duralumin are the outliers in terms of usefulness right now but we don't really know much about their mistings either. The problem is that it might not matter what powers you are born with anymore depending on the way things go with the Southerners. I do wonder how medallion tech is going to change things.

This is pretty much the only bit of description that we get about him. It doesn't even mention his eye color. I agree though that Khriss and Nazh have always stayed out of the politics from what we have seen. Brandon from what I have read has said that they take no sides and generally work with everyone towards the pursuit of knowledge.

I think the problem with going from SA to Mistborn is that you expect it to be an epic of similar proportions but it kind of starts out small. Now, by small I do mean a small group of people attempting to overthrow an immortal god ruler but it actually does seem smaller in scope in that it is set up like a heist or espionage thriller and mainly focuses on only one main group. I would say that the second and third book do broaden the scope a lot compared to the first in my opinion and show more of the world that is in a state of turmoil and war (comparable to Roshar). They also move away from the heist aspect. I'm not really sure what to say to get you more into the first one though. The first part where Vin is on the outside is a little slower. Once the crew gets together, the stakes do get higher and higher though. Perhaps the attending of balls is a little slow at times but it is usually alternated with mistborn training and full on fighting. It really depends on what you find it hard to get through. It can also be hard to delve into the greater Cosmere because it seems like it is so large but I have honestly found that Brandon's books flow very easily and despite going in to complex topics are not a hard read. You can also go as deep or as shallow as you want.

I suppose not everything needs to be magical. The printing mechanism on the larger machine does sound more like something mechanical so perhaps both are like that. The never needs to be wound comment could be interesting as well but it may just mean that they haven't used any of the machines to deplete their reserves and therefore do not see any known mechanism of powering them.

I searched and from what I have seen there is no mention of any legitimate brothers,

So, from what I have previously read here in regards to Sixth of the Dusk, it seems like The Ones Above are thought to be from Scadrial, correct? It does make some sense because they have similar technology to what we have seen with Southerners and they are on the only planet that we know is approaching interstellar travel at the moment. I do wonder if there are any WoBs or other information that I haven't seen to confirm this though. Another question I have is this: In what way do the 'machines' work using what we know of the metallic arts? I mean maybe bronze could be used to sense more than just Allomancy and that could probably work for detecting Aviar, I suppose (It wasn't actually described how the smaller machine "shows things" to the user). The translation function confuses me though. In Bands we saw translation using connection worked in the opposite method. Connection attaches a person to the attributes of the place they are in. It is only really useful for visitors. How could Vathi use it to read a language from another world? Any thoughts?

Do you mean Zane? Is there any doubt that Vin killed him? I agree that there were other members of house Venture besides Straff's immediate family. I thought it mentioned an uncle or cousin was in charge of Urteau while Straff lead the house from Luthadel. While many Ventures may have been killed by the Citizen's rule, it is unlikely that the largest house at the time of the Final Empire had every single member killed. Also, there is a historical precedent of bastards taking on the family name so I see no reason why this would not have happened here.

Yeah. From what I understood there is no real way to get to Urithiru without the oathgates (unless you are Nohadon). While it may have been that nobody was looking for it there because its location wasn't known and therefore they did not try to find another way, I find that unlikely. Szeth talks about a community that is located near Urithiru that leaves him stormlight offerings. They seem to believe he is a Radiant because he comes down from Urithiru. If it was accessible, would those people not have either lived there or at least have taken what they could from there?

Sazed could have created the Basin to be an eden through very natural means (for the magical 1/8th god that is). While I think that it is possible for the shardpool to be involved, I'm not sure how smart it would be to put the shardpool somewhere easily accessible. Kandra are not ideal guards as they do not want to kill humans.

Also, I do wonder if Nicrobursts will alter the ability of aluminum to block some things. I do not remember if we saw duralumin allowing an effect on anything aluminum in the original trilogy though so maybe it is not possible (I am pretty sure at least emotional allomancy blocking wasn't around then because aluminum was too new).