Weltall

The fundamental misunderstanding you're having here is that Scadrian metal is Invested. It is not, as Brandon has said repeatedly. It's a focusing agent which means that it tells Preservation's power what form to take when an allomancer uses their power; there is literally nothing special about the metal itself and metal from anywhere in the Cosmere will work in the Metallic Arts. With the exception of atium all of the power an allomancer uses comes directly from Preservation. And Scadrians are human, Khriss even points out in Arcanum Unbounded that they were literally created based on the template of the Cosmere's original humans from Yolen. For a while they were distinctly different in some internal ways due to the changes Rashek made to help them survive the changes he'd caused with the Well of Ascension but no more so than, say, Rosharans with the way their hair colors work.

Isaac Stewart has said that not all the stars on the Arcanum Unbounded chart are within the Cosmere, which is as close to Brandon saying so s we're likely get for now. Here's my spin on it, and there's probably a better way to put it but the mechanics of the Spiritual Realm and infinite anything are brain-breaking. Let's stick with Ruin and Presevation as an example since they're a known quantity. Say we have an infinitely large water tank representing Adonalsium's infinite power, of which the sixteenth of that power that is aligned with Ruin is still infinite, because infinity. Now, each Shard has what we can think of as an 'active tank' which represents how much of that infinite Investiture (residing in the Spiritual Realm) the Vessels are able to recognize as 'theirs' and access at any given time. The 'active tank' is a flexible container that can contract when a Shard Invests in a planet or does anything similar like create a Splinter. This pulls the Investiture from the Spiritual and into the Cognitive/Physical. Let's just call it 'the world' for short. Power placed into the world is not lost to the Shards and they still recognize it as theirs, but they can't use it without pulling it back into the Spiritual. When Preservation and Ruin created Scadrial, they gave up slightly unequal amounts of their Investiture, so Ruin's 'active tank' remained slightly larger than Preservation's and he was more powerful afterwards. Preservation split off some of Ruin's power into atium in order to restore the balance and set it up to recycle back into the world rather than into Ruin's 'active tank', thus leaving them at equal power once again. Investiture in the world can be reclaimed by a Shard, but it requires active effort and can obviously do things to the world that anyone living on it may not appreciate. Now, in addition to contracting when Investiture is put into the Physical/Cognitive Realms, the 'active tanks' can also expand, when the Shards recognize some of that infinite Investiture in the Cosmere is 'theirs'. It always was theirs and it always was available but they didn't truly know it until that moment. At that point, there is a one-way flow of Investiture from the infinitely large 'Adonalsium tank' to the Shard's 'active tank', which becomes proporitonately larger. This fits with Brandon's explanation for how Autonomy and Patji are connected. Then we have Investiture as we're most familiar with it, in the various magic systems. These draw on the Investiture in 'the world' and in the 'active tank' and this Investiture is what infinitely cycles through the system. So for example, Scadrians through the part of them that is Preservation (the part that's in 'the world') can tap into Preservation's 'active tank' in the Spiritul Realm using metals as a focus in allomancy. The power is briefly drawn into the world, shaped by the metal and the Intent of the allomancer, used and then recycled into the Spiritual again. Apply as needed to any end-positive magic. For end-neutral systems, the power is generally already in the world and is simply changing owners or changing form slightly. A given Breath goes from Endowment's 'active tank' into the world whenever she bestows it on a person, then it gets used until the last person to bear that Breath dies, or an object it's used to Awaken is destroyed, then it flows back into the Spiritual/Endowment's 'tank'. In any event, the Investiture always has a way back into the Shard's 'active tank'. So... did I explain that well enough?

It's worded in a way that suggests it only works on BioChroma but the same can be said for the Ars Arcanum description of A-Copper/Bronze being able to hide/detect allomantic pulses when we have WoB that those work for feruchemy and non-Scadrian forms of Investiture as well. And we know that BioChromatic 'life-sense' can be affected by things like Aviar talents so it would be very unusual if it didn't work the other way and various aspects of BioChroma could be used to detect other forms of Investiture.

Probably true, but they're also seemingly a very weak form of Cognitive Shadow so they may be more vulnerable to whatever it does. Anyhow, the point is that until further notice, we don't have a definitive answer. Oathbringer spoiler

Hoid's sword is not Invested, for whatever that's worth. And I don't think it's been confirmed that it is silver, just that it looks silver. We've also seen people refer to aluminum as silver (including Nightblood's sheath, repeatedly).and Shardblades are described as silver or silvery, so unless there's a WoB I've missed, we don't know for sure what Hoid's sword is made from. But either silver or aluminum would be very interesting, given the properties both have. And Brandon has RAFO'd whether silver has the same effect on other Cognitive Shadows as it does on Shades.

Volume 2 actually provides the Prose explanation so assuming Volume 3 doesn't change any details, we pretty much know what's going on. Overmastery (using too much power, but not to the point it kills you) leaves you temporarily unable to Master but when your power returns, it's stronger than before. Kenton likens this to soldiers training until their muscles are sore in order to become stronger. It's built into the system.

Dakhor? xD

Nah, you know what I'd pay to see? Kelsier's Eleven. Or maybe The Luthadel Job. Kelsier: The Professional... Or for Era 2, Wayne Cassidy and the Dawnshot Kid.

You did read the other WoB I provided, right? The one where he said that fifty metals is about as many as there are? You get fifty one if you count all possible combinations before we knew of harmonium and he specifically called the latter out as one more metal. If there were harmonium alloys as a major factor, fifty wouldn't be 'nearly' correct, it would be closer to seventy metals total. And I took 'basically no new elements' to include godmetal alloys, since Brandon clearly interpreted the question as 'new metals', which would include new alloys.

PSST, you need to put OB/Oathbringer in the topic title if you're going to discuss things from the book outside of spoiler tags. Roshar had spren before the Shattering. Adonalsium literally created not only the planet but the entire star system. The spren that were already on Roshar at the Shattering because associated with specific Shards, particularly Cultivation. As mentioned, the Parsh have four genders (malen and femalen in addition to male and female) so the four-gendered spren reflect that. Honor and Cultivation came first, Odium arrived later. Brandon has described the Old Magic as 'its own weird thing' so it may be something that predated the Shards and Cultivation became associated with it, rather than being the creator of it. We know that the Surges are a system-wide thing rather than being exclusively 'of Honor' or Honor and Cultivation. As mentioned, Roshar has always been like we see it and a lot of the life on the planet has been shaped by its unusual conditions and the presence of spren. Even the highstorms predate the Shattering, though the Stormfather has changed considerably since the beginning. Brandon has also mentioned that Roshar has a very bountiful ecosystem, it's just different from what we're used to. The analogy of a coral reef works extremely well and it was one of Brandon's sources of inspiration.

Like I said, the WoBs where he talks about how many metals there are makes it sound like he's not intending to build Era 4 technology around godmetal alloys and that he's not planning much in the way of harmonium alloys. My guess is that if harmonium can be alloyed, it would probably work similarly to what we see in Bands of Mourning, just without requiring someone to 'prime' it with the appropriate power first. So a harmonium/bendalloy alloy would create a time bubble (with either the ratio of godmetal to normal metal or some mechanical regulator determining the size and compression rate), harmonium/steel would push with some mechanical method of directing its output, etc. Brandon has pretty much stated that the base sixteen are enough, we just don't currently know enough about all their interactions and how their use can be expanded mechanically to understand how it will work. Let me repeat the WoB I provided earlier:

Yeah, what basically happened (per Era 2) is that Sazed took a page out of Preservation's book by setting up a single powerful individual who could provide stability during the early years. It seems to have worked out pretty well for all the survivors, who also got the benefit of having various genetic and physical impairments healed during the process when Sazed was modifying everyone's bodies to revert all the changes Rashek made a thousand years earlier. So for example, Cett was able to walk again per Word of Brandon. Sazed did this mass tinkering to give humanity the best chance of surviving. Of course, he later admits that maybe he made things too nice for the survivors but that's an Era 2 problem. As mentioned, Secret History gives some more information on the topic whenever you read it. And all the essays in Arcanum Unbounded are essential reading for the would-be Cosmere scholar. Oh, for a chance to talk with Khriss for an hour and ask any questions we want...

Brandon has RAFO'd how feruchemy became part of the Terris sDNA but he's implied that the extra Preservation in Scadrians might have been a factor. I seem to recall another WoB that there is a method of becoming a feruchemist other than being born with the sDNA but I can't find it right now. The above WoB (and the one I think I've seen) suggest not, and it would do very weird things to the Terris sDNA if they had a third Shard's 'genes' in their makeup. And would probably have made Sazed's Ascension impossible, especially given some things we see in Secret History where there was just a severe Presevation/Ruin imbalance. Anyhow, we'd all love to know what's up with Autonomy. What I believe to be the case (and I can't claim credit for developing the theory) is that Bavadin is creating Splinters of herself on various worlds in order to make it easier to find and access all of the Investiture that became associated with Autonomy at the Shattering. We know that there's lots of it out there which the Shards can theoretically access, but the Vessels don't have infinitely expanded minds and they can't actually use all that power normally. But if Autonomy spreads her influence through Splinters, she might be able to gather that extra power with relatively little exposure. There's a long WoB here where Brandon talks about how Shards work, in the context of Autonomy's relation to the Investiture on First of the Sun.

There are, but I don't think Brandon has a lot of plans for them. He was asked how many allomantic metals there are and said that fifty is 'nearly correct'. If you count up the known metal possibilities before harmonium was introduced, you get fifty one. Brandon mentioned harmonium specifically as an additional metal. It's hard to imagine fifty being almost correct if Brandon was thinking about opening up Pandora's Box with harmonium alloys as well. And of course, this is assuming you can alloy harmonium. And find ways to use it without blowing yourself up.

We don't know the feruchemical applications of any atium or lerasium alloys and we only know the allomantic application of one atium alloy so yes, there's a lot of potential there. Brandon has said that he hasn't canonized most of them even in his notes though, which suggests that most of them aren't currently planned to have a major role in the series. There's also a pretty severe limiting factor on lerasium alloys and Brandon has implied that even in Era 4, what we'll be seeing is mainly the interactions of the base metals rather than a lot of new ones. So it's probably going to be more like the WoB that @Calderis posted and less 'here's a new alloy that solves for this problem'.

As amusing a thought as that is, it wouldn't really solve the distance problem, it would just relocate where it's happening relative to everything else in the Physical Realm. An Elantrian would still experience a massive power loss within a few hundred miles of Elantris whether Sel is where it should be or if it's moved to, say, the Scadrian System. Same for the other systems, even if the loss isn't as dramatic or the distance restrictions somewhat less severe. For example, the distance between MaiPon and Elantris is enough that Forgery doesn't work in the latter region. The distance between a planet and just its moon(s) is astronomically greater than the distances at which we know magics stop working because of distance from their 'home' region.

@Naurock@Fatikis You've both won the topic. xD Also, one of the tricks involves the health benefits of hemalurgic cookies, doesn't it?

Basically, Brandon had implied in older statements that, for example, Sazed might be able to talk to Tindwyl or TenSoon to Vin. His more recent statements tell us that this is not the case. Similarly, when Sazed tells Spook in his letter at the end of HoA that Vin and Elend are happy, he's talking about something we see in Secret History but he isn't able to actually know anything about the Beyond and he isn't able to speak to them any more. Now, reuniting soul and body is something that Sazed can theoretically do, but not if the soul has already passed Beyond. Like I said, there's a quasi-afterlife where the souls of the recently deceased manifest in the Cognitive Realm before passing Beyond. Some souls can persist indefinitely as Cognitive Shadows but most are inevitably drawn Beyond.

It definitely will involve more advanced technology, at least by Era 4, Brandon has said that we're getting 'actual FTL' which would preclude the idea of A-Cadmium 'sleeper ships' being the approach we'll be getting. But that sort of thing could work in the time leading up to whenever Scadrial cracks FTL travel, maybe even become a plot point if some 'present day' Scadrians encounter an old-style ship taking the cadmium approach. He's also mentioned that FTL is built into several systems, not just the Metallic Arts. It's not too hard to imagine ways that Surgebinding could work (you can manipulate gravity and you've got teleportation powers) and while Sand Mastery doesn't have any obvious FTL applications, we do know that Autonomy's Investiture could be used to power a solar sail. And while Selish magic currently has a spacial iimitation, AonDor has teleportation and probably other applications that could be applied to FTL if they could ever solve for the distance problem.

There's a distinction made in the Cosmere between an 'afterlife' where your soul persists in the Cognitive Realm after your death and the Beyond where your soul inevitably goes if you aren't able to become a Cognitive Shadow. Think of the Beyond as the after-afterlife. The Heralds for example are Cognitive Shadows and the 'hell' they're experiencing isn't the same thing that your average Rosharan would experience upon death. Or for an easier example, people who die on Threondy and become Shades (a type of Cognitive Shadow) versus the people who die and go Beyond. Brandon has said repeatedly that the Beyond is something even the Shards do not understand and can't access. He's left the subject open to discussion among readers and mentions that it's something that is the subject of debate in-universe among arcanists, philosophers and theologians. He's also said that any implications about Sazed connecting with Vin and Elend after their deaths in Hero of Ages and any WoBs to that effect were in error, or for some of the more obliquely worded ones, Secret History explains what he meant

There's an old Word of Peter that said there were at least twelve beads (here) which would leave une accounted for as Rashek didn't actually use lerasium to make himself a mistborn. There's also a newer Word of Brandon where he responded to a question about whether there were originally sixteen beads with 'an excellent guess'. So yeah, there should be some lerasium lying around.

Yeah, I know why he said that, I'm just pointing out that Brandon's confirmed that it does work hemalurgically to steal things. And that whatever it does, it's evidently not nearly as impressive as its allomantic (and potentially its feruchemical) uses

Brandon's confirmed that it can steal things but he hasn't given us any idea what, and that using it for hemalurgy would be really really wasteful. 'Like using a nuclear bomb as a paperweight' was his exact way of putting it.

Brandon has said that you could use a lot of A-Cadmium as a form of relativistic travel. That said, implicit in this is that time is passing inside the bubble and you'll still grow older and (as you mention and I forgot to) will still need the various necessities of life. Assuming sufficient cadmium reserves, Marasi time-capsuling herself to show up in Era 3 seems like a reasonable hypothetical possibility. Someone using this same method to skip almost five thousand (Scadrian) years from Aharietiam to the time of SA or ten thousand plus from pre-Shattering Yolen to Mistborn Era 4 on the other hand is harder to credit.

While true, Vin snapped mid-birth and as the books make apparent and Brandon has confirmed, she was stronger than Kelsier. The snapping threshold doesn't seem like it can be that high if Vin could be snapped by an especially difficult birth. And Brandon is perfectly willing to admit that Kelsier has many psychopathic traits and could easily have been the villain of many other stories, so if the explanation is as simple as 'Mare's death was the one thing that finally hurt him and sufficiently cracked his soul' then I think he'd have been fine with telling us that outright. There's also Kelsier's memory of hearing Preservation's voice before, which we haven't heard about in any other snappings and which seems an odd detail for Brandon to have thrown in if there isn't something important about it. Basically, there's enough material here that I don't think we can dismiss it completely.