joxers

The answers to these are spoilers for later era Mistborn books (Alloy of Law, Shadows of Self, and Bands of Mourning) and the Mistborn novella (Mistborn: Secret History). The Shards are an important part of the wider universe of the Cosmere, which the Mistborn books take place in. The Cosmere books span multiple series. The Stormlight Archive books, Warbreaker , Elantris , The Emperor's Soul, the Mistborn books, and a handful of short stories and novellas are set in the Cosmere.

I mean, a lot of era 1.5 books have been set in Elendel, where even decorative plants are required by law to produce some form of food. It may be that aspens still exist, but they don't fulfill this requirement so we don't see them much.

I feel like I've walked into a protracted battle between groups I barely understand.

Clearly the answer to our questions is a Scadrial Soul Genome Project.

I think I'm over here interpreting "interfering" as "alleles on the same locus", which would make them interfere with each other, instead of considering other ways they could interfere. Messing with spiritual metabolic pathways or something, I dunno. Spiritual transcription inhibition. Spiritual alternative splicing could be a thing. Man, I'd really like to know how the genes for Allomancy/Feruchemy are actually inherited, because they are not Mendelian traits.

I'm doing a really bad job of explaining what I mean here. I don't mean that Allomantic ability and full Feruchemist status is mutually exclusive, or that Feruchemical ability and Mistborn status is mutually exclusive. Like, I think someone could be born a full Feruchemist-Misting, or a Mistborn-Ferring, but not a Feruchemist-Mistborn. As in the "full-spectrum of powers in this art" gene is either full Feruchemist, Mistborn, or neither, but never both.

I was under the impression that they interfered with each other, preventing a combination of full feruchemy and mistborn. Reference.

A gene can be dominant but not result in a trait, like polydactyly. Feruchemy could be caused by a dominant gene but have low expressivity/penetrance. As far as mistborn/full feruchemists go, it could be that there are a bunch of genes that determine whether someone can use feruchemy, a bunch that determine whether a person can use allomancy, and a single gene with different variants that determines whether someone is a full feruchemist or mistborn. To be a full feruchemist or mistborn, a person would need two copies of the full feruchemist variant or two copies of the mistborn variant, respectively. That would also ensure they were mutually exclusive.

This answer actually increases the ratio of questions to answers. I'm reminded of Halloween candy scares. Check your candy apples for razor blades. Check your welcome cookies for spikey murder weapons.

That honestly raises more questions than answers. Like, where are these users getting/making these spikes? What's their motivation for spiking a bunch of people with Hemalurgic spikes? Especially if said spikes are not "fresh" and have probably been sitting around leaking? Is refusing a "cookie" gonna get me on the spike, er, donor list? And, most importantly, why ruin a perfectly good opportunity for an actual cookie? I'm gonna have to pass.

The forum says "Post a topic here letting us know that you exist!" and I'm pretty sure I do, so...

I just bought Shadows of Silence. You can download both Epub and Mobi formats. The links expir e after two downloads in each format, giving you four chances to download the book. Epub will work on an iPad. I think that's actually the format iBooks uses. Just for future reference: I've purchased ebooks from both Barnes & Noble and Amazon. I've also gotten some of the Mistborn RPG books from Crafty Games. Barnes & Noble ebooks come in Epub format. Amazon books come in a special format called AZW3. The file names end in ".azw". The RPGs from Crafty Games come in PDF format. Calibre is indeed wonderful and allows you to read books and can convert them between formats. It's also really great for organizing ebooks, especially if you have a lot of them.