kenod

It's good to keep in mind that Kelsier is a master con-artist who scammed the FE nobility long before ever getting Allomancy, and had enough charisma and ability to work with people to get himself declared a god. Avoiding situation where he'd have to use Allomancy is probably fairly doable for him. As for the skyscraper, not sure. Maybe he took an elevator to the roof? Not sure how common it is for skyscrapers to have roof access, they don't have them where I live.

Recent WoB says the Ghostbloods think Kelsier still has Allomancy: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/509/#e16002 This also implies that even if he did have a Coinshot nearby, he still wouldn't have asked them for a lift, unless they had no connection to the Ghostbloods, since otherwise it'd blow the secret wide open anyway.

One quick thing to note is that just because a character is immortal doesn't mean they're also highly powerful, and capable of solving the plot in a better way. The only one in TLM who would have had the power to seriously intervene was Marsh, and he'd probably still have issues with all the investigative aspects. Just because someone is immortal doesn't make them hugely powerful as well. In fact, quite a few of the worldhoppers we've seen didn't appear to have much power at all. I suspect that this is partially because gathering new forms of investure is actually pretty difficult (good luck getting Scadrial's investure without committing gruesome murders), and partially because different forms of investure seem to have a degree of a cap on how strong they can get, and anything beyond that requires either a lot of knowledge to figure out some kind of hack, or just involves becoming more skillful. For example, in Zahel's case, he might have a lot of skill with Awakening and combat, but his main advantage if he'd try to take the tower back is that his magic is completely unknown to anyone there, and they'll have trouble figuring out what was going on. However, at the same time, when it comes to raw power his abilities are relatively limited unless he has access to an extreme amount of Breath, and the Fused most likely have at least some understanding of off-world magic, and an ability to adapt to it.

There's apparently an "official" message-carrying group in the cognitive realm, which Harmony could have used. Keep in mind that most traffic between planets isn't secret organizations, there are enough regular folks out there that there's a whole interplanetary economy, something Hoid noted to Kelsier, saying his destruction of the Pits disrupted the economic/mercantile system. There are enough others regularly visiting Scadrial Harmony could entrust messages to, people who actually know how to best get those messages to Shards and other big figures. Also, as someone else noted, Brandon confirmed in a WoB that MeLaan is indeed the first Harmony Kandra, the others weren't sent by him, and just regular worldhoppers.

Honestly, this. Scadrial's magic isn't too well-suited for conventional warfare, even if a couple parts are, but it's very good for unconventional warfare, such as secret ops.

So, question. Based on what I've seen in the VS threads, is this going to just be known current capabilities which have been demonstrated in-story, or if it's going to include speculation about what worlds can do in the future? And if so, is speculation going to be specifically marked as such? Sidenote, probably useful to add that they're currently one of two factions that have firearms, including machine guns, which allow them to defeat basically any non-invested army that doesn't use them, as well as access to modern-level logistics like railroads and canned food, and can use these without requiring regular investure supply. This is a pretty huge advantage compared to worlds that don't have access to this. The same can be seen when comparing Soulcaster-equiped armies on Roshar with those which don't have them, and the advantage Lifeless give on Nalthis. Being able to reliably support large armies and have flexible supply lines is a big deal, not to mention the benefit things like railroads give for things like mobilization. Your logistics are just as important in a war as weaponry, troop quality and strategy, and is often actually a big factor in the strategies countries employ in war.

Pretty sure that after book five Roshar will either be in a bad enough state that Hoid decides to bail, or in a good enough state that there's no reason for him to stick around.

That sounds like an Epic Voidus would have in one of his many docs.

Actually, era 3 is supposed to be about a hunt for a serial killer, right? What do you think the odds are that at least one of the protagonists is from a branch of law-enforcement Marasi and maybe Wax funded/started?

That makes it sound like Marasi will basically be forming the North's version of the CIA.

We currently have one ongoing thing in The Vigil, though there are a couple plots planned to start as well. Aside from that, I suggest looking Here, which is meant to be a thread to look for others to rp with.

Depends, but generally we say that non-Cosmere systems function by similar rules, so a bronze burner could sense an Epic using their powers, for example Normally there's a general assumption you're from the planet the power is from, but it's not necessary, and people born in the Alleyverse can have powers from all kinds of planets. Assumption is that Ruin either doesn't exist anymore, or doesn't have any power here Location requirements are handwaved as it just working anyway Calamity Epics generally are (unless you go the weakness route), but you can also be a non-evil Invocation Epic Generally yes, or at least I don't think I've seen anyone make a talent char before who wasn't a Smedry All are rare, though I expect Ettmetal artifacts to be more common. Atium does exist, but it still highly valuable, getting lerasium would probably require discussing stuff with mods. Handwaved in that anyone who enters the Alleyverse gets Connection to it and thus speaks the same language, barring a few edge-cases when players preferred it. Multiple earths Wheel of time is counted, but not used much. For spoilers, I think generally follow Shard spoiler policies? So probably no LM stuff for now, but the rest should be fine. The Alleyverse doesn't exist on the same timeline, so people can arrive from basically any point in time. Finding a Radiant spren is as difficult as you want it to be, though I also suggest discussing with mods.

There is an old WoB that surviving Hemalurgy does have effects on you, since you're missing part of the investure of your soul. Based on what Drabs experience, I'm guessing it'd involve some kind of large emotional disturbance, like extreme depression or emotional despondency, as well as physical weakness, such as a weakened immune system. Probably also affects your lifespan, though I'm not sure about that. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/39/#e12097

They're not domesticated warheads, but reactor technology was a necessary stepping stone to develop these warheads, and these initial reactors could then be refined into functional generating reactors relatively easily. Of course, fusion shows quite well that this isn't always the case. We didn't need fusion reactors to design fusion bombs, and the technology hasn't really led to an easy break-through in fusion reactor technology.

To be fair, that's actually one of the technologies with more direct links to civilian applications, in the form of nuclear reactors. Reactors actually predate the bomb, though they were for researching nuclear reactions and producing plutonium, not generating power.

Sort of, depending on how you interpret it, but while there's a war going on people aren't going to be investigating these applications. It's only after the war that people start looking into civilian applications. There's also the question of how funding would actually work, because if you're in a war, or assuming a war is coming, you probably don't want to spend large amounts of money on possible dead-end projects, unless you have massive amounts of resources available. And large-scale construction will slow down too. UK battleship production is a good example. In the build-up to WWII there was quite a lot of building planned and going on, but as soon as the war started most plans for battleship construction vanished, and the production schedule changed to one with less building, rather than more. Since Battleships take a lot of time and money to build, and that was instead better spent on smaller construction, which was more flexible and immediately useable. There are also other cases where military reality meant funding for science actually got smaller, instead of larger, or diverted away from long-term goals into short-term ones. Innovation comes from there being a (perceived) need for it. Simply tossing a war at a country won't suddenly get it to start rapidly innovating in all fields. And said innovation will likely build on already existing technological development and theoretical science, not going around finding new fields of science in the hopes of developing a new wonder weapon. P.S. Before anyone brings up the Manhattan project, keep in mind the theoretical physics was already established before the war started, and even then it took massive amounts of research, and multiple countries pooling their researchers and resources. Technically even Germany, since a lot of German physicists, especially Jewish ones, fled to the USA. Even solving the enigma code relied on work by multiple countries (quite a bit of research came from Polish researchers, who had already made breakthroughs in the code before the war started). Edit: As an aside, it's also important to consider what too much war does for technology. Technology and research requires infrastructure, as well as education programs to transfer knowledge. Warfare on too grand a scale, with too much economic damage or civilian deaths (or death of conscripted civilians) could actually harm technological progress. A good example is the collapses of bronze age civilizations, and how it actually caused writing to die out in multiple of the collapsed nations, as well as complex society in general, simply because they lacked the systems to produce enough goods to have the food to sustain an intellectual class. While the bronze age collapse wasn't purely down to war, it does show that if anything, whether natural or man-made disaster, does enough damage to the complex systems behind society, it can easily set back development.

Keep in mind that, based on what we've seen of people who just received shardic powers, they often don't fully know how to use their powers. They seem to be able to modify the physical realm to a fair degree instinctively, but they don't fully know how everything fits together. TLR could easily do big scale things, but lack of understanding meant he kept messing up his changes. Vin didn't instinctively understand why the ash clouds were there, and exposed the planet the the heat of the sun. Add to that that making someone immortal through connection is likely a non-trivial thing, and not something likely covered in Sazed's copperminds, and Sazed very likely didn't have the understanding to do something like that yet, and trying it could have very likely messed up Marsh even worse. It's also important to note that Sazed still doesn't appear to fully understand the full nature of his powers, given how other shards (Autonomy) have been able to outwit him or work around him, despite him having more power available.

Yeah, given that Sho Del predate the Shattering, their gods are not likely to be shards, but something that existed together with Adonalsium. It might also be related to Fain, but that's pure speculation on my part with no grounding in WoBs.

One possibility is that she simply drained the investure that allowed people to tap the bands, and thus also prevented them from feeling how full they were. Of course, this would mean that any ferring can immediately discover the trick, as can any steelpusher or ironpuller, because the Bands still wouldn't show up to their senses, as invested objects. At the same time, it's not like any allomancer or ferring actually checked the bands, iirc. People just proclaimed them empty, with the situation precluding any detailed investigation.

Yup. Kelsier is kinda running a con on all non-Scandrian Ghostbloods, I think, by hiding the fact that he's trapped on Scandrial. I think that's also why the Rosharans seem more focused on getting a way to transfer Stormlight and possibly Radiants. It's a discovery that'd be very useful for the organization, but it also just so happens to help Kelsier figure out how to cut himself free. However, this means that Kelsier has very little ways to enforce authority aside from sending people over, and otherwise has to rely on his reputation to get things done. But this would also mean he can't push too hard, or his entire control will shatter, which also means he has very little oversight or ways to reign them in.

To be fair, in this case it's important because these stamps are new to us as well, and might not get introduced in a book, so I suspect that's why we're getting the explanation now. I don't think we'll be getting the general explanation in the future, but it's important to keep in mind that at this point the books kind of stop pretending they're completely different things, but with small cross-overs, so talking about stuff from other series does become much more important, but at the same time, assumptions will also be that we'll have read those books.

Also, might be good to pick a different book (or /r/AskHistorians), since GG&S apparently isn't actually all that accurate, or even good history. Edit: A couple of useful run-downs of the book (not written by me): https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6meq1k/comment/dk6htc0/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2mkcc3/how_do_modern_historians_and_history/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views/#wiki_historians.27_views_of_jared_diamond.27s_.22guns.2C_germs.2C_and_steel.22

I mean, a Pyrrhic victory is when you technically have a win, but the costs are just as big as if you had lost. And in this case, if Scadrial had lost, the place would be gone. Either the entire North would have been destroyed, or a hostile invasion would have subjugated or destroyed the planet. Scadrial won, and even if it was a costly win, it's a lot better than what'd have happened to the world if they had lost. They will now have time to prepare, create new countermeasures, and have won what seems to be at least a decent number of decades of peace. The victory didn't cost them anything that'd make future defeat inevitable, nor did it do just as much damage as a loss would have. Scadrial had a costly win, and Autonomy a small loss, but it was still a proper win, not a Pyrrhic one.

Same reason as to why the modern day USA uses chemical injection for capital punishment, but not hanging or a firing squad, since it's considered more humane, and a less painful form of death. You could even have theological doctrines that Hemalurgy hinders passage to the Beyond, since part of one's spiritual component would be left behind, and the soul has less investure after death, which influences how long one can stay in the cognitive realm after death. Possibly, but you could also make a case that it's more of a case of realpolitik. Medallions are the main edge the South has over the North, so you wouldn't want the more useful or powerful ones falling in the hands of the North. The ones we've seen are the medallions they need to stay alive, to actually fly their ships, and to talk to people, and none are a very big issue if they fall into the North's hands, unlike medallions like health or strength.

My personal guess it's related to the new resources needed to make stamps that work both on Scadrial, and the complexity behind her new types of Soulstamps. Universal soulstamps and an Elantrian Essence Mark are both completely new developments, which even with Shai's skill, would have taken a long time to develop, and even more to adapt to work off-world. Another big question is how exactly her immortality works. At least some worldhoppers aren't actually immortal, but utilize a form of time dilation. If Shai is using that method, even if she also slowed her aging, that gives her a lot less time to work in. Aside from that, didn't Shai note something about these being the stamps she currently had on her? It's quite possible she has a bunch of additional stamps squirreled away, and these were the only ones available.