cometaryorbit

Right, I am thinking about capabilities. What I'm saying they lack relative to Era 2 Scadrial or early 20th century Earth is the ability to move large cargoes quickly (eg by train) / to generate large amounts of energy in a relatively compact space (engines); and less importantly metallurgy and likely materials science more generally. Their transport may well end up being all air based, but my point is that the chull based power source would be very limiting for scale up, though for a few airships like the Fourth Bridge it works great. Oh I think they'll get fabrial motors of some sort soon, I'd expect to see them in the second arc (if the next book really only covers 10 days probably not there). But I think they don't have them as of RoW. And their power output might still be pretty limited, the heat fabrials and such we've seen aren't *that* much energy. --- A primitive form of vaccination is surprisingly old in RL, actually older than germ theory, so its existence fits the level of medical knowledge Kaladin/Lirin show us. But that's also a bit interesting... I think the ability to see rotspren has helped Roshar figure out antiseptics and such ahead of their general knowledge level. They don't know about germ theory, but they know that substance X keeps rotspren away.

Oh, hmm, I thought that it would be like being able to burn your own metalmind but Vin not being able to burn Sazed's. The steelpush example makes sense but is that actually confirmed? There's a WoB that says that Investiture interferes unless there's "a familiar resonance" which is "part of what philosophers call Identity" which might suggest otherwise.

Right, it's the "someone else" part I am questioning here - if you are burning a metalmind that you filled, does Investiture interference apply?

Hmm! That is very good information. However I'm not sure if how Chromium works tells us much about regular burning since it's basically external Aluminum and that burns away all metals at once (not based on normal burn rates).

People in WoT swear "by my hope of salvation and rebirth". But what does that mean to them? Reincarnation seems to be general knowledge in WoT (Rand thinks at one point "he was Lews Therin reborn, but everyone was someone reborn") and there doesn't seem to be any idea of a heaven or hell equivalent (well, there's Shayol Ghul/the Dark One's prison, but it doesn't seem to be imagined as a place that non-Forsaken people can end up). So what does "salvation" mean to them? What are they being 'saved' from? Am I missing something and there's some idea of the Dark One eating the souls of the wicked/oathbreakers or something?

Perhaps. I totally think fabrial engines will come along eventually (likely in the second arc) but the chull setup for the Fourth Bridge is imo pretty good evidence that they aren't currently existing technology, because Navani would have access if anyone would. And if they don't exist, given that they do have heat fabrials and such that could be made into them, imo that suggests serious holes in their understanding of basic physics. The way they discuss gravity also suggests to me a pre Newtonian understanding, but admittedly that's just inferred from the terms they use. I need to re-read those parts of Rhythm of War and see how much of the wave function stuff was Navani's prior knowledge (thus presumably available to the Rosharan artifabrian community) vs. Raboniel's. I think there's also a mention that one of the Shards hinted at the existence of antimatter, or something. So they might have some knowledge from external sources outside of the normal development of science - ie they have some facts isolated from any connecting groundwork of theory/knowledge. There might also be bits of knowledge persisting from before the Recreance.

From super intense sunburn, or something else? Cell/DNA damage from the UV would probably still happen yeah.

That might well work, and they could *physically* build it, but I strongly doubt they've got the *intellectual background* to come up with it, in an environment without physics. I doubt they have any equivalent of Newtons laws; do they have the idea of energy as a quantifiable thing, or the concept that, say, heat energy and mechanical energy are different forms of 'the same thing'? That was kind of my question about the fabrial steam engine idea. They certainly COULD make one, Roshar metallurgy isn't great but it's got to be at least as good as first century Roman, but do they have the conceptual basis to imagine that you can turn a heat fabrial into a source of mechanical energy?

So we know some allomantic metals burn faster than others, and in some cases it seems to be correlated with power (pewter is the fastest burning of the eight 'basic' metals known in the Final Empire, and atium is way faster than that; tin and copper burn very slow) or effect (aluminum/duralumin are incredibly fast burning). So if a Compounder burns a metalmind is the burn rate the same as burning that metal with regular Allomancy, or is it instead based on the new Feruchemical power/effect? Eg is Miles' goldmind burning same rate as a regular Gold Misting, or faster since Feruchemical health is a very strong power?

Oh yeah I doubt dead plate would provide complete protection against a superheated environment (though there might be some protection, as Division probably does fire and we see dead plate "adapt" to oppose stormform lightning).

The extra "feedback" / information given by steel-lines is a super interesting idea. It's also mentioned that Ranette can identify metals by burning iron (and confirmed by WOB that this isn't just a savant thing, so probably any iron or steel allomancer can learn this). I wonder what other sensory tricks are possible with iron /steel lines? There's a mention in the annotations (for WoA I think) that any iron or steel allomancer could learn to see like an Inquisitor...

Right now, when they're operating on one continent, the speed difference vs telegraphs or radio (which is starting to appear on Scadrial as of BoM) is not really noticeable. Long term spanreeds are super interesting, yes. But if we are talking *current* situation I think that spanreeds are more useful than telegraphs (not needing the hard wire connection) but definitely more limited than modern communications- maybe more analogous to radio. Large scale transport is iffy without new developments. Can you scale up Fourth Bridge style tech, with the chulls on the plateau and all, to the scale of say 20th century railroad shipping? I strongly question that if they are limited to draft animal power. I think they'd need some kind of fabrial engine, which is definitely possible* but not currently available tech on Roshar. *at the very least, they could run a steam engine on heat fabrials... though I'm not sure they would have the *idea* of a steam engine. It's certainly possible they could, the idea existed in the first century Roman Empire though it wasn't really made practical, but far from guaranteed. And there's likely a way to go direct from Investiture to kinetic energy using attractors and repellers or something. But again not current tech. EDIT: so I'm not sure we can really say they're more advanced than Scadrial as of BoM. I think they are roughly comparable in some areas (communications, lighting, and so on) and perhaps ahead in some (fabrial refrigeration might be better?), with long term huge implications from FTL spanreeds. But as of right now Roshar has a few major holes, IMO, at least materials knowledge/science (they can Soulcast stuff but Scadrial probably has all kinds of alloys the Rosharans would never think to try, and have presumably discovered things like titanium) and most importantly power output. Roshar doesn't have fabrial tech to match the power levels of say locomotive engines, likely not even car engines. Even heat fabrials seem to be like replacing a fireplace.

I think 2 days but very long reading time each day, I was up until like 4 am finishing it.

Roshar's capabilities are generally pretty high, maybe in some ways comparable to the early 20th century- spanreeds are better than telegraphs but can't do video; aircraft are just getting started - but they lack some major things, like any equivalent of trains/trucks for large scale transport at decent speeds. Maybe they'll get there with fabrial vehicles eventually, but could Fourth Bridge style designs be scaled up that far? OTOH logistics is easier because of Soulcasting, so that lack isn't as much of a disadvantage as it would be elsewhere. Also I bet there are a lot of things they could do, but don't have the science to figure out that they could. For example they probably could soulcast plastics or "modern" metals like titanium, or even radioactives, but wouldn't have the scientific basis to predict those things might exist. And they're probably not doing a lot of exploratory metallurgy (eg trying to analyze various ores) or exploratory chemistry, so not much chance of stumbling on them by serendipity. Soulcasting gives them incredible potential but may also limit their intellectual development.

They are basically using magic to replace conventional tech - spheres for light, Soulcasting to dramatically simplify logistics, spanreeds for communication, I hope we see some of the interaction between this and more standard tech like Era 2 Scadrial (as opposed to jumping to space era when that interaction was all figured out generations ago). Rosharans might have real trouble understanding how other worlds work because they don't have "science" distinct from magic.

That would take significant time to be fatal, though -- probably more time than it would take for a Shardblade or Plate-boosted punches to burn through the Feruchemist's goldminds, certainly more time than shattering the Plate with f-Pewter. Shardplate strength seems much more than pewter Allomancy, given the weight of those shardhammers (it's also referred to as "strength of many men" at one point whereas flared pewter is about triple strength for the usual Allomancer). But Feruchemists can easily get above that for one or two super-powered strikes.

Depends on what you mean by "full" knowledge. If Vin had known about mist-burning and her earring, she'd likely have gone in with her earring off and done one mist-fueled super-Pull to remove TLR's bracelets, never bothering with a physical attack. If she didn't know about those, but did know TLR's full powers and weaknesses... well, that's pretty daunting. Best plan I can think of (excluding spiking herself for various Compounding powers) would be to wait until she could get some duralumin made then eat a very large amount of iron and pewter (waaaay more than vials) and do the super-Pull with that. With enough iron, I *think* that should work (in HoA Vin duralumin Pushes on Inquisitor spikes. TLR's atiumminds might be more Invested, but probably not so much so that burning more metal through duralumin couldn't overcome that.) The weakness here is that TLR might be able to counter it with his own Pull - it wouldn't be totally out of scope power like the Mists. Another idea would be trying to wipe out TLR's immortality with an atium spearhead in the heart (Atium Hemalurgy to steal his ability to tap f-Atium, killing him just like removing his bracelets). TLR let himself be stabbed by Kelsier, and an atium spearhead might not hint that its something special (due to lack of iron/steel lines). Aluminum Hemalurgy (removes all powers) would be much less likely to work because of that, IMO. Super Leeching (stomach full of Chromium + Duralumin) might also work, but Chromium wouldn't have been available with era 1 metallurgy.

Yeah, this is true. My point was just that the pressures that in RL pushed people out of the farming communities largely wouldn't exist. But I now see that was based on the probably wrong assumption that they'd had 200+ years of the vast majority of the population being small farming communities. (I was assuming that if Elendel is analogous to 1910 New York then 300ish years of its history is analogous to the US from early colonial on. But the early history must have been very different. )

Almost certainly not- even if this would work, f-Pewter would work better. As @Duxredux points out the heat would need to be applied for some time - a few super punches with f-Pewter is likely faster. Especially if it's a full feruchemist (or medallion user) who can combine f-Steel and f-Pewter. F-steel wouldn't help much if you need the time in contact to "cook" the Shardplate user.

A very good point!

Yeah I don't think there is 100% confirmation, but Hoid's comment that there was once a reason for the lighteye/nobility link is I think a pretty strong implication.

Hmmm, that's mostly true (though I'd argue livestock probably *are* easier than on Earth, there's probably a lot less trouble with drought, livestock diseases etc), and combined with the city bias of the starting population is probably enough to answer my original question. They weren't all urban (about 1/5 were Terris who were largely herdsmen, and its specifically mentioned in HOA that villagers fled to both Luthadel and Urteau shortly before the end) but it's likely that reborn Scadrial was never 80%+ farmers as I first expected. Absolutely true but only really applies once that industrialized city exists. Yeah sufficiently large scale sabotage could still cause food shortages. What I was more talking about though was the idea that a small largely self sufficient community (on say the old Appalachian model) wouldn't face risks from natural crop failures as it would in RL eliminating one major reason for people in RL to migrate from their hometowns to big cities. Eg cotton boll weevil problems or Dust Bowl in US history. But probably they never went through an era of being mostly small largely self-sufficient communities.

There's a WOB that somebody's estimate that the Final Empire population was 100 million and Luthadel 1-2 million if off, are at least close'. Are those the best numbers we have? Because I was firmly convinced for some reason that Luthadel's population was specifically 2 million, but late in HoA when Vin looks at ruined Luthadel she thinks that it once had a population of 'hundreds of thousands'. -- Supposedly Allomancers are 1% of nobles and Mistborn are 1% of Allomancers in Vin/Kelsier's time. It seems like nobles must be fairly numerous in the FE since so many jobs are reserved to them. But if they're even 1-2% of a 100 million population that would mean 100-200 Mistborn (+ however many skaa mistborn exist) overall. Which seems to fit what we see in Book 1 (they are extremely rare but numerous enough for there to be recognized customs surrounding them). But by HoA they seem really rare, Vin and Elend never face an enemy Mistborn and there seem to be no others on their side. And Spook is apparently the only Mistborn to exist after the Catacendre... and one would think Mistborn would be much less likely to be killed off by the deterioration of the world/koloss armies than anyone else. I at first assumed that the rest of them mostly became Inquisitor spikes, but one of the HoA epigraphs says that Ruin didn't like to do that and only did so for a few important ones like Marsh. Another thought is that they *became* Inquisitors, but I don't think there are enough. Vin faces 13 Inquisitors at the end, and it's implied that this is all of them. Before that, Kelsier kills 1, Marsh kills 7 (I think) offscreen + 1 in the battle against TLR, Elend says he and Vin killed 3. So that's 25 Inquisitors accounted for, which I think is less than there should be (aren't there supposed to have been like three dozen?) Maybe some died offscreen (perhaps the Keeper Synod killed off some before they were defeated?) But still there don't seem to be a bunch of extra Inquisitors.

I think it has to be hereditary in some way since its strongly implied that lighteyes are descended from Shardbearers, Knights Radiant, or both. It is weird that their eye color changes are only temporary though, while their presumed descendants are permanently lighteyed. ...although everyone we've seen change eye color, like Kaladin and Moash, hasn't had the Blade for all that long. Maybe someone who was a Knight or Shardbearer for a decade would have a permanent change?

Yeah this is established by WoB. Which surprised me when I first read it, as I thought gold feruchemy is about storing up your own natural healing ability - so I would have expected that it wouldn't work on spirit wounds. It feels like a Feruchemist is getting something out they didn't put in if they store Physical healing but get out Physical plus Spiritual. But maybe there is some natural Spiritual healing ability that is also stored? We know that mental/emotional problems can make people Realmatically "open" to influence - maybe storing Gold health not only makes you sickly physically but reduces mental/emotional/Spiritual resilience?