robardin

Well, Scadrial is meant to "kind of parallel" late 19th/20th Century Earth from Era 2 going into Era 3. And the Era 2 broadsheet material ALL looks to be rather tongue in cheek (though there are the occasional "lorish" tidbits, too). So if it better pleases your sensibilities, you can headcanon this as being being the Scadrian Guy Who Thought Of Fast Food Burgers (the analog of the person in our so-called real world who did so) dubbing his invention "sliders" for the same reason they acquired that nickname in our world (they're small, steamed soft, kind of greasy, and easy to just "slide" down the gullet), and now putting out ads to hire actual Sliders (the Allomancers) more as an advertising gimmick than a core production component, whether or not any actual Allomancers ever responded to the ad. Kind of like if, I don't know, if Burger King put out ads looking for claimants to being the Tsar of Russia In Exile, or the heir to the Bourbon or Napoleonic titles to being the King of France, to be the face of their restaurant?

I always assumed burying that in the fine print of a broadsheet insert into a Mistborn Era 2 novel was the equivalent of an Easter Egg joke referencing “sliders” being invented IRL in 1921, the very first “fast food” hamburger https://www.kcur.org/arts-life/2023-03-22/white-castle-hamburger-wichita-kansas-sliders-fast-food-history-mcdonalds

It wasn’t depressing because it was a mundane and modern use of Allomancy. It was depressing because I’ve been That Guy up until midnight debugging/reconciling stuff on a glowing CRT screen, and imagining that I would be accessing “a piece of divine power” just so I could keep on doing it instead of tapping out and going to bed, is like picturing The Flash being made to clean house and fold laundry in 10 minutes before some last-minute guests arrive. Can he do it? Yes. Is he specially gifted to do so? Also yes. So, would he do it? I suppose so. But would he be thinking the whole time, how did it come to this? You better believe it

Perhaps, but also far more rare. And unless they can access Compounded investiture, they'll have to spend at least equal time slow of thought or dozing off/asleep as charged up!

Eh, I think even in Era 2, at least in highly developed cities like Elendel, Lurchers start to become more interesting, as it becomes normal to always be surrounded by metal heavier than a person is, and often extending overhead. Now, instead of being at risk of Pulling some dangerous metal towards yourself at high speed, you’re always able to Pull yourself towards or against something big and metal, as hard or lightly as you wish. Talk about always being able to catch the train or bus! LOL! Like, growing up and living in New York City, it would be as easy, maybe even easier to up and sling around town as a Lurcher as to “fly” like a Coinshot, because standing on the sidewalk with no change in your pockets you can afford to lose, you might not have any metal to Push off of below you close by (find a manhole cover? Jump up onto the hood of a car?), but Pulling up would be free and easy, using a lamp post, fire escape, etc. Like Spider-Man!

That’s a depressing thought. Imagine in Ghostbloods Mistborn Era 3, we see some descendant of Ham’s burning the midnight pewter while trying to reconcile a spreadsheet on a 1980s era PC equivalent, and reflecting how “once, Allomancers like him were called Thugs, prized warriors or at least, bodyguards, for the advantages of having bursts of strength, recovery, and agility. Now, with aluminum guns and bullets commonplace, pewter was now most useful for professional sports leagues that permitted it, and for the endurance it granted. Like in long-distance airship piloting, long-haul trucking, and untangling accounts receivable, he thought wryly.”

Well, of the original Era 1 (non-god) metals, yeah. By Era 2, the timeshifting metals (especially bendalloy) get very intriguing. But I think most people would agree that being a (full) Feruchemist would be the most useful IRL. Why, you’d be ideal for being a packman servant into the mountains, like a Super Sherpa! (I mean even pre-Ascension Rashek had a valid beef; if Terris alone had Feruchemy, why the heck WERE they content in just being scholars and porters or guides?) Now, if you could only take one metal for one power… Allomancy starts looking attractive, particularly A-pewter. Yes, F-gold allows for insta-healing versus “just” a stamina and healing factor in A-pewter, but you also don’t have to worry about having filled a metalmind sufficiently, so long as you have pewter on hand. Plus you get enhanced agility, speed, and balance thrown in. You’ll never blur like the Flash by tapping a steelmind, but you also won’t ever have to spend time filling one, either.

Actually that quote highlights another unique thing about Wax’s Experiment that would be unique to Wax (and I suppose, Marasi, if she were enlisted): he had wielded the Bands, which we still don’t know how they were created. Which when tapped for All The Powers resulted in swirling mist like a mini-Ascension, which we know permanently “stretches” one’s Spiritweb even after releasing the power (becoming a “mini-Sliver”, if you will). And that would represent a significant “extra Connection” to Preservation above and beyond even that of a normal Allomancer. Of course he wasn’t doing anything overtly (directly) Allomantic while setting up or running the experiment, but as mentioned, he could just have been burning steel for Steelsight at just the right moment for lerasium to be produced instead of … whatever comes out instead in Era 3.

I was very disappointed that we didn't get to see any Nicrobursts in action in the Era 2 Wax and Wayne set of FOUR books, or even any mention of one off-screen. I could see how they might be rarer than other Allomancers (the 16 powers are not evenly distributed, apparently, as we have WoBs that Coinshots are more common than other types), perhaps even the most rare. But surely any that existed would be in some demand? We see how awed even experienced Allomancers like Wax are to encounter his "double" from the Set using duralumin with his Steelpushing in The Lost Metal; wouldn't the same effect be sought after by, say, the military or the constabulary, to pair up in a team with their own Allomancers? And so, we can only speculate on exactly how a Nicroburst would interact (or a Leecher) with a Feruchemist tapping their metalmind. I think there's a WoB that the Investiture has to be "kinetic", i.e., being accessed actively, to get Nicroburst, for one, but that there would be an effect; and that Leeching a Feruchemist wouldn't empty a suitably filled metalmind all at once, it would take some time depending on how full it was (versus Leeching the typical metal reserve from an Allomancer, I suppose unless someone like Wax had swallowed a LOT of steel). Can't find these references offhand in an Arcanum search, so I hope I'm not misremembering something. And how'd the Set get those spikes for duralumin, anyway? If the Set could ferret out "duralumin gnats" to harvest for Hemalurgic spikes (I guess in Era 2 Allomancers just "know their metal" upon Snapping, which is different than it had been in TFE, even if they're "gnats"), why not also scoop up some spikes for A-nicrosil? I feel like I've written this before... Ah yes... About three years ago, I went so far as to headcanon in fanfic scenes for a "Nicky Nicro" into the Era 2 storyline, LOLOL.

There's also the question of motivation on the part of the "donor" singer. The classic premise is that they were willingly giving up their lives to host one of their "gods" who would fight against the humans in a "Return" (for millenia, of course, what the humans termed a "Desolation", the singers viewed as an opportunity to return to dominance of Roshar). With Roshar basically under the dominion of Retribution at the end of WaT, excepting only Azir and Urithiru, and the world under a never-ending Everstorm, there seems to be little need to host a Fused. Unless some aggressive foray of Unoathed comes out of Azir to attack, or Radiants emerge from the crystalline cocoon that was Urithiru, what's there for the Fused to fight with and then to die? I mean, it's one thing to decide it's worth dying to bring back some glorious strategist like Raboniel, or a hero warrior like Lezian the -- uh, maybe there are better examples, but the point is, the battle for Roshar has essentially been won, from their POV, right? There's even a new sovereign listener nation of Narakistan on Roshar. I guess there's the spirits of all the not-yet-Returned Fused on Braize at the end of WaT that maybe would like to come back, but you know, tough rockbuds, that's the way the chouta crumbles, and all that?

Actually we were carefully NOT told that "Sazed is still alive and a Shard", only that the Scadrian Shard Ed venerates via a Pathian earring is a "living Shard" with a "he" pronoun, and the only living Shard that has "performed" something (that presumably only a living Shard could do, and not "performed a piano duet with Xisis"). And the Shard of neither Scadrial nor Roshar is ever named, so they might not even be "Harmony" and "Retribution" by the time of Emberdark. Could be "Discord" and ... something else? One PRESUMES that'd still be Sazed as the Vessel of the Shard on Scadrial, but within less than 400 years of Cosmere time (the time between Hero of Ages and Wind and Truth) we saw four of sixteen Shards get new Vessels, two Vessels get killed in so doing, two separate and independent cases of a Vessel "double Sharding it", a Shard flee a system she'd long been inhabiting/Investing (Cultivation) to go who knows where and to do what, and a direct incursion by one Shard (Autonomy) on another Shard's home planet (like, not just where the Shard had Invested but where the vessel had actually originated, too!)... And SotD is or was supposed to have been "centuries" after Mistborn/Stormlight Archives. Lots of time for lots more Shardic Shenanigans to happen! Combine that with Sazed getting "Discordant" at the end of Era 2, who knows, it's not impossible that some other Scadrian takes up power in his place somehow... Where's Spook been at? LOL. (I am not seriously suggesting that, but pointing out that Brandon has clearly left himself a LOT of wiggle room)

All true statements, but, bear in mind that by the time of Emberdark, a lot of time has passed in the Cosmere since Retribution's Ascension at the end of WaT. And that that is not aligned with publication/reading time, so any major changes between SA5 (which is before Misborn Era 2 of Wax and Wayne) and the "Space Age" (Mistborn Era 4) would probably not get spoiler references. Similarly to The Sunlit Man, which even features a protagonist we directly saw in Stormlight Archives 1-5, Brandon may drop hints as to technological developments between "where we last saw Scadrial / Roshar" in publication time vs. in-world Cosmere time, but will avoid mentioning major plot developments, even obliquely. For example, even before Emberdark, based on the previously standalone Sixth of the Dusk novella (June 2014), we knew that in the "space age", Scadrial had FTL ships and scanning technology powered by the Metallic Arts even before we knew about "unsealed metalminds" from Bands of Mourning (Jan 2016). But IIRC, there was no mention of the "Ones Above" being people wearing masks in SotD, as that wasn't something we'd see from the Malwish until BoM -- those tidbits are only in the "new" interleaved chapters in Emberdark (excused by the fact that it took several years for them to "get close enough" to Vathi and Co. to remove their masks/face covering helmets). In other words, the fact that we see a Skybreaker with Plate and Blade (Gun) flying (FTL?) to First of the Sun without a spaceship, and that he represents Roshar as a power in opposition to the Scadrians (and more -- implying Nalthis or other planets are similarly competing for Cosmere dominance), doesn't mean that Roshar is still in the same state as we saw at the end of WaT. Since Brandon knows we know (in Summer 2025) that a large segment of Skybreakers, alone of all ten Radiant orders, swore to Odium and thus to Retribution in SA4 and SA5, that could be as much the reason we see a Skybreaker in Emberdark as anything else, so as not to spoil something. What hints we do have, is that Pathians (followers, not worshipers!, of Harmony) still exist; that at least one non-Scadrian in Ed venerates Harmony, as "the only known living Shard who has performed the --" (...the what? What would a Shard "perform", some kind of rite or ritual?) Also, Starling, Ed, et al., know and speak of Shards quite casually, like it's common knowledge, and name drop quite a few, even ones long Splintered: Autonomy, Ambition, Dominion, Invention... But they do NOT name Retribution when referring to Roshar. Then again, "Harmony" is never mentioned by that name either, despite Ed's fingering of a Pathian earring and referring to "the Scadrian Shard" as a "he" who is a "living Shard who has performed" something... All while the last we saw of Harmony in TLM, he had a "dark shadow", and we had reminders of those epigraphs even from the original trilogy about the Hero of Ages being called "Discord". So if you read between the lines, Brandon is very carefully NOT admitting or denying that Harmony and Retribution exist as they were "the last time we read about them" in Summer 2025. Does that mean Roshar isn't unified under Retribution in the Space Age, with Taravangian as its Vessel, directing Radiants? No. But there's certainly room for that NOT being the case! Especially considering how the "Honor" component of Retribution was evidently still somewhat separate at the end of WaT, having been more conscious than most un-Vesseled Shards and needing Taravangian to appease it even after he took it in combo with Odium, and had been prepped in some way while Connected to Dalinar to... Grow? And also remember that SA6-10, to "complete" the second arc of Stormlight Archive and the Story of Roshar, takes place about 15 years after WaT, while Emberdark is way, WAY past that. It would be EXTREMELY surprising if SA10 ended with the Shardic Situation on Roshar being the same as at the end of Wind and Truth, if you ask me.

You know, I've spent a week or so wondering what it is I meant by that, and I'm not sure. I know when I read Emberdark that a few references to Shard type events or bombshells from "a few decades ago" allowed for something big happening on Roshar to change the basis from where we last saw it in WaT, but that doesn't necessarily mean that change was a Retribution Split-Up or Evolution, whether or not that involved a change in Vessel. Things like... (looking over what I highlighted in my e-book) Offhand and current references to Rosharans using gemstones for illumination, i.e., filled with Light, when globally available Stormlight via regular highstorms had ended, and filling gemstones with Warlight required singers (specifically) to make a daily prayer to Retribution. Which presumably still "leak" the way Stormlight gems did. So are all lit gemstones now funneled through the singer nation at Narak? Or has Roshar regained "normal" highstorms again (which had been created before the Shattering!)? The fact that the "Battle of Aheleha" (a very Alethi sounding name) was where Dajer got his lungs burned when the very sky was set aflame, something that sounded a lot like what we saw Supercharged Jasnah pull off at Thaylen Fields in Oathbreaker; so are Radiants now working with Retribution instead of being cocooned in Urithiru to avoid him? How might that come to pass? Ed getting cut off before describing Harmony, the "Scadrian" that he worshipped as a Pathian despite not being Scadrian in origin himself, as being "nice" and "the only known living Shard who has performed the --" The what? THE WHAT, ED? I think I thought at the time I read this, that perhaps this was a reference to Harmony being a double Shard. And if Harmony was now the "only known living [double] Shard" then that would mean Retribution was either no longer a double Shard, or no longer living... But I admit that's a reallllllly big stretch. There are "several major powers at war", too, not just Roshar vs. (Malwish) Scadrial, but that's another angle. That plus the hidden planet of Yolen, with a restricted perpendicularity to it from Silverlight (or more accurately, that Silverlight had been built around, even before the Shattering), had kept secret for millenia by dragons as the "source of nearly all life in the cosmere and the origin of the Shards", but which then had that secret revealed "quite dramatically a few decades back". Big Stuff Happened, and a Shardic Shake-Up would not surprise me, but that's far from saying it was clearly suggested (of course it wouldn't be). EDIT: oh, and to return to the topic in the title of this thread, we saw what certainly seems to be a Skybreaker of at least the Fourth Ideal coming to First of the Sun, not a Fused. Is it possible that while Radiant spren can now leave Roshar, after the freeing of B-a-M in WaT, that the Fused are still bound to the Rosharan System due to their tie to the Everstorm?

You assume Mr. T is still the Vessel of a shardic dyad called Retribution in the Cosmere Space Age (Era 4?)... Definitely there were hints that may not be the case, if you choose to interpret them that way...

I think both elements were a factor. Right after Kelsier's Ascension through forced Connection to Preservation via a Selish Investiture Bomb, Ruin said to him, mockingly: "Oh, Kelsier! You think I mind what you have done? Why I'd have chosen for you to take the power! It's perfect! You're merely an aspect of me, after all. ... You can barely control it. Even assuming it could harm me, you couldn't accomplish such a task. ... You're not alive, you're an idea. A memory of a man holding the power will never be as potent as a real one with ties to all three Realms." So lacking a footprint in one of the three Realms while taking up a Shard forms a kind of incomplete Ascension. But it is still an Ascension, as later, Kelsier realizes when he was able to resist the very insistent pull to the Beyond, "He had held the power of deity. The final death could not take him unless he wanted it to. Or unless he was completely destroyed." He may not have been a full Shard as far as being able to wield its full power, but he was a legitimate, lesser but not "leaky", Vessel. Well, "legitimate" is maybe putting it too strongly, as the Shard would never have chosen him, the Connection was not naturally there. More like, "served to hold all the available power of the Shard of Preservation that was released upon the passing of the former Vessel, Leras". "He could see himself now, in the Spiritual Realm -- and those black lines were still there, tying him to Ruin. The power he held didn't like that at all. It tumbled inside him, churning, trying to break free. He could hold on, but he knew that if he let go, it would escape him and he would never be able to recapture it." Kelsier's nature was always quite Ruinous, eh?