robardin

Don't forget, Harmony's nature (Intent) has caused Sazed to "interfere" as little as possible, "like a coin balanced on edge", something he admits to Wax is frustrating even himself as a "failing that grows more dangerous in me" (a tendency to refrain from acting). On an unrelated note, I wonder what Ranette's "most deadly design", a large, multi-piece and assembly-required WMA is, that Wax has left behind in a two-foot long gun bag that was "a weapon not for a lawman, but a soldier. Intent on destruction." Like Chekhov's famous rule says, that gun is gonna get used in this here book.

So, I went back and re-read this description in a bit more detail... First, Ch. 19 shows Wax three days after the explosion - it's not "later that evening...", and it seems a bit odd that a lifelong Coinshot would not have burned steel in that time, given that he appears to be used to (and enjoys) getting around town via Steelpushing rather than by foot or by carriage. Here's the pertinent descriptions: ...he seemed to still be suffering the aftereffects of the explosion. His vision kept behaving oddly, distorting at times for just a second or two. And his mind kept playing tricks on him, making him think he glimpsed blue Allomantic lines without burning metals. and then later, after some time spent reading newspaper headlines, He sighed, rubbing his eyes—seeing those odd flashes of blue. Fortunately, the tea was beginning to work and his headache was at last retreating. So the "flashes of blue", to him as a Coinshot, are the same as the blue Allomantic lines he sees when burning "metals". Not just steel, you say? How can Wax know about burning other metals?! Is he already Mistbor -- No, no. He held and used the Bands of Mourning, he knows what it feels like to burn several different metals (and to tap a lot of different flavors of metalmind). He would know the feeling of burning a metal that isn't steel - which we know from Vin's POV in Era 1 in discovering zinc as the complementary metal to brass, or Spook when he suddenly gained A-pewter, feels like a "reserve of power" located distinctly and separately from a more familiar one. But, something like ingesting lerasium to become Mistborn isn't something that takes three days to "settle in" with occasional flashes, either, as we saw with Elend at the Well of Ascension. So whatever is happening to Wax, is either the same thing but achieved differently... Or... Something that Harmony has done Just For Him (but not to make him Mistborn, which he could do instantly as with Spook, unless 350-ish years of being Harmony has made him unable to act so directly any longer).

If you gave it the right Command, maybe? Imagine muttering, "Upon dissolving, Your Breath to mine" as you Invest into a pack of individual candies... Then later, you could pop them into your mouth and suck on them for specific bursts of power. And why not call them...

Well, an "unbalanced Harmony" wouldn't "kill" but could "change the Intent" of Harmony. Possibly spiral Harmony back into two Shards? Though WoBs have suggested that is not easy to do at all. Exactly what Trell wants out of all this is still a big mystery, as is Harmony's offhand comment that he has "lost games" to Autonomy "over and over". (Look to the Cosmere Spoiler sub-forum for more thoughts on that...!) As for Wax realizing the "atomic bomb" technology was potentially available to the Set for years now, and looking for signs of their developing/testing such a thing... I couldn't help put picture this old meme recouched:

Not clear. It would seem that Set have been making trellium + harmonium "atomic bombs" since they discovered harmonium via the crashed Southern airship... Whether or not they've also inhaled the same dust, is unknown; given the delivery of Sixteen Mysterious Vials to Wax at that particular moment, it could have been an act of Harmony to engineer his particular explosion in a very particular way.

Yeah, a lot of info said or implied in Ch 19 here with Cosmere-wide threads... Obviously, Trell = Autonomy = the Trell from pre-Rashek days, as well ("You were not expecting so straightforward an answer?" Hey Saze, stop looking at the fourth wall!) Autonomy (as stated to Edwarn upon blowing him up) had originally tried to take over Scadrial, then decided to "eliminate life" on Scadrial instead at the end of BoM, but has since gone back to Plan A... After giving Harmony an "ultimatum" to "give this world to her, then move to another". What the heck kind of a demand was that? A Shard cannot just "abandon" a planet they've Invested in, I didn't think, and no Shard can be more deeply invested in a planet than Harmony is with Scadrial, given that it was created ex nihilo by the combination of Preservation and Ruin (which now compose Harmony) and oh yeah, he was born a mortal there, too. And, Harmony considers Himself to have "lost games to Autonomy over and over again".... Bwuh? And "some [avatars of Trell] do not realize I was behind their [Ghostbloods?] mobilization..."? Egad! And Harmony is now somehow "Invested" by the erstwhile red mist of Autonomy? -- what does Autonomy have to gain by "taking over" Scadrial anyway? Especially if it was a "dangerous threat" to her (and how, exactly?)

Well if he is now a Mistborn by virtue of inhaling that blackish dust from the residue of the explosion - if that does represent a successful "splitting" of harmonium into lerasium and atium... Then where'd the atium go? Shouldn't there also have been atium dust around? Though now that we have WoBs that the "atium" from TFE was actually an alloy of electrum and the godmetal atium (in order to restrict who could burn it), perhaps whatever is happening to Wax is the result of burning "pure" atium? Or ... This? But then why give him new vials of metal to use "instead of your normal ones" (which would of course be just steel)? And, while the "What Happened To Wax?" question is the big bombshell, so are the other details we sort of suspected but just had outright confirmed: Trell = Autonomy (further discussion about other Shards should prob be in the Cosmere-wide spoiler area) A trellium earring was indeed what Harmony was getting at (with unknown consequences, if/when that happens) Telsin = aiming for Avatar-hood (so what was that "Cycle" talking about, why would a relatively low-ranking Set operative have ambitions there, unless deployed on another planet?)

So … Wax is definitely “upgraded” in some way he doesn’t realize yet. I guess he hasn’t even tried to burn steel yet since the lab accident? Harmony sends him sixeen separate vials to use “instead of his normal ones”, and the last (sixteenth) one has a red X and is “only for emergency”?! (atium?) What the heck is going on? The obvious conclusion is “he’s Mistborn now!”, but if so, why sixteen separate vials? Is he some weird Revolver Misting who can only use one power at a time, but can rotate through them or something?

Trell = Autonomy And just why is she so hot after controlling (or destroying) Scadrial, but not because of Harmony (not after Splintering Harmony, but to supplant him in control of Scadrial)?!

Well if you believe Kalak, finding and freeing Ba-Ado-Mishram just might fix all the Connection problems on Roshar - including deadeye spren which only started happening around then, too! For all we know, that imprisonment was also part of the reason the Heralds started to go insane, too. Of course, this is a presently insane Herald telling this to Shallan, so, who knows what freeing B-A-M would really accomplish.

You'd also be able to share your powers, as being a full Feruchemist would be enough to make an unsealed medallion-style metalmind! Even without compounding health, imagine if at more or less the same effort, you could store health into a goldmind but without Identity (unkeyed), and then could create an unkeyed nicrosilmind granting F-gold. You'd now have the ultimate first aid kit for not just yourself, but anyone who you told what it could do. Humanitarian ideals side, other unsealed metalminds would make very valuable and all but impossible to figure out performance enhancers to pro sports athletes, too.

Based on various WoBs and annotations, we learn that strength (power level) in Allomancy is directly correlated to the level of Connection to Preservation, which is why Sliver and Twiddled Rashek as TLR is the strongest of all at it, followed by human-who-ingested-lerasium, followed by "extremely pure bloodline" nobles of the end of TFE, followed by skaa Allomancers with less noble blood in them (remember that Vin being "an amazingly powerful Mistborn street urchin" suggested to Kar the Inquisitor that her illegal noble blood must therefore be "of a very pure line" in making the case to TLR that the Lord Prelan of the Steel Ministry himself was her father). Someone like Spook, who didn't have a direct noble ancestor but got Allomancy from his (noble) grandfather, should have been even weaker (if only slightly - mostly it reduced the chances of his being an Allomancer, at that point, as "generational dilution" of Allomancy has a limit that they were already approaching in TFE). And those 16% of non-Allomancers who were "mistsnapped" in TWoA would largely be even weaker than that, per this WoB: Many of these people won't be very strong Allomancers. Their abilities were buried too deeply to have come out without the mists' intervention. Others will have a more typical level of power; they might have Snapped earlier, had they gone through enough anguish to bring the power out. I suppose that means if Vin had ingested the lerasium, she'd have been somewhere in between Elend eating it and TLR in power level, as that implies the lerasium boost would have "stacked" on top of her natural Mistborn nature. We'll never know for sure! From the Mistborn books themselves, we don't have a lot of ways to compare Mistborn against each other in power level except by their own estimations, which of course would be based on themselves (e.g., Vin thinking that Elend's Pushes "were so much stronger" than hers with the same metal, because of the lerasium). At that point, she knew from Sazed that "all sources agree, there were no Mistborn before TLR's Ascension" and from TenSoon that originally, all Allomancers were Mistborn but that their Allomantic strength has decreased over time to their era, in addition to fragmenting to being mostly Mistings with only rare Mistborn. So they could connect that the Original Mistborn must have been engendered by lerasium. Kelsier reflects that Vin seems unnaturally gifted at Allomancy, but that is not simply a factor of raw strength in the power - as Brandon put it, Elend is far more "powerful" than Vin (she admits it), but Vin would whup him in a 1v1 fight because she's more skilled and more ruthless. And she's skilled because she'd been unconsciously burning metals all her life (relying on trace amounts), having Snapped during her own birthing. IIRC, every time we see Kelsier or Vin remark on another "natural born Allomancer" of TFE having surprising ability or strength - like Vin's piercing of copperclouds, or Zane's ability to Steelpush-balance on a single coin - we found later it was a sign of hemalurgic enhancement of that metal's power. As for Kelsier's Allomancy... I always found it surprising that he'd only Snapped at the Pits when his brother Marsh had Snapped way earlier to become a Seeker, and after being there for almost a year (when Mare being killed in front of him triggered it). In-world, they said that Mistborn (being more powerful) take more to Snap, and that "the difficulty of Snapping is related to the strength of the Allomancer", but then in Secret History we see that Preservation may have touched him at that moment to "inspire" him to SURVIVE. And perhaps, that direct communication from Preservation "mist-boosted" him to Mistborn at a moment he was spiritually anguished enough to Snap already?

Actually I think Spook was made into a Mistborn of the normal strength for a skaa Allomancer of the end of the Final Empire - so he was as strong in his new metals as he was with his non-savant use of A-tin, basically. That would be far weaker than Elend the lerasium bead ingester, or Rashek the Spiritually Twiddled, and probably than Vin of the Very Pure Noble Bloodline on her father's side. So, like Kelsier or Gemmel probably were (if Kelsier's Snapping into a Mistborn at the Pits wasn't some act of Preservation, as was faintly implied as Leras passed on).

they don’t know that that was “almost lerasium”, as they don’t know what lerasium looks like (nor do we) - only that it seemed to be the “light” side of some kind of “light/dark” separation, and assuming light = Preservation and dark = Ruin, even though historical descriptions of atium are of it being “silvery”.

Yeah I was wondering that, too. It's black dust, so it's not atium which was always described as slivery; and the bead of lerasium never has its color described in TFE, other than Vin observing that it was "the wrong color" to be atium. Trellium is never described as black, either, but "silvery with red spots." I am definitely anticipating Wax burning steel soon, and discovering something new about his experience of burning metals...!

Yes, but it's a quarterly ledger, so if that's a typical quarter, they are netting 20 million a year...?! Unless the ledgers in question were for Accounts Payable, since the only discrepancy we find explained was Wax exulting in connecting a typo of "four clips to tip a dock boy, reimbursed but recorded with a three due to bad handwriting", in which case we don't know what the House as a whole is earning. Remember, House Ladrian also employs a lot of people, those "forgeworkers and seamstresses" mentioned in Alloy of Law, while Wayne has cleverly moved into the world of investment banking where things like the operational costs for Tarcsel Electric or the upcoming Noseball League of the Basin (NLB) are one level removed.

That might be the origin of the name "noseball", if the lacrosse stick is considered to end in a large cup or hook that resembles a nose. And I think it's interesting to note that Wayne said "Metalborn" are allowed at those positions, not a specific kind of Metalborn. You'd think Steelrunners would be the most in demand in general, but if a Coinshot could fly down the field with a Push, or if the goalie were allowed to Push or Pull on metal in their glove to react faster, or an electrum burning Misting (Oracle) at goalie made it all but impossible even for a Steelrunner to score... Woohoo! And of course if contact is allowed, a Pewterarm would be very comfortable!

I'm pretty sure he is. As of AoL, Wax's House of Ladrian was basically on the brink of bankruptcy, despite having "many forgeworkers and seamstresses", with Edwarn having siphoned off nearly all the money to fund the Set's hidden machinations with the Vanishers ("it was all INSURANCE FRAUD!"... Well, that, and some more cosmere-related plots). And SoS and BoM all take place relatively soon after, like one or two years for both, so most of Wax's money - and "house finances" - were directly or built on leveraging Steris' money from her father. That, plus the reward money for foiling the Vanishers, which Wayne reflects had been "paid out mostly in aluminum recovered from Miles and his gang" in SoS, which was the seed money he gave to Sophie Tarcsel, and got his financial snowball rolling. So, yes. If Wax and Wayne shared equally in the Vanishers' reward, and Wax was somewhat richer than Wayne in Sos, ... it would seem that ten years later, in TLM, it's very, very likely that Wayne is the richesrt man in the Basin! Or at least, one of them! As for starting a "noseball" league: I wonder what it is like? It's got a goalie, and at least two "long runners", both of which positions could be spiced up by specifically allowing Metalborn as an innovation, which I guess means traditionally "noseball" has disallowed Metalborn powers?

Re: Hoid gaining Allomancy: we have a WoB that strongly implies that the beads of lerasium were gathered by Rashek after he'd Ascended, using the knowledge he'd gained while holding Preservation. If the lerasium beads pre-existed Rashek's Ascension but also required TLR to "go get them", that implies Hoid didn't know where to go get them but Rashek did. And of course, by then he was The Lord Ruler, who gathered all (?) the beads and handed them out to his strongest supporters, reserving two for later... Which he kept in the chamber near the Well under Kredik Shaw. And my guess is that Hoid could only use the Well as a perpendicularity across from the CR to the Physical Realm when the Well was close to filling up - i.e., had enough Investiture gathered there to form the perpendicularity. Somehow, part of the creation of the Well required the power to "coalesce" there every 1024 years, be taken and used via temporary Ascension, and then to be redistributed into the mists for the next cycle. So even if Hoid had known for sure that's where the lerasium was, his Fortune-based "go where I need to be" thing probably only kicked in with respect to the Well of Ascension when it was "deep" enough to be a perpendicularity. Otherwise he'd have to get past Rashek and open the capstone to the Well, which he couldn't very well do without very strong Allomancy, which he wouldn't have without the lerasium.

I'm guessing Wax and Wayne t-shirts, action figures, comics, and movies are to come in Era 3! LOL! But for now, in Era 2... Let's start with the lunchboxes.

Wayne invents professional sports leagues while trying to shed "excess money"... Total value of 32 NFL teams today: 91 billion. He can't lose for winning! As for Wax having signed away his "likeness rights"... We already have a WoB that there will be Wax and Wayne comics in Era 3, will that be the flagship series for Terrisborn Press? With some 20+ and counting number of "TCU" blockbuster movie adaptations thereof? And as for Allriandre's monthly stipend... I guess her family's no longer getting "half of what Wayne makes", eh? Yowza!

I think Ruin could speak to Rashek even without any hemalurgic spikes in him (which detail, BTW, has changed since the original intended canon, but there’s enough wiggle room) simply because Rashek had Ascended and was a Sliver of the Shard of Preservation. Ruin can speak to both Kelsier and Vin after their Ascension, “peer to peer” if you will, so it would be likely that he could communicate with anybody whose soul had been stretched by holding a Shard for some period of time - as Kelsier notes in Mistborn: Secret History, Rashek “didn’t have to go” Beyond after dying, and “the final death could not take him unless he wanted it to”, after holding Preservation.

Yeah, that's the only reasonable conclusion. Either they botched having her survive the staged accident when they did, or it was part of the plan all along. I'm of the second opinion. I now see in re-reading Peter's answer to the question that he is NOT saying that her death was an accident, only confirming that she died in the (so-called) accident.

So it's a little bit circular here, because after all, this is a work of epic fantasy. Even if you took it for a historical biography, though, a corollary of "history is written by the winner" would be that "histories are written about the influential". Yes, you're right, several factors well out of Kaladin's control resulted in Syl finding and bonding him specifically, and so on. Change this or that, and he'd have been just another quickly dead bridge running slave, if not killed way earlier, like simply being cut down with the rest of his squad in Amaram's army by the Shardbearer (Helaran) due to not having that nascent bond helping him to defeat him on the battlefield. Well, what then? Syl bonds someone else? The Windrunners are refounded by a putative "Nidalak", someone just as worthy but who died ignominiously in Bridge Three, who bonded Syl instead? Well, then... The Way of Kings (the Sanderson novel, not the in-world work by Nohadon) would have been written about Nidalak, and you could have the same "complaint" about how the main character of the book seemed to have things work out just right, to be in the right place at the right time with the right circumstances in his life, to be one of the first Radiants in hundreds of years (well, one not a Skybreaker).

I like to think that, as being founded by a Windrunner with an honorspren, the Bridge crews go on to invent an Alethi-acceptable card game that can be played for stakes and that does not involve "predicting a future outcome" but does involve guessing or skillful figuring out of hidden information, while emphasizing coordination and cooperation with a partner to fulfill a contract (or to prevent its fulfillment). Honor! Bonds! Cooperation! What's not to like about the game of Bridge!