Isilel

My understanding is that lighteyes don't undergo permanent eye-color changes, either from the dead blades or from living ones/ surge-binding. In fact, we don't know that honorblades cause one at all. Szeth had his for years and used it, but his normal eye-color remained _dark_ green. I.e. he looked dark-eyed unless he summoned the sword or inhaled stormlight. Ditto the dark-eyed Heralds, of course, but judging by Nale, they don't get affected by spren-bonds or even temporarily by active surge-binding either. IIRC, not even by summoning a spren/honorblade.

IMHO, if it had been possible to separate a Herald, who upheld the Oathpact, from their honorblade, then surely the Fused would have done so long since. Yet, not even when the Heralds were captured and tortured on Braize did this happen. So, whoever took it likely didn't want Taln to get recognised in his addled condition, or just didn't think it through. I fully expect that once his sanity is somewhat restored, he will just summon the blade, if he needs it.

Sense of balance and timing, i.e. "grace" from A-Pewter too, I imagine. Not sure why compounding would necessarily lead to savantism? You don't have to flare when burning feruchemical reserves. In fact, just doing extra cycles of burning and storing at normal rate would increase the amount of stored attribute much more.

Let's not forget what Pattern said about Mraize's letter being full of lies. Personally, I don't think that the man was a Skybreaker acolyte. I doubt that Helaran would have gotten involved with them if he had been. IMHO, both Lady Davar and the man were Ghostbloods and Shallan's mother was trying to force her daughter to do something that she resisted doing. Shallan having been trained by her mother and her Ghostblood associates for infiltration purposes would explain Veil's competence in this area. OTOH, in OB in the scene where Shallan performed "The Girl Who Looked Up" for Pattern, there were strong hints that the "happy childhood" was another lie. IIRC Shallan briefly thought about how the troupe's visit was the happiest time in her otherwise sad childhood and that she longed to run away with them. Also in RoW, when she finally remembered Testament, there is a mention of how her spren encouraged her to stand up to darkness spreading over her family. IMHO it is pretty clear that bad stuff in Davar household has started much earlier than Shallan's budding Radiance.

I don't think that you can assume that. I don't remember if his eyes are specifically mentioned, but Nale is routinely described as looking Azish/Makabaki, with his only notable feature being the white birthmark/scar on his cheek. But light eyes are very rare among these peoples. When Shalash is described, it is always noted how unusual her combination of Makabaki appearance with light eyes is. Ditto Lift, who is Reshi, when she has been surge-binding, people notice her eyes being light. Even with Szeth, his eye-color changes to blue and later grey are mentioned. Not so with Nale, though. I just don't think that Heralds appearance is affected by blades, spren-bonds and surge-binding in the same way as normal people's are. If my suspicions about Liss being Vedel are correct, this also might have allowed her to keep a secret shardblade, while remaining dark-eyed.

IIRC, Nale's eyes are never described as changing colour when he summons his blade(s) or is surge-binding. I always thought that it was one of the differences between Heralds and everyone else. Also, not all Heralds have dark eyes - both Kalak and Shalash are light-eyed, for example. As to who swapped the blades, I assume that it was the assassin Liss, whom I suspect of being Vedel. Jasnah thought that she may have secretly been in possession of a shardblade. As to why, I really couldn't say. Maybe she didn't want Taln to be recognised as as a Herald for some reason? Could have also been Ghostbloods, I imagine. They do like to collect powerful objects. In any case, Sanderson said that Hoid didn't do it.

Do we actually know this? The WoB you quoted doesn't state it - just that to become a Misting of a given allomantic metal, you must use an alloy of it with lerasium and stresses how you need enough lerasium for it to work. Which means that there is a certain threshold beyond which the amount of lerasium would be too low to make an allomancer at all. And given that Preservation's Mists were just lerasium in gas form and that they did turn people into random Mistings, but not Mistborn because their intitial investiture levels weren't high enough, I don't see why the same wouldn't apply to metallic lerasium. IMHO, if Steris inhaled the same amount as Wax, she would have become a random Misting at best, not Mistborn. But we aren't talking cosmere terms, but Scadrian ones. Mistborn are clearly more invested than Mistings, which is why Mist-snapping at the end of Era 1 didn't produce any. How much more? I am not sure. Not 16x more like I initially assumed, I don't think, but probably less. Just enough that some lerasium dust put Wax a toe-length over the threshold. IMHO, settings where only a few people have powers have been done so, so many times that is has become quite boring. Particularly since we always follow the powered ones and the rest tend to be mooks or secondary characters at best. Which in the Mistborn series means that the main protagonists have been winners of a genetic lottery, who have been pretty much gods among men, 2 times in a row. How very dull. IMHO, Metallic Arts aren't, for the most part, so overpowered that everyone having only one of them would have significantly upended the "Earth-analogue" idea, but it would have allowed for some fresh ideas for how such society might function. Particularly since the ending of Era 1 seemed to suggest that allomancy would become far more common, what with 16% of people exposed to the mists getting mist-snapped. But no, it was largely rolled back and Era 2 was more of the same, with the even more rare Twinborn replacing Mistborn and Feruchemists as super-superpowered individuals. I would have liked it if normal hemalurgy was presented in a more nuanced way, according to the notions outlined in Spook's book, but Sanderson has been consequently insisting that it is wholly evil - not much room for a "moral compromise" there. We didn't even see any hemalurgist Ghostbloods in TLM, which we really should have. I don't think that synthetic hemalurgy will be "free". It will likely require significant resources and skills to make these spikes. And there may be other restrictions - no more than 1 spike per person working, say. And of course, such spike would still hurt the body and create a hole in the soul. So, something for Ruin. But Sanderson clearly and unambigiously promised us that it is coming, or he wouldn't have it spelled out in TLM. Not in Era 3, except possibly among the Ghostbloods, but I suspect that if he does the Cyberpunk trilogy, then it will be there. Or Era 4. As to the medallions and other gadgets, this won't replace them, just like being a natural Metalborn doesn't make them any less useful. After all, in Era 3 we will, according to WoBs, follow some Metalborn yet again, who will, presumably, use them. But, clearly, they can't really replace natural abilities, because the protagonists will still posess those. Unpowered people still won't be interesting or capable enough without them to be worthy of being main characters.

I disagree. IMHO, the difference between Mistings and Mistrborn is very much in how invested they are. Every Scadrian has some excess Preservation investiture, if they have more than a certain threshold, they become a Misting, if they have more than a second, much higher threshold, they become a Mistborn. Both after snapping, that is. Which means, IMHO, that the miniscule dose of lerasium that Wax inhaled, only made him a weak Mistborn because he had already been pretty highly invested. If it had been an unpowered person, they would have become a Misting at best. The Set's micro-hemalurgy experiments likely ran afoul of Identity conflicts, which prevented the investiture from sticking around. They did sometimes convey temporary random powers, though, which supports my argument. I mean, Moonlight/Shai specifically pointed out the possibility of artificial power spikes? Sanderson likes talking about making promises to the reader and this sure sounded like one! What is more, medallions are more limited than natural/hemalurgic abilities and don't offer the same opportunities for creativity and fine control. True democratisation of Metallic Arts would allow any Scadrian to obtain an equivalent to one of the latter without winning a genetic lottery or murder/harm to others. With medallions allowing for fun ability combos on top of it.

They were a major method of transportation in the Low Countries since Middle Ages too. I mean, history didn't prevent Era 2 Northeners from inventing cars, why not bicycles, which were invented and came into widespread use earlier than cars iRL. Bicycles began as luxury goods as well. Obviously, even with more expensive tires, they'd still be more affordable than cars and therefore accessible to merely well-to-do and middle class. And reliance on trains and barges for long-distance transport should have made them more attractive, not less. Hard to take a car along on one of those, but you'd still need to cross the distance between the station and your final destination, somehow. Oh, well. Yes? Why not have elephant birds, moa, giant teratorns, short-faced bears, horned gophers, mammoths, etc?

Alright, but what about mechanical allomancy in Era 3? Since it has been made clear in TLM that allomancy medallions don't exist and that the Bands are a unique artifact that can't be replicated in the forseeable future, I posit that mechanical allomancy is going to be harmonium-mediated, an evolution of the primer cubes and allomantic grenades. Now, of course, relationship with the Mawlish is already strained and there is going to be a Cold War in Era 3, so it is unlikely that they are going to export harmonium to the North. However, I think that the Northeners are going to get limited supply of it from elsewhere. For instance, the Maskless should have access to it too, or they wouldn't be "dangerous". There also might be a modest source of harmonium somewhere closer to the Basin, in an area that it's people have been too lazy and incurious to explore in Era 2. Tangentially, I foresee the Ghostbloods becoming harmonium smugglers, once their aluminum bonanza dries up, and basically monopolizing this area of criminal enterprise. In any case, my feeling is that the North is not going to have enough harmonium for industrial and transportation use - most of their large-scale technology is going to be similar to the respective period iRL, except for mechanical feruchemy applications. But there is going to be enough harmonium for commercially accessible business and personal use. Now, I'll further postulate that without additional complex hoops harmonium can only be used with external metals. TLM says nothing about priming it with internal ones, which should have been the obvious and easiest thing to try, so I'll assume that it didn't work. There is also this WoB that it wouldn't work with burned feruchemical storages: So, this gives us zinc, brass, copper, chromium, nicrosil, cadmium and bendalloy, iron and steel to work with. I imagine 3 main types of gadgets based on allomantic grenades: those used in businesses or at home which could be in whatever form, wearables switched on manually and ranged ones that would activate on impact. All in aluminum casings, so, push/pull wouldn't work on them, nor Steel/Ironsight detect them. With cheapness of aluminum in Era 3, I imagine that everybody will wear aluminum-lined headgear most of the time (and hats would never go out of fashion!), so emotional allomancy would mostly require consent and there would be little reason to prime one's personal equipment with it. There would be great potential for using it in healthcare (soothing at the dentist's? Yes, please!), entertainment, etc. Cadmium and possibly bendalloy would also be very much useful in civilian context. As to the actiony stuff: For ranged applications, I imagine that modified aluminum or aluminum-plated dart gun launchers that would shoot darts tipped with mini-grenades primed, say, with chromium or nicrosil, would make most sense for precision and, in case of nicrosil, also for boosting collegues at range, with, maybe some kind of grenade attachment for cadmium grenades? For wearables, copper, bendalloy and maybe steel primed gadgets worn on a belt or a harness. In Era 2 we barely saw any Seekers, since them being on sentry/lookout duty would have put a serious crimp into Our Heroes ability to sneak around without enlisting a smoker, but having mechanised copper allomancy would get around this without making antagonists look like idiots. Bendalloy is obvious. Since I expect most weapons and such to be made of inert aluminum alloys or be aluminum plated, unfocussed steel allomancy may not be as useful as it was in era 2. For first responders, cadmium primed ones would also make sense. But can steel/iron allomancy via harmonium be directed, somehow? If there is a small apperture in all the encasing aluminum, will it focus the push/pull? Maybe if you run an electrical current through it? If something like this is possible, then contraptions primed with steel and iron strapped to a person's forearms, along with a steelsight/weight medallion, could provide an approximation of a natural/hemalurgic coinshot's abilities. Oh, and speaking of another possible gadget - an aluminum bracelet incorporating several medallions that one could switch between at a press of a button. Alright, I got these ruminations off my chest! I really hope for a transition from the superhero mode in the Mistborn saga, to where many people have access to powers and consistently use them on-screen, not just the protagonists and the more notable antagonists. And show us how the society would adapt to this. There are too few books with the latter premise and too many with the former, IMHO, YMMV.

I agree. Honestly, I don't see why Mistborn Era 3 can't have some cyberpunk-ish features to begin with. I am worried that Sanderson is going to keep back the mechanisation and accessibility of Metal Arts yet again, like he did with medallions et al. for TLM (the Ghostbloods didn't use them, really?!), pushing it off to the next trilogy, only to now reserve it for this new interloper Era. If cyberpunk has to happen, a standalone would be nice, or maybe a collaboration with Wells? I don't want it to be a fully fledged trilogy like Era 3.

Makes me wonder why this couldn't have been achieved with Feruchemical Connection power, though. Why hasn't it been done with BoM? Didn't Paalm impersonate Inquisitors for the Lord Ruler? Presumably, she needed to use powers without any Trellium for this.

@NerdyAarakocra: no, that's not the case. Solfor (paraphrased) So the Iriali, their religion, the whole the One breaking themselves into the many to experience the universe. You also have Autonomy breaking themselves into many avatars. So I was wondering is Autonomy connected to the Iriali in any meaningful way. Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) So are the Iriali connected to Autonomy in a meaningful way? I'd say no. I mean they're slightly connected, but in a meaningful way, no, they're not connected. Autonomy did not start the Iriali religion. DragonCon 2019 (Sept. 2, 2019)

I believe that they are going to be more limited than that - I added how I envision it working to my previous post. So, Augurs would be able to heal, but probably not from wounds as lethal as Wayne could, leave alone Miles . While filling metalminds would likely become quite a lucrative source of income for the Village and other Terris settlements - in fact they might prefer it to their people having to go outside for work, I think that the many attributes would be stored by anyone interested via special storage medallions with F-Aluminium and Feruchemical storage power for whatever attribute needs to be stored. In fact, that's how it must already work for heat in the South - they can't possibly have enough Brass Ferrings to continually supply their whole population! Of course, it will take time to invent those and I don't believe that they will have medallions for a number of the most powerful abilities in Era 3, so those unkeyed metalminds will indeed be rare and expensive. Not to mention that some of the metals already are. Concerning hemalurgy - the cat is out of the bag, so I very much hope that the government of the Basin will be able to work with the spikes they take off criminals, under strict controls. At this point it would be actively harmful to prevent them. And in fact the trellium spikes that Our Heroes had given to researchers weren't stolen by the kandra, nor did Harmony disapprove of Wax and Wayne spiking themselves with already existing spikes in TLM. As to Kelsier, he wants for Scadrial to be stronger, doesn't he? And from his thoughts it seemed to me that the Ghostbloods do spike their enemies, given opportunity, so he probably doesn't really need to steal. Stormlight spoilers:

My impression from what we have heard about the Era 3 so far is that the Northeners will produce their own medallions and that they will be widely accessible commercially. We had the set-up for that with Kelsier wanting more Metalborn on Scadrial in the Epilogue and he clearly isn't going to get that, so spreading mechanical Metal Arts is the next best step. Conveniently, he is the one who (co?-)invented the technology in the first place! All he has to do is leak the information and maybe smuggle some initial tools in and of course he is in position to do that. People of the Basin with their comparatively numerous Metalborn would have an advantage in developing new applictions, in all likelyhood. Additionally, to balance animosity of the Mawlish, the Basin could ally itself with the Maskless, for example, who, presumably, also have medallion technology and access to harmonium. Otherwise the Mawlish wouldn't consider them dangerous, IMHO. It might be related. While I believe that hemalurgy is only needed to create initial tools that create other tools for the actual medallion production, it might make a lot of things easier. At the very least, now that the cat is out of the sack in the North - many of the Set members must have escaped, some with this knowledge, it shouldn't be exclusively a province of criminals. I really hope that the spikes recovered from the Set and other criminals bound to follow suit aren't going to be wasted, but used under strict controls to further research and create metalminds that would be impossible to make otherwise. Likewise, to deter criminal hemalurgy, a law should be passed that anyone found wearing a spike without an iron-clad provenance is automatically convicted of murder. But I suspect that we will only see regulated hemalurgy along the lines suggested by Spook in the South. I mean, there are many opportunities for abuse, so I could see that something like that could best work where it is interwoven with the very survival of society and not vulnerable to considerations of personal greed as it would be in the North. Hopefully, we will finally learn in detail about the South in Era 3 and this will be one of those cultural differences... To continue with the other new applications of Feruchemy, I believe that Mistings will be able to burn unkeyed metalminds and get use of the stored attributes for the length of the burn. But they won't receive the benefits of Twinborn compounding - i.e. they'll only get out what was stored. Nor would they have much control over Feruchemical compression - it will be determined by the burn speed of the metal and the only way to affect it would be to flare. As such, it would make varying amounts of sense to do this and also limit resulting power. For instance, Speed can only be stored at a fairly low ratio and steel burns at an average rate. So, a Coinshot burning unkeyed steel metalminds would only become a third or so swifter, even with flaring. Definitely beneficial, but not absurdly overpowered. Etc. Metals that burn instantly would be useless for this... Apart from potentially Nicrosil. Burning steel/iron allomancy stored in Nicrosil+ appropriate metal should produce _one_ push/pull per vial. Gold allomancy ditto + health mind should give decent healing. I don't think that anything else works, but the possible protagonist of Era 3 might have a couple of interesting options at their disposal, that require bespoke resources and would need to be employed with a lot of forethought.