Isilel

Except that we know that TLR, who had free access to atium and a millennium to experiment, hadn't been able to come up with any new applications of hemalurgy. Which suggests that using it to gain knowledge is much trickier than you propose. At the very least, judging by Elend, you'd need lots and lots of atium _and_ duralumin allomancy.

Beyond "The Secret History 2" and Darkside/Khriss leaving Taldain, as well as other already planned projects: I always wanted to read an "age of exploration" story in era 2 Scadrial or anywhere in the cosmere, really, where adventures happen during or around an expedition into unknown. Without "our country/world is in danger and we are looking for something to save us" trope. Slice of life story in Era 2 Southern Scadrial before the contact with the North. My biggest disappointment with TLM was that we didn't learn anything new about the Mawlish. Sure, we'll see plenty of them in Era 3, I presume, but it won't be the same. Story in the Final Empire's past that Sanderson intended to put into a video game. Something with balloons, blimps, bicycles and muscle-powered flight in conjunction with magi-tech.

Now that you mention it, it occurs to me that it should be possible for Seekers to learn to hear the rythms of Scadrial and other planets when burning bronze. Also, since all Scadrians were made with powers of Preservation and Ruin only, they probably could all hum both tones effectively. Maybe you could put the mists in a container that way, similar to moving the lights between spheres on Roshar? And purify them like the Dor in jars in TLM? An excellent idea! It should definitely make hemalurgists and hemalurgic creatures uncomfortable. But it might also affect normal Scadrians somewhat, since unlike most cosmere humanity they were created by 2 Shards only and almost half of their makeup was contributed by Ruin. Still, it should be a great hemalurgy detection tool and possibly help with defense against it's users. About the Singers, I suspect that hearing the rhythms is an ability that, while evolved on Roshar, might work elsewhere with some training and adaptation. Though they don't hear the rythms of active Surge-binding and need special spren to detect them, so it isn't like they are Seeker equivalents either.

IMHO her father wasn't clued in at that point, or reacted instinctively. I think that Shallan disliked doing whatever it was and refused at some point, while her father was also opposed to her being used that way.The Ghostbloods then began to doubt that her mother could deliver on her obligations. Therefore the quarrels and Lady Davar attempting to force the issue with a tragic outcome. The Ghostbloods must have been interested in this otherwise undistinguished family for a reason, and from what we have seen from Lin, it couldn't have been him or his boys

Which is why I have a theory that Lady Davar had been the first Ghostblood in that family, rather than being Skybreaker-adjacent, and that the whole incident that resulted in her death was her trying to force Shallan to demonstrate her abilities for an associate. IIRC Mraize hinted that Shallan had done some work for the Ghostbloods as a child - I don't have the quote, but I remember noticing it at the time and wondering. Also, Seon-in-a-box probably influenced her "Mother's soul in a box" delusion. Pattern did say that Mraize's letter explaining Davar family tragedies contained lies, and IMHO Lady Davar's allegiance was one of them.

I thought that you needed Aonic descent? Galladon's father didn't leave Duladel until after his Shaod and IIRC it was mentioned that citizens of Teod occasionally became Elantrians too, just much more rarely than Arelonians. That's why the Fjordells wanted to exterminate them as well. Though things may have changed between Elantris and TLM, particularly given the "invitation" mechanism demonstrated in "Tress".

But that's not what happened? Weren't the first Mistborn the 8 kings who chose to support him? And nobles in general the descendants of people who supported his conquest of what became the Final Empire? While those who opposed him and their descendants became skaa. Now, Rashek might have re-worked the citizens of Klennium into a physically distinct underclass while still in the Well because he hated them so much, but with other nations, he didn't know in advance who was going to side with him. Not only that, but it appears that zero tolerance towards interbreeding with skaa may have been a somewhat later development in the history of FE, since Lord Cett explained the rarity of allomancers in his family by them having too much skaa blood(!) historically. So yes, there are some contradictions in the canon concerning the Balance. None of which has anything to do with Rashek's pals or Terris in general, because we know what happened to them, and that they didn't become nobles. I am not sure why you brought them up.

@alder24: But this quote about Balance, while canonical, is a bit self-contradictory, isn't it? Given that the nobles were the descendants of people who sided with TLR's conquest. Which only began _after_ he had done his modifications and released the power of the Well. I have always thought that nobles who weren't already allomancers should have been more susceptible to Mist-snapping, because of their generally heightened allomantic potential, not less. Of course, the situation would have been muddled by some of them being Mistings of undiscovered metals, unbeknownst to anyone, but still.

@Returned: Airship Iron Feruchemy makes it lighter, there is no loss of function if it can only ever store weight. If you want to descend, you just store less or stop entirely. There is no reason to tap weight ever. Filled metalminds just get replaced with new chunks of iron on a regular basis. I don't remember any examples of people storing and tapping the same attribute via medallions. Weight was always ever stored, heat and Connection tapped. I honestly don't understand how the storing weight part of the handful of medallions that NoScads had, could have been depleted, if F-Nicrosil works more like F-Copper, as per WoB. My impression is that Sanderson just didn't want medallions to be used by Our Heroes in TLM, saving them for Era 3. Which is why the Ghostbloods, illogically, also didn't have any. It all felt very contrived, IMHO. Anyway, the way the use of Bands was depicted in BoM paints them as different from the medallions in principle, not just in scale. For one thing, TLM really stressed that no allomantic medallions have been seen by the Northerners, so they might not exist yet. Even feruchemical applications appear to be limited to a few metals only. IIRC there were also differences in how accessing either felt to the protagonists. I commented in another topic on the "fading" of Metallic Arts, but we have a WoB that in Era 2 they have become as diluted as they are going to be. I'd also like to point out that Feruchemy hadn't been getting weaker or rarer among the Terris prior to TLR's breeding program and subsequent out-breeding. Which suggests to me that maintaining at least a constant level of a Metallic Art in an isolated population does work. There is no reason to think that Metallic Art's are not heritable - didn't Kelsier even specifically point out that they are in his conversation with Sazed in the epilogue? And he is a sliver of Preservation and should know. If Mawlish population growth is limited by their ability to produce medallions and they need Metalborn to do so, this would be a very strong incentive for them to want to encourage said Metalborn to have many children and to mate with each other, keeping Mistings and Ferrings well apart, of course. Metalborn being a miniscule part of their population, this wouldn't be any kind of risk. Ditto application of Hemalurgy as outlined in Spook's book, to accumulate a pool of Metallic Arts over generations.

@Returned: I disagree. We have a number of family groupings among the known allomancers: Vin and her murdered baby sister, which makes 2 out of 3 for her father's children with his skaa mistress*, Kelsier and Marsh, Clubs and Spook and, of course, Straff and his squad of allomancer kids. It seems to me that likelihood is very much affected. *for all anyone could have known, her brother might have been a Misting of one of the 7 unknown metals too, with nobody the wiser. However inheritance of Metallic Arts is clearly not according to Mendelian genetics in it's simplest form, but is more complex - perhaps comparable with multi-genetic inheritance, maybe with a dose of epigenetics on top. Which is why that one kidnapped guy in TLM was a child of 2 allomancers, but not one himself, and why strength dilution happens at all. Regarding nobles - weren't TLR's alleged changes to them revealed as mostly sham and propaganda? Allomancy growing weaker with each generation after the original 8 lerasium Mistborn makes sense either way, since they were interbreeding with people who were not allomancers, diluting potential, but also spreading it wider. Nobles being a closed caste limited dilution and fixed allomantic potential among them, that's all. Skaa supposedly not being able to maintain allomantic lines again has to do with dilution among the much larger population group and with systematic elimination of skaa allomancers. The nuTerris isolationist project couldn't have been going for long, as in the first few generations after the Catacendre there wouldn't have been any choice about interbreeding with outsiders. So, we don't know whether it could eventually succeed. Kandra seemed to think so. It is not like iRL some people don't marry for advantage, both for themselves and for their kids, so if Metallic Arts do provide such (and they should), there might be some choosing to do so. Medallions and hemalurgy are all well and good, but natural Metallborn are always going to have a leg up, since they can use those too. In addition, they are going to be expensive and medallions are more limited than natural abilities that they mimic. There is another aspect that I wanted to point out - we don't know how modern snapping works, beyond the fact that it is much easier than in era 1. However, snapping of Mistborn was always much harder than that of Mistings _and_ Harmony apparently doesn't want them running around, so he may have left their snapping threshold as it used to be. That's why, in the absence of routine near-death beatings for the likely prospects, there might be some people with Mistborn potential in Era 2, who never realise it.

Is there a WoB that Aditil's core Aether was killed, rather than that something happened to her personal bud of it? Her behaviour seemed to me more consistent with private misfortune than with a huge calamity on her home planet that death of an Aether should have caused.

A Mistborn can just burn copper to protect themselves from emotional allomancy, so would aluminium-lined headgear even be needed? I am also unsure that it makes sense for there to be casinos on Scadrial, given massive difficulty of preventing cheating. But as an aside, I really hope that hats never go out of fashion on Scadrial, because of emotional allomancy. I really like them as wardrobe accessory.

Pretty much what happened at the end of the first reading years ago. Dusk realises that the legend of Tenth the Finder tells the story of how their people arrived on the First of the Sun through Shadesmar, explains this to Vahti and resolves to go out there to look for help. It is not a full chapter, but just a snippet of one, IMHO. Anyway, having re-read the text via the newsletter - Hoid definitely was the captain of the Dynamic before his disappearance, given that he had personally hired Chrysalis and that they suddenly have a new temporary captain. Also, Rosharan antigrav fabrials are a common enough thing to be part of the Dynamic, so the Radiant doesn't really have to have the Surge of Gravitation. A lot of the Order glyphs might come across as "bird in flight", including the Elsecaller one, which would explain violet accents on his armour. Once he actively uses investiture, there is bluish light consistent with stormlight, but that could still be a fabrial. Yes, he did ask about legality of killing someone who pulled a weapon on him, but IMHO it is something that non-Skybreakers might want to be careful about when establishing new contacts as well. Alternatively, he may be a Skybreaker with a Transportation fabrial. It doesn't seem like he came in through the perpendicularity, but neither does it make sense for him to have come through space without Scadrians noticing. IMHO he most likely arrived via Shadesmar and can move back and forth between it and the Physical, either under his own power, or via magitech. Oh, and the Scadrians are clearly Mawlish, what with masks and importance of removing them. IIRC the Sunlit Man suggested that Scadrians aren't monolithic, though, so they may represent one of the less pleasant groups, along with the researchers on Crucible. I too hope that Scadrial didn't turn into an evil empire, ditto Roshar. At least, there some rules that the Scadrians have to dance around...

Sure, but TLM went out of it's way to point out that no allomantic medallions have been seen by NoScads, yet flying ships machinery needs to be primed by a Coinshot, for example. Also, they have been unable to recharge the medallions that they got in BoM, which suggests that you need something else to recharge their metalminds. I saw no evidence that one can produce or re-charge medallions using other medallions so far, in fact NoScads failure to re-charge the handful they got suggests the opposite. There is also a WoB that medallions are more limited than natural or hemalurgic abilities and in fact we have only seen them working in one direction. I.e. either tapping or storing, but not both for the same ability. The Bands are the only unsealed metalmind that likely could do what you describe, if they allow compounding, but SoScads didn't have them after Kelsier left. Stronger perhaps not, though, for instance not allowing allomancers and feruchemists to mix makes full versions appearing more likely or even possible, but more? Definitely. Or have you forgotten Straff and the fact that the nobles did produce allomancers at a decent clip? Sure, the power levels did get diluted, but they started with just 8 people + the few rare natural mistings, who gradually interbred with a much broader mass of TLR's supporters, who became nobles. SoScads were starting from the opposite end - just the few natural Metalborn, some of whom became essential for their survival post-Catacendre, while others must have become crucial for further Magi-tech development. And yes, Kelsier as Sovereign with his interest in hemalurgy and probably some imported Inquisitor spikes, as well as an insight into how Metallic Arts heredity works.

Personally, I think it very likely that the Malwish practice hemalurgy on the terminally I'll and dying as outlined in Spook's little book. Metallic Arts are too important for their survival and functioning of their society to trust to random chance that they'd have a steady supply of essential Arts in every generation. They really should also have breeding programs and caste restrictions for Metalborn as well, though I doubt that Sanderson will go there, no matter how much sense makes.

It does seem like trained Steelrunner assassins would be pretty much unstoppable, though, unless their target chooses to cower in a bunker. Ditto burglars. And that apprehending a Steelrunner criminal would be pretty much impossible until their reserves run out, as long as they are decent shots. Concerning opportunity cost of storing, the foreshadowed Metallic Arts technologies would require non-murderous ways to create unkeyed metalminds, at which point the cost will become merely monetary. Honestly, the easiest limit would have been to make learning to speed up without injury very difficult, risky and require extensive training. But with dangers being automatically compensated, I dunno. Well, but shouldn't it come across as completely absurd to the readers, given rarity and limitations of the Metalborn in question? Like if someone had claimed iRL that their restaurant was staffed by star athletes and pop stars? Now if they had claimed Coinshots as delivery people, this could have had the effect you describe, since they are actually common enough that it would have been plausible, can actually use their abilities for extended periods of time and are costly enough to employ (as Wax noted in SoS) to justify big mark-ups. I very much agree. And that's before taking into account that, while hemalurgy no longer works for compounding, a single spike of a number of metals can make a Steelrunner even more absurdly overpowered.

What evidence is there that they abandoned him so early and not during the False Desolation, shortly before BAM's imprisonment? I don't remember seeing anything in the text - is there a WoB?

So, I really hope that this ad gets retroactively de-canonized or something, because it suggests that Steelrunners are actually fairly common _and_ that storing speed is pretty easy. Ditto the one with Slider short-order cooks, which makes equally no sense given that Sliders are supposed to be rare, so what odds on even one of them becoming a cook of all possible occupations, bendalloy is sufficiently expensive that even Wax couldn't provide Wayne with enough to fit in hours of compressed time and finally, that burning it literally burns one's life away, so doing so for a client should be very well payed.

Intriguing to say the least. I wonder why dragons have human priests and what they can do in answer to prayers. Are they half-fain, given that they have 4 limbs in human form and 6 in dragon? Some kind of mediators between fain and not-fain? I am all there for the Firefly and exploration vibes! And finally seeing Silverlight. I had really hoped for an exploration narrative in "The Lost Metal" back before it came out... It is nice that more non-standard humanoids are being introduced too. Isn't it a bit odd that the only way back to Dhatri is via space travel, though? Shouldn't Willshapers and Elsecallers be able to get people over from the Cognitive without a perpendicularity? And wasn't it strongly hinted in one of Nikki Savage adventures in TLM or BoM that a gadget exists that can do the same? Not to mention Aon Tia? Naturally, I am also interested in the First of the Sun developments and the Scadrian/Rosharan Cold War, but I hope that Sixth joins the ship, rather than the reverse.

K@alder24: This only tells us about 2 Kingdoms, one of which has later undergone a drastic change in it's ethnic and cultural make-up. Dalinar didn't recognize his location for a good reason. Anyway, no maps made during that period have been provided. Maps of the Silver Kingdoms that we are familiar with date from the Era of Solitude. Even then it is odd that no singer territories are included, so perhaps they were produced after the final victory over - and lobotomization of the Parsh, but before the Recreance? At no point do Iriali appear in Dalinar's visions, nor does it make sense for them to have spent about half of post-Shattering time-line on beleaguered Roschar, after leaving the 3 previous ones much more quickly, IMHO.

I managed to miss this new tidbit back in November, but it ist very intriguing. Also, I feel vindicated, since I foretold that the reason why Iri joined the other side was that their leaders had known that it was almost the time to leave anyway and saw no reason to fight Odium. It is a bit odd that they allegedly fought Rirans, but maybe that was the price for being left alone otherwise. It also seems that a chunk of population ist going to be left behind, since everyone living out in the country appears to be out of luck, what with the gates only opening in the cities. This would explain why Iriali seem to have been cosmere spoiler:

Can we be sure that the Silver Kingdoms as we know them were founded before Aharietam? I always thought it very odd that the map of them left no room for the singer polities. Also, for instance, the ethnic make-up of Natan people drastically changed at some point - in Dalinar's vision they hadn't been blue-skinned. I also don't remember any Iriali featuring in his visions of Heraldic Epochs or at all, really. Iriali being stuck for more than 4.5 millenia on Roschar seems disproportionally long to me, compared to the 3 other "lands" that they must have lived in previously. IMHO, given how little information survived from the distant past, it makes much more sense for them to have arrived after Aharietam, when most of the continent was depopulated and in shambles so that a new large group could have appeared and settled without much friction or comment. Re: the idea of there being more than one group of Iriali travelling through cosmere - maybe? At the very least, they must have left chunks of their population behind at most of their stops, since they have a whole large country on Roschar, but fit on a single Island on Lumar. And, presumably, Rirans, who are of mixed heritage, haven't been invited along.

I really don't like how Jasnah is with Hoid, she appears dumbed down, trying to wheedle information out of him rather than figuring things out like she used to back in WoK. Also, she is letting him push her into things that she doesn't necessarily want. I was flabbergasted when after her return from her adventure in Shadesmar it was explained in OB that all the new information she had was what Hoid told her when they met upon her return. Like, did she sleepwalk through her sojourn there, despite allegedly causing quite a ruckus? And she hasn't been her earlier brainiac self - which I loved, since. Sigh.

Is it just me, or does splitting a quote not work on this forum anymore? I have to copy and manually add a quote signifier. First of all, it is kinda random and too conveniet that before the only way to attract the spirits was stone-stacking and not any other kind of artistic endeavour, but now the dramas, which are something totally different, are even better. But even beyond that, only most spirits decided to stay, so there could be sudden weakenings and failures of hion lines in places where too many chose to quit. Somebody had to formulate a rule framework for spirits leaving and joining the lines in the future while maintaning stability of the grid, and the only option for that would have been Yumi. It is wholly implausible for the first months to not be very damaging and traumatic. They lived without the sun for almost 2 millenia! People should get sun-burned, blinded, psychologically traumatised, get sun and heat strokes, etc. Ditto domestic animals. The plants would wilt and die unless put into shade within days, irrigation would need to be abruptly increased - and that's where Yumi's petitioning of spirits should have been crucial, because all this can't be accomplished with mundane means in that time frame, leave alone with people being disoriented and incapacitated. I really feel that Sanderson's ending for Yumi's character arc doesn't fit with with the worldbuilding plot arc, where getting rid of the Shroud should have been only half the battle. Seeds that are still viable after 1700 years?! Of plants that would have to contend with cooler climate and lack of their whole ecosystem. The sun didn't seem to be shining on the machine when Yumi arrived where it was either, and her tree turned out to be a construct of the Shroud... Honestly, people surviving the cataclysm would have worked better if the environment in yoki-hijo prisons had been real and could have been immediately coopted . An excellent idea that the machine mistook Hoid for a yoki-hijo and tried to imprison him! That explains it indeed. I guess that Design was too different for her to register as an escaped spirit? Regarding the spaceship - there wasn't any talk of a second one and it looked like it wasn't expected back for some time? Maybe sooner than in 3 years, but it was written like Hoid and Design were going to hijack it immediately, while it was still on UTol. Not to mention that it couldn't go fast or far. Though, maybe Hoid could use his allomancy to push it beyond it's construction parameters. Speaking of which - this is another incongruity. If they could be consumed, even with complications, why imprison them? I thought that the whole point of the 1.7 millenia long charade was that they couldn't be. Maybe it was only possible with Yumi because she was in Nico's body?

We are presented with something that is supposed to be a happy ending with Yumi being free to live her own life in obscurity. But it doesn't work with a massive cataclysm when the Shroud dissipated, that would have required all of her powers and skill to help the people to survive! Everything is adapted to living in darkness with only hions for soft illumination and it should have taken some mad petitioning to the spirits to mitigate the initial damage and establish the new routine. For that matter, who could have treated with spirits in the hion lines, if not her?! I also don't quite understand how sun-adapted plants could have survived in Torio, when the tree that Yumi rode on was revealed to also have been created from the Shroud. Real plants would have only interferred with the illusion. And the machine had no reason to let sun shine over the capital. Why did the machine try to draw on Hoid's investiture, but not Design's, who should have been more vulnerable? How could Hoid and Design hijack a ship that was on another planet? Do they have some way to jump straight to UTol, using Aon Tia, maybe? Why would they even want a ship that was constructed for in-system voyages at best? And would stealing it mean marooning the poor crew? Finally, earlier on, why did Yumi's stacking briefly reveal a figure of yoki-hijo in the Shroud? I thought that the whole point of imprisoning them in the groundhog day illusions was that they couldn't be made a part of it, not wholly, like other people were.