Isilel

Late to the party, but I love this thread and want to add a couple of observations on previously discussed metals: F-Iron was underrated, IMHO. There are a lot of cool things that a skilled practitioner could do with it. First of all yes, big jumps and parcours over the rooftops - push off normally and store mass once airborn. Ditto running - you won't be Flash, but if every step becomes, say, 2-3 times longer, the speed will increase accordingly. Ditto bicycles - via constant mass manipulation riding them could become very speedy, with just normal physical effort. But there is more - if an Iron Ferring wears a wingsuit while 100% storing, they should be able to glide like Batman. They could also use a hang glider to freely fly around. A-Chromium - in chapter 27 of TLM, in the broadsheet story, Nicki said that she was able to leech her opponent by touching her with metal knuckles. If this is not a mistake, then Leechers may be able to extend their reach via metal implements. Maybe something like a taser? Depending on a given Twinborn's feruchemical talent, they could also make such equipment resistant to pushes and pulls by storing in them.

3 people, 1 of whom is only doing it part-time? And what did they do _before_ the protagonists showed up out of the blue? It appears that they had been completely helpless against Metalborn criminals. It is Batman/Spiderman all over again. What is more, impressive as they are, Our Heroes can't be everywhere and they aren't equippped to police for and deal with crimes committed via emotional allomancy. The scope of which should extend far beyond unfair competition - murder/assassination via emotional manipulation of a target and/or heightening rage and hostility of people around them, racketeering and blackmailing ditto, swindling, stock fraud, distraction of bystanders during comission of other crimes, etc. Now Era 3 when aluminum will be cheap, is going to substantially de-fang emotional allomancy, but it should have been exceptionally dangerous in Era 2. Oh, as an aside, I do hope that on Scadrial hats would never go out of fashion because of it. Hats are awesome. Agreed. Hard disagree. They should have been present, or at the very least mentioned in SoS. When public disturbances happen in and around the the Basin, both common sense and their own history should immediately suggest that illegal emotional Allomancy might be involved. Seekers should have been out in force in that book - if the police had them. And shouldn't Tineye crime-scene investigators and/or interrogators have been involved too, given the high profile of the crimes? But nada. As an aside, and as a nod to the thread title, Seekers should have worked in pairs in order to detect if Copperclouds are smoking the area (or do they hear their own bronze?) and resorted to the help of Nicrobursts if they are unable to punch through via flaring. But we should have seen them where it made sense, or at least heard about them. In fact, we didn't even see any Coinshot couriers actually doing their deliveries, just that one girl when she ducked into the carriage company's office. The only glimpse of commercial Allomancers doing their jobs was in the Soothing parlor. And yes, a politician was at least running on the basis of being a Coppercloud - I don't remember if he won. IMHO, one of the more interesting things about the Era 2 setting and what should have distinguished it from Era 1 (and countless other stories about superpowered people) is that Metal Arts are used constructively in everyday and professional life, rather than just for battle and espionage, but this aspect came very short. I have to hope that it is because this premise was intially conceived for what is now Era 3 and is being largely reserved for it. Which I think is a pity and largely unnecessary, since Era 3 is presumably going to be very different yet again anyway, whith abundance of aluminum and the existence of mechanical means of access to the Metallic Arts. Nothing in the Era 2 series books provided any evidence for there being thousands of Allomancers among the nobility. You'd think that there would have been some attempt to fight back on the part of other guests at the wedding in AoL, if noble Allomancers had been so common. In fact, we have no idea about the general number of nobles, how long it takes for their off-shoots to become commoners, whether commoners can become nobles, their ratio to general population, etc., etc. In the Final Empire all free people were "nobles", even if they had to work for a living. This is no longer the case post-Catacendre. There may be fewer nobles around than there are Allomancers. We know that they can marry commoners and still transmit their nobility to their children, because Wax's and Telsin's mother was a Terriswoman. There must have been a lot of interbreeding of people with allomantic heritage with the Terris early on too, which resulted in the splitting of Feruchemy into Ferrings, etc. And BTW - a quarter of Coinshots with commoner background becoming criminals?! Because their powers made them too "uppity", I guess? What and oddly classicist and antiquitated idea....

Maybe? We saw far too little of provincial or lesser nobility to judge the ratio of Allomancers among them. Cetts were unusual for producing very few. Is the population of the Basin around 10 Million? But yea, the fact that Sliders, for instance, are supposed to be rare - according to your calculation maybe a couple of hundreds all told, makes the advertisment for a Slider cook particularly weird. No, I cannot be sure. However Marasi did mention in TLM that Elendel police considers Our Heroes to be the unit responsible for policing Metalborn criminals(!) and doesn't have anybody else for that, which suggests that the Leecher wasn't a field operative, whether technically a constable or a contractor. There is also no indication that the Allomancer who inspected graves in New Seran on behalf of the police was a constable. Nor did we see or hear of any among the police in Bilming. In any case, doesn't it strike you as jarring that the _only_ Metalborn involved in dealing with the Vanisher crisis were the protagonists? That House Tekiel didn't bother to hire Metalborn investigators and guards in AoL despite what was at stake for them? That the police doesn't have Seekers either in it's ranks or as contractors, despite being tasked with preventing criminal uses of emotional allomancy? That they don't use Tineyes ditto? That nobody, who is not associated with the Set, has Pewterarm/Brute bodyguards? Etc. If so, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. It is not. However, Coinshot messengers and Soothing Parlors exist and they aren't staffed by nobles. Ditto the numerous thugs working for the Set. Of the 4(5?) natural Twinborn who appear in the tetralogy, only one of them is a noble. They are also all men, but that's a separate issue. They were either Allomancers themselves or children of 2 Allomancers like that one guy - just having it somewhere in the family was not enough, as the Set refused to take his daughters. The kidnapped noblewomen, who would have included Marasi and Steris if things had fallen out differently, were an exception and had been specifically targeted due to their descent from the last Mistborn, but there were only 5 of them. IIRC at least one of them was indeed a secret misting. Don't forget that they had to experiment _a lot_ to figure out hemalurgy before they learned how to use it: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/509/#e15952 We also don't know how many of the Metalborn we saw fighting for the Set were actually born that way. If they only had one power, would the protagonists have even suspected that they were hemalurgists? Was the Set really that good at recruiting Metalborn, or did they give powers to loyal adherents who "earned" them instead? And to important people whose support they wanted to buy? For instance, I am quite sure that Lady Kelesina wasn't a natural Bloodmaker. Oh, and let's not forget whoever fills their unkeyed metalminds. Etc. Not to mention that Edwarn, Telsin, the dude Marasi dealt with, the copycats and Entrone probably accounted for a couple dozen spikes between them, and likely weren't the only Suits, Sequences and Cycles in existence. That's a lot of spikes and consequently dead Metalborn. P.S. : I really hope that we see Metallic Arts believably integrated into society in Era 3, rather than being mostly treated like comic-book superpowers. That would allow Nicrobursts to shine.

Not after the change. The change was that pure atium can be used by anybody, so real atium mistings don't actually exist. However, Scadrians never had access to pure atium because the beads coalescing in the geods were an atium-electrum alloy. As such, it could only be used by electrum mistings, who were the 1/16 of all mist-snapped. Therefore, the old WoBs that mention metal substitution in the base 16 are no longer correct. There have always been 16 allomantic metals and 2 godmetals, each of which could also have 16 alloys with the allomantic metals. What the First Agers called "atium" was one such alloy and malatium was another. It is a much more logical and elegant system - if Sanderson ultimately chosese to canonize it in text.

My point is that with the change the metals didn't need to be switched in and out of the base 16 - which was a very awkward idea to begin with, since electrum already is in it. IIRC, now "atium" Mistings are actually electrum mistings and "malatium" mistings would just be gold mistings. The mistings of metals unknown in Era 1 were still being born back then, they just couldn't be identified. Which actually partially fixes the illogic of nobles never getting snapped by the mists in HoA. Yes, they would have been subjected to torture as adolescents in order to get them to snap, but even if they didn't quite have enough investiture to get there on their own, an extra infusion from the mists should have gotten more of them over the threshold than the skaa, because their backround investiture level still should have been higher due to descent. But if some of these nobles were unwittingly already allomancers of unknown metals, well, it alleviates the problem. Since the change still isn't codified in actual text, Sanderson might yet decide on something different in the end, though.

I would love to see bicycles on Scadrial - though I fear that Sanderson, as a US writer may not be aware of how important a means of transport they used to be for much of the 20-ieth century elsewhere in the world and still are in some places. Huge distances and cheapness of gas prevented proliferation of bicycle use among adults in the States, though. The Basin is much more like a small European country, but certain cultural assumptions are hard to shed. Anyway, Shadows of Self made it very clear that Steelrunners are very rare - didn't Wax's grandma, who was an expert on Terris community and their feruchemical gifts, know of just a handful in Elendel, which is the biggest city and also has the Village? And what is more, even if they could store 100% of speed, which they probably can't, it would mean spending huge amount of time in immobility. Not practical for anybody concerned. However, the bicycle delivery would work very well with Peweterarms. You'd get the same speed enhancement via increased strength and endurance without any of the drawbacks. Should still be expensive, but for an exclusive establishement it might work. For that matter, bicycles could be modified so that Coinshots and maybe even Lurchers could use their allomancy to duse around on them at speed too. Kelsier didn't say that and IMHO it would have been too low for the nobles of the Final Empire anyway. I got this impression for the Elendel Basin from certain WoBs, but looking at them again, they seem pretty jumbled and self-contradictory. But even if we take Kriss's estimation of 1 in 1000 as applying to the Basin, that's still a lot of people. No, there are apparently no Metalborn constables during the AoL series, except for Our Heroes. They had a couple of Coinshot messengers and a single Leecher working for them as contractors. They don't seem to have any Tineyes or Seekers working for the police or corporate security in any capacity, which is patently absurd. How do they even police the criminal use of emotional allomancy in advertising without Seekers? Etc. Innate Jr. was a criminal, so of course he was both an allomancer himself and employed one . This goes back to how the books artificially restrict the use of Metal Arts to heroes and criminals, apart from an extremely brief glimpse in SoS. And while allomancers may appear more frequently among the nobility, the vast majority of them are commoners in Era 2. It is just that they are talked about rather than seen, unless they are criminals. It also doesn't seem plausible to me that criminal Metalborn had been no threat previously - they literally have laws on the books against criminal use of emotional allomancy. Not to mention that Metalborn are handy against normal threats too. And the Basin does have capitalist economic competition with all it entails, and Metalborn would provide an edge there. Well, sure. Between being Twinborn and their experience they were bound to be the most powerful. Which is why there was no need to dumb down everybody else to make them shine. The police and the corporate security should have used Metalborn and had methods for normals to deal with them, rather then being completely clueless and helpless... it just shouldn't have been enough for this new threat. IIRC, the Set recruited among the criminals and the disaffected and took control of the underworld. All the more reason for corporations and law enforcement to have their own methods to deal with them. Not all would be so considerate as to go to the Roughs - and there are corporate interests there anyway. Wax was only aware of the kidnapping of the 5 noblewomen. He was completely oblivious about the kidnappings and murders of hundreds or low thousands of Metalborn who were used for spikes and for founding the Community. And, BTW, all the kidnappings for the latter purpose had to happen on a pretty tight schedule - they couldn't bring in new people after they had shown the inmates "the end of the world". Which means that there were lots and lots of commoner Metalborn who could vanish without a trace within a short period of time without causing a splash. I could maybe see using a Slider to speed up food preparation time in the kitchen of a very, very expensive restaurant. But to expect them to also be a cook is ludicrous. Given how rare Sliders are, what are the odds of one of them also being a gourmet chef?!

I am pretty certain that this is no longer the case, since Sanderson now wants the godmetals to work differently. But he didn't yet canonically finalize the new system. I am not entirely sure what you mean here. One cannot "contaminate" somebody else's storage. If Wayne, after tapping some of the health from that unkeyed metalmind of Kelesina's, decided to store in it, he would have just created a second pool of health in the same chunk of gold, one that only he could use. While any Bloodmaker would have still been able to tap the unkeyed portion remaining. I suggest that one can't 100% store Identity, though, that even in unkeyed metalminds there are enough traces to prevent accessing feruchemical power via burning the storage. Or maybe it just precludes the amplification effect that natural Twinborn compounders and Marsh get.

That's my point though - they should have been more relevant to the plot. It makes no sense that they are magically absent from the spaces where they should have been present, so that the protagonists would come across more like super-heroes, because they just so happen to always be the only non-criminal Metalborn on the scene. It makes zero sense that even during existential crises corporations and political entities rely exclusively on the unpowered security and investigators, while the law-abiding Metalborn apparently use their powers mainly for private amusement. It is not focused, it it is very artificial and contrived. For that matter, we hear about the couriers, we even meet one, but not once during his jaunts across the city in the books did Wax actually see one in the process of couriering, nor did their presence come up as a complication when he pursued that Coinshot bankrobber. The guy could have just disguised himself as one, for instance. It is like if there were cars, but the only people using them on page were heroes and criminals, while everybody else was restricted to horses for some reason. Their prevalence among the criminals indicates that there are quite a few, though. Or, for that matter, the fact that the Set could kidnap and/or murder so many for spikes, with it going mostly unnoticed for years. The only reason it even came to anyone's attention was that they did go for those 5 noblewomen, as opposed to the hundreds (thousands?) of other victims. And let's not forget those absurd advertisments concerning Metalborn in low-level jobs in TLM. Which I, for one, am happy to disregard, because Slider cooks and Steelrunner delivery people make no sense, given rarity of both abilities, cost of bendalloy, and the fact that it should take a looong time to save enough speed to make it actually feasible. I have always thought Khriss was speaking about Scadrial population in general, rather than just the Basin, in her estimations. Because aren't there WoBs that about 1% in Northern Scadrial are Metalborn or maybe even just allomancers? And she, of all people, would have been aware of the whole planetary population.

Heh, I never claimed that Pulser applications in era 2 prior to allomantic grenades had to be glamorous, just that they should have been very useful and profitable. Unlike the OP, I also don't think that Nicrobursts would have been glamourous at the time, despite their rarity, nor do I see them working with the military, except in some very specific circumstances, possibly. Required touch contact is a huge limitation in any kind of dynamic situation. The most logical team-ups for them in that period would have been Seekers, which are also implausibly absent from AoL series*, when they really should have been all over corporate security and police, Pulsers, Sliders and people with A-electrum. In fact, nicrobursting steel-burning Coinshots would more likely kill or injure them than help them, since they don't have pewter to strengthen them through it, IMHO. Now, allomantic grenades and further developments on them that allow even better ranged delivery would indeed be a game-changer for the Nicrobursts combat potential. *Yes, Innate Jr. employed one. Which goes back to how Metalborn tend to be either Our Heroes (and their Q Ranette) or criminals, with practically nobody in-between apart from a couple of people seen very briefly in A Shadow of Self. Which I consider to be a considerable weakness of the tetralogy and hopefully a choice intended to diffferentiate it from Era 3.

Maybe there are still traces of foreign Identity even in unkeyed metalminds. Not enough to stop other people from tapping them, but enough to prevent amplification effect when they are burned, for example. So that you'd get out only as much as was stored in them and no more. Which means that storage process would remain slow and laborious. Or the rules aren't the same - why should they be? and Feruchemy is somewhat less restrictive re: Identity, while the traces are enough to prevent accessing feruchemical power via burning at all.

The most expensive and delicate kinds of food, medicine, unstable chemicals - maybe even mainly for transportation BTW, since Marasi could make a cadmium bubble on a moving train without otherwise interfering with it's function. Old and/or sick rich people who need to travel or have to wait for somebody to come to them. Etc, etc. There are lots of lucrative possibilities. And they would have been even further enhanced by teaming up with a Nicroburst. Yes, it would have been isolating, but if the other alternatives are 19th century-style poverty and back-breaking labor ditto? Vast majority, given the chance, would have jumped at such an opportunity - at least for a time.

Which is significantly better than most other options that normal people had in similar iRL settings, provided good pay - which really should have been the case. Oh, well.

Of course, it makes zero reason for Pulsers to be considered useless - on the contrary, being able to preserve things and people without complicated machinery and likely much better than their technology currently allows anyway, should have been extremely valuable. Perhaps Marasi/Lord Harms had a biased view of the matter because they are gently born rather than have to work for a living. And of course Nicroburst enhancement should have made it even more so. Ditto Sliders - judging by TLM their time compression would have been nicely enhanced. Ditto electrum in certain situations, as has been mentioned above, etc. But that's the problem with Era 2 books in general - there is far too little constructive use of Metallic Arts by non-protagonists in general. Oh, we hear about it a bit, particularly in the Shadows of Self, but it isn't really part of the fabric of society as shown and as it should have been. Rather, it is merely something for heroes and villains to employ. And yes, I believe that it is mainly to differentiate it from Era 3, where it will be integrated in everyday life.

My impression is that Nale doesn't really want to fight them - he just feels that he doesn't have a choice, according to his principles in his current mad state. So, he only attacks half-heartedly and probably hopes to be defeated. In fact, it seemed to me since OB that Nale was purposefully setting up Szeth as somebody who'd be able to do so, if needed and provided him with Nightblood for that very reason.

Isn't it mentioned somewhere in SA that the Heralds had been fuelled by Honor directly in the past? Which would have required some kind of bond, but it doesn't quite fit the Nahel definition, since a Vesseled Shard doesn't need a sapience boost. But what about their screaming that can only be heard by the one they are bonded to when a Radiant touches them too? Sounds like an obstructed boost to sapience to me. An interesting question, to be sure. I mean they are part of a Shard in a sense, since their investiture is part of one. But there doesn't seem to be a reciprocal exchange.

Why is whoever made Gavilar's sphere of anti-voidlight not famous and super-rich? For the same reason, I imagine - they had been working for a secret worldhopper org, most likely the Ghostbloods. If the Ghostbloods or similar groups help you with a breakthrough invention, they are ultimately in control of how it gets used and whether your contribution is publicly aknowledged at some point or not. @IlstrawberrySeed: excellent point - we already know that the Ghostbloods have Awakened items, so why not an Awakened electricity generator? In addition, southern tech is farther along, so it may have been used too. Another advantage that they could give their prospective inventor is access to southern knowledge. Or vice versa. For all we know their chemical engineer is a southerner, but they keep the process secret from both sides, to protect their funding. At some point soon they'll have to patent it or let somebody else reap the rewards.

As has been already mentioned above the Set had thousands of people working on their secret projects with very little information leakage. It took Harmony actively steering his chosen tools to uncover their operations. Alone what happened in Dulsing demonstrates that it is quite possible to hush down the most sensational things in the Basin with uninvolved noble Houses being none the wiser. Kelsier used to be good at such things in MB1 despite higher level of surveillance - there were hundreds involved in staffing Renoux's residence, lots of outside talent brought in by Breeze and Ham, etc. And nobody ratted him out. Granted, he appears much less competent in TLM, but setting up a secret aluminum processing plant somewhere in the Roughs still should have been within his capabilities. I really don't see why the electrochemical aluminum purification process couldn't have been invented on Scadrial? I mean it was invented iRL in the late 19th century and one of the 2 guys who independently discovered it was working out of a shed on his parents property, with tools that he built himself. Kelsier had a nose for talent in the past - I don't see why he couldn't have found a talented inventor and maybe helped him out a bit with his vestiges of Preservation's knowledge?

Spren can't leave Shadesmar through a perpendicularity - somebody has to bring the goods through. What do you mean? There are all these gems on Roshar that would be very valuable elsewhere, giant crustacean chitin - light and robust, would be valuable on the worlds that don't yet have plastics, like whalebone and tortoise shell was iRL, there are the invested fish from Purelake that retain their useful traits when dried or salted, possibly an aluminum soulcaster somewhere since Shallan's chain wasn't even that valuable and for all we know much more. Nalthis can offer exclusive dyes, cloths, spices. Scadrial has high-quality steel and, until the return of the Radiants also other metals at the levels of purity unheard of on Roshar. Not to mention various mechanical items, which we, granted, have seen no sign of. Riino was placed quite far from Cultivation's perpendicularity too, so he had to eat food that could be stored for a long while. I don't remember if it was mentioned what Our Heroes ate in the honorspren city. They knew that Bilming was the Set central and they also have associate members like that driver, Darkwater. Anyway, they are protecting Scadrial from dangers that most Basin citizens consider fantastical, so a sensationalist rag would have been a logical place to start. Not to mention that Copper first tried more reputable papers. To be any good re: protecting they need to keep ears to the ground specifically for odd occurences. I hope that they recruit that editor to gather and sift information for them - so far what she has heard - i.e. "insect people" and "Fairy creaturies with golden hair" - all checks out. Weren't the Nalthians stuck in the honorspren city initially headed for Cultivation's perpendicularity? Nor did we see spren selling that much stuff, and of course you'd earn much more if you unloaded your goods and chose what to pick up in return closer to the source, rather than through lots of middlemen. There is no reason for merchants to travel to Rosharan Shadesmar without any actual trade. It is not a transport knot like Nalthis.

I really don't see why the scientist can't be a Scadrian who has been nudged in the right direction by Kelsier's ex-Shardic information. Kelsier can be aware that some things are possible without knowing the details and it is always easier to figure out something that you already know is feasible. Honestly the side-lining of Scadrians among the Ghostbloods in TLM doesn't make a lot of sense even as is, whithout adding even more theoretical worldhoppers into the mix.

Do we actually know that it didn't? Kelsier had to be able to somehow convince the southerners that he was a Fullborn and the Ghostbloods that he was still a Mistborn. He also was able to use feruchemy to store that memory in a coppermind and presumably, he uses weight medallions when flying. Also, he must be able to use connection tricks for translation. Maybe the Bands do work for him, but, unlike what kandra thought back in BoM, they can't be recharged without an access to a Mistborn/ full Feruchemist. After all, we learned about new limits on compounding in TLM, so it is quite likely that one can't use the Bands to recharge themselves via compounding. In this case, there must have been at least 2 copies of the Bands - one in Kelsier's posession and one held in reserve. He had to use his copy very judiciously and it has eventually run dry. So now he had to trick TenSoon to get the temple copy back. Some of it's storages are nearly exhausted, but quite a few must be untouched and would allow him to pretend being a Mistborn for a bit longer. The temple still makes zero sense, though - it would have made vastly more sense to hide them in an unmarked cave. There being rumors of them in the Basin is even more suspicious - who except the Ghostbloods could have spread them? IMHO, there must have been some other purpose to all of this, but it didn't quite work out like Kelsier wanted. That is, if he was the one who voluntarily left the Bands there. Maybe someone did it behind his back? And he didn't know where they were and was also looking? I don't believe that Hoid could have forcibly extracted a memory from somebody else, btw

I have hoped that the collaborative novel with Stewart would already have a publication date... At least it still seems to be going forward. I have a real hunkering for an exploration/expedition type story in era 2. There is all that unknown land beyond the Roughs! There are mysterious islands! In fact, before the details about TLM became known, I expected that Our Heroes would chase after the Set into the wilderness beyond the Roughs and that the final confrontation would happen in a secret base somewhere far outside the Basin. And honestly, I'd still would have preferred such a scenario to what we got. I also really like the broadsheet stories about Nikki and Nazh. Allomancer Jak too, but Sanderson has his plate full and I'd rather he concentrate on Stormlight 5/Mistborn Era 3. Though I was disappointed that Handerwym wasn't revealed as a Ghostblood in TLM. You'd think that popularizing exploration, while learning juicy secrets anout the post-Catacendre world is something that Kelsier would want, and Connector powers are potentially very versatile and valuable. Also, somebody who was able to work with Jak for so long can only be an excellent team-player...

There is no reason to think that Kelsier can't use the medallions, is there? He travels on airships, after all.

Actually, I have expected to see something like that in TLM, since there was a WoB that Marsh would appear in it. I think that it could have worked much better than what we got - and he still could have been a great help to W&W in such a scenario. I mean, it is rather illogical that the Set didn't have seekers and tineyes as guards and lookouts, for instance, whom Marsh could have detected, disabled or screened W&W from - though this is a problem in Era 2 in general, IMHO. Not to mention his emotional allomancy and his effect on the morale of the opposition. Then he could have split halfway through - maybe because he was really running to the wire with atium, maybe because he needed to rest or maybe because of some other lead that needed to be checked. Scratch one of the fights with the impersonators for more Marsh - 3 rounds was too much and felt repetitive. Or have him looking into a secondary Set base in the Roughs during that day and only appear in an epilogue. Kaladin is a great natural fighter who should have noticed that what Zahel was doing while they duelled had a supernatural element. Not to mention the weird lecture about the nature of investiture and the ages of planets. Every scrap of additional knowledge and power would have helped his people. And even if Kaladin was so dense that he somehow missed all that, a skilled "normal" fighter whom he trusted, like Zahel was a logical person to try to recruit while Kal was sneaking around undercover during the occupation. That this didn't even occur to him was very jarring, IMHO. Re: Ghostbloods, being secretive doesn't in any way preclude being well-informed. You'd think that their very goal of protecting Scadrial requires it. We never heard about wonderful Horneater dyes/spices or superior Horneater steel or any other potential off-world imports that Rosharans would have believed originated with them. Also, it is mentioned a few times that Horneaters often leave the Peaks because there are too many people there and not enough food - and in fact we saw a number of such individuals eking out their livelyhoods in the camps/Urithiru as servants and criminals. Finally, you'd think that with off-world knowledge and Horneater physique winning a shardblade in a duel shouldn't have been that difficult - just coat your armor and particularly gloves with aluminum. Last clap works because people don't need to swing shardblades hard and aren't trained to do so, which means that aluminum should survive a hit or 2 and give a Horneater an advantage of surprise. Instead of calling out people with just a shardplate, somebody should have called out and defeated a person with just a blade long ago. Or demanded that a worldhopper obtain them one. IMHO, YMMV.

Yes, I very much agree with you. In fact, I think that both TLM and RoW handled this issue in a rather awkward and clearly contrived manner. OTOH, I feel similarly about the many worldhopper cameos that are just there for no observable reason and who, despite alleged bustling inter-planetary trade, don't affect the alien worlds that they are on at all. Like, if the Horneater peaks are a mercantile hub through which rare and expensive imports flow onto Roshar, shouldn't the tribes that control Cultivation's perpendicularity and provide caravan service for the worldhoppers through harsh mountain terrain be obscenely rich? And believed to be the source of these exclusive merchandise? You'd think that getting their hands on a shardblade shouldn't have been such a huge problem for them if powerful world-hoppers with strange powers owe them? That is not to say that I dislike the worldhopper concept - on the contrary, but it should be implemented as having plausible consequences. Frankly, I don't see why there had to be an implicit immediate threat to the world in Era 2. It felt tacked on. But beyond that, I actually have no quarrel with either Harmony or kandra staying in the background. It is what I expect from Shards in general - it isn't like Honor or Cultivation smote the Fused, rather than relying on people fighting them in a series of exceptionally bloody and destructive wars. They may not be all-powerful or all-knowing, but given their future sight, they tend to be pretty ineffable and generally work through intermediaries/pawns. Sazed prepared the tools to deal with the problem and got them there in time, subtly nudging chance in their favor the whole way. As to the kandra, thanks to Paalm the Set knew how to detect, disable and even subvert them, so it makes perfect sense that they couldn't do much. All of this checks out. All of this. Marsh running out of atium right at this moment is just lame, sorry. And he didn't do anything about the Set in the intervening years since AoL, why, exactly? It is even worse re: Ghostbloods, because Tobal Copper was right under the noses of their Bilming chapter, he tried to attract public notice to the Set's doings and they napped through it all. I really hope that they recruit that newspaper editor Maraga Dulcet to keep an ear to the ground for them, because they are so (implausibly, IMHO) bad at it. Kelsier may no longer have allomantic powers, but people working for him clearly have a selection of off-world ones and should have had much greater access to the medallions and allomantic grenades, which they also didn't use in TLM for some inexplicable reason. Etc., etc. And people wanted Spook to be around and immortal, too! Maybe with some real teamwork? We haven't seen to much of it in Sanderson books so far, it is usually 2-3 people tops. Also, there may be some limits on how many abilities a mistborn/feruchemist can use at the same time. IIRC, Vin never burned more than 4 metals concurrently. Except Marsh should still be able to be active for a few hours or why is he still around? Why didn't he die in HoA as I thought he did until he popped up in AoL? Why didn't Sazed turn him back into a human or close enough on his Acsension, like he did with the koloss? There must be a reason for why he was kept as a hemalurgic construct and why he was given a new lease on life in TLM. He should be able to be more active for longer in Era 3. And yes, it would have been better if he didn't appear in TLM or only in the epilogue. He could have been chilling in the south too or looking for a secondary Set base somewhere in the wilderness, etc. Not sure why the Bands or the medallions were introduced in BoM if TLM had to go out of it's way to not let them be used. Marsh can protect himself from emotional allomancy by burning copper, wearing an aluminum-lined hat or Harmony can just not allow such influence. Vin/Elend could only affect the koloss for as long as Ruin let them, after all. He must be still around for a reason and was only made a feeble wreck in TLM so that he wouldn't overshadow Wax. IMHO he _could_ have helped clear part of the way for W&W before needing rest and it would have worked much better for me. Just because Kelsier doesn't have his allomancy doesn't mean that he didn't acquire any new powers. He must have a Seon at the very least. And in any case, he has people working for him who have powers and is a capable tactician and strategist. Yea, Zahel and Azure worked well until RoW, but Kaladin lack of reaction to Zahel using strange powers and giving weird lectures that outed him as an off-worlder stuck out like a sore tooth. Ditto him not sharing this info with others. And then, when Urithiru was occupied, it never occured to Kaladin that Zahel would be a very handy person to recruit?! Pure nonsense, sorry. I mean, he could have failed to find Zahel, who of all people in the tower had the best skills for escaping. And it is believable that Vasher didn't chose to involve himself on his own, given his track record and regrets. But Kaladin flatly ignoring such a resource made zero sense. He could have been a great help to Kaladin, though! Alone his scouting abilities with the little poppets would have been worth their weight in diamonds and they require very little Breath.

No Inquisitor would have had F-Nicrosil, F-Duralumin or F-Aluminum spikes, which are all essential for making of the Bands. @Oltux72: nickel was first extracted and identified in 1751 in a lab, and as pointed out above, chromium was first isolated in 1797. It was entirely possible for Kelsier coming off shardhood with expanded metallurgic knowledge and/or for people working for him to produce small amounts of Nicrosil. Big Industrial base wouldn't have been required for that. At this point I think that Spook likely did charge the allomantic reserves of the Bands, but how the feruchemical aspect of their creation was achieved is a complete mystery, unless Harmony himself lent a hand. On the plus side, his involvement might explain why on Scadrial Kelsier chose to leave the Bands at the temple - the god forced him to divest himself of this power, once SoScads have been saved. It would also provide an excellent reason why they couldn't have been copied. On the minus side, if this was the case, it really should have come up in the epilogue conversation. OTOH, it already completely omits everything related to SoScads in the most contrived manner - like, they must both use hemalurgy and practice selective breeding of their few Metalborn by having them be a caste apart, since keeping certain powers around is an existential factor for them. So, what is one more artificial elision?