Isilel

I foresee several major plot-lines for Book 4: 1. Listeners - how their history and culture will affect what happens to the new singers and change age-long patterns of enmity between singers and humans. Eshonai's flashbacks to show us the past and flesh out some other listeners, who will be important in the present. Venli, providing an alternative to the new singers, instigating and leading their covert struggle against the Fused. Rlain, discovering the surviving remnants of his people and building a bridge between them and humans, likely becoming Nightwatcher's Bondsmith in the process. 2. Quest for the Sibling, whatever form it might take. It has already been strongly hinted that long-term occupancy of Urithiru may be impossible without waking up the Sibling and reconnecting them to the tower. And without Urithiru, anti-Odium side would have no chance. 3. Battle for the Horneater Peaks, which likely will lead to the battle for Shadesmar. Or vice versa. I strongly suspect that Our Heroes' adventures in Shadesmar were setting up something significant - like sparking the resistance of sapient spren to the takeover by voidspren and the Fused. In fact, I have a feeling that now that the Fused can be reborn from the Everstorm, the only way to delay their return or stall those coming over from Braize may be "killing" them in Shadesmar, before they can transition into the physical. Mayalaran's revival may be part of this, or a set-up for the comprehensive alliance between humans, anti-Odium singers, Aimians and sapient spren in Book 5. 4. Ghostbloods. Shallan's plot for Book 4 has been heavily foreshadowed to involve them in significant ways. IMHO, they'll really come into the limelight as players and we will finally get some idea re: what they are all about, whether they serve some problematic foreign Shard, Cosmere spoilers: Whether or not Shallan delivers Sja-Anat to them and however their conflict with Jasnah develops, I still fully expect them to steal the Thrill in it's gem at some point . Because, let's be honest it is totally getting stolen, there is no way to "keep it safe", whatever Dalinar may fondly wish. Also, what with the Thrill being red, I am convinced that it is a corrupted Splinter of some other Shard, which could lead to interesting ways of dealing with it. Or, maybe, attempt at it's theft will move Szeth to desperate measures and they'll learn that the Unmade can be disposed of permanently via Nightblood. 5. Taravangian - there are strong hints that he is not long for this world, so his plot-line may actually reach it's culmination in Book 4. Though somebody else may take over the Diagramm - from the PoV of it being a deep plot of Cultivation, it may be a good idea to replace him with somebody who doesn't have the same insight and can't betray the existence of the parts of it that are hidden from Odium. Or not. In any case, it will be fascinating to watch what he does now that his hopes of saving significant chunk of humanity through collaboration with the enemy have been proven futile. 6. Heraldic shenangians - Nale, Ishar, perhaps some others? Maybe Battar (if she is indeed Dova) hijacks the Diagram after Taravangian's death? Perhaps Nale will help the rest of the Skybreakers to "reconcile their oaths" in a similar way as he guided Szeth in chosing his Third Ideal and a good chunk of them will split? I'd really like some of the hitherto neglected female Heralds to some into the limelight and redeem themselves after a fashion, but that's probably more the material for Book 5. Etc.

Right, I was with you there pre-OB. I do think that Adolin remaining normal and having to deal with the drastically changing world and his place in it had a lot of potential. Particularly if he also became a king of Alethkar - personally, I was expecting Elhokar to die since WoK and it was clear ditto that somebody other than Dalinar would have to step up. So, IMHO there could have been a lot of very interesting issues and opportunities for character conflict/growth there - how do you, as a normal person, who used to be sort-of superpowered due to your magical equipement and extraordinary martial talent, adjust to a world with superbeings, who leave you in the dust? How do you, as a ruler of a nation, deal with said superbeings, who are being lead by no other than your father, the redoubtable Dalinar Kholin? While also dodging the discovery of your murder of a political rival, possibly being blackmailed by people who know/suspect, etc. It could have been great! However, instead of laying foundations for any of this, "Oathbringer" took a complete left turn on the subject and now it is just plain too late to go back there. Particularly since some of these matters have already been dealt with and "closed", if in a rather perfunctory and brief way. Instead, the "Maya" plot-line was initiated, and it would be doubly disappointing to watch it become largely inconsequential too. Also this. The potential there is huge. In fact, it may be absolutely crucial to have a Recreanced spren return to sapience and speak for humanity to her peers, as from everything we have seen they won't have much of a chance without the support of the majority of sapient spren and the war against Odium spreading into Shadesmar. As long as the voidspren/ spren of the Fused/ corporeal Fused can move around Shadesmar at will and impose their rules without resistance, those who oppose Odium remain at an unsurmountable disadvantage.

I have been rhinking that it was odd that we didn't see any illegitimate children of lighteyes/nobility in SA, apart from Redin. I mean, in the first Mistborn series there are a lot of them, despite draconic laws against interbreeding with commoners. So, Hesina may be an illegitimate daughter of some noble and his mistress - but I doubt it. Her family was somehow supporting them by sending supplies during their feud with Roshone, but the light-eyed grandparent couldn't have been important, as he didn't even try to make Roshone back off, nor did he attempt to rescue Kaladin and Tien from Amaram's army. And also, he couldn't have been rich, as he didn't tell Lirin and Hesina to forget about the 100 diamond spheres and offer to pay for Kaladin's education himself. This would go 10x for a worldhopper. IMHO, he is a light-eyed craftsman or merchant - 8th dahn or so. But anyway, I was disappointed when Graves died, because I really wanted to learn how mixed couples functioned in Alethi society, what could be expected concerning eye-color inheritance and social status of their children, etc. And now, it looks likely that we'll see some of that from Hesina's family - which is nice.

This part of the new WoB is very interesting, in that it hints at how Autonomy and probably also Odium manage to insert themselves into locations where they want to meddle, but which have already been claimed by other Shards: It also provides a clue as to why Autonomy would feel especially threatened by Cosmere Spoilers:

Even larger amounts of aluminium burn very quickly, if Vin's experience with it when a prisoner of the Inquisitors is any guide. It could only serve to negate foreign Investiture directly affecting a gnat right at that moment. So, yes, it would be more a detection system than an on-going protection if it worked against Emotional Allomancy - which it really should. Concerning the discovery of Aluminium Mistings - I suspect that nobles/rich people do check for it, as having any Allomancy at all could indicate a higher chance for the children of that person to end up with an actually useful ability, and that could affect their desirability as a prospective spouse in an arranged marriage, say. But yes, the majority of them likely go unrecognized. Ditto Gold and Duralumin Mistings. @John203: Thanks, I am aware of the coppermind. It was the contents of this particular WoB that blew my mind, not discovery of a WoB database .

I thought that feruchemical healing could help with it? And with the spikee healing at least some of the wounded spirit-web? So, maybe unsealed gold-minds could provide a solution. Personally, I think that the southeners do practice hemalurgy - they have too few Metalborn and their abilities are too crucial for their civilization to be wasted when one of them dies. Particularly something rare like Nicrosil feruchemy. They likely follow Spook's suggestion in that it is considered a matter of honor for the elderly to make sure that their abilities are transferred before they pass on. And if they can produce unsealed feruchemical gold-minds, it doesn't even need to be lethal. But the excisors are something else, IMHO - I think that they are universal metalminds made from god-metal alloys that anybody can tap and store in and that's where they have various Ferrings and Mistings store their abilities, which a Nicrosil Ferring then transferres into a Nicrosil mind of the medallion, together their own investiture.

I have been trawling through rhe WoBs and have come across this one: https://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1160#100 and my mind was pretty much blown. Aluminium gnats can protect themselves against withering by shades on Threnody by burning their metal! Doesn't it also mean that they'd be able to nullify, say, Lashings used on them? Resist being soulcast by an enemy surge/void-binder in a fight? Avoid Vasher's "let's give them Breaths and incapacitate them for the crucial moment" ploy? Etc, etc. Now, if true, this would almost make Allomantic Aluminium a reasonable ability, once the metal itself becomes cheaper. Particularly, if Sanderson also decides to throw in "burning away impurities", which he has been vascillating on, as far as I could determine.

Well, sometimes it is more difficult to prove a negative than a positive. Not that we can actually _prove_ anything in this case, but we do have evidence concerning what the Edgedancers stood _for_, and what their reputation implied, but we have literally no clue about what they found inacceptable. That's just how the cookie crumbles. Certainly, quotes from WoR that I cite in my previous post suggest that Lift is, in many respects, an outlier. Her pacifism is not characteristic of her Order.

Very true. This scene has proven that not all Radiants need to swear under such extreme conditions as the trailblazing PoVs, nor do they have to conform to the standard of behavior set by these characters with as much exactness as some would like. There is a lot of variety within an Order. Now look at this: By this logic Lopen's Second Oath shouldn't count. After all, Kaladin swore his when in mortal danger from 2 different directions: he was charging a Parshendi shieldwall by himself and making an impossible leap over a deadly chasm. All so he could save the beleaguered Kholin army basically by his lonesome. But Lopen was completely safe! Clearly not "enough Windrunner material" . That's leaving aside that Adolin didn't, in fact, even swear the First Oath yet. We can evaluate his behavior in the light of what we know about Edgedancer principles and reputation. It has been pointed out from the start that Lift is unusual and that she was chosen at least in part because of her boon from the Nightwatcher/Cultivation. So, certainly, she provides us with one example and with their Oaths, but we shouldn't expect and demand that other potential members of her Order emulate her in minute detail. However, we also have information about the Edgedancers from other sources - such as in-world WoR book and Nale. I.e.: "When Simol was informed of the arrival of the Edgedancers, a concealed consternation and terror, as is common in such cases, fell upon him; although they were not the most demanding of orders, their graceful, limber movements hid a deadliness that was, by this time, quite renowned; also, they were the most articulate and refined of the Radiants." –From Words of Radiance, chapter 20, page 12. " WoR, Chapter 46 'Where you blunder, they were elegant things of beauty. They could ride the thinnest rope at speed, dance across rooftops, move through a battlefield like a ribbon on the wind.' " Well, if we hear that the other 5 dead shardblades were similarly changed for the duration of the realms unity, then sure, you'd be completely right. If not, then there is something else going on with Maya, something unique to her.

My impression is that TLR tried to change them post-Ascension and after he was mostly finished with his conquest, which is why it turned out to be largely unsuccesful, as did his attempts to cull Feruchemy out of the Terris people and/or to prevent them from realising that they had it and how it was supposed to be used - i.e the failed edicts forbidding them to come into contact with metal. TLR learned enough biology while in the Well to provide effective fertility drugs for the Terris Breeding masters - it stands to reason that he used something along these lines trying to differentiate the nobles from the skaa. People who became his allies and followers during his conquests and their descendants became the nobility, those who opposed him and their progeny were reduced to being skaa. No, presumably he came out of the Well and murdered Alendi's followers, who were also part of the expedition, to provide his packman pals turned mistwraiths with spikes. Their memories wouldn't have degraded significantly in such short amount of time. Maybe the original spikes also contribute to kandra's personality/individuality, so that fresh spikes would have changed who ReLuur was? BTW, I find it slightly hypocritical that Wax is allowed to kill lots of people for the good cause, sometimes shoving bits of metal through their bodies with Steel Pushes, but him using some of this unavoidable carnage to charge some new kandra spikes is somehow a big no-no. I am not saying anything about finishing people in cold blood, but just using bits of appropriate metal instead of coins or bullets during the fights, and if they happen to hit somebody just right, you might end up with a new kandra Blessing.

First of all, it has been established that a person could fit in more than Order, as qualities overlap, to a degree. So, yes, I, for one, can certainly imagine circumstances that would have led to Kaladin becoming an Edgedancer instead of a Windrunner. It doesn't have to be a perfect fit either, nor do members of the same Order express the associated Divine attributes in the same way. I mean, look at Kaladin, Teft and Lopen. Kal is very strongly aligned with "Protecting", while Teft leans more towards "Leading". Lopen, well, I don't know, neither seem to be overly strongly expressed in him, nor did he or Teft have to risk themselves to the same extent as Kal did. Yet, somehow they are proven "Windrunner material". I would also argue that we have seen a noticeable evolution in Adolin - he is not a Radiant material at the start of WoK, but he is getting there more and more throughout the series, internalising the Codes that he initially rebelled against, following the principles of the Immortal Words in his behavior, possibly unconsciously, etc. Like the other budding Radiants. Says who? The Edgedancers were supposed to be deadly (and refined). Lift's and Wyndle's pacifism is an outlier, not something that should be taken for an ED archetype. And Adolin killed Sadeas _because_ he was "remembering the forgotten" - the soldiers who died as a result of his betrayal. Dalinar seems to have written them off, even long-time comrades and friends among them, like Havar, but Adolin couldn't forget. I am not going to repeat all the other examples already mentioned, but Adolin is also the only one who remembers their hosts in Kholinar when they are about to march off on their attack of the palace and takes time to explain to them what is happening and give them advice on what to do if the gambit of taking the capital back fails. Not to mention all the "listening to the ignored" that he always practiced by listening to Renarin, Dalinar when everybody else considered him mad, Kaladin with his accusations of Amaram, etc. It is not just about listening to the downtroden - notably, Lift achieved the Third Ideal by listening to Nale in Edgedancer! BTW, Shallan's fiasco in Kholinar happened very much because she _wasn't_ "listening" - i.e. paying attention to small signs that things weren't going as they should with the people she tried to help. I do think that the unified realms contributed to Maya's revival, just as they did to Taln's lucidity. At the same time, there were _5_ other dead shardblades in the Thaylen City at that time and we didn't hear about anything unusual happening with those, so... Sanderson did say that it would take more than a shardbearer swearing the Oaths, even really meaning them to revive a shardblade, and I would count this along with the stint in Shadesmar and 7 years of Adolin talking to his sword as a living being as that "more". I am sure that some additional things will need to happen yet, too, but this is certainly a set of unique circumstances that we can be sure didn't happen in the 2 millenia since the Recreance and goes a long way towards explaining why Adolin, of all people who have wielded the shardblades during that time-span would be able to do it.

It seems likely that if a person was pierced by uncharged _atium_, which was, after all, it's "body", then Ruin was still able to plague them with his conversation, since that's what happened to TLR. That is, unless Ruin somehow managed to sneak a charged hemalurgic spike into the atium that Rashek made his anti-agatic bands from. But normal metals were safe, IMHO. Not sure about atium alloys. BTW, is there any information re: where Kelsier could have gotten nicrosil that he used to create first heating medallions for the Southerners? Judging by his memory from the coin, they didn't seem advanced enough to have the technology for producing it themselves when he first arrived.

You are right. In particular, a creative, out-of-the-box non-combat application that solves some critical problem would be much appreciated. So far, atium has been only used for fighting or as an anti-agatic - I can't help but think there should be so much more to it. Another excellent idea - it is very plausible that normal second Era snapping wouldn't work on her due to her neurological differences. I am still torn between the desire for a completely non-magical central/main character, who plays an integral role in the climax of a series and the unfortunate fact that _when_ it happens, it is almost always a female character who is put in that role, particularly if she is in a romantic relationship with one of the protagonists. I couldn't help but notice that all 4 of the Twinborn and the vast majority of the Metalborn using their abilities on-screen in the Mistborn Era 2 books are male.

Woah! Thanks for this most interesting quote. So, Kwaan was a contrarian to the end, I see. And Rashek was a terrible person even before Ruin got to work on him for a millenium. Not that the books didn't already convey that, but still. BTW, it also seems like a con that his pals accepted the whole "immortality for Feruchemy and humanity" deal on behalf of all living Feruchemists... but they were the only ones who actually got that immortality, while the others were changed into animals with a 50-year life-span according tothe Annotations. Not to mention that even what the First Generation received was kinda shabby and not worth having, both according to what was seen on page and again the Annotations that divulged that they were mainly confined underground in the kandra Homeland subsisting on the unappetizing algae-fungi stuff that TLR developed for them for the rest of their long lives. Apropos of nothing, spikes for the First Generation must have been made from the Klennium contingent of their expedition, right? Even after being permeated by Preservation's investiture, TLR was immediately murderous. Sigh. So, stuff like that, in addition to this: not to mention all that we have learned about him in the first Mistborn trilogy makes me even more confused about Sazed writing this jarring eulogy of TLR in his letter at the end of HoA: because from everything we know, Rashek was actually a bad person, who, nevertheless, didn't want his world to be destroyed. And at least part of his motivation may have come from having been permeated by Preservation's investiture, rather than from any personal virtues. This was part of what made him so interesting. He wasn't an initially good person, who was gradually corrupted by Ruin, but pretty terrible from the start. In fact, that was why Kwaan involved him in his plot in the first place! I was also astounded by these WoBs about Rashek's descendants (the first 6 WoBs): https://wob.coppermind.net/adv_search/?query=Rashek+children which seem to imply that he had them after his Ascension. So, was he afraid of a naturally occuring Fullborn or not? Because I kinda thought that he either wasn't interested or followed his own draconic edicts in the matter of sex. He could have had access to contraceptives, too - after all, if the Breeding Masters of Terris had functional fertility drugs, as we know they did, the opposite would have also existed. But now it turns out that he had kids, who were allowed to survive and reproduce in turn - shouldn't that have led to some Ferrings occasionally popping up among the nobility of TFE? Did it depress Mistborn/Mistings ratio among them? And how come that no houses boasted about such a connection?

Yea, Steris is great. I kinda hope that she turns her über-planning ability and attention to detail towards figuring out what the Set may have done in addition to what our heroes have discovered so far, and what they may be intending to do now. Her experience with thinking of crazy contingencies could be invaluable there. I also can't help but think that a thorough financial investigation of some sort could provide important clues. That would nicely counter-act Wax's and Wayne's tendency towards tunnel-vision where their cases/nemesis are concerned. I am of 2 minds concerning whether I want Steris to turn out to be an atium/atium alloy Misting. On the one hand, she certainly shares certain personality traits with Yomen from Era 1, which would count as a kind of foreshadowing. And the Set _did_ want to abduct her for some reason. Having just re-read BoM, it seems that the Set did have long-range plans spanning at least a century (which are now moot, according to whatever overworldly entity they are working for), so it seems that the breeding program could indeed have been a feasible goal for them. And we now know that they must have killed lots of low-profile Metalborn via Hemalurgy without anybody noticing, so kidnapping those noblewomen for that purpose and unnecessarily drawing public attention would have been counter-productive. OTOH, frustratingly, nobody thought to check out whether the vanished women were secret Allomancers in the first place during the 6 months between SoS and BoM, nor took a closer look at their families (which may be connected to the Set). Wax was out of it, of course, but you'd think that Marasi would have followed up on things. On the gripping hand , it would be nice to have a completely non-magical person be awesome and crucial for the series resolution despite that. Personally, I was a bit disappointed by Elend eventually turning into a Mistborn during the Era 1 trilogy, and a super-powerful one at that.

Indeed it does. Though not to me in this case : 1/16 of those 16%, who have been mistsick for 16 days then proved to be atium Mistings, while the others became different kinds of Mistings. Re: what is "natural". Sure, Preservation caused the appearance of atium, by splintering up part of Ruin's power. But everything on Scadrial, including humans, is heavily invested by Ruin anyway. Shouldn't it be "natural" that Ruin's investiture can be used by some humans in some way? I don't think so. Accessing some of the Shard's power via burning specific metals is very much Preservation's thing. Now that I have read all the Era 1 annotations, I see that the mechanism for how atium works is different than that of basic allomantic metals in that it is both a sort of "catalyst" and the actual power of Ruin being used, while they only link to and channel Preservation's power, but aren't invested themselves. And yes, Preservation "hacked in" the atium allomancy into the system, and, apparently that of it's alloys. But once it was in, it was in, IMHO. The more interesting question, IMHO, is how atium and it's derivatives found it's way into Feruchemy, as Preservation had no reason to bring this about on purpose. Was it a natural consequence of Feruchemy being a balanced art and atium being a part of Ruin's investiture? There is no evidence for this hypothesis, is there? IMHO, there is no need to overpower the Mistborn even more and give them some exclusive abilities that Mistings don't get. There is just no reason for the latter to experiment. ? Since anybody can burn Lerasium, it stands to reason that everybody is a Lerasium Misting. BTW, I have now trawled the WoBs, and it turns out that alloys of Lerasium with allomantic metals also can also be burned by anybody and will turn them into a Misting of that metal. I guess, this could allow one to stretch one bead of Lerasium into giving allomancy to several (16?) people. The slight problem being, that if Lerasium and it's alloys belong to their own group of 16, then one kind of basic metal Misting can't be produced that way. This could have been turned into a mystic rite of finding the few worthy among the unworthy, graced to redeem their ancestors by being given a chance to serve TLR, etc. I would argue that given the pervasiveness of administrative control by the obligators, it could have been done. In fact, iRL slaveholders and owners of serfs tended to know such things - or their managers did. Make it obligatory to register the children in order to get a food allotment for them, for instance, speaking of the mill- and- mine workers in Luthadel and elsewhere specifically. Brand the children who have been "processed" and proven to have no abilities. Alternatively, require the noblemen to keep track of and report any half-breed offspring on the pain of death and snap and recruit those, while either making some use of the rest or keeping track of their progeny for a few generations. These are just idle thoughts, prompted by it being eventually revealed that a lot of even seemingly destructive and bloodthirsty actions of TLR eventually served Preservation's plan... except for this culling of lots of potential Allomancers. Something that you'd think a Sliver of Preservation would have gone out of his way to avoid. I also think that the whole horrificness of the law that skaa women, who had sex with a nobleman had to be killed, but it was totally OK for noblemen to do so anyway, as long as they "cleaned up" after themselves, and how it led to a third of male nobility being sadistical serial killers, wasn't treated with enough weight and consequence by the First Era trilogy. Frankly, every time when some noble/obligator was supposed to be "honorable" and "good" or when the conflict between Vin's "street" and "noble" sides occured, I wanted it to be brought up into the open and discussed. But no. It was somehow supposed to be just a colorful detail/tragic origin story for some characters.

Glad to be of service . I mean, TLR _did_ want to keep the secret of his power too and perhaps was truly afraid of a very small to non-existant possibility of a natural Fullborn. But given his resources, I think that he could have stamped out the Keepers completely, if he really put his mind to it. And given how crucial it was for survival of life on Scadrial that a Keeper took up both Shards, it doesn't seem coincidental. BTW, the legends about the Bands of Mourning that allegedly existed during TFE, and not just among the kandra who knew the truth about Rashek, kind of contradict the whole secrecy aspect concerning TLR's true nature in Era 1 trilogy in the first place, which I find pretty jarring. I honestly don't understand how these legends could have come about, given that nobody human even knew that he was a Feruchemist during TFE, and how crucial this secret was for him being perceived as a deity. Or did VenDell lie about these rumors existing pre-Catacendre? ? It would have made a huge difference if a metal sheet had been left where Vin could have seen it when approaching the Well. Of course, since the Inquisitors knew how to get down there, they'd have probably removed it as soon as they became Ruin's, but TLR still could have tried. He did leave 2 priceless beads of lerasium there, after all, and for some reason the Inquisitors didn't think to grab them... Surely not. Only the Inquisitors would have had access to those. It was just another feint - TLR pretending that he didn't know that Ruin would seize control of his Inquisitors as soon as he himself was dead. BTW, it seems that Rashek wasn't particularly fond of his uncle, as, apparently, he let him end his days as a mindless mistwraith, along with all the other Terris Feruchemists of the time, except for his packmen pals. I am not knowledgeable about guns - in fact, I have never held a handgun, but wouldn't aluminium guns be quite inaccurate, in addition to breaking down very quickly? Maybe they could learn to coat guns in aluminium, apart from a few crucial parts, and make it more difficult to push/pull on them without sacrificing too much efficency.

I have decided to ressurect this thread because I have just completed my first re-read of all Mistborn material and I have the same questions as have been already asked here and some additional thoughts about these inssues: Right. And there is a good reason to think that the Terrismen, of all the other humans on Scadrial, had Feruchemy because the shardpools of both Shards were located in the old pre-TFE Terris, and their people were exposed to concentrated Investiture from both of them over time. Now, Harmony's pool(s?) may be somewhere in the South now, but 300 years is too short a time for it to change people, I think. Also, we know that Southern Scadrians only have Ferrings, not the full Feruchemists like the Terrismen used to have. Yes, I also thought that he may have put all these left-over Inquisitor spikes mentioned in M:TSH to good use in order to quickly give some initial Metallic arts to the Southern Scadrians. The problem is - why would any Inquisitors have F-brass spikes? This is the ability that was needed most urgently in the South and also the one that wouldn't have been prioritized either by TLR or by Ruin for the Inquisitors, because it was fairly useless for their goals. Yet, how could Kelsier have "started Firemothers and Firefathers" without at least a few Brass Ferrings? Breeding Ferring children and raising them until they could do it would have taken far too long for the southerners to survive. Could he have provided all the heat medallions just by himself, until the children were ready? He did have Compounding to help, if he indeed became a Fullborn somehow. But where did he get enough Nicrosil? The southern village seen at the end of BoM didn't seem particularly technologically advanced. In fact, if the southerners _had_ been much more advanced than TFE, they could have survived without Kelsier. The Southern Scadrian legends don't mention any followers, only the Sovereign himself. It would have been logical for him to sire lots of children and provide the Metalborn for the southeners that way, along with the progeny of the people upon whom he bestowed the Inquisitor spikes, maybe. That would explain why they only have Ferrings, just as the Basin folks do - Allomantic and Feruchemist heritage colliding. But would Sanderson go there? He did have Tindwyl as "the mother of Terris", so maybe? I am still unsure if it makes sense for everybody to be able to tap unkeyed Nicrosil metalminds. IMHO, the Excisors are metalminds made from the "lost" godmetals(s) and/or their alloys and they somehow allow the creation of unsealed metalminds, that, indeed can be used universally. Which is why they are crucial for the medallion production and why the southerners can't make any more of them than what Kelsier left them. Some other thoughts - when changing and re-building everything on Scadrial in such a minute detail that he restored extinct species and even removed the ash adaptations from the already existing people, how could Sazed have missed the southerners? Also, does Scadrial have an axial tilt that kept the southern pole further away from the sun than the northern one, after Rashek changed orbits? Since they survived TFE without Ashmounts of their own and didn't burn up when Vin rashly removed ash from the atmosphere? Oddly enough, we didn't see any healing medallions - do they even exist? Allik certainly didn't offer any when Marasi was wounded, nor did he lament not having access to them. South Scadrian Metalborn aren't going to like learning that their abilities are much more common and not properly revered in the North. They'll try to protect their massive privileges, somehow. And as they are likely the ones who guard and handle the Excisors... hm. I sense a big danger there.

The problem is that Preservation's plan to save Scadrial pretty much required that the person who picked up Ruin and Preservation had to be a Keeper with all the necessary information stored in their copper metalminds. And a lot of TLR's preparations and even otherwise incomprehensible/bloodthirsty actions, like creation and use of the Inquisitors and the koloss were geared to either help Preservation's plan along, or to mislead Ruin. Might this have been another such case, just not as obvious in hindsight? Persecution being aimed at keeping the Feruchemists contained, few in number, unable to interbreed with the Allomancers and focussed on preservation of knowledge. After all, it is fairly easy for a Mistborn/Inquisitor to test if somebody's metal jewelry are in, reality, metalminds. They just need to try to burn it and they'll sense the feruchemical reserve, like we saw with Vin's and Sazed's experiment. And another thing that I don't really comprehend - TLR made all the preparations in case of his demise, but somehow didn't think to leave a steel plaque warning not to release the power by the Well itself? I wasn't sure if Marsh didn't just remove it at some point during HoA, but having now re-read The Secret History it doesn't seem like anybody except Hoid entered the room between the last Inquisitor burial while TLR still lived, and Vin coming there in WoA. And Hoid only took a lerasium bead, he didn't remove anything else that Kelsier could see. Was it part of Preservation's plan that the things needed to come to a head and be resolved in a more permanent fashion this time around? After all, there were no new lerasium provided... BTW, the books and the early WoBs suggest that the Well had filled up and been emptied several times before before Rashek mucked the things up, but is it even feasible, given that the shardic period of the Cosmere is now supposed to only encompass between 10K and 20K years, rather than "aeons" mentioned in the first Mistborn trilogy? Not the vials themselves, methinks, but belt containers for them. Also, holsters, so that people wouldn't need to immediately drop their gunbelts when confronted by a Coinshot/Lurcher. Allumium guns, even using an alloy, could never be as good as steel ones or usefully durable, so that could provide a better alternative.

She doesn't discuss them as hypothetical, but as a fact: This is from BoM Ars Arcanum section on Allomancy and hints that the God metal alloys _are_ still in use, just not widely. What is hypothesised is their use in Feruchemy. As I have said previously, I now believe that the excisors are special metalminds made from the God metal alloys. I couldn't find this, but the kandra do expect that a full Feruchemist will be born eventually and they may have some privileged knowledge. Now that we know that kandra in human form can have human children, this makes me wonder whether kandra origin would make it more likely that these children would have feruchemical abilities. It doesn't seem logical to me that full Mistborn and Feruchemists would have an additional set of 16 metals, that only they can use, but for which there are no naturally occuring Mistings/Ferrings. I think that the "design" was Preservation providing lerasium for the making of the first Mistborn in the first place, which showed people that atium could be used allomantically and, with time, increased allomantic potential in the population at large, and then tampering with the ratio and the length of sickness of the mist-snapped atium mistings. Also, him somehow influencing TLR to not keep atium secret for his own use. If you mean this: From The Secret History, then this fits with what I am proposing. Before the Final Empire even the Mistings were exceptionally rare and, IIRC only started to appear due to mist-snapping shortly before Rashek's Acsension. But by the time of HoA the mists were able to snap fully 16% of the population. There were, of course TLR's prohibitions on noble - skaa interbreeding, but judging by what Ashweather Cett said in, WoA, about how their family had "too much skaa blood", those probably only existed for the last couple of centuries or so of his rule. And from what we were shown a remarkable amount of it continued despite the draconic measures anyway. I have wondered why TLR didn't just order his obligators to administer systematic beatings to all skaa children of a certain age and then drafted thus discovered half-breed allomancers into something like Janissaries. Those worked well enough iRL and access to emotional allomancy in order to instill bone-deep loyalty in them at an impressionable age, combined with an immortal, immensely personally powerful ruler, who did seem pretty deific would have prevented them from getting too uppity, as they sometimes did historically. Yes, but all the other allomantic metals only have 1-2 usuable alloys. There was no reason for the readers to expect more. Or he mentioned it in a WoB _because_ he intended to use it in the Mistborn series at some point anyway. In any case, the title for the last W@W book is "The Lost Metal", which strongly suggests that information about the group of 16 for every god metal will be significant in some way. In fact, it suddenly occurrs to me that going with the theme of the series, the titular metal is more likely to be a God Metal _alloy_, than pure atium yet again. It was just a passing thought, but whoever intends to destroy all life on Scadrial must have some plan for how to get past Harmony, and somehow changing him into a more Ruinious version so that he'd destroy the world himself could be an elegant solution for them. Though Sazed would certainly resist, so it would probably take an unacceptably long time for them even if it were possible.

But isn't it the conflict between the 2 types of sDNA which is the problem? I.e. it doesn't matter if both are strong or weak, intermixing will still result in fracturing of the abilities and Twinborn at best. After all, culling here or there, those few Terrismen who were Metalborn remained full Feruchemists until they started to interbreed with the Allomancers. Also, do we actually know that their abilities were becoming weaker, rather than just rarer? BTW, was TLR honestly trying to completely destroy Feruchemy for good or was it another ploy, at least to a degree? I mean, _only_ a Feruchemist could have saved the world, after all, and a lot of TLR's preparations appear to have been informed by Preservation's plan, even if subconsciously. And given his having kandra spies at his disposal, it seems unlikely that the Keepers could have been as unknown to him, as they hoped to be. P.S. @RShara: Thanks. So does it mean that people could keep their metals in alu containers and be safe?

Well, large business companies and/or government might find it profitable to offer testing to all comers who are young enough, in exchange for them agreeing to an obligatory training and work contracts that would lock them in for a number of years, if they prove to have the talent. With a Seeker to supervise. That used to happen occasionally with very promising, but poor students during the comparable eras iRL, etc. Khriss talks about 2 groups of 16 provided by the God metals and their alloys in present tense in the Ars Arcanum of Era 2, so I find it to be highly unlikely. Granted, it is possible that anybody can burn lerasium alloys, just like they can the pure metal, but that's because there is more Preservation than Ruin in Scadrian humans. But that wouldn't apply to atium and it's derivatives. And also, we know that atium had feruchemical applications as well. IMHO, Preservation just mislead humans concerning the number of possible allomantic and feruchemical metals, grouping atium with the basic 16, of which a number was unknown and couldn't be produced during TLR's reign, when in fact, it belongs to a completely different 16-metal group. Percentages of mist-snapped Mistings have been rigged by him to make a recognizable pattern, I agree. Particularly since it is hinted in Era 2 that mistings of some metals are much more common than those of others when the distribution is natural. I mean, let's not forget that the Mistborn had the ability to burn not just pure atium, but it's alloys, such a malatium as well. Why would Preservation hack in something like that? But the fact that both god metals had 15 Metallically useable alloys was only revealed in the Era 2 books - and I somehow doubt that it is a wholly irrelevant detail, added purely for color. IMHO, it will be significant for the resolution of the Lost Metal. Maybe the force that now wants to extinguish all life on Scadrial will try to do so by unbalancing Harmony with the influx of atium that was stored off-world during TLR's reign? In fact, I now think that the excisors left to Southern Scadrians by the Sovereign are very special metalminds made form the old god metals and/or their alloys, that somehow let them completely Unseal investiture . Which is why they can't make any new ones.

Would swallowing ettmettal suspension in oil protect one for the crucial moments before it can be burned, perhaps? Maybe it should be first tested on Bloodmakers and/or possibly they are the only ones who'll be able to get abilities granted by it (if any) without dying. Yea, but it could be granting it now, as Feruchemy is both of Ruin and Preservation. Maybe both shardpools used to be in old Terris?

Well, having just re-read the first Mistborn trilogy, Rashek apparently had this idea while he was using the Well - because that's when he decided to turn all living Feruchemists into kandra, so that they wouldn't be a threat to him and came up with _that_ type of immortality. Though, judging by how the First Generation looked by the time of HoA it was far from perfect, too. As we know from the Era 2, there was no reason for him to be afraid of a potential Fullborn appearing naturally, so he must have been intent on keeping the secret of the age compounding hack. Though he did seem to be pretty strongly influenced by Ruin towards the end, so who knows? BTW, would completely embedding his age metalminds in his flesh still have allowed Ruin access? And is it still possible to push and pull on metals completely coated by aluminium, I wonder?

Just wanted to say that keeping track of genealogy is probably not that helpful, because according to Ars Arcanum of the Second Era books each of the god metals and their alloys build 2 more groups of 16 metals each. So, 31 additional metals all in all, that have their own Mistings and Ferrings, since pure lerasium can be burned (and tapped?) by anyone. Only, these metals are no longer obtainable, so there is no way to check. But the net effect is that since, as far as we know, being an Allomancer or a Feruchemist is genetic, but the type of your respective metal isn't, there are a lot more people around who can pass on Metalborn abilities to their children than any avaialable tests could reveal. Consequently, most of the Metalborn go through their lives with their abilities unrecognized, but they can and do pop up in their descendants, who are lucky enough to get a talent in one of the basic 16 metals. Well, aluminium and duralumin Mistings not so much, of course. This makes me wonder if the women targeted for kidnapping by the Set may have been unrecognized Mistings of some of those supposedly vanished metals? Though it is difficult to see how they could have been tested without them noticing, and, of course, Marasi wouldn't fit there, as her metal is both known and not particularly desirable for aspiring Hemalurgists.