Oltux72

O well, you have not touched the big question. Is it worth it, if you already have the three previous ones?

3 hours ago, SingleSoul said:

I think it's not at all unlikely that the moons could be some kind of artificial megastructure. 

Why do they have those specific colors? I'd say the moons are the aethers.

19 hours ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

Random thought: what if the crimson aether is related to the sinew essence? I have no evidence for this other than a) flesh sea = ew,  red spikes as an element doesn’t really make sense and c) I don’t think they’re related to blood because the extension of that essence — all non-oil liquids — doesn’t make sense w/ red spikes.

Welll, the simple explanation is that you are ramming a square peg into a round hole. There just is no connection between Rosharan essences and aethers.

Though if this is the last major magic system, what about Mercy, Whimsy and Valour as sources of systems?

48 minutes ago, NynaeveP said:

Is there a deadline for which you can buy one of the subscriptions? Or could I wait a couple months to buy it?

The Kickstarter is running this month only.

On 2.3.2022 at 3:19 PM, DougTheRug said:

@Oltux72 That's literally what I came here to ask. I'm about 80% confident it's the Apocalypse Guard. However, I think either Project 1 or Project 3 is an Aether book purely based on the fact we've gotten more facts about Aethers recently and maybe that's because he's been thinking about them. 

Rethinking this I have changed my position, based on Dan Wells not being mentioned on the title and him not taking part in the video. I now think it is set in the Reckonerverse.

You want wild speculation?

• We will see the worlds of Innovation and Valor in those four books
• #1 is set on the Aether planet
• #2 is Apocalypse Guard (the cover showing many version of Earth is giving that away)
• #3 is the big mystery. I tentatively expect it to be set on Innovation's world, as Brandon likes that Shard.
• #4 is featuring Demoux on Valor's world
• the one to be a graphic novel is kite magic and set on Whimsy's world
   

11 minutes ago, Argent said:

Allomancy doesn't work like that, unfortunately. Gold and malatium Mistings are distinct in the same way steel and iron Mistings are. We are trying to make the idea that atium can be burned by anyone, just like lerasium can (an idea Brandon seems to be toying with), work. 

Then "atium" and electrum Mistings need also be distinct. Which, based on the evidence in the books, they still may be even if "atium" turns out to be an alloy.

If "atium" were an alloy, our and Scadrians' understanding of Allomancy is deficient. I am afraid there is no way around that. I see those options

1. If you are a Misting of a metal, you can also burn that metal's alloy with atium
2. If you are a Misting of pure atium, you can also burn all alloys of atium
3. There are three levels of Allomancers, Misting of a metal, Mistings of a metal and its atium alloy and Mistborn

6 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Why would they test with electrum specifically, instead of the more mundane ones?

Because some people are very thorough. You have an unknown and unprecedented phenomenon, so you test everything. Or just expidiency.

"You were sick by the mists?" - "Yes" - "Here's a vial with all known metals"

6 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

And while they'd do some testing, I don't think they'd actually check too many mist-Snapped people for Mistbornness, since they know mist-Snapping isn't natural and seems to be producing a specific ratio of each type of Misting, and thus that it's unlikely any were Mistborn.

They would not know the signalling ended at two levels.

6 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Yeah but only those at the army would've known they were atium Mistings, right? While they could try and find anyone who was sick for the right period of time, I don't know that they would have gone to the effort, since there wasn't any atium left for any of them to use if they wanted to.

Then. The Battle of Hathsin left plenty of survivors in the caves. The story would be told. And you think nobody of the mistfallen from elsewhere would ever try something else? Like they know they have allomantic powers but cannot use them and would be just content?
People are literally eating tide pods and yet nobody would ever try another harmless metal?

25 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Why would they expect that the "atium Mistings" could burn any other metal? No other Misting type could. And even if they did, they'd probably try gold rather than electrum anyway, since they viewed them both as base metals and electrum and malatium as alloys.

Because you would look for Mistborn.

25 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

We also don't know when they discovered atium and malatium weren't actually part of the sixteen, considering Sazed told them there were two metals undiscovered (yes, yes, WoB is he meant two base metals, but I don't think that's the most intuitive reading and probably not what those in-world would've gone with at first).

Indeed.

25 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

All that has to happen is they don't find cadmium and bendalloy until after the few remaining atium Mistings (almost all died against the koloss during the battle) are dead or not caring enough to test things out.

No. Firstly the Mistfallen among Elend's army mostly perished. All others must have been among the surviving population at the rates the mists left them. Granted we do not know how many were exposed. But we are talking about up to 1% of the population.

25 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

The vast majority of the world's population died, so for all they know, maybe they were just among those. Heck, could even guess from their knowledge that maybe that's what those who died during Snapping were. I'm sure people would eventually question a lot of things about atium for the same reason people in the fandom did, but they don't exactly have any on hand to test with, and again almost all the Seers died so there's few of them to run tests on either.

There were thousands of people in those caves.

On 7.2.2022 at 5:36 PM, KandraAllomancer said:

I've just re-read the relevant chapter (HoA 81) and the situation looks like this:

A. Elend has wrongly assumed that the Mistafallen were a mix of different Mistings, so he didn't test them - just sent them away

True, but your job is not only to explain why Elend Venture did not discover the truth about what atium and by implication the Mistfallen were. Mistfallen and the other mistsnapped Allomancers survived the Catacendre. They were all over the northern continent. Some were in those shelters that survived, whether they knew it at the time they went in or not does not really matter.

On 7.2.2022 at 5:36 PM, KandraAllomancer said:

B. Demoux could only get a small selection of metals after leaving Luthadel, so he couldn't test the Misfallen for all potential Mistings

Then. Demoux survived. Some of his men must have also survived. After the reemergence after the Catacendre they had all the time in the world to test people.

5 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Not necessarily, Elend doesn't even consider the possibility that electrum Mistings might exist until after Yomen revealed that he was an atium Misting, and doesn't seem to consider the idea of any of the Mistfallen being atium Mistings until he has Demoux try a bead. Might be that he didn't think to give the order to try any of the other eight metals besides the "basic" eight until that point, and since most didn't know about atium Mistings they probably wouldn't think to check beyond those eight either until he told them about it.

Yomen at least definitely survived the Catacendre and he definitely knew about electrum.
You need to explain why all people after the Catacendre turned into fools and did not do experiments.
And they surely looked for the allomancers among the rest of the mistsnapped. Where were the electrum Mistings?

It seems to me that the retcon may be seen to raise three related but distinct facts to explain

• the atium as produced in the Pits of Hathsin was an alloy. That is trivial. Preservation was cautious, did not want pure atium be around in any quantities and used Fortune to determine what to alloy it with. Done.
• The Mistfallen should be able to burn electrum.
• There are no electrum mistings among the other mistsnapped

But is this necessary?
The WoB only states that the atium was an alloy. The thing about the Mistings comes from the WoP. And the latter part causes all those problems. So how about this:

1. The geodes in the Pits held an alloy of atium and electrum
2. Seers still exist. A Seer can burn pure atium and its alloys. That's the deep reason they take longer to make. They are a part of the way to Mistborn.

The huge problem is taking away the "swap". After the fall of the Lord Ruler, Vin and Elend routinely used electrum. They also had enough aluminium for Vin and Elend to use it at multiple times. If they figured that the Mistfallen are allomancers, they must have also used those metals to test some of them. Why did that not work?

Frankly, it irks me. I already paid for three physical volumes.

1 hour ago, Arthraxes said:

Hemalurgy is Ruin's investiture system.  One characteristic of Hemalurgy is that Ruin (and thus Harmony) can see and influence, to some degree, anyone who has a Hemalurgic spike.

If you go into Secret History you'll see that Preservation also could contact spiked people. Ruin and Kelsier could also talk to mad people. It looks like these abilities are only a side effect of hemalurgy by the damage it does.

Snapshot is thoroughly horrifying. Imagine seeing the medal and knowing that you are a doomed simulation. Switching that machine off is basically genocide.

15 hours ago, Child of Hodor said:

Jasnah has accurate depictions of the Heralds from Wit who drew them for her. That's how she spots Taln and Shallash at the end of OB.  I don't know if Shallan has seen all those drawings or not.

Jasnah has certainly seen them. As have Navani and Dalinar. Do you really think they'd marry their cousin respectively son to a foreign woman without checking her pedigree which would involve looking at a drawing of her mother? Or fail to notice that nobody knows her maternal grandparents?

21 minutes ago, thejopen27 said:

Why not? Jezrien passed as Alethi. Shalash and Taln pass as Makabaki. No one ever comments that Tezim doesn't look Tukari. Why couldn't Channa appear as Veden?

The Vedish and Horneater look alike enough that Shallan can play a Horneater princess. The Horneaters arose out of interbreeding of humans and Singers. That can have happened only after the arrival on Roshar. Chanarach predates it.

55 minutes ago, thejopen27 said:

I don't think Chana is ever directly mentioned as being seen in any of the visions, but even if she is, Chana in full battle regalia on the battlefield would look very different than as a rural, Vorin bright-lady.

Chanarach would be unlikely to look Veden, though.

11 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

Anyway, northern scadrial is late 1800 tech level, and when we had that tech level, we also had nobles and monarchies, so it's realistic. United states were the one exception - though, for all that the constitution stated that all men are equal, slavery still exhisted for 70 more years, and racial segregation remained in the law for one more century. While in backward, "feudal" europe slavery has been abolished much earlier, and aside from the nazi and fascist regimes, nobody would have ever considered istituzionalizing racism.

All men are born equal. And there is the problem. The Metallic Arts refute that sentiment. It is just obviously and empirically speaking not true. And the difference is not gradual as with other capabilities. You are either metalborn or you are not.

And secularism is also obviously impossible on Scadrial. It is clear that deities exist and do have a will. Separation of church and state is a joke or nonsensical on Scadrial. The ideological background of democracy as we know it cannot exist.

11 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

Just to further complicate things, to show that "more democratic" does not necessarily equate to "more progressive" or "fair". Also, both in the democratic usa and in the monarchic european states, the conditions and exploitations of the working classes were fairly similar, and in line with what we see on scadrial.

While the ideological background of something close to classical communism, socialism or syndicalism can exist.

11 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

In fact, scadrial having close enough gender equality is incredibly progressive compared to its technological development.

I cannot resist. All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. (Mao)

We just see demonstrated that groups with combat power cannot be discriminated against in a certain manner.

23 hours ago, STAG said:

Needed, maybe? But that is completely immoral in both our world and scadrial. Who decides right and wrong? In the absence of a clear choice it’s the majority that decides. I think wax would go through a similar process as vin, realizing that while his duty is to serve the people, nobles and wealthy are those people too. It’s the opposite of the cliche, which is what I would expect from Sanderson.

Scadrial never developed the idea of one man, one vote. Even Elend Venture with his ideas based representation on class, not numbers. They will not come up with a simple majority vote.

8 minutes ago, STAG said:

That’s what this thread has been about. Wax wouldn’t let a violent revolution like that happen, and for good reason.

Well, Waxillium Ladrian is presumably still wanted in New Serran for murdering a local noble woman. So him not starting a civil war is a dubious position.

And that is what we would primarily see. We have a brewing civil war. And it is not clear on whose side Waxillium would stand. He has expressed certain sympathies for the Outer Cities in terms of trade policy. But what does that mean if they march on Elendel? (And they would have to. It is the transport hub of the Basin. The possibility of secession and a peaceful resolution does not exist at that point.)

Now we are facing the awkward question of how such a deal acceptable to the outer cities would be implemented. (I hope we agree that the Outer Cities are basically making just demands). It cannot be in a democratic manner. No starving worker in Elendel would vote for a reduction of protective tariffs.
It looks to me as if the Basin needs a new Emperor, but one who rules against majority opinion, if a civil war is to be averted. The question what is the right side of history is not so clear, except that it won't be a peaceful and democratic future.

4 hours ago, STAG said:

You assume that to be a government they must rule over all peoples. Even with the discovery of the Southerners an Elendel society ruled by a similar government is likely, not impossible. Things will change, of course, but why would the Southerners cause a complete and sudden upheaval of the old hierarchy.

The Southerners mean that the Basin now needs armed forces. If these are to be effective it does not need armed forces, but an armed force.

2 hours ago, thejopen27 said:

What? No. I don’t care about the southern scadrians until we learn something about them.

That is not a stance Northern Scadrians can afford. To put it bluntly the very first ships that came over carried bombs.

The Basin just underwent its version of the Sputnik Shock if you like historical analogies.

2 hours ago, thejopen27 said:

I want democratic reforms and the nobility to lose all actual power. It’s time for the Basins second republic.

The conflict of rich versus poor is an issue in Elendel. But the really pressing conflict in the Basin as a whole is center versus periphery. That is on the verge of causing a civil war. Given the population advantage of Elendel the solution to this would have to be less democracy and more centralisation. Add to that the need to form armies. The only people with some form of military forces are the nobles.

You are entirely correct if you see the Basin in a prerevolutionary state. But who ruled France in 1790 and whole ruled in 1810?

15 hours ago, thejopen27 said:

The biggest problem I've always had with era 2 is that I'm not sure Wax is on the right side of history. He's a rich nobleman who kills revolutionaries. He's basically a gunslinger in service to the establishment, an establishment that doesn't seem particularly worthy of being propped up.

The present state of the Basin cannot continue. They have no common government. With the contact to the Southerners and opening up the wider Cosmere this has to change. Hence the idea that the political future of Scadrial could be determined by its internal conflicts and clashing interests has just gone out of the window, I am afraid.

1 hour ago, Paleo said:

There actually was a lot of debate on the cut among us staff when we decided which shape a perfect gem should have. Some of us are on the side that they're likely to be perfectly spherical (or at least approximating a sphere with many facets), while others - including me - think they have more "realistic" interesting cuts like we have here on earth.

I'd say as little cut as they can get away with. It costs mass.

1 hour ago, Paleo said:

The internal crystal structure and purity probably plays a more significant role in determining the quality of the gem than the cut, but we do of course know that "better" cuts affect it as well - we just don't know what qualifies a good cut. I personally think it's got something to do with the cut "fitting" to the underlying crystal lattice.

That makes sense. Ruby has a hexagonal crystal structure.

1 hour ago, Paleo said:

There's probably a compelling argument to be made for it also being somewhat affected by perception, too. That is, a technically perfect (in an IRL sense) brilliant cut might be suitable for a perfect gem since people perceive it as beautiful and perfect.

Well, they stay perfect. How can that be in that case? Perceptions change.

1 hour ago, Paleo said:

Regarding your point about the gems shining themselves, an important distinction to make is between light and Light here (very unfortunate terminology xD). I don't think the cut is all that much about "trapping" rays of light inside the gem, they do glow after all. It's about containing the gaseous stuff inside them and the considerations for that are likely to be completely different than for the light they emit (or refract and reflect in the case of external light). So in that sense the cuts might indeed be completely different than on earth, but it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that the gems shine by themselves.

But we cut our gems to enhance reflection. By doing so we are getting parts that are sticking out and mechanically weakening the gem. As the last thing you want is a crack, I'd expect a convex shape at the very least.

Now, this may be a stupid question, but would you really cut gems intended to shine by themselves like we cut gems on Earth?