Returned

Military problems are also economic problems. The ability for Scadrians to defend themselves requires that they be able to actually manufacture weapons (and similar) and have people that can afford the time and focus to learn to use them. Having better technology known to your society doesn't necessarily organize everyone in ways that can produce it at scale and in time or use it in practical ways. One of the issues in Lost Metal is that the Basin can't quickly get onto a war footing despite its wealth-- even if we include Bilming's fleet (so, pretending it wasn't under the control of Autonomy's agents), the North wasn't ready to deal with a military threat from the South. I'm not sure I'd rely on Autonomy choosing to ignore me, at least not as a Shardworld (even a minor one, like in Sixth of Dusk). And all the technology in the world won't save Scadrial from schemes like Telsin was pursuing, which is an option Autonomy would always have (a powerful collaborator). Unless they develop technology that completely blocks Autonomy's influence, even through agents,

Most of the plot of Bands of Mourning was focused around the idea of unsealed, unkeyed metalminds, and most of the Set's acute operations were based around commoditized Metallic Arts. There was a strong element of "everything is going to change" surrounding the introduction of the Southerners, the Bands, and Southern medallion technology. To have those not develop at all across a six-year time skip is odd in that light. I certainly expected Southern medallions to be much more widespread over that time, given their incredible possible applications, or at least a solid explanation of why they aren't; they seem like an incredibly revolutionary technology. What we got on that score was, more or less, "btw, nope". It's a perfectly valid writing choice (whatever the reasons) to not follow up on these things immediately in the next book, but the lack of narrative weight resulting from that choice is the piece that's odd. We'll get all of the answers in time, so I'm not too fussed about it. But when the things that were teased were not delivered it's understandable for some people to feel disoriented.

I think that there are real social and cultural benefits to developing the skills and infrastructure which allow discoveries of new technology which would not be available if the technology were just given to them. I can also imagine weird social and cultural development impacts to living in an environment of endless received technology, though which might actually occur is hard to predict in the general case. It takes a lot, and in very diverse sectors, to maintain higher levels of technology. I also don't think that technology, as a concept, is a great sole organizing principle for a society. The technology the Lord Ruler permitted was under his control and was only sustainable (in the society he constructed and maintained) with mass slavery. Had he allowed automobiles or airplanes too, I don't think that society would have been that much different for anyone in the Final Empire. As an era 2 example, locomotive technology had huge impacts for everyone in the Basin and Roughs but was radically uneven in whom was benefited, and how much. Had Northern Scadrians had airships, nuclear power, smart phones, and laser guns, I don't see how Autonomy's plans would have been any different or the intra-Scadrial conflicts would have been mitigated. The Set would still have jockeyed aggressively for effective control of those, would still have accumulated influence in every government they could reach, the tensions between Elendel and everywhere else wouldn't (necessarily) have been any better, the resources available to one group relative to another would probably not have been less balanced, etc. The problems that exist on Scadrial, and the dangers that its inhabitants face, aren't really technological-- the Northerners (who have the least advanced technology on the planet) nevertheless live in a place of abundant resources. And Scadrial is one of the more technologically advanced of Shardworlds (though "technologically" gets fuzzy with such diverse magic available in different places).

Of course! Clarity is important, especially when we're getting into the most fiddly details of fictional things. The Cosmere terminology is getting more and more unwieldy over time.

*Sigh* An Allomantic-pewter-granting spike is what I was describing, as I'd hoped context would make clear. I will edit my post above to make it completely explicit, though. I don't know if the forums have coalesced on a standard for discussing Hemalurgic spikes, but since some metals can carry one of multiple powers it seems more succinct to describe them by the power they grant, with exceptions for where the spike's material is the topic of interest. The nickname for the misting/ferring attribute is also a good method.

Skill definitely matters, but not so much for the strength of Pushes, which is what natural-Coinshot-plus-Coinshot-spike would influence. But Wax is clearly sort of Mistborn; see the instance in which the out-of-reach metal vial "snaps" into his hand on page 183. It's clearly implied that he Pulled it, and there is nothing suggesting a mundane resolution to that moment. That's also the only reason Harmony would have sent Wax special vials of metals to use-- they have more than just steel in them. Wax can get his own steel with trivial ease. The strongest argument against the Mistborn idea is that Wax isn't described as noticing any other metal reserves in his body, which seems like the kind of thing he would notice and comment on. But even then that only establishes that Wax would have some degree of ability to burn pewter already and doesn't rule out that he might also have taken a spike granting Allomantic pewter later.

That's the same feeling I had reading it. A good book: I thought it had excitement, particularly good character development, and a nice balance of tensions. But a lot of it was dedicated to connecting to other works, not even in crossover magic combinations, and I think that the plot structure suffered a bit for it. Some of that was (for me) the breakneck pacing that has characterized era 2 (the books cover a couple of days each, at most). I couldn't escape the feeling that the main plot (the bomb and impending invasion) were almost afterthoughts. I felt that there wasn't much for me, as a reader and Cosmere fan, to think about on those topics while going through the book. Certainly not compared to the implications raised by things we saw of the worldhoppers, whom I felt took center stage. Some of it felt pretty superficial. I expect we'll see more of TwinSoul (I hope so at least, I liked him!), but we learned very little about him and he didn't have much role to play in TLM. His biggest thing was saving the hostages, which was great and I liked seeing it, but was also an arbitrary problem which was solved as soon as it arose with an arbitrary solution. Similar for Moonlight, though we got to see more about her as a person (and she's likely a certain character we already knew). I think that the most important thing we learned about the Mistborn setting, specifically, from the book is that Sazed is trending towards Discord, but we didn't really get any context or guidance about what that means or why, exactly, it will matter (though obviously it will). The most important things we learned about the Cosmere are some examples of how much can be done with pure Investiture, along with a very rough guideline for how much power a jar of it represents. I really expected, given how much of an issue the medallions and Bands were in Bands of Mourning, that we'd learn more than nothing about them. What we did learn, that Hemalurgic spikes aren't working for compounding, came from the Ars Arcanum! Though I also think that we (I) should give a bit of extra slack to era 2. Since it wasn't originally planned as a set of entries in the Cosmere books it probably was hard to write them with plots that were consequential but didn't upset the already-planned Cosmere events across all series. It's an awkward spot for books to be in. And given my experience with the other era 2 books I suspect I'll like TLM more and more each time I re-read it. But it'll be a while until the next Mistborn book and, at least for me, TLM wasn't really substantial enough to tide me over until then.

Thanks, I've fixed it.

I think that Harmony's dual nature makes it difficult for him, himself, to manifest one "component" godmetal or the other. He can't just incorporate half of his nature (even if he balanced creation of lerasium with equal amounts of atium), and perhaps can't directly cause such a thing to happen by any means while he holds both Shards. I'd wager that, in addition to the appropriate Intent, there also needs to be a sufficient Connection to Harmony and his Preservation side. I'm also intrigued by the use of bavadinium. Is that the only godmetal that will split harmonium into its constituent Preservation/Ruin aspects, given its power's Intent towards autonomy rather than combination? Or would any godmetal be capable of that outcome from division of harmonium? Has Autonomy planted a new seed to cause trouble on Scadrial through introducing ways to split harmonium, not unlike how Trellism was planted and then used?

I'm torn as well. It was an inevitable development, as long as the series remain distinct from one another (which they likely always will), and the inter-series conflict has been building for a long time. So it's nice to see some of those pay off. But the separation of series also seems to be leading to a shift in how plotting and events are handled within a given book. Like, we potentially lose some of the content that relates to a particular book in order to get hooks and teasers for other series, while also getting infodumps shoehorned in about settings and events that are largely unrelated to the current story. There also seems to be some pressure to give the spotlight to cross-series characters, expanding the cast that needs to be dealt with in any given book. I'm excited for the new, larger conflicts between planets and Shards, as those have been implied forever. But I've also found myself enjoying recent Cosmere releases less than some of the previous ones. I enjoyed Lost Metal, but I also felt that most of its content was there to service the Cosmere generally rather than to advance stories in Mistborn proper, especially elements raised in Bands of Mourning. Lots of good character pieces, and an exciting, fast-paced adventure in its own right, but I felt that a lot of what was in it was really just opaque hints about what's happening elsewhere in the Cosmere and some blunt statements about the state of Scadrial, either plainly setting up future things (Discord is approaching) or flatly capping off things set up previously (the Community was a good explanation of events in Alloy of Law, but ended almost as soon as we learned about it).

There is a WoB about using an essence mark to become an Elantrian. Without a lot of Investiture to back it up it will work superficially (you'll look like an Elantrian and have the appropriate mindset and thoughts) but won't grant Elantrian powers. It shouldn't be Shaod-like, as the transformation isn't arrested due to blockage of the Dor, but the fuel for Elantrian magic in all its forms and applications won't be available. I imagine it would be like an Elantrian moving away from Sel entirely, even if they actually were on Sel.

I'd have grouped that under "Kelsier's did make the Bands, but his condition has changed since then", but the distinction might be important since we don't really know anything about the process of making them (or the medallions).

Where does it say that? My reading sessions of the book were pretty quick, so I'm sure I glossed over a lot. I'd thought that Wax took his duralumin spike (only), and then was Mistborn due to the harmonium explosion in his lab, so I wasn't looking for other spikes.

I was a bit annoyed by this, since we'll likely have to wait so long to get more information. Our (assumed) understanding was wrong in any or all of the following ways: Kelsier isn't the Sovereign Kelsier didn't make the Bands Kelsier didn't make the Bands alone Kelsier did make the Bands, but his condition has changed since then The Bands aren't what we thought It seems like the details were put in just to invalidate, or at least sow doubt about, the most popular ideas surrounding the Sovereign and especially Scadrian Metallic Art technology. I was really expecting to get more information about both in this book, but instead we only learned that we've always had less than we thought.

Checking again, you're right. The spike isn't mentioned, as far as I can tell, but Wax guesses that Dumad has pewter and later Dumad is explicitly described as having pewter-enhanced strength:

The main question I have is how Mistborn era 2 and the first five books of Stormlight are placed chronologically. In the epigraphs of SA Sazed mentions that he is searching for someone to act as a sword (Wax), which (given Wax's age) suggests that the SA events take place no more than fifty years before Alloy of Law at the earliest. We don't know when the epigraph was written though, nor how much Harmony might have nudged events to create a person like Wax, so those are wrinkles to keep in mind. Since Iyatil is referenced (or at least implied) to be active on Roshar contemporaneously it seems likely that events are closer together than that, though Iyatil's age isn't known (nor is her experience of aging) and so we have less guidance than we might prefer. But she isn't necessarily running anything, she's running amok, which doesn't require her to be present or active constantly. Honestly, I think the collection of details you mention is just a tease. We have too little information even to draw the conclusions those things imply (potential connections to the rest of the cosmere). I mean, we have an unknown number of people with red hair among a couple of hundreds of people in Shadesmar and an unknown (but probably small) number of blonde people in Bilming. And that, plus chouta, is kind of it. My growing impression is that, increasingly as the books are written, these sorts of details are included just to show that the books are connected to the other series (or at least to suggest that they are), and are not all that related to the plot or metaplot. Now that we know we have multiple groups of cosmere-aware worldhoppers from all Shardworlds (or near enough to all) operating everywhere, those hints may mean less than they used to.

I thought it was odd also. But maybe, even though it feels like they'll be crushed, that's just not how Pushing and Pulling work. Do we have any examples of confirmation of someone crushing themselves, or suffering injuries, from using iron or steel this way? In Bands of Mourning we saw Wax push an entire train car by himself, and while uncomfortable he wasn't squashed. Maybe an effect of using F-iron at the same time? Since both not-Wax and not-Wayne were meant to be so similar to the real duo, maybe not-Wax had access to F-iron and used it as Wax did with the train car? It seems like it would matter how much metal you have in you when you burn duralumin. That's how Wayne's plan on the ship works. Vin's non-pewter Push might have worked because she was Pushing on small objects, so the force transfer to her was mild. At the same time, we see not-Wax Pushing all sorts of things in all sorts of situations.

That would be a spoiler for Lost Metal, so I've deleted it.

It's certainly possible. And, frustratingly, it'll be a while before we get much more information on it. It's your last sentence that's the trouble though, I think. Wit's one of the most difficult people to fool in all of the Cosmere, and since we have both a WoB confirming that he was fooled here, plus Taravangian's do-overs, the idea that the voice is so obviously different from Rayse's doesn't seem to fit at all. While I do agree that the villainous speech is on the cheesy side, I think that the conclusion that Hoid can't recognize a totally different voice as not being Rayse's (in any meaningful way) is overdetermined. Maybe we'll remember this thread when KoW comes out and can revisit with more information!

I'm ambivalent on Taravangian-as-Odium. It might end up being really interesting, and it might not. The event in itself is less important to me than what it produces down the line. I think, given how much of the Cosmere story there still is to tell, that Rayse was largely used up by the end of Rhythm. He's deific, radically beyond the ability of ordinary mortals to oppose directly, and yet he's bound by poorly-defined rules that stop him from using his deity in useful ways which he's otherwise fully capable of using. So he ends up with ridiculously convoluted schemes and indirect action, nearly all of which fail. There's only so long we can have an (essentially) omnipotent antagonist who constantly fails yet still remains a menacing, impactful archvillain. The switch gets out of that jam, and also gives a chance to shake up the overarching conflict in future books. I do agree that the change was abrupt, though I'm not sure how much could have been done to head that off. People already fill the forum with "X is the next holder of the Y Shard" theories, with rationales ranging from plausible to baseless nonsense-- in that environment, even a little bit of foreshadowing (or even setup) can get chancy. I never noticed the Kramer voice change for Odium, but I'd imagine he did it to make clear that it isn't Rayse's actual voice; he obviously can do the Rayse voice, having created and used it already, so there must be some reason to have not used it there. Shards seem more than capable of perfect imitations of that sort of thing (Ruin certainly could), so my bet would be that this is a Michael Kramer thing and not an in-universe thing. Though we may find out that something was off in Taravangian's presentation, tipping Hoid off, and the voice change was meant to express that (or something).

It doesn't, because the context seems unclear. If we conclude that Adolin is Odium's champion then we can find ways to force the Death Rattles to fit that, but without that conclusion I don't see the connections you are suggesting are there. The Death Rattles presented in the epigraphs are (I believe) ones that Taravangian had already collected but they could refer to any events at any time. We have confirmation on what events some of those relate to and are still in the dark on others. I think that they are vague enough that most expectations that an unresolved or unconfirmed Rattle relates to a specific person or event to be too strong most of the time. For example, I can see the one that @Rg2045 mentioned relating to Szeth but I think it better describes Nale-- the pieces that would obviously relate to Szeth occurred before he became a Radiant, and so the Radiant reference doesn't make sense to me. Nale, on the other hand, has gone off the deep end in a way that is wrapped up in adherence to his Radiant oaths-- an oath kept in letter but not spirit, and the end of him as a member of the Oathpact or even consequential figure with any agency. But it's all guesswork, and there isn't much reason to think that it does or does not refer to Szeth or Nale even if either might potentially fit. All that said, I do think it's plausible for Adolin to end up as Odium's champion (though he's still not my top pick for that role). I'd almost prefer not to be able to figure it out in advance, so that the surprise and impact aren't diluted at all. Almost. I'm not going to be able to help myself from trying to guess...

Definitely we will. Eventually. Conflicts in the Cosmere keep building, and ones that we thought were local have a tendency to be deeper and more consequential than we'd realized. It seems like the Shattering has caused some unbalanced (and maybe unbalance-able) implications, and ultimately everything that was touched by the Shattering is likely to be drawn in at some point and in some way.

Sure, that's possible (especially the latter, to my eye). But the most important "immediate" application of oxygen is probably as the terminal electron acceptor, collecting the free electrons produced when the body uses energy. It seems easier for the magic to just deal with those directly rather than magicking additional matter into and out of existence to accomplish the same thing, especially when that matter isn't part of the body-- just get rid of the electrons, rather than creating and destroying oxygen and carbon to grab those electrons and then destroying all three. We haven't seen anyone Invested with Stormlight for long enough, or with the appropriate observations, to know how the other important uses of oxygen in the body are affected by Stormlight. But either way this possibility reminds me of Allomantic pewter during a pewter drag: the metal does the work even when your body wouldn't be able to, but your body still suffers the effects (if to a lesser degree than would be normal) and so you still have to do things like drink water for when your Allomancy stops. Another interesting possibility is that the magic just overrides some normal physical processes altogether without the need for (non-Investiture) energy or matter. The feeling of energy that follows drawing in Stormlight might be the Stormlight powering whatever you need your body to do directly; no need for ordinary metabolism or physical interactions, and so no waste electrons or gas exchanges needed at all. The rules seem unclear, which suggests to me that the magics work above this level of abstraction. When Lopen regrew his arm he didn't need to eat any food to make it happen or constitute the new arm, and we've never heard that a lot of Light healing leaves anyone hungry (except for Lift, of course). But a Feruchemist tapping zinc will feel hungry, which may not be the case for one tapping steel or pewter. Magical health removes alcohol from the body and not so much illness-causing viruses or bacteria, but does it remove other substances like nicotine metabolites? Miles liked his cigars despite his constant gold compounding, but maybe he just liked the taste or activity. For that matter, Miles never felt sick, never lacked for energy, and didn't need to breathe, but he still needed to sleep; the difference between need for breath and sleep seems an important distinction, given that both are Feruchemical traits and thus more than just the associated physical processes. Did he need to eat? The degree of precision we need for details like those in this thread hasn't been on display, and we haven't seen enough situations to make strong guesses about a lot of the specific, immediate mechanisms. It's interesting to think about though!

Raboniel is pretty clear that the deaths in space were due to running out of Light. Also, her areas of knowledge probably prevent her from getting too specific on what effects the conditions of space would have so we shouldn't take her assessment to be a complete, literal description As for pressure, don't forget about dissolved gasses. Depending on how quickly they ascended, the Fused almost certainly would have decompression issues in space. The bends can cause nontrivial physical damage, including problems that lead to unconsciousness or death. Worse, I doubt that a change in the compression of dissolved gasses in the body would be something that could be fixed directly by Light, and so even if the consequences of the gasses expanding are constantly repaired the problem only gets worse and worse as the pressure continues to drop. At one extreme you might end up with a gas bubble going through the heart, which is pretty bad news. But even just falling unconscious would probably not end well for you. As an aside, do we have any concrete reason to think that Stormlight oxygenates blood? That seems a step removed from just fixing the damages associated with too little oxygen, and the feeling of "needing to breathe" is generally about ratios of gasses in the lungs. If the mechanism is that blood is oxygenated constantly then the lungs should be filling with carbon dioxide in a quickly-increasing ratio and quantity of gas, causing a perceived need to exhale or at least a pressure problem as new gas is magicked into existence and deposited there. This is almost certainly a place where the magic overrides physical mechanisms, but even then, the mechanism seems more likely to me to be that the magic just deals with consequences directly instead of mimicking physical processes only to magic away subsequence consequences.

It's not clear that that is what the WoB statement means, and we have a bit of evidence regarding other godmetals and Investiture in the Cosmere which suggest that it isn't. My reading of the WoB you are referring to is that becoming a lerasium savant requires burning essentially all the lerasium there could ever be, and it's that burning of all of it that causes the Ascension, not being a savant. What you seem to be suggesting is that, were Sazed-as-Harmony to burn one ounce of a lerasium/raysium alloy (or lerasium/taravangianium alloy) he would immediately claim the Odium Shard. That seems too easy and tidy to take an entire Shard given how dangerous and consequential inter-Shard conflicts are. We don't have a clear reason to believe that a Mistborn burning raysium (or taravangianium) would develop a Connection to Odium in the same way that lerasium Connects a person to Preservation, though of course it might. So even if a Mistborn were to burn all of the raysium/taravangianium there could ever be, that still might not prompt an Ascension to Odium. We still don't know how lerasium might be used outside of swallowing and burning it to become Mistborn (though we know it can do more, for a knowledgeable person), so we don't have a lot of guidance about how using other godmetals works. Especially in an Allomantic mode in the first place.