Arondell

Sliding would be more useful for theater, since the effect would be close to what Wayne does on a regular basis. An audience would (I think) prefer to have a show go more quickly and effectively rather than have themselves held while the world moves around them.

The various uses of stasis in any sci-fi setting apply though. I could also see a Pulser using it as a sort of personal one-way time machine.

If the next Mistborn trilogy is set in a contemporary period (and more-or-less 100 years after Alloy) I'll be very surprised if we don't see Marasi around, much older but certainly not as old as someone who couldn't slow down their personal time on a regular basis, stealing a day or two here or there across a lifetime.

I think if the theater had to choose between the two they would probably use pulsing since cadmium apparently burns slower then bendalloy and would be cheaper to use.(I hear stage plays often have budget issues.)

I would expect Pulsers would have longer average life spans. Depending of course on how often then use their ability. Marasi didn't seem to use hers very much. On the flip side I would think sliders would have a much shorter life span.

In a more contemporary setting I would imagine that both pulsing and sliding could potentially play havoc with computer systems. Especially if only part of the computer was in the bubble. Walk into a server room and do a very brief pulse/slide and watch the server crash.(Nefariously useful.)

The apparent general public perception of "Pulsing" in Alloy of Law is that its a not very useful ability. More useful then an aluminum misting but that isn't saying much. I must admit that I found it a little odd that in the roughly three hundred years since the it was discovered no one thought of useful applications so I decided to try thinking of ways to use it.

1. Law Enforcement : There is the way shown in the story of course but I could imagine lots of other ways this might be useful in law enforcement. Being able to slow down bad guys could be used in all sorts of conditions. Especially since you can throw the effect over larger areas then you can with "Sliding".

2. Medicine : Having a pulser available in a hospital or part of an emergency rescue team of some sort could be extremely useful. Being able to effectively pop a trauma victim into stasis until appropriate help can arrive has great life saving potential.

That is with only giving it a couple minutes thought. Any other thoughts out there on useful applications?

Remember that their technology will not develop the same way ours has. Obviously some things have to come before others (you wouldn't have airplanes before carriages, presumably), but their technology level doesn't have to (I would even say, shouldn't) fit neatly into one period...

I may be wrong in my particular extrapolations, but the fact remains that the technology on Scadrial will almost certainly not develop as it did on Earth. They won't have "1980s-level technology" overall at any point; there might simultaneously be some areas that were developed well into the 21st century and while others were stuck in the 1950s.

Certain patterns are very likely to be duplicated though. Aluminum is a very useful metal in a lot of industrial ways. Being low on the periodic table its likely to be extremely common barring some effort on Harmonies part to remove it during his terraforming. So it would be expected that quite a few people would put a lot of effort into finding a way to extract it from the environment in a cost effective manner. Adding the whole alomantic aspect would just make it more desirable to do so. In a "modern" technological environment with a particular interest in metallurgy I would kind of want a reason why it wasn't fairly cheap.

Odium, who has killed other shards (Aona and Skai), shattered the shards instead of taking control of them himself. If there is to be one holder of all the shards, it is my impression that they would have to take all of them at the same time, based on the above.

Breaking my lurker habits to throw out a quick question here. Has any theorizing been made as to why Odium has been so successful in killing other shard holders? The general impression I have is that Aona(Devotion?), Skai(Unity?), and Tanavast(Honor) were all near opposites to Rayse(Odium). What is it about Odium that none of those shards could effectively defend themselves against him? As for Sazed(Preservation/Ruin) I would hope that of all the shards Preservation would be hard to destroy. Especially when linked up with Ruin. Then again...