WeiryWriter he/him Posted January 25, 2014 Posted January 25, 2014 So I've had some thoughts about Hemalurgy and the Southern Scadrians that I figured I should share with y'all. 1. Southern Scadrians will probably have a much better understanding of Hemalurgy than we have seen in the North. We know hemalurgy was a part of Classical Scadrian culture.1 We also know the Lord Ruler kept knowledge about hemalurgy suppressed. He would not be able to do so in the South because they were entirely autonomous. So it would not strain credulity that without them being so restricted they would be leaps and bounds ahead in hemalurgic research. I also believe that it has been put forth that hemalurgic spikes may be used in creating allomantech and ferumechanical devices which would fit with this speculation. 2. The hemalurgy table will use a Southern variation of the Steel/Terris alphabets. The Allomancy Table uses a variation of the steel alphabet used in the late Final Empire era, the Feruchemy Table uses the Terris alphabet used in the late Final Empire era. They are both "descended" from the ancient Terris alphabet used in the HoA chapter headers. I think it would be really cool if the potential hemalurgy table used another set of symbols descended from the ancient Terris ones. It would lend a nice sense of unity between the three. Since there really isn't a place in the north where one would have developed, the natural place to look for it would be in the south. So what do people think? These are just some random thoughts, not really full blown theories but I think they're plausible. 4
Oudeis he/him Posted January 25, 2014 Posted January 25, 2014 So I've had some thoughts about Hemalurgy and the Southern Scadrians that I figured I should share with y'all. 1. Southern Scadrians will probably have a much better understanding of Hemalurgy than we have seen in the North. We know hemalurgy was a part of Classical Scadrian culture.1 We also know the Lord Ruler kept knowledge about hemalurgy suppressed. He would not be able to do so in the South because they were entirely autonomous. So it would not strain credulity that without them being so restricted they would be leaps and bounds ahead in hemalurgic research. I also believe that it has been put forth that hemalurgic spikes may be used in creating allomantech and ferumechanical devices which would fit with this speculation. Hrm... an interesting theory, and plausible. I have a few concerns thought, if I may voice them... First, Classic Scadrians didn't seem to understand what the "piercings" were (Alendi didn't understand he was a Seeker, and he was at double-strength), and they were seen as a religious sacrament, not as an object of scientific curiousity. Rashek, meantime, had some of the secrets of hemalurgy spoken directly to him by a God. Second, while Rashek may have kept it secret from the laymen, his ministry spent literally a millennium taking what knowledge he had and trying to learn more. As near as we can tell, he didn't get all that much. Since we can't see the Southerners or know what they were doing, it's possible that they had some alternate source of information that would give them an edge on Rashek, but this would be required for your theory to hold water. Lastly, and this is a bit off on a tangent... I don't buy the assumption that the southern Scadrians have just been free-range for a thousand years. They're The Lord Ruler's Plan B, they aren't adapted to life on this harsh new planet, and they didn't have The Lord Ruler watching over them constantly; he had the power of Preservation at the time, and possibly knowledge of things like cadmium, which can dilate time. I just think it's a no-brainer that he would have done something to keep the southern Scadrians in stasis all this time, which means they might not have had a thousand years to commit to scientific advancement. If they did, wouldn't they have airplanes and atomic bombs by Alloy of Law era?
Tarion Posted January 25, 2014 Posted January 25, 2014 Alternatively, the Southern Scadrians were influenced by Ruin throughout the Lord Ruler's era, as a backup plan. He wouldn't have been able to devote much effort to them (I don't think he had much effort to devote until the events of book 2/3, and then he was busy with his actual plan) but he could have prodded them down a specific path of development. But it's very out of character for Ruin to provoke someone towards growth (especially since he wanted to kill them all later), which would explain why they didn't develop too much. 1
Oudeis he/him Posted January 25, 2014 Posted January 25, 2014 (edited) Ahhh... Ruin continuing to influence the southern Scadrians is plausible, and fills almost every weak spot I noticed in Weiry's original theory. I can't say I buy it, but it's very plausible. I still say, however, that it's unrealistic to assume that Rashek just let the southerns roam and assumed they'd spend a thousand years surviving in a planet they physically could not survive in anymore. Edited January 25, 2014 by Darnam
Claincy he/him Posted January 25, 2014 Posted January 25, 2014 Your first point is possible, though I will remain doubtful that they would have made huge progress for the same reasons Darnam outlined. Most importantly of the points is the sheer complexity of heamalurgy, given that tlr was experimenting for what must have been at least most of 1000 years and he had very little success in creating anything new and I expect he had more, er, "resources" available to experiment with than they did. On the other hand in one of the annotations Brandon said something about how Rashek never managed to create another haemalurgic race other than the kandra and koloss he created while he held the power of the well and had Ruin's aid. This actually doesn't preclude him from having discovered potentially very many other secrets of heamalurgy. (After all, we do know that he knew a LOT more than was generally known.) 2. The hemalurgy table will use a Southern variation of the Steel/Terris alphabets. The Allomancy Table uses a variation of the steel alphabet used in the late Final Empire era, the Feruchemy Table uses the Terris alphabet used in the late Final Empire era. They are both "descended" from the ancient Terris alphabet used in the HoA chapter headers. I think it would be really cool if the potential hemalurgy table used another set of symbols descended from the ancient Terris ones. It would lend a nice sense of unity between the three. Since there really isn't a place in the north where one would have developed, the natural place to look for it would be in the south. So what do people think? These are just some random thoughts, not really full blown theories but I think they're plausible. I would really like that. Then again I just love the steel alphabet in general as may have been mildly obvious
Oudeis he/him Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 More thoughts: Adding hemalurgic spikes to mechanical allomancy gives your machine "The Flaw," allowing you wireless access (i.e., you can use emotional allomancy to take mental control of it).
Oudeis he/him Posted June 26, 2014 Posted June 26, 2014 That...is incredibly creepy actually. We don't know how much Sazed talks to them, but imagine if you've spent your entire life listening to your god. Your entire civilisation is based on that fact... and then Ruin stopped talking. I think Vin broke the Southern Scadrians when she beat Ruin. Maybe that's why they haven't appeared by Alloys era yet. Hey, I accidentally posted this elsewhere instead of here, having forgotten about the original thread. Quiver said this, and I'm responding here, now. Classic Scadrial was never "entirely based" on listening to God, and when Alendi had the piercings, he didn't speak in his logbook about "directly hearing the voice of God telling him what to do." I suspect only a few priests had piercings (and pre-Alendi, I don't think we can assume the world was a theocracy), and they may have directly heard Ruin's voice, or they may have just been like Alendi, being gently guided. Either way... these pierced priests were the ones promising everyone around the world that Alendi was gonna go, defeat the Deepness, and save all mankind... and then all at once every Southern Scadrian is trapped in whatever Rashek did to keep them safe for all this time which, balance of probability, was not a 5-star hotel. Now Ruin can only influence the Priests, and the priests are presumably not the world's favorite people right now. Yes, Ruin is an excellent manipulator and would eventually find a way to either bring the priests back into favor, or find a way to start spiking a different segment of the population. Still, with his limited ability to affect the world, that'll take a while. In conclusion, by the end of the final book, I would be surprised if the southern Scadrians had grown so dependent on Ruin that the loss of his voice would devastate the population. A random question: Will we ever learn about the Seeker(s) who died to give Alendi his piercing?
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