Brandon Sanderson

Calibre

Thanks, SCM. I assume this is it?

Yeah.

was. Thanks to Kelsier's rampage through the Pits. At least thats what Hoid said

Finished Secret History.

That was great.

Hoid getting annoyed at having the main transit port destroyed was was funnier than I thought it should be. It's so Kelsier.

I just about teared up at Vin and Kelsier's goodbye.

I worked out who theElantrian's were! Normally I'm terrible at these sorts of things.

Seeing so many Worldhoppers makes me wonder how many people just worked out Worldhopping, found an easy method of immortality and just don't really interact with any of the key players. You know, pretty much what I'd do if I accidentally discovered Worldhopping.

edited 19th Feb '16 5:28:51 AM by 32ndfreeze

Halfway through Secret History. I love how the entire Cosmere is starting to come together. Kelsier status: still best.

And remind me again: with storing Identity you can make an unkeyed metalmind and with storing Investiture you can make a metalmind someone without that power can use, right? Do you need both to create stuff like the Southerners' medallions?

The Southerners talk about something called Incisors, which I'm guessing is another way of saying "Hemalurgical Spike". Those masks give a good way to hide the fact you're spiked through the eye…

Though you can store nicrosil investiture, pass that to someone with Identity, and go from there… Identity/Investiture might be the most common medallion pair, purely for production purposes. And you can fill them up all the time, since unlike physical Minds, they don't impair you physically, so you can go about daily life, storing 24/7, or however many hours and days they have in Scadrial.

edited 19th Feb '16 3:48:07 PM by SCMof2814

What would happen if you just store Investiture, though? With no other combo shenanigans?

No, the medallions aren't actually Identity medallions. I mean, there are some Identity medallions are as sort of a "lockpick" to jailbreak new metalminds, but the heat, translation, and weight metalminds we see don't have any aluminum in them. Just nicrosil (for the ability to Feruchemically use brass, duralumin, and iron), and the actual brass, duralumin, and iron.

According to the RPG, that lets you use the Investiture later as a sort of EMP to disrupt stored charges in a metalmind. Not completely sure that's canon, though.

edited 19th Feb '16 4:16:51 PM by Discar

So in order to get the whole thing started, you need some Hemalurgy in there somewhere. Or a Full Feruchemist, of course.

I'm pretty sure it started with the Sovereign being a full Feruchemist, making jailbroken metalminds of every type (or at least aluminum and nicrosil) so people could make more using those.

I think I've got how it works. Let's go with the warmth medallions, as they're easiest.

• First, someone with aluminum Feruchemy stores all their Identity in an aluminum metalmind, then creates a second aluminum metalmind, which anyone can use.
• Someone with both nicrosil and aluminum Feruchemy (either a full Feruchemist, someone with a Hemalurgic spike, or just someone using the proper nicrosil medallion) pairs the jailbroken aluminum metalmind with a jailbroken nicrosil metalmind containing the Feruchemical ability to use aluminum.
• The jailbroken aluminum/nicrosil medallion is given to someone with natural brass Feruchemy. They use the nicrosil metalmind to gain the ability to use aluminum, then store all their Identity in the aluminum metalmind, then create a jailbroken brass metalmind.
• Someone with both nicrosil and brass Feruchemy uses the aluminum/nicrosil medallion to create a jailbroken nicrosil metalmind containing the ability to Feruchemically use brass.

Are there any missing steps in there? I remember you can't just strap on a dozen medallions and gain all their powers, so natural or Hemalurgic abilities are needed for some of the steps, but other than that I think it's right.

Why's step one necessary, again?

Because otherwise the Nicrosil mind would be DRM locked, and wouldn't be general-use. Having jail broken nicrosil is what let's everyone use them, and unless you're a full feruchemist or spiked, that step seems to be the only way.

edited 19th Feb '16 5:51:43 PM by SCMof2814

This is really going to be the thing that let's the 3rd series get into space isn't it?

I wonder how much input Spook had into making this process. It might be sorta funny, and also heartwarming, that the Lord Mistborn had a hand in giving the South these things.

Space travel will be simple for Scadrial. Weight medallions to reduce load, food and water medallions to further reduce load, and then a Push-infused cube to get them off the planet. Once they get space stations, they might even be able to break the gravity well by Pulling on one of them.

Actual interplanetary FTL travel, however, will be cadmium and bendalloy. Relativistic physics make my head hurt, but the important point is that anything that involves time manipulation is basically FTL travel. As far as we know, Feruchemy can't transfer traits into machines (that's why the Skimmer has the passengers reduce their weight rather than reducing the weight of the ship itself), so it will be up to Allomancy to handle that. It's not like they can just have the ship itself compound infinite speed with steel Feruchemy.

I wonder if the metalminds could be built into the ship itself - like you'd go to a particular panel and set your hand against it when you're feeling hungry, for instance.

That makes sense but you'd need compounders to fill them. Otherwise it makes more sense to solely use portable ones.

You're right, I think. So maybe ships would have such a feature, but it would be more of an emergency reserve kind of thing.

I'd think it would be the other way around. With Twinborn compounders (artificial or not) doing the filling for the large ones and the portable ones being for emergency's.

edited 19th Feb '16 9:29:30 PM by 32ndfreeze

Could be both. Slots in the ship to put a medallion in for easier storage and access, but they can be removed in an emergency so you don't lose all that stored whatever in a crash.

Speaking of compounders, did Allik say they had them? I was assuming that someone with the right Allomanctic metal could compound using a jailbroken metalmind, but it might be you have to have both powers naturally. It seems pretty broken otherwise, since you can basically easily compound any metal you choose.

edited 20th Feb '16 9:37:43 AM by Discar

Considering they need the Firefathers and Mothers to spend their full time filling brassminds, probably not.

True, but the Southerners need a lot of warmth. It could be that even with compounders, they still need a significant number of people filling brassminds at all times to make up for the fact that their entire population needs the things whenever they go outside.

Speaking a which, I have a feeling that their buildings look like moon bases, with lots of massive enclosed tunnels keeping contact with the outside to an absolute minimum. I hope we get to see the South in the next book.

That has me wondering what'll happen when people in the Cosmere start developing artificial intelligences, how they'll interact with all the cognitive and spiritual realm stuff.

edited 20th Feb '16 11:43:42 AM by RavenWilder

I think they won't go AI's, but maybe find ways to put Conceptual Beings like Spren, Skaze and Seons into machines in lieu of them?

edited 20th Feb '16 11:47:55 AM by 3of4