Brandon Sanderson

That's only if you're going back in time. Otherwise it's just that "going really fast" is equivalent to "slowing down time", which is basically what cadmium already does anyway. Though I think you could use cadmium to shorten the effective travel time of a trip, if you wanted to. Once the ship is on its way, put all the passengers in a cadmium bubble and watch as they arrive at their destination much more quickly (from their perspective) than they would otherwise. I'm not clear on exactly how much time you'd save that way, though.

In other news, I finished Calamity. It was... alright. They ran into the exact problem I was afraid of, which is that they sort of ran out of time to deal with the wider issue of Epics and whatnot as a whole (why did they appear, what's the relationship between their powers and their weaknesses, etc) so that part was really rushed and left more questions than answers.

Specifics: what the hell is the deal with the society that Calamity apparently came from? Why did David's alternate universe dad have Steelheart's power set? If that's just an AU thing, then why does David have Steelheart's powerset? How was David able to resist Calamity empowering him? How was he able to use his powers without going full-blown Epic? It's suggested that it was because he was using them to protect others rather than for his own benefit, but Prof and Megan did the same thing without it shielding them from Calamity's influence.

edited 20th Feb '16 12:47:06 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

In order:

what the hell is the deal with the society that Calamity apparently came from? Dunno. If this was a Cosmere book, I'd say Calamity is a splinter of Odium from the Spiritual Realm, but it's not, so... I dunno. He does feel a lot like a comic book cosmic forces, with unfathomable power but a puny human mind. If there was going to be a sequel series, I'd say this was perfect, but as is it's just kinda "Well, it could have been worse." I was honestly expecting something stupid like America tried to create supersoldiers.

Why did David's alternate universe dad have Steelheart's power set? People get powers that are "thematically appropriate," and there are a limited number of those powers, which come in sets. In Firefight's AU, David's father became an Epic, and since he basically has Superman's exact personality, of course he got those powers.

If that's just an AU thing, then why does David have Steelheart's powerset? Since Steelheart was dead, that meant his powerset was up for grabs again. David was eligible for them both for a similar reason to his father, and also because thematically it makes perfect sense for a normal human to assume the powers of the Epic he killed.

How was David able to resist Calamity empowering him? David wasn't actually immune to Calamity's corruption in Firefight; what happened was that when Calamity turned his gaze onto David as David neared Babilar, David's mild fear of drowning became a full phobia. David faced this fear in an effort to save his friends, thus putting him in the same boat as Megan—not immune, but with much more control. Calamity gave David Steelheart's powers, but because of the aforementioned facing of his fears, David was able to refuse to use them, thus he wasn't corrupted. But he still had them.

How was he able to use his powers without going full-blown Epic? It's suggested that it was because he was using them to protect others rather than for his own benefit, but Prof and Megan did the same thing without it shielding them from Calamity's influence. In this book, he used his powers briefly to save himself and Megan from bullets, but it wasn't a major use. It was like Megan's facial illusions, not enough to really corrupt him. The next time he used them, when the space station was falling, Calamity had left the world entirely and taken his corruption with him, so David didn't have to worry about resisting it at all.

edited 20th Feb '16 1:20:04 PM by Discar

I guess that makes sense, it's just not very satisfying. It basically means walking back the whole "Epics are always evil" thing. If David was able to resist it by facing his fear before he got his powers, then it stands to reason that others have as well. We know that others have faced their fears after getting their powers (Edmund , Obliteration), and that Epics go on a rampage when they first get their powers (Regalia calls it "the Rending" when she explains the Epicization process to David in Firefight), making it impossible to avoid the corruption by avoiding using their powers. But if you can face your fear first, then you never undergo the Rending and never get corrupted in the first place. It seems unlikely that David would be the only person, ever, to have done so, we just never hear about any other.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Maybe, maybe not. Remember, David's empowering was a bit weird. Regalia drew him and the rest of Prof's team to Babilar on purpose, and specifically wanted to empower him at the worst possible moment due to the delicious irony of having the Steelslayer kill all his friends in his Rending. It could be that normally the power comes much more quickly after Calamity has started paying attention to someone, not leaving much time for the proto-Epic to face their new fear and strengthen themselves against the corruption. David was in a very unique situation since he knew about the corruption, had faced his fears, and Regalia was telling him the exact second the powers were coming, so he was ready for them.

I don't think it's that implausible that David was the only one who ever found himself in this exact situation.

Ah, look at all those pristine white spoilers that I will be strong and not click on.

On cadmium for space travel, that depends on how the anchoring of the time bubble works. They're stationary, but only relative to Scadriel. Which means that relative to some random stationary point in space, they're zipping along at a terrific weight. So if you take a spaceship out into microgravity and drop a time bubble, are they stationary relative to the ship? To the point in space where you dropped it? No idea, but I'm sure the techies will have a wonderful time finding out.

On Southern compounders, I'm not sure compounding is actually all that useful for Southern medallions. It depends on whether they get more feruchemical resources because they can generate a greater quantity, or because they get more oomph out of tapping the same quantity. Since as far as I'm aware the only altered part of the process is the tapping (where they burn their metalminds), I'm inclined to suspect the latter. On the other hand, compounding being a thing would add a reason for mistings to be considered divine.

Mistings and ferrings are divine because the Sovereign had the Bands of Mourning. Worshipping anyone with that power level is an entirely reasonable action.

It depends on perspective. A time bubble on a train will move with the train, so presumably the same applies to a space ship.

It would work like this: A brass misting would strap on a nicrosil medallion containing the ability to Feruchemically use brass. They would take a jailbroken brass metalmind filled with warmth, swallow it, burn it, and get ten times the normal warmth out of it. They then store that warmth in a separate jailbroken brass metalmind.

Pretty sure that's always how it's worked.

So I finished Secret History. Kelsier might just be my favorite Sanderson character.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

While Kelsier certainly has a lot of great moments, he's a bit too self-centered for me to really like him all that much. I feel like he doesn't really grok what being a good person actually means, so he fakes it as best he can and turns the charm up to full power to get people to like him (and thus tell him how what he's doing is so super great) in the process. He certainly wants to be a good guy, but even that desire is tainted, because he wants to be a good guy for selfish reasons (because he likes to think of himself as a good guy, more than out of the selfless desire to help others). I mean, hell, it's not an accident that his grand plan involves sacrificing himself (which coincidentally allows him to be with his wife again) in order to become a messianic figure for the skaa (can you think of anything that would stroke your ego more than being considered a god?)

Poor Marsh is the exact opposite — he's truly, genuinely, selflessly a good person, but he's such a social disaster that he comes across as a jerk.

I'm not sure who I'd call my favorite Sanderson character, honestly. It's too difficult for me to separate the character from their story and consider them independently.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Yeah, I agree with everything you just said, but that's what makes me like him so much as a character. If not necessarily as a person, though I gotta respect someone whose first instinct upon dying is to punch God in the face then con him into telling you how to avoid going to the beyond.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

I will admit I was hoping Secret History would be more about what happened in the South. Hopefully we get that later.

Likewise. I also kind of wished that the evil Elantrians had made a better showing of themselves.

It might be pre-book Elantrians, before Main Character Boy brought about the revival renaissance. You know, during the period they were getting shallow and complacent and accidentally getting Big Bad's wife zombified.

Possibly, though I doubt they'd have the wherewithal or art to get to where Kelsier found them in that case.

(Also, perhaps more of that description should be spoilered!)

They didn't seem evil-evil to me. Just not good.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

I think he means Elantrians before the Reod, when they were at the height of their power.

"You can reply to this Message!"

Ah, of course. All these -eod names.

After reading Bands of Mourning I started to wonder. Maybe the Feruchemy that Hoid uses to find important events involves duralumin and Connection.

It seems similar to how the medallions work in regards to the languages of a place.

New universe in the same as The Reckoners Trilogy. Well, maybe we'll get answers to some of those lingering questions after all.

Maybe it's the alternate world where Megan is a dude.

edited 3rd Mar '16 3:10:57 PM by SCMof2814

Yeah, that was my first thought as well. It'd actually be funny as hell if he wrote a trilogy sold as an Alternate Universe and then it ended up being a direct sequel, now that as of the end of Calamity, David can dimension-hop for short periods of time with Megan's help. Actually, the name "Apocalypse Guard" fits that pretty well, now that I think about it. The original trilogy is the Reckoners, who are about killing Epics after they've caused The End of the World as We Know It, while the Apocalypse Guard is about the group trying to prevent that, when Epics exist but not all of them are evil.

And it may just be wishful thinking, but I also wouldn't be surprised if he used the opportunity to cover some of the things that the Reckoners trilogy didn't, like going into more detail about Calamity. Sounds interesting, at least.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Just realized. Calamity was talking about 'core' possibilities, implying that there are possibilities that are very unlikely. I wonder if David's earth has a huge continent in the Pacific everyone knows about, because it would be VERY nice if Alcatraz and Rhythmatist was acknowledged as parallel if unlikely possibilities.

Maybe we'll get a unified YA B-series to the Cosmere.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

'Cause what Brandon Sanderson needs right now is another series to work on.

• Still waiting on Stormlight 3*

Still at 44%.

On the plus side, White Sand is apparently done. I can't find a release date anywhere, but honestly I'm not looking that hard.