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kakarotoks

In Bands of Mourning, the Connection medallion is filled with "Blank Connection" and Marasi can't understand Allik when she puts it on, but how do you fill the medallion with Blank Connection in the first place? And could Allik fill the medallion with his own Connection so that when Marasi taps that non-blank Connection, she would understand him ? Or even better, if instead of tapping Connection, Marasi decided to fill the medallion with her own Connection, would she become 'blank' herself then get auto-connected to local land? If yes, then why would Allik need to tap Connection when using the medallion instead of just filling it, becoming blank and understanding her? Or would that make him not connected to anything and unable to understand anyone ?

Brandon Sanderson

All right, so I want to be very careful on this. I typed out my response, but I've sent it to Peter to double-check to get another set of eyes on it. Once we get into mechanisms like this, we're digging into the cosmere-equivalent of computers or complex circuits. I need to make sure another person is double-checking my work.

As a side note for the Sharders reading this, when I dodge these types of questions in physical Q&As, this is kind of the reason. It took me a good thirty minutes to dig into the mechanisms I've written out, re-read to reconfirm to myself I have the methods right, then write it out. And I still have to send it to Peter, just because there are a lot of complex nuances here.

Calderis

just looking to prod you about the "blank connection" answer you mentioned running by Peter last week

Brandon Sanderson

So, I sent my reply to Peter, and he said, "This works, but I don't think you should answer it yet, as it comes too close to revealing things for the next books." So that's a RAFO via Peter, one of the first that has come that way, at least through me.

kakarotoks

Hi, pinging you again as you requested to see if Peter ever replied to you.I've waited patiently for you to finish touring (and maybe this is the wrong time now with christmas right around the corner), but can /u/mistborn or /u/peterahlstrom answer that first question. Seeing as BS already spent 30 minutes writing the answer, it would be a shame if it was lost in the end.

Peter Ahlstrom

I responded to Brandon back in October, and we have an answer, but I'm not sure now is the best time to reveal it publicly. Sometimes Brandon decides to leave the mechanical reveals for the books.

Pagerunner

I just saw the Feruchemical Table medallion on the store, and it reminded me of a question that was raised on the forums a little while back. It appears there's a mistake in the metal pattern, with regards to pure metals and alloys; Chromium and nicrosil are in the opposite places from what we'd expect. I've attached a color-coded example; with pure metals in green, and alloys in blue, it's evident that the Spiritual quadrant has them criss-cross, unlike the other quadrants.   The medallion matches the poster's layout; that's where the question originally arose, from the poster. Is there a reason for this switch? Or is it an error in the pattern?

Isaac Stewart

I just looked over the chart, and rather than the metals being in the wrong places, it looks like I accidentally swapped the symbols. So the medallion is correct. It's the symbols for chromium and nicrosil that ought to be swapped. I've cc'd Peter on this email, too, so he's aware of the mistake. I'll try to remedy this for future printings.

DoritoJH

So, AonDor is super versatile and powerful.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but region-locked!

DoritoJH

Yes, it is region locked, exactly. If a full Feruchemist using nicrosil were to create an unlocked medallion that allowed an Elantrian to store Connection to Elantris' location, would it let them use AonDor at full power as long as they were tapping that Connection?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. That should work just fine.

...

Just understand that the medallion's going to have to be usable by everyone in order to work. You're going to have to jump through some hoops, but I think what you want there would work. And for those of you listening, that would be the harder way to unlock AonDor. There are easier methods.

Calderis

Does the nicrosil portion of the medallions function identitically to how a Soulbearer Ferring would use Nicrosil? 

Brandon Sanderson

Not exactly. The medallion is a little more restrictive, for one thing.

Genesis

Can someone using a medallion store Feruchemical traits in a separate metalmind (e.g. not the medallion itself)?

Can Inquisitors store Feruchemical traits in separate metalminds (excluding their spikes)?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes and yes.

GyozaGuy

Allik Neverfar has those medallions that let him to talk to people in their language, but he has an accent because it knows his parents aren't from that area. So I'm wondering, if he and his parents are both using those in a foreign land, does he no longer have an accent and his parents would?

Brandon Sanderson

I would say that they would both still have an accent. 

GyozaGuy

So it's not connected--

Brandon Sanderson

It's connecting to the soul of his parents and it's kinda picking that out. There are ways around that. If you are really good with the way Connection works and things like that. Obviously you've seen Hoid speaking without an accent all over the place. The medallions are kind of a crude, early version of doing that sort of thing, not really in control of the magic more, and so I wanted to build in some little indications that things are not quite as fluid as they will someday get.

GyozaGuy

So it's more of a hack and not a rewrite of the Connection.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, exactly.

Bluebar

It's not a direct link from them to the Investiture.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. If you find someone who's using the magic themselves, you'll see that they-- like Dalinar didn't have, the people who spoke with Dalinar didn't have accents when he was using the same sort of Connection magic to give them linguistics and things like that.

Yata

If you have 32 Misting and Ferring, every kind possible, without using Hemalurgy, you can craft a medallion? Without the aftermath of the--

Brandon Sanderson

So could you craft a medallion... without-- oh. That should be possible, but this is one of the things where I have to dig out the notes and double-check myself. But this should be possible.

Cadmium (paraphrased)

Would a Connection medallion accurately interpret a listener's Rhythms?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, it would, but not all of it, some would be lost in translation. You'd probably lose some of the nuance. It would probably be better to give the medallion to someone who couldn't understand it than someone who spoke it.

Pagerunner

When you tap the nicrosil portion of a medallion, will it run out over time? Or is it like a coppermind, where something discrete is taken, used, and returned?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question! Like a coppermind.

Cadmium (paraphrased)

Would a Connection medallion work for sign language?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes.

Cadmium (paraphrased)

Would it make the person's fingers move or would spoken word be interpreted mentally as the appropriate sign? Would it overcome deafness?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Ehhh... It would translate the communication. I can say that.

Aurimus_

From a writerly perspective - as part of your process, how do you come up with magitech solutions that feel like they're a natural part of the magic system - IE fabrials, medallions?

Brandon Sanderson

As for magitech, I try to make them still have a sense of mystery and magic to them--but also have those who, in world, do understand them. To walk that line between science and the fantastic.

Luke Monahan

Brandon you do a lot of interesting stuff with publishing formats like Warbreaker being free. I know you talked recently about bundling the last, the last book with an ebook and a hardcover. So what kind of stuff do you see happening in the future and what do you like as far as formats?

Brandon Sanderson

I think a lot of exciting things are happening. One thing that's happening, I think the digital revolution is changing things a lot, and I think this is gonna let people like me get away with more things. For one thing, digitally our lengths don't matter as much. Theoretically, I doubt we'd be able to pull this off, but theoretically, we could do something like re-release Gathering Storms, Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light reordered with their chapters in the original order as before they were split, I had originally put them, which i think would be awesome. You could release that as one book which in print you never could do, so length sort of shenanigans are things we can do.

I also like the idea of bundling. I think eventually I'm going to be able to convince people to do this. I would love to do something more like what we've seen in movies and in records, where we release a really nice special edition of a book with a hardcover and with an included ebook copy, and with included audio book copy and like something like a book-end or a medallion and like an art book. You know, something that we release for just uh--you know, make it expensive. It'd be like a two hundred and fifty dollar product that comes signed and numbered and all this stuff. We can do that, and at the same time release a very cheap ebook for those who don't have the cash for that, or don't have the interest. And I think that by doing that we can allow the people who want a really nice collectors thing to pay what they want, and people who want a few dollar ebook to pay that and we actually end up at the same amount of money that we're making, except everybody’s happier.

And so I don't see why we wouldn't be choosing these sorts of things, there are just so many questions. The big one is we don't want to disenfranchise retailers. A lot of particularly independent bookstores have stuck with us over the years and you know a lot of these stores are wonderful in that they will grab new authors like me when I was brand new and really promote them and get behind them and do these wonderful things for them, and we don't want to do anything where we are cutting them out of the loop. I really want there to be strong independent bookstores in the coming years, because I think it's really important for the genre, so we have to find a way to work all of this with them at the same time.

Pod

*Written* How many people are intentionally killed in the process of creating a typical medallion? 

Brandon Sanderson

*Written* Not as many as you think. 

Questioner

Could non-Scadrians use Southern Scadrian medallions, and if so, could Drabs, too?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, the amulets? Yes, yes they could.

Questioner

And Drabs, also?

Brandon Sanderson

Could Drabs use one of the amulets and make them work? Yeah, Drabs could. They're missing a little bit of something I'll explain eventually, but they could make those work.

yulerule

*Written:* Is Iyatil wandering around the cosmere (Roshar) with a heating medallion? She's a Southern Scadrian, so she needs one of those so she won't freeze to death in normal temperatures.

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO on that, but it's a question you should be asking. 

*Writes:* RAFO

Questioner

So nicrosil.  Wax couldn’t use a blank gold metalmind because he’s not a gold ferring, why can he use a blank nicrosil metalmind?

Brandon Sanderson

So this will all come out eventually but the idea is there are certain ways to connect yourself to magic, to hack the magic and make it think you have the Spiritual DNA that you don’t actually have.  And this is one of the ways.

Questioner

So then the people who made this medallion have this thing that a regular nicrosil Ferring couldn’t--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, you’re picking up on it. We’ll dig deeper into it as the series progresses.

Cadmium (paraphrased)

Does a Connection medallion account for heavy sarcasm?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It would. Maybe not the heaviest, most deadpan sarcasm.

wiresegal

In post-medallion-tech Scadrial, (i.e. Era 3) is there any cultural awareness of transgender people? Since for some, their biological state would be affected by Feruchemical gold healing, and that would probably be a documented effect.

Brandon Sanderson

The different cultures and subcultures are going to look at this differently, but I'd say yes, there is awareness. And the more they experiment with the metallic arts being available outside of genetic lines, the more this will be understood for reasons you point out.

WeiryWriter

For the Coppermind: What should we call the page about the Southerner medallions? (or: How would Khriss refer to them in an Ars Arcanum?)

Brandon Sanderson

Let's call them "unsealed metalminds" though Era 3 might use slang.

DrogaKrolow

Sentient machines, artificial intelligence. Would they be able to use Investiture? Or not? How would that work?

Brandon Sanderson

So, define "use Investiture". Like, there's a lot of different ways to quote-unquote use Investiture.

DrogaKrolow

OK, I don't mean the medallions but like if I go and peek into the Spiritual Realm and I look at the machine, do I see Investiture inside it? The Connections to the Shards and so on?

Brandon Sanderson

Chances are good that you will. But I have to add a big asterisk to that, it's gonna depend on so many factors. But consciousness in the cosmere is directly tied to  Investiture. And creating a machine in many ways cosmerelogically is not that different from creating a child.

DrogaKrolow

Okay... Interesting.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. I'll just leave it there.

Questioner

With Mat’s foxhead medallion, would Allomancy work on him? Or would that stop it?

Brandon Sanderson

I would say that it would…urgh, mixing magics. I would say it wouldn’t stop Allomancy from working on metals he’s carrying but it would prevent emotional Allomancy from affecting him.

Questioner

In Bands of Mourning we saw the medallions that can give people Connection to the area that they are in.  Two thoughts on that.  One… if a person were to get a connection to one of the areas from Elantris would they be able to gain the powers from the area?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah that’s a good question, it’s not that easy.  But it is an excellent question.

Questioner

And if there was an area where the primary language was sign language, would a person gain the ability to speak sign language to the people present by using that connection?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.  It is definitely related to the Cognitive Realm and how people are thinking about language.

Stark

If Lift went to Scadrial and got a Connection medallion, would she be able to access Allomancy if she swallowed metal?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO!

Pagerunner

At the end of Bands of Mourning, they couldn't refill the heat medallions, was that the brass, or the nicrosil they were having trouble with?

Brandon Sanderson

Let's RAFO that.