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Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide ()
#1 Copy

Comatose

So here's my last question. If there ARE people on the other side of the world, did Vin kill them all by placing the sun on their side, or do they have they're own Ruin/Preservation battle going on over there as well? Do they also have allomancy feruchemy and hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson

No, they're not dead. Yes, Rashek was aware of them. In fact, he placed them there as a reserve. I knew he wanted a 'control' group of people in case his changes to genetics ended with the race being in serious trouble. All I'll say is that he found a way other than changing them genetically to help them survive in the world he created. And since they were created by Ruin and Preservation, they have the seeds of the Three Metallic Arts in them—though without anyone among them having burned Lerasium, Allomancers would have been very rare in their population and full Mistborn unheard of.

/r/fantasy AMA 2013 ()
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l33tmachine

Pre-Hero of Ages, was the human population of Scadrial located only within the Final Empire? Were there people living beyond the lands of the Lord Ruler? If so, what happened to them?

Brandon Sanderson

The southern continent of Scadrial is inhabited. It still is. No contact has yet been made.

Firefight San Diego signing ()
#6 Copy

Leinton (paraphrased)

Can you use Hemalurgy to power machinery?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He was initially confused as to what I meant, so I said I got the idea from thinking about FTL travel, and he said that it was a RAFO, but that I was thinking along the right lines, there needs to be a merger between magic and technology.

The Hero of Ages Annotations ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Seventy-Six

The North Pole

One of my big challenges in the geography of this world was figuring out how we could have a kingdom set at the pole of the world while at the same time maintaining a normal day/night cycle. My original plan was for the Well of Ascension to be located a distance to the north of Luthadel, up at the geographic north pole of the planet. When I was revising the second book, I realized that wouldn't work for various reasons. (More on this on the MISTBORN 2 Alternate Ending deleted scene page.) I changed things so that when the Lord Ruler held the power in the Well, he decoupled the geographic north pole and the magnetic north pole.

In our world, the magnetic north pole is located about eleven degrees of latitude south of the geographic north pole. On Scadrial, the two poles were originally in the same location. When the Lord Ruler moved the planet too close to its sun and realized he didn't have the control to place the planet in the proper orbit, he created the ashmounts to cool the atmosphere. He also wanted to keep access to the Well under his control, so he decided to build his capital city right above it. However, he realized that on a planet with a tilted axis, a city at the north pole would have seasonal daylight variation so extreme that at the height of summer the sun would never set and during the dead of winter the sun would never rise. He could remove the axis's tilt, but that would just make the sun perpetually skirt the horizon all year round.

What Rashek decided to do (and he had to make split-second decisions in the brief time he held the power) was to shift the crust of the whole planet so that the Well was at a latitude that would have more standard seasonal variation, and to re-create the Terris mountains in the new North (to maintain the rumors that the Well was located there). He worried that the new location of Luthadel would be too hot due to the latitude, but it turned out that moving the Well created an unexpected effect. The planet's magnetic pole followed the Well as he relocated it—and the ash from the ashmounts was slightly ferromagnetic. (Ferromagnetic volcanic ash has some precedent in our world.) So the interaction of the ash with the planet's magnetic field's new alignment meant that its protective cloak over the area of the Final Empire caused it to be cooler than the now unprotected geographic north pole.

One side effect of this is that all compasses point toward Luthadel. Since it's been that way for a thousand years, no one finds it odd–in fact, it's used as evidence of the Lord Ruler's divinity. It also makes it mathematically very easy to pinpoint one's exact location in the Final Empire using a combination of the compass reading and noon observations. Not that it's easy to get lost in the Final Empire in the first place—the geographical area of the planet's surface that the Final Empire covers is actually quite small.

Ultimately, when it comes down to sophisticated geography and astrophysics, I'm out of my element. If there are mistakes in my reasoning above, that is why I write fantasy and not hard sf.

And I still haven't said anything about what happened at the south pole.

Chris King interview ()
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Chris King

Will Southern Scadrians have their own series? Or will they just be something mentioned in the next Mistborn trilogies? Does anything major take place?

Brandon Sanderson

We will have to see. Originally they did not have a series but it will depend on how much time I spend deviating with interesting Mistborn side-stories before I jump up into the second trilogy. Because by the second trilogy, this has all been discovered and it's a different world. I have loosely plotted a smaller series visiting the southern continent.

JordanCon 2016 ()
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Kaymyth (paraphrased)

I asked him about what the board refers to as "reverse" compounding - i.e., using Feruchemy to enhance Allomancy, rather than the other way around. I wanted to make sure that it was really a thing that exists.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He said that it was.

Kaymyth (paraphrased)

Is this what the Southern Scadrians have been doing?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It's similar, but not exactly the same.

17th Shard Forum Q&A ()
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PricklyBear

What's up at the south end of the world (during the 'closer to the sun' phase)? Life there? Cultures? Allomancers? Assuming that there is some life down there, can we assume that we'll have some interesting 'culture clashes' in future books?

Brandon Sanderson

They will be known by the modern trilogy, so it's safe to assume that a discovery will happen soon. Either during the Alloy of Law era or soon after.

Words of Radiance Omaha signing ()
#14 Copy

Questioner

Are they any other continents on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Roshar is, I haven't said that there's anything else out there, but I have said it's pangea, meaning if there's anything else out there, they are small.  They are not of a similar scope and size.  Now on Scadrial, there is other stuff going on.  And I've told people that for years, and years, and years.  So, you may find some other stuff going on there.  For years, you know, the southern continent was populated on Scadrial during the Final Empire era, even.  It was just impossible to reach because the heat, the poles were the only habitable places on that planet, and so anything in between, you just couldn't deal with it.  The Final Empire was on the North Pole.  

Shadows of Self release party ()
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Questioner

My question is, I think it was probably in the chapter annotations for the original Mistborn trilogy. You brought up that all of the events thus far were in the north pole of Scadrial--

Brandon Sanderson

Yep, they were.

Questioner

So where there events going on at the same time in the south pole?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there were.

Questioner

And will we be seeing those in the next trilogy?

Brandon Sanderson

You will find out about them eventually. By the time we hit the 1980's level technology the world will be a little more explored.

Questioner

So that will be like-- You are still planning on the three--

Brandon Sanderson

I'm now planning on four because this [Era 2] has turned into a sequence.

Questioner

This has turned into a trilogy.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah... So you will find this stuff out eventually. And you have already seen people from Southern Scadrial before... At least one..

Firefight San Francisco signing ()
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Questioner

What's going on in the other pole of Scadrial?

Brandon Sanderson

Oooh that's a big ol' RAFO. But it is a RAFO with a promise that you will find out before too long.

Questioner

So in these coming two Mistborn books, maybe? Because there was some mention of something to do with that, I thought, briefly, in Alloy of Law, just some vague--like there was something that had been found, or some brief contact, maybe...

Brandon Sanderson

*Brandon clears his throat, significantly* let me say this, so I don't spoil things. By the time we do the 1980's level technology, the whole world will have been explored. I mean, I can't really do the second trilogy, with-- I mean, by then, you know what the continents look like, and things. Even in Scadrial, where they just haven't explored nearly as much, but they're kind of behind on that so far, so sometime between now and then, exploration of the world has to happen. 

Questioner

Good point. Because they didn't have the whole volcano thing going on. 

Brandon Sanderson

No they didn't. They did not.

Questioner

How is there anyone alive over there?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, I can tell you this because it's in the annotations. The people down there were placed as kind of a control group to the changes that were made to the people of the north, where changes were made to live with the ash and things like that. But other changes were still made to them. Or changes happened to them, shall I say. 

/r/fantasy AMA 2013 ()
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Nepene

You've said you want to write a book set in the Southern Continent. I did enjoy the Emperor's Soul a lot, so I am curious about you writing that future book. How do they use magic differently, and why should we be excited about reading a book set there?

Brandon Sanderson

The southern continent is where people have discovered how to harness the metallurgic arts in a more mechanical method. (I've hinted several places that this is possible. I've been holding off doing it until we go here.)

Chaos

About the southern continent, would it be possible for other Scadrians to discover this method of using the Metallic Arts, or is it unique to the southern Scadrians?

Brandon Sanderson

It is technology-based rather than genetics based.

Idaho Falls signing ()
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Questioner

You always come up with new ideas for books, when you have so many to write as is, that you've recently started to go from saying things like, "Whenever I get to this book," like the Threnody novel, to, "If I ever get to it." Would you ever let another author write for Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

That is possible. Isaac [Stewart], my art director and long friend for, you know, fifteen years, who's been collaborating on the visual style of Mistborn, really wants to write a Mistborn novel set on one of the Southern Continent places off by itself and I'm intrigued by this idea, 'cause he's somebody I've worked with for so long. So we might see how that happens. So far I haven't been willing to collaborate on any Cosmere stuff, but it's p-- I could see it happening.

Cosmere.es Interview ()
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Cosmere.es

For the next year, when we were thinking about The Lost Metal one of the things that we were hoping is that—the same way that we had like a new tiny place which is New Seran on the map—we were hoping that maybe now we will get a bigger map? So we don't know yet, but hopefully.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes! The plan is a bigger map. Isaac has shown me a bigger map. I'm like 99% sure he put it in the book. So you should be getting—it's not a full world map—but you should be getting a map that includes the southern continent in its entirety. That should help as you are exploring Scadrial more and more.

Cosmere.es

Yeah! I wonder <like you said> like we were wondering regarding this new map is there any place where we will be able to find mummies on it?

Brandon Sanderson

*laughs* You know, Isaac's hard at work on his book. He hasn't let me read it yet, he's not quite finished. But I believe he might have an easter egg—it's really up to him—of where that might be. Close-lipped on what these mummies may be, and what's going on there.

Cosmere.es

Well well, let's see what the new book brings. And the other thing is because now we are closing this era and we will go into Scadrial—well in the future years we will go into Scadrial in year 3 [Era 3] it's going to be more technological, and since you said now we will have kind of a full map or more complete map of Scadrial, can we hope to see like the whole Scadrial in year 3 [Era 3] because they will have more—

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Yeah we should be able to get the entire world map by then for you.