Kalkis: What in Harmony are they?

[Atlas333]

So I was doing some research poking around the broadsheets and found this line that I'm surprised I haven't seen many people talking about. For context, this is the beginning line in a letter to Nicki Savage from her dead father.

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"In this letter I am at long last able to disclose to you the secrets of the unknown constructs of antiquity."

From the coppermind supposedly, this is a reference to undiscovered race on Scadrial called the "kalkis" a race of "metallic beings." https://coppermind.net/wiki/Kalkis

There are three ways I think this reference could be interpreted. 


1. Nonsense - Nicki's stories are somewhat embellished.

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Oudeis

I loved Nazh's "cameo" in the [Nicki] Savage story of Bands of Mourning. I especially like the touch of the map with the ripped edge in the book. Did the events really happen in the book as she describes in her broadsheet piece, or was the actual meeting punched up a bit for drama?

Isaac Stewart

Thanks for your kind words on the [Nicki] Savage story. I hope we get to see her again. Since she's learning the art of storytelling from Allomancer Jak, I suspect her version of events was slightly embellished.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/269/#e7415

I don't think this is likely considering the broadsheets have been used in the past to foreshadow future events (Nicki's previous story foreshadowed the southern scadrians). This is also the most boring explanation so I hope it isn't true.

2. Golems or constructs - while "beings of metal" can mean a lot of things to me this sounds like golems or similarly animated creatures. Whether they're mechanical or magical is impossible to say but it does sound fitting for the planet with a metal magic system. A large part of the planet was uninhabitable during the final empire, perhaps these were the lord ruler's attempt to create something that could live in those extreme conditions. But how could these be created using the metallic arts? Hemalurgy is probably the most likely as it's the one we know the least about but there is plenty of room to speculate. I feel it's safe to say that what metals these golems are made out of would affect their abilities (if any)

3. Kandras - some kandras use metal to craft their true bodies.

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 "Some kandra build bodies for combat purposes; these bodies can be made of metal to be stronger and heavier and can have sharp bones to use as knives." https://coppermind.net/wiki/Kandra

Could this be a more warlike off shoot of kandra?

Or is it some 4th option?

What do you guys think?

Edited June 16 by Atlas333
Added hyperlinks

[Treamayne]

46 minutes ago, Atlas333 said:

Or is it some 4th option?

Foreshadowing for Isaac:

Spoiler

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Questioner

My question: do we have any updates on Isaac Stewart's Mistborn Nicki Savage book?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, so Isaac's been working away at it. He has not shown it to me yet, but he is excited by it and he has shown it to the writing group I believe. So he is working very hard at that. We have Isaac's story and we also have Dan. Dan's is just in the very early stages of concepting and things like that, so. So yeah, you can corner Isaac and ask him for updates on it. I haven't seen the book yet, but he promises me it's getting very close to where he wants to show it to me.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 20, 2023)

Spoilers for Isaac's Story:

Spoiler

Cheyenne Sedai

I'm really curious about Boatload of Mummies because Brandon did mention on his updates that you'd worked on it for NaNoWriMo for the past couple of years which is really cool. And the title is incredible. I don't know if that's gonna be the final title, but that's what it's always been referred to. How have you been doing with that?

Isaac Stewart

Thanks for asking us. It's a project that I love. So I finished it. Finished a draft in September of last year. It's rough. It's a really rough draft. There's a lot of things that I'm still working through. I'm trying to narrow down the shape of the plot in a way because there's a little bit of--it wasn't inspired necessarily by these things, but it was after the fact that I realized, "Oh, it's part this, part that." It's sort of begins King Kong, if you imagined getting people on a boat. And then it continues as Death on the Nile. Then you get to a portion on an island. And then it ends The Mummy. And throw in a healthy dose of Venom. So it's like, "Okay, am I doing too much here?" And that's kind of where I'm at. You know, is this even a thing? Have I thrown too much in? Is this too much of a storyline? And i don't think it is. It really is in the end kind of a Raiders of the Lost Arc sort of story. You could pull out those some of those same elements and say, "Raiders of the Lost Arc starts out King Kong." But the basic plot line is there. There's going to be scenes in the current draft that are basically finished. I don't think they're going to change too much from the version that it is right now to the end.

Will it be called Boatload of Mummies? Probably not. I can't see that as a title of a Cosmere book, right? But we can affectionately call it Boatload of Mummies as long as we want. The working title is Book of Nails. And whether there's a series title or not, we'll have to figure that out if it's a story that people want to continue learning about.

But let me tell you Nicki Savage is so much fun to write. Don't expect exactly what you get from the broadsheets because she is writing to a particular audience, and has learned some skills from Allomancer Jack--though I do think Allomancer Jack's stories might be closer to the truth than Nicki's are.

You will see parallels between this story and some of the elements that are in the broadsheets. But she's basically: if you can imagine a Mary Poppins. who is incredibly interested in the supernatural, and is not afraid to beat up people. That's basically your character right there. And she's just, she's a load of fun. A boatload of fun.

Cheyenne Sedai

I imagine from what you've said that you still wouldn't be ready to give us what could eventually function as a back of the book blurb?

Isaac Stewart

During the first NaNoWriMo that I worked on it we had to come up with our elevator pitch on that, and I wrote the Readers Digest, TV Guide version of it, and it was "A woman with a strange, magical power journeys to an island to find a mythical book that might raise the dead." Something like that.

This particular book is interesting because... How do I pitch this when it's a spin off of a different series. It's a spin-off from Mistborn, technically. But it's not a Mistborn book. You can't pitch that to somebody who doesn't know Mistborn. And that's been some of the fun in trying to figure this out is "How do I tell a different story here, but then have to reintroduce how Allomancy works? But now in this era, we know about Allomancy, we know about Feruchemy, we know about Hemalurgy. We have crossovers from other worlds. How do you write this book without confusing somebody entirely without... "There's like 50 magic systems in here, and I don't understand." And that then goes into the pitch. How do you pitch this book? People who know the Cosmere, you just say it's set on Scadrial, but it's not really a Misborn book. It's just hard to encapsulate and someday I'll figure it out.

Miscellaneous 2023 (May 28, 2023)

 

I know that's not the in-world answer you are looking for, but I think this is when we will get answers. (Not to mention the placeholder title may have more clues as to what the Kalkis may be, if they are referencing the same thing)

[+hwiles]

Very interesting, I forget sometimes how diverse scadrial is (and always has been, to be honest).

My best guess, based on only what we've heard as pure rumor and intuition, would be that they're simply an isolated tribe of rebel Kandra who didn't want to take orders from their elders or Harmony anymore at some point and just wear exoskeletons (exosuits?) instead of regular skeletons in order to shield themselves from external influence and control.

My basis:

1. Nicki has been proven reliable before.

2. Kandra are functionally immortal and have had internal political strife and division before.

3. The only hemalurgic constructs that we've seen so far that were complicated enough to be considered unique species were created with the full working knowledge and power of a Shard. It's strongly implied that the Lord Ruler continued trying to make new monsters for 1000 years after his ascent and never managed to be successful in figuring out how to make anything other than inquisitors, several breeds of kandra, and koloss.

4. Most kandra seem to be aware and resentful of the fact that they can be mind-controlled. Many have committed suicide over it even, so I think it stands to reason that some would evolve who would be clever enough to shield their brains properly.

5. Immortal goo-creatures walking around in suits of heavy plate mail would probably seriously freak most people out and encourage questions. Questions which would inevitably lead to the goo-creatures weakness for exploitation by the metalborn. It stands to reason that they would self isolate if they existed.

6. Crab people are real irl, so why not kandra with exoskeletons? 

[+hwiles]

Edit: deleted to avoid a rewrite.

Edited June 9 by hwiles

[Isilel]

My guesses would be:

1. Abandoned Ghostblood base with Warbreaker spoiler

Spoiler

Awakened constructs or armoured Lifeless. Or both. The whole "raising the dead" thing would fit Awakening very well. As an alternative, a lair of a mad scientist Awakener, who immigrated from Nalthis to enjoy the seclusion afforded by the thinly populated and largely unexplored Scadrial. 

2. Ditto, but for the Ire or

Spoiler

Silverlight.

3. Actual mundane robots from a  technologically advanced civilization. Again, brought and abandoned by some worldhopper.

4.

Spoiler

Iriali with their metallic-looking hair and skin(?).

@hwiles:

But wearing just any metal won't protect the kandra, has to be aluminum. OTOH, if this island also has a volcano, they might have lucked into some.

 

Edited June 9 by Isilel

[+hwiles]

@Isilel - Scadrial has electricity now. Aluminum is one of the easiest materials to purify, the process is just being hidden and withheld from the general population. The lord ruler did the exact same thing with the metals that he didn't want other people to have. Kandra could reasonably be aware of it though.

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

@Isilel - Scadrial has electricity now. Aluminum is one of the easiest materials to purify, the process is just being hidden and withheld from the general population. The lord ruler did the exact same thing with the metals that he didn't want other people to have. Kandra could reasonably be aware of it though.

Scadrial has Electricity now, but as of TLM, they have not yet discovered Electrolysis for Aluminum Manufacturing. Isaac Spoiler:

Spoiler

It appears that Isaac's Nicki novel (which may or may not be the kalkis) will be in the time between BoM and TLM (which means no mass-produced aluminum yet - baring import from worldhoppers). 

 

[+hwiles]

14 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Scadrial has Electricity now, but as of TLM, they have not yet discovered Electrolysis for Aluminum Manufacturing. Isaac Spoiler:

  Hide contents

It appears that Isaac's Nicki novel (which may or may not be the kalkis) will be in the time between BoM and TLM (which means no mass-produced aluminum yet - baring import from worldhoppers). 

 

I...would challenge that. There is far too much aluminum by mass in era 2 for it to not be getting refined on at least a small industrial scale. Buuut...just like in real life, if one were to identify a process for turning material that's worth less than dirt into a material even more valuable than gold by weight...one would be highly incentived to be secretive about it. Kandra, being the ultimate spies of the cosmere, would be unlikely to be unaware of such a process.

Worldhoppers would be smarter to bring the process knowledge with them rather than drag literal carts of aluminum ingots across time and space between worlds...

[Elite01]

I’m hesitant about the Kandra theory because it goes against what we know about Kandra society serving harmony but it could happen. It could even be peaceful Kandra who just use metallic bodies and don’t focus on shapeshifting. I would find that more believable. 
 

My best theory is that Harmony/Sazed is experimenting with hemalurgy maybe. Trying to find a new hemalurgic construct that will help him in the future. He’s the only one who has the knowledge for new constructs besides the ones discovered by the set but I’m pretty confident that was done through 

Spoiler

Autonomy

I know it’s not really evidence but Kalkis always seemed close to kolos to me. Maybe harmony wants to find a way to create giant armies like the lord ruler did but doesn’t want to use kolos so is trying a new method.

[alder24]

21 hours ago, hwiles said:

I...would challenge that. There is far too much aluminum by mass in era 2 for it to not be getting refined on at least a small industrial scale. Buuut...just like in real life, if one were to identify a process for turning material that's worth less than dirt into a material even more valuable than gold by weight...one would be highly incentived to be secretive about it. Kandra, being the ultimate spies of the cosmere, would be unlikely to be unaware of such a process.

Worldhoppers would be smarter to bring the process knowledge with them rather than drag literal carts of aluminum ingots across time and space between worlds...

That's Ghostbloods doing. They are using electrolysis to manufacture aluminum and sell it. TLM ch 40:

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“Electrolysis,” Moonlight noted. “Aluminum is actually pretty easy to make, once you know the process.”
“Wait,” Marasi said, hurrying to join her as they left the room, “you can make aluminum with electrolysis?”
“Yeah,” Moonlight said. “We’ve been using it to fund our operations for almost two decades now. I’d bet half the aluminum in the Basin came from us originally.”

[Benkinsky they/them]

Walking metal constructs? Reminds me of the Metal Men that the Sorceress had in Tress. Which is far in the future from Era 2 afaik but maybe there's some pre-versions already hanging around on Scadrial. In some cave.