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Right before Miles is executed, he says:

You are fools! One day, the men of gold and red, bearers of the final metal, will come to you. And you will be ruled by them.

I've seen speculated on 17thshard that think the men of gold and red are people from the Southern pole of Scadriel. What evidence is there that points to this? Is there another possible explanation from elsewhere in the Cosmere? Given the connection to color in Warbreaker, could they come from there?

(And yes, I know Lightsong's colors are red and gold, but I know he isn't involved.)

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    if you've speculated on 17thShard then you should know that we don't know who they are.
    – fbstj
    Sep 3, 2012 at 5:56
  • I've perused, but haven't really dug in. Wasn't sure if I missed anything.
    – Corwin01
    Sep 4, 2012 at 15:38

2 Answers 2

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From the author:

Electrum

I held off on using this metal because while I knew what it had to do, I also knew that it would make atium far less important.

The way I built Allomancy, there is a logic to its framework. Atium shows other people's futures. Gold shows your own past. Each group of metals has internal and external powers. Therefore, one of the two alloys (either atium's or gold's) had to show other people's pasts—the Eleventh Metal from book one, an alloy of atium.

The final metal of that group, then, had to show your own future. I wanted this to be an alloy of atium. But the problem was that it couldn't be. There is always a pushing metal and a pulling metal to each set. The pull always comes first; the push is always the alloy. The two external metals (that do things to other people) have to be grouped together, and the two internal metals (that do things to yourself) have to be grouped together.

That means atium and gold are both pulling metals, and the ones that do things to you both had to be related to gold—and both metals that do things to other people had to be related to atium. Therefore, even though initial logic makes it seem that the alloy of atium should be the one that shows your own future, the way the magic is arranged means that it has to show other people's pasts.

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/annotation/264/mistborn-3-Chapter-Three

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    This seems to answer half the question, but do you know about the men of red and gold?
    – Megan Walker
    Sep 2, 2012 at 13:14
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    While it seems like at this time my question really has no answer, I accepted this. However, after getting further along in my reread of the Mistborn trilogy, this is incorrect. Vin and Elend discovered Electrum in Hero of the Ages, and its made clear at the end of the book that there are 2 unknown metals still, which are revealed in Alloy of Law. So, I suppose "the final metal" might be one of the Atium alloyed metals (much like Malatium is an Atium/Gold alloy)
    – Corwin01
    Sep 13, 2012 at 15:47
  • So the author of the books is wrong?
    – WizardOz
    Sep 17, 2012 at 19:33
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    No, its an issue of miscommunication, I suppose. That quote is from the annotation from Hero of Ages, and they do indeed use Electrum and it was the final metal revealed in that trilogy. However, as of Alloy of Law, 2 more metals have been discovered, so Electrum wasn't the final metal. It was the final metal of that particular group, which is what Sanderson was pointing out.
    – Corwin01
    Sep 17, 2012 at 20:54
  • To add to the speculation, we know that at the end of Hero of the Ages Sahzed AKA Harmony "fixed" the Koloss so that they could actually breed and not rely on Hemalurgy to reproduce. We also have heard nothing at all of the Koloss in the second trilogy yet, it wouldn't be too far a stretch to assume that not only are the "men of red and gold" from the southern continent, but also Koloss (or at least descendants, who knows how much could change in 300 years!).
    – Stormie
    Jul 27, 2015 at 13:29
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After the release of Bands of Mourning, it seems likely that the "final metal" is

ettmetal,

used in the Southern Scadrians' Metallic Arts technology.

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  • And ettmetal is harmonium.
    – Adamant
    Sep 21, 2017 at 3:02

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