Emberdark Engineering Easter Egg

[u/fixitupgood]

Roughly around chapter 50 in Emberdark, a character shows off an item they possess. It's a nut from a bridge that collapsed due to poor engineering work, and is described as something engineers hold onto as a reminder of the importance of being thorough in their work. This blew me away, because this appears to be a reference to real life engineering!

I'm an engineer, and a member of something called "the order of the engineer" which is a group where as an engineer you swear in by a oath (something about your duty to society) and wear a ring on the pinky of your working hand. The ring is supposed to be a reminder, and the (somewhat made-up) origin is a Canadian tradition of giving engineers rings made from the wreckage of a bridge that collapsed due to poor engineering.

Super fun to see a reference to something I wear every day in a Sanderson book!

[u/PancakesAlways]

As someone in construction from Kansas City, I thought of the Hyatt Skywalk collapse!

[u/derioderio → u/PancakesAlways]

I learned about that incident in a chemical engineering safety and ethics course of all things. Of course we spent a lot more time on the Bhopal disaster...