+robardin Posted April 17, 2018 Report Share Posted April 17, 2018 Allomancy is "end positive": power is gained directly from Preservation. It's a temporary draw, though, that happens for as long as the Allomancer can burn a metal to form the conduit to the power, and when released, the power returns to Preservation. Feruchemy is end-neutral - the innate attribute of a person is stored into a metalmind, for use later, no net gain or loss. Compounding is a way to convert the end-positive drawing of power from Preservation into an end-positive store of the Feruchemical attribute stored in a metalmind... Which can then be stored back into another metalmind. Doesn't that mean some amount of Preservation is thus siphoned off and frozen? Is it possible that 1,000+ years of continuous Compounding by TLR in multiple attributes (gold, bronze, atium at a minimum) might have contributed to the weakening of Preservation by the events of The Final Empire? There are very few people on Scadrial capable of Compounding after Harmony's Ascension, but we've seen at least one (Miles), and with the rediscovery of hemalurgy, it could be artificially enabled. If The Set wanted to split Harmony, would all they need to do be to set up a circle of Compounders to go at it night and day for a while? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eldergod3 Posted April 17, 2018 Report Share Posted April 17, 2018 I think you’d need the entire human population to be compounding before you could even put a dent in Harmony’s power, remember that with the Well of Ascension Rashek could reshape the world. I doubt a circle of compounders could manage anything significant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stick's Interlude Posted April 17, 2018 Report Share Posted April 17, 2018 Hmmm, interesting thought. I would say that the Set would certainly try something like this anyways. Well, except for the fact that they are no longer in Trell's employ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+robardin Posted April 17, 2018 Author Report Share Posted April 17, 2018 I didn't mean to pull down Harmony, but to unbalance him (hence my post's subject, speculating on "Ruining" him). Though I believe there is a WoB about how after his Ascension Harmony is effectively a new single Shard with double the power and not a dual-Shard being, so it's not like if you drew enough Allomancy (and the using the Bands did cause mists to appear) you'd "steal" Preservation from Harmony. However, might it "unbalance" Harmony to be more Ruinous in inclination? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The One Who Connects Posted April 17, 2018 Report Share Posted April 17, 2018 25 minutes ago, robardin said: Doesn't that mean some amount of Preservation is thus siphoned off and frozen? Is it possible that 1,000+ years of continuous Compounding by TLR in multiple attributes (gold, bronze, atium at a minimum) might have contributed to the weakening of Preservation by the events of The Final Empire? You could say the same about Awakeners(who don't consume Breath) and the God King(who gets extra Breath). But it's not a big deal there, so why would it be here? Quote Brandon Sanderson Just as a point you should understand, the amount of MATTER in the cosmere is finite too. As is the amount of energy. Worrying that Endowment will run out of Breaths to give is a little like worrying that the amount of carbon on Earth will run out because people keep being born. The Shards themselves are as close to functionally infinite as one can get, and I'm not sure you can feasibly siphon off enough power to "weaken" an entity that could shrug off a black hole. 51 minutes ago, robardin said: If The Set wanted to split Harmony, would all they need to do be to set up a circle of Compounders to go at it night and day for a while? Nightblood is powerful enough to damage a Shard, but it's massively more invested than anything we've seen so far. Quote Questioner Are the Bands of Mourning...would they be like similarly invested as Nightblood? Brandon Sanderson Not quite to the extent of Nightblood. In fact not remotely close to the extent of Nightblood. How many Bands of Mourning do you think you'd need to come close to equating to Nightblood? That's about how far I think you'd have to go to "split" him in any meaningful way. 11 minutes ago, robardin said: However, might it "unbalance" Harmony to be more Ruinous in inclination? He's already more weighted towards Ruin thanks to the extra bit of Preservation within everyone on Scadrial. He's doing something with that extra power to keep himself balanced, and I don't see why he couldn't just do more of that to counterbalance what you are trying to do. In order to properly unbalance him, you'd have to do to him what Leras did to Ruin, and splinter away a chunk of his power all at once. Compounding is just too slow. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+robardin Posted April 19, 2018 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 On 4/17/2018 at 11:58 AM, The One Who Connects said: He's already more weighted towards Ruin thanks to the extra bit of Preservation within everyone on Scadrial. He's doing something with that extra power to keep himself balanced, and I don't see why he couldn't just do more of that to counterbalance what you are trying to do. In order to properly unbalance him, you'd have to do to him what Leras did to Ruin, and splinter away a chunk of his power all at once. Compounding is just too slow. This sounds familiar but I don't remember why. A WoB, or something in Arcanum Unbounded? And he can't just hit the Shardsauna and sweat out some atium, because as a new Shard called Harmony, he sweats harmonium and nothing else, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wandering Investor Posted April 20, 2018 Report Share Posted April 20, 2018 On 4/18/2018 at 10:24 PM, robardin said: This sounds familiar but I don't remember why. A WoB, or something in Arcanum Unbounded? And he can't just hit the Shardsauna and sweat out some atium, because as a new Shard called Harmony, he sweats harmonium and nothing else, right? No, he can manipulate the individual powers if needs, so he's likely capable of producing atium and lerasium. We don't he's done something with the extra ruin, just not if he made atium or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoolofwhool Posted April 20, 2018 Report Share Posted April 20, 2018 On 4/18/2018 at 11:24 PM, robardin said: This sounds familiar but I don't remember why. A WoB, or something in Arcanum Unbounded? And he can't just hit the Shardsauna and sweat out some atium, because as a new Shard called Harmony, he sweats harmonium and nothing else, right? Here Quote rags How is Harmony balanced when a part of Preservation's power is expended on human sentience? Isn't that what caused all the trouble to begin with? Brandon Sanderson Indeed. Hm... What could Sazed be doing with that extra power... source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weltall Posted April 22, 2018 Report Share Posted April 22, 2018 On 4/20/2018 at 10:01 AM, Wandering Investor said: No, he can manipulate the individual powers if needs, so he's likely capable of producing atium and lerasium. We don't he's done something with the extra ruin, just not if he made atium or something. Brandon has said otherwise, additional atium and lerasium are no longer being produced now that Ati and Leras are dead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wandering Investor Posted April 22, 2018 Report Share Posted April 22, 2018 12 hours ago, Weltall said: Brandon has said otherwise, additional atium and lerasium are no longer being produced now that Ati and Leras are dead. That's interesting. If he can't make Atium anymore, then I wonder how he's siphoning off the extra Ruin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devout Pathian Posted April 23, 2018 Report Share Posted April 23, 2018 9 hours ago, Wandering Investor said: That's interesting. If he can't make Atium anymore, then I wonder how he's siphoning off the extra Ruin. Maybe Harmony is using the extra Ruin to hold back whatever it was that he showed to Wax. Just a thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wandering Investor Posted April 23, 2018 Report Share Posted April 23, 2018 22 minutes ago, Aurora the Rioter said: Maybe Harmony is using the extra Ruin to hold back whatever it was that he showed to Wax. Just a thought. Harmony only recently became distracted, indicating the... problem... is a recent one. So Harmony had to balance out the powers for the past 300 years before that happened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devout Pathian Posted April 23, 2018 Report Share Posted April 23, 2018 Good point @Wandering Investor. I do wonder what he is doing. I know Sazed said that he is more inclined to Preservation side, but that he also sees the point of Ruin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thrand_Antharo Posted June 13, 2018 Report Share Posted June 13, 2018 (edited) We have confirmation on what he is doing, Harmony is putting one more Ruin electron in etmetal than Preservation electrons. This is why it is more reactive than normal cesium. Edit: after rereading Pagerunner's post, its not confirmed only strongly suggested. Edited June 13, 2018 by Thrand_Antharo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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