Who's attacking Scadrial?

[Quantus]

27 minutes ago, recneps said:

@Quantus Those are still reasons to attack Scadrial. How does attacking Scadrial harm Harmony?

Nah, those are all reasons to attack Harmony regardless of the location.  Attacking Scadrial is secondary but still affects him because it is his home, the place and people he is by far the most Invested in, and until relatively recently the only thing he knew existed; it's one of if not the only lever they have to attack him outside of a full-frontal assault that any one shard would most likely loose. To say that the unNamed antagonist in question should be attacking Sazed without touching Scadrial feels like saying Preservation and Ruin should have just fought directly and left all the people out of it...not wrong but leaving out all the situational context.

[Calderis]

37 minutes ago, recneps said:

@Calderis The issue is that we don't have evidence that Autonomy is Trell. We know that the metal used for Bleeder is from a Shard we know - but it is also red which we know means corruption. We know the metal is associated with the Shard that calls itself Trell. We know the metal is not from Endowment. This leaves the metal as being Bavadinium, Raysium, or Cultivation's Godmetal. This means potential Shards-called-Trell are: Odium, Autonomy, Cultivation, and the permutations: OdiumxHonour, CultivationxAutonomy, et cetera. We have supposition to incriminate Autonomy

Red can mean that. It does not necessitate it. Additionally the red of Trellium is not the vibrant red we've seen in cases of co-opted investiture, it looks like spots of rust. The only red that we've seen in regards to Trell that is similar to that is the "red haze" which was a construction by Harmony, not a literal view, and the eyes of The Set's faceless immortals, which possession alone should be enough to cause.

Any mixture of Shards requires far more supposition than the signs that point to Autonomy alone.

As I said. Believe what you wish. 

Edited July 10, 2018 by Calderis

[recneps]

10 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Nah, those are all reasons to attack Harmony regardless of the location.  Attacking Scadrial is secondary but still affects him because it is his home, the place and people he is by far the most Invested in, and until relatively recently the only thing he knew existed; it's one of if not the only lever they have to attack him outside of a full-frontal assault that any one shard would most likely loose. To say that the unNamed antagonist in question should be attacking Sazed without touching Scadrial feels like saying Preservation and Ruin should have just fought directly and left all the people out of it...not wrong but leaving out all the situational context.

Ruin and Preservation had to fight over Scadrial -- It was the center of their conflict. Preservation had made sentient life there, because that was part of his original goal. Ruin had to have something to destroy, and so he helped make it. Ruin had to continue to fight over Scadrial because Preservation hid his power there. Except attacking Scadrial makes no sense to curb Harmony's power. Harmony won't be reduced by it. If anything, it's a foolish move. Harmony has lots at stake on Scadrial, and he is quite content to stay here. Why would Autonomy disturb that?

Edited July 10, 2018 by recneps

[Wandering Investor]

@recneps Cultivation is kicked out of the options for the same meta reason as Odium, aka there are story-telling reasons such as conflicting series and Brandon wanted to keep the cosmere in the background for the time being. As for why Autonomy would attack Harmony or Scadrial, I do not know, but that's the fun part! Its up to Brandon to write some interesting motives. Brandon did note that Autonomy is one of his favorite characters, so I suspect there are some compelling motivations on why she's doing what she is doing, we just don't know. Another way to put that is, there is room for the establishment on Autonomy's motivations for attacking  Harmony/Scadrial, but there are already established reasons on why the other shards are not options.

 

[recneps]

Cultivation and Odium shouldn't be discounted for story-telling reasons: We know Trell has a connection to Odium, and while Brandon has historically stated intent of keeping worlds separate.. He has also historically RAFOd just about anything and everything relating to Trell being Odium or Autonomy. Meaning, we don't have concrete evidence ruling out Cultivation and Honour - only our trust that Sanderson will do the expected. I do agree that it would be odd for him to end the walls so soon.. Except he also has a record of putting near-arbitrary plot twists in the ends of just about every arc. One thing which I think should be considered is this: Wax and Wayne originally was just a minor tale between Mistborn Sagas 1 and 2. It could be that we never definitively find out who Trell is during it, as it's not one of the 'major' Cosmere stories.

[Nesh]

Autonomy definitely makes the most sense.  We know from Word of Brandon that Odium is scared/wary of Harmony.  I don't think he'd be making such obvious moves against Harmony right now.  Even if he got out of Greater Roshar.  Cultivation has bigger problems to worry about unless Odium is definitively beaten in SA5, but I find that unlikely.

[Quantus]

41 minutes ago, recneps said:

Ruin and Preservation had to fight over Scadrial -- It was the center of their conflict. Preservation had made sentient life there, because that was part of his original goal. Ruin had to have something to destroy, and so he helped make it. Ruin had to continue to fight over Scadrial because Preservation hid his power there. Except attacking Scadrial makes no sense to curb Harmony's power. Harmony won't be reduced by it. If anything, it's a foolish move. Harmony has lots at stake on Scadrial, and he is quite content to stay here. Why would Autonomy disturb that?

Harmony exists in a very delicate balance, I think that their goal is to cause enough Distraction and Strife in the things (ie people) that he is most focused and involved in, enough that he will no longer be able to maintain that balance. As to why Trell (who we're agreed is a Shard, if not sure of the identity, yes?) is wanting to kick over the ant-hill now instead of leaving well enough alone, I see several possible reasons: 1)They fear the outcome of combining Shards, for whatever reasons they all agreed to at the beginning that led to the vow of non-interaction; 2)They know that Harmony is current unstable and dont want to give him the time to gain any more Experience and Control; 3) [Wild Theory] It's not Harmony himself that they fear but rather it is the evolution of the Metallic Art themselves that is scaring them.  While Hemalurgy always had some scary implications but the death of the Donor made those somewhat self-limiting,  the advent of UnKeyed and UnSealed metalminds, ans especially the emergence of Harmonium, has opened up a lot of implications and possibilities that a being of Shardic levels would have the capacity to more fully comprehend and evaluate.  I mean, on the meta level we know they will eventually lead to FTLs and a fully spacefaring race of people; this might be all about restricting potential problems and/or rivals.

[StrikerEZ]

@recneps I think it's important to keep in mind that the Vessel's interpretation of the intent greatly influences things. 

OB spoilers (just slight)

Spoiler

WinespringBrother
So, would Unity be a natural enemy of Autonomy?

Brandon Sanderson
Um... Possibly. You say "natural,"

WinespringBrother
Well, would one eliminate the other one? But more towards Autonomy trying to break up...

Brandon Sanderson
To break up Unity. It's so hard to say, because Autonomy is a bit of a strange duck. Like, what counts as being Autonomous? Is absorbing everything and becoming one again Autonomous or not? That's kind of your question that you get into. And the way Autonomy looks at it right now, is no. Autonomy wants to remain Autonomy. Autonomy does not want to be corrupted by anything else. And Autonomy would think the Shards are better on their own. But is this a natural affect, or part of the...? Does that make sense?

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/332/#e9608

The bold part is the part I mainly wanted to focus on. What is being Autonomous? You seem to have a very narrow definition of Autonomy: that of perfect isolationism and leaving others alone and non-intervention. But Brandon himself mentions that Autonomy has many different meanings and that, depending on your perspective, becoming ruler of everything in order to give everyone Autonomy afterwards might fit the intent of the Shard. Either way, I don't think I think matters if you don't think that what Autonomy is doing (if she is Trell) is Autonomous or not. We don't know her motivations or her perspective on these issues. For all we know, she could be planning to take do the exact same scenario I mentioned earlier. Or, if Trell is Ann avatar of her, it could have its own will and go against what Autonomy views as Autonomous. We really don't know enough to guess at her motivations. We do know enough to guess with 99% certainty that Trell is Autonomy-non of the other candidates can be Trell, either because they are Splintered, preoccupied in other planets, or cannot be Trell for meta reasons.

[Toaster Retribution]

I feel pretty certain by now that it is Autonomy. For one, it is basically the only availible Shard. I doubt anyone else but Odium would want to attack Scadrial, and Odium isn’t really able to do that at the moment. 

[CalaCrisp88]

3 hours ago, recneps said:

Ruin and Preservation had to fight over Scadrial -- It was the center of their conflict. Preservation had made sentient life there, because that was part of his original goal. Ruin had to have something to destroy, and so he helped make it. Ruin had to continue to fight over Scadrial because Preservation hid his power there. Except attacking Scadrial makes no sense to curb Harmony's power. Harmony won't be reduced by it. If anything, it's a foolish move. Harmony has lots at stake on Scadrial, and he is quite content to stay here. Why would Autonomy disturb that?

Scadrial, and all creatures on it, were directly created by the power of Ruin and Preservation. They didn't just invest in a planet and the life there, they literally created it themselves. Think of it almost like a massive splinter. I know it's not exactly that, but it's still like a big solid ball of their investiture. You attack the planet, it harms the Shards.

Edited July 10, 2018 by 8giraffe8

[Wandering Investor]

@recneps Mistborn 4 of Era 2 is slated to come out before SA 4. If either Odium or Cultivation had a direct hand in that book, it would be major spoilers for SA, so I don't see Brandon doing that, or any spinters of merged shards of those two.

[goody153]

@recneps Autonomy could be attacking because of greed or she's seeing a threat. If anything Odium is a good example of somebody who's hunting shards even if his intent wasn't really opposed.

It doesn't even need to be about Autonomy's intent why she's attacking Harmony's domain. Just think about it so far as we've seen there are only 3 shards so far who's alive and who seem to actively pushing in the direction of influencing Cosmere in the future. 

Harmony, Odium and Autonomy. 

Harmony is literally prepping the scadrian for spacefaring. Him pushing them for spacefaring sounds like he really wants the Scadrials influencing cosmere and indirectly that means it also spreads Harmony's influence himself even if that's not really his main goal. Odium wants him to be the only influence in Cosmere by basically murdering his rivals and him killing the other shards has nothing to do with his intent at all. And Autonomy herself is creating avatars and having planets after planets under her belt which sounds like building an intergalatic cosmere empire to me. 

Since currently Odium is basically out of the game by being stuck in Roshar(even Autonomy in the letters say he's done-zo and doesn't care about him or his prison) means Harmony is the more obvious rival for power.

It sounds like Autonomy really just wanted to eliminate her competition. Remember that the vessels are still people they may embody their intents but that doesn't mean they can't be ambitious and greedy for power as well. Odium is a clear example of somebody who's going around murdering shards has more to do with his greed for power rather than his very own intent. 
 

8 hours ago, 8giraffe8 said:

Scadrial, and all creatures on it, were directly created by the power of Ruin and Preservation. They didn't just invest in a planet and the life there, they literally created it themselves. Think of it almost like a massive splinter. I know it's not exactly that, but it's still like a big solid ball of their investiture. You attack the planet, it harms the Shards.

Not entirely sure if you attack the planet that you actually harm the shards that created the planet. Remember that the planet and it's people still literally has a part Ruin in all of them but Ruin was actually wrecking the planet and slowly killing all people.  He was gonna destroy Scadrial if he won and that didn't seem to deter his survival. As he still wanted to spread "his love" all over Cosmere if he won in Mistborn Trilogy.

More like it's attacking Harmony's amount of influence or control over things which we know can be detrimental for Shards(since if somebody is opposing them they need pawns to move their plans). Aside from it's bad for Harmony's mental health since he sees the people of Scadrial as his children and himself as their caretaker.

Edited July 11, 2018 by goody153

[Matias]

I dont get it, have we seen Autonomy before? Why do you think is him?

[StrikerEZ]

34 minutes ago, Matias said:

I dont get it, have we seen Autonomy before? Why do you think is him?

The only in-book thing we've seen from Autonomy (who is female, by the way (well, Bavadin is)) has been (OB SPOILERS)

Spoiler

the second letter epigraph in Part 2, which is from one of her Avatars

and when Khriss mentions her in the Arcanum Unbounded Taldain essay. Besides that, most of what we know about her and why we suspect Trell is Autonomy is through WoBs and theorizing. 

[Weltall]

33 minutes ago, Matias said:

I dont get it, have we seen Autonomy before? Why do you think is him?

People have described why Autonomy is the most likely candidate through process of elimination many times, including in this topic. We know that 'Trell' is a Shard that we know of. Many of the Shards (Ambition, Devotion, Dominion and Honor) are splintered and thus in no position to be Trell. Odium and Cultivation are busy on Roshar and there are meta reasons why neither makes sense as Trell (also, we think we've seen Odium's godmetal and we know we've seen Cultivation's in alloy form and neither look like 'Trellium'). Endowment is not interested in affairs beyond Nalthis, disapproves of Shards meddling in one another's affairs and has no reason to go after Scadrial. That leaves Autonomy, who we know for a fact interferes on other worlds and co-opting an existing religion (or possibly creating one as part of a long-term plan) fits exactly with how Brandon has described Autonomy's actions.

Also, Bavadin is female. On more given days than not at least.

[Matias]

@StrikerEZ @Weltall i search, and yes it makes more sense now, but, how do you know the letter is from bavadin in OB?, and also, what does WoB means?

[Weltall]

WoB is short for Word of Brandon, it means something that he's said outside of the books, usually at signings or other special events when fans get chances to ask him questions. Here's an example of one that will also answer your second question. Spoil-tagged because it involves Oathbringer.

Spoiler

Chaos [PENDING REVIEW] (paraphrased)

Did you mean to imply that Autonomy wrote the second letter in Oathbringer back there, with the aspects thing?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW] (paraphrased)

Yeah, I did.

(He did imply that it was supposed to be fairly obvious.)

source

 

[goody153]

@Matias We usually get it from here. https://wob.coppermind.net/

Make yourself happy(literally you'll spend hours there)

[+Invocation]

Do shattered Shards still have their godmetals around if there was some pre-shattering? If so, would not one of the most likely combinations be Autonomy/Dominion? Based on the way those spikes remove such levels of humanity and twist creatures so far with fewer spikes than should be possible, granting them Autonomy from the conscious mind while Dominating the remnants of their higher selves until they twist into monsters. 

If the destroyed ones don't have their godmetals anymore, then personally I think Odium/Autonomy is the most likely. Odium being God's Hatred plus Autonomy's potential freedom from Harmony and the host's inhibitions would potentially lead to this kind of thing. It's shown that a fair amount of the "corrupted" Trellian things have strong negative feelings towards various things, most of which could stem from hatred or could cause hatred. See the spoiler separator for examples, as I'm not sure what counts as a spoiler anymore regarding Era 2 and its things.

Spoiler

The creatures in the Homeland caves were snarling if I remember correctly, which, when reduced to their base natures, would likely be all the manifestation of emotion they could muster. Miles went from lawman to criminal because his hatred was awakened somehow, with that somehow potentially being pricked by a charged spike. Paalm/Bleeder hated Harmony's "chains." 

It's also been shown within characters in the cosmere how hatred can warp you, even without any connection to Odium. Kaladin with Amaram, Kelsier and Marsh with each other while competing for Mare, Kelsier and the Lord Ruler post-Hathsin; that kind of thing. Could be a hint as to what Raysium does.

Of course I'm probably completely wrong but thought I'd throw it out there.

[Matias]

@Weltall, @goody153, thanks, i want to deep search on this site after i finish Oathbringer, im close 

[+Ark1002]

I think that it is autonomy, I originally thought it was odium, but I don't think so anymore. I also noticed while I was reading the cosmere collection that it said that autonomy interfered in other systems. I am just not sure if autonomy has appeared in another series, I haven't read all of them.

[Calderis]

My brain went on a bit of a tangent today, and this is by no means proof of anything, but I've personally drawn some further conclusions.

I was thinking about the Svrakiss, and well. 

Elantris spoilers. 

Spoiler

Jaddeth is the primary figure of the Derethi religion. And Jaddeth seems to be the Dominion figure in that religion. 

Quote

BrandonColevander

Are [Jaddeth] & [Domi] the Shards Dominion & Devotion?

Peter Ahlstrom

Domi is more Devotion and Jaddeth is more Dominion. But there is some mixing. The shard holders were Aona and Skai.

source

Quote

Questioner

[Does] the expansion of Jaddeth’s empire have more to do with greed and hunger for power, or the innate nature of Dominion?

Brandon Sanderson

Both. I would say both. The innate nature of Dominion probably caused the greed and hunger for power.

Questioner

What would you say percentage-wise?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, one caused the other. It definitely started with Dominion. The Skaze are pretty thirsty for power.

source

Even if Jaddeth is a mix, the Skaze are splinters of Dominion just like the Seons are splinters of Devotion and they are heavily involved in Fjordell politics. 

So why then, are the Svrakiss associated with Dominion, when they are the enemies of Jaddeth. 

Quote

“Not blasphemy, Arteth. Doctrine. There is another supernatural force besides our God.”
“The Svrakiss,” Dilaf said quietly.
“Yes.” Svrakiss. The souls of the dead men who hated Jaddeth, the opponents to all that was holy. According to Shu-Dereth, there was nothing more bitter than a soul who had had its chance and thrown it away.

 

So... Whether Trell is Autonomy or Odium, the the Svrakiss could well be something that was used before against Dominion. 

After having this little tangent of thought, I decided to look up WoBs about Svrakiss, and came across this one. 

Quote

Questioner

Miles Hundredlives, is he possessed by a svrakiss from Elantris?

Brandon Sanderson

*long pause* That's a RAFO, you are onto something... I wouldn't say possessed, but influenced by something is definitely a possibility. You are not 100% on.

source

Like I said... Nothing definitive. But it's enough for me to believe that the similarities between Svrakiss and the Set's Immortals are not coincidence. 

All things considered, I personally think I'm more fully on the "Autonomy helped Odium" train. 

And coincidentally, while talking about Cosmere Evils, this is my 6,666th post. 

[MountainKing]

Have you discovered Trell's faceless Immortals? since they are the souls of the "dead" do you think they are cognitive entries or spiritual entities, I want spiritual entities because the closest we have to spiritual entities are shadowblazes and we don't know much about them and how much Brandon has changed them after removing them from the Cosmere

[Calderis]

@MountainKing I'm thinking Cognitive.

I don't think there are many purely or primarily Spiritual beings in the Cosmere at all. If those things were forced into the Physical, I think they'd communicate.... With a lot of difficult. 

Forcing a being that lives without linear time or three dimensional space T function in our world would be all kinds of problematic. 

[Fanghur Rahl]

The problem with suggesting that it’s Autonomy in my opinion is that nothing about her Shard’s nature would seem to suggest that she would be one of the evil Shards; if anything it would seem to suggest that she would be the equivalent of a freedom fighter or something like that (or at worst, the Ayn Rand of the Shards). I don’t really see how a Shard whose nature is to value and embody freedom and individuality could justify attacking planets; it just doesn’t seem consistent with its nature at all.

 

Personally, I suspect that Sanderson is probably setting Autonomy up as a red herring and the true threat is from some other as-yet unknown Shard, perhaps Envy or Chaos. But that’s just my personal opinion.