SteveD

Brandon says you ‘could’ find a way to split it however; doesn’t that imply that it isn’t an element (since that’s the definition of what an element is?).

From the Houston Skyward signing we have the following question and answer; Someone on the Coppermind has interpreted that as follows; Is that actually what Brandon said? It's possible to make Atium and Lerasium from Harmonium? If so, that might have fairly big implications for 'The Lost Metal', but it seems more that Brandon was trying to explain before being interrupted, that Harmonium wasn't connected to lerasium and atium in that way, that combining them doesn't make Harmonium, and splitting Harmonium doesn't make lerasium and atium. But...if its possible to split Harmonium, what does it make? That suggests that it's made of other things you can reduce it down too, and therefore maybe lerasium and atium have components too?

I agree, but I think because it's never been clarified, it might also be possible that burning God-metals simply follow different rules to world-metals? Isn't using Atium as an Allomantic metal in some way the same as combining investitures, as happens on Roshar? In that case, maybe weird things are to be expected. Preservation may also have designed Allomancy with the intent that Atium would always be a burnable metal, regardless of quality, due to the importance of that in his overall plan for the survival of life on Sel. Does the metal come directly from part of Ruin leaking from the spiritual realm? I know there used to be a perpendicularity there (belonging to Ruin?), but there is also something in the Alendi log of a black metallic lake, and I'd thought that was meant to have been relocate by Rashek into pools below the pits, where Atium is squeezed up and forms inside the geodes.

I see what you mean, but wouldn’t you call a metal straight from the ground an ore, rather then an alloy? My materials chemistry was never that good, but an alloy seems to suggest specific metals mixed at specific quantities; raw metals you’ve dug up are mixed with all kinds of different stuff in all manner of quantities. One thing that seemed odd about atium in ‘THoA’ is that it gets dug up then taken immediately to lutherdel but (I think) then most of it gets diverted back to the Kandra homeland in secret. Then this store gets burned away by the atium mistings without ever being refined or purified, which goes against what we know about the purity requirements of allomancy metals as described in book 1 & 2? So, maybe that’s another feature of atium as a ‘god metal’? And maybe you still need to purify it by refining to get a metal you can alloy with others?

I suspect the answer to the ‘refined atium’ is a bit more boring then everyone is hoping for. Lerasium makes you a Mistborn; alloying Learasium with other metals makes you a misting of that metal. Using atium as a spike might steal all powers, but alloying it might allow you to steal a specific power, but with some small added bonus of like no loss of power in transfer. Maybe you could use it to steal multiples of the same power from different mistings, then grant you compunded power, like Vin’s earring compunded on her existing bronze?

It's never really addressed in the podcast, but did Spensa's great-grandmother defy orders to bring the fleet to detritus, or was she mind-controlled? Maybe that gives a clue to if the planet has some hidden purpose, or was just a carefully selected prison-planet of the Krell. One slightly more crazy theory about Spensa; someone on the podcast suggested that her and her father had some link to the debris field that caused it to open (as they are both Cytonic), but what if that's wrong; what if only Spensa has the power, for some other reason? The debris field opened like that properly the first time she came to the surface? I can't recall if her father had seen it before. Finally...Detritus has massive orbital shipyards, yet the 'aparatus' which can builds fighters is burried under the surface? Maybe they were built there to protect the creation of AI, so maybe there is something ancient lying around that the Defiant's can use.

Perhaps M-Bot is actually one kind of weapon against the eyes. His pilot hid him after crashing on the planet (lay low) but was caught by the eyes on the planets surface.

What is Detritus, and is it alive? I’ve not seen a lot of talk about the planet itself yet, which for me is a bigger part of the mystery about what’s going on. After the climactic battle the ‘debris field’ aligned to give our hero a clear pathway into space, almost if she was being encouraged (or fated) to go up there. She notes that this happening for her, in the same way it did a decade previously for her father, is incredibly unlikely. Does that imply that something was watching, and did it intentionally? In the PC strategy game ‘Endless Legends’, the backstory involves various races competing to escape a dying planet, which is also alive and aware of their plight in a sort of mother-eathy way. It would be cool if Detritus was a mechanical version of this; a vast form of machine intelligence built by humans centuries ago that on some level is also trying to protect them from extinction (this is similar to the dystopian manga ‘Blame!’ in which out-of-control building machines have turned the earth into one giant megastructure, extending out beyond the orbit of the moon). We’re given few clues to what Detritus was. A planet-sized orbital shell of shipyards, defensive planets and habitats, with light-emitting panels mounted below to re-create the solar light blocked by the multiple levels of orbiting platforms. The resources required to build such a facility would be vast, and the work of centuries to complete. An industrial site of this magnitude couldn’t be sustained by the resources of the planet below; it’s more likely to have been the centre of a vast network of systems providing metals and rare elements; a centralised bastion for a galactic empire capable of producing fleets of ships. The timeline of events with the war and the Defiant arriving on Detritus seems left intentionally vague, but it seems that the planet’s infrastructure was built and abandoned long before the war, that M-Bot arrived at some point before or during the war, and that the Defiant arrived towards its end. I’m guessing that humans didn’t build the planet, simply due to the resources involved and time required against the fact that they were already fighting the entire galaxy. I think that M-Bot was sent to scout the planet for useful resources to use in the war effort; that may explain his configuration as a long-range stealth recon fighter. The planet was a known facility built by some long-gone ancient race of aliens, largely avoided due to its automated defences. M-Bot was disabled during the survey and crashed onto the surface. With his self-repair features offline, the pilot decided to go and explore the planet to search for a means of survival (and is never heard of again). Thoughts?

What became of the listeners that fled? Where could they have gone? It can’t have bee long before both storms hit their party; if they were still somewhere on the shattered plains they’d likely have been slaughtered. I think they will prove to be the key that helps Dinar negotiate with the pardhnen. Yasna suggested two stratagems for the war; kill the heralds to lock the fused back on damnation, or kill all parshmen to remove their hosts. Otherwise, Odium can replace any surgebindsers he loses every storm. The alternative is to turn the parshmmen against Odium and remove his willing hosts.

During the final confrontation between Amaram and Dalinar in Othbringer, he refuses to turn back to the good guys because ‘he’d never forgive me’, and confirms that ‘someone’ isn’t Kaladin. Who is it then; the same person as OP is discussing?

There’s a reference during Kaladin’s return to Harthstone I don’t understand; Syl comments that Kal’s parents are ‘just as she remembers’. This confuses him, as he doesn’t meet Syl until he becomes a soldier. She responds with another memory about a person with a musical voice. Whats going on here? Is the bond causing Syl to inherit Kal’s memories, or was she there much earlier then either of them realised?