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This has spoilers for Rhythm of War, Hero of Ages, and late Mistborn Era 2. (and possibly minor Elantris spoilers.) If you haven't read them yet, proceed at your own risk. This is a question that I've wanted to ask Brandon Sanderson for a while. But now I have an account on the Shard, so I can ask all of you and see what you think about it. At the end of Hero of Ages, we see that Sazed takes up both Ruin and Preservation and forms a new shard, Harmony. All the investiture of both Ruin and Preservation becomes part of this new shard, and so the investiture of those shards is now instead keyed toward Harmony. We see that Harmony also has a new god metal, Harmonium. Here's a WoB, however, that I find interesting for this theory. So we see that the fundamental aspect of the investiture has changed, so that the solidified form of Harmony's investiture is physically more than just a mixture of the solidified investiture of Ruin and Preservation. Now I want to talk about Rhythm of War. In RoW, Navani conducted experiments that led her to discover Warlight, which was a fusion of Honor's and Odium's investiture, and Towerlight, which is a fusion of Honor's and Cultivation's. (I think it's also implied that there's a fusion of Odium's and Cultivation's investiture.) When we take this into account with what happened with Ruin and Preservation at the end of HoA, it makes me wonder: If, in some crazy hypothetical scenario, Honor were to fuse with Odium in the way Ruin did with Preservation, would the resulting shard's investiture be Warlight? Likewise, if Honor fused with Cultivation, would the resulting shard's investiture be Towerlight? Or is it more complicated than that? If Navani were to take the gaseous investiture of Ruin and Preservation, and perform with them the same experiments she did with Stormlight and Voidlight, would the fusion of those investitures make Harmony's investiture? Likewise, if that new fused investiture were solidified (I don't know how you'd do that), would the resulting metal be Harmonium? There's also another example of the possible fusion of Shardic investiture (Is that a real term, or did I make it up?). The Dor. The Dor is a somewhat...unconventional fusion of the investitures of Dominion and Devotion. (Not that any fusion of Shards is conventional.) If we had Navani take Dominion and Devotion's gaseous investiture and fuse them, would the resulting investiture be a little piece of the Dor? Or is the unstable and chaotic nature of the Dor different than two shards being held by one vessel? So, basically, this theory is just wondering if the fusion of investiture from different Shards provides a glimpse of the investiture that would be created if the Shards were fused. If this idea turns out to be correct, it kind of opens up the ultimate Cosmere mix-and-match of Shardic investiture, with the potential for way more types of Lights and God Metals than we ever expected. Tell me what you think! Is this crazy, or does it actually make some sense?

EDIT: THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED! Read below the line for the initial theory (which is pretty much basically what Peter says, though I also speculate on what the true power might be). (0.) TL;DR I believe that the "atium" we know in Mistborn Era 1 is actually an alloy of Ruin's true godmetal and electrum, as it potentially provides an answer to multiple oddities with the metal (though this does raise several questions of its own). I further speculate that the abilities of Ruin's pure metal may relate to transcending the Realms, and could perhaps be used in some manner to allow properly transitioning (the former part with more evidence than the latter, which is entirely a guess on my part). (This theory has been proposed before, I'm aware, but I feel that the threads I have found on it don't really delve into all of the evidence for it, and in some cases predate certain things such as the Hemalurgic table and several WoBs that I believe provide further evidence. So I'm fine resurrecting the debate.) (Also, as always, this is probably kind of roughly-written because I wrote it in fits and starts over several days and was too lazy for more than a cursory proofread. So let me know if anything is inconsistent or confusing.) (1.) What's odd about atium? (2.) That raises some new questions... (3.) What does Ruin's pure metal do, then? (I.) References

There's not a lot to this theory beyond speculation, but I was watching the Shardcast where they go over the Word of Brandon that states that Nightblood is related to Ruin in a "non-trivial way". That got me thinking about the way Nightblood's frenzies are written - they really remind me of the scenes where Ruin is enraged/showing his true self in HoA and Secret History. Bearing in mind the fact that the Five Scholars were Worldhoppers who at the very least travelled to Roshar, I think its reasonable to assume they visited Scadrial too (I believe there's a WoB about interplanetary travel occurring on Scadrial at least as far back as the Lord Ruler's time). We also know that they got the inspiration for Nightblood from observing Shardblades on Roshar in their travels. As scholars, I imagine they did a thorough examination of the Blades and were probably aware that they were all alloys of godmetals (Cultivation's + Honor's). So when they went off to create their own via Awakening, they may have used ordinary steel - but they might also have tried to use something more powerful (and similar in composition to the weapons they were trying to emulate). Now imagine they're on their way back from Roshar and already thinking about how to make their own Shardblade. Unfortunately, godmetals aren't generally that common or accessible (in that state) on most planets in the cosmere. An exception to this, at least in the era when the Five Scholars were travelling together, is Scadrial. In fact, the perpendicularity to Scadrial at the time was the Pits of Hathsin, which just so happens to be filled with Ruin's godmetal. As well as being relatively easily accessible, there may have been (perceived) mechanical advantages to choosing Ruin's specific godmetal too. Since they intended to create a Blade to "Destroy evil", which better metal to use than the one made from the Shard whose Intent is as destructive as it gets. It might have seemed like a clever way to harness Ruin's destructive potential for good (which obviously didn't go quite as planned). There may be more properties specific to atium that were beneficial - perhaps it's relation to Fortune/Connection helps with luring in those with evil/detecting evil. One immediate issue I observed with this theory was the act of Awakening itself - we don't know if its possible to Awaken a godmetal but the rule of thumb has been that highly Invested objects resist cosmere magic - be it Surgebinding or Awakening. Given that atium is literally solid Ruin Investiture it would probably be extremely resistant. While its possible that they didn't use pure atium - they could have made an alloy of it and ordinary metal or something of the sort - there is a WoB that offers an alternative explanation. We know that Endowment herself had a direct hand in the creation of Nightblood. I'm not sure of the exact words, but I believe she assisted the Scholars without their knowledge for her own purposes. Until now, I had assumed this was just because Awakening steel/creating a weapon that powerful was beyond the Five Scholars, but maybe the real obstacle was in Awakening a godmetal. If this is true, then endowing a blade of atium with enough Breaths to Awaken it would essentially make the Blade an alloy of Ruin + Endowment's Investiture, much as Shardblade's are alloys of Cultivation + Honor's.

Okay, I swear I have heard that Brandon was going to change the rules of Atium for the Mistborn films to make it so any Scadrian can use it because of its nature as a godmetal. Does anyone know what WoB or source this could have come from, or have I just gone mad and made my friend panic for no reason?

Past WoBs have confirmed that ettmetal, Harmony's godmetal, is distinct from an alloy of atium and lerasium. So I've been wondering for a while if creating harmonium was possible prior to the catascendre, when ruin and preservation were still distinct entities. Could Ati and Leras have worked together to create it? Now, we have potentially new info on the topic: Warlight and Tower light. Obviously, this is gaseous investiture but it seems safe to assume that what was done to them could be done to the godmetals, in some fashion. Possibly through different means, but I feel very safe in assuming that something could be done to create a godmetal equivalent of Warlight and Towerlight. The question is, what was done to them? Is this closer to an alloy, or is it closer to ettmetal? If it's the latter, then that would imply that yes, ettmetal could have been created prior to harmony. But if it's closer to being like the alloy, then the question is still up in the air

After RoW I've been thinking of the uses Anti-Invesiture can have not only in Stormlight, but in the Cosmere as a whole. I started thinking about Scadrial and Ettmetal. We have a WoB that says that both Atium and Lerasium can be extracted from Ettmetal I'm guessing that those "not normal, mechanical means" are the use of Anti-Investiture. We know that Anti-Investiture repels normal Investiture. So maybe if they can get Ettmetal to a level where it isn't as reactive as it is normally, you could separate Ruin's and Preservation's Investiture aka Atium and Lerasium. What we know about this process is that it can't be done on solid Ettmetal (since they use Raysium to conduct Anti-Voidlight in RoW) so maybe in a liquid state —which is possible since Malatium could be created from Atium— there could be a way to use either Ruin's or Preservation's Anti-Tone to separate their individual Investitures. If there's a way to create undiluted Mistborn (and possibly Full Feruchemists with an alloy of Lerasium) that could give Scadrial a lot of power and there could possibly be a Lerasium and Atium trade.

I was recently introduced to the Cosmere by my brother and I started reading Mistborn. Right now I am reading the Well of Ascension, and something doesn't make sense. Vin and Elend can't find the atium stash anywhere in the city, but it has to be nearby, right? I just got to the part where Dockson tells Vin that kandra are expensive, the only payment they accept is atium. Do the kandra have all the atium? Everyone wants kandra as servants, so if everyone was paying them atium but no more atium was being created, then they would have it all. Am I crazy?

We know that lerasium's alloys created various types of mistings, we also know that lerasium's alloys gave various enhancement and physical effects. We know that atium's alloys gave various mental and temporal effects. This brings me to two theories. Theory 1: Ettmetal's alloys would all give a physical, mental, temporal and enhancement effect (due to it (in a way, not exactly) being a combination of atium and lerasium). Theory 2: Trellium and Trellium's alloys (because Trellium is a God Metal) would have their own quadrants dedicated to them, these could not be one of the four quadrants we know because Ettmetal has effects of those quadrants. This means there is (mostly likely 2) quadrants of allomancy, feruchemy, and hemalurgy that are used in the same manner as the metallic arts but are actually just Trell's investiture on Scadrial. These would be separated from the other 16 metals and would be considered their own...thing.

Atium let’s whoever is burning it see into the future. Steel compounding allows you to move at unimaginable speeds. Let’s say that a steel compounder saves up steel for years, hiding in his home. A Mistborn saves up atium for years. At the end of x amount of years, they both have a seemingly infinite amount of either speed or atium. (Technically a compounder doesn’t need to save up much speed, but for the scenario we will say they do. We are also going to assume that the Mistborn doesn’t have access to any of the other metals, just atium) I think that the steel compounder would beat the atium burner. Even if you can see into the future, that doesn’t matter if your enemy can move faster than you can react. Thoughts?

Okay, I just need to see if I'm the only one who had this thought or knows why I have this thought. For some reason, during my reading of Mistborn Era 1, in my head, I started seeing Atium as orange rather than silver. This ended up carrying to when I thought of Ruin, orange was always in the back of my mind. And the odd thing is, I think I saw Atium is silver at first, then something changed that image in my head and I don't know what or why. Am I the only one? Has anyone else fallen to this or something similar, or is it just me?

Well, here I am again. Really hope this isn't annoying for any of you. So, I was looking around to see if anyone asked if an Allomacer can push or pull a Shardblade, and of course, I could not find a thread, and the Coppermind doesn't mention it as far as I'm aware. So I was about to assume that they can't be pulled or pushed similarly to metalminds. They have a hard time pushing or pulling something that's invested, and surly the blades count, being god metals of Honor, Cultivation, or a mixture of both. Then, I remembered that Atium is a god metal and there are plenty of examples of them being pulled or pushed. So it doesn't seem like being a god metal immediately disqualifies from being able to be pulled or pushed. So would Allomancers be able to push on Shardblades? And a little bonus question I thought while typing this, are god metals considered invested? Because the reason metalminds are hard to push is because of the investiture stored in them, and Atium does not appear to be resistant to pulls or pushes. So are god metals not technically invested? EDIT: Okay, so the answer for the above questions by Brandon Sanderson himself is no, it's very difficult to push or pull god metals and they are basically pure Investure (read threads below). HOWEVER, this brought up a different question/theory about the nature of Atium, which is a God metal that can be pushed and pulled with relative ease, which contradicts what Bradon Sanderson said about Godmetals. My first reaction was that it was made fairly early on and Brandon Sanderson didn't have certain things figured out, so we should ignore Atium/ consider it an outlier when figuring out the properties of god metals. But then I remembered that Atium was Brandon Sanderson's way of introducing Fortune to the Cosmere, and that in the Feruchemy table, Investure and Fortune are considered separate, so rather than being pure Investure, is Atium pure Fortune and that's why it's properties don't follow with other god metals? (Another note, if it is Fortune, it may have been a purposeful play by Preservation to limit Ruin's foresight, which may be a big factor in his plan, as Ruin's foresight has been accepted as not as good as other Shards like Cultivation, Preservation, and maybe Endowment.)

I wrote this before I saw the thread on atium+electrum which is related to what I am saying here, but this goes a bit deeper. Note: None of this stuff is backed up by any WoBs, this is just straight from my head I have recently been thinking about the relationships between the 4 temporal allomantic metals and atium, so I thought I would put all these ideas in my head onto paper in essay form. Most of these ideas and theories originated from that fact that Ruins god metal happened to be time-related. It makes sense why the pre-catacendre allomancers wouldn't have made the connection that atium didn’t fit into the nice 4 groups of 2 groups of 2 that they have discovered in era 2. (I guess they didn’t have that whole diagram, so it makes sense that they wouldn’t have known it.) Basically the point I am trying to get to is that bendalloy and cadmium are the right and proper counterparts of gold and electrum because it makes more sense based on the relationships between other allomantic metals, and atium has certain properties that make it stand out from the other metals. First, using the relationships between other metals as analogies. If one just looked at the enhancement section of the allomantic table you might think that atium fits right in with gold. Aluminum leeches your own metals, and chromium leeches the metals of others. Electrum shows the future of yourself, and atium shows the future of others. This seems like a fair analogy until you look at the rest of the table where we see a more widely applicable pattern. The pattern is that internal metals affect only you, and external metals directly change something in the world around you. Pewter only directly affects you, while steel can directly change the outside world. Bronze gives you information, while zinc can change another’s emotions. That is the problem with atium. It does not directly affect the world around you, it only gives you more information. Bendalloy and cadmium do affect the world around even if they don’t make as nice of a pair as aluminum and chromium, but these are really the only ones that do. Lastly, atium needs to be a god metal because of its special properties. Most obviously is the way it grows. Since when did metals grow in geodes? Even if most Final Empire scandrians didn’t know about the perpendicularity (most of them didn’t know about what the pits were for either) they still could determine that something was seriously wrong with the way that the metal developed. The next reason is probably wrong, so someone please correct me, but I think that seeing the future is a property of the spiritual realm, and therefore burning atium to see the near future implies a stronger connection to the spiritual realm than what a normal metal could give you. Therefore atium is a god-metal, and god-metals don’t fit into the allomantic table. So to conclude atium is not one of the temporal metals (we already knew this, but these are just more reasons why), because it should be an external metal but doesn’t affect anything externaly, and second it does things that only a god metal can do. Thanks for reading my rambling thoughts, I just thought I would get this out here. I would also appreciate it if people could find WoBs to either support, or disprove any of the things I said.

Okay, so as most people will hopefully be aware by now, there isn't exactly a lot of atium or lerasium left over from the time of the Final Empire, as of Bands of Mourning. The Pits have not been producing atium due to an unfortunate terrorist attack involving one of the retired miners, and Leras was always a bit of a Scrooge when it came to lerasium. Since then, Harmony hasn't seemed to want to make more, though Brandon's naturally being coy about the why of that. However, I'd like to make the case that atium and lerasium will both return for Era 3 and beyond, if not in The Lost Metal itself, and that if not, it would be better if they did. There are three primary strands to this: one in-world, one from an authorial perspective, and one from a reader perspective. That is to say: it suits Harmony's goals, it's a case of Chekhov's Gun, and it would be really cool. --- From an in-world perspective, there are good reasons to think that Harmony might wish to return to production of atium and lerasium in some capacity. As a Shard, he takes a much more active role in the management of his Shardworld than most other shards, with obvious exceptions being the three musketeers over on Roshar. The old Scadrian god metals offer unparalleled utility in creating strong tools for him to make use of, especially if he wants Marsh to stick around. Marsh will run out of atium eventually, and a chap with dozens of hemalurgic spikes and centuries of knowledge is a very useful tool indeed. It might also be desirable for Harmony to have other full Mistborn running around, as Atium shadows in an era of guns become actually insane in terms of utility, especially when no one knows that atium exists nor how to counter it. Even if they did, Electrum mistings are not typical combat Allomancers. If Harmony wants atium, then he must also have lerasium, because Atium Seers are no longer born. However, this still assumes that he would create atium, but keep it from the wider populace. Harmony may also wish to allow atium and lerasium into the wider Scadrian ecosystem, even if only in very limited quantities. Harmony seems disappointed in how little his people have innovated since the Catacendre; if the converse of this is true, and Harmony wishes for Scadrial to develop, grow, and change, then he may wish to provide them with more "toys", so to speak: atium and lerasium are incredibly potent god metals, and the potential for their use is almost limitless. Remember, they can be alloyed with every other Allomantic metal: for all of the possibilities of 16 metals interacting across 3 Metallic Arts, now you have 48. --- From an authorial perspective, consider this: we still have many questions relating to the god metals which are unanswered and RAFOed. Some of these, Brandon does not want to answer because they relate to wider Cosmere things, which he either doesn't want to spoil, or hasn't pinned down yet. However, many of them do not. These two in particular stand out: If lerasium and atium were never going to feature again on Scadrial, there would be no good reason not to answer these two questions: they both directly imply that the answers will be relevant to some forthcoming book. Therefore, I propose that Brandon does still plan for one or both of them to return to Scadrial, or at least that he has not ruled out doing so. Atium would be the most likely, as it is "less potent", but as mentioned in the previous section, much of the utility of atium relies upon full Mistborn and full Feruchemists, which means probably lerasium. (yes atium spikes are an option, but it's also the most boring option). --- Finally, let your own imagination run wild. It's crazy to ask that on a forum about fan theories, I know, but bear with me here. Atium and lerasium have incredible potential within the world of Mistborn — indeed in other worlds, now that we know that there are worldhopping Mistborn — so it would be such a tragedy if we never get to see them get used to their fullest. Picture a cyberpunk Scadrial where criminals on death row are executed by being spiked with Lerasium or Atium spikes, which allow for incredible fusions of technology and magic in new and diverse Hemalurgic constructs; you thought social media was bad? Just wait for an AI super intelligence which can use emotional Allomancy. Harmony is able to equip his kandra agents with a myriad of different Blessings, especially chosen for the given mission and individual — alloys of atium or of lerasium, each providing esoteric and much more specialised abilities than the traditional four. Picture a Cosmere-aware Scadrial, where promises of just a few lerasium beads can buy the alliance of an entire planet. Deeper understanding of lerasium and allomancy in its purest form has allowed for artificial Seers to return through the use of metalminds like those of the Southern Scadrians. Public speakers, assassins, bomb disposal teams, professional footballers — everyone in a high pressure environment wants to know the future, and now you can, for a price. Picture Harmony, actually having a good retirement plan for his agents. "Look Wax, I know I've been dragging you through the mud for the last... uh... well most of your life to be honest, but once we're done here I'll give you everything you need to live in peace and I'll never bother you again. Shardic pinkie promise." Picture Twinborn, but they aren't just Metalborn Twinborn. They're Returned Oracles, Windrunner Coinshots and Lurchers, Edgedancer Sliders (speedbubbles).... The resonances which make Surgebinding such an interesting magic system are suddenly being considered across the entire Cosmere. Picture a secret society, selectively breeding humans so that they can train full Mistborn from birth in the use of multiple magic systems; the love child of the Envisagers and the Set. Hell, I can't even picture it, but just think about what Lerasium and its alloys, or Atium's alloys, might do as Feruchemical metalminds or Hemalurgic spikes. Would you finally be able to get lossless Hemalurgy? Metalminds for pure investiture in the different magic systems? --- If you made it this far, well you've got more patience than me.

So are there any seers left or did Harmony cut them off at the catachendre ? What about ferrings ? Are there any alive who could potentially store youthfulness ? P.S : What would the name of these ferrings be in local parlence ? Aetas , senex , ?? P.p.s : what about Lerasium ferrings ?

We know burning duralumin with atium will allow Allomancers (specifically mistborn) to see the ultimate effects of their actions, as Eland did at the end of 'The Hero of Ages'. We know the Lord Ruler had plenty of access to both of these metals and knew their specific effects. And also ruled for a thousand years, which is plenty of time to experiment with all sorts of allomancy (as well as Hemalurgy and Feruchemy) I cannot see any reason why he would not want to try out burning both, or at the very least making another mistborn try it out to see the effects? But I have not seen any mention in the texts of whether that he did try it out or not, or if there was any particular reason he did not want to try it out. If he did use both together though, the consequences for the plot would be weird; he would have known that he would eventually be killed by Vin and exactly what followed in the next two books. Did he follow it through knowing where it would lead maybe? It just seems like an interesting scenario and poses many questions regardless. Was wondering if there is information I've not read yet (has Brandon Sanderson mentioned anything) or general thoughts about it.

So I just thought of something! For atium, you steal one ability hemalurgically, and with lerasium, you steal all of the abilities! This is like the allomancy/ Feruchemy thing! You can only have one or all but what makes this better is that there is one way for you to have two abilities: if you are a twinborn. so what if harmonium hemalurgically steals one of each ability from a magic system! one from Feruchemy, one for allomancy, one for surgebinding, and so on! i feel like this has some merit and I’m losing my spheres/marbles!

I saw this in the coppermind while researching Ferachemy . I know the coppermind is not canon . So I’m asking as an opinion of what you guys thought . I know IRL people use chemistry and Alchemy to make alloy of metals and superarte metals . Could it be possible to get Harmonium and superate it into its two base metals . I’m Assuming Harmonium is theoretically an Allow of Atium and Lerasium . If so this is something the set would greatly abuse. One of my favorite quotes as a child was “ A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”

Ok so we know Ruin was able to talk to rashek , eventually driving him insane. But how exactly ? An obvious explaination would be hemalurgy. But I doubt tlr was that stupid. He knew exactly what hemalurgy could lead to. So could it be he was slightly insane . I mean when he first ascended he did a lot of mistakes resulting in probably millions of death. Not to mention he had to turn his entire feruchemist brethren including his friends and family into mush. Then I guess he had a rough couple of centuries. What with all the rebellions and the unsuccessful attempts at his life and the successful ones at his lovers and children. ( I heard he had atleast one kid named Lutha, after whom luthadel was named ) I guess it would drive anyone bonkers. But my favourite theory is that it was the atium bracers . Not only did he burn atium but also had the bracers piercing his skin and while they weren't hemalurgically charged , they were Ruin's physical essence. So I guess him having to rely on atium compounding 24*7 meant he had a direct connection to Ruin all the time ? Or could it be that ruin hated him and concentrated his efforts on him enough to speak him even without any holes in his spiritweb ? Or is it a combination of all these factors , except hemalurgy , that's just stupid. Then there's the fact that rashek ascended and unlike Vin he allowed the power of preservation to channel through him. That should have made him atleast a bit immune to ruin , right ? Do we have any WoBs on this ?

So we know that Atium can be alloyed with any of the 16 basic allomantic metals. IIRC Brandon has said that these will give you various temporal powers. We know that pure Atium will give you future sight for other people. We know that malatium will allow you to view someone else's past (shadow). what do you think the other alloys of Atium do. My theory is since Cadmium and Bendalloy shift space and time around you then its Atium alloy should shift you through space and time namely teleport you, either into the cognative realm or through the spiritual realm.

Can atium future-sight be used to determine Hemalurgic bind points? The atium can be used to determine the effects of future actions in a very short window, so could you use this to find bind points, even if you didn't know what it would end up doing?

On Roshar, the people believe seeing the future is evil. The few instances we've seen of foresight are associated with Odium. At a recent signing, Brandon said this: I find the bolded part where he trails off to be amazingly fascinating. Given the rest of the conversation, I propose that seeing the future is dangerous because of the following possibilities: 1. It draws the attention of the Shard (or its agents as explained below) that is powering the foresight. 2. It is heavily influenced by the intent or motives of the Shard that's powering it. 3. It's an ability granted by the Shard on purpose in order to manipulate events toward a future that the Shard (or its agents) desires. 4. It aligns you to the intent or motives of the Shard. This can be short-term (see atium below) or long-term. Repeated uses may cause a more lasting efect. 5. There's also the always-present conundrum of trying to change the future after you've seen it. Without context, you have no idea if changing your actions will cause that future or if not changing your actions will cause that future. The true answer could be any of the above, none of the above, or some combination of the options I've given. In order to evaluate possibilities, I've discussed the instances we've seen of people seeing the future, either as a summary, or as specific text, or links. Atium: We know how atium fuels Allomancy. It lets you see a few moments into the future. It also increases your mental and physical capabilities in order to take advantage of that knowledge. Sazed speculates in one of the HoA epigraphs that This appears to correlate to possibility 4--That seeing the future via atium temporarily aligned a person toward Ruin, the essence of entropy toward destruction. It might also explain why, after using atium as a metal mind and burning it for so long, TLR had such Ruinous impulses--mass slaughters, willingness to let the nobility destroy each other, etc, etc. After a thousand years of compounding atium, it's likely that he was very Connected to Ruin. It might also tie into possibility 3, assuming the possibility of Ruin wanting Rashek to become such a despot that he's overthrown just as the Well is about to fill, opening the way for Vin to take and release the power. Endowment: Endowment appears to be able to see some of the future, and sometimes her Splinters, the Returned, can pick up on this as well. We see this in Warbreaker, when Lightsong has his dreams and visions of T'Telir burning. She appears to send her Returned back in order to do a specific task (or set of tasks) based on what she sees, giving rise to possibility 3. Endowment apparently wanted the Hallandren and Idrians to persist, and sent back some of her Returned to help prevent the coming destruction. She probably has multiple contingency plans for if one of them dies before his or her task is accomplished. Wyrn: In the Elantris Annotations Brandon says: And Given that the Seons are Splinters of Devotion, (Love) and the Skaze are Splinters of Dominion, it seems like the Skaze are manipulating Wyrn in order to achieve their goals (Goals hinted at in the new epilogue in the 10th Anniversary Edition of Elantris) , tying back to possibility 3. Devotion and Dominion are both splintered, but the Skaze may retain enough of Dominion's intent to want to have complete dominion over the world (or maybe re-assemble Dominion?). And we come to the Stormlight Archive! We have more examples of foresight in SA than we have in any other book. There are three primary examples of it: Moelach: On the bridge between life and death, Moelach grants visions of the future, that the person utters in a cryptic and strange way, a phenomenon coined as Death Rattle. We don't really understand much about how this works, but the Death Rattles have been startlingly accurate, if incredibly obscure, so far. However. Moelach is a Splinter of Odium (along with the other Unmade). The Death Rattles we've seen so far all seem to be related either to the conflict between Odium and most of Roshar, or related to the people that are in that struggle. I have no absolute proof of this, but it's not a wild assumption (imo) to think that Odium, via Moelach, is using the Death Rattles to affect people's behavior. I realize this is putting conclusion before evidence, but I feel that it's a credible conclusion. Moelach is one of the mindless Unmade, as far as we know, so he's unlikely to have motives of his own. As a Splinter of Odium, Odium must have created him for a reason. We know Odium has a pretty good grasp of possible futures. Creating an Unmade to give people glimpses of the future (in a rather morbid way) to get them serving his purposes isn't beyond the realm of possibility. Renarin: We know very little about how Renarin's abilities work, and what types of things he can see, or how they will affect events. We know that his spren, Glys, is a Truthwatcher spren corrupted by Sja-Anat, another Splinter of Odium, and that Glys is likely what grants Renarin the ability to see the future. Renarin has seen Jasnah killing him. This would end him as a Radiant and as a Kholin. I confess, I am unsure what purpose his death would serve in Odium's cause. However, Renarin also saw Dalinar turning into Odium's champion. This would obviously be quite a desirable outcome for Odium. Given that Renarin has done a few things in order to try and warn about or prevent the things he sees, did he, consciously, or subconsciously, take actions that helped to bring that set of events into reality? We don't know yet what effects this might have, so I'm unsure which of the above categories this could fit into. The Diagram: Taravangian believes that he wrong the Diagram out of pure human capability and insight, rather than foresight. However, according to this WoB: As we know, in the Spiritual Realm, all times and places are essentially one. Seeing into the future in all other instances has been seeing into the Spiritual Realm. If Taravangian was closer to the Spiritual Realm than the Cognitive Realm, then he's likely incorporating at least some parts of what he sees in the Spiritual Realm into the Diagram. What we've seen him do so far has seemed to align him toward Odium's desires and motives. However, he was granted this ability by Cultivation, who is at odds with Odium. There was a lively discussion in this thread about the Diagram being a plant (pun intended) put in place by Cultivation. That T's actions, although they seem at odds with Dalinar+co, actually are meant to help them; and that T himself is unaware of this. As you can tell, I subscribe to this theory myself. This would fit in with possibilities 2, 3 and 4 above. Cultivation seems very crafty and careful, playing the long game with Dalinar, with Lift, and probably with T. And finally, we have Hoid. He has an ability to know where he needs to be at any given time. We don't really know most of his motives, so there's no way to determine what "where he needs to be" means, exactly. We're also very unsure as to how he knows to be in those places. We do know he uses something similar to Chromium Feruchemy in order to tap Fortune, but possibly isn't Feruchemy itself. We don't know what Shard he draws on, what intent that Shard might have, or if it's even a Shard at all. If someone can manage to tap directly into the Spiritual Realm without intervention from a Shard, it seems like Hoid would be the one. I'm also sure he's self-aware enough to know when/if he's being manipulated by whatever power he's using. So in short, I have no conclusions to draw about Hoid's abilities, other than a reiteration of his own speech to Shallan: There's always the risk, in seeing the future, of bringing about the exact consequence you want to prevent. That might be the simple answer to this entire question. Won't my face be red if it is! So, there is my long winded theory about the dangers of seeing the future. Please feel free to add to it or rip it to pieces, and thanks for reading!

Hi guys, I was just thinking about this upon rereading parts of Hero of Ages for a paper I'm writing, but how would Ruin have gotten the atium? Like, was it only his ignorance of where it was that kept it from just taking it into himself once he was freed, and once he found out where it was, was it just Vin's power as Preservation preventing him from doing anything active reflexively that did it? If so, what was the point of the Kolos even attacking for it. The world would have ended anyway, it would just have taken a few months for people to starve, if Vin hadn't killed ruin and Sazed had taken up both powers. Would the Kolos or Kandra under ruin's control taking control of Atium actually have done anything more as long as Vin was preservation? Were the pits protected from Ruin somehow that as long at the atium was in them, Ruin couldn't just like, absorb it into himself? What's going on here?

This is really something that just came up in my mind, but I thought I'd share it here, even though it's likely been asked before. How I think that atium functions is that it lets a person see someone else's relative spiritual aspect, or something along those line, as I don't have proper terminology to explain it how I wish. Anyway, as we know, Szeth died near the end of Words of Radiance, but was subsequently resurrected by Nin-son-God. However, his soul didn't reattach properly, and so lagged behind his body when he moved, especially quickly. This raises the question; would the atium shadow track his physical body, or his soul which is lagging? And if it tracked his soul, would that mean that he'd be largely able to cancel out the effects of atium foresight?

Ok so I am working with a high school honors bio level of understanding so if this is completely off please let me know. So regarding the difference between Feruchemical gold and atium: the gold stores health (the body’s ability to be totally put together, and the ability to return to said put-togetherness after sustaining damage) and atium stores youth (the body’s ability to recognize what it is supposed to be) In biology some years ago, I learned that we have built in safeguards against cell mutations called telomeres. These telomeres basically prevent a cell from multiplying an obscene number of times. While obviously this is not something that works as intended perfectly (we still lose far too many people to cancer) the idea brought up an interesting thought. Bloodmakers can grow skin when they sustain damage; but where do those cells come from? If they are multiplying from cells already in the body then would someone who uses bloodmaker abilities repeatedly eventually run out of telomere length? The only answer that seems to make sense to me is that if one could increase their youth then that would probably allow them to have extended telomeres. if you know more about biology than me please inform me, and if you know more about the cosmere than me please inform me as well! Thanks!