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According to the Wiki and AOL, we know that the Pathian Symbol is 10 interlocking rings. I have a few questions you kind folks might be able to help me answer: 1. Have we ever seen a representation of this? There are so many ways you could make 10 rings interlock, i have to assume they're in some sazed-specific pattern. 2. Do we know if there's any significance to the number 10 in this case? I know it's associated with roshar specifically, and was quite surprised to find it popping up on Scadrial in such a significant way upon my re-read.

*R.O.W. AND GREATER COSMERE SPOILERS/THEORY* So, in Oathbringer at the battle of Thaylen City, when Dalinar says “I am Unity” and opens Honor’s perpendicularity, Odium responds with “We Killed You!”. The popular theory seems to be that this is evidence of the division growing between the power-Odium- and the man who holds the shard-Rayse. After a 4th reread of Oathbringer and R.O.W., I now believe this to be what we will one day see as an obvious hint that Cultivation helped Odium kill Honor in an effort to one day unite not two shards as harmony has done, but all three of the shards of the Rosharan system and quite possibly begin the reforming of all 16 shards back into Adonalsium. My reasons are as follows; First, why I don’t believe “We Killed You” was talking about Odium/Rayse is discussed in the Mistborn series and Arcanum Unbounded. It’s stated multiple times that the man who took up the shard Ruin, Ati, was very different than the power he took up. Hoid goes as far as to say he was “a kind and generous man” before ascension. We know by the end he was much more the power than the man, as eluded to when kelsier says Ruin “dangles a puppet” towards Vin when he talks to her. This would imply that once the person who ascended loses control of the power it is not a “We” relationship but a complete shift in who controls who. Before they lose control of the power the person who holds the shard never says “We” because they don’t view holding the power as a symbiotic relationship but as an expansion of themself and it seems once the balance of power is tipped in favor of the power itself, the person who ascended loses complete control. Now on to why Cultivation helped kill Honor. When Sja-anat comes to Taravangian, the time he asks her to give him a way to summon Odium at a specific time, she says that perhaps Cultivation has been planning much more subtly than Odium ever suspected. Also stating that Cultivation had touched/changed three people. These people are Lyft, Dalinar, and Taravangian. As of the end of Rhythm of War, we know Taravangian has ascended to the shard Odium, and Dalinar has at-least begun to take up the remnants of the shard Honor. We know Lyft was altered to run her surge-binding on Life-Light, theoretically making her have a stronger connection to the power of cultivation than any other person on Roshar. At the end of that book we also see Cultivation come to T-Odium saying that there is much they need to discuss. Prior to to Taravangian’s ascension we hear Odium say to Dalinar, when agreeing to the contest of champions, that Cultivation would kill him if he broke his oaths, implying she already has or had the intent to kill a shard. The reason I believe she intends to unite the shards is two part. One part is a simple word drop. After Taravangian becomes Odium, Cultivation says that she believed he could “hold the shard of Odium with ‘honor’”. The other is slightly more esoteric. What have we seen so far of different unshattered shards and their intent and how it relates to the aspect of adonalsium they embody? To my knowledge, they coincide rather directly. Preservation? Preserve at all cost. Ruin? Entropy at all cost. So why would Cultivation seek to kill anything? Well I think it’s obvious. She told us exactly what she’s doing. The same thing she did to Dalinar. She’s not killing, she pruning. She helped shatter Honors power because it was her dandelion. She blew on the flower and flung seeds of Honor’s power across Roshar because she knew that neither she nor Honor could defeat Odium. But if he could be delayed, the powers transferred into imperfect vessel, Dalinar with his ties to Odium while trying to hold Honors power, Taravangian holding Odium’s Shard with his ties to Cultivation. And Lyft. A radiant-Honor-, who runs on LifeLight-Cultivation, and I believe Stormlight 5 will bring us Odium’s attempted corruption of Lyft, beginning with Moash/Burr’s murder of her fellow edgedancer at the end of R.O.W. and possibly concluding with the death of Gawx, The Prime, in the next book. Big theory with wild swings I know, but let me know if you guys know anything that directly contradicts any of this

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?

Hi everyone, I'm new here and so I apologize if his has already been discussed to death (I didn't find threads in a search, but there are a lot so I could easily have missed some). But I've long wondered if Harmony is right when he describes the connections of Metallic Arts to Ruin, Preservation, and an interaction between them. His connection of Hemalurgy to Ruin seems clear enough: you have to kill a person to use it, and the amount of power in the resulting spike is less than the victim had. Ruinous. But Feruchemy always seemed more like Preservation to me than an interaction between Preservation and Ruin both. Nothing is gained or lost when an attribute is stored or withdrawn, it is just maintained almost perfectly until some time in the future. Where is the Ruin in that? (The only example I can think of with imperfect storage is Ruin's manipulation of copperminds). Conversely, Allomancy requires serious physical damage to awaken, destroys the metals used to catalyze its effects, and is described as producing a net gain by Harmony. None of those are very Preservation-like. In a similar vein, Preservation couldn't create dynamic individuals by itself and required cooperation from Ruin to create the humans on Scadrial-- the ability to choose to Preserve at some times and Ruin at others was more than was present in the other animals implied to be within Preservation's ability to create. That sounds more like the Allomantic net gain to me. My mind reaches for explanations and finds unsatisfying scraps. Allomancy existed before anyone swallowed lerasium, albeit in a weaker form, and Preservation was already a critical component of Scadrial's people, so maybe their Allomancy came from that and the huge dose of Connection from lerasium beads creates the otherwise impossibly rare Mistborn. But then the Connection to Preservation from burning lerasium doesn't grant them anything like Feruchemy, so that idea starts falling apart... All of this is pretty pointless speculation since we have so much information suggesting that Allomancy goes with Preservation: the mists swirl around people using Allomancy but not Feruchemy, swallowing a bead of lerasium is what grants super-Allomancy (in the form of Mistborn) in the first place, and Harmony (who holds both relevant Shards and would presumably know everything on the topic) explicitly says so. But outside of those, is there any discussion, here, in-text, or in a WoS that addresses my confusion?

One of the things that kinda bugged me is that sazed taking up two shards instead of the traditional one, seems to have been more of a detriment than an advantage. The two intents are against each other, so he finds it difficult to act or do anything. He needs agents like Wax to be able to do anything. That kinda sucks, doesn't it? Especially since it seems like he needs to fight against Trell, a new shard on the planet. Unless it's a blessing in disguise. Because what do we know about the original shareholders? That most of them fall prey to the intent of their power, slowly growing insane with time. But harmony is not in that danger. Preservation by the end could not even muster up the courage to stab elend in secret history. Ruin lost his humanity and became a force of destruction. But with harmony's two powers cancelling each other out, I suspect that harmony is in no danger of ever losing his sanity. He can go on for maybe eternity and still be as human and caring as he used to be and make the difficult choices his position requires. I don't think the cosmere will go on for that long, but i think we will never have to worry about sazed going insane. Add to this the harmony/discord issue and the excess ruin that elend burned off slowly coming back, we could have some interesting plots

Nightblood contains at least some portion of Ruin's Investiture, and based off it's color and command, I'd venture to say that it actually converts other forms of investiture into Ruin's investiture. But Nightblood can't hold all that investiture, so it leaks away...where? Back to the spiritual realm, where all investiture eventually goes. But if that happens, would that then make that extra Ruin-converted investiture eventually find it's way to the shard of Ruin itself? And by doing so, could that lead to an imbalance of Harmony's powers, thus starting to turn him into Discord? Maybe this is one of the big reasons why Sazed is now finding it harder and harder to act; his powers are now longer in balance.

STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE SPOILERS so we know that era two is a few years ahead of the current stormlight archive timeline, so I’m thinking, dalinar loses the contest of champions and odium turns him into this spacefaring warlord who will conquer stuff for odium,so what if odium has sent dalinar to scadrial to conquer it , kill harmony etc and also we see that red mist sazed shows wax, and I’m thinking it looks eerily similar to the red mist seen in the thrill in oathbringer (I think it’s oathbringer at least) which is odiums investiture so what if dalinar is trell?(this is extremely far fetched Ik)

Question. I was reading the coppermind, and read that Odium fears Harmony. While I understand why that would be the case, what I don't get is how he knows about harmony, since they are in different systems. Also timelines I guess? Idk if the current SA timeline corresponds with Mistborn Era 2.

Iirc there's a WoB out there that says Harmony could create lerasium if he wanted to, I'm assuming he can create atium as well. Can he make enough of one or the other to unbalance the powers within him thus allowing him to act? Would the intents of the shards be given weight according to the ratio of powers within him?

To the best of my understanding, Ruin's intent was to erode and destroy everything. Preservation's intent was to preserve things exactly the way they are. What is Harmony's intent? My best guess would be creating a positive change, a combination of Ruin's negative change and Preservation's stasis. But in the Wax and Wayne novels, Harmony seems to actively avoid influencing the world, so that can't be his intent. Do we actually know what Harmony's intent is?

Chapter 89: Voice of Lights Just a cheeky inclusion of Harmony I spotted in the main text outside the Epigraphs.

In Bands of Mourning Sazed talks to Wax and explains how a god can’t get rid of all evil. In RoW, when Dalinar rides the storm, he has an argument with the Stormfather, who is arguably one of the most powerful entities on the planet, thereby classifying him as a god. He actually is worshipped as a god in parts of the west. Anyway, Dalinar tells the Stormfather to have mercy on some travelers, but the Stormfather refuses, saying that it is not his way and change isn’t good, but Dalinar insists that he must become something more, something better. This raises the question, would Dalinar and Sazed get along? Their philosophies seem to contradict one another.

Okay, so here’s my crazy theory about the basic plot structure and possible storylines: Book 1, our new SWAT protagonists track the mystery mistborn serial killer (mmsk). As they track him they discover a mysterious conspiracy that’s manipulating events on all levels. Around the time they defeat MMSK they learn that Kelsier is behind the conspiracy and he’s working with another Shard against Harmony. Book 2: Kelsier is the villain of this book, but there are hints all along that he’s playing this other Shard (revealed through his PoVs to be Autonomy.) Our heroes work to defeat him, pitting them against the entire planet. Along the way they (and we) become increasingly Cosmere aware. This ends up leading to them exposing (some of) Kell’s machinations to Autonomy prematurely. In typical Brandon penultimate fashion, they actually do manage to stop Kelsier’s plans, only for it to be revealed that what he was doing was intended to stop Autonomy who, it turns out, had been active on Scadrial since before Rashek’s Ascension. Of course, in typical Kelsier fashion, he didn’t tell anyone his plans and Autonomy - forewarned - now takes many of them over to turn against Scadrial. At this point Kelsier joins/is recruited by the heroes, who realize that he was, in his own way, trying to protect Scadrial. Total theory: The heroes discover that Kelsier is trying to steal HARMONY. They intervene, preventing this, but this leaves a hole that allows Autonomy to shatter Harmony. Kelsier then risks himself to save Sazed, to the shock of the SWAT crew. After this they learn that Kelsier knew Saze couldn’t directly act against Autonomy. He intended to take Harmony and, wielding it as Discord, use it to kill Bavadin allowing him to take her Shard. Then he would return the triple Shard to Sazed. Saze, upon learning all this, blankly asks why Kelsier didn’t just ASK him for the Shard, as he would have given it to him. The realization that this could all have been avoided if he hadn’t been so intent on one upping everyone is what finally breaks through Kell’s arrogance and forces him to acknowledge that he messed up - very, very badly. Book 3, then, is Kelsier’s parallel to Sazed’s journey in HoA. His confidence is deeply shaken by how badly he messed up, especially as Autonomy continues to use his own tools against him. This book becomes his redemption arc, as he rebuilds himself and finally learns that, for all his power, he isn’t invincible and he can’t be completely autonomous. This allows him to create a new plan from the dregs of the old, and work with the SWAT crew to defeat Autonomy and give her Shard to Saze. (Harmony being reconstructed as part of this.) At the end Kelsier and Sazed talk, as they did at the end of Secret History. Kelsier reveals that he told himself he was staying to protect Scadrial, but not only had he not done that, he now acknowledged that he just wasn’t ready to die. He then tells Sazed that he can’t willingly go Beyond now because Preservation’s Command won’t let him. Saze points out that Kelsier still doesn’t want to die - which he notes as very human - and removes/alters Preservation’s Command instead of forcing Kell Beyond. Saze then restores Kelsier, orders him to ‘do better’, and tells him he should go Beyond when he’s actually ready to do so. The book ends with Kell looking over Scadrial with two eyes and realizing that his hands are smooth and unmarred. His scars are gone. So, while some (most) of this is going to be completely wrong, and a whole lot is pure fancy and sap, I do think Kelsier is going to mess up very, very badly and that this will force the character to grow in ways he hasn’t yet. That’s the only part of this that I really think has any chance of being remotely accurate (aside from the ‘SWAT team chases MMSK’, which is from WoB.) Either way, with Mistborn Era 3 starting within the next 5 years, I wanted to get this out there on the off chance I’m even REMOTELY right. Mostly so I can claim bragging rights on the off chance any of the above occurs.

Okay, me going through the thread talking about Harmony Blades when I started thinking about Ettmetal's (Harmony's Godmetal) properties, like the fact it explodes, making it pretty bad for normal uses people would have for metals. And I know there is the explanation the reason Harmony's metal explodes is because of the powers of Preservation and Ruin being represented and all that, but why would Harmony, the supposed perfect mix of the two shards, be represented in a metal that explodes? Why would it be so reactive? I would think it would be more like a noble gas and just not react with anything. So I see two potential explanations. Either 1. Ettmetal is more likely the godmetal of Discord, which would make more sense. An explosion seems like a nice representation of discord. However, this doesn't completely work because for now, as it doesn't seem like Sazed is Discord and it might have even been stated that ettmetal is Harmony's god metal. And then there's the fact I tend to push back at the theory that Sazed is Discord because I imagine if he was, it would be very destructive for the Scadrians, but maybe he is more in Discord with himself and is still conscious enough to not end up screwing over the planet he cares about. Something to think about. The other explanation is 2. the metal is currently symbolizing Sazed's struggle with the powers and that's why it' so reactive right now, because he still hasn't figured out how to deal with the contrasting intents, and the metal will eventually start to change as Sazed gains mastery of his abilities, becoming less and less reactive, as ettmetals abilities seem to be more about it weird storing and realizing of investiture rather than it's reactivity. So maybe one-day Ettmetal, or at least further production of ettmetal, will become stable, like a normal metal. (Also, random thought that popped in my head, but when Shardblades are summoned, they are covered in condensation, which would be bad for a metal that explodes when in contact with water. Wonder if there's a connection there.)

Okay so considering the fact that Sazed picked up two shards at his Ascension, does that make him the most powerful being in the cosmere? Or would that title depend on which shards were combined? For example, the opposite nature of Ruin and Preservation make changes hard for Sazed. If someone, say Rayse, were to have shattered Preservation and picked up Ruin, would that be a more powerful combo? Regardless, would Sazed be able to contend with Rayse given he is Harmony (Ruin AND Preservation) and Rayse is only Odium?

Hoid's 100% Correct true Cosmere Facts Hoid decides to have a bit of fun with his new penpal Harmony. Full Mistborn & Stormlight spoilers. My first-ever Cosmere fic, inspired by this thread. Feel free to comment with your own Correct True Facts.

It was Kelsen’s fault in the end. Most things were, according to Marene anyway. Kelsen would argue but, well, more often then not his sister was right. This one though... This one was just as much Marene’s fault as it was Kelsen’s. It had been her idea, after all. It had been a perfectly ordinary weekend until then. Ashren, their cousin, had come by and the two boys were going at it with their guitars, playing along to their favorite bands and blasting lyrics at full volume. Never one to be outdone, Marene tried to drown them out with notes high enough to shatter glass. “What are you singing?!” Mrs. Eld had been an opera singer once, and her powerful voice brought a sudden end to the battle of the bands. Unfortunately for the cousins, that meant the harsh metal lyrics were all the more audible. “Put a spike through her heart-“ Kelsen shoved the needle away with a sharp screech! but the damage was already done. He didn’t have to look up to know his mother was glaring. “It’s just words, Ma.” ”Words,” Mrs. Eld snapped, “have power. I’ve raised you to be good Survivorists, and I won’t have that,” she shot the record a disgusted look, “trash in my home.” She snatched the black disc from her son’s hands, snapping the hard plastic in one sharp movement. ”Ma!” Kelsen protested. “That cost a whole months allowance!” Mrs. Eld was unmoved. “Then next time spend it on something worthy.” ”But the music’s great,” Ashren protested, realizing his mistake too late, flinching as his aunt turned her withering glare on her nephew. “And I’m sure my sister will be delighted to hear it.” Ashren winced again. “Why don’t you find some noise with better lyrics?” ”They don’t make ‘em,” Kelsen muttered, looking mournfully at the broken pieces. It had cost him a whole month’s allowance too. He’d known buying it was risky, but the music was amazing! It was sharp, and wild, and nothing at all like the classic arias his parents had had him practicing since before he could remember. This was something entirely new, something for his generation! Not that his parents would understand. All they heard were the words, which were, admittedly, pretty bad, glorifying murder and Ironeyes and Hemalurgy. Kelsen wasn’t too fond of them himself, but the music was worth it. His mother disagreed, leaving him with a stern warning about what would happen if she caught him listening to such ‘trash’ again. “I bet she’d like it if it had Survivorist lyrics,” Kelsen said crossly after his mother left and the door was safely shut, “even if they were about how he killed the nobles or robbed people or was tortured in the Pits.” ”Yeah,” Ashren agreed. “Wish someone’d make some.” ”Why don’t you?” Marene snapped, flicking her long, dark hair back. “Better then wasting more of my practice time.” Marene wanted to be a famous singer, like her mother had been, and that meant a lot of practice. Kelsen had a good voice too, but he would rather play his guitar. “Because-“ Kelsen paused abruptly, objection silenced as his sister’s words penetrated. “Why not?” he said slowly, turning the idea over in his mind. The more he thought about it, the better it seemed. “Why not?” And so The Survivor’s Crew was born. (You are allowed to critique this, because apparently I need to give permission now.)

Thank you guys for helping me sort out my feelings on this era!

How many shards? Originally there were 16. Some were splintered so that nobody held their power, but the Investiture that was unique to each shard remained. On Scadrial, Ruin and Preservation were each a shard. They died and were taken up by Sazed, becoming Harmony. Does that mean there are now 15 shards?

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.

Since Sazed currently holds Ruin, Hemalurgy is of him now. Since he also holds Preservation, calling the combination Harmony, he also has an entirely new godmetal that we saw in BoM. Duscovered by the Southern Scadrians, who call it Ettmetal and use it to power their ships, create powerful bombs as well as Allomantic grenades. This metal is explosive on contact with water, Brandon compared it with Cesium. As we saw with the Inquisitors, Hemalurgic constructs can survive wounds inflicted by the spike and in fact, alter the receiver's biology so that they can survive being impaled. The Inquisitors' brains itself was reshaped to allow the spikes to pass through, as well as, it seems their skeletal structure and muscular structure as well as possibly a few internal organs and their circulatory system. So couldn't their body do something to accommodate a Harmonium spike? It doesn't solve the problem of the spike degrading or getting damaged or exploding while it's still... passing through the donor, but I'm hoping you all could provide some theories for that end. Now, assuming success of such a venture, what power(s) do(es) Harmonium steal? Feruchemy can sidestep the godmetal's reaction with water, provided the Feruchemist takes a few precautions like covering up their metalmind so as to not expose it to water. So what would a Harmonium metalmind store?

Why didn't Harmony turn the Koloss back to human? Preservation and Ruin could create humans wholesale so its not like that's beyond a Shard's power. I didn't realize while thinking about him changing the Koloss into a true breeding race that he was a Shard and shouldn't require to resort to Hemalurgy as the only option, before remembering what he said to Kelsier about regaining his body and what Kelsier apparently looked like in era 2. On top of that Koloss are complicated. They're an amalgamation of (parts of) multiple souls stitched on the "main" soul, whose body transforms. Do these secondary souls manifest on the Cognitive when a Koloss is killed? I seem to remember them doing so in SH. Which is rather confusing since the... donors should've been dead already and their Cognitive self should've faded into the Beyond. I may be misremembering and those other souls may have been of the Koloss' victims or other unrelated people since Ruin was rampaging at that point so a lot of people were dying. Are there restrictions on what Shards can do when it comes to living beings? Is creating a different body from scratch and putting someone's soul into it not possible somehow? Is this why Kelsier couldn't just create a new body for himself as Preservation nor could Sazed as Harmony? In Warbreaker In The Stormlight Archive Or is it something imposed by Investiture systems, perhaps it is easier to make Investiture follow pre-made paths Altering the Spiritweb to alter one's race seems to be possible so why not turn the Koloss back to human? Preservation's power has been used to alter humans before, to create the Skaa, Did it require consent or a Cognitive sense of self of being human that the Koloss wouldn't have been capable of? Human the Koloss would've wanted to turn human at least. Also what about Mistwraiths? They are technically humans even though they have never experienced being human (except the First Generation)? Is becoming Kandra through Hemalurgy their only option? Can't they be turned into regular humans or given regular human bodies? Did this decision have something to do with his Intent? Possibly also why he let the Southern Scadrians suffer during the Catacendre (which they called the Ice Death)? After all, he is Preservation and Ruin. He can preserve a species by making them capable of reproduction. He can ruin people into becoming brutal savages or mindless formless globs of meat. But can he restore them?

This is my first post, so if I got anything wrong, let me know. I’ve been thinking about Harmony, who may be the most powerful being in the Cosmere, since he is two shards. My main question is: could Harmony combine with the rest of the shards to reform Adonalsium? Here is my thinking on the topic so far. The first challenge would be reforming the splintered shards—does anyone know if that’s possible? The second challenge would be getting all the shards into one place at the same time, in their complete forms, and vessel-less. Could one of the current vessels, for example, Sazed, claim the other shards, or would it have to be someone new, flaming all the shards at the same time? The third challenge, and end of my line of reasoning: In his letter to Hoid, Sazed mentions that “the powers I hold are in such conflict that the most simple of actions can be difficult.” -Third Oathbringer Letter. If Harmony has so much trouble reconciling Ruin and Preservation, would any Adonalsium 2.0 be rendered powerless by all 16 shards residing in it? One final thought. Was the shattering of Adonalsium a permanent, Cosmere-altering event? Or was it more like Pangea; simply the last of several occasions when all the continents (shards) were one. Now the continents are separate, but in a few million years or so, scientists tell us they’ll collide to form another supercontinent, which in turn will eventually separate again. Maybe Adonalsium is different every time it recombines, as the shards combine in different ways, with different vessels.

Are all the shards pairs? We know that Ruin and Preservation are an opposing pair. Are all 16 shards this way? For example, perhaps Autonomy and Dominion are opposites, as Dominion seeks to destroy what autonomy others have, and autonomy seeks to be free of any dominion over it. In the same fashion, Devotion may have been Odium’s opposing pair, which would make his attack on her make all the more sense. If the theory is true, it would help us guess the other shards, for example, maybe a Contentment shard as Ambition’s pair, or Opposition as Cultivation’s. It would be interesting to know what dishards could be made if more pairs melded, like Harmony.