Excess Ruin Investiture

[dbulick]

This has been something that I have thought about for a long time, ever since the end of era 1.  We know that there is extra Preservation put inside the people of the basin (maybe the whole world, maybe not).  What if the excess Ruin lies within the southern Scadrians?  Harmony knew that to be balanced he needed to dump it, it worked out well having Preservation within humans.....so why not having a population with excess Ruin?

 

Probably crazy.

[+Bzhydack]

1 hour ago, dbulick said:

This has been something that I have thought about for a long time, ever since the end of era 1.  We know that there is extra Preservation put inside the people of the basin (maybe the whole world, maybe not).  What if the excess Ruin lies within the southern Scadrians?  Harmony knew that to be balanced he needed to dump it, it worked out well having Preservation within humans.....so why not having a population with excess Ruin?

 

Probably crazy.

Dont think so, because extra bit of Ruin was always materialized as Atium, and Southerners are direct descendants of people who were already in the South during Final Empire Days. Harmony of course could manipulate theirs spiritwebs to add some Ruinous to them, but I dont think he would. Entire society driven by Ruin is little bit dangerous, dont you think?

[HavingTheHasHoidAPurpose?]

So, I think The extra bit of preservation is what allows humans to ascend past hunting and gathering. They preserve more than they destroy, thus having a end positive civilization. A group of humans with more ruin than preservation would slowly devolve as a society, which is definitely not what we see with the S Scadrians.

[dbulick]

1 hour ago, Bzhydack said:

Dont think so, because extra bit of Ruin was always materialized as Atium, and Southerners are direct descendants of people who were already in the South during Final Empire Days. Harmony of course could manipulate theirs spiritwebs to add some Ruinous to them, but I dont think he would. Entire society driven by Ruin is little bit dangerous, dont you think?

Yes the excess ruin was siphoned off as Atium in the past.  Do the Kandra still have a large store of Atium?  As far as I know we haven't seen where that is going yet correct?

[+Bzhydack]

24 minutes ago, dbulick said:

Yes the excess ruin was siphoned off as Atium in the past.  Do the Kandra still have a large store of Atium?  As far as I know we haven't seen where that is going yet correct?

No, all Atium was burned away by Elend's men during Catacendre. This is why now scientists wants to divide Harmonium into Atium and Lerasium. Atium is considered to be mythical, and only personwh has some of it is Marsh. New book isnt called "The Lost Metal" for no reason, so I think we will get answers soon (still dont think Southerners have extra Ruin, they definitly needed more Preservation to live throu Catacendre)

[dbulick]

Hopefully we find out this book!

[Proletariat]

Nah, like there are people more aligned to Ruin but it requires cracks which have also damaged your ability to reason. The koloss are still a perfect example of this, because the ones who embrace the spikes can't use their allomancy even if they have the talent otherwise and even their children are moderately impacted by it. The southerners still have as much ability to reason as anyone else, though they are marginally less connected to Preservation's investiture due to no lerasium in the blood line.

[teknopathetic]

Considering the book is called the Lost Metal and not The Lost Metals, it kind of feels like we will get access to this excess ruin/atium by books-end. 

[dbulick]

17 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

Considering the book is called the Lost Metal and not The Lost Metals, it kind of feels like we will get access to this excess ruin/atium by books-end. 

Assuming the lost metal isn't Lerasium.

[CognitiveShadow]

2 hours ago, dbulick said:

Assuming the lost metal isn't Lerasium.

Or Adonalsium.

[WandererNearby]

I personally think that Atium is scattered as a trace mineral in the Elendel Basin all through the dirt.  Here’s my theory:

1. Atium already has appeared in the ground in the pits. This would be just a spin on that

2. It encourages people to violence per the notes on Hero of Ages which Harmony wouldn’t like. He has this incentive to keep it out of people’s hands  

3. ROW Spoiler: 

Spoiler

We know that the presence of Investiture can sometimes help with agriculture and would help explain the fecundity of the valley.

4. I don’t think that Harmony would want an imbalance toward Ruin and putting into the ground would keep it out of his “body”. 

5. The Set does a lot of white collar, broad criminal activity (their first action on screen was insurance fraud), we know that they have holdings out in the Outer parts, and Atium would be incredibly valuable. They would comb through the dirt to get trace amounts of it.

6. Them getting it would qualify as the Lost Metal.

7. Wax currently has access to Harmonium and Trellium. He’s using them to try to get Lerasium and it’d be a fun twist if they found Atium instead.

8. Maybe Trellium attracts or repels Atium like it repels Harmonium. The Set just getting access to Trellium and using it to efficiently harvest Atium would explain why no one else harvested/noticed it before. 

[Letryx13]

I think the extra bit of Ruin's power is building up inside Harmony. That's why he's starting to become unbalanced and turning into Discord.  I just hope it can be stopped or reversed.