What are the Men of Gold and Red?

[Criggleworth]

My 100% a joke theory for the men of gold and red is that they are mannequins full of invested sand. And Autonomy basically just sand masters them into battle.

[lacrossedeamon]

On 12/6/2022 at 7:11 PM, Treach said:

So a magic system we’ve seen, and an army that doesn’t need constant supplies. Sounds a lot like Awakening. 

It was also implied that it might be a mix of magic systems

[killersquirrel59]

My pet theory was that it represents an alliance of Autonomy and Odium, Autonomy being red as reflected in the red flakes on Trellium (Bavadinium), the red eyes of the corrupted kandra, and the red glow of her Shard form when Sazed showed Wax the vision, and Odium being gold as reflected in his appearance as a gold-skinned singer, the golden appearance of Raysium, and his light being described as golden when he appeared in Shard form. But given what happened to Odium in Stormlight 4 that would have to assume that the colour-coding was somehow intrinsic to the shard rather than a preference of the holder and that seems very odd to me. 

Edited December 11, 2022 by killersquirrel59

[Rorzikel]

On 11/25/2022 at 2:12 PM, Harrycrapper said:

I thought the Iriali just had gold hair, not gold skin?

From Words of Radiance, Interlude 2

Quote

The urchin stepped timidly up to the stool, walking with a limp he tried to hide. He was Iriali, though the grime darkened his skin and hair, both of which were golden. The skin less so -you needed the light to see it right-but the hair certainly. It was the mark of their people.

 

[ArchangelCaesar]

I'm on board with the Awakened theory.

Additionally, I think they were made by a certain Scholar who is currently MIA: Yesteel
From what I read in a bunch of WoBs and the end of WB, Yesteel is thought to be on the world of Nalthis at the end of WB, and that we will see him if we ever get that WB sequel (though this was as of 2011. so who knows if that has changed)
Assuming Vasher doesn't gank him in the sequel, Yesteel is still alive and kicking and likely experimenting. If he somehow ran into Autonomy, he could very well have been enlisted by her to create an army of autonomous soldiers using corrupted Breaths (hence the red eyes). 

[+Harrycrapper]

13 hours ago, Rorzikel said:

From Words of Radiance, Interlude 2

 

Huh I guess I missed that. Follow up question would be, exactly how golden were the men of red and gold?

[Stonerward]

I'm still wondering why they were kept referred to as the bearers of the final metal so my pet theory is that they're a splinter group of Iriali who have been spiked with Trellium, only time we see the red eyes in TLM is from spiked members of the set so stands to reason it's a similar process 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Stonerward

[Elegy]

They are so confusing. At one point it's mentioned that their skin is golden - so they have skin. Then later they are described as "inhuman" and "living statues". Inhuman, living statues with skin? Seems weird to me. Seems like at least one of these things is metaphorical. The question being, which one?

1) Maybe they don't have skin, but the parts that would show their skin if they were human, like their faces, are golden.

2) Maybe they just look like living statues because they move so unnaturally due to being controlled by something else. Like, puppets.

3) Maybe they are human, but seem inhuman because of the corruption. Similar to how people corrupted by the Thrill on Roshar - also with red eyes - might seem inhuman.

The problem with 2) and 3) is that they kind of have to go together. Because if they are statues, they are also inhuman. That would mean that two of three actual statements about them are only half-truths, which would be extremely annoying. Which leads me to believe that they actually aren't human and the "skin" is the metaphorical part, or they actually have skin while being statues, which is honestly pretty hard to imagine. That makes my initial theory - them being Daysiders - unlikely because then they would be humans. But them having rifles seems to point towards Taldain as their homeworld. Which doesn't make much sense, because Taldain doesn't seem to have anything that could turn out like this.

It hurts my brain.

Edit: Another thought: Maybe we should consider the bias of the person perceiving them. Marasi notes that their weapons seem advanced, so their culture seems to be further than Scadrial's (again, pointing towards Taldain). So maybe they only look "inhuman" and like "living statues" to her because they use some kind of armor that Marasi isn't familiar with. If they had something similar to Shardplate, most people from worlds other from Roshar would probably call them "living statues", think about it.

Am I saying that they actually wear Shardplates? I think it's very unlikely, first, it should be hard to get plate off Roshar, second, Autonomy's influence on Roshar seems to be weak and subtle at most. That could change in Stormlight 5, but these creatures were not created in Stormlight 5, they have been used in the past, probably for hundreds of years in one form or another. So it's unlikely that it's actually Shardplate, but there's certainly similar things. Some kind of war suit that was maybe developed on Taldain (maybe even just a technical thing without the use of much magic) and now used.

I think this makes the most sense to me - them being human but appearing in a very futuristic armor that gives Marasi the impression that they are statues.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Elegy

[Captain Coffee]

On 12/12/2022 at 2:30 AM, Rorzikel said:

From Words of Radiance, Interlude 2

 

I had always read the "golden skin" line to mean they were tanned, but in a world where there are crab people and people who are red and white I probably should have taken that line more literally.

[Lightspine]

Somehow I haven't seen this WoB invoked yet:

Quote

Podman36

Did the Iriali have inhuman ancestry at some point in the past?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on your definition of human. Most would say yes.

Skyward release party (Nov. 6, 2018)

Seems pretty relevant, especially with all the people theorizing that the men of gold and red aren't fully human. I think it's pretty plausible for this to be the group that the Iriali acquired the gold coloration from, or maybe both groups got the golden skin from the same inhuman source. A lot of possibilities here.

 

[lacrossedeamon]

16 minutes ago, Lightspine said:

Seems pretty relevant, especially with all the people theorizing that the men of gold and red aren't fully human. I think it's pretty plausible for this to be the group that the Iriali acquired the gold coloration from, or maybe both groups got the golden skin from the same inhuman source. A lot of possibilities here.

 

I wonder if the same argument can be made about Scadrians since they aren't actually descended from any prior human populations resulting in "something almost, but not quite entirely unlike tea".

[SPECTRE120]

Autonomy awakened a trellium army and they are red because the investiture is corrupted

[IlstrawberrySeed]

Or bendalloy compounding. (However unlikely, a similar trellium alloy could be compounded.)

[Eswear]

This may be irrelevant, but has anyone else noticed that in white sands, Khriss wears a red and gold dress to the party, and Kenton comments on it twice. Once of it being “unconventional” and once about the color “gold accents.”

she responds to the unconventional remark by talking about her starmarks not showing on dayside.

Can’t help but wonder if the dress color choice, and the dialogue pointing it out specifically, is some kind of hint. Maybe the men of red and gold are darksiders?

[AquaRegia]

12 hours ago, Eswear said:

Khriss wears a red and gold dress

Not that particular instance, but someone did point out that Frava, the senior Arbiter in The Emperor's Soul, was described as wearing red robes trimmed in gold.  My response was that I'm sure there are dozens of characters who wear those colors at some point - there are only so many colors, after all.  I don't think we should assume everyone who ever wears red and gold is working with/for Autonomy.

By that logic, they might just be an army of Gryffindors LOL

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, AquaRegia said:

Not that particular instance, but someone did point out that Frava, the senior Arbiter in The Emperor's Soul, was described as wearing red robes trimmed in gold.  My response was that I'm sure there are dozens of characters who wear those colors at some point - there are only so many colors, after all.  I don't think we should assume everyone who ever wears red and gold is working with/for Autonomy.

By that logic, they might just be an army of Gryffindors LOL

Exactly, not every instance of those colors being used together is Connected. I think Brandon just likes them, because even Lightsongs official colors are gold and red

Edited February 1, 2023 by Frustration

[lacrossedeamon]

Two great colors go great together.

[Ashbringer]

Odium is Gold when it's just him, even if his magic system is more purple/black/stygian. And Red. Basically every color not named blue (Honor) or green (Cultivation).

Also, Tress:

Spoiler

The Sorceress' Army is Awakened automata, and are described as bronze(?) rather than gold but still similar. Been brought up in a few other threads but worth mentioning here.

 

[Brgst13]

My personal crazy theory: the men of red and gold are awakened sculptures containing nuclear bombs.  They are the "bearers of the final metal".  What is the last naturally occurring metal on the periodic table?  Uranium.  What do they do?  Wipe out planet's.  What does this really well?  A lot of nukes.

[lacrossedeamon]

41 minutes ago, Brgst13 said:

My personal crazy theory: the men of red and gold are awakened sculptures containing nuclear bombs.  They are the "bearers of the final metal".  What is the last naturally occurring metal on the periodic table?  Uranium.  What do they do?  Wipe out planet's.  What does this really well?  A lot of nukes.

I assume the “Final Metal” is meant to be a godmetal but godmetals are described by Brandon in terms of of being super-“regular metal group” with Harmonium being a super alkali and Atium being super platinide so Autonomy’s metal (assumedly) could be super actinide. Although given the Intent noble gas element seem to fit better thematically.

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Brgst13 said:

My personal crazy theory: the men of red and gold are awakened sculptures containing nuclear bombs.  They are the "bearers of the final metal".  What is the last naturally occurring metal on the periodic table?  Uranium.  What do they do?  Wipe out planet's.  What does this really well?  A lot of nukes.

Nah, nukes are bad at wiping out a planet. The biggest pure fission bomb with a uranium core was Ivy King, which had a yield of only 540 kt. Uranium is hard and costly to enriched, but plutonium doesn't have to be enriched, any plutonium isotope can be used in nukes, and it's even better at fission. And trace amounts of plutonium can be found naturally in uranium ores, so uranium is not the "last" natural metal. What's better than fission is fusion, hydrogen bombs can reach much, much higher yields, like Tsar Bomb 50 Mt. But to make those bombs you still need fission first.

[IlstrawberrySeed]

On 2/3/2023 at 6:48 AM, alder24 said:

Nah, nukes are bad at wiping out a planet. The biggest pure fission bomb with a uranium core was Ivy King, which had a yield of only 540 kt. Uranium is hard and costly to enriched, but plutonium doesn't have to be enriched, any plutonium isotope can be used in nukes, and it's even better at fission. And trace amounts of plutonium can be found naturally in uranium ores, so uranium is not the "last" natural metal. What's better than fission is fusion, hydrogen bombs can reach much, much higher yields, like Tsar Bomb 50 Mt. But to make those bombs you still need fission first.

True, but a Radioactive shardmetal would have the investiture & enhancment properties like ettmetal to add on. Or perhaps it's shard metal fusion - though that seems like it wouldn't release the investiture.

[alder24]

9 hours ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

True, but a Radioactive shardmetal would have the investiture & enhancment properties like ettmetal to add on. Or perhaps it's shard metal fusion - though that seems like it wouldn't release the investiture.

No god metal, as far as we know, is radioactive. And I don't understand what you mean. Why would radioactive god metal have properties of ettmetal, when ettmetal properties are because of Harmony's influence?

[nukeboy1970]

On 11/24/2022 at 1:26 PM, TheoreticalMagic said:

We know the Iriali's story is meant to continue in a big way in the space age of the cosmere....and if you imagine the cosmere as having a three-act structure....with the big bad of the primarily historical fantasy act being Odium....the big bad of the primarily modern/urban fantasy act of the cosmere being Autonomy......then there could be a third big bad coming down the pipeline for the space age.....and who would see Dominion coming as the final big bad, thanks to him being seen as not-even-a-contender for the majority of the cosmere's published history?

Spoilers for The Lost Metal:

Spoiler

Don't sleep on Discord being a big bad.

 

[IlstrawberrySeed]

On 2/5/2023 at 3:19 AM, alder24 said:

No god metal, as far as we know, is radioactive. And I don't understand what you mean. Why would radioactive god metal have properties of ettmetal, when ettmetal properties are because of Harmony's influence?

True, but there are about 16 thousand possible shard metals. The chance that none of them are radioactive is slim based purely on metallic categorizations. And I meant a similar property of investiture -> energy because of it's already destructive nature like harmonium.