Surgebinder Culling and Metalborn Gathering

[teknopathetic]

In The Lost Metal, we learn that Autonomy can create a perpendicularly by gathering these things together:

1. having a large number of metalborn in one place
2. a large amount of investiture in one place. This investiture might need to be unkeyed/purified but that is unclear. 
3. Some sort of timing element
4. Other unknown details (potentially fixed false beliefs about Harmony being dead already, but we just don't know)

We see in Stormlight that the Skybreakers were led to believe that too many surgebinders returning to Roshar could cause a desolation to begin. Now, I think most people feel Ishar was either lying, lied to, or insane, but if too many metalborn in one area can open up a planet to Autonomy's attack, then could too many Surgebinders do something similar?

Was Ishar possibly not 100% wrong about this? Could allowing Surgebinders to amass in one area make the planet more susceptible to attack from other shards? I mean potentially, maybe it would have made it easier for the Everstorm to cross over if there were a lot of Surgebinders about? 

Edited November 23, 2022 by teknopathetic

[Koloss17]

Hmmm. That is an interesting question. I mean, it’s quite likely. No matter what though, too many surgebinders will not cause another desolation. It could probably enable a perpendicularity to be formed by an off-world shard, however. Though I don’t think that has really ever been an issue on Roshar past Odium’s initial invasion.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Ookla the Headmuncher
Sadly the god of salt is not Cosmere aware

[Brgst13]

41 minutes ago, Ookla the Headmuncher said:

Hmmm. That is an interesting question. I mean, it’s quite likely. No matter what though, too many surgebinders will not cause another desolation. It could probably enable a perpendicularity to be formed by an off-world shard, however. Though I don’t think that has really ever been an issue on Roshar past sodium’s initial invasion.

But it was such a boon to their cooking!

[Koloss17]

7 minutes ago, Brgst13 said:

But it was such a boon to their cooking!

Gosh darn it why does autocorrect do this. 

[Rorzikel]

Yeah, definitely something to think about. I’ve never taken Brandon saying the Heralds were insane as him saying they were always wrong about everything they said or did, just that they weren’t reliable as sources.

”Even a broken clock is right twice a day” as the phrase goes.

[Returned]

On 11/23/2022 at 2:43 PM, teknopathetic said:

Was Ishar possibly not 100% wrong about this? Could allowing Surgebinders to amass in one area make the planet more susceptible to attack from other shards? I mean potentially, maybe it would have made it easier for the Everstorm to cross over if there were a lot of Surgebinders about? 

It seems possible, but at the same time the martial focus of the Radiants (and of the warlike state they left behind in Alethela) seems like a foreign invasion of the type Autonomy prepared for Lost Metal would be a relatively low risk. At least less risky than stealthier approaches, like the one Autonomy seems to have initiated on both Scadrial and Roshar.

Heavy Investiture, especially when there are active Shards around, seems to have a lot of consequences and complications. I think that your suggestion has merit and is probably correct, but not necessarily the main reason (or even one of the major) reasons Nale and Ishar were so opposed to Surgebinding coming back. If nothing else, access to the magic seems like it heightens conflict. But focusing on humans alone is a mistake in that regard; it seems to me that the concentration of Investiture among the Listeners who adopted Stormform was a significant factor in making the Everstorm a reality (in addition to the actual, proximate things the Listeners did to call it into being). Invasion from other worlds is one of many issues that concentrating cosmic power can give rise to.