SteveD Posted January 9, 2019 Report Share Posted January 9, 2019 From the Houston Skyward signing we have the following question and answer; Quote Questioner [PENDING REVIEW] If I were to alloy atium and lerasium, would I get harmonium? Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW] It's different after the Shards combined. Questioner [PENDING REVIEW] If I was to take harmonium and separate it out through distillation, would I get lerasium and atium or something *inaudible* similar? Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW] No, you would..it actually has become a different-- Questioner [PENDING REVIEW] Can't be split? Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW] Yeah. I mean, you could find a way, but you're not going to get it through normal, mechanical means. Someone on the Coppermind has interpreted that as follows; Quote Alloying lerasium and atium after Preservation and Ruin combined will not give harmonium. Splitting harmonium through distillation will give something different from lerasium and atium. While difficult, it is possible to split harmonium through distillation to get lerasium and atium Is that actually what Brandon said? It's possible to make Atium and Lerasium from Harmonium? If so, that might have fairly big implications for 'The Lost Metal', but it seems more that Brandon was trying to explain before being interrupted, that Harmonium wasn't connected to lerasium and atium in that way, that combining them doesn't make Harmonium, and splitting Harmonium doesn't make lerasium and atium. But...if its possible to split Harmonium, what does it make? That suggests that it's made of other things you can reduce it down too, and therefore maybe lerasium and atium have components too? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mailnaise Posted January 9, 2019 Report Share Posted January 9, 2019 13 minutes ago, SteveD said: ...if its possible to split Harmonium, what does it make? That suggests that it's made of other things you can reduce it down too, and therefore maybe lerasium and atium have components too? I would guess that getting lerasium and atium would just be extrmemly difficult, (correct composition, etc etc), that yes, you could do it, but unless you get it exact (by some magical way?) you come out with something different? I know that's probably way to simple but that was my first thought on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+robardin Posted January 9, 2019 Report Share Posted January 9, 2019 16 minutes ago, SteveD said: From the Houston Skyward signing we have the following question and answer; Someone on the Coppermind has interpreted that as follows; Is that actually what Brandon said? It's possible to make Atium and Lerasium from Harmonium? If so, that might have fairly big implications for 'The Lost Metal', but it seems more that Brandon was trying to explain before being interrupted, that Harmonium wasn't connected to lerasium and atium in that way, that combining them doesn't make Harmonium, and splitting Harmonium doesn't make lerasium and atium. But...if its possible to split Harmonium, what does it make? That suggests that it's made of other things you can reduce it down too, and therefore maybe lerasium and atium have components too? Well what he "actually said" appears to be in the WoB quote: you could find a way [to separate harmonium into atium and lerasium], but you're not going to get it through normal, mechanical means. I agree with you that that does not equal "While difficult, it is possible to split harmonium through distillation to get lerasium and atium", at least not without the caveat that the "distillation" in question would not be what we consider distillation, which is a mechanical process. It would involve magic. Whatever the Cosmere equivalent of "Rand cleansing saidin" in the Wheel of Time would be. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mailnaise Posted January 9, 2019 Report Share Posted January 9, 2019 6 minutes ago, robardin said: Well what he "actually said" appears to be in the WoB quote: you could find a way [to separate harmonium into atium and lerasium], but you're not going to get it through normal, mechanical means. I agree with you that that does not equal "While difficult, it is possible to split harmonium through distillation to get lerasium and atium", at least not without the caveat that the "distillation" in question would not be what we consider distillation, which is a mechanical process. It would involve magic. Whatever the Cosmere equivalent of "Rand cleansing saidin" in the Wheel of Time would be. That's something I meant to put in my post but forgot really. This is the cosmere, I would be utterly shocked if it wasn't magical in some way~ Wait can a Bronze misting hear allomantic pulses from a metal that is not being burned? I forget...If so then maybe they could be used to get the separation of the two metals in harmonium as exact as it needs to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quantus Posted January 9, 2019 Report Share Posted January 9, 2019 7 minutes ago, Mailnaise said: Wait can a Bronze misting hear allomantic pulses from a metal that is not being burned? I forget...If so then maybe they could be used to get the separation of the two metals in harmonium as exact as it needs to be. Pretty sure not, they can hear Investiture that is actively being used, but I dont think they can detect inert/solid Investiture like that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Invocation Posted January 9, 2019 Report Share Posted January 9, 2019 There was a WOB that Harmony could produce a metal that could act as either Lerasium or Atium, but since Leras and Ati are no more, they're both just Harmonium now, though they'd do a similar thing to Lerasium and Atium if he wants them to. Here's one for Kelsier Quote Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) If Kelsier created a metal while holding Preservation that it would have acted the same as lerasium, though over time the properties of it might shift. Footnote: Unspecified question by Ted Hermansource Quote Questioner Could [Sazed] also bring back lerasium beads, if he wanted to? Brandon Sanderson It would be within his power to do so, yes. source Quote Zchance I'm surprised no one else has asked but does this new world have atium? If atium was the body of Ruin then it would seem when Sazed took up Ruin's power he would have reabsorbed all of the atium. New atium then would be bits of Sazed's new powers and weaken him with each newly formed bead. It would seem then that if atium exists it would be much rarer, and mean that Sazed would not be able to control this process. I guess I am trying to understand why he would want to allow any atium to make its way into the hands of people or rather out of his control? Brandon Sanderson It's theoretically possible for atium to appear in the future, but right now Sazed has no plans to release any of it to the people. It is, effectively, now something of myth and legend. source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weltall Posted January 9, 2019 Report Share Posted January 9, 2019 2 hours ago, Quantus said: Pretty sure not, they can hear Investiture that is actively being used, but I dont think they can detect inert/solid Investiture like that. Yeah, A-Bronze detects kinetic Investiture so it's not going to do a thing for a metal that's not currently being burned, even a godmetal that literally is Investiture in solid form. Here's WoB on how it works. Quote zas678 Can you detect Feruchemy with bronze Allomancy? Brandon Sanderson It is actually possible but it's very difficult. There's a tweak that you need to do to make it work and I haven't talked about that yet. They do not know how to do it… on Scadrial. But you can theoretically detect all kinds of active Investiture. Investiture that's being used. Kinetic Investiture would be the way to call it. source If A-Bronze could 'sense' all Investiture whether kinetic or potential then the Steel Inquisitors wouldn't have had any problem finding feruchemists because Invested metalminds would be like blinking neon signs saying 'Here I am!'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quantus Posted January 9, 2019 Report Share Posted January 9, 2019 That being said, Id strongly suspect that the 7th heightening could do it, since it can detect the Breaths stored in objects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RShara Posted January 9, 2019 Report Share Posted January 9, 2019 (edited) Looking at this and the WoB in question, I think the Coppermind quote is a little inaccurate. Harmonium is an element, and distilling it isn't going to do anything to it, since it's already pure. And Brandon said that distilling (or any normal chemical/mechanical process) is not going to create lerasium and atium. Just that it'd be theoretically possible to do it with non-normal means, perhaps something like Spiritual fission? I'll chat with the coppermind crew and see what they think. Edit: Updated the Coppermind article to better reflect what Brandon said. Edited January 9, 2019 by RShara 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveD Posted January 10, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2019 16 hours ago, RShara said: Harmonium is an element, and distilling it isn't going to do anything to it, since it's already pure. Brandon says you ‘could’ find a way to split it however; doesn’t that imply that it isn’t an element (since that’s the definition of what an element is?). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scion of the Mists Posted January 10, 2019 Report Share Posted January 10, 2019 4 hours ago, SteveD said: Brandon says you ‘could’ find a way to split it however; doesn’t that imply that it isn’t an element (since that’s the definition of what an element is?). It's definitely possible to split atoms - you may not like the result, though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RShara Posted January 10, 2019 Report Share Posted January 10, 2019 2 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said: It's definitely possible to split atoms - you may not like the result, though. Yep. I'm wondering if he's thinking of some sort of Spiritual fission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quantus Posted January 10, 2019 Report Share Posted January 10, 2019 I suspect it's more that Harmonium is created via a mixture/intermingling of Ruin's and Preservation's Investiture, and so theoretically both those ingredients are still present. You could distill the Mist into Lerasium, so I think you could more or less create any Godmetal if you had a sufficient amount of a given Shard's Investiture, though I would assume it would take some kind of realmic process. Perhaps Soulcasting, for example, if you could overcome the whole "Invested objects resist Magic Meddling" bit. Hoid's a Soulcaster now, maybe he could pull it off. Quote BlackYeti Because you've talked about alloying the god metals with other ones-- I was wondering whether you would be able to melt them down as you would with normal metals. Brandon Sanderson If you could distill the god metal: you could distill it out of the mist, that's theoretically possible. source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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