Adonalsium 2.0?

[RealmaticTheorist]

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.

Edited January 24, 2020 by RealmaticTheorist

[Honorless]

As far as any in-universe Cosmere-logists know, Adonalsium was the first. He created the Cosmere. The fun speculations beyond that are outside the scope of the work

We don't know whether the collective power had a Vessel or not. The Shards could very well be literal pieces of this entity

Whether someone could Ascend to hold all 16 Shards is still debated

[Dunkum]

One piece that I think you missed is that it is not just as simple as pickign up the Shard, you need to have some amount of connection to it.  I'll put this in a spoiler box in case you havent read Mistborn: Secret History yet

Spoiler

This is why Kelsier needs to use the Ire's device in order to pick up Preservation's shard - he wouldn't have been able to manage it on his own

so Sazed may not be able pick up one of the other shard if he lacks the necessary connection.

As far as Sazed being unable to act, that comes down to the specific balance of Ruin and Preservation.  In theory if he picked up a 3rd shard somehow, it could change that balance and allow him more leeway to act.

[+Ark1002]

4 hours ago, Dunkum said:

One piece that I think you missed is that it is not just as simple as pickign up the Shard, you need to have some amount of connection to it.  I'll put this in a spoiler box in case you havent read Mistborn: Secret History yet

  Reveal hidden contents

This is why Kelsier needs to use the Ire's device in order to pick up Preservation's shard - he wouldn't have been able to manage it on his own

so Sazed may not be able pick up one of the other shard if he lacks the necessary connection.

As far as Sazed being unable to act, that comes down to the specific balance of Ruin and Preservation.  In theory if he picked up a 3rd shard somehow, it could change that balance and allow him more leeway to act.

Such as cultivation, my personal favorite idea, no matter how unlikely I think it would be.

7 hours ago, RealmaticTheorist said:

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.

If all of the shards were there in once place, anyone with enough connection to all of them could pick them up. It is also stated in a WoB somewhere that Adonalsium would have had no drag from the shards, because all sixteen balance each other out and allow normal action.

Though, at first, it would be sixteen separate shards, that are all pulling. After a while, however, it would become adonalsium 2.0, as you said.

[GoWibble]

Here is a good WoB for the subject:

Quote

Questioner

Shards. We started with fairly obvious ones, magic wise. Trying to keep this spoiler free, so: Ruin, Preservation, this kind of thing. Then we get the weird ones. Why do we have Shards that can only exist in the mind of a sentient creature? ...Like the concept of Honor can only be done when it's carried out, essentially, by a sentient creature.

Brandon Sanderson

So when I split Adonalsium I said, "I'm going to take aspects of Adonalsium's nature." And this involves personality to me. So the Shattering of Adonalsium was primal forces attached to certain aspects of personality. And so I view every one of them this way. And when I wrote Mistborn we had Ruin and Preservation. They are the primal forces of entropy and whatever you call the opposite, staying-the-same-ism-y. Like, you've got these two contrasts, between things changing and things not changing. And then humans do have a part, there's a personality. Ruin is a charged term for something that actually is the way that life exists. And Preservation is a charged term for stasis, for staying the same. And those are the personality aspects, and the way they are viewed by people and by the entity that was Adonalsium.

So I view this for all of them. Like, Honor is the sense of being bound by rules, even when those rules, you wouldn't have to be bound by. And there's this sense that that is noble, that's the honor aspect to it, but there's also something not honorable about Honor if taken from the other direction. So a lot of them do kind of have this both-- cultural component, I would say, that is trying to represent something that is also natural. And not all of them are gonna have a 100% balance between those two things, I would say, because there's only so many fundamental laws of the universe that I can ascribe personalities to in that way. 

So I find Honor very interesting, but I find Autonomy a very interesting one for the exact same reason. What does autonomy mean? We attach a lot to it, but what is the actual, if you get rid of the charged terms, what does it mean? And this is where you end up with things like Odium claiming "I am all emotion." Rather than-- But then there's a charged term for it that is associated with this Shard. I'm not going to tell you whether he's right or not, but he has an argument. 

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 (March 1, 2018)

And if you haven't read a good part of the SA, then here is kind of a spoiler:

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner

So, Hoid was there during the Shattering of Adonalsium. Odium is going around, like, destroying other Shards. We know that Hoid is collecting and has pieces of some of the other Shards.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Since Hoid was there at the original Shattering of Adonalsium. Is there an echo image of the original Adonalsium in Hoid?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, that's a RAFO. Here's your card. But it is a valid theory.

Questioner

I have a two-parter on that.

Brandon Sanderson

You can ask me the next part, but it is a RAFO.

Questioner

Is his end goal trying to join as many pieces of Adonalsium together to *inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

Um, that, I will give a "that's a very good guess." And that is what the books seem to indicate is happening.

Salt Lake City ComicCon 2017 (Sept. 21, 2017)

 

 

[Weltall]

6 hours ago, RealmaticTheorist said:

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? 

As mentioned, it's possible in theory as splintering is not necessarily permanent.

Quote

Chaos

Is Splintering a Shard permanent?

Brandon Sanderson

No.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 25, 2012)

On the second question, there's no reason that one Vessel couldn't accumulate the power of the others over a long period of time and there's no reason to believe that anything different would happen if it was all done at once.

Of course, this overlooks the question of whether Adonalsium was just 'the sixteen Shards in one' or if there was something different there. For example, if Adonalsium didn't have a Vessel in the way the current Shards do and was the result of sapience arising from Investiture (which we know can happen, and we've seen examples of it on various worlds at a small scale) then its 'mind' might not have been a limiting factor, in the way that the finite minds of the Vessels limits their ability to comprehend and direct the effectively infinite power they possess. So we really don't know if combining all sixteen Shards again would result in 'Adonalsium 2.0' or something else. You noticed with Sazed the issues he deals with, it's possible that combining all sixteen Shards would result in similar effects on its Vessel that the original Adonalsium never had to deal with.

Quote

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.

We don't know the answer to your recombining question but we do have an answer of sorts to the first one: The Shattering meant everything and nothing to the Cosmere at the same time. The worlds as they existed continued on as if nothing had happened, as all the Investiture simply got 'assigned' to the different Shards which were now separate entities, but that power had always been associated with that aspect of Adonalsium.

Quote

When people ask, "What Shard is this Investiture associated with" it gets very complicated. Shards influence and tweak certain Investiture, giving it a kind of spin or magnetism, but all Investiture ever predates the Shattering--and in the cosmere matter, energy, and Investiture are one thing.

I always imagine Investiture having certain states, certain magnetisms if you will, associated with certain aspects of Adonalsium. So it's all "assigned" to a Shard--because it's always been associated with that Shard. To Investiture, Adonalsium's Shattering meant everything and nothing at the same time.

General Reddit 2018 (March 18, 2018)

That said, we also know that the splitting of the power into the Shards has resulted in things that either could not have happened before or would have been extremely unlikely to have happened. The presence of Shards on a world allows for more direct and powerful access to magics and there were certain rules Adonalsium enforced (how and why, we don't know) which no longer apply. For example, we're told that fabrials would not have been possible pre-Shattering unless Adonalsium allowed it.