Shards & Godmetal Arts

[Karger he/him]

Science time!  Like the alchemists of old it is time for us to delve into the secrets of metals and the divine.  With lost metal out its time to put on my aluminum hat and scratch my understanding of investiture into the metal sheets of the wall.

Examining Wax's experiment seems to reconfirm how a metal's properties are related to the shard it originates from.

Harmonium: Also called ettmetal is a highly volatile substance.  It exists in a delicate balance and mere interaction with water is sufficient to cause the largest man made explosions in scadrial's history.  It is quite pliable as well and has a high boiling point.  This is emblematic of a shard striving for balance on a knife's edge.  Although destructive it is also quite resilient and flexible.  Additionally it can fuel matalic arts when combined with the correct technology.

Trellium(bavadinium): Is an extremely durable substance.  Its melting point is very high, beyond even ettmetal, and its hardness barely below diamond.  It is emblematic of a shard promoting individuality and when used in hemalurgy it can prevent intrusion from Harmony.  It also reacts much more violently to resist foreign investiture then other metals. 

Stormlight: It might be surprising to place this on the list but its worth noting that this is a relatively common form of physical investiture found on roshar.  It seems particularly good at bridging the different realms as per its intent in joining things together.  Because of this it tends to be somewhat unstable and difficult to keep in one place.  It desires to connect anything to anything else per the intent Honor.

Lifelight: Cultivation's light is noted for its use in creating food.  This may also explain its rarity as any that exists would be rapidly absorbed by surrounding lifeforms fulfilling Cultivation's intent to grow.

Voidlight: By contrast to stormlgiht remains solid for long periods.  In solid form raysium conducts investiture quite well.  This may be a demonstration of its emptiness per Odium's intent.

The two most important for this theory our old friends lerasium and atium are not widely available in present day scadrial.  Both seemed to be pliable metals but what is truly intriguing about them might not be their properties but rather their distribution.  The majority of lerasium was always distributed as widely as possible across the planet in the form of mists with comparitively little in the well as liquid or solid.  This can potentially be seen as a type of behavior caused by Preservation's intent, the desire to save everyone and stop all change everywhere.  Meanwhile atium is found almost exclusively in solid form.  This can be seen as Ruin's intent to destroy things.  When breaking things down its generally smarter to gather a critical mass of oxygenated material then just  spray oxygen into the atmosphere.

Now for the interesting part.  Sazed claims to Kelseir that the lerasium is annihilated in the explosion.  I'm thinking its actually not a lie but it is a bluff.  Investiture cannot be destroyed.  One can convert it of course and indeed that is part of what happens during the explosion but there is no reason for more lerasium to be destroyed then atium.  It seems much more likely that an equal amount of both are consumed.  Is it not possible the Lerasium attempts to follow its invested nature and fix things up in the aftermath of the explosion?  The result seems fairly clean all thing considered with no known toxins generated.  Additionally Wax absorbed a small amount of it at the time.  The reason that no lerasium sticks around is because it is consumed by the environment itself.  If intervention took place at the time of the explosion it may be possible to harvest it in small amounts.

Its been a long time but I hope to hear from anyone who thinks this type of theory is interesting.  I'd also like to hear about everyone else's ideas concerning godmetals.

[Beaglefat]

I wonder if the quantity of lerasium consumed makes a difference. If just a trace amount is enough to make a full mistborn then does a large bead make a much stronger one? I feel like it will be hard for brandon to explain.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

2 hours ago, Beaglefat said:

I wonder if the quantity of lerasium consumed makes a difference. If just a trace amount is enough to make a full mistborn then does a large bead make a much stronger one? I feel like it will be hard for brandon to explain.

This is the difference between a diluted-strength Mistborn, like Vin or Spook, and 'Pure' Mistborn like Elend who Burned a full bead. The difference in strength seems to be that a Pure Strength Mistborn can do what a diluted one would need Duralumin for, like controlling Hemalugic Constructs like Koloss and Kandra.

So it's a pretty big difference in strength.

[kenod]

1 hour ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

This is the difference between a diluted-strength Mistborn, like Vin or Spook, and 'Pure' Mistborn like Elend who Burned a full bead. The difference in strength seems to be that a Pure Strength Mistborn can do what a diluted one would need Duralumin for, like controlling Hemalugic Constructs like Koloss and Kandra.

So it's a pretty big difference in strength.

IIRC Vin technically wasn't a diluted Mistborn, but for her the strength was in innate talent with all the metals, instead of raw power.

[Karger he/him]

8 hours ago, kenod said:

IIRC Vin technically wasn't a diluted Mistborn, but for her the strength was in innate talent with all the metals, instead of raw power.

11 hours ago, Beaglefat said:

I wonder if the quantity of lerasium consumed makes a difference. If just a trace amount is enough to make a full mistborn then does a large bead make a much stronger one? I feel like it will be hard for brandon to explain.

I believe so yes.  If a mistborn burns lerasium they become a stronger mistborn for example.  Vin also became stedily stronger as she drew on more and more of the mists.

Quote

Shardlet

If Vin and Elend hypothetically each blindly ingested equivalently sized beads of lerasium, would Vin be a stronger Mistborn than Elend, or would they be equal?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Vin would be stronger. It is additive, not just an overwrite.

Firefight Seattle UBooks signing (Jan. 6, 2015)

I forgot to add this to my OP but does anyone have any guesses about future godmetal properties?  I'm thinking Whimsy's is going to be kind of mercurial but I'm trying to decide if I expect Valor's to be flammable or inert.  Then of course there is ingenuity...