Wax's experiment

[Little_Dagger she/her]

Hi everyone, 

I have a theory about why Wax managed to accidentally produce Lerasium in his lab while the Set had tried and failed for years.

What if it is just about timing? What if the Set was trying the experiment while Sazed was still Harmony, but Wax did it after Saze slipped into Discord? Perhaps, Atium and Lerasium are easier to separate when the Shards are "in conflict" with each other?

Edited March 4, 2023 by Yuliya

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

1 hour ago, Yuliya said:

Hi everyone, 

I have a theory about why Wax managed to accidentally produce Lerasium in his lab while the Set had tried and failed for years.

What if it is just about timing? What if the Set was trying the experiment while Sazed was still Harmony, but Wax did it after Saze slipped into Discord? Perhaps, Atium and Lerasium are easier to separate when the Shards are "in conflict" with each other?

I don't think so, Harmony specifically says that it's something Wax did, not the circumstances allowing for it. His wording was fairly specific.

It is an interesting idea though, Hemalurgy has been nerfed since Sazed prefers Preservation over Ruin, perhaps becoming Discord will allow some of Hemalurgy's former potency back?

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, Yuliya said:

Hi everyone, 

I have a theory about why Wax managed to accidentally produce Lerasium in his lab while the Set had tried and failed for years.

What if it is just about timing? What if the Set was trying the experiment while Sazed was still Harmony, but Wax did it after Saze slipped into Discord? Perhaps, Atium and Lerasium are easier to separate when the Shards are "in conflict" with each other?

Personally, I think that this is possible.

Intent may also have played a role, since the Set seemed to be wanting to split Harmonium in order to create a better bomb, but Wax was specifically trying to split Harmonium to create Lerasium and Atium.

Also, as a heads up, you may want to edit the thread's title so that it doesn't spoil anything for people who see it from the forums page.

[Little_Dagger she/her]

12 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Also, as a heads up, you may want to edit the thread's title so that it doesn't spoil anything for people who see it from the forums page.

I didn't think about that. Hopefully, it is better now

Edited March 4, 2023 by Yuliya

[Trusk'our he/him]

Just now, Yuliya said:

I didn't think about that. Hopefully, it is better bow

Yup, I think that this new one is good! 

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Yuliya said:

Hi everyone, 

I have a theory about why Wax managed to accidentally produce Lerasium in his lab while the Set had tried and failed for years.

What if it is just about timing? What if the Set was trying the experiment while Sazed was still Harmony, but Wax did it after Saze slipped into Discord? Perhaps, Atium and Lerasium are easier to separate when the Shards are "in conflict" with each other?

Then why can't nobody repeat that after Wax's experiment? That's what Harmony said, they tried to replicate that and failed, they couldn't get Lerasium, only Atium is left. 

I do think that’s part of it, as kandra said before the experiment that Harmonium can't be split into Atium and Lerasium, and yet Wax managed to do it, but it's not the only thing. Intent might be another one, as Wax did it with the sole intent to create Lerasium and Atium (was it ever said if Set tried to get Atium/Lerasium from it? All I remember is that they did experiment with bombs but they did it to perfect the bomb, not create Atium/Lerasium). But that's not everything, as this should be repeated by those who know Lerasium was created by Wax, and yet it wasn't. Something is still missing.

Edited March 4, 2023 by alder24

[Little_Dagger she/her]

1 minute ago, alder24 said:

Then why can't nobody repeat that after Wax's experiment? That's what Harmony said, they tried to replicate that and failed, they couldn't get Atium. 

Actually, I am not that sure they could not repeat it. Sure, Sazed tells that to our characters, but we have seen him intentionally lying about it to Kelsier already. Besides, the fact that Marsh is still alive two years after the detonations makes me think there is more Atium in existence than what the kandra "collected from Wax's lab". 

I could be wrong, of course.

[Trusk'our he/him]

7 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Then why can't nobody repeat that after Wax's experiment? That's what Harmony said, they tried to replicate that and failed, they couldn't get Atium. 

They do get more Atium. That's how they let Marsh recover.

They said that there was no more Lerasium, and I think that Sazed might be lying about that and we'll see a bag of Lerasium later in era 3 showing up.

Quote

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

LewsTherinTelescope

At the end of The Lost Metal, we learn that Marsh will be using atium from the ettmetal experiments to stay alive going forward. However, Peter recently revealed (and you confirmed) that the atium in Era 1 which stored youth was actually a mix of atium and electrum. How will this continue to work to keep him young?

Brandon Sanderson

They're going to have a different term for pure atium and for what has been known as atium--what they're making. It is not hard to get the right mix down for what he needs to stay alive. It is hard to make enough of it to keep him alive. Well, not hard, but definitely not scalable to more than one person, how about that. They are able to do it, you've just got to make an alloy.

I will apologize for this. This is a post-Era-1 retcon where I realized I need all the God Metals to do different things, and this is just one of the aspects that comes down. For those who don't know what's going on: I get done with Era 1, I start really working on the nature of metals in the cosmere. I'm like, "Ehhh... Atium really should be burnable by anybody. It's a God Metal. The way God Metals work is not in line with how I've made atium. So what they call atium has to have trace elements of something else, and then there's a pure form of atium out there that would be the true pure God Metal." That is one of those unfortunate retcons when you're doing all this continuity. And it works just fine in the books, because the way that atium is being made is a pretty complicated little process there in the Pits of Hathsin.

The question is the right question. Sazed is going to get out of this pure atium, which he is going to need to tweak before he gives it to Marsh. Whether Marsh knows he is getting a tweaked version or not is subject to your own interpretation.

For arcanist purposes, if you want to call the other one pure atium and the regular one just atium, I'd recommend something like that for your wikis and things like that.

 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Trusk'our

[NameIess]

After giving it some thought, I don’t know that Harmony was lying. He could be destroying the Lerasium on purpose, in order to prevent Mistborn from returning. Eventually, everyone would just assume that the experiment doesn’t make Lerasium, and then intent would take over.  So I definitely still think he’s trying to mislead everyone, but he might have been telling the truth when he told Kelsier that all the Lerasium was destroyed in the explosion.

[alder24]

6 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

They do get more Atium. That's how they let Marsh recover.

I meant Lerasium

8 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

I think that Sazed might be lying about that and we'll see a bag of Lerasium later in era 3 showing up.

9 minutes ago, Yuliya said:

Actually, I am not that sure they could not repeat it. Sure, Sazed tells that to our characters, but we have seen him intentionally lying about it to Kelsier already.

Yes, this is another possibility, Sazed is lying. However it was noted by Kel at the end of SH that Sazed is a terrible liar. It's possible he learned how to lie in those years. But personally I believe he was telling the truth. It just makes it more interesting to try to figure out what is missing, then just getting a bag full of Lerasium in Era 3.

9 minutes ago, Yuliya said:

Besides, the fact that Marsh is still alive two years after the detonations makes me think there is more Atium in existence than what the kandra "collected from Wax's lab". 

They've tried this experiment several times, and possibly with much larger quantities of metals, and thus they got more Atium.

1 minute ago, UnfortunatelyNamed said:

After giving it some thought, I don’t know that Harmony was lying. He could be destroying the Lerasium on purpose, in order to prevent Mistborn from returning. Eventually, everyone would just assume that the experiment doesn’t make Lerasium, and then intent would take over.  So I definitely still think he’s trying to mislead everyone, but he might have been telling the truth when he told Kelsier that all the Lerasium was destroyed in the explosion.

How would he destroy Lerasium? Yes, it's his essence, but he is still mostly unable to act on his own. And then even during Wax's experiment, he didn't know/think it was possible.

But I do agree, he definitely don't want to give Lerasium Mistborn powers to Scadrial.

[Trusk'our he/him]

15 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I meant Lerasium

Oops, sorry.

[alder24]

Just now, Trusk'our said:

Oops, sorry.

No problem, my mistake. It's corrected now, so thanks for pointing it out.

[NameIess]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

How would he destroy Lerasium? Yes, it's his essence, but he is still mostly unable to act on his own. And then even during Wax's experiment, he didn't know/think it was possible.

He didn’t destroy it during Wax’s experiment, so him knowing or not isn’t relevant there. And mostly unable to act is not wholly unable to act. I don’t find it impossible that he could influence his own godmetal in such a way as to either outright destroy the Lerasium produced or at least cause it to be vulnerable to destruction.

[alder24]

4 minutes ago, UnfortunatelyNamed said:

He didn’t destroy it during Wax’s experiment, so him knowing or not isn’t relevant there. And mostly unable to act is not wholly unable to act. I don’t find it impossible that he could influence his own godmetal in such a way as to either outright destroy the Lerasium produced or at least cause it to be vulnerable to destruction.

I don't think he can influence his god metal to such extent. Ruin didn't even know where his Atium was, nor did he notice at first that Elend's army was using Atium and he couldn't stop them or "tweak" the Atium to make it less helpful (or destry it like you suggest), and Harmony didn't know where the Harmonium bomb was. While it doesn't necessarily mean that Harmony can't influence his god metal in some way (in case of experiments he would know where it is), it certainly proves that Shards have limitations in that regard. 

Ruin had to metabolize Atium (whatever it means for Shards) to gain its power, so if Harmony tried to "destroy" Lerasium, I suspect he would need to do the same. He could do it, he certainly had a motive for it, I just find it very unlikely if not outright impossible.

Spoiler

Chaos (paraphrased)

What would have happened if Ruin did get the atium? Yeah, the world is destroyed, but how does Ruin "absorb" the atium so he can utilize the power?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He would metabolize it, just like the normal people have to do. However, if he did get it he would then be able to destroy the world.

Ancient 17S Q&A (May 1, 2010)

 

[Elder]

23 hours ago, alder24 said:

I don't think he can influence his god metal to such extent. Ruin didn't even know where his Atium was, nor did he notice at first that Elend's army was using Atium and he couldn't stop them or "tweak" the Atium to make it less helpful (or destry it like you suggest), and Harmony didn't know where the Harmonium bomb was. While it doesn't necessarily mean that Harmony can't influence his god metal in some way (in case of experiments he would know where it is), it certainly proves that Shards have limitations in that regard. 

Ruin had to metabolize Atium (whatever it means for Shards) to gain its power, so if Harmony tried to "destroy" Lerasium, I suspect he would need to do the same. He could do it, he certainly had a motive for it, I just find it very unlikely if not outright impossible.

  Reveal hidden contents

Chaos (paraphrased)

What would have happened if Ruin did get the atium? Yeah, the world is destroyed, but how does Ruin "absorb" the atium so he can utilize the power?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

He would metabolize it, just like the normal people have to do. However, if he did get it he would then be able to destroy the world.

Ancient 17S Q&A (May 1, 2010)

 

I imagine any control he has over his God Metal is purely subconscious.  Not something the Vessel is usually in tune with.

[IlstrawberrySeed]

I've seen and had a few theroies.

1. Intent matters. The secondary explosion is what produced the lerasium, and he was trying to preserve the harmonium dust for further experimentation.
2. Hemalurgic charge matters. The fact it was a spike instead of regular trellium, as was likely used by the set, and recovered by the kandra afterword, could have had an impact. %fill or identity & power keys inside could have effected it as well.
3. Discord instead of harmony
4. Something with the harmonium, aka more Preservation power in that piece than most
5. Wax's connection to harmony, and his currently stronger leaning toward preservation.
6. Absence of a shard's attention. In tests done by the kandra, Harmony was paying attention. For the set, it was Autonomy. For wax, even though there was a kandra present, he didn't seem to communicate with harmony.
7. Ettmetal charge. The peace of ettmetal may have had an allomantic charge, and other tests likely wouldn't have. This may have been the cause of #4.
8. Trellium's shape. If the cut happened cleanly and smoothly, a different result may have occurred than one with a slower cut and longer connection.

[Stick The Savant]

Quote

1. Wax's connection to harmony, and his currently stronger leaning toward preservation.

Since there is slightly more ruin than preservation in harmony, maybe it's harder to get lerasium. If this is true, in theory you could repeat the experiment until you create enough atrium to level out the investiture in harmony. Then maybe lerasium would be easier to get

[IlstrawberrySeed]

43 minutes ago, Stick The Savant said:

Since there is slightly more ruin than preservation in harmony, maybe it's harder to get lerasium. If this is true, in theory you could repeat the experiment until you create enough atrium to level out the investiture in harmony. Then maybe lerasium would be easier to get

I realise it is unclear, but I meant Wax's leaning.