The key to Wax's experiment?

[alder24]

I just stumble across this quote from TLM, ch 15, which give me the idea:

Quote

t took a good half hour to set the whole thing up. All the while, Wax wondered. What if he did split harmonium? He’d have two metals, the bodies of gods, each capable of incredible things from ancient lore, like manipulating time or creating beings with mythological Mistborn abilities. What if he had that power? What would that change about him?
Nothing, he thought to himself. I’ve held that power. And when I had it, I used it to save my friends.

And I think this might be the key to splitting Harmonium. Wax didn't just have the Intent to create Lerasium, he did the experiment without any desire to use both metals. He didn't want to use either Atium or Lerasium if he succeeded. He had already held the power of Fullborn and didn't want to have it back. Like he said, creation of Atium and Lerasium wouldn't change anything about him - he was Preserving himself. And I think this specific intent, to create god metals without any desire to use them or change yourself, is the key to getting Lerasium. After TLM events, Kandra did the experiment specifically to create Atium for Marsh, and probably to use Lerasium in some other ways, therefore the intent wasn't met.

There are a lot of theories about this, but I still feel there must be something with the intent that prevented Kandra from creating Lerasium.

Edited March 30, 2023 by alder24

[Longshot97 he/him]

Maybe the reason this Intent was the one that worked (assuming this theory to be correct) is because it is the closest to the idea of Harmony. At the moment, Harmony is not Discord, by his own profession, and he cannot lie.

[Frustration he/him]

Huh, this would actually be a way to make the intent thing work.

My biggest problem is that people assume the Set wanted to make bombs despite Lerasium being a really easy way to accomplish their goals.

But if it's about what they wanted to do with the results, that might explain it.

[Trusk'our he/him]

18 hours ago, Longshot97 said:

Maybe the reason this Intent was the one that worked (assuming this theory to be correct) is because it is the closest to the idea of Harmony. At the moment, Harmony is not Discord, by his own profession, and he cannot lie.

Shards can lie if they want. They are only unable to break formal oaths they've made (well, they can, but it hurts them and leaves them vulnerable to attack from other Shards).

Quote

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

R'Shara

Can Shards lie anytime they want to other than when bound by oaths and such?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Anytime they want to might be a little... But that caveat you put on there: there are instances where they can't. But you should assume they are able to more often than not. I'm sure we've seen instances of it in multiple places in the books. Their duty to randos, as we might say, is much less than interacting with one another.

I'm still of the opinion that Lerasium is being created as a byproduct of Harmonium splitting and that Sazed just managed to get better at lying over the last three hundred and forty-eight years. 

The real question I'm wondering is; why does Sazed not want Lerasium to get out? Why doesn't he want Kelsier to get any?

[Leuthie]

8 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Shards can lie if they want. They are only unable to break formal oaths they've made (well, they can, but it hurts them and leaves them vulnerable to attack from other Shards).

I'm still of the opinion that Lerasium is being created as a byproduct of Harmonium splitting and that Sazed just managed to get better at lying over the last three hundred and forty-eight years. 

The real question I'm wondering is; why does Sazed not want Lerasium to get out? Why doesn't he want Kelsier to get any?

I'm of the opposite. I think the more stable Harmony is, the less likely Lerasium and Atium survive being broken off. As Harmony destabilizes/Sazed has more and more issues holding the Shards together, Lerasium and Atium become more stable. Or reverse, the more Lerasium and Atium there are, the harder it becomes for Sazed to hold the Shards together.

[HSuperLee he/him]

A fantastic find, Alder. The thing you've said that I'm especially honing in on is this bit:

On 3/27/2023 at 1:32 PM, alder24 said:

Like he said, creation of Atium and Lerasium wouldn't change anything about him - he was Preserving himself.

We've had lots of theories that claimed Wax was more in line with Preservation during his experiment, but I've never been satisfied with the reasoning behind those theories. Preservation isn't the opposite of destruction, its just stasis. The idea that Wax succeeded because he didn't actively want to change things makes a ton of sense to me. Change is of Ruin, so it creates extra atium. Actually, do we know if Wax's experiment created any net gain in atium, or did it merely produce a net gain in lerasium? (I say net gain to differentiate materials that survive the explosion from those that are consumed in the process). Either way, I think you might be on to something.

[alder24]

12 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

Actually, do we know if Wax's experiment created any net gain in atium, or did it merely produce a net gain in lerasium?

Sazed told Kelsier that Kandra found Atium dust in Wax's laboratory, so it did create Atium as well as Lerasium. However looking at this quote makes me think that Sazed is also lying here, but in a different way:

Quote

"The kandra found atium dust in Waxillium’s destroyed laboratory,” Sazed said. “It appears that if you detonate harmonium against trellium—or, I suppose bavadinium would be its true name—it creates some small amount of atium as a by-product.”
“Lerasium?” Kelsier asked.
“I’m sorry. That is all annihilated in the explosion. We’ve tested it several times now.”

But they found Lerasium dust in Wax's lab, which he didn't mention to Kel at all. It gives me the impression that Kel didn't know Wayne saved Elendel by ingesting Lerasium. It also makes me think that only Lerasium was created in Wax's experiment, and that was the dust Kandra found, Atium was fully annihilated instead. But in all other following tests made by Kandra, they weren't able to replicate that, and instead of Lerasium, they gained Atium and no Lerasium. This makes me now think that by splitting Harmonium with Trellium, you can only get one god metal, not both of them, and what metal you get depends on the intent you had. 

So it clearly looks like Sazed lied to Kelsier (at least by omission) about Wax's experiment, while telling the truth about Kandra tests.

Now I believe that Wax created only Lerasium, and no Atium, and when Kandra tried to replicate it, they got only Atium, and no Lerasium. Sazed then lied to Kelsier, telling him that Wax created Atium, while telling the truth that during Kandra experiments Lerasium was annihilated.

[therunner he/him]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

This makes me now think that by splitting Harmonium with Trellium, you can only get one god metal, not both of them, and what metal you get depends on the intent you had.

Interesting thought, so the idea is basically you can split Harmonium with Trellium and then based on both your subconcious and concisous intent, following happens
 

• Intent is to use splitting to change nothing -> Lerasium is created
• Intent is to use splitting to change anything -> Atium is created

So if you intent to actually use the splitting to achieve anything that would change current status, you will get Atium?
If so, then creating Lerasium is actually quite difficult, because you basically cannot create it on purpose, because having a purpose in mind would go against Intent of Lerasium.

Edited March 29, 2023 by therunner

[alder24]

30 minutes ago, therunner said:

So if you intent to actually use the splitting to achieve anything that would change current status, you will get Atium?
If so, then creating Lerasium is actually quite difficult, because you basically cannot create it on purpose, because having a purpose in mind would go against Intent of Lerasium.

Yes, that's what I think now. And that would explain very well why Kandra were unable to replicate Wax results.

[therunner he/him]

9 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Yes, that's what I think now. And that would explain very well why Kandra were unable to replicate Wax results.

And it would mean that Kelsier and Ghostbloods are virtually guaranteed to be unable to replicate it as well, no matter how they try, because they will always intent to use it.

I am now much more curious about Era 3 and the supposed Mistborn who Brandon planned to have there.

[HSuperLee he/him]

Perhaps the best way to create lerasium would be to do so for completely scientific purposes. If you wanted to study lerasium you might be able to put yourself in the right mindset. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is not inherently about change. So if one of us got dropped into the cosmere and wanted to study the feruchemical effects of lerasium, we might be able to create it. Now, I do have some fear that if Kel manages to reach a state where he could benefit from lerasium, he would find it relatively easy to create as it wouldn't be a change for him, but rather he would see lerasium as making him more himself, which is to say a mistborn.