What's really going on with Trellium? Do avatars get their own "god" metal?

[Epicdaf]

Recently I posted another thread talking about metals and specifically, Silver in the Cosmere: 

One thing I forgot to include was Trellium or Bavadinium, and it got me thinking. What exactly is going on with Trellium? 

The Coppermind classifies it as the following: 

Quote

Trellium is a silvery metal with a red cast to it, and dark red spots similar to rust.^[1][2] Like other God Metals, it displays many unusual properties. It is notable for repelling other forms of Investiture, with a force proportional to how close it is to the source of Investiture.^[3] This causes it to try and roll away when in the proximity of harmonium, Hemalurgic spikes or an Allomancer burning metals.

The things that stick out to me the most are the silvery appearance and the similar effect it has with Investiture. 

With this in mind, I wonder if Trellium is actually an alloy and not a full God Metal. Similar to how Atium was first presented before the retcon.  

It's curious that Silver is allomantically inert, yet it disrupts Investiture, like it's the case with Shades, Spores and White Sand (As per a WoB). The Coppermind also states that if you were to allomantically burn Trellium, there are unknown effects.
Maybe they are unknown as the silver elements of Trellium are disrupting the allomantic reaction? 

Is it possible that the pure form of Bavadinium has different properties than Trellium, as it is essentially the "God metal" of an Avatar, not the shard?

This theory would have interesting implications due to the fact that Autonomy can determine how heavily she invests her avatars. It makes sense that she would grant a "god metal" to an avatar where the main form of Investiture are the metallic arts. 

What do you think? Am I up to something?

 

Furthermore, if Trellium was widely available, could you use it to disrupt other forms of investiture?

A few examples I propose would be:

*Trellium dagger vs shade = dead shade. 

*Trellium dagger vs silver chain = disrupts the cognitive anchor.

*Trellium Spike vs shade/cognitive shadow = kills share/cognitive shadow. 

*Trellium dagger/spike vs Herald = disrupts connection to Honor, makes them a normal person. 

*Trellium sword vs shardblade = makes shardblade vanish momentarily. 

*Trellium sword vs shardplate = makes shardplate vanish momentarily. 

*Trellium spike vs radiant spren (in cognitive realm) = kills spren (disrupts their bond).

*Trellium spike vs Radiant = Blocks their nahel bond. No access to surges. 

* Trellum spike vs Fuzed = Blocks connection to Odium. No access to surges. 

*Trellium vs Unmade = Incapacitates them. 

*Trellium spike/dagger vs sand master = blocks luhel bond.  

*Trellium sword vs spores = kills spores. 

*Trellium dagger/spike vs Aetherbound = blocks luhel bond. 

*Trellium Spike vs Aviar = Blocks their abilities

*Trellium vs a Returned = Can kill them, disrupting their Divine Breath. 

 

Let the theorizing begin. 

 

 

Edited January 26 by Epicdaf

[#1 Taln Fan he/him]

5 hours ago, Epicdaf said:

Let the theorizing begin. 

Just a heads up, I've moved this thread to the Cosmere Discussion subforum. Q&A is more for things that have a singular definitive answer, rather than discussion/theorizing 

[Epicdaf]

Thank you for that!

[alder24]

5 hours ago, Epicdaf said:

One thing I forgot to include was Trellium or Bavadinium, and it got me thinking. What exactly is going on with Trellium? 

Trellium is confirmed to be Bavadinium by Harmony, TLM epilogue 4:

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.”

 

5 hours ago, Epicdaf said:

The Coppermind also states that if you were to allomantically burn Trellium, there are unknown effects.
Maybe they are unknown as the silver elements of Trellium are disrupting the allomantic reaction? 

Nobody tried to burn it. Keep in mind that all Trellium we saw in books was used for Hemalurgic spikes and burning a Hemalurgic spike is problematic. People on Scadrial also believe that you need to be a full Mistborn to be able to burn a god metal in the first place, only Lerasium is different and for that reason nobody probably even tried to burn it at all. Moreover, electrum is an alloy of gold and silver (iirc it's 45% silver), Malatium is probably an alloy of Atium and silver as well (Edit: correction, it's an alloy of Atium and gold, But Era 1 Atium is an alloy of Atium and electrum, thus it contains silver), so silver in an Allomantically viable alloy doesn't disturb the burning of the metal.

5 hours ago, Epicdaf said:

Furthermore, if Trellium was widely available, could you use it to disrupt other forms of investiture?

Rather than disrupting investiture like silver, Trellium physically pushes it away so instead of killing shades and spren, it would probably keep them at a distance and throw them back. It wouldn't be pleasant, it might hurt their soul, yet I doubt it would be that deadly. However we don't really know much about Trellium and how it reacts with sentient investiture, or how it behaves as a dagger and stuff like that. And we certainly don't know what it steals as a Hemalurgic spike, but it does work normally and doesn't prevent a Hemalurgist from accessing powers via Allomancy and Feruchemy - it shows no disruptive effects and it only prevents Harmony from seeing them and taking control over them, but the power still flows from Harmony to them. It works as a normal Hemalurgic spike with some little extra effects. 

Edited January 26 by alder24

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

It does seem like the more interesting property of trellium is that it seemingly splits mixed investitures back into the forms of the 16 shards. If someone put a shardblade or the CR body of a Spren (uhh, maybe a Cryptic who is really curious, willing, and doesn't have any future plans) into the electric current machine and then poked them with a bit of trellium, then it might do the funky thing of splitting the Invesiture (and cause a large explosion, I hope that Cryptic really didn't have anything to look forward to).

This makes it seem like you might also be able to do something neat, like getting Taravangian into a state where he is feeling the competing natures of his Shards and poking him with the stuff (Maybe get him to sit in the electricity machine? I bet it could be disguised as a fancy chair!) then it might make him explode in an impressive way.

I also wonder if it could be used to induce further Shatterings? Like, no one tried putting Lerasium or Atium into the electricity and trellium machine to see if Preservation and Ruin don't contain sub-assemblies which can be inmetalliated (incarnation implies fleshy to me, embodiment in metal has to be another thing) as distinct forms.

 

[Epicdaf]

Interesting theory regarding Retribution. 

Although, I remember reading somewhere that bothered Autonomy and Retribution have some sort of agreement. 

That being said, Autonomy had no issued going after a double shard. Who knows what she would do in Roshar. 

[LewsTherinTelescope]

I'm not sure of the alloy idea because of what Sazed says in the quote alder posted, but I do think it's interesting that when Wax puts the earring in he's drawn to Telsin rather than to Bavadin or some random avatar or torn between multiple places, and an engineer speaking to Telsin calls it "your metal". I wonder if it's specifically her "body" rather than generically Autonomy's and this is having some effects, a bit like how the Sibling can dismiss Surgebindings done with Towerlight because it's their Light and spren can reshape their Shardblade form because it's their essence. In fact, I sort of wonder whether Trell might have been built to manifest this metal, given how conveniently its uses align with exactly what the Set needs. (Telsin being an avatar rather than Splinter does potentially make it messier, but the Stormfather was able to bond people to grant Adhesion and Tension without Ascending them, so it does seem avatars can have some separation from the parent Shard in terms of magic.)

This does in its own way clash a bit with the Harmony line, but I have an easier time imagining him overlooking a nuance like this in a topic he's probably not super deeply familiar with than imagining him missing that there's a separate other metal in there.