Harmonium Discussion

[Sirce Luckwielder]

Okay, so with a Word of Bradon, we know that there is a third god metal.

The base 16 are basically it. But the interactions between them and things- and there is one more metal, there is harmonium, so you will hear about that later on.

So, Harmonium. What is it, what does it do? Obviously we can't know these questions until a book comes out, but I think we can make some guesses and extrapolate from prior knowledge that we have. One thing to note is that the other two god metals contained the name of the Shardholder, not the name of the Shard's Intent. If there is Ati-um and Leras-ium, why is this metal not called Sazed-ium? Is it due to him holding both Shard's, or is there actually multiple god metals that we will see?

So, what do the metal(s) do, or more acurately, what ideas do we have for what it could be. I don't think that I am correct, but I could see them having to with Feruchemy. Maybe the god alloy and its alloy can force Feruchemists to store or tap their metalminds. Again, I am pretty sure that this is not correct, but I think it would be cool.

What ideas do people have about Harmonium and possible Sazedium?

[Lindel]

Atium and Lerasium are names that people in world gave to those metals, not some inherit quality. Sure their names have been around for ages, maybe even as long as the metals themselves, but there's nothing special about those names. It's just what someone decided to call them, and it happened to stick. As I'm sure has been pointed out in other threads regarding this, there are very, very few people that know that Sazed is Harmony. Their god is Harmony, not Sazed. Heck, they don't even know about Atium or Lerasium anymore.  

 

It doesn't really matter what the other god metals were called. It's not like Hoid or someone is running around naming God metals after their Shardholders. If nobody's aware that Sazed is Harmony, why in the world would it occur to them to name it Sazedium? 

 

That said, I'm not sure the metal will even have an Allomantic property. The WoB suggests that there's only one more metal to be introduced. Not a pair, much less sixteen more. I'd say it's likely Harmonium is just the name of the "Final Metal", brought from Southern Scadrial, which means it's likely related to Allomantic technology in some way. 

 

EDIT: Fixed a few mistakes. 

Edited March 6, 2015 by Lindel

[Moogle]

I don't think we can really make any reliable deductions on what it does.

 

Allomantic effect: That said, atium appears to be an external electrum, and lerasium is an internal... something. I'd guess nicrosil. Is this new god metal supposed to be internal or external? My guess would be that it is both. I'm not sure where to go from there with regards to its power, though. Making someone a Mistborn is only a side effect of lerasium... if we knew what the actual effect was, we could guess more reliably.

 

Feruchemical effect: Would guess it allows you to store any attribute.

 

Hemalurgical effect: Haven't the slightest.

[Sirce Luckwielder]

Atium and Lerasium are names that people in world gave to those metals, not some inherit quality. Sure their names have been around for ages, maybe even as long as the metals themselves, but there's nothing special about those names. It's just what someone decided to call them, and it happened to stick. As I'm sure has been pointed out in other threads regarding this, there are very, very few people that know that Sazed is Harmony. Their god is Harmony, not Sazed. Heck, they don't even know about Atium or Lerasium anymore.

It doesn't really matter what the other god metals were called. It's not like Hoid or someone is running around naming God metals after their Shardholders. If nobody's aware that Sazed is Harmony, why in the world would it occur to them to name it Sazedium?

That said, I'm not sure the metal will even have an Allomantic property. The WoB suggests that there's only one more metal to be introduced. Not a pair, much less sixteen more. I'd say it's likely Harmonium is just the name of the "Final Metal", brought from Southern Scadrial, which means it's likely related to Allomantic technology in some way.

EDIT: Fixed a few mistakes.

My problem with this is that I am not sure if people even knew that their gods were called Ati and Leras, much less Ruin or Preservation. We don't know much about the religions before the Ascension, there may not have been any that discovered that they had the two gods. With this, I find it pretty unlikely that they would have known the actual names for Ruin and Preservation.

My main reason to open this thread was mainly to see what people knew about Harmonium. I have only seen the one Word of Brandon, so I thought we should compile anything else that we knew.

I like the thought that Harmonium is what makes Southern Scadrian technology work. I hadn't though of that before and it seems like a very Harmony-like and Sazed-like thing to do. If the top northern continent has Allomancy, which is passed through genetics, than Harmony's intent would likely make him find a way to bring the Souther Scadrians up to their level.

I don't think we can really make any reliable deductions on what it does.

 

Allomantic effect: That said, atium appears to be an external electrum, and lerasium is an internal... something. I'd guess nicrosil. Is this new god metal supposed to be internal or external? My guess would be that it is both. I'm not sure where to go from there with regards to its power, though. Making someone a Mistborn is only a side effect of lerasium... if we knew what the actual effect was, we could guess more reliably.

Where do we know that making a Lerasium burner become a Mistborn is only a side effect?

Edited March 6, 2015 by Sirce Luckwielder

[Kaymyth]

My problem with this is that I am not sure if people even knew that their gods were called Ati and Leras, much less Ruin or Preservation. We don't know much about the religions before the Ascension, there may not have been any that discovered that they had the two gods. With this, I find it pretty unlikely that they would have known the actual names for Ruin and Preservation.

 

 

The Lord Ruler certainly knew about Ati and Leras after he ascended.  He's probably the one who gave atium, at least, its name.

[Vaidd]

Where do we know that making a Lerasium burner become a Mistborn is only a side effect?

 

 

I wondered about that too, so I went looking for it.  Brandon says so here, in one of his HoA annotations.

 

Edit: I thought I had posted here before, albeit a while back.  Um...hi, guys.

Edited March 6, 2015 by Vaidd

[Sirce Luckwielder]

I wondered about that too, so I went looking for it.  Brandon says so here, in one of his HoA annotations.

Huh. That's pretty sweet. Any ideas on what Lerasium actually does?

[Voidus]

I wondered about that too, so I went looking for it.  Brandon says so here, in one of his HoA annotations.

 

Edit: I thought I had posted here before, albeit a while back.  Um...hi, guys.

Nice find, and welcome to the forums

Would you care for a cookie?

 

 

Huh. That's pretty sweet. Any ideas on what Lerasium actually does?

We're not sure but it takes some effort to get it do something else, personally my ideas are it has something to do with Spiritual connections.

[Lord Tavash Shar]

Nice find, and welcome to the forums

Would you care for a cookie?

 

 

We're not sure but it takes some effort to get it do something else, personally my ideas are it has something to do with Spiritual connections.

 

We have a WOB that if you Eat enough of it its just like consuming the mists and you end up ascending to become preservation. 

[Sirce Luckwielder]

We have a WOB that if you Eat enough of it its just like consuming the mists and you end up ascending to become preservation.

That's cool, but it seems to be pretty unlikely. How much Lerasium is there and how much would you need to ascend?

[Lord Tavash Shar]

That's cool, but it seems to be pretty unlikely. How much Lerasium is there and how much would you need to ascend?

The exact quote is:

 

 

DOUGLAS

What about a Lerasium savant? Or would that require so much Lerasium that the person attempting it would ascend to become a new Shardholder?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Basically, this is what ascension is.

As to how much there is or if its actually possible? No idea. Its just something to note about one of the god metals we already know of. Though it makes me wonder if enough atium spikes would cause the same function.....

[natc]

I don't think we can really make any reliable deductions on what it does.

Allomantic effect: That said, atium appears to be an external electrum, and lerasium is an internal... something. I'd guess nicrosil. Is this new god metal supposed to be internal or external? My guess would be that it is both. I'm not sure where to go from there with regards to its power, though. Making someone a Mistborn is only a side effect of lerasium... if we knew what the actual effect was, we could guess more reliably.

Feruchemical effect: Would guess it allows you to store any attribute.

Hemalurgical effect: Haven't the slightest.

I'm iffy on the external electrum thing. . . on one hand it definitely is applying the electrum effect to everything except yourself, but on the other hand it technically grants you the ability to see other objects' future. Like tin, which is internal, and allows you to sense the world better, but atium instead senses the world's future. So wouldn't atium be less "external" electrum and more just a different internal effect along the same lines as electrum?

I believe even the Ministry was stumped by that. The actual external temporal metals turn out to cause actual time distortion, which makes sense compared to the internal pair allowing perception of time other than the present. They judge push/pull in this chart in part with bronzepulses, so I'd imagine atium and electrum would actually be classified identically as temporal-internal-pushing.

[skaa]

I'm iffy on the external electrum thing. . . on one hand it definitely is applying the electrum effect to everything except yourself, but on the other hand it technically grants you the ability to see other objects' future. Like tin, which is internal, and allows you to sense the world better, but atium instead senses the world's future. So wouldn't atium be less "external" electrum and more just a different internal effect along the same lines as electrum?

I believe even the Ministry was stumped by that. The actual external temporal metals turn out to cause actual time distortion, which makes sense compared to the internal pair allowing perception of time other than the present. They judge push/pull in this chart in part with bronzepulses, so I'd imagine atium and electrum would actually be classified identically as temporal-internal-pushing.

 

I agree. Atium must be an internal metal. I discussed this in my god metal theory thread, which some of you may have read. I also discussed my own view about harmonium there. To summarize:

• I think harmonium is a metal that, like aluminum, exhibits Allomantic properties without being burned.

   

• I speculate that harmonium triggers an Allomantic effect when in physical contact with another metal (kind of like the opposite of aluminum, which blocks Allomantic effects).

   

• I believe this property of harmonium is how Southern Scadrians can harness Allomancy mechanically.

   

• I suspect that harmonium contains both Ruin and Preservation... just like any other regular matter on Scadrial. In other words, I suspect harmonium is just a fancy name for a "real life" metal (similar to how soulstone is just a Forger term for soapstone), which is why it was possible for the Southern Scadrians to discover it in the first place.

   

• I propose that harmonium is a combination of the two metals that I once called the "harmonious metals": gold and aluminum. Specifically, I propose that harmonium is the thermally stable gold-aluminum intermetallic AuAl₂, which is called by many names ("amethyst gold", "purple gold", "purple death", etc.) in real life.

   

• I doubt harmonium can be burned by Allomancers or even used as a metalmind. Brandon said the 16 metals are "basically it", and by that I think he meant Allomancers won't be burning any other metals (aside from maybe atium and atium alloys... I doubt Sazed would even distribute lerasium any longer).

 

I wish I had more evidence to back any of the above speculations, but sadly I don't. Anyway, Sirce was just asking for guesses, after all.

Edited March 8, 2015 by skaa

[Oudeis]

A few thoughts.

 

First, no one in-universe has ever used the word 'lerasium', I believe. More importantly, as has been pointed out, it's just a name, not an intrinsic property.

 

Second, I disagree that aluminum "exhibits allomantic properties without being burned". WoB is that aluminum was designed to interact oddly with all arcana. This could simply be that. I grant that it's a huge coincidence that the effect happens to have some similarities to its allomantic power, but I'm loathe to assume that this is all it's doing. After all, allomatic aluminum doesn't directly stop the effect of metal, it metabolizes it all instantly. And touching aluminum to a bead of pewter doesn't make the pewter vanish.

 

Third, just throwing this out there to see what people think. My personal theory is that mechanical allomancy is the secret to how the Southern Scadrians not only survived 1024 years without genetic modifications and while the merciless sun beat down on them for hours there at the very end, but also how Rashek could possibly have been confident that they would not only survive, but would not in that millenium advance technologically or do anything to disrupt his plans. Do you believe harmonium existed before Harmony did? Do you have an answer to my two concerns, if mechanical allomancy wasn't the solution?

[AshkoreWD]

After reading through all these lovely theories, I have to partially agree with Skaa about Harmonium being an alloy. However, I believe they are the alloy of the two god metals combined, rather than any other portion therein. If the 16 are all there are, then mixing any others together would not result in any effects, it would just cause an Allomancer to be sick.

 

However, if someone were to combine the two god metals (I don't know if it's been done or even discussed anywhere), it could potentially be the missing metal, Harmonium, which has no real information at all, though speculation is a great thing to play with.

 

Alternatively, this leaves me remembering the Pools left by the shards, and makes me wonder if, by any theory, the pools are actually created by someone becoming a shard bearer (not just a sliver). That could, for instance, be part of the reason that Rashek wanted to hide the Atium from Ruin, why when Preservation gave her life to lock Ruin away there was the Well of Ascension, and why, on Sel, there's the large lake that lets Elantrians return home. This could also be where the new "Harmonium" metal comes from, being a well of metals left behind when Sazed became Harmony.

[natc]

Preservation is a dude, Ashkore. Don't make Leras feel awkward now.

[dayman]

The exact quote is:

 

 

DOUGLAS

What about a Lerasium savant? Or would that require so much Lerasium that the person attempting it would ascend to become a new Shardholder?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Basically, this is what ascension is.

As to how much there is or if its actually possible? No idea. Its just something to note about one of the god metals we already know of. Though it makes me wonder if enough atium spikes would cause the same function.....

 

I read that as nothing more than Brandon reiterating that Lerasium is a piece of preservation itself (in the same way the mists are, in the same way every human is innately invested w/ a tiny bit, etc, etc). If you were a savant at using the full, pure power of Lerasium--which is nothing more than pure preservation--then you are preservation itself/holding the shard. 

Edited March 21, 2015 by dayman

[Unhinged]

 

• I propose that harmonium is a combination of the two metals

 

I'm going to build off this and ask what if Harmonium is actually just an alloy of Atium and Lerasium. just like Harmony is a combination of Ruin and Preservation. And if someone was really skilled at smelting or whatever process you use to separate metals (I wouldn't know) they could divide Harmonium back into it's original state letting you use the Lerasium to make a Mistborn and the Atium however you want.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Unhinged