Trell actually might not be a shard we know!

[Djarskublar]

So something hit me. We know Bleeder's spike is of a metal from a Shard we know. What if that Shard is... Ruin?

So here is how it may work. The spike is actually an Atium aluminum alloy. Sazed is doing something with the extra Ruin power. I presume he remade the Pits and just hid them really well. Trell came along and studied the perpendicularity that is there, as well as all the magic present/known. He/She realized that a Kandra made from aluminum or an alloy of it may not be as susceptible to manipulation. Atium may grant the ruinous intent that they need.

I can't recall enough about SoS right now to say what it would entail. I just saw that WoB about Bleeder's spike again and this idea came to me. If (and I recognize that this is a massive if) this spike is actually just an Atium alloy the Kandra don't know about (not necessarily likely seeing as Sazed also appears ignorant), then that fits. This could blow the discussion about who Trell is wide open. Even though I do think that this is unlikely, I felt the need to present it as a possibility.

[Spoolofwhool]

Interesting thought, but fairly improbable. If the metal were an alloy between Atium and Aluminium, then how would it have a reddish colouring, since both metals on their own are silvery. Also, the fact that the metal is unknown seems to indicate it is not an alloy of a known metal either, as I don't think it would be too hard to analyze an alloy of known metals to find their components. Maybe. They don't have a lot of it so it's possible they're not going to risk what they have in tests. Also, it strikes me as unlikely that Harmony doesn't know the properties of the god metal alloys for the metallic arts, considering simply ascending using Preservation's power gave Rashek a fair amount of information about hemalurgy. 

The problem though, then if Trell is Ruin, then you would have to explain where the Set's faceless immortals came from, since I don't think they are of Ruin, unless there is somehow a section of Ruin's power acting autonomously. Unless you think the Set's support and the threat to Scadrial is what created the spikes to give Paalm power?

[Djarskublar]

Ahhh but you misunderstand. Somewhat.

I did think about how the metal was reddish, but that didn't bother me much. Just add water to certain chemicals and they change color. Why would a godmetal necessarily behave like normal matter anyway? I guess it's not impossible for the alloy to be reddish.

The misunderstanding is that I don't think Trell is Ruin. The faceless immortals of Trell are really just using an aluminum alloy that makes it hard for Harmony to influence them. Trell is something else entirely. This 'Trellium' people are talking about may not actually be from an off planet shard. That is all I'm saying. Its just an Atium/aluminum alloy. Trell could really be any Shard (not R/P or a few others obviously).

On another note, if you want it to be reddish, maybe copper? I don't recall its Hemalugic effect.

[Spoolofwhool]

32 minutes ago, Djarskublar said:

Ahhh but you misunderstand. Somewhat.

I did think about how the metal was reddish, but that didn't bother me much. Just add water to certain chemicals and they change color. Why would a godmetal necessarily behave like normal matter anyway? I guess it's not impossible for the alloy to be reddish.

The misunderstanding is that I don't think Trell is Ruin. The faceless immortals of Trell are really just using an aluminum alloy that makes it hard for Harmony to influence them. Trell is something else entirely. This 'Trellium' people are talking about may not actually be from an off planet shard. That is all I'm saying. Its just an Atium/aluminum alloy. Trell could really be any Shard (not R/P or a few others obviously).

On another note, if you want it to be reddish, maybe copper? I don't recall its Hemalugic effect.

Chemical reactions can change colours, but the alloying of metals isn't really a chemical reaction. All that's happening is that you're changing the makeup of the metallic lattice by swapping out atoms and possibly creating gaps. There is no usual bond change like with usual chemical reactions. As such, you would probably not get extreme colour shifts, like red from two silvery metals. Even if you say "oh, Atium is a god metal, weird stuff could happen with the colour", that would be the most hand-wavy explanation ever that there is no way Sanderson would actually do that, considering the amount of science he is actually trying to use. Also, while copper could be used, it steals memories and intelligence, even less likely than aluminium which steals allomantic enhancement powers. I any case, I'm assuming the reason you're proposing it in the alloy is because it is inert to most investiture.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Spoolofwhool

[Yata]

Actually I think it's quite impossible the idea "trellium"=Atium-X Alloy (where X may be every metal of the 16)

First of all there is the simple and quite absolute sentence "Harmony doesn't know what is it" (not the right wording) who removes quite every doubt about his exotic source.

Then the Kandra themself didn't find any mundane metal in their research on the trellium, neither they mention it was an alloy.

Another relevant point is that I don't think an Atium-X alloy may have the same stealing propriety of the pure Atium. In the books we see the "trellium" spike be able to steal Feruchemical steel, Allomantic steel and an unknown mundane attributes (maybe an animal's one)... I don't rememeber if Mr Suit's Spike was made of Trellium (but I think it's probably). I may (in theory) accept that every God-Metal Spike may steal everything with a different side effect (as in the case of Trellium may be the anti-detectin...or it's simply because the Spike is fueled by someone else) but not in the same power set (for example watch the Lerasium and Lerasium alloys in Allomancy).

PS: I don't see the reason for the Kandra to not made test on the Spikes...They have a lot of them from the Chimeras, and a single Spike may be used quite an infinite amount of time to study its composition.

[1stBondsmith]

I prefer the theory that this is from another world, unknown to Harmony, as he said. This allows for other shards steering their power, similar to how others have theorized Harmony has sent Kandra to gain knowledge of other worlds. The color of the cloud surrounding the world held off by Harmony was coincidentally the same color as the blotchy metal. I think there is another power attacking (or of not attacking, at least trying to take some control. Can't prove it with the info, but it seems a very likely answer considering what hints we have been given.

[Pagerunner]

I subscribe to Atium-Copper, actually for one of the reasons Yata doesn't. The 'Trellium' spike can steal anything. Either the new God Metal functions exactly like Atium, or it is a form of Atium. It steals anything, and also lets Bleeder hide from Harmony, which made me think Copper. (That, and the metal was silver and red, just like atium and copper are.)

The Kandra say that Harmony doesn't know what the metal is, but we can explain that away. (I'm not a big fan of 'explaining away' quotes, but I'll bear with myself for a moment.)

1. There are forces working to limit Harmony's knowledge. Maybe even knowledge of himself.
2. Do we believe the Kandra? Maybe, maybe not.
3. Is Harmony lying? He's lied to Wax about Bleeder before, or at the very least he has had his servants do so.

Before Secret History came out, I thought it might be Kelsier; Sazed could have given him the extra bit of Ruin, and Brandon has said in interviews that Kelsier could have been a villain had the story gone different. I thought there was a real possibility Kelsier would wind up as a bad guy at some point. Now, with Bands and Secret History, I've had to reevaluate that, considering... all that stuff. So, I don't have much of an idea as to who could be messing with Harmony (maybe the Ire?).

[Nightblade]

Looking at the shards we already know I would place my bet on Autonomy/Bavadin,

Autonomy means independence/freedom, If Autonomy is influencing Scadrial It would explain how some of the kandra are gaining independence from Harmony, they would be using his power Autonomy to kick Sazed out. Bavadin is also said to be working with Raize/Odium in the LETTER, And knowing Odiums obsession with cosmere domination he would use Bavadin as a pawn.

[1stBondsmith]

11 hours ago, Nightblade said:

Looking at the shards we already know I would place my bet on Autonomy/Bavadin,

Autonomy means independence/freedom, If Autonomy is influencing Scadrial It would explain how some of the kandra are gaining independence from Harmony, they would be using his power Autonomy to kick Sazed out. Bavadin is also said to be working with Raize/Odium in the LETTER, And knowing Odiums obsession with cosmere domination he would use Bavadin as a pawn.

Odium's obsession with cosmere dominion seems the exact reason Autonomy would not work with him. He would not work with anyone, and he woudl not like a system that would rule him. It sounds good on the "Survive" side of things, but I think we have another shard involved here.

[Yata]

of course @Pagerunner in my post. I took Harmony & Kandra's words as proofs. I completely discharged the possibility of lies...my bad.

Anyway I don't really think an Atium Alloy Spike would have all the Atium's proprieties and also an extra effect. It's just an idea of mine, but I find it unlikely

[PantsForSquares]

1 hour ago, 1stBondsmith said:

Odium's obsession with cosmere dominion seems the exact reason Autonomy would not work with him. He would not work with anyone, and he woudl not like a system that would rule him. It sounds good on the "Survive" side of things, but I think we have another shard involved here.

Rayse's goal seems to not become the ruler of the Cosmere; Instead, he wishes to be the most powerful being in it. If he wanted to rule the Cosmere, he would have kept some presence on Sel after killing Aona and Skai, and Splintering their Shards . Bavadin might want to work with Rayse to be free from the influence of other Shardholders (although the possibility of Rayse turning on him further down the line is very, very real), for instance, or because he wishes for the people of the Cosmere to be free of Shardic influence.

Or, Bavadin could no longer be working with Rayse, and Hoid just simply happens to still have a grudge against him. Without knowing much else about Bavadin, we can't really say much.

[Djarskublar]

I think some of what I was saying may not be totally clear to everyone. I am saying that the spike that Bleeder had was not of Trell, it was of Ruin. Because the spike is of Ruin, it is of a Shard we know. That means that Trell could be anything. If the spike isn't 'Trellium' then we don't really have any WoB that I know of stating that Trell is a Shard we know, or really anything about it for that matter. I am just thinking that Trell might be something completely different from anything anyone has guessed so far, and if this theory is even possible, it adds some credence to that idea.

[Nightblade]

2 hours ago, 1stBondsmith said:

Odium's obsession with cosmere dominion seems the exact reason Autonomy would not work with him. He would not work with anyone, and he woudl not like a system that would rule him. It sounds good on the "Survive" side of things, but I think we have another shard involved here.

Here is a definition of the word Autonomy: independence or freedom, as of the will or one's action. Just because someone is independent does not mean they wont work with others as long as they get to make the choices for themselves, Also Autonomy could be working on his own to try and take Scadrial without Odium. But I am open to it being a shard we dont know, but out of the ones we do Autonomy is my best guess.

[Nightblade]

5 minutes ago, Ernei said:

The question is, if the metal is unknown to Harmony, and it's not an alloy of Atium+something, what might it actually be? So far most of the worlds we've seen in Comsere are fairly Earth-ish (people live on every of them, there's oxygen, law of physics apply etc.) Whatever metals are on them, they should also be on Scadrial - so well-known to Sazed. The only other possibility is that Trell's metal came directly from another Shard, like atium or lerasium had, but why would their power even manifest in such a form? I mean, other magic systems aren't directly connected to metals, and correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Endowment's "manifestation" actually flowers?

I dont think Endowments Manifestation was the flowers her Manifestation was Breath, But the flowers were named after her or him i forgot which gender it is.

[Yata]

14 minutes ago, Nightblade said:

I dont think Endowments Manifestation was the flowers her Manifestation was Breath, But the flowers were named after her or him i forgot which gender it is.

actually Breath are Endowment Manifestation in the same way of Mist-->Preservation.

The flower have problably some similar connection to her.....Maybe they grow near her shardpool and they retain some of Endowment's Investiture or simply their dye are more compatible to be used with Endowment's power without be more invested.

Edited September 7, 2016 by Yata

[Spoolofwhool]

3 hours ago, Ernei said:

The question is, if the metal is unknown to Harmony, and it's not an alloy of Atium+something, what might it actually be? So far most of the worlds we've seen in Comsere are fairly Earth-ish (people live on every of them, there's oxygen, law of physics apply etc.) Whatever metals are on them, they should also be on Scadrial - so well-known to Sazed. The only other possibility is that Trell's metal came directly from another Shard, like atium or lerasium had, but why would their power even manifest in such a form? I mean, other magic systems aren't directly connected to metals, and correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Endowment's "manifestation" actually flowers?

If another shard came to Scadrial and invested, their physical presence would manifest as a metal. This is a result of the world's influence.

[RenegadeShroom]

I don't see why a Shard couldn't simply intentionally manifest their power in the form of a metal. They're incredibly powerful entities, so it seems to me that something like that would be trivial. In any case, there is another instance of a Shard's power being manifest as metal outside of Scadrial: in Rosharan Shardblades.

Quote

Questioner: Are shardblades made out of atium?

Brandon: Shardblades are not but it is the same thing but from a different planet...  It’s made out of the god’s body.

I'd also like to note that Trellium hiding the user from Harmony's sight isn't the metal's Hemalurgic effect, but an inherent trait of the metal.

Quote

ARGENT

Was Harmony unable to find her because the spike was made of this metal?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yeah. The spike was what prevented him from being able to find her.

QUESTION

It wasn't an ability granted by the spike.

BRANDON SANDERSON

No.

QUESTION

It was just the material.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yeah.

 

[zeppomarks]

So this is what I think: I mentioned in another thread that I think that Odium has some strange ability to corrupt the Investiture of other shards, and I think that's exactly what he did with this "Trellium".

We know from WoB that Odium doesn't Invest in planets because he doesn't want to diminish his powers, yet we still have Voidbinding, Unmade, and other little things that seem to disprove the WoB. But since all of these "manifestations" of Odium are just corrupt versions of manifestations of Honor and (possibly) Cultivation, I don't believe he actually invests. He just takes what is already invested and creates negative versions of it. That's why the Everstorm is a mirror version of a Highstorm.

And I believe that this is where the Trellium comes from. A corruption of Ruin and Preservation's Investiture.

I also believe a little hint was thrown into BoM by Sanderson. When, I believe it's Marasi, is looking at the picture drawn by the messed up Kandra of what I assume is a SoScadrian, the word "void" is used 2-3 times in fairly quick succession. I don't know what all this implies exactly, but I do believe it's a nod toward Odium.

Could be a red herring, sure, but I don't think so. Not really Sanderson's style to throw in red herrings unless they're still relevant to the story in some way.

I also don't think this is too small a reference to pay attention to. Especially when the subject of this thread was dropped in a minor conversation three novels before it became the Big Bad. There's no such thing as too small a hint when it comes to the Cosmere.

[Djarskublar]

@RenegadeShroom that WoB means something different from what you are saying. It means that there was something about the metal that was different. He can find his other Kandra from their spikes (IIRC). Something about Bleeder's spike made it so he couldn't. I am positing that it's because it is an alloy with either copper or aluminum.

[RenegadeShroom]

@Djarskublar That's pretty much what I said, no? The metal itself has a property independent of it's Hemalurgic attributes which makes the user hidden to Harmony.

[Djarskublar]

@RenegadeShroom Okay yeah I get you now.

By the way, Shardblades and Atium are made of pure Investiture. That is why he says they are the same thing- a god's body. It's not that they are both metal. Although I am curious about what would happen if you used a Blade as a Hemalurgic spike. Or had a Mistborn eat a Shardblade (living in sphere form).

[Yata]

There are a lot of Kandra with Copper's Blessing (well maybe not a lot by someone surely, after all Copper's Blessings are one of the traditional Kandra's blessing from the Final Empire).

I am still unsure about this....If an Atium-X spike have all the Stealing propriety of the atium and cool effects...Ruin would use it.

I think an Atium-X alloy would stole as an X Spike but with the improved efficience of Atium (in the same way of Lerasium-Lerasium's Alloy work with Allomancy)...

[Spoolofwhool]

My main issue with this theory is still the presumption that somehow an alloy of atium would be undetectable and unidentifiable by Harmony. While yes, it has been stated that an atium-aluminium alloy could be undetectable since aluminium is inert to most manifestations of investiture, this still doesn't excuse the fact that it is unidentifiable. You can use metallurgy to determine the presence of aluminium, and I doubt atium would somehow hide that. This would indicate that either the kandra are incompetent, or hiding the information from Wax. While the latter is possible, there is still one problem. Also. an atium-aluminium alloy would be pretty much guaranteed to be a silvery metal, which doesn't explain how it can have reddish colouring. While some people have been stated that it could be an atium-copper to explain the colour, this would do away with the theory of how the metal is undetectable. 

So overall, I think the theory has holes and too many fairly large premises to be possible.

[Pagerunner]

10 hours ago, zeppomarks said:

I also believe a little hint was thrown into BoM by Sanderson. When, I believe it's Marasi, is looking at the picture drawn by the messed up Kandra of what I assume is a SoScadrian, the word "void" is used 2-3 times in fairly quick succession. I don't know what all this implies exactly, but I do believe it's a nod toward Odium.

Could be a red herring, sure, but I don't think so. Not really Sanderson's style to throw in red herrings unless they're still relevant to the story in some way.

I also don't think this is too small a reference to pay attention to. Especially when the subject of this thread was dropped in a minor conversation three novels before it became the Big Bad. There's no such thing as too small a hint when it comes to the Cosmere.

Well, we have confirmation [2:52:00 in the transcript] that the broadsheet image in SoS was of a SoScad, intentionally done so we the readers would think it's a Parshendi. I think it's just continuing that red herring into this book.

 

12 hours ago, RenegadeShroom said:

I'd also like to note that Trellium hiding the user from Harmony's sight isn't the metal's Hemalurgic effect, but an inherent trait of the metal.

 

10 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

that WoB means something different from what you are saying. It means that there was something about the metal that was different. He can find his other Kandra from their spikes (IIRC). Something about Bleeder's spike made it so he couldn't. I am positing that it's because it is an alloy with either copper or aluminum.

 

6 hours ago, RenegadeShroom said:

That's pretty much what I said, no? The metal itself has a property independent of it's Hemalurgic attributes which makes the user hidden to Harmony.

Here's how I've interpreted it: the quote is saying that hiding from Harmony is not an ability stolen by the spike - the spike stole F.Steel, A.Steel, A.Brass, etc. Bleeder didn't find someone with a natural ability to hide from Harmony and spike that ability out of them. In other words, the Hemalurgic Charge didn't let her hide, but it might be a Hemalurgic Property of the metal that, when used as a spike, it can also let her hide, regardless of what ability was stolen with it. So, yeah, I don't think any of us are disagreeing on the effect, just on where to draw the line on where Hemalurgy stops and where the metal's natural abilities kick in.

[zeppomarks]

21 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

Well, we have confirmation [2:52:00 in the transcript] that the broadsheet image in SoS was of a SoScad, intentionally done so we the readers would think it's a Parshendi. I think it's just continuing that red herring into this book.

That makes sense, but it doesn't explain why he wanted us to think that it was a Listener. It's certainly possible that he was simply trying to mislead us, but it's equally possible that he was trying to establish a connection to Odium. Without proper context, there's no way of knowing.