New theoretical God metals

[ScadrianTank he/him]

I want to talk about the possibility of God metals made of Anti-Investiture. 

Anti-Light and Anti-Investiture seem to be inspired by antimatter, which is a kind of atom composed of its antiparticles. For example, the hydrogen atom is composed of an electron and proton, the antihydrogen atom is made up of a positron and antiproton. 

So what would a metal made of Anti-Investiture look like? What would it do? Can it even exist? 

Feasibility of existence

Firstly, I would like to mention that we may have already seen it in Mistborn. Ruin and Preservation seem to be the only Shards that seemed to act as opposites of each other. 

Their metals, however, don't behave like they are opposites. Their effects are different. We haven't seen anyone try to bang a nugget of Lerasium against a piece of Atium, so we don't know if their contact would cause annihilation.

A way to counter this view would be to show that they are not, in fact, opposites. For one, Preservation and Cultivation would also be opposites. For another, if they were to act as regular antimatter, they would have the same properties but opposite charges. 

If Anti-Investiture in it's physical form acts as Lerasium and Atium, meaning its opposition manifests in Intent rather than composition, then it may be much simpler to obtain and keep in that form. 

 

Composition

As we know, God metals are made of Shard's Investiture crystalized into a metallic form. While we don't have confirmation in the text, we have a WoB stating that at least Harmonium is made entirely out of a single element. 

WoB in question:

Spoiler

Ironeyes

So harmonium, we have a working theory that the reason it's so volatile is because some of the subatomic particles are associated with Ruin and some of them are [of?] Preservation. Is that true?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's basically what's going on is that it's creating a very unstable metal. Now, it is in the nature of the Cosmere not a compound but an element. But, you could call it a subatomic particle sure. It's very volatile because it is in nature spiritually in contrast with itself. And so though it is a single element rather than a compound, the spiritual nature is not happy as it is, and you can set up in the physical realm, through reactivity things that would just rip it apart and really your energy is not, your energy in that is actually pulling from the Spiritual realm, and so that's why it can be so much more explosive than even the chemistry would account for.

Ironeyes

So it's not that the subatomic particles are invested, it's that they have a spiritual identity which causes them to...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Ironeyes

So then it's not creating an oxide because after the spiritual energy goes away from the explosion[unintelligible] metal, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Right, and...

Ironeyes

So you can't find harmonium oxide in the water afterwards.

Brandon Sanderson

Right right right right. Because it's not, it's, yeah.  But you might be able to find something else, which is really relevant to the cosmere. And to Scadrial.

Ironeyes

So the core elements, the core particles, having extra repulsion causes them to have a nuclear potential.

Brandon Sanderson

I would not call it nuclear because it's not the same exact thing. But there is a cosmere equivalent, to... I mean, you could do nuclear power just the same in the cosmere, but since we have a third kind of state of matter, right, matter, energy, Investiture, you have a third axis that you know, you can release energy from matter, you can release investiture from matter, and things like that. So it's similar, but following its own rules that I have a little more... that are controlled by me, right. But are built on this idea. So once you add [unintelligible for a few syllables] that matter can now exist in this third state, you get all sorts of weird things, which one of the things that happens is, you can get an energy release in sort of the same way. A reaction, I'm not going to call it a nuclear reaction, but of the same vein.

Boskone 54 (Feb. 19, 2017)

Given the context of the original question, I believe it is safe to assume that the same holds for other God metals. So, therefore, the same would also apply to our Anti-metal. 

The question then becomes, would this metal be composed out of antiparticles, or would it merely be another element of opposite Intent?

 

Properties and effects

If Ruin, Preservation, and their metals are, in fact, opposites, then we see that Anti-Investiture is different from antimatter. Anti-metal is a new element that has opposite Spiritual Intent, rather than composition.

If that is so, we have another set of metals for Mistborn and Feruchemists to use. 

If not, then we now have a pull effect to every God metal push. 

In both cases, we have something useful in fabrial science, Allomancy, and Feruchemy.

I hesitate to guess any physical properties of these, other than likely explosive interaction with their original counterpart, as the only kind of this interaction we saw was with Harmonium, which is this way because of conflicting Intents that make up its essence. 

(On a more personal note, it would be cool to see a magical interaction with magnetism.) 

 

So here it is. Hopefully, I made some sense and didn't bore you to death. Let me know what you think!

[Honorless he/him]

Ruin and Preservation's Pulses / Rhythms / Tones are probably close to one another's antithesis but they're probably not true anti of each other.