Shardcast: Trell

Ian's idea about Autonomy splitting and ultimately being at odds with itself is very interesting. It brought Ann Leckie's Ancillary-series to my mind, where something very similar is the central premise - it works quite well in there and I could absolutely see Autonomy trending in that direction.

My Thoughts while watching the episode: 

I think that Autonomy building the avatar (the mech suit/power mantle example) for someone to step into makes sense. Specifically for the avatar where Autonomy is bestowing someone with power. It's like making a mini shard with you as the vessel then stepping out and letting someone else be the vessel. I wonder how much control Autonomy has in shaping the will of this kind of Avatar. Like can it for an Intent for the avatar and then the avatar has intent/vessel interactions like shards do? 

I also think I disagree that the avatar creation is a Bavadin thing. I think that it's an Autonomy Intent thing. Any living being has many facets. Everyday we are faced with choices. Do I want to do Path A or Path B? Well Path A is good for X reasons, path B is good for Y reasons. What do I do? Make a choice based on a compromise between the part of me that thinks X reasons are more important and the part of me that thinks Y reasons are more important? Maybe if I was weak and compromising my drive and willing to let that other part of me influence me! If part of me truly believes that Path A is best then it should strike out and PROVE that path A is best. Same goes for the part of me that believes Path B is best. I think that the making of so many avatars is an Intent driven reaction to every living being (the vessel being the relevant being here) already being an amalgamation of so many opposing/contrasting/differing values/opinions/thoughts/emotions. 
The WoB about 

For the men of gold and red, I also thought the Iri were involved. Iri who were in Bilming pushed me towards that too. But looking back at it, it literally refers to them as living statues. And I think it would make sense for Autonomy for it to be lifeless-esque or like the Phantoms. The Phantoms with enough breath to be semi-sentient. Like somewhere between a Phantom and Nightblood. An awakening with an order like "Follow the will of Autonomy" (or whatever Autonomy would want to be used) would be hard enough for me to follow given all the avatars, let alone a creature with limited ability to understand the world (with lesser or equal to nightblood understanding). I'm not exactly sure what the final metal would be in these constructs. I assume it's trellium, but I don't know how they are incorporated. Maybe they soldiers are made with breath and corrupted by spiking them with trellium, hence the red eyes (for corruption)?

So, with the artificial shardpool, it's anyone's guess. Shai's thing about this being a thing Autonomy does makes me think it's something that happens on planets without shards on it. Does that mean planets without shards? Maybe there are more planets with perpendicularities than shards? Knowing that TwinSoul and his people are no longer able to be on the home planet, does that mean there's a perpendicularity there? Was there one or was it created by autonomy to attack? (Aether of Night may have answers, but who knows if they are at all true in current cosmere).
I guess my guess that the investiture pool can be made from either side of the opening. We know that shardpools are on both the cognitive and physical realms. In this case, the process of taking 2000 jars and pouring them in the cognitive realm of Harmony's planet and needing to do it in the middle of somewhere they can guarantee it's a few hundred feet from 10s of metalborn, would have just been too conspicuous. They were required to do it somewhere more secret and so needed to make the pool from the physical side, which required all the roundabout methods we see in this book. 

the dune thing lol. The missionara protectivia. I hate those guys...

On 11/28/2022 at 9:17 AM, thorongil said:

Ian's idea about Autonomy splitting and ultimately being at odds with itself is very interesting. It brought Ann Leckie's Ancillary-series to my mind, where something very similar is the central premise - it works quite well in there and I could absolutely see Autonomy trending in that direction.

I like this.. but I also like that at any point.. the vessel can speak through the individual if invested enough. You never know when the vessel is saying "we" via avatar.. or if the person who believes in Trell and the royal We. 

I don't see why Autonomy would have to specifically purify the Investiture for the shardpool- if Radiants can use Voidlight and Returned can use Stormlight, why shouldn't Allomancers be able to use 'raw' Autonomy investiture? I think the shardpool is just a result of whatever mechanism she was using to make Trellium