Fusing Shardic Investiture

[The Bookwyrm he/him]

This has spoilers for Rhythm of War, Hero of Ages, and late Mistborn Era 2. (and possibly minor Elantris spoilers.) If you haven't read them yet, proceed at your own risk.

This is a question that I've wanted to ask Brandon Sanderson for a while. But now I have an account on the Shard, so I can ask all of you and see what you think about it.

At the end of Hero of Ages, we see that Sazed takes up both Ruin and Preservation and forms a new shard, Harmony. All the investiture of both Ruin and Preservation becomes part of this new shard, and so the investiture of those shards is now instead keyed toward Harmony. We see that Harmony also has a new god metal, Harmonium. 

Here's a WoB, however, that I find interesting for this theory.

Quote

Questioner

If I were to alloy atium and lerasium, would I get harmonium? Or is harmonium different after the Shards combined?

Brandon Sanderson

It's different after the Shards combined.

Questioner

If I was to take harmonium and separate it out through distillation, would I get lerasium and atium or something that functions similarly?

Brandon Sanderson

No, you would-- It actually has become a different--

Questioner

Can't be split?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. I mean, you could find a way, but you're not going to get it through normal, mechanical means.

 

 

So we see that the fundamental aspect of the investiture has changed, so that the solidified form of Harmony's investiture is physically more than just a mixture of the solidified investiture of Ruin and Preservation.

Now I want to talk about Rhythm of War. In RoW, Navani conducted experiments that led her to discover Warlight, which was a fusion of Honor's and Odium's investiture, and Towerlight, which is a fusion of Honor's and Cultivation's. (I think it's also implied that there's a fusion of Odium's and Cultivation's investiture.) When we take this into account with what happened with Ruin and Preservation at the end of HoA, it makes me wonder:

If, in some crazy hypothetical scenario, Honor were to fuse with Odium in the way Ruin did with Preservation, would the resulting shard's investiture be Warlight? Likewise, if Honor fused with Cultivation, would the resulting shard's investiture be Towerlight? Or is it more complicated than that?

If Navani were to take the gaseous investiture of Ruin and Preservation, and perform with them the same experiments she did with Stormlight and Voidlight, would the fusion of those investitures make Harmony's investiture? Likewise, if that new fused investiture were solidified (I don't know how you'd do that), would the resulting metal be Harmonium?

There's also another example of the possible fusion of Shardic investiture (Is that a real term, or did I make it up?). The Dor. The Dor is a somewhat...unconventional fusion of the investitures of Dominion and Devotion. (Not that any fusion of Shards is conventional.) If we had Navani take Dominion and Devotion's gaseous investiture and fuse them, would the resulting investiture be a little piece of the Dor? Or is the unstable and chaotic nature of the Dor different than two shards being held by one vessel?

So, basically, this theory is just wondering if the fusion of investiture from different Shards provides a glimpse of the investiture that would be created if the Shards were fused. If this idea turns out to be correct, it kind of opens up the ultimate Cosmere mix-and-match of Shardic investiture, with the potential for way more types of Lights and God Metals than we ever expected.

Tell me what you think! Is this crazy, or does it actually make some sense?

Edited May 3, 2022 by The Bookwyrm

[AidenTollis he/him]

6 hours ago, The Bookwyrm said:

If, in some crazy hypothetical scenario, Honor were to fuse with Odium in the way Ruin did with Preservation, would the resulting shard's investiture be Warlight? Likewise, if Honor fused with Cultivation, would the resulting shard's investiture be Towerlight? Or is it more complicated than that?

I feel like this is how it would work... There might be some more intricacies, but this will be the basics! 

[Lunu’anaki he/him]

On 4/26/2022 at 0:57 PM, The Bookwyrm said:

If, in some crazy hypothetical scenario, Honor were to fuse with Odium in the way Ruin did with Preservation, would the resulting shard's investiture be Warlight? Likewise, if Honor fused with Cultivation, would the resulting shard's investiture be Towerlight? Or is it more complicated than that?

This would be an incredible question for Brandon. One that I think he would answer for certain too.

[cometaryorbit]

On 4/26/2022 at 11:57 AM, The Bookwyrm said:

Or is unstable and chaotic nature of the Dor different from two Shards being held by one vessel?

Not having a Vessel presumably makes a difference, but Harmony could have been Discord, so maybe not *that* different.

Yeah, I think this is correct. A Honor+Odium dual-Shard would have Warlight for its Investiture, etc.

Navani's techniques are probably the first step toward learning how to, say, split Harmonium into Atium and Lerasium, etc.

[The Bookwyrm he/him]

54 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Navani's techniques are probably the first step toward learning how to, say, split Harmonium into Atium and Lerasium, etc.

This is something that hadn't crossed my mind, but it makes perfect sense. Brandon did hint that it is possible to get Atium and Lerasium out of Harmonium, but he didn't say how. I just hadn't made the mental leap to come to the conclusion that Navani's experiments would be the basis of what let you do so.

[cometaryorbit]

45 minutes ago, The Bookwyrm said:

This is something that hadn't crossed my mind, but it makes perfect sense. Brandon did hint that it is possible to get Atium and Lerasium out of Harmonium, but he didn't say how. I just hadn't made the mental leap to come to the conclusion that Navani's experiments would be the basis of what let you do so.

I mean, that's just my assumption, but I think splitting the combined investiture (Harmonium -> Atium + Lerasium) would be the reverse process from Navani's combining of investiture (Stormlight + Voidlight -> Warlight).

Scadrian Investiture might be harder to work with though... gems left out at night didn't accumulate Mist*, so there's no similarly convenient container.

*We know Era 1 Scadrians used gemstones - Vin has sapphire jewelry at one point for example- and Elend thinks Mist is nothing supernatural; if it seeped into gems, nobles would have noticed.

And it might take extra steps to do this with solid Investiture.

There might be a way to change physical state of the investiture (e.g. condense Lerasium from Mist, or turn Shardblades to Stormlight or Towerlight) but it can't be easy IMO - creating lots of Lerasium would be crazy powerful, and so would vaporizing Shardblades.

[EmulatonStromenkiin he/him]

8 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I mean, that's just my assumption, but I think splitting the combined investiture (Harmonium -> Atium + Lerasium) would be the reverse process from Navani's combining of investiture (Stormlight + Voidlight -> Warlight).

Scadrian Investiture might be harder to work with though... gems left out at night didn't accumulate Mist*, so there's no similarly convenient container.

*We know Era 1 Scadrians used gemstones - Vin has sapphire jewelry at one point for example- and Elend thinks Mist is nothing supernatural; if it seeped into gems, nobles would have noticed.

And it might take extra steps to do this with solid Investiture.

There might be a way to change physical state of the investiture (e.g. condense Lerasium from Mist, or turn Shardblades to Stormlight or Towerlight) but it can't be easy IMO - creating lots of Lerasium would be crazy powerful, and so would vaporizing Shardblades.

Stormlight and the various ones on Roshar are primed to absorb into gemstones, though.

[cometaryorbit]

1 minute ago, EmulatonStromenkiin said:

Stormlight and the various ones on Roshar are primed to absorb into gemstones, though.

Yeah, exactly, so it might be harder to make Navani's techniques work with Mist (or Ruin-Mist).

I do think they are set up in RoW for future broader Cosmere use, though. The science/technology will just need more development.